Buki and June (A Story).

Confidence in you

Is confidence in me

Is confidence in high speed

“High Speed”, Parachutes, Coldplay

At no point when he was growing up did Bookie not think things would work out great. He had a sunny disposition that was both innate and rooted in what he knew was a charmed existence in a country where things were not even remotely close to being alright. It wasn’t a case of living in a bubble, it was more a result of a well-crafted existence that was ancient and alive at the same time.

His favorite uncle, Leke, owned the largest steel company in Western Africa while managing to keep out of the public eye. This was easy for him because, unbeknownst to most, Uncle Leke also owned the largest group of newspapers in the countries where he also owned the steel plants. He only built businesses outside of Nigeria and only did business with locals in the five countries where he owned plants. Because West African countries were inexplicably insular, Leke could keep a low profile. Nigerians did not know who was who in Liberia, Liberians did not know who was ‘in charge’ in Ghana, Ghanaians didn’t even travel to Sierra Leone, Sierra Leoneans did not have much to do with Ivorians who, in turn, had nothing to do with Malians, and Malians did not care about who did what in Guinea. Guineans didn’t know what was going on in their own country. The vast differences in cultures within and across borders explained some of it, but most of it could be ascribed to the distrust the colonial masters instituted when they left the West African shores. The Portuguese always felt they’d been shafted by the British, even though they’d discovered Africa first. It was easy for all involved to forget that the dark continent had been harsh to all colonial masters who’d ventured that way only after they’d conquered Asia for its spices and improved their ships and equipment. The distrust had been passed down from colonial master to subject.

So Bookie’s uncle, exhibiting the same chameleonic tendencies Bookie possessed, traversed the countries amassing wealth that anyone in those countries would surely have wanted if they had known what was going on. Uncle Leke was educated in the best schools in the US and learned more from his wealthy classmates than he did from the lectures. The biggest lesson he took with him, which had served him well, was that the wealthiest people in the world possessed more discretion than wealth, and that discretion and maintaining that wealth went hand in hand. Thinking back on the times he sat in on the adult conversations in which Uncle Leke talked the most, Bookie realized his uncle never talked about himself. Uncle Leke always complained about politics but never got involved. He switched between support for whatever government was in charge to absolute disgust for their policies in the same conversation. This was something else Bookie loved about his uncle. He could hold contrasting views on the same subject and be as versed on one side as he was on the other. This he’d gotten from his father, Bookie’s grandfather.

Despite having little to no education himself, Grandpa G, the alpha patriarch in a patriarchal society, had played a pivotal role in getting the Yoruba agenda squarely on the table when Nigeria gained her independence in 1960. He’d been a part of the push for emphasis on the three main geopolitical regions. His interest in politics shifted once his goal was achieved, and he squarely focused on trade in the 70s when the HBCUs opened up, ensuring his daughter and three sons were shipped to the United States. Shunning the traditional careers, he strongly suggested he would not pay for their education and advised them to focus on degrees in business. Grandpa G was in his late 60s by the time Bookie was born, he’d died right before Bookie became a teen but his influence was still felt in all the family’s decisions. Bookie did not find out what the G stood for until he was a teenager, not because he didn’t care, but simply because he was afraid that asking would break some veil of mystery about Grandpa that was unspoken but maintained.

Grandpa G was one of those African fathers who never actually expressed his love for his children, but in every action he took, weighed in hindsight, he looked out for their safety and security. He was old school loving his children and family by providing them with what he thought they needed: strong arms to rely on through the travails of life. Because, in his stoic view of the world, life was one constant battle against the present and lurking travails. Did Bookie love Grandpa G? Even Bookie did not know the answer to that question. He never thought the question was relevant. Bookie knew Grandpa G’s angle, everyone in his family did, and they never questioned how he went about making sure his goals were achieved. That was enough for Bookie and everyone that considered themselves under Grandpa G’s wide spanning wings.

Part 2

We never change, do we?

no, no We never learn, do we?

“We Never Change”, Parachutes, Coldplay

“June, what did your family think of Bookie when they met him?”

June was lost in her own thoughts for so long she’d forgotten the interview was still going on. All she could think about were the consequences of Bookie not becoming a US citizen. The possibility petrified her.

It was Bookie’s laughter on hearing the question from the USCIS lady that made her snap out of the negative possibilities she was conjuring up in her mind. Bookie’s laughter. It was what had warmed her family to him. Her unsmiling parents were wrapped in the warmth of the most amazing laugh she’d ever heard, from this man whom she was now sitting beside in the hope that she would continue to hear his laughter.

“They loved Bookie. He was everything we weren’t but all we were at the same time. They were stunned at this slim African who seemed to be always in thought and could recite the lyrics from every Coldplay album in tandem with my brother, who considered himself the Midwestern version of Chris Martin. They loved the fact that Bookie could go from a serious look to that warm and all encompassing smile in seconds. He fascinated them less because he was black but more because it surprised them how similar he was to us.”

“Even though your parents were Republicans?”

“Totally because they were Republicans. The irony was not lost on them that first trip Bookie and I took out to the farm, the familiarity they felt around Bookie and how natural that felt. My parents were unsmiling and stoic but were full of love for their family. They did everything they did, held all the views they held about the racial divide and the immigrant situation mainly because they wanted to hold on to the things they knew to be simple and right for us, their children. It was less about the ‘others’ and more about protecting who we were.”

“You spoke to them about this?”

“To my mother. Never with my father. He had that conversation with Bookie. He’s a Midwestern whose family actually moved from the south. I was his female child. He was never going to have that conversation with me.”

Bookie felt compelled to chime in here, not sure if it would help or hurt their situation with this lady who was confusing him. He was normally great at reading people, and he felt that he was on the verge of being torn from his wife and unborn child, so he had little to lose by jumping in.

“I’ve engaged with men like June’s dad all my life. They were just a different skin complexion from mine. But it wasn’t hard for me to get him to see that I was, for all intents and purposes, just a young man who loved his daughter and shared the same value systems that he’d tried to instill in his children. We had a great conversation that night. He shared with me how he’d struggled for days with his dear June’s rebellion when he saw her pictures of this African he was now talking to on her Facebook page. He’d gone out back the first night and shot a few deer just to calm himself after the pictures of June and I in Puerto Rico. It didn’t help that all the pictures were of us on the beach.” He realized that came off as him forcing the point that they were into one another. Well, this lady had probably checked their Facebook pages anyway… ”June’s Dad had accepted what I stood for in June’s life before I met him. All that was left was for me not to say something totally idiotic over the course of the three days while we were out there in the boonies.”

“What words of wisdom did he have to share with you?”

“We laughed about things. We especially bonded and laughed at the worship dancers — we didn’t know what they were called — who danced in black churches. He’d watched some black church TV and thought I could relate with that.”

“So you don’t relate with African American culture?”

Bookie wasn’t sure where this was going anymore. This lady was probably now just whiling away the time. He could feel himself getting angry.

“I actually don’t. Not sure how you’ll take this but not all black people are the same? For example, ever since June and I started dating we’ve had more issues with black women than even white people. Africans are, for lack of a better way to put this, impressed that I’m spending my time and life with a white woman. It’s almost like the dream. White people probably hate that we are together but won’t say anything. Black women and, to a lesser extent, black men, always start stuff. And it was actually what got us most interested in one another.”

At this June starts to laugh and the immigration lady knows she has a story and faces her to listen.

“We actually met at a club somewhere in New York when Bookie worked there and I was visiting some friends. Not sure why I thought this made sense but I intentionally stepped on the foot of a slightly chunky black lady Bookie was dancing with.”

“Thick, they’re called thick baby,” Bookie chimed in. Even in the retelling, June didn’t care much for the lady.

“Thick black lady. Not sure how I knew but I suspected that Bookie would take my side once the lady got pissed that I was doing what I did. And he did. We ended up drunk and in bed that night but I had no problem that I had just slept with this man I had met when slightly buzzed on a trip to New York. He stood for everything I knew my family was unconsciously against. I also felt safe with him. He’s not the strongest, as you can tell,” she said with a wry smile, “but he makes me feel safe and secure. Like he would kill for me. Sounds crazy but I knew all this the first time I stayed over at this place that night. My friends were worried especially since this was far from anything I’d ever done in my life.”

The immigration lady was getting very uncomfortable at the details June was sharing at this point. So they were in love. That much was evident in how seamless and natural their stories were. They even helped fill out each others memories of past events. That indicated more than just an arrangement.

“So Bookie what do your parents think of June?”

Part 3

Bones, sinking like stones

All that we fought for

Homes, places we’ve grown All of us are done for

“Don’t Panic”, Parachutes, Coldplay

Margaret saw in Bookie everything she didn’t like about the Africans she’d ever known. He reminded her of their chameleonic ability to blend in with any setting. It was a quality the African Americans she’d met didn’t have. For some reason these African guys managed to work in places where the African Americans couldn’t get jobs. It wasn’t the education, for heck’s sake, they all managed to maintain their native accents. They took on the US accent, but it was never totally convincing. Their emphasis on consonants slipped through in conversation. Maybe it was partly why they could get away with things. In any case, this was not the time to be thinking about her broken heart and lost chances. She had a decision to make about Bookie’s status. She knew his name was not Bookie. He’d put Buky, his real name, on the documents he submitted to USCIS. But all his social media accounts indicated he’d picked the easier-for-Americans-to-pronounce spelling of ‘Bookie’. It made her despise him even more. This duplicity he expressed in that simple act was enough for her to find him despicable. Her mind was wandering again…

This was supposed to be a simple decision. All his papers showed that he was eligible to be accepted as a US citizen. He even seemed to love June, who sat lovingly and nervously next to him. He had no right to. He probably did not deserve June, but these Africans seemed to have a way of getting to the core of a woman’s heart. By all indications of the law, she was supposed to stamp ‘APPROVED’ on his documents and let them get on their way. June even looked pregnant. Were they expecting a kid together? While this was supposed to soften her heart, it didn’t. June must be pregnant, her skin seemed a bit smoother than most of the wedding and travel pictures they’d shared to prove their union. And June had the luscious pregnant woman hair. Margaret had also had that lusciousness before she lost the kid she’d been expecting with the one African man she’d genuinely felt she could spend the rest of her life with. Her mind was drifting again…

—

Bookie could tell June was pretty nervous. She was moving ‘imaginary’ strands of hair from her face. If this was not approved, it meant she would repeat what was seeming like a generational cycle of mistakes made by following one’s heart. Her mum was estranged from her family after marrying a man from the south and moving to Texas with him. It wasn’t a surprise though, June’s grandmother had married an Irish man who had a lot of baggage but also had a lot of love. Why was this lady reading, June thought, looking up at both of them and not asking any more questions? Bookie did not like the way this seemed to be going. At all.]

But Margaret could not stand what Bookie stood for. Life was unfair. And rejecting him citizenship would just be one more act towards balancing things out for all the fake marriages that had gone through these walls only to be dissolved as soon as the laws allowed it without the guy losing his status and getting deported. She cared less about this before. But the country was swarming with all sorts of predatory men who were not deserving of the opportunities that a US passport provided them. Especially with their multiple degrees and well spoken ways. She was drifting again. This was more about her issues than Bookie… She didn’t care though. She’d make him sweat a bit more and then probably not give him the citizenship.

As she read the documents without speaking Bookie noticed Margaret’s screensaver come on. It was the picture of a cute curly haired and dimpled mulatto toddler. And it all became so much clearer to him. This woman saw in him something she detested about not just him but what he represented. Another black guy marrying a white woman. All of a sudden, and he wasn’t sure why he was so sure, it became obvious to him that this lady was about to punish him for the sins of another man. Wow. This was happening all over again. This always seemed to happen to him.

It never used to be this way. He wasn’t one to regret things, but there was one thing he would probably regret for the rest of his life.

Part 4

So I wanna live in a wooden house

I wanna live life and always be true, I wanna live life and be good to you

And I wanna fly and never come down, and live my life and have friends around

“We Never Change”, Parachutes, Coldplay

Unlike Grandpa G, and very unlike Uncle Leke, Bookie’s dad was not alpha male. Another difference was that while you always knew what Grandpa G’s angle was, protecting and providing for his family, you never could tell with Bookie’s Dad. He said very little to his children, but he was a talker. He was a diplomat, and as far as Bookie could tell, their stock in trade was talking. Dad did not have too many friends and loved Bookie’s mother dearly. That was one thing most people had no doubt about. That was another difference between Dad and Grandpa G. There was love in their home, but it just wasn’t directed toward the children as much as Bookie imagined it was supposed to be.

For many years, when Bookie was a teenager, his father was a figure that he couldn’t understand and didn’t want to. He travelled more often than he probably should have for work. What made it unbearable for Bookie, but very bearable for Bookie’s mother, was that she always got to travel with him. The kids were left at home while Bookie’s parents travelled and his mother wrote. She was an author, a vocation that most in Bookie’s very profession-oriented culture considered a lazy calling. Her breezy but thoughtful perspective on life was a great and balancing contrast to Dad’s cynicism. Bookie still did not understand how his Dad ended up thriving in his job as a diplomat. Bookie’s Dad must have been the lazy one because, with the opportunity Grandpa G’s kingmaker position in the country provided, he could have done a lot more for himself and his family.

Bookie often caught his father on the balcony of their home with cold lime water in a cup and a book in his hands. It was where Bookie got his love for books, which proved to be an asset when he held conversations with folk in his own travels around the world. He could talk about the common books they’d read, and Bookie reveled in the reaction he got from British friends when he could speak to the quality and content of Enid Blyton as much as if not better than they could most of the time. Books also gave Bookie the same escape that his father seemed to want from his life and current experiences. It must have been what attracted Dad to Mum. Mother never sweated the consequences of life, even though there was no point at which the consequences were even remotely as bad for them personally as they were in the country around them. There was always a trip around the corner where she could get lost in the newness of a place and the familiarity of the people in that place. She grounded Dad but also allowed him to travel physically through work and mentally through all the books she bought for him on their travels.

Dad never talked to the kids, but he was a storyteller. His crop of friends came over for drinks and dinner whenever Bookie’s parents were back in town. Mother and Dad impressively held court for their friends during those impromptu dinner parties, which always lasted well into the night. Bookie hung around out of sight, but within earshot, in their two-story home and listened to all the stories that flowed from his father while his mother provided the details that were often muddied in Dads retelling.

Dad’s friends were never the same set from one trip to another but were essentially the same in their desire to be regaled with stories from every part of the world. Unlike Uncle Leke, Dad was a conservative, better known as tribalistic in countries where the politics were less about ideology and more about tribal affiliation, and he made the point to frame countries in this way. As much as Dad was tribalistic, Mother was liberal. Where Dad valued hierarchy, Mother favored a looser association of people with a command structure led by whoever possessed the skill or asset that was most required at any point in an engagement or society. Bookie could not understand how Mother thought this could work and totally understood why Grandpa G could not stand her. Bookie also found it quite ridiculous that Mother held these views while she had three people around the house to handle affairs in which she had little interest, affairs like cooking, cleaning and taking care of Bookie and his sister, Sade. His parents had a capacity to stretch the possibilities of contradiction between their views, their actions, their ideologies and their lifestyles.

One story Dad always shared, and their friends never tired of, was how Mother’s lineage could be traced about 1000 years back in Sudan. How, despite Mother having fully African features, she was Arab/Nubian by lineage. It was a tried and tested topic that yielded much conversation between their friends, whomever they were. Dad always complained about the Western descriptions of Sudanese people who were Africoid in appearance but Arabesque in their cultures and histories. Dad had stories for days about how the west always had a way of mixing physical appearance and culture for Africans but never made that mistake with their own history. Dad shared the story of a Sudanese contemporary who, despite always repeating this to his diplomatic colleagues across the world, always got confused for a Nigerian when he showed up at United Nations meetings where Sudan was being discussed. Granted, Mother had some Nubian features, but Dad always made the point that she could pass for a Yoruba woman. As Bookie grew older he came to realize this was Dad’s way of compensating for the reservations that Grandpa G must have expressed when Dad came back home with Mother and told them they would be getting married.

Bookie never doubted that he would settle down with a woman who looked nothing like what Grandpa G would have approved of. But he did not expect to follow in Dads footsteps and settle with a woman he loved more than anything else in the world.

Part 5

So I look in your direction

But you pay me no attention, do you?

I know you don’t listen to me

‘Cos you say you see straight through me, don’t you?

“Shiver”, Parachutes, Coldplay

“My parents have their reservations about June’s family but love June just like they do my sister. Our story reminds my parents of theirs and so it’s not a stretch to see why they love her. You’d also be quite surprised how much June and my sister Sade have in common. Sade lives off the coast of Africa right now with her husband. Sade never fit anyone’s mold for the regular daughter but it wasn’t because she did anything crazy or broke the rules. She’s just very much like my mother in that she is also a writer. That and the fact that she loves to travel with her husband.”

“She’s married as well?”

Sade’s husband, a Malagasy man, is the most popular Valiha player in the world but you probably don’t even know what a Valiha is, do you?

“No surprises but I don’t. I’m guessing you are about to tell me?”

“It’s a tube-shaped stringed instrument made out of bamboo and local to Madagascar. Considered their national instrument. That’s a thing in most parts of the world that have a long history and culture where music is a big part of it.”

“Like the Vuvuzela the South Africans had during the World Cup?”

“Exactly not like the Vuvuzela”

June laughed out loud at this. She’d always loved how quick Bookie could be with his insults. Especially when he was upset about perceived judgment.

“They live in Madagascar, off the coast of South Eastern Africa in case you didn’t know, but travel the world because they get to perform for most of these World Music festivals that westerners never tire of. The ones where Ladysmith Black Mambazo performs? Yes, those festivals where the context that led to the formation of some of these groups is totally missed but the music sounds exotic to white ears.”

He was getting angry again and had to remind himself to calm down whenever he talked about his family to people he knew were assessing and judging him.

“It’s crazy that Sade and her husband’s journeys now replicate the locations my Dad travelled to when he did his diplomat thing. It’s even weirder than that though. Sade married a man who could have been anything he wanted to be in his country, his parents were wealthy, but he chose to play music. His name is Tantana, he’s in one of those pictures you have there.”

“Tantana, that’s a great name.”

“You would normally say ‘exotic’ wouldn’t you?”

The immigration lady smiled. He was funny. She could see how June had come to love him so quickly.

“It is a great name for many reasons. The craziest reason is that Tantana literally means music in Malagasy.”

Part 6

But I promise you this

I’ll always look out for you

That’s what I’ll do

“Sparks”, Parachutes, Coldplay

Sade had been fascinated by the ease about Tantana when she met him in a random club in Sao Paulo. She’d always had the perspective that there was education and there was learning. Must have been something she’d picked up from Mother, but she never gave more thought to it beyond accepting that she was never cut out for classrooms and tests. She’d always chosen learning, and it made her a horrible student. Sao Paulo was her learning and Tantana turned out to be her teacher.

She’d never felt at ease in the company of her diplobrat friends. Not because she was not one of them but because she always yearned for more than they could provide her in their expectations for life. Sade wanted nothing more than to bury herself in books that spoke of the manifestation of human struggles in alternate universes. Not one of those friends, and especially not her family, engaged her in the way her heart desired. She never felt she was learning from these people she called friends and family. She knew some of it was a hangover from teenage rebellion, but she could not explain the lingering nature of that disappointment even after college in the leafy shire of Warwick. She’d returned to Lagos after college and never felt she was home. Her mother understood the wanderlust she was feeling and nudged her to take a year travelling the world clockwise, starting from the familiar of the Yoruba people in northern Brazil and ending up back in far east Asia. Far east Asia was in some way an experience she was having now with Tantana.

Tantana.

Tantana, like no one else had ever been able to, made her feel like a carpet would magically appear under her feet if she fell off a cliff. Watching him dance in his own world that first night gave Sade so much joy. She danced up to him and he seamlessly brought her into his world. He said something Sade could not hear under the din of music. She didn’t really want to hear him. She just wanted to dance with this man who had so much to just give by being there in his trancelike state as he danced.

She could not hear the words but could tell that his accent was odd. Like a mix of the nuances of speech you hear from an indigene of a French colony who also happened to be raised by East Asian parents. Only later in her hotel room would she come to learn that he was of Indonesian lineage from the central highlands of Madagascar. She knew nothing about Madagascar but felt she knew everything about Tantana.

He grew up with his parents in France, where his father had stayed after studying at one of the technical colleges that Madagascar could not provide. His father was Merina, which meant nothing to Sade, the most caste-based and difference-driven of the Malagasy ethnic groups, which totally made sense to Sade. Tantana’s father had married a North African woman who had no family in France but had a lot of love to give to a homesick Malagasy student. They’d had Tantana three years after dating and decided to get married partly to give Tantana’s mother permanent residency in France but mainly because it was the only thing they had not done being as in love as they were with one another.

Tantana’s father had brought a Valiha with him when he moved to France, a memento of his heritage, and this had become Tantana’s companion growing up in a culture into which he never really fit. Primary school and high school had been tough for Tantana; he had an easy going nature about him but had none of the pretenses the rest of his private school classmates had. It also did not help that he looked Indonesian. The French could deal with people from cultures with which they felt familiar. One of those was not the culture of a homesick Malagasy family that looked Indonesian.

They’d moved back to Madagascar right after Tantana finished high school; his parents knew his life would be miserable in France. Tantana’s father had also been tapped to lead the infrastructure fund the government had set up, and his work as a native and an urban planner made him perfect for the role. It also helped that the government was pushing a quote and inclusion system that meant a Merina had to lead one of these newly created parastatal organizations.

The Valiha made the journey back with him. If mastery of a thing came after 10,000 hours of practicing or playing it, Tantana was a master four times over. An instrument that had lost its allure in its own home became the single biggest reason why Tantana was accepted as authentically Malagasy even though his mother was North African French.

Tantana went back to Madagascar with no plan for what to do, but his parents had a plan for him. He stayed with his uncles, even after his parents moved to the government allocated home, and learned about the history of the instrument and the generational storytelling vehicle that it was for his family. He played at every family gathering and soon started to play at the government parties his father had to throw in his unofficial role as the ambassador of the Merinas to the forty other tribes in Madagascar.

Before he knew it, Tantana and his Valiha became emissaries delivering the message of the new united Madagascar to the world. With his companion instrument, Tantana was reborn. He traveled the world playing. And that’s how he found himself in Sao Paulo right before Carnival. That’s how he found himself in the arms of this woman who was nothing like his mother but exactly like his mother.

Sade.

Part 7

When I counted up my demons

Saw there was one for every day

With the good ones on my shoulders

I drove the other ones away

“Everything’s Not Lost”, Parachutes, Coldplay

“Are you guys expecting a child?” She blurted out without knowing why, realizing she’d overstepped a line. She held it together believing that Bookie and June were so scared this was not going well that she could get away with such a question.

June started to cry. The weight of all the possibilities if Bookie was deported was too much for her to keep in. She hadn’t intended to answer the question but realized she had. How would she raise this child fatherless in a society that already gave people like Bookie grief for abandoning their kids with little understanding of some of the circumstances that led to such decisions? How would she explain to her mixed race daughter that Daddy had not wanted to leave them? She knew she could rely on her parents to help, but how long would that last before the bitterness crept up to a level too toxic to have her daughter around? She carried on crying without any care for what this lady thought about her and Bookie and their unborn child.

“Yes,” blurted Bookie. His shoulders sagged. He thought life had hardened him but he physically felt the weight of what this meant for June and their baby.

His imaginings about what his life would be and what it actually turned out to be blurred into one in his recollections. It had been that way when the maids who took care of them when Dad and Mother travelled took the best possible care of them to the point where he wished Aunty Clara was actually his mother. Imagining she was his mother kept him going when his parents were not around. It was easy, too. Aunty Clara had no kids of her own but had the kindest heart for someone who had known little love herself. Aunty Clara had allowed him to listen to New Edition and MC Hammer when his Dad had expressly declared that ‘My kids will not listen to that black music crap’. Aunty Clara had let him get the gumby and wiped his tears when his Dad had come back and ordered his hair shaved off.

He cried when he had to leave Aunty Clara, more than he’d even cried for his parents, when he was shipped off to college at the University of Chicago. Chicago was cold, but his math major classmates were even colder, either through their inability to manage social interactions or simply because he was the only black person they’d ever engaged with on an intellectual level.

Bookie had always been great at math. He was also gifted with a creative side, which he knew certainly came from his mother. This mix set him apart from his more studious but less naturally gifted classmates. He spent his college holidays during this period at his real Aunt’s place in Teaneck, NJ. Aunt Teju was a nurse at a rehab center. Like her brother, his Dad, she was a storyteller. She regaled him with stories of rich white kids from West Marmot county who were dumped in rehab in Teaneck because their parents did not want the other parents knowing they’d failed in their parental duties.

Sharing the same wandering tendencies as his parents, Bookie ended up slap boxing with poor black kids that he did not know but could somehow relate to both in Teaneck and on the South side of Chicago. He stopped that once the violence got a bit much and slap boxing gave way to gun whoopings. He didn’t want to find out what would be next and decided to tough out the last two years of college at the University and buck the expectations of his parents by landing a job in one of the big New York banks. Aunt Teju talked about them in wonderment at the obscene amounts of money that could be made there.

He studied hard and put himself in a position to land one of those cushy jobs. But he didn’t. He left college without a job and moved in with Aunt Teju in Teaneck.

The summer after college was a period of intense soul searching and reading as much as his father had. He realized he wasn’t that different from his father. It hurt him to admit that.

That summer he also realized that family ties and relationships did not equate to the same thing. The temporal nature of his holiday visits to his Aunt Teju’s place were short enough to allow her to mask her regrets at how, in her desire to find herself, she’d squandered the opportunities to marry, settle down and benefit from the wealth Grandpa G had amassed in Nigeria. She resented Bookie for all the potential that stood in front of him and behind her. She could never move back home and get a role that befitted her experience and Grandpa G’s influence no longer carried enough weight to get her a cushy job somewhere.

That summer, in Teaneck, Bookie met Frank, the man who would change his life’s trajectory. Frank was Aunt Teju’s neighbor, who also happened to work in Investment Banking but spent very little time in Teaneck. One evening, Bookie saw the lights came on at Frank’s house when they had never done so for the three months that Bookie had been at his Aunt’s. Frank was sprawled in that ‘I’m expecting a woman tonight so I must not fully fall asleep’ state on the porch, high on something Bookie could not immediately discern, and didn’t seem to notice someone come through his short gate.

But Frank had seen Bookie through his drug-induced haze.

Frank knocked on Aunt Teju’s door the next day and offered to take Bookie to lunch. Bookie was the first person in the neighborhood who’d done as much as come into his home. Frank was intrigued by this young black man.

Frank took Bookie to the fanciest restaurant he had ever been to and shared his story. In retelling this story, Bookie always summarized it as, ‘Frank was the first and only black person in most instances where he found himself’. Frank saw a lot of himself in Bookie and over that first lunch offered Bookie a job on his team at the High Frequency Trading company where he worked. It changed Bookie’s life.

Bookie had met wealthy people by virtue of Grandpa G’s power. But Bookie had never met people who’d built their wealth by sheer power of their brains. A lot of East Europeans could outwork you with their sheer resilience and out maneuver you with their sheer dubiousness. He worked at Frank’s HFT firm for three years, and every day was a lesson in how capable a brain could be. Bookie felt right at home. The ambiguity of the laws guiding their industry, when there were laws at all, provided an environment similar to that in which Bookie had grown up (a country with laws but no enforcement) and which rewarded the ability to be smart and crooked at the same time. Bookie worked hard and partied hard, experiencing things he would never share with his future wife, experiences he would never share with anyone and spending money that could feed a pick-a-third-world village for months.

He had never felt more personal pressure. Eventually he snapped. Someone got hurt. Someone died. It was purely a result of the combination of all the right and wrong things about a twenty-five-year-old having more money than he knew what to do with, more access than could otherwise be gotten and a willing set of colleagues that were under the same emotional strain. But Bookie was never caught or convicted. He knew he would never be caught or convicted. The sort of money Frank had ensured Bookie could know for certain that he would never suffer for that mistake by serving time.

Frank’s money made sure that Bookie never got convicted, but the money could never erase the emotional damage this experience did to Bookie. He’d read up on how to deal with survivor’s guilt but quickly realized that the guilt was not because he’d survived the crash that evening. The guilt was because he’d actually resented Andy so much that deep down somewhere inside he did not feel guilty for being complicit in his death. It had been a rough day at work and, as usual, they’d hit the Horo. The restaurant had the best late night sushi and drinks. It was an open secret that Horo waitresses helped Wall Street patrons relax in whatever way they so desired. So Bookie, Andy and three other colleagues assigned on their team for this one deal decided to wind down with some debauchery. They ate too much sushi, drank too much wine, did some drugs and took turns getting their happy endings. Andy was the leader of the pack and made it known to all who cared to listen that he felt Bookie was only there because Frank was trying to give back to black people. This infuriated Bookie, even more so because he felt that was the case as well. Frank gave him more breaks than he gave most people. But in the scale of race related workplace unfairness, Frank’s preferential treatment of Bookie could not make up for the thousands of daily occurrences of race related unfairness that was taking place.

Drinks flowed and Andy got more talkative as the night went on. He started to say horrible things under the guise of drunkenness, horrible things on towards Bookie. As always, Bookie kept his mouth shut. It was never a good idea to respond in kind. The retellings of the incident would never favor Bookie. He also hadn’t drunk as much as the rest of the team. He had to drive. He could feel his patience for the insults slowly ebbing though.

“I think I’ll head home now, anybody want a ride?” Bookie asked hoping Andy would say no.

“You’re dropping us all off” Andy shouted.

It was at that very moment the idea came to Bookie. He immediately rejected the idea.

“Sure, I’m parked 3 blocks away”

They all got into Bookie’s SUV and conveniently there was no seat belt for Andy who was too tall to sit anywhere but the middle seat in the back row. Bookie turned right onto Beaver St, took a quick right onto William and a quick left onto Maiden as he headed for the west village. Andy was in the back seat talking crap as always. The quarter mile strip on Church was the only point where the SUV could go anything above forty miles and Bookie gunned it. He tried to beat the light, realized he couldn’t and braked suddenly. But not quickly enough to avoid hitting the car in front of him.

Andy flew out of the windshield onto the trunk of the car in front of them, the airbags deployed, the horns kept blaring, the lady in the back seat started screaming and right before Bookie passed out he wondered if it hadn’t all happened exactly as he wanted it to.

— — — — -

Bookie tried to drown the demons with drugs and work. But it was fruitless. Almost as quickly as he’d come into Frank’s life and made more money than he would ever again make in his life, he lost it all.

And the demons were ever present until he met June.

Part 8

He did not deserve her. He always got the things he did not deserve.

So he wasn’t surprised when the immigration lady said,

“I hope you and your wife and unborn child have a wonderful life together. There is a swearing in ceremony this afternoon and you can just stay to swear right now? All the very best!”

He did not deserve her, he thought to himself as the lady stamped his documents.

The End

https://medium.com/@seyi_fab/buki-and-june-3a1c5030ea67