Otaare Read online

  *~*~*

  "Keep walking like that. You would wear a hole through the floor and land right in the middle of the Unilag orgy downstairs."

  The words sank in and Ukeme glared at Eze, his thought drifting to the University of Lagos crew that stayed on the floor beneath his. "They're not having orgies," he barked. "It's just a study session."

  Eze raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. His chin jutted forward the way it only did when he was about to get into an argument. Great. Just his luck. Eze was spoiling for a fight.

  "If you really think that Unilag girls would stay in a secluded room, with Unilag boys, and with absolutely no adult supervision is 'studying, '" he did air quotes over the word studying, "then you're more delusional than I thought." He clucked. "A pity. A gullible writer. What a sad, sad fate."

  "I'm not delusional," Ukeme snapped. His eyes landed on his phone. In the corner. Right beside his laptop.

  His laptop that was at the moment opened to his Twitter direct message page where—just thirty minutes ago, a message had come in from Sukanmi Williams offering Ukeme thirty million naira to stop harping about Blaze stealing his work.

  Fucker!

  "You can't let stereotypes guide you is all. Just because Unilag students have been stereotyped as…" Ukeme trailed off, searching for the right words.

  "Sluts. Lovers of everything sex and the pleasures of the flesh?" Eze supplied, looking hopeful.

  Ukeme rolled his eyes. "Free spirits," he said and resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at Eze. "It doesn't mean that those kids are involved in orgies. Even if they were, what's the big deal? As long as they're being careful and they're not causing troubles for you, what's your business with them?" he asked.

  Eze held his hands up and took a step back, looking surprised. "I was just kidding. Unilag students are cool. You know I know that. We both graduated from the school, remember?"

  Ukeme felt like crap. He rubbed his thumb over his brow trying to wish away the ache he felt. "Sorry. Just testy."

  "Are you sure it has nothing to do with the millions of naira waiting in your inbox that's getting to you?" Eze asked and walked towards where Ukeme stood. He rose to tiptoes to reach the top of Ukeme's bookshelf and pulled out a stick of weed. "Maybe a blow would ease you out."

  "No. I want to stay angry right now," Ukeme answered, but waved at Eze to go on ahead. Eze did and in moments, Ukeme's apartment was filled with the smell of burnt grass and the tangy smell of SK—the strain of weed that was Ukeme's personal favourite, tempting him to reach for the stick and forget for a moment why he felt like punching the wall.

  Then he looked at his laptop and he got angry all over again. "Fucking asshole," he hissed. "If Blaze thinks this would be resolved like this, he has no idea what's coming his way."

  He was vibrating so hard that he jerked when he felt Eze's cool fingers brush against his arm. "Are you sure Blaze knows what's happening, though?"

  "How wouldn't he know? Sukanmi's his cousin and his manager. Do you think he would do something like that behind his back?" Ukeme asked. "It's not surprising really. It's just the kind of thing his father did. How he got rich on the heads of our people; stealing from them and then offering them money to shut up when they spoke up about it."

  The silence that followed was broken by the roaring sound of an okada and the exclamations that followed. Someone had probably gotten injured. The poor guy.

  "I don't think he's the same as his father," Eze said.

  "That doesn't mean he's unaware of what his father did." Ukeme shook his head. "I take it back—what he still does."

  Eze opened his mouth to argue, then shut it. He sighed and his shoulders slumped. "I have nothing to say to that."

  "That's because you know I'm right," Ukeme said. His eyes drifted back to his laptop screen.

  "It's still pissing you off, huh?"

  "If someone offered you money to shut up and not rock the boat, wouldn't you be offended?" Ukeme tossed back. God, he needed a drink. But the clock on his wall said it was just a couple of minutes past eleven, and he needed a clear head this morning. If not for anything but to decide how best to reply Sukanmi's insulting message. It would probably be something that started with calling the asshole just that—an asshole. And ending it with Sukanmi being a slithering snake, who did everything the Johnsons asked him to.

  "Does Sukanmi look anything like Blaze?" Ukeme asked.

  Eze blinked several times. He looked like his mind was working through the reason why he was asked that question and what relationship it had with what they'd been talking about. "Huh?"

  "Sukanmi," Ukeme repeated. His hands reached for his hair to tug at it, but it was too short, driving home the point that he'd visited his barber some weeks back and asked him to give him a total shave. "What does he look like?"

  Eze shrugged. "I have no idea."

  "Thought you said he was related to Blaze," Ukeme said. "How can he be in that family and not have his face splattered all over the news?"

  "Says the person who actually watches the news," Eze said.

  He had a point.

  "He's not been on the news recently, then," Ukeme said.

  "Maybe the Williams' have managed to clean up their act," Eze said.

  "His father ran for a senatorial position two years ago."

  "But Sukanmi wasn't in the news then," Eze said.

  Ukeme's eyes drifted to Eze. "How would you know that? You said the boy stays out of the news."

  "The man was not in the country at the time." Ukeme was just about to interrupt when Eze continued. "His father mentioned it when the press turned it into this big brouhaha about his family not supporting his political ambition."

  Ukeme snorted and held out a hand when Eze glared. "Not laughing at you. Just at the thought that anyone that has Johnson blood would not be interested in politics."

  "Blaze is not in politics," Eze pointed out.

  "Not yet, anyway. Just give him time and he'll run for president of the Association of Nigerian Musicians."

  "Association of Nigerian Musicians? That doesn't exist."

  "Then he will campaign to have it established."

  "So he can run for its president?" Eze said. He rolled his eyes. "Stop trying to avoid what's staring you in the face." He made a paper-flipping motion with his hands. "Sukanmi offered you money."

  "I know."

  "What are you going to do?"

  Ukeme turned to look at his friend of decades; the man he thought knew him well enough to know exactly what he was and was not capable of. "You have got to be kidding me."

  Eze shrugged and donned an innocent expression. "What? A guy can ask."

  "It's bribe money!"

  "It's thirty million naira. That's one-hundred-thousand dollars. That's a shit load of things you can do in this country."

  "It's blood money. Money that's not his. Money his father gave him after he raped the land of our ancestors." He eyed Eze, who wasn't looking as chastened as he wanted. "Our grandfathers would be ashamed."

  "Our grandfathers would wonder why you don't just collect the money and still go on ahead to insult him everywhere you can."

  Ukeme's eyes slid to him. "Because some of us have integrity."

  "Big words," Eze hissed, punctuating it with an eye roll.

  His phone ringing was a welcoming distraction and the one thing that stopped him from lobbing something hard at Eze's head; the tableside lamp that was well within reach, for instance.

  Ukeme glanced at his screen. The number didn't look familiar, and he wondered briefly if he should just let it keep ringing. His rent wasn't due yet, but nothing said his landlord wasn't calling to inform him about something else, like maybe informing him about a rise in the amount he was to pay for rent. Knowing the man, he was probably calling Ukeme with yet another number, so he would be fooled into picking up the call.

  "Your landlord again?" Eze asked as he peered over Ukeme's shoulder at the number.

  "Maybe."
And maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was Elizabeth calling him about her publishing house having accepted his anthology for publication. His mind made up, he ran full-steam with all the possibilities the call would bring. He swiped to answer and brought the phone to his ear. "Hello?"

  All he could hear was breathing—the calm, in-and-out slurp of someone taking in air and letting it out again. Someone who, at the moment, was either clueless or playing a prank. Or maybe the person hadn't heard him the first time. "Hello," he repeated.

  The person cleared his throat. "Hello."

  Strange. Not a woman. A man. And not his landlord, either. The voice sounded too young. A bit familiar though, but no matter how much he thought about it, he just couldn't place the face to the voice.

  "I'm sorry, is this Ukeme? Ukeme Collins?"

  Ukeme stopped short and cocked his head. The voice was very obviously male, somewhat familiar, although he couldn't place where he'd heard it from. It sounded intimate, like an old friend he wanted to curl up with. And the accent was… British. No one who'd ever called him had ever had a British accent. Yes, he got the occasional American accent, especially the faux American wannabe accent, but British? This was an interesting development. "Yes, this is Ukeme." There was a beat of silence and the guy on the other end of the line didn't say anything. Ukeme considered hanging up, not willing to deal with a potential stalker or creep. But then he considered that it might just be a fan working up the courage to speak, and pressed. "Is something wrong?"

  "Oh, nothing's wrong, Ukeme. The name's Bolarinwa Johnson."

  Ukeme froze. He pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it like it was a strange object. He could have sworn that words had come out of the phone had said something like Bolarinwa Johnson was calling him.

  Ukeme didn't bother answering that. He brought the phone back to his ear. "You can't be. You see, there's no way this is Bolarinwa Johnson on the phone," he said and ignored Eze's mouth opening so wide that a buzzing fly could easily make its way into the waiting cavern. Luckily enough, Eze closed his mouth in time, although he still looked stunned. "Because first, Bolarinwa Johnson is the last person I want to be talking to right now."

  "I understand. But…"

  "Second," Ukeme continued like Blaze hadn't just tried to interrupt him. "Bolarinwa Johnson doesn't have my phone number. So, I repeat, who the fuck is this?"

  The person on the other end of the line—who was most certainly not Johnson, because life couldn't be so unfair to him—expelled a loud gust of air. "Same thing I said the first time. This is Bolarinwa Johnson."

  Yes. Life had failed him. God, too. He swung his eyes heavenward and tossed what he hoped was a thanks-a-lot-big-guy glare at the man above. "How the fuck did you get my number?" he barked.

  Blaze cleared his throat. "Via a friend."

  "You mean your godforsaken cousin who seems to do your dirty work," Ukeme corrected. His eyes swung to his laptop yet again. He couldn't see so far ahead to the details of the message but he saw the light blue color that was his Twitter profile and that sparked his anger.

  "I wouldn't consider him godforsaken or doing my dirty work," Blaze said, sounding annoyed.

  Ukeme was pissed at the calm intonation Blaze was using. Of course Blaze would be calm. He probably thought that Ukeme had already agreed to collect the money from Sukanmi and was expecting Ukeme to roll out a carpet for him and prostrate on his belly like a crawling reptile grateful for the money.

  It pissed Ukeme the fuck off.

  "Oh, really? So, having him offer me money to keep my mouth shut and stop trying to destroy the career of the great Blaze is not considered dirty work," Ukeme scoffed.

  "Wait. What?!"

  "Oh, I see. Of course you won't consider that dirty work. You probably think dirty work refers to the one your house-help does. You know. Scrubbing your toilets and floors. Those are the jobs you wouldn't touch."

  "I don't have maids. I clean my apartment myself," Blaze said.

  Ukeme gave a derisive snort. How like the rich to try and beautiful the word, when every Nigerian knew that maids were just a step above house-helps: the Nigerian home's version of the sweatshop workers, with the shitty pay, the constant abuse, and the lack of respect.

  "How bourgeois of you to call them maids instead of house-help. It doesn't make what they do any different," Ukeme said.

  "Obviously, it does, considering the fact that they're not helping me with my house at the moment," Blaze said.

  "Whatever. And that's not even the point," Ukeme said.

  "Ah, yes. The point. The point where you accuse me of getting my cousin to offer you money to stop making libelous claims against my person in social media."

  "Libelous claims? Your person." Ukeme laughed. "You have got to be kidding me. Talk about having a stick up your butt. Who talks like that? Your person. Bullshit! Your person deserves everything I've said and so much more. Libel. Libel my ass. You are the one plagiarizing my work!"

  What was he even doing? Having an argument about house-help and Blaze's use of the word 'person'. Who would have thought that in a phone argument, he would lose all intelligence in a quick repartee?

  "Plagiarism." Blaze chuckled and the sound grated on Ukeme's nerves. Fucking cocky asshole. He pushed the thought that that might not be the only reason why the sound annoyed him. "How the fuck is that plagiarism?"

  "Careful there, superstar," Ukeme said. "We don't want your fans hearing you say something so X-rated."

  "Fuck you."

  "You wish," Ukeme tossed back. "You wish you could fuck me."

  What the fuck? Where had that come from? He heard a sound and turned to look at Eze, who was holding onto a chair, bent over it in pain.

  He reached to help him, but Eze lifted his head at that exact moment. Nope. Not in pain. His best friend was, at the moment, doubled over in laughter. He was obviously not sympathetic to the strange turn the conversation had just taken.

  "Dude, if you laid yourself bare right now and begged me to, I wouldn't fuck you. Hell, I wouldn't even fuck you if you paid me to."

  Fuck.

  Ukeme pulled the phone away from his ear and closed his eyes. He could picture that face, see that flash in those dark eyes, could feel the cold heat, that freezing note that made him flinch.

  Worse still, he had no idea why he gave a fuck that Bola Johnson had no interest in fucking him. Why that realization hurt.

  "Well, good, that we both agree on that. I have no interest on fucking you either. What matters is that you stole my words and didn't even acknowledge me as the writer in all your interviews. 'I was inspired by enemies turned into friends. Haters turned into lovers'," Ukeme said, mimicking Bolarinwa's voice. "Give me a break! What a load of bullshit!"

  "So, your only concern is that there was no note saying you inspired it? You think you're the only one who has Otaare," Bolarinwa asked with a laugh. "Everyone has enemies that bring good things, not just you, so get off your high horse."

  "My high horse," Ukeme spluttered. "You have got to be kidding me. You're the same as your fucking father. Stealing from the people, accusing them of being troublesome bothers who never shut up. And then offering them money when the noise became too much, only to be dissatisfied when that still didn't get them to stop making so much noise. What a joke!"

  "Do not insult my father." The words came out in a hiss.

  Ukeme laughed, his words devoid of humour. "The son of a thief has a problem with his father being called a thief. You're a thief. Your father's a thief, and your cousin is an obnoxious prick. Sorry to be the one to take off your blinders. You can take that thirty-million and shove it. Even better, shove it up your collective asses seeing that the money is probably coming from your bank account!"

  A beeping sound answered his words, and he stared at his screen that read "call disconnected".

  Son of a bitch had hung up on him.

  "Argh!"

  "Interesting choice of words," Eze said dryly. He was balanced on the
rung of the chair, grinning at Ukeme.

  "If you break that chair, you're replacing it and the table you broke last month, and you're paying for the glass you tossed a ball through last year," Ukeme snapped at him.

  "Someone's getting testy," Eze said, looking amused and sounding unconcerned. "I'm not the one you're so pissed at, so maybe you should ease up a bit."

  "Don't tell me what to do," Ukeme said.

  Eze pushed up from the chair and sat down on it. "What are you going to do?"

  "If he thinks I was causing unnecessary trouble before, he has no idea what is coming after him now."

  "I take it you're not taking the money then?" Eze asked.

  Ukeme scowled at him.

  Eze lifted his hands up to the sky with a laugh. "Just kidding. Sheesh. Don't kill me. I'm not Bolarinwa Johnson." He dug out a tangerine and then tossed it in the air several times. His eyes slid to Ukeme.

  Ukeme knew that look. It was what followed just before Eze was about to ask an inappropriate question and something told him he wasn't going to be prepared for whatever words were about to fall out of Eze's mouth.

  "So, tell me," Eze said and his face brightened into a big grin. "Does he sound as sexy over the phone as he does on stage?"

  Ukeme tossed the throw pillow at Eze's head.

  chapter three

  "Sukanmi Ifeanyi Williams," Bola roared. "Get your ass in here right now so I can kill you with my bare hands."

  Sukanmi's sense of preservation was pretty high. It had been way up when they were kids and kept getting into scrapes that would otherwise have gotten them whipped within an inch of their lives. But they never got whipped, because Sukanmi knew when he had to turn on the charm. Many a teacher let them go with a simple warning when Sukanmi smiled winsomely, following it up with a complete apology that involved prostrating several times over. That usually sealed the deal and they got off with a verbal warning.