Say You’re One Of Them by Uwem Akpan Read Free Book Online Page B

air.
    “No open de window
o!
” Fofo said from the parlor, his voice raspy from the gin. “You want expose my
zoke˙ke˙
to tieves, huh?
A yón
cost of Nanfang?”
    “I’m sorry,” I said.
    “You better be—
nuluno˙!
”
    I went on to rearrange the corner of the room where our food and utensils were. On a big upturned wooden mortar, I put a wicker basket of plates and cutlery. The long black pestle was leaning in the corner, its head white and cracked by use. I stacked up three empty pots, careful not to touch their soot, careful not to touch our pot of
egusi
soup, which I had already warmed for the night. Stirring it would make it sour before morning. Soon, Fofo, in a solemn procession, brought in the machine and stood it at the center of the room, like a giant bearing down on everything, an athlete poised at the starting line.
    That night, the bike followed me into the land of my dreams. I rejected Suzuki, Honda, and Kawasaki and chose a Nanfang and became rich forever. I used it to climb the coconut trees, learned to park on the palms, and used coconut milk for gas. I rode it across the ocean, creating a huge wake behind me. I flew it like a helicopter to distant places and landed it many times in my father’s compound in Braffe. At school, all my classmates had Nanfangs, and we played soccer riding them, like in polo. I rode my Nanfang until I grew old, but the Nanfang neither aged nor needed repairs. At the end of my life, my people buried me atop it, and I rode that Nanfang straight to heaven’s gate, where Saint Peter gave me an automatic pass.

    FOR FOUR DAYS , WE watched Big Guy teach Fofo Kpee how to ride along the strips of grass in the coconut plantation. From our house, we could see Fofo perched on the bike, his face split in two by his trademark laugh. He looked like a pantomime because we couldn’t hear him or the bike over the sound of the ocean. Big Guy’s shaven head was so oiled that it reflected the sun. Both of them seemed to be having fun, and on the horizon, a ship heading to or leaving Porto Novo dragged a black funnel of smoke across the sky.
    The next Sunday, we got ready for church. Fofo had informed the pastor that we were going to have our first Family Thanks-giving, which was what some well-to-do families did every Sunday.
    At dawn, Fofo Kpee woke up and took the Nanfang behind the house and propped it on our bathing stone. He undressed it of its plastic covers as gingerly as one would remove stitches from a wound. He poured Omo detergent into a bucket of water and swirled and rattled the water until it foamed. Gently, he sponged the frame and scrubbed the tires, as if they would never touch the ground again. After rinsing the Nanfang, he wiped it with the towel the three of us shared. During our own bath, he squatted and soaked our feet and scrubbed them with a new
kankan,
a native sponge, for the big occasion. He held the
kankan
like a shoe brush and worked on our soles until their natural color returned, until the fissures disappeared.
    Later, Fofo Kpee rode us to church, wearing a new
agbada
and huge sunglasses, which gave him a bug-eyed look. The wind pumped up the flanks of his
agbada
like malformed wings. It was our first ride: Yewa was on the gas tank, clutching our family Bible, sporting her flowery dress and new baseball cap. In a pair a of corduroys and a green T-shirt, I was crushed in between Fofo and two acquaintances of his. The woman behind me was dangling a big squawking red rooster by its tied legs on one side of the machine. She was a large woman and her big headgear hovered over me like a multicolored umbrella. The man at the end of the bike carried on his head a basket with three yams, pineapples, oranges, a bag of
amala
flour, and five rolls of toilet paper.
    A triumphant midmorning sun filled the day, and a clear blue sky beckoned us. The road was crowded with churchgoers. Fofo Kpee sped off, tooting his horn nonstop, flashing the lights to clear the road ahead