“Would you?”
She glared at him.
“Boy, don’t make me knock your head off for real,” she said. “I just hope he hasn’t initiated you into witchcraft,” she continued, forcing a disgusting unguent down his throat.
Afraid, he began mumbling prayers while she made passes over his head with eagle feathers and chalk. His prayer and her incantations interwove in the gathering dusk, calming them both.
BRYOPHYLLUM PINNATUM S. KURZ
(Crassulaceae)
The common name for this herb is “Never Die.” It has opposite trifoliate leaves, which are almost rounded, but are larger towards the apex. The flowers are greenish yellow, with a purplish tint at the base. Their arrangement is loose and sometimes drooping on the common stalk.
This plant has several medicinal uses, which are not to be confused with its ritualistic applications. These medicinal uses include compresses for abscesses or swellings. In this case the leaves are crushed and mixed with shea butter or palm oil before being applied. It can also be used on ulcers and burns. It is used as a cure-all for young children when they are ill, and is believed to draw out bad humors when rubbed all over the body.
SEVEN
When the star is early on the King’s head, the number is two. This is the number of most people. The lobes split between their heart and mind, the constant struggle.
Just like the kola nut, people have distinct lobes of energy. These determine their life plan. Four is the highest number, the King nut. The sorcerer. Three is the seer, the singer, and the shaper. Two is, for most, the struggle to learn love.
Lagos, 1983
Elvis shaved hurriedly. He hated shaving, which was odd, considering that as a child he used to drench his chin in alcohol and mentholated spirit because he had been told it would help his facial hair grow. Having heard it worked on pubic hair too, he began to drench his crotch in it. He only stopped when the teacher reported him to his father for smelling of alcohol in school, the report coinciding with his father’s discovery of an empty bottle of White Horse whiskey — one of his best bottles. Naturally he was severely caned. At least he hadn’t had to live with the constant teasing his cousin Obed got. Not realizing exactly how pubic hair grew, Obed had taken the skin from a squirrel’s tail and stuck it, fur side out, along the length of his penis.
Now here Elvis was, struggling with razors and bumps, trying to beat the clock. He was joined in the backyard by Jagua Rigogo. (Everyone knew that Jagua Rigogo wasn’t his real name, yet no one bothered to find out what it really was.)
Jagua used to regale Elvis with stories of his astral projections to different planes of existence or, within this one, to different countries. He even claimed he had met with aliens on Venus who planned and controlled the future of the earth. His stories were peppered with mentions of arcane masters of wisdom who showed him the hidden truths of the universe. Cosmic mechanics, he called them. Then, just as swiftly, the stories would veer away from the cosmic and you would be back on earth, the story continuing seamlessly.
“India! Dat is a wonderful country. Streets paved in gold … almost as lovely as America,” he would say.
Elvis would nod, inhaling Jagua’s strange incense smell, half scared, half amazed.
“But you were just on Venus a minute ago,” he would interject.
“Yes, but astral travel is not encumbered by time and space, you know. De arcane masters or cosmic mechanics who taught me dis were H. G. Wells and his brother, Orson.”
“Do aliens even speak our language?”
“Ha, ha, ha. Funny child. Of course not, but I speak deir language, just like I speak de language of angels. Anyway, where was I?”
“India.”
“Oh yes, India. Not to mention Australia. You know kangaroos carry de souls of dead aborigines in deir pouches …”
The myths and lies tumbled out and Elvis had believed everything, or at least wanted to. The sad thing was, Jagua did too. Now that he was older, Elvis realized there wasn’t much truth in Jagua’s fantasies.
Jagua yawned as he chomped on his chewing-stick and spat a fine spray of chewed fiber and spittle, scratched his belly and looked at Elvis.
“Good morning, Jagua,” Elvis said.
“Elvis. You go late for work, you know. A punctual man is a spiritual man,” he replied.
“I’m just leaving now,” Elvis said.
“Good.”
Elvis was about fifteen minutes late, and as soon as he got to work he sensed the tense atmosphere. It was the way nobody would meet his eyes. His feeling of unease grew as he walked through the large compound to his station. He had been late before, so what was the big deal now? As he bent to lift a freshly mixed pan of cement onto his head, the chief mason stopped him gently.
“De site manager want to see you,” he said, his calloused palm gently rubbing Elvis’s arm.
It didn’t sound good. It was bad enough when the foreman wanted to see you; but the site manager, well, that was a different matter altogether. Elvis had only seen the site manager from a distance, and there had been no reason for them to speak. Elvis set the head pan down and crossed the compound to the site manager’s caravan, tapping quietly on the door.
“Come in!” a voice barked.
Elvis opened the door and stepped into the cool air-conditioned interior. The floor was covered in plush carpeting and he instinctively took off his mud-splattered shoes, even though he did not step off the rough hemp doormat into the room. The site manager was a young man, in his early thirties. When Elvis came in he was reading a James Hadley Chase novel. He put it down and regarded Elvis through bored eyes.
“Yes?” he asked.
“You asked to see me,” Elvis replied.
“See you?”
“I am the laborer from section six, sir.”
“Oh yes, section six. So you are de habitual latecomer?” As he spoke, he flipped through some papers on his desk.
“Sir?”
“De habitual latecomer,” he repeated.
“No, sir. I have been late only once or twice before. I am sorry, sir. It will not happen again.”
The site manager stared at Elvis for a long time. He hated having to deal with these people. Firing and hiring laborers was not his department, but since he had fired the foreman that morning, he had to do this dirty work now. His father, who owned the construction company, had called and told him to lay off as many people as he could, starting with the foreman — something about being over budget.
“I am terminating your appointment. As from now.”
“Please, sir …”
“Don’t beg. Don’t waste my time. Just get out.”
“But my wages for—”
“Before I count five you should be gone, otherwise I will have some of de boys eject you forcibly. One, two, three …”
There really wasn’t a lot Elvis could do, so he shuffled out of the compound. None of the other workers looked at him, partly from shame, partly to avoid contagion from his bad luck. He didn’t blame them. He would have done the same in their place.
As he waited at the bus stop, he noticed that the traffic had come to a complete standstill and people were running, pursued by policemen, soldiers and local government officials in their dirty brown uniforms. A crowd gathered round a bonfire that was steadily growing in size.
“What happened here?” Elvis asked a groundnut-and-banana hawker who dashed past him.