In the open gutter by the road, flourishing with wild vegetation and an assortment of discarded plastic bags, lay the body of a girl.
She was on her back, her head turned to the side, her eyes wide open, her mouth frozen in a gasp. One arm was above her head and the other somewhere behind her back. Her legs lay one on top of the other. Someone had covered her torso with a white shirt. It was red in the middle and the blood was slowly spreading.
I turned away, took two steps, then hot chilli from the fish pepper soup I’d tried at the hotel burnt my nostrils and I puked. The world tilted to one side.
Whatever foolishness cajoled me out of the safety of the bar at Ronnie’s vanished with what I threw up. My senses returned with a loud ringing sound. I’d never seen a dead body. What the hell was I doing here?
The ringing grew louder until it parked next to me in a flurry of red and blue flashing lights. I looked up and saw patrol vehicles spewing out police officers onto the road. They held AK-47s.
The crowd scattered as cops took charge of the scene by rounding up onlookers. Men, who a minute ago had been standing next to me, were manhandled into open-back vans. Uniformed security guards were spared, but anyone else without a valid reason to be out on the road at one in the morning was being frog-marched into waiting police cars.
A shirtless man in white trousers and white shoes tried to protest. The dull meaty thud of a rifle’s butt striking his face made me sick all over again. He didn’t go down with the first strike. He raised his arms to defend himself but only managed to attract more officers. They rushed at him like piranhas to flesh and efficiently beat him to the ground where he curled into a protective ball. He took blows to his head from leather boots and metal butts. He was going to die.
Before I could stand upright, wipe my mouth and restore my dignity, someone pulled me up.
‘Who are you?’
The bright beam of a torch followed my gaze wherever I turned, trying to avoid it. I put my hands up to protect my eyes then I saw who had spoken; it was the muzzle of a rifle, and it spoke again: ‘Who are you?’
‘I was at the bar,’ I said, and pointed across the road to Ronnie’s. I didn’t dare take my eyes off the menacing metal cylinder.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’
I was talking to a gun.
‘Geraout,’ it said, and I gratefully turned to get out of there.
‘Wait,’ a different voice said. ‘Bring him here.’
The man who had received a beating was being dragged away by his legs. His bloodied arm brushed against my ankle and I saw up-close the extent of his punishment. He was bleeding from his nose and his mouth and his ears. His face was swollen all over, and his lips had erupted into mashed-up pink flesh. He offered no resistance to the two men dragging him over the hard ground. His silence scared me.
I cursed myself for my stupidity. I cursed Ronald for not taking the Nigeria job. I cursed myself for asking for it, and I cursed the dozens of friends who said I was going to have the time of my life.