to think beyond our guns. See you spend your whole life fighting with your father and no time on making your own life. What will you do when he dies? Fight yourself?”
“What of you?” Elvis asked.
“Me too. I spend my life hustling for small money, staying one step ahead of de police. But I will not do dat all my life. You see, I done read Napoleon Hill and as a thinking man, and with de grace of God, I go be millionaire before I reach thirty.”
“So what is your plan?”
“What’s dat thing they say on dat TV show?”
“What show?”
“ Bassey and Company , by Ken Saro-Wiwa.”
“I don’t know.”
“Dat’s why you are poor. Bassey always says, ‘To be a millionaire, you must think like a millionaire.’”
“So something someone said on a television show is your plan?”
“Dis Elvis, you no get faith. Television is de new oracle. No, I go show you my plan.”
Redemption looked around carefully. Satisfied that everyone’s attention was centered on Kansas’s game, he reached under his shirt and pulled out a pouch attached to his neck by a heavy chain. Unzipping it, he pulled out a crisp green passport.
“See dis?” he said, opening the passport.
“What?’
“Dis,” Redemption said, passing the passport to Elvis. “Visa to States.”
Elvis held the passport and stared at the colored stamp inside it, unable to fathom its importance. Redemption saw the lack of comprehension on his face and explained.
“With dis stamp inside my passport, I can go to United States, act inside film and make millions.”
“I see,” Elvis said, not quite seeing but liking the possibility of being in a film with the real Elvis. “How did you get it? I know the passports are easy to come by, but an American visa? I heard people wait months outside the embassy and don’t even get an appointment.”
Redemption laughed.
“You are asking original area boy how I get de visa? I use connection, de same way I go get movie deal.”
Elvis nodded gravely, though he couldn’t take Redemption seriously. It sounded like another mad scheme; and anyway, from the back issues of the show-biz magazine Entertainment, which he often read at the United States Information Service Library on Victoria Island, he gathered that getting into films was hard enough for American professional actors—so what chance did Redemption stand? Still, Elvis said nothing. He had been using the USIS Library for about a year, having found out about it from a flyer he saw at the local library, which had so few books he had to pace his borrowing so as not to finish them all too quickly. Apart from the endless old tomes on chemistry, physics, electronics and philosophy, the local library had an anthropology section that only had books with the word “Bantu” in their titles—like Bantu Philosophy and Bantu Worldviews. Something about the word “Bantu” bothered him and made him think it was pejorative. Maybe it had something to do with not ever hearing that word used outside of that section in the library. The only other books there were treatises on Russian and Chinese culture and politics. These came either printed in bold glossy colors or in badly bound volumes with the fading print slanted on the page as if set by a drunken printer or as though, tired of the lies, the words were trying to run off the page. So it had been with some relief that he spotted the USIS flyer on the bare cork bulletin board.
He gave the passport back. It seemed to him that everyone wanted to leave for America. Just last month, he overheard his father say Aunt Felicia was leaving for America in a few weeks to meet her husband, who had lived there since the late sixties. He had come back to meet and marry Aunt Felicia in an arranged wedding a year before, although neither Elvis nor his father had gone back to Afikpo for the ceremony. Elvis couldn’t afford to; Afikpo was nearly eight hundred miles away.
He mused over his mixed feelings. His fascination with
“What of you?” Elvis asked.
“Me too. I spend my life hustling for small money, staying one step ahead of de police. But I will not do dat all my life. You see, I done read Napoleon Hill and as a thinking man, and with de grace of God, I go be millionaire before I reach thirty.”
“So what is your plan?”
“What’s dat thing they say on dat TV show?”
“What show?”
“ Bassey and Company , by Ken Saro-Wiwa.”
“I don’t know.”
“Dat’s why you are poor. Bassey always says, ‘To be a millionaire, you must think like a millionaire.’”
“So something someone said on a television show is your plan?”
“Dis Elvis, you no get faith. Television is de new oracle. No, I go show you my plan.”
Redemption looked around carefully. Satisfied that everyone’s attention was centered on Kansas’s game, he reached under his shirt and pulled out a pouch attached to his neck by a heavy chain. Unzipping it, he pulled out a crisp green passport.
“See dis?” he said, opening the passport.
“What?’
“Dis,” Redemption said, passing the passport to Elvis. “Visa to States.”
Elvis held the passport and stared at the colored stamp inside it, unable to fathom its importance. Redemption saw the lack of comprehension on his face and explained.
“With dis stamp inside my passport, I can go to United States, act inside film and make millions.”
“I see,” Elvis said, not quite seeing but liking the possibility of being in a film with the real Elvis. “How did you get it? I know the passports are easy to come by, but an American visa? I heard people wait months outside the embassy and don’t even get an appointment.”
Redemption laughed.
“You are asking original area boy how I get de visa? I use connection, de same way I go get movie deal.”
Elvis nodded gravely, though he couldn’t take Redemption seriously. It sounded like another mad scheme; and anyway, from the back issues of the show-biz magazine Entertainment, which he often read at the United States Information Service Library on Victoria Island, he gathered that getting into films was hard enough for American professional actors—so what chance did Redemption stand? Still, Elvis said nothing. He had been using the USIS Library for about a year, having found out about it from a flyer he saw at the local library, which had so few books he had to pace his borrowing so as not to finish them all too quickly. Apart from the endless old tomes on chemistry, physics, electronics and philosophy, the local library had an anthropology section that only had books with the word “Bantu” in their titles—like Bantu Philosophy and Bantu Worldviews. Something about the word “Bantu” bothered him and made him think it was pejorative. Maybe it had something to do with not ever hearing that word used outside of that section in the library. The only other books there were treatises on Russian and Chinese culture and politics. These came either printed in bold glossy colors or in badly bound volumes with the fading print slanted on the page as if set by a drunken printer or as though, tired of the lies, the words were trying to run off the page. So it had been with some relief that he spotted the USIS flyer on the bare cork bulletin board.
He gave the passport back. It seemed to him that everyone wanted to leave for America. Just last month, he overheard his father say Aunt Felicia was leaving for America in a few weeks to meet her husband, who had lived there since the late sixties. He had come back to meet and marry Aunt Felicia in an arranged wedding a year before, although neither Elvis nor his father had gone back to Afikpo for the ceremony. Elvis couldn’t afford to; Afikpo was nearly eight hundred miles away.
He mused over his mixed feelings. His fascination with
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