GAAP

There are two things I hate. Number one is religion. It cost me a parent and my childhood. It is not my favorite topic. I only mention it to give you an idea of the fiends that assail me.

1987: My family, save Father, narrowly escaped with our lives when a religious riot broke out in Kafanchan. Without warning friends and neighbors turned on one another, maiming and killing like new initiates into vampirism. We took refuge in our little, scenic, not-on-any-map village tucked into an Okitipupa hillside.
1989: Uncle got tired of the village. We moved with him to Lagos.

People often talk about how AJ City is rough, congested and the den of bados, they never encountered Maroko. Nestled near VI and Ikoyi, it was home to many who had no means and no alternative. Poverty was so pervasive it was a badge of honour.

Uncle got into the transport business. He drove in a three-day cycle between Jibowu and Aba. The bus belonged to a wealthy widower three streets away. One day, the J5 lost a tire at top speed, flipped a few times like a drunken ninja and sailed over the bridge into a river. No one came out.

Two months after Uncle’s death, the bus owner came to our shack. Ostensibly to check on our progress, actually to tell us how our late uncle, and by extension the family, was indebted to him. The bus was uninsured and its loss represented a major loss of income. My brother who was twelve, two years younger than me, began to upbraid him; he backhand-slapped my brother.

The force of the blow lifted him clean off his feet and threw him against the door. The boy crumpled to the floor in a heap. I rushed to him, he was still. My brother was dead. A red mist passed in front of my eyes, followed by a preternatural calm that descended on me. I reached for the sun-bleached dog femur that served as door-wedge and flew at him. It lasted all of five minutes. He was dead, and I, a killer. My brother began to stir.

There was no investigation. The man was not loved in the community. Plus, he lived alone. Some grownups took care of his body. I was too shaken to be involved. That incident earned me the moniker Bone. It also affected my brother’s brain. He was never quite the same again.

Mother transformed after Uncle’s death. It may have been lack that drove her or it was a dormant part of her that grew dominant. Anyway, our home became a male care center.

I left home, hooked up with some older boys in the neighborhood and got introduced to picking pockets and petty thievery, robbery naturally followed. I learned every trick in the book and invented some. It is amazing how big a motivation deprivation can be.

1990: Oke, my only friend, and I decided we’d had enough of the slum. We relocated to Festac Town and changed our line of work. We went into the disposal business. Our jobs were clean–very clean. Word got out. Demand got higher. We got richer. It was simple: pay the agreed on sum, show us the object of your disaffection and we took them out.

1993: The annulment of the freest and fairest election ever held in this country started a wave of chaos that lasted a while and ushered in the military. In the midst of it, Oke and the girl across the street tied the knot. I was the best man. He bought a house in Omole. And from then, we grew slowly apart. He blamed it on distance, I said it was marriage but we both

knew our partnership was dead
2000: I saw Oke on national TV at a state function in The Villa. A roving camera had briefly rested on his face. He was in the company of a serving Senator and they were laughing at something.

Years passed before Oke and I saw again, in the elevator of an Asokoro hotel.
Last week I got a call from DMI, they had a job for me. The accounts of a BH sponsor required balancing. They faxed a photograph. It was Oke.

I did some digging of my own, DMI’s intel was correct. I took the job. It did not come easy but I set up a meeting with Oke. I confront him with the evidence against him. He laughs and declares it balderdash. He said there could be no change without a revolution, and there can be no revolution without collateral damage.

I replied that all of that was okay. It’s the reason there are accountants; to introduce people to accounting–especially those who have skeletons (dead, decaying or dry) in their closets. I am just a nameless Generally Acceptable Accounting Principles enforcer.

I shot him at close range. I smiled when grey matter bespattered my face.
I told you I hate two things, the other is people who sponsor fanatics.
I turned to go. And heard the report of a gun the same moment I felt the slug tear into my right nipple, through skin and tissues to exit from my back. Oke’s wife stood there, a smoking gun in her hands. Then darkness covered everything.