A yellow taxi that was missing all its rear lights, coughed and spluttered black smoke as the driver revved the engine to stop it from dying while the ageing car idled on Ozumba Mbadiwe in front of the gates to Fiki Marina. Ibrahim waited to collect his change before he got out. At the station he had changed into a pair of blue jeans and a black polo top he kept in a drawer in his desk. Once out of the car he stood on the side of the road, his back to the jetty, and tried not to inhale fumes from the taxi as it drove off.
He pulled his sunglasses from the V in his unbuttoned polo-top. Across the road a giant yellow banner hung from the side of one of the towers of Eko Court. To the left, almost overhead, was the flyover to Ikoyi-Akin Adesola Street that everyone called Falomo Bridge. To the right, the smell of the fish market. When he was sixteen he lived with his aunty in Port Harcourt. She was a fish farmer and he was there to learn the trade. After six months of handling fish all day he decided to join the police.
He pulled a cigarette from his pack, put it between his lips and cupped his lighter over his mouth. As he did, he turned to the marina. The tops of boats parked on trailers were visible over the fence. A few metres along it, a beggar in brown rags that looked heavy from accumulated dirt sat across the gutter, his bottom on one side and his feet on the other, straddling stagnant green water below. An aluminium bowl lay by his side and his stick rested across his lap.
A beggar was a strange sight on Ozumba Mbadiwe. Stranger still was a blind one without a seeing child announcing the beggar’s affliction to the hearts of passers-by. Ibrahim walked over to him.
The beggar’s black boots were covered in mud, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses that had white scratches in the middle; the plastic lenses too dark for anyone to see the state of the eyes behind them. Written in capital letters on the brown cardboard hanging from his neck were the words: MAY YOU NOT BE BLIND LIKE ME. His begging bowl was empty.
His eyes on the beggar, Ibrahim removed his wallet and pulled out a one thousand naira note. He held the money in front of the beggar who had not reacted to his presence. The beggar did not reach out for the charity.
Ibrahim stooped. He checked both sides of the road, then, still holding out the note he said, ‘You should have heard me in front of you.’
The beggar remained still.
‘Next time,’ Ibrahim said, ‘say something when someone is in front of you trying to give you money.’
The beggar nodded.
‘Now, take the money,’ Ibrahim said.
The beggar held out his cupped hands straight and steady.
‘Good,’ Ibrahim said. He put the money in the beggar’s hand. ‘I want that back after the operation,’ he said, then he stood up and checked both sides of the road again before walking towards the gates into Fiki Marina.