Blackass (21 page)

Shortly before five Arinze stuck his head into the doorway and asked Furo if he had met his driver, if he had seen his car, and then told him that the car was Haba! property and should be treated as such, that after work it should be parked at Furo’s house, never at the driver’s. ‘Victor can’t be trusted,’ Arinze said. ‘Give him an inch and he’ll use your car as a taxi.’ Advancing into the office, he handed the car key to Furo and told him to always make sure to collect it from the driver after he was dropped off. And finally he asked, ‘Are you happy with things so far?’

‘I am,’ Furo replied.

‘Perfect,’ Arinze said. ‘I have a client for you. Let’s meet in the morning, at nine, my office.’ A pause, a nibbling of the bottom lip, and then: ‘Have a good day, Mr Whyte.’

Furo departed his office at five sharp to find Headstrong perched on the bonnet of the First Lady, and after handing over the car key he slipped into the front seat, then slammed his door in echo of the gale force with which Headstrong had closed his. While Headstrong poked at the ignition, Furo noted that the car had neither radio nor air conditioning; but the engine started without any trouble. Headstrong swung out of the car park and sped forwards over the bumpy ground, as rough a driver as expected. Again, as Furo feared, Headstrong began to talk as soon as they hit the road. In a podium voice, with frequent glances away from traffic, he went on about this and that but all related to his goal to travel overseas, anywhere was good so long as it wasn’t Africa, though South Africa wasn’t bad, there were white people there, and didn’t Furo think that black people were their own worst enemy, if not, then how come suffering followed the black man like flies follow shit; but Furo should know, he lived in Nigeria, he could see for himself – and how come he had a Nigerian accent, how long had he lived in this rubbish country?

‘All my life,’ Furo answered in a voice sunk low by fatigue.

That was what it felt like to him, that all his life would be spent listening to the prattle of a man he must ride with five days a week, in traffic and in a car that lacked even the comfort of a radio. On entering the car, he had shunned the back seat, the owner’s corner. Sitting in front had seemed the right thing to do, as much for the view as for the sake of the driver’s feelings, but that decision now proved a blunder. Seeing the superabundance of saliva that Headstrong secreted, clearly in his case for lubrication, he was genetically equipped to talk for ever. These churlish thoughts of Furo’s were presently interrupted by a loaded silence, into which he ventured:

What did you say?’

‘But how come?’ Headstrong repeated.

‘How come what?’

In a tone of exasperated emphasis, Headstrong said, ‘How come you’ve lived in Nigeria all your life? Why haven’t you left?’

‘Because I like it here,’ Furo said.

And yet, and yet, even through all the painful years? The migration stories were always there, floating around like redemption songs in the rundown auditoriums and overflowing hostels of his university. He knew countless people who had chosen that path. Professors, students, even a girl in second-year zoology whom he had fancied from afar. Some had left from university and the others had gone in droves in the years after graduation, westward-bound through air and over water and across the Sahara sands. And yet, and yet, he had never been tempted, never thought of migrating, of seeking asylum in the sunless paradises of the world. Not then, not now, not yet. He knew why he remained, but Headstrong would never believe him, especially if he told him everything that he couldn’t. Some are born to love a mother who devours her young, a nation that destroys her own, but not Furo. He had never loved enough to be disheartened.

Headstrong regained his voice. ‘Either you’re joking or you’re mad!’ he burst out. His tone was shrill, and he kept looking away from the road as he addressed Furo, he kept showering spit in his direction. ‘Nobody can tell me that they like living in Nigeria. Except that person doesn’t have any sense at all, at all. Even if you have all the money in the world – you see that pothole, you see what I mean, where are the good roads? You don’t know what you’re saying! OK, let me ask you this one, what about light? You like NEPA, abi? Is it because you have money to buy generator? So what about petrol? Tell me now, how can you run your generator when fuel scarcity is everywhere? And what of armed robbers? What of kidnappers? Ah, OK, what of Boko Haram? You like them too? Police, nko? Apart from standing on road to be collecting money from innocent people, what work are those ones doing? Or even …’

On he went, his voice flailing at Furo.

Furo’s position was now unbearable. His skin crawled from drying spit, his buttocks ached with renewed malice, and a deep flush was burning across his face. Other commuters were staring into the car, as startled as he was by the spectacle of the oyibo being screamed at by his driver. He had to do something to regain control, to restrain Headstrong’s belligerence. No longer would he stand for the micro aggressions and blatant rudenesses he had gotten from Headstrong ever since the first day they met. He was the boss here – he wasn’t mates with this ordinary driver. Even Arinze wouldn’t talk to him this way. Neither would Syreeta, the only person he owed anything to. Headstrong was out of bounds and needed putting in his place.

‘Shut up!’ Furo yelled at the top of his voice. In the stunned silence, he took several deep breaths before saying in a threatening tone, ‘Look here, Mr Ikhide, I’ve had enough. What gives you the right to speak to me that way? You’re my driver, just stick to your job. In fact, another word out of you and I will report this matter to the MD!’

‘I’m sorry,’ Headstrong murmured without looking over. His balled hands tightened their grip on the steering wheel as he added: ‘Please don’t tell MD.’

‘You talk too much, it has to stop,’ Furo said, stern-voiced. There was more he wanted to say, especially about the spitting, but already he was growing weary of playing boss, and so he finished in a softened tone, ‘I’ll forgive you this time, but watch yourself.’

By the time the car arrived at Oniru Estate Furo was wondering if perhaps he had been too harsh. Since the telling-off, Headstrong had remained silent and fixed his attention on the world in front of the windscreen, and Furo now regretted the loss of ease between them. But he resolved that the quiet was worth the tension, and after Headstrong, following his instructions, parked the First Lady behind Syreeta’s Honda, then got down, locked the doors, and handed over the key, all of this done in silence, Furo claimed the final word: ‘Report here tomorrow morning by six o’clock. You have my number, call me when you arrive.’

Furo planned that night to inform Syreeta of his name change and then borrow money from her to make another passport, but he was exhausted from his first day of work; and, also, they had so much to discuss already – his first-ever office, his disappointing car, his early impressions of his colleagues, his very own laptop which needed a carrying bag, his masterful handling of the driver’s impertinence; and not forgetting his wish to stay on longer in her apartment, a question to which she responded yes with reassuring promptness – that in the end he decided there was no hurry, it could wait, he didn’t need the passport anyway until September; and, again, in spite of his fatigue, he would rather make love to her than explain why he’d adopted a new name; and so, perhaps because she had missed him all day, but certainly, on his part, because his confidence was raging from his improved circumstances, Furo and Syreeta fucked relentlessly that night.

At the nine o’clock meeting on Tuesday morning, Arinze gave Furo a crash course in sales. Lesson over, he handed Furo his company ID card, a pack of business cards, and a bundle of branded bookmarks that Furo was to present to clients as gifts. The business cards – a simple design of green text on a white background, with ‘Haba! Nigeria Ltd’ stamped on the flip side – bore Furo’s mobile number underneath ‘Frank Whyte’ and his email address underneath ‘Marketing Executive’. Seen in print, his name felt the more his and his title gave him purpose. His plastic ID card displayed a colour photo of an unsmiling man with a buzz of carroty hair and eyes the colour of sun-warmed seawater. It was a face that startled Furo less and less.

After the meeting ended, Furo returned to his office and summoned Headstrong to lug down the carton of sample books that Arinze had selected. To aid Furo in his sales pitch, Arinze had printed out a memo whose first three sheets had the books’ descriptions, snippets of promotional reviews, their list prices and discount ratios. On the penultimate sheet were details about the client company and its owner, Mr Ernest Umukoro; while the last sheet contained some FAQs about Haba! as well as Arinze’s answers, which were in red. Armed with this information, Furo set off for Gbagada, where the company was located. The company name was TASERS, Total Advertising Services. It employed forty-six people, the memo said.

On the drive down, Furo sat in the back seat with the carton of books beside him, and as the silent Headstrong steered the car with steady hands and a ramrod neck, Furo looked through the books. There were twelve titles, two copies of each, twenty-four books in all. He found some titles he had heard of before, even seen vendors flogging in traffic. One such was
Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done.
Another was
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Furo knew
The 7 Habits
well, his father owned a copy whose tattered cover used to be a constant sight around the house, and over the years as Furo searched for a job he had picked it up many times with the intention to read but hadn’t ever gotten around to achieving this. Apart from the pain in his neck, his scepticism was blameworthy for his inability to dig into that marker-highlighted bible of his father’s. His highly ineffective, chicken-farming father. A man as blind to his ironies as those book vendors who sweated while wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan
My money grows like grass.
At least the vendors were disciplined in their execution, they got things done. More to the point, they weren’t sold on the books they were selling.

Returning
The 7 Habits
to the carton, Furo resolved again to read it – if only the pain in his neck would allow him. At this thought, he jolted forwards in his seat, raised his left hand to rub his neck, swung his head side to side and worked his jaws, then clamped his mouth shut and composed his face as Headstrong cast a startled look in the rear-view mirror.

The pain in his neck was gone.

TASERS was on the top floor of an eight-storey building whose elevator didn’t light up when Furo jabbed the buttons. In a far corner of the lobby the uniformed porter was playing a game of draughts with a rifle-bearing police officer, and when Headstrong, at Furo’s command, walked over to the porter to ask if the elevator was ever coming, the man raised a hand and pointed out the staircase without looking up from the draughtboard. Furo crossed to the unlit stairwell, waited some seconds for his vision to adjust to the shock of darkness, and then, as the sound of Headstrong’s footsteps approached behind him, he set off at a sprint. But five floors up he ran out of breath, staggered huffing on to the landing, then hunched over to find his wind. He was in that position when Headstrong arrived with the carton of books balanced on his head and his mobile phone held out before him, its screen lighting his path. He continued on with his light and load, the echo of his footsteps fading above Furo’s head. Furo waited for the sweat on his face to dry before he resumed his ascent, and as his heavy feet delivered him on to the last-but-one floor, Headstrong jogged past on his way down.

At the stairhead, the door marked TASERS was ajar. Through the gap Furo sighted the carton of books on the reception counter. The flaps hung open. Standing close by was a woman whose sleek black hairpiece was styled like a geisha’s hairdo. She was holding one of the books, flipping through it, but as Furo pushed past the door, her hand stilled in the splayed pages, and she turned around. Furo halted, said good morning, and after the woman returned his greeting, he said: ‘I’m here to see Mr Umukoro. I’m from Haba! Nigeria Limited. My name is Frank Whyte.’

The woman cocked her head and asked, ‘What of Mr Arinze?’ she asked.

‘He sent me,’ Furo replied. ‘I’m the new marketing executive.’

The woman’s face cleared. ‘Marketing executive,’ she said, drawling the words and nodding slowly. ‘It seems Haba! is moving up.’ She extended her hand to the open carton, placed the book in it, and after closing the flaps, she said in a tone that strove to be casual, ‘Your boss usually comes himself. You know he has been trying to sell us books since last year?’ At Furo’s silence, she gave a small smile and said, ‘I’ll tell oga you’re around.’ She strode to a glass-panelled door, buzzed it open and stepped into a long passage, and some time later, through the closed door, Furo heard another door open. He turned away from the door and swept a glance around the reception area, but his mind was elsewhere. In light of the information he’d just got from the woman, that Arinze himself had been to TASERS to sell books – a detail he neglected to mention during their meeting – Furo realised he needed a fresh strategy.

What had Arinze told him this morning?
Know your strategy beforehand.
Because of what he now knew, what he’d just learned, that was a fail.
Convince the client that what you’re selling is what he needs.
But Arinze, over several visits, hadn’t succeeded in that.
Once you get the client talking, the sale is halfway made.
That was it. Furo could feel the seismic tremors of an idea taking shape in his mind, and decided to plant his trust in the impromptu. He would forego any introductions other than a greeting and the handing over of his business card, following which he would spread out the sample books and then ask the client which of the titles he had read. With this new strategy, Furo thought he stood a chance of getting the client talking; and when the door swung open, after the woman announced that oga was ready to see him, he reached for the carton of books, but she said no, leave it, I insist, I’ll have someone bring it in. Without his conversation starter his plan was a non-starter. And so he told the woman not to bother, but she marched forwards and nudged his hand away from the carton, shook her head at his protestations, and said in a firm voice as she guided him by the elbow towards the door: ‘There’s no way I’m letting you carry that heavy load.’