A HALF FORMED THING 8 Last Day

On the last day of his life, Chukwudi Okonkwo woke up happy. An irrepressible joy stole over him as he rose from the pile of old cartons and cases that served as his bed in an uncompleted building. He whistled a few airs of a song, a song he could no longer remember where he had heard it, but which he associated with good fortune. Only the previous day, he and his gang had successfully dispossessed an Alhaja of her handbag, which contained a large amount of cash, in addition to vast quantities of gold and jewellery. The snatch had taken place along the road near the market, the bag changing hands seven times in three minutes as the scoundrels zigzagged through the streets and alleyways of Agege.

By the time the bag got to him, he had bought a large black polythene bag, and he simply stu ed the bag into it, and resumed walking. He had walked along several of the dusty side streets that crisscrossed the area, and ended up at Mama Biliki's food stall.

Mama Biliki was a cheerful, buxom woman who made the best ewedu he had ever tasted, and whose second daughter, Shukura, fancied him. She seemed to have a soft spot for the big, handsome "omo ibo" who came every blessed day to eat fufu and ewedu, never amala.

Chukwudi sat at the shop and feasted on fufu with ewedu, dignifying the occasion by requesting for three pieces of meat and eating three wraps of fufu, as opposed to his regular fare of one or two, depending on his pocket. He belched as he drained the second sachet of water, and smiled at Shukura as she came to pack the plates he had eaten from.

He stuck his hand in his pocket and drew some notes out. Dropping them on the table as payment for the food, he risked a glance into the bag, and what he saw made his breath catch in his lungs. Bundles of money, neatly stacked, sat next to each other alongside bracelets and other jewellery.

"Shukura, abeg, do come, I wan' see you for outside."

He hastily grabbed a slim bundle of notes from the bag and stu ed it into his pocket. Even so his pocket bulged, or at least he felt it did. He closed the handbag, and turned it upside down inside the polythene bag so no one seeing it at rst would have a clear idea what it was.

Slowly, he got up, and ambled out of the shack. Looking left and right, he took a few steps as though he was heading back, then turned and scratched his head. Shukura came out with a large bowl of dirty water customers had washed hands in, and emptied it onto the road, spilling empty sachets of water and small pieces of polythene that had once held fufu, eba, or amala.

"Ehen, you say you wan' see me."

Chukwudi smiled, staring at her breasts. At sixteen, she was a promise of everything her mother was; slim, with breasts that time and childbirth had yet to improve upon, and a face with tribal marks that matched her mother's scari cation.

Chukwudi drew his gaze upward with an e ort.

"Yes, that bag wey dey there. Na me get am. Help me keep am, I wan go look for motor. I no get power to push barrow today, that thing dey break body, I no wan leave am for that shed wey I de sleep because I t late come, so help me keep am. In case I late come, then I go collect am tomorrow."

She looked at him quizzically.
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"Abeg na, if I come I go buy malt for you."

Slowly, her face split in a smile that was oddly appealing, whether in spite of, or because of the tribal marks. It mattered little whether it was her mother who sold drinks or not; what counted was that "Shukudi", the tall, slim "omo-ibo" who hustled in various ways in the park and had very ne "open-teeth", was going to buy something for her. She nodded her head. She had seen him urinating in the gutter near their shop, and she knew his thing was big. Maybe he would be her boyfriend, so that she would boast to her friends in school, Monsura and Adeola, that she too now had boyfriend.

"Shukura Oooooo!!!"

Her mother's yell interrupted her ruminations. Changing her grip on the bowl, she hurried inside and to the back of the shed, bending slightly at the waist to grab the polybag, which she deposited in the kitchen, and rushed to serve the waiting customers.

Chukwudi smiled at her departing rear as it wiggled and wobbled inside the skirt all the way into the shed. Perhaps if she could escape her mother's notice later in the evening, they could nd a dark corner somewhere. He was not favourably disposed to visiting the brothel near Tra c Light junction. Police raids were too common, and the risk of catching something was a constant fear. Besides, he wanted to kiss, and the ashewo ladies never kissed any of the men who mounted them on a daily basis.

If anyone had told him that he would never set eyes on Shukura's lovely behind ever again, he would have told the person to go to hell.

Even as he walked away from Mama Biliki's shop, where the soups still bubbled and the spices still sizzled, the plans for his death were reaching an advanced stage.

His murderers-cum-friends, Marcus and Abiola, were sitting in an abandoned building, which had once housed a pharmacy, but after its collapse, still served its original purpose, albeit of a seedier sort, and to a di erent clientele.

With wraps of specially treated weed called "skunk" blazing from time to time in their hands, the two scoundrels mumbled to themselves about a wide range of things, such words as "chookam" and "killam" standing out by the sheer vehemence with they were breathed. The denizens of the area, thugs and hooligans who frequented the area to partake in the imbibition of exotic and prohibited substances, swilled around, oblivious of the plans of the two rascals.

At about eleven that night, Chukwudi strolled into the uncompleted building he called home, seven thousand naira poorer, and a little bit wiser about the folly of betting on outcomes he had no way of in uencing. He took a detour to the gutter at the back of the building to defecate, lighting one cigarette to "take away the smell" as he voided his bowels. It saved his life, in that it delayed his death. Squatting there, at the back of the building, he had no way of seeing the two shadowy gures who emerged from the building and drifted o into the darkness. And there was night. And the demons associated with the night nished their rotation, and drifted o with the rising dawn.

On the last day of his life, Chukwudi Okonkwo woke up happy. An irrepressible joy stole over him as he rose from the pile of old cartons and cases that served as his bed in the uncompleted building. He whistled a few bars of a song he could not remember where he had heard, but which he associated with good fortune. He was whistling as he got up and reached for his toothbrush, which was in a small pouch inside a hole high in the wall.

The rst indication that something was wrong was when someone shoved him hard, and he fell, scraping his arm and elbow against the wall. He looked up to see the face of Marcus, but as he opened his mouth to scream, but the hands that clamped down on his mouth were not Marcus's. He looked up to see Abiola holding on to him like grim death. He struggled frantically, trying to throw o his assailants and wondering if this was some kind of grim joke.

Then pain exploded in his midsection. Pain, more pain than he knew existed or could be felt. He was dimly aware of a gush of liquid warmth, and it took him a couple of seconds to realize that the warmth was him, coming from him, in him, on him... Then he caught a ash of something gleaming, something red, descending...

Abiola held Chukwudi's mouth as Marcus stabbed him again and again, nally lifting the broken bottle to swipe crudely at his neck. They jerked backward as a fountain of blood erupted from his neck, spattering them with ecks of red. Even before his screams died down to a gurgle, and the thrashing ended, Marcus was already combing through the clutter in the room, searching for the loot from the previous day's activity. They knew that the woman was a wealthy Alhaja who dealt in gold and other jewellery, so the loot was bound to be immense. They searched his clothes, and came up with the twentythree thousand naira that had survived his reckless spending and betting the previous day.

The trashing of the place yielded nothing, no trace of the money. And he was too dead to give them clues. The dead say nothing, it is said. But no one thought to question Shukura, daughter of the food seller, who suddenly began to use phones and gadgets she had no possible means of a ording.

Chapter end