Help,I'm being robbed.

Help,I'm being robbed. By Paul Edemu March 2010



I woke up on a normal day with special thanks to God for making that day. My wife got my daughter Fejiro prepared for me to take, on my way to work, to the Day Care. Then as usual, the reminders began. “Sweetheart, please remember to take the extra dispenser water bottle for refill. The extra gas bottle is also due for refill”. “Ok, any other ‘refill’ tasks for today my dear?” “I’ll also need some money to buy fuel for my car to go to the market and take Serome (our 2-month old son) to see the Paediatrician because I observed a slight increase in his temperature last night. Thereafter I’ll go to the market to buy foodstuff and provisions”. “So like how much are we talking about here?” “Let’s say N25,000. N15,000 for the market, N7,000 for the pediatrician and N3,000 for fuel”. “Well, your estimate is fair. Here’s the ATM card and I hope I’ll not be alerted of any withdrawal more than the agreed 25K”. I was relieved that there was no financial demand for a visit to the beauty saloon this time. “I hope you’ve put the two jerrycans for the purchase of fuel and diesel in your booth. You know the fuel generator cannot power the washing machine and I’ve laundry work to do”. “No problem, I’ll buy the fuel and diesel. I’m running late”. As I was driving to work, I was getting irritated by the constant repetition of some avoidable and senseless costs that one has to contend with all the time. I mean fuelling my car is a normal expense, but carrying two jerrycans to buy fuel and diesel for two different generators in the same house; all due to PHCN’s ineptitude is crazy. My phone rang to jolt me from my thoughts and it was my wife. “You said I should remind you about the DSTV and internet subscriptions”. “Ok, thanks for the reminder. I’ll see what I can do today”. I had to take a bad shortcut to drop Fejiro off in order to beat traffic on the normal route. I also had to wade through a ditch that put a big hole in my exhaust pipe, which naturally changed the sound of the engine to a deafening noise. So much for shortcuts! After settling in the office, I called my mechanic Jimoh to come and take the car to the panel-beater to rectify the earlier damage to the exhaust. “Oga abeg come see something. U see say no be only your exhaust dey blow. See your engine oil dey throway. Your bottom-plate don burst. So you go drop like N5,000 first”. I exclaimed “for wetin na?” “Oga e be like say you never understand the work wey dey here. D panel-beater go loose the full exhaust, me self go loose your bottom-plate go give welder. The N5,000 self na advance O! U go still balance me when I don finish work” Reluctantly and fuming to myself, “all these bad road wahala!”, I parted with the money since I could not abandon my office to go and sit in a mechanic workshop, where I can still be tricked under my very eyes. “Oya take the N5,000 but I no wan hear tori say dem no do the work well because na you I go hold”. “Oga you no trust me again? I don dey work for you for 8 years now O”. After about three hours, the mechanic came back with the car to ask for a balance of N2,500 and in a rage, I sought to know why I should pay any extra money. “Pay you N2,500 for wetin again? Wetin you do just now wey be N7,500 all together? Abeg I take God beg you, no make me vex”. “Bros, the matter never reach to vex. I tell you before say panel-beater and welder go work and we must pay them before you go talk of my own. If I wan chop your money, you no go fit do anything sef because you no go fit know. If you wan vex, make you vex for your gofment wey dey increase price everyday. No be my fault, pay me my money o jare”. “Oya abeg make I give you N1,000 make I fit get money buy fuel”. “Bros na N1,500 I fit take last”. “Ok, take but I no wan hear say the thing still wahala me later sha”. I decided to use my lunchtime to buy fuel and diesel from a nearby filling station. I noticed the meter reading an earlier purchase of N600 with a displayed rate of N65, which I doubted was real because it was an independent marketer filling station. “O boy try zero your meter first and how much una dey sell?” “If I no zero am, you no go buy? Our own na N90 per litre”. “Why you go sell N90? Sebi Refinery don dey produce?”. “Why you no go the Refinery go buy? Or try go Total Filling Station where dem dey sell N65 per litre”. When I remembered the long queue I just drove past at the said Total Filling Station, I decided to buy at N90 per liter, so I could have time for other things and be back at the office on time. “Abeg sell 30 litres inside this jerrycan and put 50 litres inside the car. I go still need 30 litres of diesel”. “Oga your total money na N10,350, the diesel na N105 per litre”. “But I buy diesel N95 per litre 2 weeks ago?” “Oga you dey make me laugh. At times we dey even sell diesel N125 per litre, so you even get luck today”. “Una get cooking gas and how much?” “Oga gas na N4,000 now O!” “Jesus! You can’t be serious! I buy gas N3,000 the last time. Wetin happen?” “Abeg I no know O! Kerosene sef dey scarce. I don send my wife and children go village, make dem go dey use firewood. Dis country? Bros abeg pay make I attend to another customer”. I still had enough time to go to the DSTV Friendship Centre to pay my N4,500 monthly subscription before going to the office of my internet ISP to pay my subscription that was almost due. “Sir this is N4,500 and not N6,500. There’s no package of N4,500 anymore. We notified you through text message some weeks ago of this increment”. It was the female customers’ service officer. “I did not receive any text message. Please let me see your manager, I can’t understand this. You’re not the only ISP in Warri, so I may migrate to another network if this increment gist is real”. I quickly put a call to a friend who told me I’d better stick to my ISP because his own ISP increased his rate by N3,000 against mine of N2,000 and he was even thinking of migrating to my ISP. My ISP manager came forth after I hung up. “Good sir, how may I help you?” “Yes I’ve just been informed of your increment. What could be responsible for this increment?” “Sir, our cost of operations is increasing rapidly due to the worsening electricity situation in the country. I mean it doesn’t give us any pleasure to increase the cost of services to our valued customers like you. Please bear with us. A big chunk of our income goes into the purchase of diesel and the servicing of generators”. “This is really bad! I can’t point any area anymore where I can confidently say that I’m positively feeling the impact of government. I mean I pay N1,500 per month for civil defence in my neighbourhood. I buy drinking water. I pay unholy pilgrimages to the mechanics because of bad roads. Jerrycans have become part of my car accessories. The list goes on and on”. “I’’m so sorry sir. It’s not our fault you know. We’re all affected one way or the other”. “Yea I know. Ok, I’ll pay because I need this service to keep in touch with the world”. Just after paying, I received a second alert of N10,000 withdrawal, after an earlier of one of the agreed N25,000 via ATM when I know that the card is with my wife. Of course I called her immediately to inquire about the breach of domestic agreement. “I don’t want hear any excuses, we agreed you were not withdrawing more than N25,000. Do you want me to go bankrupt?”. “Please sweetheart, take it easy. N25,000 was an estimate but I’ve been meeting with so many unexpected increments today. Let’s save the phone credit till we get home when I’ll explain better”. “Ok, till we get home then. See you!”. “Wait a minute! Please don’t forget to buy another rechargeable lamp for the children’s room. The one you bought 2 days ago is no longer working. I love you, bye for now”. I then recollected that I’d bought over a dozen rechargeable lamps of all sorts of shapes, sizes, prices and colours to complement the fuel and diesel generators. I mean I’ve a small museum of rechargeable lamps in my house, all because PHCN has deliberately refused to live up to expectations of the citizenry. I even had a fatal accident in December 2008 on my way to drop a generator mechanic who died alongside a truck-pusher I ran into. The little money I was saving to acquire an inverter is now being depleted by an unexplainable season of commodity price increments. Question: Is electricity too much for a freeborn citizen of a nation to expect from his government? On my way back from work, I met with a black-and-black police checkpoint where one officer flagged me down. I courteously greeted him, hoping he would just tell me to move on. “Officer well done O! How the work?” “Park well, come down, open your booth and show me your particulars”. “Okay sir, you’ve seen the booth; here are my particulars”. “Oga wey your proof of ownership, police clearance and certificate of road worthiness?”. “Officer haba! Shebi una ogas them talk am say make we dey show una only vehicle license, drivers’ license and insurance?”. “Eheen! You wan prove law? You be lawyer? Ok, you go follow us go station to teach us how to do our work. Oya give me yours keys. In fact, I’m suspecting this your vehicle is a stolen car”. I crossed over to the other side of the road to explain things to an elderly inspector whom I presumed was in charge of the team. Lo and behold, his response had an obvious egunje connotation. “Just settle with the boys make you fit quick reach house instead make them carry your moto go station”. “But you neva hear wether I commit any offence or not. All my papers correct, ask your officer”. “Wey the other papers wey hin ask for?” “See them for here”. “Then why you come dey wan quote law? Oya bring N1,000 make we free you, as you don make us waste time on your case, otherwise you go still reach the station for challenging police authority”. “When my papers correct?”. “You neva see anything!”. “Ok, make I call una headquarters quote your name say this na wetin you talk”. I pretended to make a call. “God punish you! Oya carry your yeye moto and wahala comot from here now-now. Idiot! Officer, give am hin key. This one na bad-luck market”. It would’ve been a different ball game if it had been a mobile police checkpoint. I know I would’ve had a mysterious black-eye, if I had had the nerves to display such effrontery. Question: Why can’t we put paid to the specific papers a driver is supposed to present at a police checkpoint, in order to drive through without parting with something? Anyway, thanks to God, I got home safely to the warm embrace of my lovely family. I wrestled the remote control from my daughter to watch Channels TV Newstrack after refreshing in the bathroom. The aroma from the kitchen informed me that dinner was ready. It was while I was at the dining table that I realised that the vegetable soup did not contain any cow meat but only chicken. “Darling what happened? You didn’t go to the abattoir to buy cow meat again?”. “Sweetheart, I was hoping you would finish your meal first before I give a report of how I went today”. “It’ll be hard for me because I was hoping to see some kpomo, shackey, roundabout, abodi and cow tongue. You know my craze with meals cooked with assorted cow parts. Anyway, let me finish the meal, so that you can give me the whole gist”. After downing what was still a good meal, I was now prepared to receive the financial report of the day as the chairman of the board (breadwinner). “So what necessitated the unapproved withdrawal of N10,000?”. “Sweetheart, you always make me laugh. You think you’re still at the office or what? Don’t you think you’re sounding too formal?”. “Ok, abeg no vex. Wetin happen?”. “Well, I went to the market only to meet with unbelievable increment in all prices, while there was no meat at all. They said transporters of foodstuff including cows from the North were on strike due to constant extortion and harassment by the authorities. I had to go to a cold room to buy the frozen chicken that you’re eating at a higher price”. “So you mean no more kpomo and shackee for now! What is this country turning into? I mean we’ve been coping with perennial fuel scarcity, but kpomo scarcity? Gosh!”. “My husband, please tell me, why do national problems seem to bother you a lot? At least I know I did not marry Nelson Mandela”. “I thank God we have kids who mean the world to us. If our welfare can be taken for granted by insensitive leaders, what would be the future of our kids, if the status quo is maintained or things degenerate?”. “But you can only talk and nothing will happen”. “That’s where you’re mistaken because many people are beginning to rise up to challenges of today through sensitizations and reorientations. I hope you’ve heard of the Save Nigeria Group that staged a protest over the invisible presidency in Abuja. I can bet you there’ll be more civilised protests soon because of a rapidly growing awareness”. “Away from never-ending Naija wahala, Fejiro’s Day Care wrote a letter notifying us of an immediate increment of N4,000 per month because they practically run on generators throughout the day. I met with the proprietress and she explained everything to me”. “You see what I mean! The incompetence of PHCN is robbing me of hard-earned income and there’s no compensation coming from anywhere”. “Well, before I forget, here’s the PHCN bill of N1,850 for this month. I met it at the door when I got back home. I’m going to bed”.

*Reproduced without permission.

Chill

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/weather/01/04/cold.weather/index.html

Capgras

By Charles Ayanleke
© 2009

Her major challenge would be how to leave home on a Friday night without arousing suspicion. She could alternatively arrange for a phony birthday party at a friends’. She chose the latter option. Several of her friends would be happy to play her alibi. She decided to use Grace. She was best equipped to keep a secret. The others were just basket mouths.

Her parents swallowed the Grace birthday party plan more easily than she had thought. Grace lived on the Island, so they wouldn’t expect her back too quickly. Her mum even suggested that she sleep over if it got too dark to return home. Mrs. Williams was scared of all the stories of abduction in the news.

There were evil men out there who captured young unsuspecting victims at bus stops and market places for the purpose of their moneymaking voodoo ritual. Often times, the remains of unfortunate female victims were found dumped on the roadside after their breasts had been shaved off for those rituals. Male genitals were also popular ingredients. Victims often bled to death after the crude surgery usually done at a ritualist’s shrine.

The following Friday, Aduke left home in the late afternoon on a “drop”. She had never been on the mainland by herself. Her school was located inside FESTAC as was their every other convenience ranging from grocery stores to farmer’s market and now, more recently their church, thanks to Joe and his fellow missionaries.
Father O’Connor had done a good job as the interim pioneering parish priest at the first ever Catholic Church inside FESTAC. Initial attendance exceeded expectations and encouraged the diocese to make more resources available to the budding parish.

As the cab pulled into the driveway of the impressive hotel, Aduke could not help but feel like a fish out of water. She had never done anything quite this crazy before. Even her escapades with the girls in high school where they scaled the fence to attend house parties nearby could not compare to this daring adventure. She had a bad feeling about this already.

She handed the cabbie a Naira bill and told him to forget the change. He was overjoyed.
“Madam you wan make I wait you for the day?”, he muttered in his well-polished pidgin English.
“No, that won’t be necessary” she replied. She wanted as few witnesses as possible for this trip that threatened to go wrong at any number of turns.

She tried to make her way through the lobby as inconspicuously as she possibly could. That was asking for the impossible. It was unlikely that a girl with her looks would be able to walk more than a few steps in any part of Lagos without a million eyes feasting on every single appendage of her female anatomy. It was just the way Nigerian men were cloned, they simply can’t help themselves.

She stopped in front of the reception desk in the magnificent hotel lobby. The floor was hundred percent marble and the walls were obviously painted in several layers to an exquisite finish. No blemish was visible. Every piece of furniture showed evidence of recent waxing and had gold-plated edges.

“Hello, I have an appointment with Mr. McCain in room 604. He is expecting me”.
The receptionist initially wore a trademark hospitable smile apparently expecting she was a guest about to check in. But as soon as Aduke finished stating her mission, the receptionist adopted a less charitable demeanor. She had seen too many whores and gold-digging schoolgirls prey on the endless expatriates lodging at the hotel that her reaction was standard. It was always a mixture of envy and disdain.

She knew the girls were making a fortune off these men. Her position as receptionist here barred her from fraternizing with her customers. She stood the risk of losing her job. Moreover, she did not have the looks of these young girls. Many of them had voluptuous bodies any man would die for and on the right side of twenty, unlike her thirty-something year old self.

“Far right, elevator to sixth and take a left”, she said almost irritably.
“Thank you”.
Aduke walked briskly across the hotel lobby, ignoring the lustful stares of half a dozen pairs of male eyes on the way to the elevators. She wondered what she was getting herself into. What if this man was a human trafficker, or a sex slave racketeer? What if this whole Catholic missionary thing was part of a grand plan of deceit? Well, she was in too deep now to have second thoughts.

She also had the matter of her own curiosity to deal with. She would readily admit to herself that she wanted to find out what it might be like to be with a white man. All her love experiences so far were with black men, Nigerian men. She wanted to see what the women she saw in the movies felt like when a Caucasian man showered romantic gestures on them. Plus Joe was not just any white man. He had captured her imagination from the very first moment she set her eyes on him.

As she pushed the doorbell the second time, she took a very deep breath and held her breath momentarily.
He opened the door and flashed her that warm, disarming smile of his.
“Hey, Aduke. You made it, please come in.”
“Maybe you should start learning how to pronounce the name. It is Ah-duh-keh”, she spelt out the syllables.
“Eh-duh-ki”, he murdered it again.
Aduke simply threw her arms in the air in a gesture of resignation.
“So, how was the trip from FESTAC? Hope it wasn’t too much trouble”, he said, while waving her to sit on the padded cushioned sofa next to the TV.
“No, not at all. This is my country, remember?”
“Oh, I forgot.”
“Well, I just felt you might need reminding once in a while!”
“You definitely talk a lot more than your appearance suggests.”
“What, you expected a deaf and dumb?”
“Ah, not at all. As a matter of fact, it makes you more endearing.”
“So let’s cut the chase here. A missionary escapes from his hellhole in Ireland. He finds some sanctuary in Africa where he can lose his inhibitions and screw as many black girls as he secretly dreamt about prior to leaving his miserable religious life and then returns to resume that life after a thorough confession of his sins to a Reverend Father. Is that the script?”

“Wow. Where did that come from? There is no script, Aduke. Can’t two adults just sit down over a drink and get to know each other platonically.”
“Well, I am barely an adult. I just turned nineteen last week.”
“Congratulations! I am twenty two.”
“A twenty-two year old missionary? Don’t you guys have better things to do than this Church stuff?”
“Well, Aduke, nothing is more honorable than to serve the lord in the days of your youth”
“What, so this will end up being a preaching session, will it? That’s even worse.”
“I apologize. Well, would you want to visit the beautiful main bar downstairs?”
“No! It was enough risk making my way up. Someone that knows my parents may be in this hotel, you know.”
“Alright, alright. What would you like to drink? The room minibar has several sodas. You can have your pick.”
“What are you drinking?”
“Irish cream”
“I’d like that too.”
“I apologize. I didn’t know you drank alcohol”.
“Well, you didn’t ask.”

As he poured her drink, he couldn’t avoid looking down the front of her blue blouse that struggled to contain her full breasts. Her cleavage was the center of his attention throughout much of the remainder of the night. She had a dark red mini-skirt under the blouse that appeared to be coming into vogue in Lagos at that time. Her long smooth legs accentuated the brevity of the skirt that also had a slit on the left side, leaving his imagination on overdrive.

“Chief Williams did not freak out when he saws you in this sexy attire?”
“He did not see me. Okay, so you are going to have a problem with my dressing as well then?”
“Not at all, you look beautiful!”
“You know, the images we see on TV of Irish girls comprise of long gypsy gowns and long sleeves with head scarves. Nigerian girls dumped all that a decade ago. We now follow the Americans. Make sure the world does not leave you behind while you are following the Vatican, this is the twentieth century!”
“I’ll surely deliver your message when I return”, he said sarcastically.
She sipped on the Irish cream wine again.
He was a little worried at how much of the wine she was drinking. It was sweet tasting and could be deceptive especially to the inexperienced like her.
“You want to go easy on that”
“Ah, sorry. I know it costs a fortune.”
“Oh no. That’s not it at all. I just don’t want to be accused of drugging you or something.”
“Don’t worry; I’d exonerate you of any wrong doing.”

He moved closer to her. Looking directly into her eyes, he took her right hand and smiled.
“What now?” She asked
“I think I’ve fallen for you, Aduke”
“You certainly don’t take very long to fall for people then.”
“No, I’m dead serious”
“I don’t even know what that means. Listen, you are a foreigner. You are here for only a brief period. Pretty soon, you will disappear into thin air. I may be young, but I am not stupid. If you’re looking for a quick shag, you got the wrong girl. Next door to you, on the Kuramo beach, you have multiple whores who’d be glad to see to your every sexual need.”
“I don’t need a whore, Aduke. I think I’m in love with you.”

She had been resisting the urge to look into his eyes. But as she looked up, their gazes locked and she suddenly felt weak at the knees. He was still holding her hand. As she tried looking away, he pulled her towards him, his other arm around her shoulder now. She did not even resist or protest. She knew when the moment arrived, she would be helpless. It was not something she particularly didn’t want. She decided to just soak in the novelty of the moment. She watched as his very white right hand unhooked her bra and gently caressed her chocolate colored breasts. This was an extremely uncharted territory for her.

As he traced his finger downward towards her hips, she could feel his warm breath blow heavier against her left cheek and neck. The moment she sank into the extremely comfortable bed in the five-star hotel room, she suddenly stopped feeling his masculine weight on top of her, as they both became weightless in the strange world of passion.

They both lay there for several minutes without saying a word.
Then she spoke first.
“You are really working hard at winning souls in Africa, Joe.”
“Don’t be ridiculous now.”
“So has anything changed?”
“I’m still in love with you, if that’s what you mean.”

*****************************************************************

They had continued to see each other almost every week. When it was becoming very obvious that Aduke was absent from home for no good reason and her parents started getting suspicious, she stopped making the trip to the mainland and Joe rented one of the flats on 22nd street, just the next street to them. He however tried to lie low as much as possible so Chief and Mrs. Williams didn’t notice their little affair.
It became even easier for Aduke to stay away from home. She began to sneak out at night after her parents had gone to bed.

Then one afternoon, she showed up at Joe’s doorstep.
He was not expecting her. She never came to visit in broad daylight so that they didn’t attract attention to themselves.
Whatever had happened must be urgent.
When she got in, she looked like she hadn’t slept for weeks. She wore no makeup and had bags under her eyelids.

“I’m pregnant, Joe.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really”
“Wow! Great news!”
She thought she was hearing things.
“What do you mean, ‘great news”’, don’t you see how much trouble I’m going to be in?
“Do you mean your parents?”
“More than that. It will mean suspending my College education again. We must find a way of getting rid of the baby.”

Joe flatly refused an abortion. His faith might have taken a hit in the last few weeks with the premarital sex and all, but murder of an innocent unborn baby was one original sin he was not about to commit.
He offered to come out in the open to the Williams and own up to fathering the baby, but Aduke refused that option immediately. She wanted to wait a little, at least until she started showing. That would buy them some more time.

To make matters more dire, it was getting to the time Joe had to return to Ireland. Aduke would have none of it. She wanted closure on what would happen to her and the baby.
Joe then suggested she come with him to Galway. He was prepared to face his future with her and their baby.
She knew that was the lesser of two evil options available to her. The alternative was to have to raise a mixed race baby alone in FESTAC and live her life answering strange questions.
Aduke had no passport, no Visas and had never left Nigeria. Joe talked to some influential parishioners who had contacts at the passport office. Her passport was ready in less than a week.

All hell was let loose when she informed her dad that she was pregnant. He lost it totally when he found out Joe was the baby. He publicly disowned her and swore he never wanted to see her again. She was also not allowed into the house henceforth.
Aduke expected an angry reaction. But even she had not predicted the extent of the punishment her father was imposing on her.

Joe was all she had now.
She moved in with him on 22nd street. He had proposed to her in the midst of all the madness. They had a short, quiet civil wedding on the grounds of the Ikoyi marriage registry. Neither of her parents were there. Joe’s very disappointed co-missionaries also refused to attend.
He obtained a spousal visa for her at the Irish consulate.

*This has been an excerpt from my upcoming novel.

Capgras

By Charles Ayanleke
© 2009

Joe McCain sipped again on his pint of Guinness.
He looked around this old Irish pub he had visited every Friday night for as long as he remembered. He always came here with the same guys. Conor O’Callaghan and Seamus O’Rouke had been with him from the very beginning. They all arrived in the United States about the same time and now all had their families in Akron. They had made it a point to maintain some of their Irishness by meeting up with others regularly at the O’Connel Bar in downtown.

Conor was an electrician who still works for the local electrical company. Unlike Joe, he resisted the temptation to quit since he was so scared of facing the challenges inherent in setting up his own business. He is a short, big, burly man built almost like a tank, with graying hair where it was available. That means only his chin.

Seamus is the exact opposite to Conor in appearance. He was slim, almost malnourished looking, with distinctly boyish looks that has served him well with women. Or has it? Seamus had been married and divorced six times in the last two decades. He tells all that would be willing to listen now that he’s done with marriage, but neither Conor nor Joe is willing to believe him.

This way, they could all catch up on old times and reminisce about Ireland. Their stories were very different from that of the earlier wave of Irish immigrants in the thirties and forties following the potato famine. They all simply wanted to trade the struggling Irish economy for the American dream.

Once Joe returned from the missionary trip to Nigeria, he had a complete change in several aspects of his life. That included his aspirations, his hopes, his expectations and his faith.
He was a devout Catholic and key member of the St Anthony’s Guild of his local parish in Galway. When the opportunity came in 1978 for the church to send four lay parishioners with a reverend sister and the assistant parish priest on a missionary trip to Africa, Joe jumped on it.

He had never travelled out of Ireland at that point, and being a relatively young man, he saw that as an opportunity of a lifetime to expand his frontiers.
He had watched how his poor parents toiled endlessly on the potato farm in rural Galway. Their lives were like a video tape in repeat mode. Everyday was like the previous one. Life was a boring routine. He had initially contemplated moving east to Dublin once he finished high school, but he chose to wait. Now how glad he was that he did. The more popular move was the Dublin move among the youngsters on the west coast at the time. There were the fabled limitless opportunities in Dublin. The country was undergoing a lot of restructuring and rebirth especially with all the talk of a European union.

Their small missionary party had arrived in Lagos at a time of unaccustomed prosperity for the locals. It was the oil boom in Nigeria. The country had just discovered the black gold a few years previously and now, every segment of the society was oil drunk. The country had just finished hosting the International Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC), trying its best to project its new found wealth to the rest of the world. A whole new town was built for the purpose of housing participants at the festival. The new development is named after the event to this day.

The Nigerian Government had suddenly appeared to be at a loss about the future of the grand new development after the festival closed. What followed was a very generous auctioning of several of the housing units to civil servants at ridiculous rates by the Federal Housing Authority (FHA).
One of the first families to move into the new estate after the first wave of auctioning were the Williams. This interesting family was typical of the civil service family of the seventies. The head of the family, Chief Segun Williams, was a permanent secretary in the ministry of Agriculture. His ministry had been the main driver of the Nigerian economy prior to the discovery of oil. Now they were being gradually relegated as the ministry of petroleum resources took over the driving seat.

Mrs. Williams was a headmistress at the local elementary school. They had five children, two boys and three girls. The eldest girl, Aduke, was a rare beauty. She had just completed high school and was not sure what course to pursue in college. She was tall, slim, with a smooth ebony complexion and long dark hair. She had curves in all the right places, sexy wide hips and full breasts.

Joe McCain and the rest of their missionary party arrived at the Williams’ on a bright tropical afternoon on the invitation of Chief Williams. The local Catholic Bishop of the diocese had introduced the chief to the priest, Rev Father O’Connor. Their mission was to help establish the first Catholic Church in FESTAC town.

Joe can not remember a word that was said at that first meeting or indeed at subsequent ones. He was never able to take his eyes off Aduke. She looked like an African goddess or something. Now there were very few blacks in Ireland in the seventies, and certainly the few there were could only be seen in the capital Dublin City. Joe had never travelled out of Galway up till that point, and his only contact with black people was on the television.

He would repeatedly sneak out of their hotel base at the Eko Le Meridian to return to FESTAC. It was extremely difficult to see the girl. She was regularly restricted from going out alone from the house mainly because the Williams realized their baby girl was now fully matured and they needed to protect her the best they could from unscrupulous men.
Joe did not see himself as unscrupulous. At the same time, he knew his feelings would kill him if he didn’t at least somehow address them. He would feel much better if the girl told him to fuck off. At least he would know he’d tried. But he just could not let go without trying.

The first time he went back alone to FESTAC, he instructed the cab driver to drop him off a full hundred yards or so away from the Williams’ house on 21st street. He had to use the cabs as he had no valid Nigerian driving license and didn’t know the local roads even if he had a car. The cab service was very well run and extremely patronizing especially if you were willing to be a little generous to the drivers. It was popularly referred to as “drop” by the locals. For a few extra quid, the driver could stay with you all day taking you wherever you wished to go that day, neglecting any other business or customers.

Joe had walked the hundred yards cautiously. It was still unusual to see a white man walking alone on Lagos streets in the late seventies. The few expatriates there were could only be seen in their expensive jeeps and mostly lived in Ikoyi or Victoria Island; the most affluent parts of Lagos at that time.

He stopped by the corner of the street and called a young boy he saw rolling a car tire by the roadside. “Do you know Aduke?” he asked the boy.
The little boy nodded. He added he was a family friend of the Williams.
Joe’s eyes widened. He asked if the boy could do him a favor for a few bucks.
After he explained his little plan to the little boy, the boy was confident he could pull it off. As Joe squeezed a Naira bill into the boy’s palm, he could see the disbelief in his eyes. The lad had obviously not been expecting any tip so generous. One Naira was a lot of money to a ten-year-old in the seventies.

Joe had now been waiting about thirty minutes and was growing increasingly restless and impatient.
Had the plan been busted? Did the little boy dupe him? Perhaps Aduke wasn’t even available.
At that moment when his spirit was beginning to dampen, he saw her silhouette against the backdrop of the bright tropical sunshine. He could not believe his eyes. It was going to happen. His heart started racing, He had no idea what he was going to say to her. Or how she might react to whatever he had to say.

He watched her approach slowly. She could see him just around the corner. She walked with the self-assurance and grace of a goddess. Her wide hips seemed to adopt a rhythmic dancing movement as she walked toward him. Her long legs appeared to speak to one another with every step. This girl could walk straight into any modelling catwalking event all over the world and pick the top price.

His heart was in his mouth.
“Hi”, she said.
“Hi, my name is Joe McCain”, he said.
“I know you. You came with the missionaries didn’t you?” Aduke asked almost rhetorically.
“Yes, I did.”
“So, why did you return alone, and why aren’t you coming in?”
“I came to see you”
“Why?”
“Well, I guess I’d just love to know you better as a person”
“And you couldn’t do that by coming into the house and in the presence of my parents?”
“Well, I don’t know how the chief might respond…. I wouldn’t want to put you in trouble.”
“Actually, this is the approach that is most likely to put us both in trouble”
“It’s more complicated than that…I also wouldn’t like the other missionaries to find out”
“Ha. I always get the bad feeling with clandestine arrangements”
“Trust me, I mean no harm”

“Okay, so what would you like to know…. I only have about five minutes before mama starts screaming my name.”
“Would you be able to have a drink with me sometime, so we get to know each other better?”
“That’s just impossible. I can’t leave home for more than ten minutes. My parents will freak out.”
“Ah, common, Aduke. You aren’t a baby. I’m sure you know how to excuse yourself. That is of course if you would like to get together with me for some fun time.”

He left his hotel address and room number with her and gave her a twenty Naira bill. She almost fainted. Twenty Naira was a lot of money to a teenager in 1978. He told her to use the money for a “drop” to his address. He said he would expect her on Friday night. If he doesn’t see her, he would get the message.
The locals popularly called the twenty-naira bill “Muri”. It bares the bust of the assassinated former military head of state, General Murtala Rabat Muhammed. The country’s main international airport in Lagos was also later named after the slain leader.

Joe shook her hand and turned back towards his cab driver waiting in the distance.
Aduke just stood there for a minute, watching this white man return to his cab and staring at the crisp green bill in her left palm. She was genuinely confused.
As his cab drove away, she slowly started to walk lazily back towards her house. Her life was suddenly becoming a fiction novel. She had a lot of thinking to do in the next couple of days.
It was Wednesday.

She went straight into her room and just lay in bed examining her options.
She could not deny to herself that she had noticed the attractive young Irish man from the first day her dad hosted the missionaries. His golden cropped hair and muscular frame were just as alluring as his blue eyes and warm smile. It was the first time she was really seeing a young white man up close. Her previous encounters were with older white men like the aging parish priest in their village in Badagry on the border with the Republic of Benin and her English teacher in high school.

Although she’d found him attractive, she was certain he was a religious man on a missionary trip and would have no desire for women. She had been shocked beyond belief when little Samson walked into the kitchen to tell her a white man was waiting for her outside.
Samson was no stranger to discrete missions like this since he was the go between for her and Bayo too while their relationship lasted. Her parents never found out about her affair with Bayo. She was glad it ended because it was putting a lot of strain on her studies at the time, and he was a well known player all over FESTAC anyway, so it was good riddance.

But Joe would be a different proposition altogether, She would now have to leave the safety of FESTAC town and head to the mainland. She would love to experience the elegance of the Le Meridian hotel. She had heard a lot about it. Yet she could not pass up the opportunity to see his cute eyes again. She could not believe that he had also taken notice of her.

She must have a special effect on men. She was beginning to notice how much of their attention she actually commanded. Her mum had always warned her that most young men were after one thing and one thing only. Once they got what they wanted, they’d usually lose interest, mama would always caution

But that wasn’t her experience with Bayo. She found the more they had sex, the more he wanted her. She was the one who had to break it off because the passion threatened to consume them both. And he was having several other girls on the side. She felt she wasn’t special to him, he was just using her like several of the other girls.
She knew that was not a problem limited to black men only. But she was prepared to see how Joe would be different, especially since he appeared to be so God-fearing. It must take a lot of conviction to leave your country for a missionary trip to a distant continent.

*This has been an excerpt from my next novel.

Food matters

07/04/09

Countless Nigerian men in the United States and the rest of the Diaspora are suffering silently because of their marriages to ‘fast food’ wives. This is interesting as it is becoming increasingly difficult in this day and age to marry a Nigerian woman who knows her way around the kitchen.

Young Nigerian women of marriageable age that know their way around the kitchen are indeed a dying breed on the cusp of extinction in desperate need of a preservation program. And this worrisome trend should serve as a serious warning to those Nigerian men who have refused to learn how to cook and still depend on their wives for a good Nigerian meal.
Such men need to be advised to take cooking lessons and be seriously warned that modern Nigerian women do not have the culinary astuteness of their mothers; this is no fault of theirs, but rather a result of the times and society in which they have been brought up.

I was at a social event last weekend where music, food and drinks were plentiful in true Nigerian fashion. It appeared that every Nigerian dish was served with guests filling up multiple times. There was okro soup, pepper soup, plantain, jollof rice, moi moi, eba and too numerous to list. I watched diligently as the guests trooped expectantly back and forth to the serving table to fill their plates and subsequently their stomachs. But one particular gentleman that sat next to me drew my attention to this debacle that is becoming the fad amongst young Nigerian women.

This guy, recently married to a beautiful young Nigerian lady in her mid to late twenties, confessed to me as to why he had to eat all he could at that party – “O’ boy, this is my only chance, o,” he stated leaving me in a perplexed state as he had not provided the context before now. “What do you mean,” I retorted.
He looked around to ensure that his wife was still chatting with friends at another table before confessing it all. “My wife need help o, na so so catch-up dinner I dey eat for house.” I could not help but be amused at this admission and upon further reflection, his face betrayed it all. “Burger King is now king in my house,” he continued as he muscled balls of eba down his throat.
I asked if he did not know of her inability to cook a good Nigerian meal before he married her and his response further amused me as it was evident that he was blinded by her beauty which regrettably eclipsed other equally important qualities a man should seek in a woman he intends to marry. Yet, this gentleman was hardly alone; many Nigerian men are wallowing sorrowfully in the same situation, coming home each night to hot dogs meals, pizza and burgers.

In some cases, the wife can cook, but simply does not have the time as she, like the husband, also works eight to ten hours a day. This is the reality of America and the West where two incomes, in these uncertain economic times are now necessary to sustain the family. In such a situation, a man should not expect his wife to rush to the kitchen to prepare a simmering Nigerian dish for she too must be tired after a long day at work and if there are kids involved the stakes become higher as she must also attend to them, assisting with their home work and preparing them for school the next day. Therefore, under these conditions, expecting her to cook is tantamount to expecting the man to mow the lawn and wash the cars after a long day at work.

I remember well the worrisome case of a Nigerian woman a few years ago in the United States that divorced her Nigerian husband whom she claimed turned her into a slave. As a nurse, she maintained long hours at work and returned home to continue a different kind of work. In this case, she was married to a man who expected freshly cooked Nigerian meal at each sitting.

Imagine such utterly unrealistic expectations in America where time is ever fleeting. The woman would plead with him to eat leftovers as she had to also tend to the kids and prepare herself for work the next day, but all to no avail. The man, on his part, would complain to the high heavens, accusing his wife of attempting to serve him grass (as in salad) meant for goats instead of his amala, etc. At the end, it was all too much for the lady who was forced by the circumstances to end the marriage. Unfortunate indeed!

The salient lessons here are rather clear for all serious men to understand – that every man must learn how to cook to avoid a situation where they would have to depend on their wives for a good home cooked meal. Besides if that wife is hit by a bus the next day, how would they eat that good meal? What of if she travels for more than two months and the food she prepared and put in the freezer has been exhausted, how would they eat the good meal?

The intriguing thing here is that some of these women use food as a weapon, no less, as a leverage against their husbands. They would say, “if you don’t do this for me, I will not cook that favorite meal of yours.” As the saying goes – the way to man’s heart is through his stomach” and the Nigerian man easily caves in knowing how well he loves his eba and okro soup and would pay any price to continue enjoying these meals.

In the West, given the scarcity of time, it is increasingly becoming difficult for Nigerian couples to have time for themselves. Many work three to four jobs just to make ends meet and when they return home, they barely have time for the family and their spouse. In the course of events, romance suffers, the children are not given the care and love they deserve and ultimately the marriage collapses.

I remember another case of a Nigerian lady in Virginia that complained bitterly of her husband's lack of attention to her that ultimately, she sought the comfort of another man who spared no effort in populating the earth through her. The husband later confessed that with three jobs at hand, he could not find time to appreciate his wife the way he ought to have.

Given these dire circumstances, it is overly imperative for these men to avail themselves of the magic of the kitchen as a matter of life and death. Therefore, Nigerian men are encouraged to preempt their wives in the kitchen by learning how to cook not only to ensure that the family has good home cooked meals to eat when the wife is not up to it, but as a means of self-preservation and to avoid situations where their wives would hold them hostage with their culinary skills.

Lest we forget to conclude the story of that gentleman at the party that paid homage to Burger King in his home; as the evening progressed, I noticed that he smilingly made several trips to the serving table with his plate overflowing with each trip. When it was time to go, I observed that he and his wife left with a plastic bag filled with food. And how could I forget his parting remarks to me, “I’ll be in heaven for a few days.” Indeed.

The lessons here are abundant and should not be missed; Nigerian men should be warned that not all that glitters is gold; they must look beyond the beauty and all the romance and assess their wives-to-be properly before taking the nuptial vows, otherwise, they too would pay homage to Burger King and eat ketchup filled soup all day long in their homes.

Be warned.

*Culled from "This Day",a Nigerian Daily.

Capgras:Chapter Three

By Charles Ayanleke
© 2009
Chapter Three

His father was having none of the nonsense. No child of his was going to drop out in high school. He was well aware of the distinct advantage college education confers on people. People who have at least a college education dominate the middle class in America. It was like a certain passport to a life of comfort.

Anyone dropping out of high school more often than not struggle to get a foothold in the society. The occasional lucky one breaks through in a band or excels in some sport, but the majority simply fade into obscurity and extreme hardship. He had sworn that no child of his was going to endure the sort of difficulties he was now grappling with.

“First you get up now and put on your clothes”, his father had said.
Slowly, Aiden stood up and picked up his sweater. He was shivering more severely by then. He had remained huddled up in the corner almost naked for several hours by the time his father returned home.
His mum had called his dad that he would not get up or dress up.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed or something?” Mr. McCain asked. He was well aware that though they had their heating cranked up to the max, the intensity of the cold was such that the inside of the house was still noticeably cold. Northeast Ohio was experiencing an unprecedented cold weather with wind chill advisory. In addition, their vents had been clogged for several weeks now, and they just could not yet afford to have it cleaned up.

“Why are you not going to school?” he asked, when Aiden was finally protected from the cold by his sweater.
“I am tired of this struggle, dad” he replied.
“What struggle?” his dad replied.
It was then that Aiden revealed to them for the first time that he had begun having several strange experiences. He mentioned that he often heard voices in his head saying terrible things to him. Occasionally, he would hear a chorus like an orchestra. The orchestra never really bothered him, he said. His problem was the obnoxious voice. He even had a name for the voice, “Frankie”.

His parents just stood there, unable to speak or move. This was the last thing they needed. Their whole life since Aiden arrived into the family had been lived in the office of some psychiatrist for one mental health issue or the other.

Aduke McCain felt very sorry for her son. She had a brother who suffered from psychosis. She had been told that this illness had a very high hereditary component. She had been secretly hoping that Aiden would never go down that route. She was prepared to endure the social and communication difficulties identified in his Asperger’s diagnosis. Asperger’s now sounded like a cool diagnosis to have compared to what they feared might now be the case.

Their appointment with Dr Patterson was more to confirm their worst fears than anything else. Neither of them held their breath for any last minute surprise in the dreaded but predictable outcome of Patterson’s evaluation.
When Patterson started to deliver a nuanced introduction aimed at softening the blow of such a devastating diagnosis, Mr. McCain wanted him to cut the chase.
“Does Aiden have Schizophrenia?” he asked Dr Patterson.
“I’m afraid yes”, the doctor replied.
They all sat uneasily in their chairs, unsure what would come next.

“We now have several useful drugs to manage this condition”, Patterson continued.
Aduke believed none of that. Her brother Stephen was a wreck with the so-called useful drugs. If he was not on them, he was climbing the wall. When he was on them, he looked like a zombie. She wondered what her little boy would look like once he started taking any of those poisons. Nonetheless, she realized they had very little options from henceforth.

Aiden was adamant that he was not crazy. He told Dr Patterson so. He knew that the voices would go away once he rested fully. He felt he had been working himself to death in school in the prior several months. Maybe the pressure of the “bee” and all those Math contests were getting to him.
His parents knew better. Aiden was not the only student who had participated in those contests.
They did not want to feed his denial.
********************************************************

Jeff Boyle was glad Aiden arrived early, earlier than other workers on this cold winter morning. It had been a long-running battle to get Aiden to cut out his late-coming habit. He often came late. So late, in fact, that his day’s wage has had to be slashed several times. Jeff had repeatedly told Aiden that no one who wanted to succeed in the dairy business could afford to be lax with time keeping.

The health of the animals and overall productivity and yield could be directly traced to how dedicated the farmer was at maintaining a strict routine for feeding, grazing, immunization scheduling and mating.
Jeff had several anecdotes he was always eager to share with Aiden, but the young man had always displayed a clear indifference to such extras. He just wanted to earn his day’s wage.

Jeff thought that was such a waste. He was sorry for the lad. His father was a good friend of his from elementary school. The elder McCain had pleaded with him to give Aiden a chance on his farm. They both hoped that he might generate enough interest to perhaps own his own farm someday.
They were both wrong. Aiden simply wanted to earn some cash to buy himself a few things he had always wanted and which he felt his father could never really afford. Like the endless new releases of the video games he was now addicted to for instance.

Aiden went straight into his allocation for the day. He had his favorite cows. Jeff tried his best to allocate him to his favorite pet,Betty.
While milking Betty, Aiden suddenly saw the barn light come on out of the corner of his right eye. At the same time, Betty stamped her left hind leg on the ground twice.
This could not really be happening, could it? he thought to himself. He had struggled with the revelation of the previous night. He had convinced himself that God could not really have been talking to him. He was too sinful to be called by the almighty.

The McCains were not a very religious family. They only ever attended mass on the festivals of Easter, Christmas and maybe New Year day.
That was why the experience of the previous night was even more perturbing to Aiden. He had heard a distinct voice inside his head. The voice was low toned and had the quality of a gentle breeze. Whoever had the voice had told him he had been chosen to save the world.
He was specifically told to look out for a clear sign of his calling at the farm the next morning. The sign was the light bulb at the barn suddenly flashing on and the cow stamping her foot on the ground not once, but twice.

Aiden was now petrified. He was doing badly enough already without having to grapple with the added responsibility of “saving the world”, he thought. He did not know what to do next. He left Betty and went into the barn. It was all getting too much for him now.
Grabbing his winter coat, he went into Jeff’s run-down office( at least that is what they all called it).
“Can I help you, Aiden?” Jeff asked.
“I’m leaving,” he said.
“Leaving?” Jeff repeated almost sarcastically. “You can’t be serious, you barely just came in!” he continued.
“I mean I quit” Aiden said, almost without emotion.
“What do you mean you quit? Have you discussed this with your dad? Jeff prodded.
“Leave my dad out of this. I’m my own man now, I take my own decisions” Aiden replied, making it sound almost like a stern warning.
“Well, if that’s what you want” Jeff said in a resigned tone.
“May I ask why you’re quitting? Was it something I did wrong?” Jeff was curious.
“No it was nothing about you” he replied.
“So what was it?” you can count on me. Jeff was now dying of curiosity.
“You won’t understand even if I told you.”
“Try me” Jeff countered.
“Ok, I received a call from God to save the world”, Aiden continued innocently.
Jeff turned pale. He knew something was wrong.
As soon as Aiden turned to leave, Jeff picked up his phone and called Mr. McCain.

Joe McCain woke up late, as he had no job lined up. Before Jeff had finished talking to him, he was calling an ambulance.
Aduke was hysterical. They thought he had hit a clean patch of sorts. That was why they had agreed to his request to start independent living in Canton. Now she wondered what he had been up to.
Maybe he had refused to take his medications. Aiden knew better than that, she hoped. It was one of the conditions they all agreed to attach to his privilege of independent living. They had also all agreed to occasional unscheduled inspection visits by the elder McCains to ensure he was not living in a refuse dump.

When they arrived at the Psychiatry emergency room (ER), his reception was swift as usual. All the ER staff knew Aiden very well. He had been coming in regularly since turning eighteen.
His initial contact with one of the newer psychiatry resident doctors was brief. She just medicated him and admitted him for an acute psychotic episode.

Aiden was disappointed. He could not understand how a religious experience qualified for a psychiatric emergency. If he had any idea they would consider it that, he probably would not have voiced out his experience. Anyway, here he was in this God-forsaken unit one more time.

He had been pleased with himself for having been successful in keeping away for the previous six months. He had tried to stay off his medications since he was feeling so well. He saw no reason why he needed to keep popping those poisons. He felt like a zombie when he took those pills.

He felt extremely slowed down both mentally and physically when he had been on the medications, his joints would go stiff, and his mouth went dry. Those were very uncomfortable feelings.

He had been here before. This façade of therapy. They simply gave you injections to numb your mind and knock you off. Aiden had never truly believed that those shots did anything to touch the underlying issues. Each time, once the effect of the shot wore off, Frankie invariably returned to torment him. They usually relied on the maintenance pills to sort of continue the work the shot had started. It never really played out that way.

He was unsure which was the most intolerable; Frankie’s taunts or the unacceptable effects of the poisons his shrinks pumped into him. He had no choice at this particular time. The decision had been taken out of his hands. He was under the dreaded pink slip again.

Aiden was sure majority of his pink slips were unwarranted. He had rights like everyone else, he thought. However, what the pink slips did was to take away his rights and permit treatment against his wish. He was often powerless against them because his own parents always co-signed with the shrinks. He wondered if a mentally ill patient could ever sue the psychiatrist and members of his own family for wrongful pink slipping. That was a topic for another day. He slowly began to slip into that abyss of void and darkness that descended on him every time the tranquilizing shots kicked in.
*********************************************************************
As he sat holding Michelle in his arms in the garden, he stopped having any misgivings toward this particular pink slip episode. If he had not been brought in this time, he would probably not have had the opportunity to meet this stunning lady with a genuinely compelling personal story.
They exchanged phone numbers.

After their discharge from the hospital in Akron, Aiden got an invitation in the mail to attend a military ceremony at the Wright Patterson airforce base in Dayton. The Vice President of the United States would conduct the award of the Silver Star to Aiden and four other returning Iraqi veterans.
The Silver Star is the third highest military decoration that can be awarded to a member of the US military.

He called Michelle to find out if she would love to attend with him. She agreed. It was an opportunity she was not about to let slip. She said her uncle now had a live-in girlfriend. That was such a relief for her because her nieces had taken to the new girlfriend immediately.

Michelle was excited to be attending a military ceremony. She wondered what to wear. It had to be perfect. She called up her friends one after another for advice. Finally she went to a premium outlet mall outside Canton to pick a suitable frock with shoes and bag to match.
She could see where this was going. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to rush into another relationship after the ruinous experience that she had with Peter. Her relationship with Peter had lasted only three months, but it left her extremely scarred. He was abusive both physically and emotionally. He thought he had a hold on her and was sure she was never going to leave. Well, she did.

She assured herself a man would never hold her hostage any more, ever. As she looked down at the beautiful frock, she wonders what it was about women that made them so susceptible to manipulation by men. She did not understand why ladies who had endured a terrible experience in a previous relationship like she had eventually thought little about jumping right back into another one despite themselves.

She met with Suzan and Jane at the "winking lizard" later that evening. They were so eager to hear the details of this new dude. She was initially cagey about Aiden. She wasn’t sure there was anything in this yet, she told them.

“ Well, if he’s inviting you to his big day, there has to be something” Suzan said.
“If there isn’t something now, I guarantee you there’d be something pretty soon” Jane added.
“I don’t know, girls, I just don’t want to set myself up for another disappointment” She said.
“After Peter, you can only do better for yourself. I don’t think anybody could be worse” Suzan continued.

After a couple of beers each, they parted ways. The girls wanted to be kept updated on the blow-by-blow account. Michelle was not in any mood to live her whole relationship in the minds of her friends. After all, they don’t tell her everything happening between them and their boyfriends either. She just felt she was more needy emotionally. She almost needed validation of any feelings she had by her two closest friends. She had to learn to keep her own stuff to herself more, she thought.
*************************************************************************
As she approached their modest condo in downtown Canton, she saw an ambulance in the front of the house and several neighbors milling around to check out what was going on. She ran very fast to get some answers. As she arrived at the doorstep, she saw the paramedics wheeling out one of her nieces on a gurney. It was Amy! She could not believe what she was seeing. Amy’s face was a pale version of its usual lively self. She was drooling saliva from the corners of her mouth and appeared to be holding her throat. She had a mask slammed on her face. She appeared breathless.

She pushed the door in to locate her uncle or his girlfriend. They informed her that Amy had got sick in the early evening and appeared to be having difficulty breathing. Michelle was surprised. Amy was the healthier of her two nieces. She never even came down with a cold. Miley was the one that always had some virus. Miley was the older sister; she was six and Amy was three.

They drove to the local hospital behind the Ambulance. After the initial triaging at the nursing station in the ER, Amy was quickly admitted to the pediatric wards. They were told she had an inflammation of her throat. The doctor called it “epiglottitis”. They were left in no doubt as to the serious nature of this infection. Amy had to receive special humidified oxygen and powerful antibiotics.

Michelle overheard the senior pediatrician teaching the younger doctors that it was a good thing nobody looked in Amy’s throat, because she may have stopped breathing from the irritation. She was glad too that nobody had done that, she wanted her beloved niece back.
Miley was just standing there. She was probably wondering what was happening to her baby sister. She could perceive that the older folks were reasonably worried about Amy too.
“Is Amy going to die, Michelle?” she asked.

Michelle was unsure whether Miley really understood what it meant for someone to die. Her recent Psychology classes in nursing school seemed to suggest that young children pass through the stage of invincibility and had no understanding of the concept of death and dying.

“No she won’t, she only has a bad throat infection” Michelle tried to assure her.
“Now, why don’t we return home so you can have something to eat?” she continued.
“No, I want to stay here with Amy”, Miley replied.
“You know, it’s probably not advisable, we don’t want you picking up the infection too” Michelle stressed. She added that the doctor would probably not let any of them stay beyond the next hour anyway.
That seemed to convince Miley. She shrugged her shoulders.

Her uncle Todd and his new girlfriend Doreen joined them at the waiting room. Doreen was a pleasant short brunette with a charming, bright white smile. She seemed to light up any room and projected infectious warmth to everyone around her. Michelle always envied people who could manage to be so happy all the time. She could count the number of happy days she gets in a year. She secretly hoped that if Aiden worked out, she could finally join the “happy league”.

They arrived home late at night. Doreen asked if she wanted some cappuccino. She had made one for Todd. Miley was fast asleep. She had fallen asleep on the short ride from the hospital. Todd just took her straight to bed. It was a strange feeling for everyone. None of the girls had ever been sick enough to warrant an overnight stay in the hospital.

“What in the world is epiglottitis by the way?” Doreen asked.
“Apparently, it’s some pretty bad throat bug” Todd replied.
“Doctors just find some strange name to label small diseases with. Why can’t they just speak in a language everyone would understand?” Doreen continued.
“It’s medicalese,” said Michelle. She added that she too was beginning to get gradually inducted into the fold with the increasingly clinical aspects of her nursing training.

Michelle sipped the cappuccino Doreen had handed her. The flames in the fireplace provided the only lighting in their small living room and created an interesting hue when viewed against the mahogany wooden floor. They tried to avoid putting on the central heating for too long to avoid exorbitant gas bills this winter. However, Todd knew he would have little option now that he had put Miley to bed. Her room was probably much colder than the living room area. She would be cold despite the thick blankets she had been wrapped up in.

“So, I heard you would be attending a ceremony chaired by the Vice President” Doreen said.
“Yes”, Michelle replied.
“I bet you can’t wait” Doreen continued.
Michelle was puzzled by how star struck everyone seemed to be about the Vice President. She never viewed any politician as celebrity. They were all corrupt as far as she was concerned. The only thing impressive about this ceremony for her is the fact that Aiden would be awarded a prestigious medal for bravery in the battle front and she was going to be there to witness it live. That he had even thought of inviting her was surreal, she thought.

When she retired to bed that night, she wondered where and when Aiden would finally ask her to be his girlfriend. She wondered if he would at all. Surely this was not heading platonic. She hoped not. She was already smitten by him. She was now thinking more of him than she thought of Amy and Miley. That was always a good sign for any aspiring boyfriend of hers.

She wondered what he was doing at that moment. Would he be thinking about her too? She was concerned about his mental health. Sure if he took his medications, he would be fine. She was yet to mention to any of her friends or family about Aiden’s mental health problems. She was unsure how they might take it. She guessed her friends might have one or two colorful comments about that issue.

She was not sure how their interesting combination would pan out eventually. What would be the implications for any future kids if the dad was schizophrenic and the mum was depressed? She knows several mental disorders had a heavy genetic influence. She also knew there was always the option of not having any kids. That’s how much she was beginning to fall in love with Aiden.

She felt really silly for even thinking that far. She was not even sure yet if Aiden was going to ask her out, but she sure was going to take her chance if asked. Why else would he invite her to his big day? She played Susan’s question to herself again, almost self-indulgently.
She finally fell into deep sleep.
She found herself dreaming of weddings and a knight in shinning armor.
But the knight was not Aiden.
******************************************************
Michelle was in no mood to attend classes that morning. But she knew she had to. She had to drive to the local Wal-Mart where the three girls regularly met to car-pool. The drive to Akron was not that far, but they had several advantages to car-pooling. They could all save on gas while also catching up on gossip on the way to and from their classes.

As she spotted Jane’s 1996 Chevy blazer in the rear view mirror, she grabbed whatever she had dropped on her passenger’s seat earlier that morning and rushed out of the car. She was well prepared for the harsh Ohio winter, wearing her thickest woollen jacket and covering all her orifices in a carefully choreographed dressing ritual.

She could see Suzan also emerging from her car. Both girls made a mad dash for Jane’s Chevy amidst the gathering blizzard. There was already significant accumulation of snow overnight. The three had carefully looked for any media announcement of school closures but none was forthcoming. If it had been any other subjects scheduled for that morning, they probably would all have skipped the class.
But this was Med Math class. And big Ben was always guaranteed to come up with some sadistic innovative thoughts on especially days like this. He was once fabled to have allocated seventy percent of the whole semester worth of work in a single quiz session served on a cold winter day when half the students stayed at home.

You couldn’t afford to fail Med Math. It is a required subject to graduate from nursing school. Most of the time, the girls couldn’t understand what the heck big Ben was talking about anyway, but they just sat there. You get some marks just for sitting there staring at his big fat belly and owl sized eyes beneath bifocal lenses. Michelle knew some people she didn’t have to wonder whether they were getting laid or not. Big Ben definitely was not. She could never picture herself in any sexual situation with this man.

It took at least five to seven minutes for everyone to settle in the car, except Jane that is, since she didn’t need to get down from her car. Even then, both Michelle and Suzan had to keep hurdled up in their seats with gloves on while the heating warmed up the car. Jane’s house was next door to the Wal-Mart and the drive was not long enough for her to heat the car before picking up the girls.

“You know, girlfriend should probably consider buying one of those remote starter kits” Suzan broke the silence.
“We all should probably consider them” Michelle grinned. Or better still date someone who would manually install one, she added mischievously.
“Speaking of dating, what’s the latest on Aiden?” Jane asked matter-of-factly.

Michelle started to protest. She wondered why they always had to talk about her own relationship. She asked why Suzan would hardly talk about herself and Patrick at all.
“Because he’s a freaking player, that’s why”; Suzan responded. We only have an open relationship.
“Like what does that even mean these days?” Michelle continued. You mean you guys are just having sex without strings attached? How are you sure you aren’t getting an STD?
“Well, there’s something called a condom, girl.” Suzan replied.

Jane was feeling left out already.
“I heard condoms don’t protect a hundred percent against HIV though. Like you could still pick up the virus even if your man doubles up all the time. That’s scary.”
“Well, standard precautions should cut your risk. Its not like am dating a black dude or something…those guys are reportedly reservoirs of the virus.” Suzan continued without taking her eyes off the road.
“I simply can’t believe you just made such a retarded statement” Michelle screamed. “What are you? A fucking racist?”
“Hey, relax, girlfriend. I just made a popular point. It’s out there already, it’s common knowledge!” Suzan said, refusing to back off.

“I just can’t believe you would say that” Michelle countered. It’s so unfair. We’ve both seen white HIV patients just as we’ve seen black HIV patients. You cannot stereotype people on HIV risk based on race.
“Well, half of South Africa has AIDS. The virus has decimated parts of sub-Saharan Africa. There has to be some link right there”, Jane added.
“Wow, wow, wow, wait a minute…is Aiden black?” Suzan asked.
“Common Suzan, does Aiden sound like a black name to you?” Jane countered almost absent-mindedly.

“Yes he is” Michelle replied after a brief pause.
The car fell silent. Jane’s face went pale like she had just broken a set of pricey chinaware and caught red handed doing it. This was the last bolt she expected from the blue.
When the silence started getting uncomfortable, Michelle spoke again. “I never imagined I would fall for a black man either, just that Aiden is so different.”

“You sound apologetic, Michelle. Nobody should apologize for their choice in love” Suzan said.
Jane could still not bring herself to speak. She felt she had already spoken herself into trouble all morning. But as she exited the highway towards Akron, she felt the need to redeem herself somewhat.

“I’m sorry, Michelle, I meant no harm. I didn’t mean to be rude or anything,”
“That’s okay, I understand.” She said she hoped they’d both meet him soon so they could make up their minds about the man rather than the popular stereotype.
“He has to still ask you first, Michelle” Suzan said. Or has he already?
“No he hasn’t. Technically”, Michelle admitted.
“What, you guys need a pre-nup before going on a date? What’s taking so long? Jane attempted to make light of an awkward situation.
“Well, I’ll see what happens at the award ceremony”, Michelle said.

Jane was having extreme difficulty finding an empty space in the parking lot as usual. She momentarily considered pulling into the handicapped space. That was always a temptation she struggled with since high school when she just passed her driving test. Not only did her parents drum the moral case against that temptation into her, she had picked up a hefty ticket on the one occasion she’d succumbed. Now, she had learnt her lesson.
The only space left was labelled “reserved”. She couldn’t care less. They were already late for big Ben’s class as it were. She pulled into the reserved slot. She joked that if she ever got fined for doing this, everyone would share the ticket.

As they all made for the rear entrance of the class, Michelle couldn’t help but reflect on their conversation in the car. She never thought her friends would have issues with dating a black man. That conversation had simply never come up. She was expecting the debate to be about his Schizophrenia. Maybe she had to keep that to herself now. She wondered what other colorful comment Jane might have to describe a schizophrenic boyfriend if she had torn a black one into so many shreds so effortlessly.

This was 2003, not 1952. It’s amazing how attitudes have been slow to change despite all the civil rights struggle and everything. Maybe she was more open because of her personal story and her early years in Cleveland. These girls had both not left Stark County all their lives, so interaction with black folks is still very minimal. Michelle remembers her early years after her mum was killed, she had lived with her step dad on the cheaper side of Shaker Heights in Cleveland. There was no shortage of horror stories of crime, poverty and suffering in the neighborhood. It was a miracle to sleep and wake up the next day.

Her alcoholic step-dad was black, and he would come home with several of his junkie friends who were always clearly stoned. At first, young Michelle was always sequestered in her tiny room in the basement while they did their grown-up things, but that was before the sexual abuse began.
Michelle is still grateful to the Jeffersons to this day. It was Mrs. Jefferson who reported to the Cleveland Police after she could no longer remain silent. Michelle’s screams would keep her awake late at night. She knew the poor girl was probably helpless. She took a big risk in calling the police, though. Everyone in Shaker knew about Sting. He was the local hit man of the dreaded Scorpion gang that ceaselessly terrorized the greater Cleveland area.

Michelle will never be able to personally express her gratitude to Mrs. Jefferson. She and her husband were found in a pool of their own blood in their bedroom with their throats slit open the week following Sting’s sentencing in court. Their killers were never found.
The CPS took Michelle to Stark County to live with Uncle Todd that same week. She has not left Canton since then.

None of them learnt anything from big Ben’s lecture as expected. Jane was not quite shocked to find another yellow ticket underneath her car wipers. Something had to be done about parking by the school, and fast too.

Terminator

Longevity has long been the top prayer for most heathens. Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die. Even Jesus Christ cried out in the garden of Gethsemane: if only this cup can pass away.
The fear of death remains one of the most potent deterrents in both medieval and modern times. Several justice systems are reluctant to do away with the death penalty for that same reason.
The Latin phrases “Memento mori” and “Carpe diem” are particularly poignant both in their imports and in their inherent self contradiction.Carpe Diem is popularly paraphrased to mean “seize the moment” while “memento mori” warns us to remember that we are mortal.
Recently, a facebook friend asked a seemingly innocent question: “Is death overrated?”
According to the rapper 50cents;”death has gottta be easy,’cos life is hard”. There are millions around the world currently experiencing untold hardship and a palpable sense of worthlessness and hopelessness who would readily agree with that assertion.
A pertinent question must be what constitutes an easy life and what death is considered easy? If there was such a thing as an “easy death”, why are there so many failed suicide attempts. What informs the societal stigmatization of suicide?
Part of this eternal conundrum is the fact that nobody has yet verifiably gone to heaven and returned to live physically amongst us for a CNN/FOX news interview.

Scientists who were alive during the debate on the shape of the earth must have vowed never again to blur the line between faith and reason. After several centuries of being fed the “fact” that the earth was "square" with "four corners" and set on a firm foundation that “cannot be moved“ based on scripture, Galileo Galilei shattered all preconceptions with a single telescope. Modern day astronauts must have been even more amused.
Many mysteries remain unsolved, though, and must keep us humbled. The ongoing raging debate between the evolutionists and the creationists will therefore continue until another “telescope” is invented.

The foregoing is not the real purpose of this write-up…just a teaser for open,fertile minds.
Recently, a 97 year old white female was brought from the nursing home with acute confusion. She had multiple medical comorbidities.That is a fancy way of saying she suffers from many ailments. However, the wonders of modern medicine have so far managed to keep her alive.

Since I was not able to obtain any history from her and the nursing home staff were no help as usual, I could only go by my physical examination. What I found will not be considered unusual by any stretch of the imagination by physicians working in any western health system. What I thought might be useful was to bring it to the notice of the non-medical audience and leave people to make up their own minds.

This elderly female had undergone a right above knee amputation for peripheral artery disease. That means she probably lost her original leg due to poor circulation. It is not unusual for several arteries to become blocked as we age. She now wears a prosthetic limb.
She had also received hip replacement with metallic prosthesis on both sides for severe arthritis. It is not unusual for the elderly to suffer from arthritis due to simple wear and tear degeneration. Think about wearing the same shoes continuously for ninety years.

She wore vaginal pessaries for prolapse.It is not unusual for females with prior multiple births to experience a “hanging down” of their wombs through their vaginal orifice especially if assistance was needed with medical instruments during those births. She had endured stress urinary incontinence for several years for related reasons. That means she often soiled herself with urine if she even laughed mildly.

She had two bags visible over her abdomen. One was a colostomy bag from a recent surgery for colon cancer. A colostomy bag helps patients store their poop externally while they heal from bowel surgery. Caregivers have to empty the bags at regular intervals akin to going to the toilet.
The other bag was a urine bag hanging from a tube going into her bladder via a hole in her lower abdomen-she had also undergone a separate surgery for bladder cancer with partial resection of her bladder with reconstruction.

The upper abdomen bore old surgical scars for gunshot wounds sustained in the sixties. She still carried several pellets in her abdomen that were never removed. Her breasts, or whatever remained of them, looked strange. I quickly understood from nearby scars that she had undergone removal of both breasts for breast cancer. The strange-looking, out-of-place silicone implants would have instigated derision were they inserted for other, more vain, reasons.

She bore a long diagonal scar across the left side of her back that indicated a remote lung resection for lung cancer. She had her fair share of tobacco indulgence during the “social revolution”.
Although it is unusual for one person to suffer from more than one cancer during one lifetime, some unlucky patients have what we call Li Fraumeni syndrome which predisposes them to multiple cancers especially breast and ovarian cancer.

My physical exam was not over. She also had a metallic rod in her spine for severe compression fractures. Elderly females in particular are at risk of bone thinning and breaking of their back-bones. This leads to the observation of “loss of height” in many older women (lil' old ladies).

She has two electronic gadgets inserted just underneath her skin in the front of her upper chest. Each is not bigger than a knee cap in size. One is a pacemaker to keep her heart beating at a “desirable rate” while another is the “implantable converter-defibrillator” to kick-start her heart were it to suddenly stop beating. The center of her chest already bore midline scars of several bypass surgeries for blocked heart vessels.
Of course, she wore dentures like most people of that age since the natural teeth had long since fallen off. She had her dentures in a glass cup at the bed side at this time, so her mouth was all gum and tongue.

Her arms bore signs of old failed grafts and a more recent, functional one for hemodialysis since she is still on the queue for kidney transplant.Hemodialysis is an artificial way of cleansing the patient’s blood of poisons once the kidneys failed. Patients are simply connected to a machine the size of a coca-cola vending machine, with their whole blood volume cycled through a fine filter up to three times every week.

She had a glass eye on her left side to replace the eye she lost in a bar fight after a collateral stab wound in the marvelous sixties. The right eye had been operated upon for cataract and she now wears an artificially implanted lens in the back of her eye.

The left side of her skull bore no hair. That became apparent once her wig was removed. On closer inspection, it became apparent that she had had a craniotomy for a tumor in the front of her brain with prosthetic cranial plate inserted. She had needed to wear protective helmets while she was still able to move around until her dementia became severe enough to confine her to bed most times in the nursing home and the helmet was no longer practically needed.

Her dementia meant that she no longer recognized close family members, forgot what she had for lunch, often behaved inappropriately e.g. constantly removing her dress and standing stark naked in the common dining room, playing with the poop in her colostomy bag with her bare hands if supervision was lacking from staff etc. She very often spoke to imaginary people and reacted to imaginary images.

The reason why I've gone to extreme lengths to describe this patient is to go back to my opening paragraph. It is also partly to throw some fuel into the fiery debate over sensible medical economics vis-à-vis the concept of quality adjusted life years (QUALYS).In brief, that concept asks the vital question bothering on futility: if we had only one pacemaker left in the world; should it go to the 90-year old or the 35-year old on the queue? Where does prudence stop and ageism begin?

Also, in view of President Obama’s resolve to cut healthcare costs in the coming healthcare reform bill, what constitutes wasteful medical intervention?

Finally, and not the least, would you want to “live long” like this?

NB: The above is a hypothetical patient. The author has broken no patient confidentiality in publishing this article.

Charles Ayanleke MD, MRCPsych, MRCPI is a physician in Cleveland OH, USA.