Something, Anything

Photo: Anqi Lu

A new man visits the bar. It doesn’t take two looks to tell he is not like the other men. His teeth are too bright a shade of brown. His armpits aren’t marked by a map of sweat, and his portion of the table in front of him, which five other men share, is oddly lacking in beer.

An open newspaper of suya and onions sits at the centre of the table. There are more onions than suya because the other men are digging in toothpicks and fetching out meat. The new man sits there and watches, picking only the onion even though he bought the treat. 

He hasn’t said anything at all. This is enough to raise some hair, but oddly, no one finds him threatening. 

Weeks ago, a man dressed just like him walked into this bar, pretending to be a drunk customer with wife and daughter trouble. This one’s story was long and stupid, but no one paid attention to the loopholes because he bought the bar a round of drinks. His story was about a faraway city where girls wore pants and stood by streets to be fucked by men with spare change. Just about any change at all. 

Vagina was like meat there, he said. Cheap. The juiciest ones, the cheapest—since these ones felt like throwing money away. One slip in and another out, and men would release themselves so that regret settled between their ribs and diaphragm, shooting a sigh out of their throats. 

Everyone cheered, voicing their regrets about marrying too early. Early marriage meant an early welcome into the world of dry vaginas and nagging women.

No one had expected that by the time the sun began to lose its heat, the city man would have arrested two boys who had been puffing rizlas. 

He had watched them from the corner of his eyes, noting how they lay browned hemp into papers and lit these papers on fire, smoke spiralling out through a small window close by.

The men in the bar yelled and yelled as the city man took the boys out. When the yelling stopped, older men, too tired from the commotion and too drunk to stay, started leaving even though it was too early. Walking sticks pattered along the newly constructed street , and lips coned into tiny whistles that tuned Sir Wilker’s music.

The younger ones stayed, however, unanimously deciding that it would help to run small but necessary background checks on any newcomer who visits the bar.

They would no longer let in men whose lips are too moist and healthy, whose eyes are too bright, whose clothes are too clean, and whose skins bear marks of money. 

Between that evening and now, the men of the bar have sent at least twelve men home. But this one who just sits and doesn’t speak, they just couldn’t.

He looks too clean, of course. But there is a sadness in his eyes that will not go away. Bottles of beer to their mouths, they all anxiously wait for him to at least say something, acknowledging that it is best to let a man crawl out of his shell on his own. Especially in such a place, where peace and love roam free like birds atop tall trees too high for stones to climb. The room may be too small, too crowded, but there is just enough room for love to have its play. 

It is this love that packs the bar full every evening. To drive it away by prying, by squeezing hard at a person’s mouth with too many questions, would be driving money away, and only fools do that.

When the man coughs a couple of minutes after the last piece of onion, everyone holds a breath and waits. His voice is gentle yet loud. His speech is clear and beautiful, as should a man who holds his car keys between knuckles. In two minutes, this man confesses his weakness. He tells of his struggle to give his penis life when it’s time to make love to his wife. He tells of how this has chipped at his place as a man, to the point where his wife even suggests he go see a doctor. Why should a woman suggest that her man takes his penis to another man so that it is poked and examined like a child’s? 

Everyone coos and kais, stories about similar experiences sprouting from many lips. 

As always, there is a solution by the time the man wants to leave. It comes from a man in his early sixties who brags about his ability to make even young women roll their eyes back and dig their fingers into his back. Twenty pairs of eyes on this man, he tells the story of his last sexual encounter. The girl had just returned from her madam’s house, he said. She bent herself in a way that would drive any man crazy. Any man but him, since he has seen the most odd things. He made love to her. Water poured from her vagina like a tap, and that was it. Everyone cheers. 

The man who bought the suya holds his solution to his eyes as he sits in his dimly lit car. It’s a concoction of herbs and alcohol. He sighs, places the bottle in his mouth, and gulps. Leafy bitterness sours his face, slapping at the insides of his cheeks so hard that he grunts.

His wife can tell the difference when he touches her at home. Her moans are louder, the sex almost painful even though pleasurable enough to bring her to the edge of an orgasm and trip her over. It lasts a while, the man falling off her when he cums. A scream pierces the air when, on figuring out that he isn’t really asleep, she shakes him the third time with no response. 

It’s a cardiac arrest, the doctor says. 

A week later, the government comes and reduces Utasi Bar to a stubble. 

About the author

Ubong Johnson

Ubong Johnson is a storyteller, medic, and contemporary pianist. Ubong is deeply fascinated by stories. He spends most of his evenings with his cat, Aniel. 

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