Ike’s brow boiled, the room topsy-turvy. In the distance, he glimpsed a parade of specks floating toward him, growing larger, clearer, as they approached. Then, in quick, whirling succession, he saw his mother’s whitlow-ravaged thumb, his uncle’s war-earned belly gash, and those eyes deadened by grief.
He didn’t know how to fend them off. He sat helpless before their menace. Light sweat slicked his forehead. A nervy pain pounded inside his head. Slumped on the couch, he panted, unnerved by the nightmare that had startled him awake and by the grotesque images that came with waking.
Relax, he coaxed himself, but his inner voice carried little conviction. Relax. Think of other things.
Sleep was impossible under the circumstances. To regain quietude, he had to master his mind, to rein in its many flights. The trick, he felt sure, was to shepherd his thoughts toward more practical matters. And there were quite a few.
It was paramount to pay his electric bill, to have his power restored as soon as possible. Sleeping in darkness—being awake in darkness—was no joy. He had to pick up his mail, buy some food, and, once power was restored, check his e-mails.
The trouble with focusing on practical problems was that he had little money. He didn’t have a dime left of the five hundred dollars Tony Iba had given him. All of it—and more—had gone to the customs officers in Lagos. Then he had spent forty dollars on transportation back to his apartment. There was nothing in his checking account. And he had used up his credit card limit buying the ticket.
Despite his money woes, he decided not to rush into selling the deity. He’d wait for a week, even up to ten days. With Ngene in his possession, he could afford to tarry. He had a hunch that the deity’s value would appreciate if he waited. Yet, he had to arrange to pay the electric bill. Several other bills, ignored before his trip, would have fallen overdue. Thinking about it all seemed to take too much of his energy. For want of something to occupy his mind, he reached for his cordless phone. He pressed the button for voice messages and—prompted—entered his password. Then he pressed the phone to his ear. An automated voice announced: You have nine new messages and four saved messages. Two messages were from Usman Wai, including the one that had sent him crashing to the floor. Three were from the rental management office. Of those, one was a gentle reminder that his March rent was a month past due and that he had yet to respond to two letters from the office. The second message, left three days later, was a terse request to call the office immediately. The third informed him that another letter had been dispatched to him demanding immediate payment of overdue rent along with assessed late fees. Three callers had failed to leave any message.
Afterward, he lay down on the couch and thought about his friend Jonathan Falla. The last time they had spoken, Jonathan had raved about the home he and his partner, Chelsea, had just built on the hills of Leverett, Massachusetts. He had insisted that Ike come spend a weekend. “Man, let’s eat, drink, and tell stories about our yesterdays,” Jonathan had said in his exuberant manner. Ike thought about it. Perhaps it would do him good to take up the invitation. Just for a few days, to clear his head, which had fallen prey to a ceaseless churn of memories and sounds, the worst being the constant whir of silence.
He picked up the phone to call Jonathan. That instant, a dreadful idea flicked through his mind. The notion was this: The reek in his apartment came from him! He’d tracked it in, lugged it all the way from Utonki. And there was a chance that the stink would dog his every step, accompany him wherever he went. He put the phone away.
It was at first a brush of an idea, something fleeting. The thought irritated him more than it disturbed him. When all was said and done, it was preposterous. But then it stuck, made it impossible to free himself from its snare. The harder he tried, the more entrenched the idea became. His power of resistance was failing him.
A drink, a drink! Caught in a warp, he knew that the answer was to sedate himself. He needed to run out and pick up a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey or Grey Goose vodka along with some soda. Or he could grab one or two six-packs of Guinness. He realized the need to act urgently, for the odor appeared sinister. Ike sensed it swelling, thrashing about the room.
A fierce ache beat inside his skull. His eyes shivered with unbearable pain. He placed a thumb on one side of his face, the rest of his fingers on the other, and then pressed. Kneading his flesh, he worked from the chin slowly up to the crown. The pressure in his fingers sought to reach the pain, to mollify it.
Another thought slipped into his mind: The stink was wafting from the wrapped deity. He sprang up, picked up the swaddled statue, and raised it to his nostrils. One quick sniff was all he needed. His stomach quickened. He threw his head back, repelled by the horrid stink. He propped the statue against the wall.
“I’ve become a chief priest,” he muttered, sinking in the couch.
His heart began to pound. He had to stave off the intruding thought.
Relax.
Other dreadful thoughts sneaked past each barricade he sought to erect. His head felt light, buffeted both by the odd stink and the fear that gnawed at him.
Relax!
It pierced him like shrapnel, this sense of toxicity in the air. His mind zigzagged, contorted by a dizzying flurry of ideas. The befouled air threatened to suffocate him.
He decided, in desperation, to go to Cadilla’s to buy a drink or two. Standing up, he panned around, looking for his bunch of keys. It was nowhere to be seen. Saw it a moment ago, he bitterly reminded himself. And it was in full view! He rifled through the two suitcases, patted down his pockets, and then dug fingers underneath the crevices of the couch. No luck. He scanned the bathroom and bedroom. Panting, he decided to take a break. He stood still, trying to collect himself, to let his rage subside, to think. Then he threw himself into the same ritual, looking over the spots he’d searched before. It was futile. Frustration.
After he’d turned over the room more than five times, he sat down and shut his eyes. He drew deep breaths and exhaled through his mouth. Then, opening his eyes, he looked at his feet—and there was the bunch of keys!
“Ah-ah!” he exclaimed, worn out by his exertions. He lay down and put the keys on his brow, relishing their steel-cold feel. Head dug into the leathery softness of the armrest, he let his legs dangle off the sofa, neither on it nor on the ground.
Be still, he cajoled himself. Too late to fret. Then a terrible, comforting idea flitted across the mazy screen of his mind. He remembered that his uncle Osuakwu had said that a starved deity was apt to turn dangerous.
“I’ve become a chief priest,” he said again. Shutting the door behind him, he hurried down the stairs, aware—a realization he embraced calmly, with no fuss—that he was going to buy food and drinks for two. From now on, he’d have to sate the deity’s hunger and slake its thirst. He’d need to keep it in good humor.
He’d become a chief priest with no apprenticeship, no induction into the god’s protocols.
I’ve become a chief priest. The thought brought him to the edge of an ironic smile.
When he came back, he dropped drumsticks of Jamaican jerk chicken and grains of rice on the floor next to the statue. Then he spilled drops of whiskey on the floor as well.