A boy from Aba
The first time the line paid for something. Six thousand naira, a bus, a night in a guest house, and what it bought.
A boy from Aba, eighteen, a kito, the usual room with the usual four men, but this time they let him go with nothing, not even his shoes, because he had nothing, and he walked to the park and called a number a friend had written on his arm in biro. Mine.
He needed two things: to get out of Aba before the men found him again, and somewhere to sleep that was not the park. The bus to Owerri is two thousand naira. A guest house by the market that asks no questions is four thousand a night. I had eleven thousand in the small notebook. I sent six.
He arrived at nine with no shoes. My friend met him at the park because I could not, and took him to the guest house, and bought him slippers from the woman under the umbrella, who gave them at half price when she was told, in the low voice, why.
So the line has paid for something. Six thousand naira. A bus, a bed, slippers. I want to record that it is the best six thousand naira anybody in Owerri has spent this year, and that the small notebook, which has been the record of my failure to leave for six years, has a new column in it tonight, and the column says: Aba, bus, bed, slippers, 6,000. And I am not, for once, counting what is left.