This Lagos Life
Photo: Sheyi Owolabi
Traipsing around Lagos is not easy. And by traipsing, I mean navigating the labyrinth that is Lagos as a poor motherfucker that relies solely on public transportation or the yellow metal contraptions called danfos. Lagos is a hell of a city, and I don’t mean this as an idiomatic expression. Lagos is how I imagine hell to be, sometimes: hot, humid, unpredictable, chaotic, smelly, and sometimes, fun.
I
So one Thursday afternoon after CDS, I’m inside a danfo at Oshodi, sitting by the window overlooking men pissing on railway tracks. I’m minding my business and waiting for the danfo to fill up with passengers. Sweat is running down from my scalp in rivulets, tracing wobbly lines down my neck before disappearing into the small of my back. I’m uncomfortable as fuck, cursing myself for forgetting my handkerchief at home. There’s a lot of noise in the background: bus conductors conducting, hawkers hawking, you know, Lagos Lagosing. There’s always noise in the background in Lagos. I guess that is why everyone in Lagos shouts by default.
This short man comes up to my window holding several creams in small plastic bottles. He’s also holding a riotous poster with just about every colour of the rainbow. The poster says he’s selling “tried and trusted weak erection and penis enlagment creams.” Tried and trusted by whom exactly? Those who cannot spell enlargement? Although I suspect that the people who need these creams don’t give a fuck about correct spellings. I frown and pretend to be reading something on my phone, hoping he takes the cue and fucks off. He doesn’t. I understand. If every hawker fucks off because of a frown, they’d be back in whatever hellhole they crept out from in no time. Anyway, I brace myself for impact.
“Oga corper, make I bring cream?” he says.
“No,” I say curtly.
“This cream dey work o. I swear. I don dey do this business for 12 years now, and my customers dey testify,” he says, nonplussed.
I sigh. “Oga, I be young man. I no get weak erection. Dat one na old people dem problem.”
He nods as though he agrees with what I just said. Then, with a straight face, this man looks me in the eye and says, “What of penis enlargement?” Before I can reply, he continues, “So that when you insert am, e go gauge.” He contorts the fingers on his left arm into the shape of an airplane when he says “insert am” and grabs his right arm near the elbow when he says “e go gauge”. I hear laughter erupt behind me in the almost full danfo.
I’m caught between a rock and a hard place. I don’t know whether to be entertained or embarrassed. His display, moments before, was funny. But he also singled me out to market penis enlargement cream to, in a bus with several other men. So now I’m thinking, why me? Who told him I have a “gauging” problem? Do I look like I have a gauging problem? I am also thinking that he has ruined the word “gauge” for me because I’ll forever have a mental picture of a penis when I hear that word. Not just any penis, my penis. I mean, what the fuck? I am minding my business, sweating profusely, and just like that, two words are swimming inside my head: “penis” and “gauge”.
The bus starts moving, and air blows into the bus, drying out my sweaty scalp. I’m so relieved I don’t even mind that the air smells like urine and slimy gutter water. In Oshodi, air is air, clean or not. The air being clean or unclean doesn’t enter into the conversation. I tell myself clean air is a social construct and that capitalism has ruined our collective chances of breathing clean air. I tell myself everything I don’t like is a social construct. My brain circles back to gauging, and now I have even more questions. Do people ask their partners if they are gauged when they insert their penises? How does one know if their penis gauges? What does a penis that doesn’t gauge feel like? What if I have a gauging problem? I sigh again and admit to myself that the short bastard has gotten into my head. I know all my dreams today will be about penises not gauging.
The thing that pisses me off the most about this penis gauging wahala is that even though he misused the word “gauge”, I perfectly understand what he means. I hate that language doesn’t betray him, that he can break the rules of language and still break into my head.
***
Lagos allows you to plan meticulously before pissing on your plan. This is why people in Lagos don’t plan. It is why we are all roughing it in this crazy city. Hear me out.
II
I make it to Kola junction at Alagbado at exactly 5:45 AM, and I’m feeling myself—literally patting myself on the back because of all the good decisions I have made. Anyone that understands Lagos knows that I woke up at 5:00 AM. And that I had a bath, got dressed, and jumped onto the first okada I saw to have made it to the junction at this time. We Lagosians reward ourselves for weird things like waking up before everyone else and stumbling around in the dark with torch lights. I see a bus going to Ikeja, where I am headed, and I jump in. The conductor says 500 naira. I jump right out. “What rubbish!” My job interview is at 8:00 AM, and I have enough time. I map out an alternate route to Ikeja. Agbado to Agege, 200 naira. Agege to Ikeja, 150 naira. Total fare, 350 naira. I save N150 naira, quick math. So I jump onto the next Agege bus, and this time, the conductor calls out the right fare, 200 naira. I press myself into the rather pleasant cushioned seat and congratulate myself for getting a danfo with cushion seats.
I get to Agege at 6:27 AM, and there are one thousand people going to Ikeja but zero buses going to Ikeja. Fuck! Something about a traffic jam due to construction at Ikeja, so danfos are not going to Ikeja from Agege. Realization dawns on me. I should have taken the direct bus to Ikeja. Okada men are everywhere, capitalizing on the situation. They’re screaming, “Ikeja 500 naira.” I switch between cursing at the okada men for being greedy and cursing at myself for being stupid enough to think I could predict how things would turn out. I flag down an okada and sit down, sullen. The okada rider starts looking around for another desperate fuck willing to pay 500 naira. Okada men in Lagos always carry two random strangers going to the same destination. Weird city, this Lagos. He finds another person, a very fat man. I am not exaggerating. This man’s stomach is a full arm’s length in front of him. He clambers onto the okada and squishes me into the okada rider. His stomach knocks all the air out of me.
Let me clue you in on something before I continue. There are different kinds of fat. I am not a doctor but listen to me, I have commute experience. There’s soft fat. Fat that is squishy and moldable, fat that gives way. That is the good kind of fat to encounter when commuting. Then there’s hard fat. Fat that is sturdy, hard, like concrete. Fat that crushes. This is the bad kind of fat you do not want to encounter during a commute. Especially as a skinny bastard.
This man’s stomach is a hundred percent hard fat. I feel hazy, but I recover as the okada starts moving and the Lagos breeze caresses me back to life. I tell myself Ikeja is not far, that I can endure it. Because the road is full of cars and impatient people, the okada rider is up to his neck in dangerous manoeuvres. Quick braking and sharp turns. He is James Bonding with our collective lives. None of these manoeuvres is good for me. Hard-fat man is slamming into me repeatedly, and black spots are already clouding my vision. A policewoman stops the okada man and arrests him for following a one-way, halfway through the commute. All of us climb down quickly, and I test my lungs to check if they’re still working, if I can still breathe. I join a procession of people trekking to Ikeja. I get to Ikeja at 8:05 AM. I’m thinking it’s not that bad. I just have to take a shuttle to Ikeja GRA. Anyway, I get to Ikeja GRA at 8:47 AM, looking like a mouse that fell into a bucket of water.
I get to the uppity firm, and the interviewers keep me waiting for two hours. Then a lady comes out and tells me that corps members can only be interns, that the pay is 30,000 naira per month. They could have said this before they gave me an assessment that took a whole day to finish, the bastards. I don’t say this out loud, though. I just look up, smile, and tell her to fuck off in corporate-speak: “Thank you. Let me think about this offer and get back to you.”
I take a direct bus going to Kola on my way home. I’m done with alternate routes. I press my face onto the dirty glass window and let tears cloud my vision. It’s noon now, and the sun is sunning. I am marinating in self-pity, thinking about the one stupid decision that fucked up my day when I see a man in a white garment hopping across the road. Yes, hopping. You see, white garment christians, cele, as we call them, don’t wear shoes when they are dressed in their religious attire. It’s noon, and the coal tar is hot as hell. So this man has to hop across as fast as he can to minimize the torture on his soles. I smile through my tears. I did say Lagos is sometimes fun.
About the author
Raheem Omeiza is Ebira and writes from Lagos, Nigeria. His works explore boyhood, grief, sexuality and the liminal spaces where they intersect. He was a finalist for the 2022 Afritondo Short Story Prize. His works are published and forthcoming in Afritondo, Litro Magazine, Lolwe and elsewhere. He likes cats. He writes from Lagos, Nigeria.
