Two phones
What happened to a friend of E.'s last month, and the rules I am making for myself because of it.
E. told me on Thursday what happened to his friend, whom I will not name either. A boy on Facebook, handsome, eager, come today. An address in a part of town the friend did not know. Four men in the room. They kept him for six hours, took his phone, his ATM card and the code, called his mother from his own number and told her what he was. He paid them everything to get out and they still sent the video to his church group. He is in Lagos now. He is not answering anybody.
So I am making rules, and I am writing them here so I keep them.
One. Two phones. The old Nokia goes everywhere; the smartphone stays home when I am meeting anyone I do not know from real life. Two. Nothing on the smartphone I cannot explain to Papa. No photos. Contacts under ordinary names. E. is now Emeka Mechanic. Three. First meetings in daylight, in public, and E. knows where. Four. If the story changes, I leave. I would rather be rude than be that boy.
It is a strange thing to sit in your mother's house at twenty years old writing yourself a manual for staying alive. But that is what this is. That is what all of this is.