Hi guys, this would be my second short story here. You can find the first one, "My Father's Man", on this link:

https://www.nairaland.com/2255695/fathers-man-short-story

This one is a little longer and I hope it's worth your time. Please leave comments, encourage a brother. Thank you all.

CC: mhizpeaarl Sugarbabekemi

The Stranger on Life Street

We woke up one morning and discovered that a strange man had started living on our street. During the course of the night, he had built a crude little tent from polythene bags tied across long twigs dug into the soft soil by the garbage place. He was not alone when we found him asleep on the bare clammy ground. Two naked little children, boys, who looked like twins, slept on either side of him, each with one arm draped across his hairy chest. The boys’ hair was a very light shade of brown, almost red, and formed a long, thick dada, which was almost as thick and as long as that on the man’s head. For clothing, the man was wearing a faded pair of jeans that stopped several inches short of his feet. His toenails were crooked, black and dirty, as if he had not cleaned them in years.

We were not sure what to do about him, this strange man. It was the first time a man like him had decided to settle in our street, although his kind was, of course, a common sight throughout the city. Regardless of how often they were chased or taken away, there was still an abundance of them everywhere. They were in the marketplace haggling with imaginary customers over equally imaginary wares. Buy now. Buy from me, madam, I give you a good price. I need this money to feed my children. They patrolled the center of busy highways in many fancy walks, waving at speeding cars and at uninterested passersby, adopting a variety of stylish poses. Very happy to win this award, Mr. MC, very happy. From a small child, I always wanted to be Miss Nigeria. Sometimes, especially when there was a heavy go-slow, you found them in the middle of forked roads, in their grotesque unclothedness, conducting traffic. Stop there mister man! I say stop! You move when I tell you to! Bloody bomboclark try to be above the law!

Once when a strange man had lived on a street not far from ours, from the very first day that one arrived, people’s things had mysteriously begun to disappear: the clothes they hung out on the line to dry, the buckets of water they kept by the outhouse in the early hours of the morning, even the money they hid under their mattresses when they left for work. That man, also, was the ugliest thing that ever happened to the world. Children cried just by looking at him. When he made faces at them, they had nightmares many nights. But this man, this strange man on our street, did not look threatening in any way. He was a very small man, and because he had children, we liked to think he was, in some ways, a little like us.

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

Days passed and the man went about his business, not paying us any mind. Mornings and evenings we saw him washing his children in the muddy pools of water that dotted the street. In the afternoons they rummaged through the garbage, side by side with the goats and fowls, for any food they could find. When the sun grew fierce and their search was not yielding much fruit, they plucked stale loaves of bread or pieces of yam from off the goats’ mouths and threw it straight into theirs, running and laughing as angry, bleating goats chased them around. Other times, when they had more than they could eat, they fed the excess to the animals. At nights, clutching his boys to his sides, the strange man sat staring into space or into our faces as we came to empty our refuse in the garbage place. And, in the wee hours, we heard him talking; whether to himself or to someone only he could see, we did not know. You know I love you, Theresa. Please, wherever they have taken you, come back.

These did not go down well with us, so one evening just before the day gave way to dusk we went to his little tent to confront him. He was one man, but we were many that went, men and women both. You sit down here, we said, pretending you don’t live among people. Shouldn’t you be happy we let you stay on our street? Shouldn’t you thank us?

The man stared, with an amused expression, at our scowling faces. Then he began to laugh, pointing at us one after the other, shaking from side to side. He laughed for so long a time we feared he might never stop, that we would leave him there and return the next morning to find him still wearing the torn brown shirt and faded blue jeans, still sitting with his legs crossed under his small self, laughing. You fear my silence, he said. It’s why you come. But I’m just one man—what could I possibly do to you?

His voice had a rich musical quality to it, a sensuous quality, if you like, and his English was cleaner than anything we had ever heard, than anything we could ever speak. We began to wonder whether really he was what we had thought he was, whether we were right to have drawn conclusions about what he was worth without having spoken to him. We are not wealthy people living here, we told him in our broken Pidgin. We are managing life, as you can see for yourself. We don’t want any trouble.

He nodded his head and thanked us for allowing him stay on our street. For our own peace of mind, we pretended not to have heard him speak. We turned silently and left him alone with his children in the little tent by the garbage place.

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

Now this street of ours, called Life Street, after The Life Church of God, one of the first buildings to be erected here and which has since left for greener pastures, is hardly the most desirable place to live in. It is a very long, very winding lane, with a slope so uneven you get the feeling of constantly ascending and descending as you walk down. You cannot, also, see the end from the beginning. Lining the street on either side, at precise distances from one another so that it seemed they were there by design, were old, tire-less cars coated with so much dust you could not tell their true colours. The electric poles stood at awkward angles, as if they would fall at any moment, and their tangled mesh of wires hung so low a child could jump up and grab them. At the end of the street was the garbage place and beyond that, formed by the water and sewage from the gutters, was a large greenish pond that bred a vibrant community of mosquitoes and waterweeds and algae, and beyond that still, was a dense rubber plantation from which no one tapped rubber anymore, because it stopped being a lucrative business sometime after they discovered oil in the 60’s. About the houses: these were cheaply constructed shelters of mud and cement, clustered together like they all were owned by one person and built at the same time. You could not tell, by mere looking, where one house stopped and another started. When there was a strong wind, the light zinc roofing flapped like the feathers of cocks about to crow and, sometimes, took to flight. Rain fell unhindered into our homes. So heavy was the rain that the gutters on either side of the street overflowed, flooding our compounds with murky water. Through the night we struggled to keep the water at bay.

It was after one such heavy rainfall that we saw the strange man leave the garbage place for the first time. He stood at a distance, watching as we battled with the flood, and then, finally, came towards us. Why do you bail the water out of your homes and back into the street? He looked quite perplexed as he spoke to us, as though he were talking to people with very small brains. What you need to do is clear the gutters of all that debris and let the water flow through it to the pond.

Yes, we know that, we snapped. But who would do it?

Give me a shovel.

We gave him a shovel; he rolled up his trousers and sank into one of the gutters. Grumbling about earthworms and bloodsucking leeches and about how this was not supposed to be our responsibility, one by one we joined him.

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

We paid him a second visit sometime after. He had begun coming out more, offering suggestions to anyone who would listen, as to how to fix the problems of “our street.” That pole there can fall any moment, you see, we need to do away with wood and get concrete poles. And oh, just look at these old cargoes here—isn’t it time we towed them away to create more space? That, we would say, is government responsibility, not ours. He would laugh and give us this superior before-you-were-I-was smile, as if we were naive little children and he was the great grandfather that knew it all.

He went from one house to the other in the early hours of the morning, a pail on his mound of dirty brown dada and, with a smile, asked for “a little drinking water, please. For the children.” Without hesitation, we filled his pail. If there were any food left over from the previous night, we gave him those, too.

When he was not talking about fixing our street, or about how it was in vain to wait for government to solve anything because government always busied itself with fixing the wrong things, he was about the place, playing War or Skilolo, or throwing summersaults with his children. We told ourselves that he had the time to do all these because he was jobless, but we watched nevertheless, we spent a great deal of time watching. Our children looked on with lustful eyes and in no time, we began coming home from work to find them all—his children, our children, and he, himself—playing on the street. With an exaggerated display of anger, we would yank our children away from him. His forehead would furrow in confusion as we walked away. We would not tell him that our anger was for ourselves and not for him.

But the strangest thing that happened was when he started calling us by our first names, though we had no memory of him ever asking or of we ever telling. It inspired in us a certain unfounded fear—a fear that he knew too much about us, that if he could, by watching us, learn our names, then perhaps he also listened, somehow, to the conversations we had in the confines of our minds and bedrooms and knew all our secrets.

So tell us about yourself, we said, standing in front of the shack he had built in place of the little tent that had been squashed by the rain. The sky was void of stars that night we paid him our second visit, robust dark clouds raced from one end to the other, covering and uncovering the moon, which shone with a sad, reluctant glow, as if it was being forced to shine, and the wind, it was thick with moisture and carried, with both hands, the smell of rot and decay from the garbage into our nostrils. We did not want to stay there long.

What is your name? we asked, pointing torches and kerosene lanterns in his face. With a calloused palm, cracked around the edges, he shielded his eyes from the glare of our lights. My name is not important he said, waving a piece of roasted corn in the air, as if literally waving aside his name. I am a human being; that’s what matters.

Where are you from?

I’ve been around the country—he beat his hand on his chest—around the world, London-New York-Paris.

Ah, finally, we thought with great relief, he is no different from all the others. Our initial conclusions were right.

You know, he said, munching on the corn, there was a problem in South Africa one time.

Is that so? We leaned closer, as if we were very interested, when, really, we were trying to hold back our laughter, because, of a sudden, everything about him seemed funny.

Oh, yes. Elephants were killing people. They were never known to give us trouble, but then at once, just like that—he snapped his fingers—they started to kill human beings, I mean pursue and kill human beings until they died. You know why? We shook our head no. We killed their parents when they were little and took them to strange places to start life on their own. Imagine, he said, pointing the corn at us, such little babies on their own in the cold, in the rain, struggling to live, no father no mother, no lover, no one to teach them right from wrong. It changed them, you know. He shrugged and continued munching. When they were big and strong enough, they started to kill us in return.

Laughing, we gave him the loaves of bread and balls of akara we had brought him and advised him to move his shack away from the garbage place, or he could even stay in any one of the old cars that dotted the street if he felt like it. He should come around sometime; we may have work for him. And yes of course, he would get paid.

After the heavy rains that fell later that night, the wind carried his voice, loud and clear, into our bedrooms. Theresa, he said, the boys and I have settled here. The people don’t understand, but they have a good heart. Can you hear me? Yes. We are waiting for you. Please find a way and come home.

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

The man’s talking became a regular feature of our nights, heard mostly by those whose houses were closest to the garbage place, who, in turn, narrated to the rest of us during the course of the day, the things he talked about. When he came to do work around our homes, we would ask about his life, about Theresa, about Nelson and Marley, his boys. They took her away, he would say, those government people, they came and took her away. Tufia! Wicked people. I don’t know why man must hate his fellow man, must treat his fellow man like animals, must take fellow man’s wife away. Now fellow man runs all over the place, looking for peace. His face would be so scrunched up and then suddenly brighten, a twinkle playing in his eyes. There is peace here, you know. I have told Theresa there is peace here. We don’t have to run anymore.

What a fool, we thought in pity, what a big, mighty fool.

When the government people were looking for us then, he would continue, many of us in that place, we went to hide, but people like you told them where we hid ourselves. People always betray people. I don’t understand it. Scratching his head and mumbling to himself, he would walk away.

We did not know precisely when it began to happen, or why it began to happen, that after we made meals, from that, which was barely enough for us, we reserved portions for his children and himself. We don’t want you to keep eating trash, we would tell him. It’s not good for your health. And why don’t you move away from this place, eh? How many times do we have to tell you?

When it rained, we talked about them beside the garbage place, out in the open, alone and shivering, the man holding his children close to his side, and many a time, after the rain stopped, we took to them bread and lipton tea and hot water with which to have a bath. We gave them our old clothes and blankets. Let your children wear these; we are tired of seeing their unclothedness and you, take away those cartons and lay the blankets on the ground.

We did not know when, also, his name started coming up in our conversations, when we hardly spoke three sentences without him being the subject of one. We did not know why we pressed naira notes in his children’s hands when they clowned about the place. We gave them instructions. Look, don’t go towards the main road, OK? Stay as far inside the street as possible. Don’t ask why, just do what we say. We did not, however, let them into our homes or stray too far when our little girls were near him.

The man’s nightly talks started to change. Theresa, he started to say, it is very good here. My brothers and sisters are taking good care of us. You should come quickly, they are expecting you. Ha, ha, ha, he would laugh. Of course, they would take care of you, too.

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

On the 22nd of July that year, the day they came looking for him, everything changed. As soon as the task force van entered our street, there was some sort of pandemonium everywhere, the kind of panic that happens when there is a sudden gunshot in a public place and everybody starts running. We ran towards the garbage place. They are here! The government people, they are here! Run! The man looked as if he could not believe it. They found me? Yes, fool! Run! He looked around, as if not sure where to run. My children! Where are my children? Just run, we said, it is you they want, run! He waded into the pond behind the garbage place and melted into the forest.

They were very eager to find him, those government people, with their oversized khaki uniforms and dark sunglasses that made them look stupid. They held their hands behind their backs and walked up and down the street, asking questions. We don’t know where he is, we told them, leave us alone.

There is a madman here, they said, we have intelligence information.

Nobody is mad on our street.

You are hiding him.

We are not hiding anybody.

Look, they said, these people are a menace to society. They make the city ugly. They cause accidents on our highways. The governor wants them off the streets. We need to take them to a place that is fitting for them.

Oh, is that right? What about the broken streetlights, the traffic lights that don’t work, the potholes on the roads, the huge mound of garbage there and those along the highways? Do those beautify our cities?\

You people put them there!

Because the government has provided no place to put them.

Look, look, look, we don’t have time for this. Where is the madman?

They marched towards us—all seven or so of them—and it looked as though they were going to start beating us with their sticks, the same kind of sticks the Fulani nomads used to keep their cattle in line. In the long van, others like our man screamed and thrashed about. Some laughed aloud, shaking from side to side. Some pressed their palms against the window panes and gazed intensely at the far horizon, as if they were seeing a vision there.

We were still deciding whether to tell the government people where our man was when one of the men in the van jumped down and started running towards the main road. His hands were bound, but he had managed to somehow untie his legs. They chased after him and caught up with him when he was near the entrance to our street. He struggled and fought with them, so they beat him with their sticks and dragged him screaming along the ground, saliva dribbling down his chin, his body covered in mud.

Yes, they said again to us, where is the madman?

Oh, we don’t know. We really do not know.

For goodness’ sake, tell us where he is!

Where are you taking them?

Does it matter?

If you take all of them to the psychiatric hospital, it would not contain them.

Oh, these people! Let us worry about that. Let us do our job. Tell us where he is.

We don’t know, we said. Leave us alone.

The disappointment on their faces was very clear. They looked as if we were hurting them. We did not care. When they left, we searched all over for our man’s little boys.

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

Later that night, our man emerged from the forest, hopping on one leg. Along the other was a gash that went deep into his flesh. He could not say how he had gotten it. My children, was all he said, where are my children? We brought them to him and he cried as he hugged them close. Our children cried with him. Leaving, he said, we have to run now; fellow man still looking for peace.

No, you can’t leave.

Why?

Look at your leg. How far do you think you can go on that?

He looked down at himself and cried the more. We gave him dettol and iodine to treat his wounds. Throughout the night, he cried. And in the early hours of the morning, we heard his voice, loud and angry. Where are they? Where are the government people? Bring them out, I’ll kill them all. I’ll finish them. No more running. Bring them out! We heard scattered, loud noises, the sounds of metal on metal, of windows smashing, of things falling. Bring them out, I say. I’ll kill them all!

He knocked on our doors. Bring them out! Now! We did not open, and when we came out to go to work or take our children to school, we did so in a hurry, making sure he was nowhere near.

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

Days later we woke up to find that the strange man had left the garbage place and was sitting naked with his children at the entrance of the street. The cars that lined the street had taken a beating from him during the previous days of his madness, crumpled figures they were now, as if they had been squeezed by a pair of mighty hands, their windows and windshields smashed. Some of the electric poles, also, had fallen to the ground, their wires strewn across the street, giving off sudden bright sparks. The whole of Life Street was upside down.

He did not speak to us as we walked past him. His bad leg had become much more swollen; thick pus, like pap, seeped from around the gash. Flies hovered about him and fat worms wiggled in and out of his rotting flesh. He looked pale, somewhat ashen in complexion, and his eyes kept closing and opening as if he was trying to resist falling asleep. Shivering, he mumbled words without meaning.

So we fried some beans and plantains and put the meal in a cooler. We stuffed some money in an envelope. We collected picture books for his children. And then went out to meet him. We have called them, we said, we have called them to come and take you away.

Yes, yes, I know. People always betray people. His voice was no longer musical, no longer sensuous, as it used to be. It was dry and rusty, as if he was making an effort to speak.

Your wound has got infected. If they don’t take you away, you will die.

Tears began to run down his cheeks. You betray me now because it means nothing to you. I am no more valuable than your goats and chickens. You can take my wife and my freedom away, because I am nothing to you. Nothing.

He was so wrong.

You think you are free. The tears were pouring like a torrent down his face and saliva was flying out of his mouth in several directions. Ha, ha, ha, no one is free; everyone is a refugee in this life, always searching, always looking for better things. But I refuse to run anymore. Let them come. I will kill them all, kill you all.

We dropped the cooler and the envelope and the picture books beside him and listened quietly as he began to sing Bob Marley’s Redemption Song. His eyes were closed as he forced the words out of his mouth in a broken melody. When he reached the chorus, we sang along with him, until he could sing no more, and his body went limp, and his breath escaped his nostrils in laboured wheezes. He was too weak to fight when the government people came and took him away.

THE END

Wow! Wow!! Wow!!! This is one hell of a read! I love this story, man. Being an epic writer is something I've always desired, can we chat over WhatsApp?

OluwabuqqyYOLO:
Wow! Wow!! Wow!!! This is one hell of a read! I love this story, man. Being an epic writer is something I've always desired, can we chat over WhatsApp?

Thanks so much for your comment. I'm glad you enjoyed the story. Would love to chat, please send me a PM and I'll forward my contacts.

SeraSera:


Thanks so much for your comment. I'm glad you enjoyed the story. Would love to chat, please send me a PM and I'll forward my contacts.

I have problems with my Email address. It's inaccessible presently. Will you, please, reach me via WhatsApp?

08153056344

OluwabuqqyYOLO:

I have problems with my Email address. It's inaccessible presently. Will you, please, reach me via WhatsApp?

08153056344

Sure, will do.

SeraSera:

Sure, will do.

Thank you.
Misspicy, come read.

dat was terrific

i wonder what inspired this kinda story..your style is unorthodox all you need is develop it..i love it!

Osjaay:
dat was terrific

Thank you.

OFMISAT9T:
i wonder what inspired this kinda story..your style is unorthodox all you need is develop it..i love it!

Glad you enjoyed my story. Thank you.