Disaster finally overtook Dapo Olusunle on the seventh day of
his apprenticeship as a Molue conductor. That morning, Dapo had
heard the piercing cry of the Muezzin waking up the people of
the quarter for the dawn prayers. But he was unable to rouse himself.
His legs felt dead, wooden, as though they did not belong to him.
He was sure there were bruises all over his body. He wanted to
go back to sleep. He shut his eyes again; he tried to shut out
the Muezzin’s shrill insistent voice. He snuggled closer
to the hard wall. He imagined himself fast asleep, snoring loudly.
The trick had served him well in secondary school when the early
morning bell went and he didn’t want to get up. Just as
he was drifting back to sleep again, he heard Jimoh stride noisily
into the room, shouting his name.
‘Still asleep? Wake up, University Boy!’
Dapo frowned as he struggled sleepily to his feet. He had told
Jimoh to stop calling him that name. He did not like the mocking
tone in his voice. One day soon he would tell him his mind. It
was only that he respected him as his father’s younger brother.
But Jimoh never behaved like an uncle. He had never liked him
anyway. He would never forget that it was only Jimoh in the whole
family who had opposed his late father when he wanted to sell
his share of the family cocoa farm to send him to the university.
Jimoh had brandished a machete, threatening to...
‘Stop staring at me like an evil child. Go and see if there
is enough water in the radiator.’
Dapo went outside. It was still dark, and he could just make out
the big hulk of the Molue etched against the dark purple of the
horizon. He prised open the bonnet. A thick smell of rust and
engine oil rose to his nostrils. Rust and decay, that was all
he had smelled these past six days. That and the thick odour of
sweat and unwashed bodies. He peered darkly at the engine. How
does he expect me to see in the dark? Then he remembered there
was a torch in the toolbox of the cab. He went to get it. He saw
by the beam of the torch that the water in the radiator was low.
He added some from a jerry can. The trouble with the engine was
that it always leaked water and engine oil. But then the Molue
was not exactly new. Jimoh had had it for as long as he could
remember. And he worked it the way a cruel taskmaster worked his
slave, from dawn to dusk, plying the Little Sodom-Idumota route.
He put the torch back and leaned on the rotting bodywork of the
bus, waiting for Jimoh to finish his prayers. A sudden gust of
wind hit him and he shivered. It was very cold. He sniffed the
air. The harmattan was approaching. His mind went back to the
warmth of the room. He wished he was back in there, curled up
on the hard lumpy mattress, secure and warm and comfortable in
the room while the cold harmattan wind made music against the
window panes. Or better still he wished he were back in Iludin.
Mama would be waking Taiwo and Kehinde now, shaking the twins
gently on the shoulder one after the other, urging them in her
soft insistent voice to wake up that it was another day and that
there was Ogi to be sold and cocoa pods to be split that they
should have been awake a long time ago if they really had any
pity for their old mother that other good and obedient children
had woken up long ago...And on and on until Taiwo, no Kehinde
(he usually woke up first) would get to his feet grumbling loudly
about a certain woman he knew who never allowed her children to
get a moment’s sleep but would wake them up as soon as they
lay down and...Hei, Kehinde wake up! Can’t you hear Mama
calling you?
The roar of the engine jolted him and he scrambled to the door
of the Molue, wondering if he had forgotten to take something
he might need later in the day. They would not be back until well
into the evening. He decided that there was really nothing he
needed and grabbed the rail and hoisted himself up into the bus.
Jimoh was reversing toward the orange tree in the centre of the
compound so he could have ample space to manoeuvre the bus through
the gate and into the road. He could hear him singing a Fuji tune
softly under his breath as he wrestled with the wheel. He picked
up a rag and wiped away a speck of dust on one of the windows.
The seats shone. The floorboards were scrubbed clean too. Now
the bus smelt fresh and clean, but it would only be a matter of
time before the stench of sweat and stale breath took over. Remembering
this, he shuddered. He tried not to think of what lay ahead: the
unbearable heat, the crush of hot sweating bodies, the quarrels
with the fat market women and their sweating armpits, the salesmen
of dubious wares, the fare dodgers, the lovers holding hands and
pretending they were in a shaded garden instead of a stuffy, overcrowded
Molue lurching crazily down some expressway in a hot sulphuric
afternoon.
*
The first wave of dizziness hit Dapo as the Molue was approaching
Ikeja bus stop. He was straining his ears to catch the lyrics
of Fela’s new song coming from a record store when he felt
the ground lurch under his feet and a sudden wave of darkness
enveloped him. The darkness left with the swiftness with which
it came, leaving him shaken but otherwise quite normal.
He was dimly aware that Jimoh was shouting at him. He looked at
his moving lips and his face contorted with rage but he did not
hear a single word of what he was saying or why he was so angry
for that matter. Then he realized that they were at the bus stop
and that there was a big crowd and they were banging at the door
which was still shut. He rushed to the door and threw the bolt
and the first wave of passengers hit him with the force of a kicking
ram, sending him reeling back into one of the seats. He scrambled
to his feet again and went to the window and screamed with all
the power in his lungs: Idumota straight!
Above the din he could hear Jimoh still shouting at him. WERE
YOU SLEEPING? THAT IS THE TROUBLE WITH YOU UNIVERSITY PEOPLE.
YOU CAN’T EVEN DO THE JOB OF A COMMON CONDUCTOR. SON OF
A WORTHLESS HARLOT!
An angry retort came to his lips but he quickly bit it back. I
will tell him my mind one day soon. He will see. I will tell him
my mind one day soon. Jimoh kept shouting at him but he ignored
him, mentally shut off the grating voice dripping with insult
and abuse and began to work his way through the crush of bodies
to the front. Fela was still singing. He hummed the song as he
began to collect the fare.
*
There was a lull in the early afternoon after they had made three
trips to Idumota and back. It was very hot. There were few people
in the bus now and he sat down on one of the empty seats to rest
his aching feet. He felt a great hollowness inside him, as though
someone had punched him, forcing him to throw up all he had ever
eaten. He felt hot and tired. He stuck his head out of the window
to get some fresh air. Jimoh was coasting leisurely now that there
were few people at the bus stops. Occasionally a Molue or Danfo
would overtake them at top speed, the driver blaring his horn
like a demented man, the conductor perched precariously at the
door, one leg hanging out and dirty Sokoto flapping in the wind
like a scarecrow suddenly come to life.
On the first day of his apprenticeship he had tried to imitate
the other conductors, jumping in and out of the bus while it was
still in motion. He found it ridiculously easy at first. He would
wait until all the passengers had entered and the bus was gathering
speed and then he would leap after it and with one bound, hoist
himself inside, screaming like the others did, GO ON BUS! He stopped
the acrobatics on the second day when he nearly broke his head.
It was the early morning rush hour and the Molue was full right
up to the doorway. He was running after it as usual but just at
the moment he made his leap the vehicle went into a pot hole and
lurched crazily, knocking him right back onto the expressway.
He landed in a puddle and that was what saved his skull from being
split like a coconut. He stopped imitating the other conductors
after the incident. But he still envied them their expertise,
the ease with which they leaped in and out of the bus on the expressway
like happy monkeys, the way they traded jokes and insults with
their passengers, their brazen, full-throated laughter.
He felt the gulf between himself and these denizens of the road
keenly. They took each day for what it had to offer. He faced
each day on the road with loathing and trepidation. The long hours
and hard grinding work agreed with them; a little part of him
died each day on the road. They were in their element. The four
years he had spent in the university had not prepared him for
this.
Sometimes, lost in thought, he forgot himself, forgot where he
was and drifted into an imaginary world of sunlight and beauty
far, far away from Jimoh’s crazy Molue. A snatch of music
from the dashboard radio, a pretty face among the passengers,
a whiff of some strangely familiar perfume and he would be off,
dreaming with his eyes open. When he was not dreaming he amused
himself by picking out faces in the crush of passengers and imagining
who they were, where they lived, what they did for a living, what
they were thinking at that particular instant. Staring at the
hundreds of faces that came and went he had made a startling discovery:
these were not a happy people. Ugly faces, drawn faces, faces
dark, fair, bleached, powdered, creamed, scarified- they all bore
the unmistakable handprint of hunger and pain and worry and discontent.
Sometimes they laughed, conversed with their fellows but the pain
was always there in the eyes, in the bent of the mouth, the worry
was there in the tiny lines on the forehead. He stared at the
anguished faces, the shoulders slouched as though under an impossible
burden, and he shuddered. Sucked into this maelstrom of murdered
dreams he sometimes forgot to collect the fare until Jimoh shouted
at him. SON OF A WORTHLESS HARLOT! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
On their fourth trip back to Idumota, Jimoh left the Molue on
the queue at the bus stop and they went to eat. It was very hot
inside the buka. It was dirty and noisy and crowded as usual and
all the benches were occupied. The odour of cooking Amala and
Ewedu soup and sweating bodies hung thickly in the air. He was
in the long snaking queue, clutching a plastic plate and waiting
for his turn at the food counter when the dizziness hit him again
and the next thing he knew he was on the ground, the whole world
spinning crazily around him. As from a great distance he heard
somebody shouting that he had the fits and then he felt torrents
of water being poured on him.
‘He has Malaria. It is Malaria.’
‘No it is not. He is suffering from poverty, from hunger.’
‘It is this sun. I have never seen anything like it before.’
‘He is an Abiku, a spirit-child. I can recognize one a mile
off. I can cure him for a fee.’
‘Let me see road, Mister Man. What are you doing here driving
Molue if you are such an expert herbalist?’
‘I tell you, he is an Abiku. Can’t you see the scarification
marks on his face?’
Someone suggested they carry him outside so he could get some
fresh air but he waved them away and got to his feet. He went
to an empty bench and sat down and one of the maids brought his
food. The crowd of sympathizers dispersed. Jimoh called him to
his cab when they returned to the Molue.
‘You have disgraced me long enough. You have disgraced our
family long enough. Tomorrow, you will go back to your mother
in Iludin.’
Dapo did not say anything. He just looked at the dark sweating
face staring angrily at him.
Jimoh went on in a bitter voice: ‘Seven whole days and you
have learnt nothing. A simple task like calling out the destinations,
calling out the bus stops you can’t do. I have to do it
for you. To collect the fare is another wahala. I have to shout,
I have to remind you. You are too weak. It is your mother’s
blood in you. Tomorrow you will go back to her.’ He stopped
and scratched an itching ear. ‘I will find another conductor,
one who has not read too much book. This work does not require
book knowledge anyway. So tomorrow, you will go home. I have finished
with you...Imagine! Fainting like a woman!’
He did not know whether to feel sad or happy. Tomorrow he would
say goodbye to all this. He had known from the outset that he
would not like it. But staying in the village for two years was
enough to make a young man try anything just to escape from the
deadening routine, sleeping and waking and going to the cocoa
farm and sleeping again. So when Jimoh came to Iludin and suggested
he come to Lagos and be his conductor, that times were hard and
there were no longer office jobs to be picked up on the streets
of Lagos he agreed, partly to please his mother who was getting
sadder and sadder by the day because her first son who had read
all the books in the world was wasting away in the village and
partly to escape from the tedium of going to bed at six o’clock
in the evening because there was nothing else to do. He would
go back to Iludin. Anything was better than Jimoh and his crazy
bus.
*
It was a little past four in the evening when their turn came
to load for the return trip to Little Sodom. The bus filled up
rapidly: civil service types fairly well-dressed and reeking of
cheap perfume, fat overblown market women sweating in the armpits
and grimy from trudging the dusty alleys of Idumota market; school
children clutching raffia bags, happy and cheerful and chattering
without a care in the world. When he finished collecting the fare
he leaned on the hard metal of the doorway and watched the tall
buildings speeding by. The dizziness worried him. He had never
experienced anything like it before. He wondered if it was typhoid
fever. He had read in the Daily Times that another typhoid epidemic
had hit the city and had killed a hundred people in Little Sodom.
Thinking about it, he shivered. He was sure he had contacted typhoid.
It must be from that buka in Idumota. He did not know why Jimoh
patronized such a filthy place when there were more decent eating-places
in the vicinity. He had complained to Jimoh that the buka was
too dirty when he took him there the first day but Jimoh had merely
laughed and said that was where all the Molue drivers and their
conductors ate and that he was not better than any of them. He
must have contacted the typhoid from the food or the drinking
water they had served him in that place. It was a very dirty place,
very unhygienic and you had to leap over an open gutter to get
to the doorway. He didn’t know why he agreed to follow Jimoh
to the buka in the first place. Now, see where it had landed him...
Dapo felt the shiver run through him again and he thought it was
the beginning of another wave of dizziness. He left the doorway
and walked up the aisle to the centre of the bus. He gripped the
overhead rail and held his breath, waiting for the dizziness and
the hollowness in the stomach. But the moment passed and nothing
happened and he let out a rush of air in relief.
*
The salesman got in at Costain bus stop. He was a tall and dark
young man and he wore a brown shirt, which had been bleached a
dirty grey by the sun. His polka-dotted tie was dirty and askew
and he kept adjusting it with one hand while he gripped the overhead
rail with the other. His plastic briefcase was trapped between
his legs.
Dapo did not pay attention to him any at first. He had seen many
like him in the past six days. And they all looked alike, the
same faded shirt and threadbare trousers, badly knotted tie that
had not seen soap and water for God knows how long, briefcase
crammed full with medicines and consumer items of dubious value.
Their opening pitch was always the same, and this one was no different:
‘A very good afternoon to you nice gentlemen and ladies
in this blessed bus.’ He had a strong lilting voice that
carried to the far end of the bus. ‘My name is Doctor Extraordinary
Hezekiah Olugbemiga and I bring you good tidings...’
Dapo lost interest. His mind returned to the typhoid. Yes, it
must be typhoid. He would have to ask Jimoh for money to see a
chemist. He wondered how long the typhoid had been festering in
his bloodstream, eating up his insides, spewing liquid poison
into his system in readiness for the final kill. How long did
it take for typhoid fever to kill its victim? One week? Two? And
how long had he had it? He would go to the chemist’s later
in the evening, after the day’s work. He would ask Jimoh
for the money.
Doctor Extraordinary Hezekiah Olugbemiga had opened his briefcase
and was now distributing its contents. The market women were scrambling
for the satchets - two, three apiece. The salesman stuffed a wad
of Naira notes into his trouser pocket and brought out a soiled
handkerchief and wiped his face. ‘You see, ladies and gentlemen,
this is a very strong medicine. Original Four-In-One.’ He
extended the first four fingers of his right hand and waved them
in the air. ‘Four-In-One! You drink it and it cures malaria,
cholera, typhoid and yellow fever one time. You are very lucky
that I am in this bus today. This medicine is in very strong demand
all over the world. In fact I have just returned back from Taiwan
where I sold four containers of Four-In-One in two days. They
like it very much. Their President did not want me to go but I
had to tell him that I must to return to Nigeria, that I heard
in the radio that my people are very sick with typhoid epidemic
and I can’t be there with all my experience in doctoring
and my people are dying. So I have to come back because I love
this country and I am a patriot. Buy Four-In-One today and you
will be a healthy man tomorrow. Health is wealth. Charity begins
at home.’
Dapo saw two young men give the salesman some Naira notes and
collect the sachets. The man had talked about the medicine curing
typhoid fever. Perhaps this was what he needed- an instant cure.
Another man extended a five Naira note and the salesman gave him
two sachets, all the while singing the praises of Four-In-One.
‘A tiger among medicines. Comforter of the comfortless.
The cow that has no tail, it is God who chase away flies from
his yash. Four-In-One has come to wipe away your tears.’
Dapo looked at the man and hesitated. Perhaps he should give it
a try. It was cheap too. Only five Naira. He wouldn’t have
to ask Jimoh for money and endure all the insults that would inevitably
follow before he gave it to him. He fingered the Naira notes in
his pocket and hesitated again. The trouble was that you never
knew when these salesmen had the genuine thing. He had heard so
many frightening stories about them. There was the story he read
in the Daily Times about a Molue driver who had bought a typhoid
elixir from an itinerant salesman. He had swallowed the syrupy
substance with a bottle of Fanta and feeling a little better,
had loaded his bus with passengers bound for Idumota. Midway,
speeding along the Third Mainland Bridge, the driver began to
boast to his passengers that he was the best Molue driver in the
world, that he had just swallowed juju that could make him fly
across the Lagoon with his Molue, that his father before him had
crossed the River Niger on a rickety bicycle during the Civil
War. But nobody paid him any attention.
His eyes glittering strangely, the Molue driver went on to make
even more fantastic claims. In a contest of all the Molue drivers
in the world to determine the best and fastest, he had driven
to the moon with water as fuel and won the first prize. He had
received an invitation from God to come to heaven and teach all
his angels how to drive Molue. He would have gone long ago only
that the immigration people were demanding a bribe of two million
Naira to process his visa. Some of the passengers laughed and
told him to concentrate on his driving. He became angry. He began
to shout. He said he knew they did not believe him but to convince
them that he truly possessed supernatural powers, that he was
the best Molue driver in the world, that he had been to the moon
and back and that God and his angels were waiting for him, he
would take them all on a demonstration flight across the Lagoon
in his Molue, right away with no extra charge. Before anybody
could do anything to stop the demented man, he swung the Molue
off the bridge. It crashed through the aluminium railing and plunged
straight into the Lagoon. That was the last anybody heard of the
flying Molue driver and his passengers, except for the little
boy who miraculously survived the ill-fated flight across the
Lagoon to tell the story.
He thought he heard Jimoh calling him and he hurried to the front.
With his eyes still on the road Jimoh shouted over the roar of
the engine. ‘Get some of that stuff for me. Five Naira worth.
Iyawo may need it.’
On an impulse Dapo gave the salesman ten Naira and collected four
sachets. He put them in his shirt pocket and returned to his place
by the door.
Doctor Extraordinary Hezekiah Olugbemiga got down at Stadium Bus
Stop, clutching his briefcase of potent elixirs and whistling
a tune to himself. Dapo was sure he had heard the tune somewhere
before. He thought it sounded like a funeral dirge, the kind mourners
sing in Little Sodom when the disease typhoid cuts down a man
in the prime of his life but he was not quite sure. He thought
hard but he still could not place it. Then he gave up as the bus
approached Ojuelegba and he saw a huge crowd waiting at the bus
stop.
The dizziness hit him again just as the bus began to climb the
overhead bridge, heading toward Palm Grove bus stop. But it was
mild this time and did not send him crashing to the floor. The
typhoid. It was the typhoid. He quickly got hold of himself again,
and, hand shaking slightly, brought out one of the sachets and
ripped it open with his teeth. He swallowed the brown syrupy contents
quickly, sucking, swallowing until it was empty and then he let
the now empty cellophane packet fall from his hand and flutter
lazily away in the wind.
The effect was instantaneous. Dapo felt a sudden rush of blood
to his head. He felt it expanding, expanding to twice, thrice
its size. After a while he felt that his head had swallowed the
rest of his body and he had become a huge butterfly and could
float in and out of the bus as he liked. He felt very strong and
at the same time very light. I can fly! A strong wave of happiness
coursed through him and suddenly he began to laugh.
The bus was cresting the overhead bridge now. Dapo, still standing
in the doorway looked at the ground far below and the laughter
bubbled from deep inside him again. I really can fly! He released
his grip on the handrail and stepped from the speeding bus into
the air, his arms stretched wide open, sure that he would float
gently down like the butterfly he had become. 
