Ladi laughs mostly with his crossed eyes. He snorts and jumps and kicks anything solid before him, including me.

People call Ladi an imbecile. He walks with his tongue out, and when we’re playing out in the dust, Ladi makes food out of everything he finds: tin cans, elephant grass, rotten mangoes, even snails. He once got severely injured while chewing on an old razor; I found him in the backyard chewing and snickering, and bleeding profusely—he looked like a vampire in his stained denim shorts and a rusted button-down shirt.

Ladi cannot tell pain from sweetness, he gets excited when he aches and bleeds; he could laugh in a python’s chokehold. It’s just as if God took his senses and planted an oasis of laughter in his chest, and this is where I envy him. What’s important is that Ladi is my only friend on this street, and he’s been lost since two o’clock yesterday afternoon.

 I’m Dina, and if you’re on a bus passing under the Orji fly-over in Owerri; you’re likely to see me in an Ankara skirt, loose and scorned by threads breaking free from its hem, and a frayed crop top. I always keep my legs neatly crossed and my hands gingerly over my makeshift pillow. I might be homeless, but I’m posh regardless—I almost blend in with the fading posters on the wall; I’m tranquil. This is why Ladi is my only friend. Friends should take care of each other, should they not? So, sorry. You won’t see me by the flyover today—just my pillow. I have gone to find Ladi. Tell your yeye driver not to dirty my pillow with dust.

Ladi lives with an aunt who is secretly his mother. Okay, it’s not a secret, but we pretend it is — that Ladi is not aunty Chika’s illegitimate son she got from her time as a sex worker in Lagos—that it’s not because of her heavy drug abuse that Ladi is the way he is; that she’s not ashamed of Ladi, and lets him in their house only at midnight when nobody is watching, and throws him out again when the sun is still in the sky’s pouch.

I knock for minutes before I hear shuffling feet. The smell of Igbo and fried eggs fight its way into my nostrils and down my throat. I choke. It’s not aunty Chika that answers her door, but she’s in aunty Chika’s state of mind, and her clothes too.

“Who you be? Who you find come?”

I swear, I want to close my nose, but this woman’s height is as though she could reach Onitsha’s main market by just shifting her heels. Her arms are sturdy like pestles, her eyes red and watery like palm oil. She isn’t somebody I’d want to offend. Maybe this is a story of how I am smoking my first igbo indirectly.

“Aunty, Ladi nko?”  this comes out rough, my throat, irritated by the fumes slamming into my face.

“Lukadiswan! You no fit greet? Wetin I resemble?”

“Ah! Aunty, you be better baby oku, gumorin, I dey find Ladi since yesterday. Aunty Chika dey?” She can see me tremble, and her face thaws. She walks into the house cackling.

“Babe, Ladi girlfriend dey find am oh! Come check weda dem don give am belle!”

Aunty Chika slouches out with a scowl tattooed on her face. The drunkenness in her eyes matches her foulbreath.

“Ladi dey owe you?”

“No ma! But en never come flyover since yesterday evening. I say make I check am, no vex.”

“Mtchewww. Idiot.”  She walks off as though there is a coffin waiting for her inside, and her legs are eager for relief. I walk off too, I have to find Ladi before he chews on car batteries, or worse.

The neighbors—two elderly women with drooping flesh that seem to repel clothes. Their wrappers are done in loose knots below their breasts. They tell me, with much pleasure, that Ladi had come home when aunty Chika was heavily drunk, and he was cursed and flogged away with sticks. I walk away.              

*

On the day I met Ladi, the sun shone like the earth had stolen its lover. It was the same day Mama woke me up at midnight, bags packed without explanation. I had been sharing my naked bed with uncertainty, but at least I had the larger portion, which meant I could push it off and sleep properly like my Baba’s daughter. You see, stories had been crawling around that mama was a dirty lying cheat, and that I was not my Baba’s daughter. The mama that raised me was nothing close to dirty, she rarely spoke, and when she did, it was as soft as cotton wool—as though if she spoke too loudly it would burn her tongue. The only conversations mama and I had were not really conversations: she would call me to the kitchen, tell me to close my eyes and open my mouth widely; I’d count to ten in my head before the salt-washed smoked fish collapsed in my mouth, and I would act surprised. Mama would tickle my armpits afterwards and whisper in my ear as I jerked with laughter:

“You trust me too much, what if it was sand?” This made me laugh even more—the thought of my mother stooping in the backyard to pack sand like a child, while the wind blew her skirt. Mama was just my mother and my strict Baba’s wife. Whenever mama put me to bed, she stopped at the mirror in the corridor leading to the sitting room and reminded herself of the fact:

“I am just Dina’s mother and Jana’s wife. I am grateful.” Somehow, this declaration was what put me to sleep each night, and not the songs she sang to me. Mama had this air about her like she was suppressing a lot of emotions inside her, like she would have rather screamed in the open air than speak softly to baba even when he barked at her.

Baba talked as though his sharing the same air with us was something we should grovel to express our gratitude for. At the dining table, he would scratch the black bumps hidden in his grey beard. Instead of saying the grace, he reminded us of how much he spent on every single item on the dining table: the porcelain plates, the table clothes, the glass cups, the chairs, everything. At the end, he would wash his hands in the bowl provided, and say: “Just be grateful,” with his eyes fixed on mama. We always ate in silence, the supposedly tasty food, now sand on my tongue.Nothing was ever sweet after Baba’s ramble. One day, I asked Baba why he never gave thanks to Jesus, as we were taught in fellowship, and he just ate silently. That night, I would hear him scream at Mama:

“You see how ungrateful you and your child are! You see!”

*

Wherever I went in Hadejia— our street in Nasarawa—it was like a Qibla was always pointing in my direction, ‘Look, a fruit of sin! Kafir.’  We were among the few Christian families that lived on Hadejia road. Baba and Mama had lived in Hadejia their whole lives, and so had I until Mama handed uncertainty a pestle and it hit me off my bed, my bags and all, into a bus headed for the east. The night before was a normal night, except that Baba came in drunk to the dining table, his work shirt was missing its first two buttons, and had little red stains all over it. Biting her lips, Mama would  bring our food, and Baba would begin his ramble—this time, a drunken ramble, his foul breath settling on our meal of waina, twisting me up with nausea. I had tried forcing myself to eat, and I ended up retching into a toilet bowl. I was washing my face with the cool water when I heard a crash, a muffled scream, and my Baba’s slurred voice: “Karuwa! Whore! you still think about him, don’t you?! After bringing you into this house with your bastard child! Look here, I have only loved you, talk! Are you dumb already? Do you think I don’t see the way you brood all day? Tell me who would have married you, tell me!”

I walked out to see Mama pressed down against the dining table, Baba’s hands tight around her neck. Next thing, I was at Baba’s feet crying, begging, and swearing that Mama would never repeat whatever it was she did. I must have fallen asleep at Baba’s feet, because I woke very early the next morning with dried-up mucus in my nostrils. Mama came in, bags in hand, and I did not need to ask anything. I was not my Baba’s daughter. Why else were Mama’s tears mixing with her sweat, each fighting to make a statement. Why else would she put me on a bus and pretend to go buy food for us, only to disappear? I was unwanted—an itchy scab.

The sun seemed to agree that I was a problem, and I lowered my head, the sweltering bus my penitentiary. My crime was in my every breath. How could I be forgiven when, without shame, I still let myself respire? Kafir. Some eleven hours later and we arrived in Owerri, the sun lying low. My first time witnessing the sunset without the “Subhanaka Allahumma. . .” that accompanied it. Now I wondered if they knew that I was in the East too, though not in Mecca. When they knelt, would the same Qibla that singled me out as rotten also declare me lost? In need. Alone. What would Mama tell Pastor Joseph happened to his lead singer? Would she declare me lost and bear the heavy guilt of having the congregation summon the Holy Ghost for nothing? Or was I the only ignorant one here? Excluded from my own life.

I had been sitting on the concrete floor of Owerri’s Peace Mass Transit depot, and whenever passersby probed me I told them I was waiting for my mother. It was my way of driving around the truth, “I am waiting for my Mother, she is coming for me.” I felt it, the truth closing in on me with dusk and a pale sickle moon. By 10 p.m., I could no longer hide under the façade of an emerging mother figure, so I hid under the flyover instead, too ashamed of my will to live to mutter a prayer, too scared to breathe freely. The posters on the walls followed me with every stir: eyes of political aspirants, pastors and apostles, people drinking coke and Heineken, all staring at me with knowing eyes.

As the night darkened, the eyes on the walls began to soften, and so did my fear. Then came the rough hands on my thighs and the hoarse ‘Aboki’ from a rusted throat that did not at all sound friendly, the pale moonlight, a scar curved like a banana and the length of an index finger, gleamed below his left eye. The rest of his features blended in my mind. I began kicking, trying to scream, but it seemed I had swallowed my voice in fear. I wished he would just knock me out and do whatever it was he wanted. I was too tired, too hungry to even fight. I did not want to remember this night, the night of the day everything conspired against me—Mama, Baba, the Celestial bodies, the eyes on the wall, my voice. Everything. I resigned to my fate and closed my eyes as he brushed my skirt upwards and did away with my underpants. Only when the briny taste of my blood flooded my mouth did I realize that I had been biting down on my lower lip.

In the shadows, a figure plodded towards us making strange noises, the banana-scarred man hardly looked up or noticed, scuffling with his belt of sack ropes and thin red wires. On cue, Ladi would arrive,  snickering and resurrecting the scream in my throat. Alert, Ladi, lunged at the man on top of me, filling his face with his boxcar fists, the banana-scarred man grunted in surprise and pain, and slouched out as he came, as though his every step were a mistake he would rather not stress over again. I muttered a prayer, thanking God that proper belts didn’t reach people like him, thanking God for Ladi, whom I offered a sachet of oats from the half roll Mama had packaged for me. We sat, Ladi and I, side by side, silent and wide-eyed until the sun crept out once more for another bout of judgement. Then we strolled the streets picking up rags which became my makeshift pillow. Yes, Ladi walked with his tongue dangling, but he was the only one who did not conspire against me that day—a friend, a saviour. So, when people began to identify me as mad too, I had no problem with it. Better to be mad than alone and unsafe.

*

Now you see why I must find Ladi, my crossed-eyed savior with an oasis of laughter in his chest. The sun has begun to fill the sky with pink as a decoy to cover up its retreating figure, and fear lodges its black self in my throat. The dreaded night is upon me. All is growing dark,  in and outside of me. This might be another day that the good Lord has created as a whip for my unworthy back, a day to recall my sins. A day to be ashamed of this vile habit of indulging my respiratory tract. As we all know, when the Lord says no, nobody can say yes. I begin walking back to the flyover, hoping that maybe Ladi has come looking for me, perhaps he’ll snicker and snort and kick me. I imagine his crossed eyes looking at me yet away from me, and the laughter crinkles like streaks of lightning. I imagine that he will be there — it is my way of driving around the truth: “I have to get back, Ladi is waiting for me.” And once again, the truth clubs me in the face. Ladi is not here, and I am alone, in possible danger, with all the forces of above and below, shaking their heads in disgust. Once again, my Qibla points everything in my direction: Kafir. The eyes on the wall—some well acquainted with me, and some new, they all impale me with their unblinking eyes. The sky looks at me with an apathetic, almost scornful milky eye. I am, here in the dark, awaiting judgement.

When judgement comes in, it comes in plural form. Red eyed, smelling like igbo, bare-chested, foul-mouthed men; “Aboki!” one of them calls, laughs and does the Michael Jackson dance—holds his groin and pumps his lower body back and forth. I grab my now dusty pillow and I begin to run, and run, maybe with my eyes closed in prayer, because I ram into a bare chest that pushes me out of it. There are two men at my back, and two at my front, one I can identify by his gleaming banana scar;  he has no belt on him now, and is altogether naked. I am pinned down on the cold tarred road, and because one day is for the thief, and another for the owner, they take turns, as I wonder which I am: thief or owner?  They exclaim each after the other as if they have discovered something life changing—a world wonder. They scamper away as quickly as they came; when I try to stand, a searing pain like a jagged scissor cut in-between my thighs, sits me back down. I look down, and I see no blood. And, what is heartbreaking is that time doesn’t bend in pain. The sky sits still and looks on truthfully.It is nothing—what just happened to me is nothing to anything but myself, inconsequential. I pick up my pillow, lay down my head, and I laugh, I laugh until steamy tears flood my eyes, even when my nose begins to run, I laugh still.

It is morning now, and Ladi is still not here; my body throbs in pain. I once started to feel like the main character and wheel stirrer of my life, but the Lord says “He who lifts himself up, shall be thrown down.” I am thrown down, and even lower than myself are my feet—moving importantly, without caring for my opinion. I ask my feet, “where are you taking us?” and it replies; “To look for Ladi.” I feel myself age as my feet carry me forward.

We look for Ladi, street to street, face to face, snicker to snicker, insult to insult. I am squeezed and contorted on the inside, but my feet continue to move with ultimate purpose, and my mind refreshes every moment with a memory of Ladi, because, maybe I loved him, and perhaps I feel a little guilty of that feeling inside me that doesn’t want to find him safe and unbothered. Maybe I need to learn a few things from him, relearn how to laugh because it feels like I had my last laugh hours ago.

I find myself on the narrow and rowdy streets of Ama JK, and it propels me towards a crowd of cooing and cawing women and men staring into a gutter like there is a live show going on in it. The women are exclaiming, some dragging their children away or shielding their eyes with their gowns, wrappers, or money aprons.

“Obara Jesus kpakwa oke!” “Kedu ọdịka Motor mere nwa ihea!” “Anya m afụgo ịhe ooo, chai!” “Driver nke a agaghị ahụ ihe ọma n’ụwa!”

I find my feet inside the gutter, beside Ladi’s unmoving body. His head is twisted to one side, as though there has been a rough disagreement between it and his neck, which is now garbed in congealed blood. Ladi looks as though he is auditioning for the role of a contortionist in a movie. I find my selfish hands on his chest, pushing frantically so a little of his oasis of laughter would spill. So they could carry it with me, and remind me how to laugh; they (my hands) lift his head, and right there on enviable Ladi’s ashen face, is half a snicker.

About the Author:

James-Ibe Chinaza is a writer and a human, among a plethora of other things she is unaware of. She is an inebriated fan of sunsets, music, and photography. Poetry is her way of saving herself; prose is her way of becoming. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Arts Lounge and The Shallow Tales Review, as well as in the Kalahari Review, Agbowo, Fiery Scribe, Cons-cio, and Brittlepaper. She was shortlisted for the 2023 Sehvage Literary Prize for Creative Non-Fiction and emerged as second runner-up in the 2023 Ikenga Short Story contest. She currently serves as the prose editor II of The Muse Journal No. 51. She goes by James-Ibe Chinaza on Facebook and X, and yellowin_teeth on Instagram. 

*Feature image by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash