Lagoon (27 page)

CHAPTER 56

THE SWORDFISH

She swims around the alien home that was in the water three times. Three is a magic number to her. Her most memorable moments happen in threes. She'd never seen the massive ones in her entire life, until one day while swimming far from land she saw three of them. Though they could stay underwater for a long time, they could not breathe it as she could. She'd enjoyed watching them meander to the surface and blow water out of a hole in the top of their heads. On the best day of her life, she'd eaten not one, not two, but three of her favorite fish in a row. And it had taken her three tries at spearing the dead snake thing in the water to make the dry creatures go away for good. They are gone for good. Yes, she is sure of this.

So she swims around the underwater part of the visitors' home three times. As she does so, she inhales the sweet, sweet water. Her gills are enormous now. Her body is huge. She matches perfectly the golden light filtering through the clear water. Then she swims away. South. She swims out to sea, to see what she can see.

CHAPTER 57

SPIDER THE ARTIST

I am the unseen.

For centuries, I have been here. Beneath this great city, this metro­
polis. I know your language. I know all languages. Legba is my cousin, and he has taught me well. My cave is broad and cool. The sun cannot send its heat down here. The damp soil is rich and fragrant. I turn softly on my back and place my eight legs to the cave's ceiling. Then, I listen.

I am the spider. I see sound. I feel taste. I hear touch.

I spin the story. This is the story I've spun.

I am Udide Okwanka.

I have been spinning these stories in this cave for centuries. I've spun the birth and growth of this great city. Watched through the vibrations that travel through my webs. Lagos. Nigeria. I know it all because I created it all. I have seen people come from across the ocean. I have seen people sell people. I've knitted their stories and watched them knit their own crude webs. They came in boats that creaked a desperate song and brought something I'd never have created. Lagos has fed me. Fast life, fast death. High life, low life. Skyscrapers, shanty towns. Flies, mosquitoes. The roads rumble as paths to the future, always hungry for blood. The Bone Collector will always be one of my favorite children. Ijele is my cousin.

I have watched, heard, tasted, touched these new people.

Shape-shifters of the third kind. Story weavers of their own time.

I respect them.

They brought Agu, Adaora, and Anthony together. Adaora the brave. Agu the strong. Anthony the energetic. I know their stories as I know all
stories. Do you want to know how their stories end? Do you want to
know what happens to Chris? Does he get back together with his wife?
Or will Adaora stay with Agu? What of Kola and Fred? What is
Anthony's place in the new world? Yes, you want to know. We all want
to know things.

But I feel the press of other stories.

I wove that which Adaora draws from to practice her witchcraft. I wove that which gives Agu his leopard's strength. Anthony's life became part of my web when he first set foot in Lagos. I know the one who wove his rhythm. Anansi is my cousin. Anthony has always been within my reach. Fisayo's destiny was written. The boy with no name had no destiny until I wrote that part of the story. Father Oke was destined to meet one of my cousins. The young man Benson and the other soldiers—they are all part of my great tapestry.

And now the world sees what is happening inside of Lagos and her waters. What is that sweet taste I feel with my feet? It is patriotism, loyalty. Not to the country of Nigeria but to the city of Lagos. Finally. Maybe it will flow and spread like a flood of clean water. What a story that would be. The waters off the coast are treacherous. They are clean. It is beautiful. But there is a problem. Other people in other parts of the world—they see what is happening here. And they fear it. They are agreed. Lagos is a cancer. They wish to cut the cancer out before it spreads. I will not let them. I don't know who will launch them, but these people are all in communication, so all are involved in the decision.

They will burn it away before it spreads.

I will not let them.

For the first time since the birth of Lagos, my glorious city, I will
pause in my storytelling.

I will leave my web.

I become part of the story.

I will join my people.

And we spiders play dirty.

SOME NIGERIAN WORDS, PHRASES, AND PIDGIN ENGLISH TERMS

419
—a highly successful strain of advance-fee Internet fraud popularized in Nigeria, which appears most often in the form of an e-mailed letter. The number “419” refers to the article (sectioned into 419, 419A, 419B) that deals with fraud in Chapter 38 of the Nigerian Criminal Code Act (“Obtaining Property by False Pretences: Cheating”).

Adofuroo
—a derogatory term for homosexuals in the Yoruba language

Ah-ah
—for goodness' sake

Ahoa
—Nigerian foot soldiers

Am
(Pidgin English)—she, he, or it

Anuofia
—an insult that literally means “wild animal” in the Igbo language.
Anu
means “animal,”
ofia
means “forest.”

Area Boys
(also known as Agberos)—loosely organized groups of street children and teenagers (mostly male) who roam the streets of Lagos

Chale
(Ghanaian Pidgin English)—a terminal intensifier that is similar to the exclamation “man” in American-English slang. Pro­nounced very similarly to the name “Charlie.”

Chin Chin
—a snack consisting of sweet crunchy bite-sized bits of fried dough

Chineke
—the Igbo Supreme Deity. To exclaim it is the same as saying, “Oh my God!”

Chop
(Pidgin English)—to eat

Comot
(Pidgin English)—to leave a place

Danfo
—a commercial minibus or van. They are usually orange or individually painted and very old, beaten up, and have been repaired a million times.

De
(Pidgin English)—the

Dey
(Pidgin English)—this means “is” or “are” . . . most of the time. Other times, it means “something else.”

Face me, I face you
(Pidgin English)—a type of building where a series of single-bedroom apartments have their entrances facing each other to form a compound with a main entrance leading into a square in the middle. This type of building is common in urban areas in Nigeria, such as Lagos.

Gari
—a creamy white, granular flour made from fermented, gelatinized fresh cassava tubers

Go-slow
(Pidgin English)—heavy traffic

Gragra
(Pidgin English)—a show of bravado (often false)

Ibi
(Pidgin English)—it be

Igbo
—(1) the third largest ethnic group in Nigeria and name of the language of the Igbo people (note: the author of this book is Igbo) (2) Nigerian slang for cannabis (unrelated to the Igbo people or language, and not capitalized as a proper noun)

Kai
(Pidgin English)—a sympathetic exclamation

Kata kata
(Pidgin English)—trouble of the sort that only the poor experience

Kparoof
(Pidgin English)—to manhandle

Marine witch
—who the heck really knows? Certain Nigerian evangelical Christian sects believe many of the world's ills are perpetrated by witches, and the most powerful is the “marine witch”

Mek
(Pidgin English)—make

Mumu
(Pidgin English)—an idiot

Na
(Pidgin English)—it is

Na wao
(Pidgin English)—the equivalent of exclaiming, “Wow!”

NEPA
—pronounced “neh-pah.” An acronym that stands for the National Electric Power Authority. Usually to blame when the power goes out. Now called PHCN (Power Holding Company of Nigeria), people still refer to the governmental electricity company as NEPA.

Nko
(Pidgin English)—an interrogative pronoun used for emphasis at the end of sentences (believed to be of Yoruba origin)

Nyash
(Pidgin English)—ass

O
—a terminal intensifier. One sings and prolongs the sound more than speaks it.

Oga
—a term of respect toward men, equivalent to “sir.” The term of respect for women is “madam.”

Okada
—a commercial motorcycle or motorcycle taxi

Peme
(Pidgin English)—to die

Pure Water
—a sachet of drinkable water, often sold on the street

Sabi
(Pidgin English)—to know or know how

Seke
(Ghanaian Pidgin English)—craziness

Sha
(Pidgin English)—a terminal intensifier that is similar to the exclamation “man” in American-English slang. It can mean “any­way” or “like that.”

Ting
(Pidgin English)—thing

Una
(Pidgin English)—you guys

Wahala
(believed to be of Hausa origin)—trouble

Wetin
(Pidgin English)—what

Winch
(Pidgin English)—witch

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you, Lagos, Nigeria, for being Lagos, Nigeria. Two decades ago, I knew I'd write about you someday. And someday, you
will
be the greatest city in the world.

I'd like to thank Nigerian Pidgin English extraordinaire, Taofik Yusuf, for his help with the grittier Nigerian Pidgin English sections of the novel and insisting that I change the title of this book from
Lagos
to
Lagoon
. Thanks to Nollywood director and friend Tchidi Chikere for his meticulous help with the Pidgin English sections, as well. Thanks to my ambitious UK editor, Anne Perry, for convincing me to keep these Pidgin English sections as I originally intended them, as opposed to toning them down. Thanks to Beegeagle for all his firsthand information on the Nigerian military. Thanks to the Ethiopian-American rapper and visionary Gabriel Teodros and New Orleans artist Soraya Jean-Louis McElroy for being
Lagoon
's first readers. Both of them loved the opening swordfish chapter, and this fact meant a
lot
to me.

Thanks to the South African science-fiction film
District 9
for both intriguing and pissing me off so much that I started daydreaming about what aliens would do in Nigeria. This novel was birthed from my anger at
District 9
, but it quickly became something else entirely.

And of course, last but not least, I'd like to thank my daughter, Anyaugo, who was the first person to hear the summary of
Lagoon
(back when it was still titled
Lagos
). She loves Nigeria as much as I do, and she thought the story was utterly hilarious (especially the road monster parts).

POSTCHAPTER

MEANWHILE, BACK IN CHICAGO . . .

Douglas Hall's Room 217 was the warmest classroom on campus. In the dead of Chicago's winter, one could comfortably wear a T-shirt and jeans here. It was the perfect place to thaw out after trudging through the snow, and there weren't any classes in it between twelve p.m. and three p.m. Thus, pre-med sophomores Shaquille, Jordan, and Nature made this their study room on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.

Today was Saturday, and the plan was to study, study, study. They were all taking Chem 101 and the class was no joke; best to get ahead while they were ahead. Nevertheless, their plans had changed in the last day. The whole world's plans had changed. Quietly so. Nature had been the first to hear about the latest footage on YouTube. Minutes before, her sister had sent the link to her phone. She couldn't wait to watch and discuss it with Shaquille and Jordan. Every few hours, more weird news came out of Nigeria, and it added a spicy element of excitement to everything—a nice change from the mundane routine of school and work at the Harris Bank.

“We're Nigerians. Just Nigerians,” the one who the people in the video called Agu said. Agu looked at the guy with supersonic powers and added, “And one Ghanaian.”

“Wow,” Nature whispered as she refreshed the screen so they could watch it yet again. “Apparently, they on some X-Men shit in Africa.” She took off her coat and sweater. “I don't think any of this is real.” She wore an orange Baby Phat T-shirt underneath with a shiny pink cat design on the front. The many thin gold bangles on her wrists jingled as she sat down in front of her laptop.

“Yeah man, this can't be real,” Shaquille said, sitting back at his desk as he watched his laptop screen. He waved a hand. “Don't play it again yet. I need to think.” He picked up his hefty red headphones and then put them down, a perplexed frown on his face. He rarely took off his headphones, not even during class; he liked his world to have a soundtrack. But
this
warranted taking them off. Anything linked to what was going on in Africa did. He needed to hear the audio as clearly as he could, even if the audio was shit. He was still wearing his heavy leather coat, the chill from outside still in his bones. “Shit's totally fake,” he muttered.

“‘The President of Nigeria Saved by Witches and Warlocks!'” Jordan read, bending forward and bringing his face close to the screen. He laughed. “All right, the title's kinda fucked-up
but
, oh my God, come on, Shaq. What'chu think all this is, then?” Jordan wore a black T-shirt with a drawing of a marijuana leaf in the center. Being skinny and quite tall, he was more comfortable standing than sitting at a cramped, hard-seated desk.

He stood up straight and stamped a Timberland boot on the floor. “The kid dying in the street—
dying
, man,
you see him die
—people there tweeting and posting claims about seeing aliens and shit, folks reporting fear and crazy-ass riots, this X-Men in the ocean craziness . . . You think it's some Orwellian shit?” Jordan asked. “Like that
War of the Worlds
radio broadcast back in the day that caused all that panic? You think Nigerians are that gullible? In this day and age? And look at the ‘stars' of the show. They black. Even the heroes are black. You think they gon' spend they money to put somethin' together that looks this
real
and actually allow black folks to star in it? Real
Africans
? And then set it
in
Africa?” He guffawed with glee and shook his head. “Nah man, not gonna happen. This shit real. That's the more likely scenario.”

Nature sucked her teeth and pulled up her low-riding skinny jeans. “Man, I don't care about no uppity Africans anyway. What's Africa ever done for me?” She sucked her teeth again. “I think Shaq's right. Or . . .” She shrugged. “I dunno.”

“Ey, I hear you, Nature,” Jordan said. “Africa ain't done nothing for us but enslave our ancestors. Won't disagree with you there.” He grinned. “But look, come on, if anyone gon' be flying around, shootin' lasers outta they eyes or jumping in the water and making shock waves because they
can
, it would be a bunch of
Africans
.”

The three students had a good laugh at this, and then watched the footage again. No matter how hard they looked, even their Hollywood-level-special-effects-accustomed eyes could not spot a flaw or an anomaly in the footage. Even the great sharklike beast that the guy Agu supposedly punched out of the water looked real. This along with the mainstream news reports of terrorist activity and rioting in Nigeria and the significantly different, more individual reports circulating on various social media outlets of an “alien” invasion had caught the attention of many Americans. These three students were certainly not the only ones bothered and confused by the stories and footage coming out of Africa.

Nature opened and closed a textbook. After a moment, she opened it again and brought out her syllabus from her backpack. She looked up. “I'm just glad it's all happening over there. It's freaking me out.”

The two boys nodded.

“You think it's gon' stay there, though?” Jordan asked.

Nature shrugged.

“Whatever's going on, it'll probably make more sense tomorrow,” Shaquille said, placing his big red headphones back over his ears. He turned on his iPod and clicked on Drake's “Successful.” He didn't care for Drake, but he loved this particular song. It was a rare moment of real hip-hop from a shitty whiny rapper. He took his coat off.

They took out their pens and highlighters and opened their textbooks to chapter 1 in
Chemistry: The Central Science
. Spring semester was going to be tough, and they had to get ahead to get more ahead. In the meantime, the world would take care of itself.