II
Reverend’s house — it’s name, Midas House, carved into a piece of sandstone above the front door — was the biggest Emeka had ever seen. It had not occurred to him before now that anyone could afford to live in a place that massive. It reminded Emeka of the cathedral in Enugu where he and his family sometimes went to church. Not in size — Reverend’s house was even bigger — but in the number of religious portraits lining the walls. Emeka was ushered in by a guy wearing dark sunglasses and a beret. There were huge oil portraits of a man with a prominent scar on one cheek, flanked by Jesus, His disciples, and angels with ruddy cheeks and tie-dyed wings. In one portrait, the same man was the twelfth disciple of Jesus, his gold locket on a chain around his neck throwing off slanted rays of light, the scar on his cheek dotted with stars.
Emeka wondered if the stars had any particular significance. He was still contemplating this when Reverend walked in — Emeka immediately recognized the scar. He had expected to see a man who was as large, as expansive at least, as his reputation. But Reverend was small, no bigger than Emeka’s teenage brother in Enugu. Yet unlike Emeka’s brother, Reverend was dressed expensively, as if he had just emerged from a vat of liquid gold. The LV on his belt buckle shone bright and confident. The watch on his wrist almost blinded Emeka. The metallic thread running through his brown shirt shimmered. This was a man, Emeka thought, to whom money was of no concern. This was a man who, despite his diminutive stature, he could entrust his future to. When Reverend spoke, his voice was surprisingly, reassuringly strong.
“Everybody keeps saying I should move. Buy a house in Victoria Island or Banana Island — somewhere more upscale. I ask them, why should I move? Why move when my constituency is here. Tell me, do you think I should move?”
Emeka wondered if this was a trick question, and if it was, what was the best way to answer. Reverend did not wait for a response but continued impatiently, as if suddenly realizing why Emeka had come to see him. “So, you want to start a business?”
“Yes sir.”
“What kind?”
“Taxi, sir. Or okada. I rode okada in Enugu for a while.”
“And what happened?”
“The state governor banned commercial motorcycles from operating. So I came to Lagos for a second chance.”
“No taxi — you have to earn a car. We’ll start you with an okada since you have some experience with it. Every Monday morning at 10 a.m. sharp, rain or shine, you drop off N7,000 for me. Whatever you make on top of that is yours to keep. You do that until I tell you the motorbike has been paid off, and then you can either work for yourself or graduate to a taxi. The choice is yours. I am a fair man. I take only what’s mine, but I won’t be cheated. Any day you fail to make your payment, well...” He let the threat hang in the air unsaid.
It had been that easy. Emeka could not believe it. He wanted to shake the hand of the man who had just given him a new lease; to kneel at his feet and worship. “Thank you, sir!”
“Thank God — He’s been good to me. I am reserving a space in heaven by doing good to others and following in His ways. He is a merciful God but He warns against disobedience in Leviticus 26:18 — And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.”
Emeka was asked to return the next day to take possession of a brand-new motorcycle and a helmet. After, he called Enugu to tell his family the good news. His brother would be able to stay in school. His widowed mother would soon be able to retire from her petty trading. Things were on the up. “I did not come to Lagos to admire flyovers,” he told his mother. “I mean business!”
III
Emeka could not remember his father. The sepia-toned pictures of him that hung on the walls of their living room did not help him to recall the man, who had died in a car accident when Emeka was seven and his mother was still pregnant with his little brother, Hope — named for their mother’s optimism that her bad luck was only temporary. Emeka’s father was just starting out as an independent building contractor when his bus careened off the Niger Bridge and plunged into the river. After his death, his brothers had claimed everything he owned, down to the cement mixer Emeka used to like to climb into. Emeka’s mother, a woman not known for mincing words, had earned their ire by not accepting her lot quietly, and thus her family was left to fend for themselves. Emeka’s mother gave birth two months after she became a widow and had no time to grieve. With Hope tied to her back, she threw herself into raising her boys and salvaging whatever was left of her husband’s savings after giving him a befitting funeral. Emeka helped on weekends or whenever he had no school.
By the time he was seventeen and his little brother was ten, Emeka had quit school to help his mother full time. He had also taken over the education of Hope, teaching him to read and write while their mother cooked or attended to customers. The petty trading never yielded enough to keep the boys fed, clothed, and in school. At nineteen, Emeka apprenticed himself to an okada driver who lived in the neighborhood, and within two months he was working for the man, driving one of his motorcycles. He earned enough to supplement what his mother made, but when crime in the city rose and the government — convinced that there was a connection to the influx of commercial cyclists — banned all okadas from Enugu, Emeka found himself out of a job. He could not stay in Enugu doing nothing, watching his mother count pennies every night, so he decided to go to Lagos. Everyone knew that the only city where dreams could be pursued was Lagos. Ifeatu, who had been his classmate before Emeka quit school, had not been in the city long and already was doing very well, according to rumors. Emeka got Ifeatu’s phone number from his sister, called him, and set off for Lagos with his mother’s blessing the very next day.
IV
Emeka’s first day as an okada driver in Lagos was so nerve-racking, so stomach-churning that he wondered if he should go back to Reverend and return the bike. He wasn’t sure that he could handle putting his life in danger — Lagos drivers drove like madmen — every day. Riding in Enugu, even as a new driver, had never induced as much fear as driving in the city did. He worried that if he did not hurt himself, he would kill someone else, and so he crawled through the traffic while everyone else moved like lightning.
His first passenger complained that he would make her late for her job interview. “Why are you riding this bike like you’re in a beer parlor instead of on the road? Abi, you be new driver?”
Emeka felt too shaken and humiliated to respond. But if he returned the bike, what else could he do? He could not go into the pure-water business because that was already saturated. Ifeatu had remarked that had he not started when he did and carved out a brand, it would have been impossible to make any money from it now. “Every Dick and Harry is making their own water. Some people don’t even boil and filter theirs; they don’t bother registering with NAFDAC. They just pour water into sachets, tie them up, and sell it as ‘pure water.’”
Emeka, with no training for anything else, persevered. He clenched his teeth and went out the next day.
Okada drivers wound in and out of traffic with little regard, it seemed, for their lives or the lives of their passengers. The honking horns, the sudden brakes, the danfo drivers lurching in front of the bikes — these were all the things Emeka had to force himself to get used to if he was to make it in Lagos. He had to learn to ignore the rules, to avoid roadside markets which spilled onto the road, and to deposit his customers safely at their destinations. Amos, an older, balding man who said Emeka reminded him of his little brother, took the young man under his wing. He taught Emeka to tilt his mirrors and handlebars so he could slip his bike more easily through traffic. He taught him to be just as aggressive, just as daring as his colleagues. “If you don’t, you will spend the entire day on the road without a single passenger!” He told him just how much of a bribe to give to the policemen who stopped him so that he wouldn’t be too delayed. “That’s their meanest punishment,” Amos said of the cops. “Keeping you from working for hours if they think you are being miserly with your money. But if you give too much, you dig a hole for yourself. They’ll mark you, and no policeman between here and the Niger River will ever let you off for less. Balance is the key; be wise, be a tortoise.” Emeka listened, watched, and learned.