Someone Else

Michael should have seen it coming. But how could he when he was stirring dodo on the gas cooker while his boss whined on the phone? He had misspelt ‘expectations’ in a text animation video. The client couldn’t wait, neither could the sizzling dodo.

It was mid-afternoon already, about six or seven hours after Daddy had peed during his morning bath. The platinum-haired man would normally yell his name, except now and the last few weeks. Carrying a melamine plate of beans and dodo, Michael trudged into the sitting room and dropped it on the centre table, and right there was a pee pool coursing toward him.

"Why didn't you call me?" Michael stomped toward him.

"Stay away.”

Michael inched forward anyway and wheeled him toward the passageway.

“Stop." Daddy groaned.

Michael trundled him on. Why would he want to be left alone in his soggy trousers and underwear clinging to his thighs? Even a toddler would sob until his mother had undressed him. What was wrong with him—was it aging or depression, or both?

Michael still pushing, Daddy began to spit. He came before Daddy and goaded him to stop, but the old man hacked his throat and spat on him. Michael staggered backwards, clutching his face, and wiped off the saliva.

"Mighty thunder fire you there. You’re a wizard. Demon wizard." Daddy glared. The veins in his light-skinned hand and neck bulged.

Michael folded his arms, scowling at him. Words and a fleet of insults, weren’t those the only things Daddy had? If only Aunty B. were here.

"So, I am now a piece of wood you can push around?" Daddy said, his voice an exploding grenade. "Because I can’t flog you anymore?"

Michael's legs quivered. If his hands and legs were still functioning, he knew what would be coming—the two-mouthed cane hung in Daddy’s room. He wouldn't mind that Michael was twenty-three, old enough to own a family. A child was a child, he’d say, no matter the age.

"You this stupid child," Daddy said. "I wish Rebecca was still alive."

Michael reeled back and eased his feet into his leather slippers. "Oya, call Rebecca to come and be bathing you, to be feeding you. Call her!" He shuffled towards the door. He’d go to Bimbo’s house. He had had enough. If Daddy wanted his sister Rebecca, he should haul her out of the grave.

#

Bimbo was plucking spinach leaves into a bowl when Michael waddled into the furnished sitting room. He flopped down beside her on the sofa and hissed, legs wide open.

She pushed the spinach bowl aside. "Don’t tell me you quarreled again."

He bobbed his head.

She picked up the spinach bowl. “So, about the part-time program. Will you apply?”

He sighed.

“Why haven’t you made up your mind yet? You can still be that finance minister you wanted to be.”

“Finance minister…” He chuckled. “I make money in dollars now.”

“Keep telling yourself that until an opportunity arises and you can’t get it because you refused to further your education. I don't have your time now. Please, help me pick and cut these leaves. I want to prepare egusi soup for my husband.”

Later in the kitchen, Michael balled egusi into fist sizes. Over at the gas cooker, palm oil fizzled, a silver smoke wafting through the kitchen air.

"I wish I could live here." He clenched his teeth. He shouldn’t have said that.  

"You want to leave Daddy alone? Who will take care of him? He's your father. Your family is your family no matter what."

Here she went again, spilling advice. Of course, she would open her meaty-downturned lips while eyeballing from her lovely husband's house. If she were he, wouldn't she abscond? Wouldn't she smother the whining man in his sleep? His entire life and career, he had laid down for him, yet he had no seat in his grey heart. He would rather pack to Bimbo’s and stuff himself with love and friendship, and revel in the long talks of her husband, a man unlike those everyday husbands who cooped up their wives in marriage. Her husband grasped their friendship that began in nursery school.

To live with her started as a joke, for it thrilled him to ask. He yearned for her yes, that someone in his life desired him, that his life wasn’t about wiping off an old man’s shit. Maybe he deserved her unwavering no, her eyes unflinching as she rejected him each time, or she still mulled over the kiss. She was unmarried then and they were at Silverbird Cinema at Ikeja, seeing Always be my Maybe. Her head reclined on his shoulder and he didn’t think anything of this. Right after Ali Wong kissed Keanu Reeves in the movie, she pulled toward him and kissed him. He jerked away and said nothing. The kiss never seeped into their conversations. A week later, she agreed to marry her husband.

#

When Michael returned home, over three hours had glided by, the longest he had ever left him. Daddy slouched, backing the TV.

“Are you okay?” Michael said.

Daddy nodded. Michael goggled at him, waiting for more—an apology or a sorry look. When he got none, he mopped the floor and fed him dodo and beans.  Afterwards, he wheeled him to the bathroom.

"Have you heard from your mother?" Daddy said.

"Yes. Yesterday."

“It’s been almost two weeks since I heard from her."  

"Why not call her?" Michael sponged his back.

"You won't understand until you get married."

But he understood. Daddy always snubbed her. Mummy would arrive from a trip and Daddy would not respond to her Hello, how was he doing? There was the name-calling too that roamed Michael’s brain. Prostitute. Slut. Irresponsible woman. What was she thinking going off whenever she wanted and coming back whenever? The names stuck to his brain and their squabble wormed into his dreams, and he couldn’t yank them out. He had seen this happen in movies, how marriages split after an accident and a divorce would be filed. So, he accepted this as their marriage finality, that what would happen would happen and he couldn’t alter it. 

#

Michael tucked away his economist dreams after the accident. Though he had bagged the best in Economics every session in secondary school, his love for it was small. He was still comfortable at the sixth position, perhaps because his parents weren’t pressuring him. It was until the economics teacher, a small-eyed lady, challenged his class by telling them about Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Nigerian former finance minister, that he was truly motivated. At home, he googled her, read her biography on Wikipedia, and saved pictures. And new dreams sparked up. He wouldn’t be an ordinary economist, he said to himself every morning in the bathroom mirror while brushing his teeth. He’d go to the university and graduate with a first-class, then hustle for an American master’s scholarship, then fly back to Nigeria and work for a big finance firm. Years later, he would establish his firm. One day, the president would beg him to become his finance minister.

Stamped in his mind was the president kneeling before him until the accident. It was a few days before his first day at the University of Lagos, his small students' stove already bought, his bag half-packed. Daddy was on his way to Lagos when a bus crashed into theirs, and he became paralyzed. The paralysis ripped Michael open to a new reality. The first day Michael bathed him in the bathtub, he squeezed his eyes shut every now and then, thinking of a new, love Telemundo series. Groaning, he rolled over the thickset man to wash his back, and hoisted his feet to soap them. After the bath, he heaved him onto the wheelchair. His palm under Daddy’s armpit, he hoisted him with one hand, Daddy leaning on him, and pulled on underwear, baggy jeans, and a polo collar t-shirt.

He squealed into his pillow at night those first weeks. His mother should be nursing Daddy but was always at work or on weeks-long trips.

Eighteen then, he carried the burden with a temper, hissing so often, wishing for another life. He watched his friends' university lives on Facebook, their pictures with new friends and their whining posts about the hectic eight to six lectures and less sleep. Their ostentation vexed him, so he dumped Facebook. He veered to Twitter. The hilarious and obnoxious tweets from strangers pulled him in. Twitter introduced him to design: static design first, then motion and UI/UX. Before he knew it, he was working remotely for a design studio in Denver. 

The year after the accident, he didn’t apply for JAMB. He did not even consider it. Neither he nor his parents talked about it. Only visitors asked, “What school was he attending?” and he would shake his head, an old sadness grappling him. They praised him and admired his caring commitment, saying over and over what a good son he was. Mothers wished they had a son like him, and inquired if he’d marry their daughters. Single aunties wished to meet such a humble husband. They encouraged him, tucked five-hundred and one-thousand naira notes into his hand, and gave him encouraging hugs. Neither their praises nor encouragement did he feel deserving of, for he sometimes wished Daddy were dead and loathed himself for it.

#

One image always sprang up when he thought of Aunty B. He was eight, at a wedding reception. Mummy and Rebecca had escorted the bride home while Daddy was catching up with some relatives. The guests had left. Michael was alone on a plastic chair, hunger tugging at his belly. Aunty B. took him into a red-lit room stuffed with crates of empty Coke bottles. She handed him a bottle of coke and a plateful of meat. No one, even till now, ever gave him so much meat.

Many years had gone and left her widowed. Her children were married and she lived alone, so he called her. Wouldn’t she visit her younger brother, his father? And a month later, she trundled in with two trolley boxes, and Michael's heart danced. On her first morning, she bathed Daddy and prepared yam slices and fish stew for breakfast, while Michael sat in the sitting room, legs stretched on the sofa, watching Killing Eve. Though he would have preferred a light breakfast, like spaghetti, he was glad of Aunty B.'s help and presence. 

When he spoon-fed Daddy, a yam slice dropped on Daddy’s trousers. 

“Fool,” Daddy said.

“He’s not a fool,” Aunty B. said.

“He is—"

"Don't be ungrateful. He has done a lot for you. He sacrificed his education, his… Everything. Is it until he leaves before you will appreciate him? You will never shout at him as long as I am here."

Daddy shook his head. It was as if he was afraid of her, as if Aunty B. were someone he could not shriek back at. Not once did he yell at Michael again.

Michael gazed at her and could not mask his smirk. Hope soared in him. Finally, the incandescent light outside the tunnel gleamed on him. No more caregiving. He could fixate on his career, annex another remote job, and start earning millions; or he might apply for that part-time program.

#

After several attempts, his finger declined. So, Bimbo clicked the part-time apply button on the online form. Economics at Lagos State University. After, he strutted home and told Aunty B. and Daddy about it. Daddy said O.K. Aunty B. leapt to her feet and hugged him. Why not full-time? she wanted to know. Because of his job, he said and realization rippled across her face. 

He bought a compilation of JAMB past questions and practised them. Mostly, he scored below average, even in Economics. He would scratch his head, trying to remember how to solve a calculation he had been good at. Everything was difficult. Stupid, he would say and bang his book on the dining table where he read. For days, he would abandon reading, saying to himself: whatever would happen would happen. What could he do? He had tried his best. At least he was making dollars already. Whatever course the university gave him, he would accept.

Whatever fire Okonjo-Iweala had sparked up was left behind in the old Michael. Michael was no longer Michael. That Michael was long gone. The new Michael thought neither about his master’s degree nor about the president begging him to be his finance minister. He clung to his job and money. He was a man deprived of a fighting spirit. A crumpled soul. The future he wished for comprised of an undergraduate certificate with any class of degree and multiple jobs. Not that he did not want to dream big but did not even think big. He wanted anything that was not his present life. He was no longer himself. He was someone else.

The End

Author’s Biography

Samuel Oladele is a writer and visual designer. His short stories have appeared in the 2021 Alitfest anthology, Bewildering Stories, Virtual Zine Mag, The Shallow Tale Review, Kalahari Review, and other places. His short story, Two in One, was one of the 2020 Mariner Awards (Bewildering Stories) winning stories. He’s working on his first novel. He tweets @iamsammy007.