Father Francis relished in the jangles of his voice. He talked about how Buhari was the worst person to happen to Nigeria. Even if I only believe a rumour after the government had denied it, I agreed with Father Francis that the president man knew he was unfit for the crown. Father Francis’ facial muscles contracted as he spoke animatedly, counting the nation’s failings on his fingers. I mixed poured him another glass of baileys, my thoughts occupied with the final touches to my plan. For six months, I calculatedly worked my way into Father Francis. The first time he noticed me, which was actually three weeks later than he should have, was when I went to ask for forgiveness for my “impending suicide.” His kind, fatherly voice reached me through the thick wood of the confessional. I glimpsed him through the gauzed hole, his head bent, and eyes closed as he listened. He then asked me to come to his office where he began counselling me on how to draw nearer to God during travails. The counselling section ignited our close-knit friendship. He became a constant visitor to my house.

Father Francis tapped my lap as if to call my attention. His eyes shone as he spewed words about the Ghana Empire. This gist was better than the knackering rant over Buhari’s incompetence.

“The Trans-Saharan slave trade, I guess, was as intense as the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, but with far lesser documentation,” he said.

Senseless man. I decided to say something abstract to check if the “love-potion” I dropped in his baileys had started kicking. “Those who looked up for rain should now look down for mud.”

 “Exactly!”

I smiled, satisfied.

“Look, bah,” he said, tapping my lap, “if Africans don’t tell her story, another person will tell it for her, and, then, God help her.”

What’s my own with stories? I almost laughed. Almost. Harmattan will lick the lips of a person who refuses to lick it themselves. If Africa like oh, let her not tell stories oh, or sing songs oh, or act movies oh, or what-is-my-blessed-own oh! E no concern me; I don’t care. My concern was about to go down, and I could not wait. My breath scented of calmness irrespective of my pumping adrenaline. I was close. Very close.

Father Francis kept enjoying the sound of his voice. “See bah, Jack, even if all Nigerians become storytellers, we will still not be enough to tell the story of Nigeria. The land is vast, but there are no farmers.”

His forefinger dragged sweat from one point of his forehead to the other, salting my rug with his filth. I mentally counted to twenty, channelling my anger to the nonentity I bumped into, during my afternoon walk, along Ahmadu Bello way, in front of a building that was formerly Lion Bank, later Diamond Bank, now Access Bank. A girl ran out of the bank’s ash bar gate, clutching her stomach. She spurted forth a slimy mixture of beans. I jumped back, missing a puke bath by a hair’s strand. The girl kept throwing up. I wanted to grab her by the neck, raise her face to mine, and slap her until her “yellow” face turned red or blue or even dead. Almost did. But I jumped over the thing and passed.

“Okay, imagine someone like Gowon. You know Gowon, right?”

I nodded. What a stupid question! Which Nigerian my age had not heard of Yakubu Gowon?

“Good. Tell me why Gowon has not written a very good book about the truth of what caused the Biafran war. Who shall we run to for the truth? Wait, I’m coming let me go and urinate.” He got up, dragging his feet. He entered my bedroom and shut the door.

 A bat flies at night because it is aware of its ugliness. I wondered how Father Francis was so oblivious of the pockmark of foolishness imbued on his fat, pot-bellied, stout form. He reminded me so much of Mama Tapgun, the black statue of a woman holding a baby on one hand and a pan to her head with the other hand. The statue stood on the roundabout in the middle of the Jos Terminus Market until one short-sighted governor pulled her down. The door creaked as it opened and Father Francis staggered out, zipping his trousers. He dropped on his sofa, emptied the contents of his tumbler, belched, and continued rapping.

“Okay, do you know that some history books said Awolowo refused to give the Igbos all the monies in their account when they fled. Sfssffsfihiwns…”

O ruo n’omume! It was show time! I smiled; my interest piqued. His head dropped to the side, he jerked up, smiled to himself, rubbed his eyes.

“Awolowo should have written a book so that we can know his side of the sto…”

He dragged the “sto” so much that I was not sure if he wanted to say “story” or “stole.” Whatever he wanted to say, I did not care. Just sleep already! As if he heard my thoughts, he abandoned his head on the headrest and, finito! Ya ka re!

The best person you can send on an errand is yourself. Dragging Father Francis to the car proved difficult, but I had stored up enough strength for this task. I had not come to this city, which seemed content with talking to itself, for tourism. Jos. Terminus market. Apata suburb. Traders. Hawkers. Beggars. Madmen. Men in suit. Men, mad, in suit. The whole gamut of it—solitude in a deep, noisy, busy, mind-your-goddam-business—rankled the hell out of me. But my time here was now a billboard screaming, “Adios amigos!” I could not wait to leave this cold city: always “colding” for nothing. My father used to say that if a man chases away his woman, he would live alone. So if Jos froze everybody, it would be alone. Alone as I had been for twenty-two years since Mercy took an overdose of her drugs. And, no, she did not kill herself. It was another hand that triggered the process: the hand that I’d soon snip.

Thunder cannot surprise one who was cooked for lightning. I wore my double gloves as per precaution. I did not expect the Nigerian Police to dust for fingerprints. Of course not! But I wore the gloves anyway because I no fit shout. Father Francis lay in my backseat, snoring, puffing like a train. Without headlamps, I drove the short distance to the place I liked to call, “My crime scene.” I did not go to the main road. I cannot be that idiotic. I stayed within the streets. Studying my area was the first thing I did when I returned to the city of my birth. Jos tasted of sweet, sour nostalgia. The BQ I rented at Liberty Boulevard was accessible from the back pedestrian gate. The compound was as big as those of the other houses around, which suited me well. When I settled in, I sought and found a crime scene. It was an abandoned warehouse, more like an old shipping container. That settled, I stalked the shit out of Father Francis for five weeks. I knew that after celebrating evening Mass every Friday, Father Francis dressed in joggers and jogged away. When he was out of Apata suburb, he would board a taxi and head to number three Dilimi Street.

Because the cloud does not darken for the fun of it, one day, I went to number three Dilimi street and knocked on that door. A light-skinned woman answered. She gawped at me. As she deepened her looks, her forehead creased, her eyes thinned. I claimed that I was selling hair products. She looked at my chest, my beards, and cornrows as if doubting my maleness. Three children, the oldest would be maybe nine, came to the door. Shi ke nan, that’s it. They all had Father Francis’ dark complexion. The eldest had the same Mama Tapgun’s nose with nostrils hospitable enough to house a stopper. Father Francis’ round mouth that resembled those of a chronic porridge beans-and-yam eater was unmistakably chiselled into all their faces.

 “May I come in?” I asked.

Her answer came out cold. “No.”

Her heart seemed frozen. And, no, it was not Elsa’s undoing. The woman gathered her children inside and banged her door.

Death comes visiting with its own bed and chair. I dragged Father Francis into my crime scene and locked us in. I flicked the switch. The dim, yellow, joke of a light bulb flickered on. The floor was an infant refuse dump. It seemed that heavy rain, or series of heavy rain, washed in the dirt. For me: the dirtier the better. My new, metal, armchair with grid backrest was right in the middle of the room where I left it. I bought one that was big enough for his size, and I took it to a carpenter to cover its arms in leather. I got my concoction of Super Glue mixed with Araldite out of my backpack. I rolled him on his face and applied a good portion of my adhesive mixture on his trousers before I stuck his fat bum to the chair. He even relaxed well. I chuckled. The idiot! I hastened up because my love-potion, the Rohypnol, I added to his drink might wear out soon. I applied a generous amount of the adhesive on his hands and stuck them to the leather chair. I wore him oven gloves which I secured firmly on his wrists with a rope. I stuck his feet to the cemented ground. Then I still used a strong rope to tie his ankles to the legs of the chair, because local man no fit shout. I passed one end of my rope through the grid, around his tummy, around the back of the chair. I continued like that until I had circled his stomach five times with the rope. I then knotted the rope tightly at the back of the chair. I also firmly secured his lap to the seat with a rope. This was unnecessary considering that his butt was stuck to the chair, but should A fail, B would keep him right how I wanted him: seated. Having bound him, I pulled down his lower lip and painted them with adhesive. I needed absolute noiselessness. I still had a duct tape oh, in case the adhesive failed. Satisfied, I unmasked, sat opposite him, placed my jotter on my lap, and waited.

A secret back-stabber shall also receive a secret reward. When Father Francis betrayed his friend, my father, in the secret of the night, and got away with it, he did not know that his own reward would come twenty-two years later, at night, about the same hour.

Father Francis woke up. It was a slow movement of the head and silent “umm.” His eyes opened sluggishly. He blinked. I guessed his vision was blurred. He attempted to move his hands in vain. The frequency of his blinks intensified. I smiled. He struggled to move. It was a serious struggle from a weak body. He stopped when he noticed the rope around his stomach. Then he looked at me. His eyes narrowed, then widened. His lips tried to move but could not. I raised my palm. He stilled. I opened my jotter. First page, in a clear handwritten imitation of Times New Roman,

What is going on here?

He nodded briskly. I turned the page. It was difficult to achieve that with my gloves on, but I did anyway.

Abduction.

His eyes widened. He looked around him as if to take in the details of the place. I waited. When he looked at me, I turned the page.

Where am I?
He nodded like agama. I smiled and turned the page.

No need to know.

He pressed his eyes closed for a short while. He sighed. I turned the page.

Why am I here?

He nodded. I turned the page.

A patient dog eats the fattest bone. Calm down.

He looked at the ceiling that bore the map of a leaking roof. He looked at me, his head tilted to the right as though he was wondering who I was. I flipped the page.

Who are you? Where is Jack?

An eager nod from him; a page flip from me.

Na me be Jack. But shaa call me Jackie _{the gluer}.

Onye ma mmadu n’egbu ya: someone who knows you can kill you. Father Francis’ eyes got even wider. His face, powdered in confusion, pleased me. I was not going to tell him that I had been pretending to be a boy. I would not go into details of how I taped my breast every day to make my tiny breasts invisible. I did not have the time to tell him how I wore fake beards daily. If he had any sense, which I doubted, because it was his senselessness that condemned him to that chair, he would have wondered why I always wore baggy long-sleeved tops and a face cap whether it was sunny or not.

I flipped the page.

Alaye, say your last prayer.

When the anus farts, the head receives a knock. Father Francis’ head was about to be knocked for a fart of twenty-two years ago. I guess his eyes could not get any wider. His lips shook as if he wanted to cry. Soon enough, tears dropped from his eyes. I almost laughed. Almost. Bros did not even have guts. Ordinary “Say your last prayer” and Oga wanted to cry Justin Timberlake a river. He did not need to talk for me to know he was pleading for mercy. But I could not give what I did not have. Mercy died with Mercy. Because we were twins, I was not allowed to attend her burial. They bundled me to Olot where I then grew. They hoped that the distance would heal me from the trauma that took my sister. It did not. I mean, how could it?

Father Francis sobbed like a freshly widowed woman. If tears could stop evil, Mercy, and mercy, would still be here. I flipped the page.

Father Francis, have you asked Kyrie for eleison?

He shook like a titanic survivor. I wished he would die with dignity. You don already know say you go die, die with your heads-up. How hard was that? He did not answer my question: could not. He looked up at the ceiling instead. Maybe he was praying. I bet that he was thinking of his woman and children at number three Dilimi Street. Well, too bad.

When poop is not cone-shaped, then there is diarrhoea. Father Francis shit on himself. The brown paste that dripped from his trousers to the ground had the disgust and smell of fear, anguish, hopelessness, everything, but regret: the one thing I hoped it would have. The stench was inhumane. It must have come from the spirit world. It was time to go. I dropped my jotter. His eyes turned to letter O, watching my steps. I walked behind him. His body stank of concentrated sweat. I held his temples and bent his head up. I looked him right into his pupils, which rolled here and there in fear. I wanted to see the recognition in his eyes. I did not. He did not remember? How dare he! I almost shouted. Almost. But I kept staring into his eyes. Then I saw realisation flush into his eyes. He must have finally seen in my eyes, the eight-year-old Mercy and Marcy. He must have remembered that night when my parents entrusted us to his care and how he violated us. The shock was still in his eyes when I dropped my adhesive into his right pupil. He “umm!” squeezing his eyes shut. I pressed the top of his left eyes, not minding if his eyeballs fell out, until he opened it. I gave his left eye a dose of my “eyewash.” His “Umm!” was nonsense. I stuffed his nostrils with two balls of cotton wool and stepped back. Na there the shaking start. No, a fish out of water had nothing on him. He puffed his cheeks as though doing that would give him oxygen or let out carbon dioxide. His head seemed to expand, or was I imagining that?

They that plant yam shall eat yam. Father Francis planted a whole field of abomination. He would have difficulty eating everything he sowed. As Father Francis struggle for life, I thought of Mercy and how she bled until our parents picked us up from the parish house the next morning. I thought of how we carried pans of blood away from under Mercy’s bed every day. I thought of how she shrank into a skeleton in a garment of thin, dark flesh. I thought of how many nights I woke up to find her crying, dying of trauma and bleeding. She wanted to end it. She wanted to die. I wanted her to have peace, but I was not ready to live without her. Then one morning, someone with a strong grip yanked me out of bed and ran! I screamed, but my father kept running, shielding me from Mercy’s corpse. Had I seen her corpse, it was believed that I too would die.

Father Francis got away with it until now.

The evil that men do dies with them. Father Francis had stopped shaking. His face looked distressed except that there was this smirk on his lips. I felt his neck for a pulse: none. I packed all my kaya, my properties, and left. I left his nose stuffed maka adịghị amama, just in case.

I locked the door, wondering why he died with a smirk. I almost ran back to punch him. Almost.

“Jackie” first appeared in Cinnabar Moth Publishing 2021 Winter Anthology