Eno Addo is in an outfit that any scantily-dressed person would deem too provocative. With her enormous globe-sized buttocks, it is a dress that takes the term “figure hugging” to extreme levels of absurdity. It is the tightest, shortest, most revealing dress the human mind can ever possibly fathom and she isn’t wearing underwear.
“Don’t you think this is a little risqué for a Sunday afternoon barbecue? I mean there are little children running around,” I said when she first made her entrance.
“No. It’s perfect,” she said.
“What if you have a wardrobe malfunction? Are you prepared to bare yourself to my entire neighbourhood?” I asked.
“No such thing will happen, my pessimistic friend. It’s no wonder you are not liked around these parts,” she said dragging me towards the mini bar outside.
The Agyemans, my neighbours, are rich. The patriarch of the household, Mr. Agyeman, is a politician well versed in the art of money laundering. On Nii Lantei Street, their house is an architectural wonder. It’s a massive villa situated on a vast sprawling landscape with gardens sprouting well-tended hedges, dramatically crafted tiered fountains and an artificial fish pond complete with its own waterfall.
Though aesthetically pleasing, it’s a tad ostentatious in comparison to the other houses on the block. They have more cars than is actually needed in a three-person household and while most households have the occasional houseboy or girl who makes sure that things are pristine, the Agyemans have an unreasonable number of uniformed servants whose job descriptions probably entail cleaning bums and brushing teeth.
The Agyemans, on occasion, love to let us, their peasant neighbours, bask in their glorious wealth while we ponder about our own abject poverty. Hence, at least three times a year, they throw these obnoxious barbecues complete with a live band, bottomless drinks and grilled meat, and audacious decorations. We should, as a community, probably boycott these festivities; it’s most likely government funds and tax payers’ money that finance them but it’s not the neighbourly thing to do. A politician living in our midst is the only reason we have running electricity and water 24 hours a day at least 350 days a year when our fellow compatriots could only dream of such luxury and
who can say no to free food?
This time around, Eno who lives about an hour away from me casually invited herself for dubious reasons I wasn’t privy to.
“What can you tell me about Fred?” she asks.
“Who’s Fred?” I ask.
She points to the man currently making his way to the makeshift dance floor. A classic highlife track is being belted out by the band. He practically shoves the people in his way unapologetically to get to his destination. “These were the songs of my youth,” he shouts repeatedly.
“Mr. Koomson?” I ask.
Eno nods her head, her eyes still on her target who is now attempting to sway his rigid hips to the beat.
What did I know about Mr. Koomson?
He’s ancient. At times I believe that he was present at the fireside when the Yaa Asantewaa War of 1900 was being put into motion. He’s a grumpy man with a shock of white hair who grunts more than he speaks. With a permanent scowl on his weather beaten freckled face, Mr. Koomson abhors all social conventions and human interactions. He’s the reason I stopped peeing on the bed at the ripe old age of 14 and the reason my neighbourhood thinks me an incorrigible lying spoilt brat.
“Okay, but is he is rich?” Eno asks after I have poured out my soul to her about the man in question.
“He does well for himself, I guess,” I say. “He has a nice house with a pool in it.”
“So he’s rich then. What’s his deal? Married, divorced, widowed?”
“Divorced. He moved here after his wife left him.”
“Ah, crap. It’s harder to work the divorcees,” she says kissing her teeth. “Widowers are much easier to deal with.”
I give Eno an incredulous look. Was she seriously trying to find herself a sponsor on a Sunday, the day of our Lord, the day He rested? Couldn’t she follow His example like He commanded and rest as well?
“Don’t look at me like that. My Sao Tome trip this December isn’t going to pay for itself.”
“What happened to the diplomat you were seeing?” I ask.
“Jake? I had to let him go. I think he was really starting to fall in love with me and I don’t blame him. I mean, look at me,” she says twirling to emphasize her point. “He started talking about marriage and kids and I had to stop him right there because first of all this womb is only for decoration and second he’s old enough to be my great grandfather.”
Eno is unjustifiably stunning with a perfectly symmetric face and well proportioned body. I have always said one can only be classified as truly beautiful only if s/he can sport any hairstyle. Rihanna, Brad Pitt and Eno are the only people on this planet who fit this definition. Braids, faux dreadlocks, Bantu knots, pixie cuts, her natural afro that can conceal many a contraband, sleek straight weaves that look like they were snatched right off the head of a Brazilian hair model or even bald, Eno has a way of looking radiant without really putting up a scuffle. She can step into any room and silence it based off her looks alone.
With her pretty privilege, she’s never really had to work hard for anything in life. How many times has she just had to bat her eyelids to get something done for her like her grades raised by professors or her drinks at clubs and meals at restaurants paid for by male strangers?
Eno has decided to milk this pretty privilege for all its worth in the real world. She graduated with a questionable degree in Russian. At the time, her reasoning was that should there be a second Cold War — something she believed was imminent — she would be recruited as a spy for the American government.
“You’re not American, you live in Ghana and I’m pretty sure there are enough Russian speaking Americans who would fit the job,” I‘d pointed out.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” she‘d replied.
It turns out, in the grand scheme of things, there was neither a will nor a way. Graduating without the ability to form a grammatically coherent sentence in the language, Eno has decided to make a living by scamming delusional rich old men into financing her lavish lifestyle. Her dream life, she once said, is one where she marries a rich man a breath away from death; a death preferably within 48 hours after the nuptials so she doesn’t necessarily have to consummate it. Said man should have no dependents or interest in charities so when the will is finally declared, she would be sole heir to a grand fortune she had no contribution in making.
I can’t fault her. She’s good at what she does. Her Instagram feed is an amalgamation of vacations at exotic locations and displays of the latest car and phone models at her disposal while I slave away at my 9–5 in corporate investment with a lackluster salary that can barely cover payments for my rickety Peugeot.
But while Eno is good at what she does, I cannot stand by and watch her cozy up to Fred Koomson. Not when I know his secret.
♠♠♠
My family moved to Nii Lantei Street when I was three. At that time, it wasn’t quite the established settlement that it is today. There were just a few houses on the block served by an unpaved clay road with pot holes so large they resembled craters. Street lights were absent. It was a haven for stray cats and dogs and the occasional rats that burrowed their way into homes at night in search of crumbs or human toes to nibble on.
Three years after we relocated, Mr. Koomson moved into the house across from ours. That was the same year all the strays suddenly started to disappear. It was quite the coincidence. From the get go, Mr. Koomson was rude and unbearable. He blatantly chose to ignore greetings, even the cute, enthusiastic hellos from children like myself at the time. He was rather odd, always cooped up in his house alone. The few occasions that he braced the sun with his presence was to walk his savage pit bulls who, without leashes, were free to run amok terrorizing folks in the neighbourhood. He never made an effort to assimilate into the neighbourhood always refusing to attend meetings. He was what you would call a grouch.
During my formative years, I had a trampoline. It was big, blue and the perfect contraption for performing tricks that could have either gotten me paralyzed or hired by Cirque du Soleil. There was something addictive about jumping on a trampoline. I always wanted to push the limit, see how high I could go maybe levitate for a few seconds while I was up there. Anytime, I got that rush, I could jump so high I would get a bird’s eye view of the entire neighbourhood. That dexterity fueled my second addiction: spying on my neighbours. I knew a lot of the dirty linen my neighbours tried to wash in their quarters; Mr. Ghansah was having a clichéd affair with his jailbait secretary, The Prempehs’ exemplary son, Mikey, was a closeted cocaine addict, Jocelyn Boadu, in her prime 40s, wore dentures and Francis Appiah was a public defecator.
On one sunny cloudless Saturday afternoon as I chased both my highs like Mikey Prempeh did with his cocaine, I saw something in Mr. Koomson’s backyard that would both scar and scare my young mind for a long time to come.
Jump.
There it was, something huge lying at the bottom of Mr. Koomson’s pool. At first sight, I thought I was hallucinating.
Jump.
It started to move in the water.
Jump.
It was out of the water and even more massive on land.
Jump.
It moved sluggishly on all fours.
Jump.
It was headed towards a lifeless form, a dog, one of strays affectionately known in the neighbourhood as Rabies.
Jump.
Rabies disappeared.
Jump.
It wrestled with something in its mouth.
Jump.
It opened its massive mouth for a brief second. Its teeth stained red, I saw the tail end of a tail, Rabies tail.
Jump.
It, with its yellow half-moon pupiled eyes, scaly, dirty green skin and stout stumpy legs, was back in the pool.
Jump.
I wasn’t hallucinating. There was an alligator in Mr. Koomson’s house. The thought, realization and sudden fear gripped me so fast, so fierce, like a wind chill that I momentarily lost focus mid-air, landing butt first on the trampoline where I was ricocheted off and onto the hard concrete pavement. My left butt cheek took the full brunt of the second landing. There was an unfortunate cracking sound.
The ride to the hospital was unbearable. I howled in both pain and fear the whole time trying to explain to my parents that Mr. Koomson was about to be an alligator’s one course meal.
“You see? This is what happens when you let her watch National Geographic all day,” my mother muttered to my father. “Now she thinks we are living in some wildlife documentary.”
But, hobbled in pain for the foreseeable future, I was relentless. There was an alligator in Mr. Koomson’s house. He could be dead for all we know. How would my parents feel knowing they were complicit in his murder? The latter got their attention.
It was night time when we knocked on Mr. Koomson’s gate. To say he was displeased to see us would be putting it lightly.
“Good evening, Mr. Koomson,” my mother, ever the polite one, said.
He scowled and grunted in response.
“Sorry to bother you but my daughter seems to think that there is an alligator lurking in your house. She’s concerned about your wellbeing.”
Mr. Koomson stared at us like we were escapees from the mental asylum before he burst out laughing. “That’s impossible. Your daughter was probably hallucinating.” He crouched down to my level. “Do you know what that word means, little girl?”
I mentally added “condescending old hag” to his ever-growing demerit list.
“I can assure you that there is no such animal lurking around. I think I would have noticed it by now, but thanks for the concern.”
“No problem. Honestly, I think she’s just trying to deflect the fact that she wasn’t being careful on her trampoline by making up this story.”
They bid adieu and as my mother steered us home, I took one final look back at Mr. Koomson just before we entered our house. He was watching me with the most sinister look on his face. It was a look that spoke volumes: he was well aware of the creature in his home. The psychopath probably kept it as a pet!
Most nights I would hear the creature moving, a deliberate slow drag on the ground. There was always the sound of a happy mewl from an unsuspecting stray cat surveying Mr. Koomson’s premises that quickly evolved to frantic meows for help ‘til there was nothing left but the sound of grinding molars at work. I took to peeing on the bed at night; with my vivid childish imagination, I had somehow convinced myself that if I went to the restroom at odd hours of the nights, Mr. Koomson’s pet would somehow break into the restroom and devour me. I found safety only in my bed.
Not one to be deterred, I confided in some of the kids in the neighbourhood about my finding. They in turn told their parents and before long it became widespread news that Mr. Koomson was harboring a non-domesticated animal in his home. Mr. Koomson vehemently denied the accusations till the president of the Neighborhood Watch decided that a chosen few search his premises to put our minds at ease. Surely there was no way he could escape this, I thought. He was just going to have to confess but Mr. Koomson did the unthinkable: he invited them in. With the invitation, a few strong men in the area, armed with cutlasses, machetes and pick axes, were summoned to survey his premises.
I waited eagerly for the screams, the shouts of “Jesus”, the unmistakable sound of furniture being tossed about and the scraping of chairs on the floor, the telltale sounds of a struggle to escape but they never came. The brave men who had journeyed into Mr. Koomson’s compound came out unscathed. There was no alligator, just two pit bulls, they claimed. And just like that I became a pariah in my own neighbourhood, a liar. They could forgive Jojo and Evelyn, the notorious twins from house 114, for almost burning down the convenience store and Amina from house 109 for stealing bread from Mrs. Nkansah’s kitchen but lying in my neighbourhood, I came to realize, was unpardonable.
♠♠♠
This is the happiest I have ever seen Mr. Koomson. He has been dancing for about twenty minutes straight. That’s an awesome feat for a man his age. He’s been requesting tunes from the band nonstop and they have been nothing but obliging. In effect, we are stuck in a ‘60s time warp.
“My Girl,” he shouts at the band just as they are nearing the end of a funky track.
The intro to The Temptations’ hit starts to roll out and all around us the kids are starting to get antsy.
“Can you play something from this century please? Rihanna? Mr. Eazi?” they plead.
Their pleas fall on deaf ears as Mr. Koomson starts to perform a choreographed routine to the song. He gets to the chorus and I am assuming he is about to swivel on his heels or something similar but those hips of his had something else in mind when they decide to pop out of their socket. There’s a collective hiss from us present when we hear the loud pop.
Ever the stubborn man, Mr. Koomson refuses help, claiming that he just needs to retire to bed to recuperate. We all watch him limp out of the Agyemans’ premises.
“Wow! The stars are aligning in my favour. I believe this is my cue to go and play sexy nurse with your geriatric neighbour,” Eno whispers suggestively.
It’s like I have been talking to a wall for the past hour. “Did you not hear anything that I said?”
“You have an over active imagination. It’s one of the things I love about you, but I think you should channel that imagination into creating stories for kids. You could write the next Harry Potter with that mind of yours.” She pauses to reapply her lipstick. “There is no way there’s an alligator in that man’s house. It’s just not feasible. Someone else should have seen it by now, don’t you think? Plus, I know taekwondo. I can drop a few moves if it dares to stand in my way of getting my bills paid.”
Eno finishes reapplying her makeup, spritzes perfume behind her ears and in between her cleavage, takes a long sip of her mimosa and asks me to wish her good luck before she shimmies away in that tight dress that is struggling to stay intact.
With Mr. Koomson absent from hogging the music, the children have finally succeeded in getting the band to play something they can relate to. It’s some catchy afro pop tune that has been garnering waves on the radio. I watch as their uncoordinated limbs fail to move in sync to the beat of the song. It’s a lackluster performance at best but we pretend to be awed because, well, they are children and we love to boost children’s self-esteem by lying to them.
Eno would have known how to dance to this. Things would have most likely turned R-rated with her moves but at least I would have been entertained.
I am on my fifth plate of grilled pork when a deafening, high-pitched scream pierces through the music. It’s the scream that failed to materialize all those years back when I was seven, the scream that I have been secretly praying for daily to acquit me.
Redemption is nigh.
We all abandon the party in search of the scream, a quest that leads us to Mr. Koomson’s locked gate. There’s another earth shattering scream followed by a shout for Jesus and capped off with a terrible vocal rendition of the hymn ‘O God our Help in ages past.’
It’s the only hymn Eno knows and for reasons she has never divulged, she only belts it out in times of trouble. She sang it woozily with a slight concussion after she crashed her father’s car when she was twelve and she sang it piously as she waited for the stick to tell her she wasn’t pregnant at fifteen.
Now she sings it with the type of vim that encapsulates the trepidation of imminent death.
Mr. Agyeman takes the reins as leader of the pack and bangs on the gate.
“Hello. Do you need help?” he stupidly asks.
We don’t get a response. What we do get is an image of Eno bursting out of Mr. Koomson’s house and running towards the gate with the agility of a world class sprinter. Following her out the door is the infamous alligator, albeit it’s aged quite a bit and moves more or less like an oversized tortoise. It doesn’t, however, look like it was daunted by Eno’s taekwondo prowess.
It’s now the crowd’s turn to erupt in panic-stricken screams. Chaos ensures as we all instinctively back away from the gate preparing our escape routes should the alligator get out.
Eno makes it to the gate and makes a futile attempt to open it. Seeing the predicament she is in, her eyes bulge out and find mine in the crowd on the opposite side of the see through gate. “Help”, she mouths to me.
John 15:13 in the Bible says “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” I clearly do not possess this love for Eno. I am about to watch my friend get eaten alive.
People try throwing stones over the gate to distract the alligator, but it’s undeterred. In a last minute gesture, Eno decides to scale the gate. It’s with such succinctness that she performs this task, that should she get a job as Spiderwoman, she wouldn’t need a stunt double. She pauses at the top of the gate and thinks about jumping.
“My dear,” Mrs. Nkansah, who lives in house 113, shouts. “Don’t jump. Your knees will be nonexistent if you do.”
Eno throws one leg over the gate followed by the other and turns with her back facing us to scale down the other side of the gate. Halfway down, there is a loud ripping sound. Eno’s spandex dress has seen enough action for the day. Appearing to breathe a sigh of relief — the type similar to the breath you release when you take your bra off after a long arduous day — it gives way at the seams, a straight tear from the bottom to mid back, exposing Eno’s ample buttocks to the crowd gathered.
She really should have worn underwear.
By the time she makes it safely down, we have all been able to count the stretch marks on each buttock: seven on the left, eleven on the right.
She’s too embarrassed to face us. She stands with her buttocks still viciously glaring at us until Adoma, from house 118, takes off her head wrap, unfolds it and wraps it around her. Now, Eno is in hysterics, the alligator, old and out of shape, is trying vainly to scale the wall and we are all wondering where Mr. Koomson is.
“Mr. Koomson! Please come out!” Mr. Agyeman yells. “You have some explaining to do!”
It takes ten minutes for a limping Mr. Koomson to show up. He is disheveled and disoriented; it appears he slept through the commotion.
“Benny, what are you doing out here?” he says to the alligator who obediently stalks back to its master. “What are you all doing here?”
“Your pet here tried to eat my friend,” I say finally finding my voice.
“Benny would never,” he says, stroking the ugly creature. It is a horrifying scene to witness.
Mr. Agyeman clears his throat, appalled by the left turn this day has taken.
“We all owe you an apology,” he says to me. “Mr. Koomson, you’ve been lying to us about this damn alligator this whole time. As a moral and upstanding member of this community, I am ashamed. I believe an apology from you is long due.”
Mr. Koomson graces us with his signature scowl. “I never lied. Benny is a crocodile.”
