Ngozi found herself, as always, lulled into reminiscence by his honeyed words. She thought of her father’s village. Where the dirt roads became impassable every rainy season. Where any effort to improve them was thwarted by friendly thievery, lies, and jealousy. Last time she had visited her father’s village with her parents and sister and their departure had been marked by a small riot. It was caused by cousins, aunts, uncles, and strangers battling into the rooms the four of them had just left. They hoped to grab whatever the “visitors from America” might have left behind.
Among the desperate, hopeful scavengers had been Ngozi’s cousin who was so smart, but unable to afford medical school. And her uncle with the Hausa tribal marks on his cheeks from when he was a little boy. Those three vertical lines on each cheek had served for more than decoration. They were all that had allowed her uncle to survive the civil war of the sixties.
Ngozi let herself slump back against the surprisingly soft seat. She had not been home in three years. Chicago, America was great. But she missed Nigeria.
“I want you all to please take your minds out of this musical contraption and put your minds into any goddamn church, any goddamn mosque, any goddamn celestical, including sera-phoom and cheraboom! Now—we’re all there now. Our minds are in those places. Here we go . . . ”
She smiled to herself. That was Fela—West Africa’s greatest anti-colonialist. Angry, obnoxious, wonderful, and thought-provoking all at the same time.
They turned onto Halsted and headed south, weaving through traffic at a high speed with an intensity and determination that earned the cab several furious honks and not a few Chicago-style curses from the startled drivers they shot past. Ngozi hung on for dear life. What ought to have been an opportunity for her to cool down was instead one for more sweating as the driver skirted airport-bound limos and huge semis by scant inches. She considered telling him to drop her off at the next stoplight. Up front he was swearing and laughing and at times it was impossible to tell one from the other. His hands worked the horn as if it were a second mouth.
Eventually he glanced up at the rearview mirror. She struggled to look back with an expression other than that of sheer terror.
“Why you wear your hair like that?”
Instantly Ngozi’s fear turned to exasperation. She wasn’t even in Nigeria yet and already she was getting this typical antediluvian macho shit. “Because I like it this way,” she snapped. “Why do you wear your hair like that?”
“Is that any way to speak to your elder?” the cab driver commented, sounding hurt. “Miss big fancy lawyer with no ass.”
Ngozi’s eyes widened. Her blood pressure, already high, went up another twenty points. “What?”
The man laughed afresh. “Do you even speak Igbo?”
“No. Not a damn word. You got a problem with that?”
“Ewoooo!” he exclaimed disapprovingly. “Of course I do! You are incomplete, sha.”
“Oh, give me a break.” She rolled her eyes. “You don’t know me.”
Dodging around a slow bus, he took a wild turn to the left, which threw her sharply to the side. Straightening, she searched the back seat. “How come you don’t have any seat belts back here?”
“What you need those for?” he asked, eying her in the mirror. “You in the back.”
“Maybe because you drive like a maniac?”
“Don’t worry, I get you there alive.”
They had turned onto a side road flanked by uniform rows of houses marching in brownstone lockstep. None of the intersections they crossed appeared to have street signs, including the one they were rocketing along.
“Have you ever been to Nigeria, Miss?”
“Many times. A lot of my family is still there. I try to visit as often as I can.”
That shut him up. She smiled. Nigerian men and their bullshit assumptions, she thought. Her smile vanished when the cab’s speakers went DOOM! The entire vehicle shook. She clapped her hands over her ears. “What the fuck?” she screamed.
“Watch your language, Miss big lawyer.”
“First you criticize my hair, now you criticize my language. Do I look ten years old to you?”
“Got a stop to make,” he said. He fiddled with the dashboard computer, where the masquerade mask had given way to an image of a young man. “Don’t worry, we won’t be late.”
Within a minute, they pulled up in front of one of the brownstone buildings. The man whose visage smiled from the screen was standing out front cradling a briefcase. The image on the monitor didn’t convey his height and build. The man stepped up to the front window.
“Festus,” the driver said. He reached out and slapped hands with the man. “What’s up?”
“Can you take me over to Vee-Vee’s really quick?” Festus’ accent was an intriguing mélange of Nigerian and British English—and something else. Perfectly-styled jeans enveloped his long legs. A finely-cut long-sleeved navy shirt could not conceal his muscled chest.
“Vee-Vee’s?” Ngozi frowned as she leaned forward. “I know that place. That’s too out of the way. I can’t miss this flight, man!”
“Relax,” the driver urged her. “I said I get you where you need to go.”
Bending low, Festus peeked inside the cab. Ngozi had every intention of persuading him to find another taxi. Initially. The soft glow of street lights revealed smooth brown skin, perfect perfect lips, prominent cheekbones. Festus was utterly and unabashedly gorgeous. Her urgency dissolved like a pat of butter in hot broth.
The driver got out and opened the door for his second passenger. Ngozi felt her ears pop. She knew she should slide as far away as possible from this man, but what she wanted to do was slide as closer. She swallowed hard, not moving either way.
“Hi,” was all she could say.
“Hey.” He held her eyes with a gaze that was more than forward. A shiver ran through her from her periwinkle-colored toenails to her “dadalocks.” He pulled the door shut as the driver started the car, then turned toward her. “I’m Festus McDaniel.”
Despite feeling more than a little overwhelmed, she had to laugh. “Is that your real name?”
“When I need it to be.”
“Then my name is Ororo Munroe.”
“Ah, an X-Men fan.”
She could not have been more surprised if he had announced he was the pilot for her forthcoming flight. “You, too?”
“When I need to be,” he repeated, this time punctuating it with an undisguised leer. He scooted closer. Ngozi was annoyed to find that she did not mind, especially after her edgy go-round with the cab driver. What was happening? This was not like her. Her temples were pounding. She felt her eyes closing, her lips parting.
“Hey!” the driver yelled. Her eyes snapped open. “Festus! This is my passenger. Back off!”
Ngozi blinked again. Her mind cleared and the throbbing in her blood faded. Festus’ face was close enough to hers that she could smell his breath. It was, unexpectedly, slightly fragrant of mint. And a saltiness she could not immediately place. Not only was he the most gorgeous man she had ever seen (and she’d seen plenty), he smelled really really good.
She pressed her temples harder. What the hell was I just doing? That leer . . . Or had it been a sneer?
Whatever it was, it was still there, plastered across his face as he leaned away and stared at her. Adrift in confusion, Ngozi could have sworn she saw fangs retreating under his upper lip. What the fuck? She pressed herself as close to the door and as far away from him as possible.
“What goes on in your head right now?” he asked softly.
“Huh?”
“Don’t mind him,” the driver advised her. He was scowling at Festus as he tossed something over his right shoulder. Ngozi felt it land in her lap. “Suck on that,” the driver said, watching her through his mirror. “It’ll make you feel . . . more like yourself.”
She looked down, found herself staring at a cherry Jolly Rancher. Her fingers worked mechanically as she unw
rapped the candy and popped it in her mouth. Flushed from embarrassment, she turned to the window to avoid the other passenger’s unwavering gaze. All sweetness and tartness and fake cherry-ness, the candy dissolved slowly in her mouth. She did feel better.
Having lost her attention, Festus chatted with the driver in rapid Igbo all the rest of the way to Vee-Vee’s. Ngozi tried to translate what they were saying but all she caught were bits and pieces like “419,” “the money,” and “oyibo,” which meant either “white person” or “foreigner.”
It took much less time to get to Vee-Vee’s than she had anticipated and she was more than a little shocked when she checked her watch. Only fifteen minutes. She attributed the accomplishment to the driver’s unsurpassed, if wholly maniacal driving skills.
They pulled up to the Nigerian restaurant and the passenger eased out, his movements as supple as a dancer’s. As he stepped over the curb he looked back at the cab and blew a kiss in Ngozi’s direction. She winced and tried to look away, and instead found herself following him as he strode inside. As he entered, he thrust first one arm and then another into a neatly-pressed suit jacket. He slipped it easily over his shoulders. He looked sharp. Is that Armani? she wondered. A frown creased her face. Wait a minute. He wasn’t carrying that when he got in the cab.
“Sorry about that.” The driver apologized. “But he tips well.”
“Of course he does,” Ngozi mumbled, still confused. “Someone like that . . . ” Her voice trailed away.
Once again the driver cranked up the music and, wonder of wonders, both passenger and driver remained silent for the duration of the drive to O’Hare. As the cab pulled up to the United Airlines terminal a check of her watch showed that she had barely a half hour before take-off. The instant the car stopped she jumped out, yanking her pack and purse after her. While the driver was unloading her large suitcase from the trunk, she fumbled in a pocket for her cell phone. It wasn’t there. Her heart started pounding. She checked her purse, then her carry-on.
Passport, purse again, backpack. Underwear. Deodorant. All present and more or less accounted for. Only one thing still missing. Only one thing . . .
Obligingly, the driver helped her drag her suitcase into the cab. Then he got in the driver’s seat. Soon the security people would shoo them off.
“I’ll drive around,” he said, when a security guard began yelling at them to move on. “You search.”
She quickly unlocked her suitcase and began rummaging frantically within. Futile. She knew damn well that her cell had been in her jacket pocket. She glanced again at her watch. The numbers continued to tick away relentlessly. She had fifteen minutes left—and that is if they didn’t lock the boarding gate on her.
“Where the hell?” she asked, rising hysteria in her voice. “Where the hell is it? No time to get another boarding pass! I can’t miss this flight! I can’t miss the wedding! I have to be there for her.”
She had a horrible sinking feeling. She grabbed her wallet. “Credit card, credit card, come on,” she whispered. She’d need that for her new boarding pass. It wasn’t there! Her license, library card, office building i.d., insurance cards, Sam’s Club card, World Wildlife Foundation card, they all sat in their usual slots. Except her credit card. Inside, she screamed and frothed at the mouth. On the outside, she stayed calm.
They arrived back at the terminal and she threw open the rear door of the taxi and began searching. Seat creases, floor, under the front seat. Ten minutes left. Getting back into the car and slamming the door, she tilted her neck forward and rested her forehead against the cold metal of the hood, defeated.
“They do all this stupid crazy traditional shit,” she mumbled, talking as much to herself as to the silently staring driver. “My sister was born here like me. I can’t let her go through this alone.”
He closed his door and looked in the rear-view mirror. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I truly am.” He paused. “The security guy is coming. We go around again?”
“Whatever,” she muttered.
They drove away from the terminal. At that moment revelation dawned on her—and it was not pretty. She looked up sharply and when she met his eyes in the mirror, she knew. “You’ve got to be kidding!”
The driver let out a short sigh and nodded sadly, knowingly. “He isn’t common, but he can be a thief.”
“Festus.” Stupid, she told herself. Big lawyer, she was. Uh-huh, right.
“Yep,” the driver confirmed.
“Dammit.” She screamed. “My own fault, too. I should have left earlier, given myself more time. Skipped the damn make-up.”
“I’ve heard about the hours lawyers have to deal with,” he said. “The pressures.”
Ngozi couldn’t bear it anymore. The tears came. She wasn’t thinking about herself. Her mind was full of visions of her sister being toted around like some parcel, being forced to say things she had not been raised to believe. Her sister was marrying an Igbo man she had met in college. Fine. That was her sister’s choice. It didn’t mean Ngozi had to like him, and she never had. He was always making snide comments about how Ngozi was thirty-five, childless, and unmarried. Once he had even, quite deliberately, called her “Mr. Ngozi.” Then he had insisted on a traditional wedding in the village for all his relatives to attend. She didn’t really want to go, but she had no choice. She needed to be there, for her sister.
The driver continued to stare at her in the mirror, but by now she was too miserable for his steady gaze to make her any more uncomfortable than she already was. He pulled onto the side of the highway and turned around. “Look,” he said, “my job is to get you where you need to go. I promised you I would do that. I—know other ways to get you where you need to be.”
She wiped her nose on her sleeve, not giving a damn about the hygienic or visual consequences. “What? Like a flight from another airport? Midway?”
He shrugged. “It’s sort of a . . . a private transport set-up.”
She stared back at him. Heroin drop-offs, 419 scams, and all sorts of other Nigerian-oriented shady business flashed through her mind. Hadn’t she already been victimized once this morning? “I’m a lawyer,” she reminded him. “It’s my duty to uphold the . . . ”
“You want to be there for your sister, right?”
Her insides clenched. She was past desperate. “I have to be.”
Her answer appeared to resolve something within him. “So we go.”
She started to say something. Finally, motivated more by resignation than any real hope, she got in. “Can I use your phone to cancel my credit card and pause my cell service?”
They drove down South Wabash Avenue for ten minutes, exited onto Congress, and turned onto a small commercial road. The increasingly industrial surroundings were unnerving her anew.
“Now then: I only have one request,” he told her.
She frowned. “Request? What are you talking about? What kind of ‘request’?”
“Stay in my cab.”
“Why would I want to . . . ?”
DOOM! For the second time that morning Ngozi felt her head rattle. When her vision cleared she found herself looking toward the dashboard computer installation. The picture had reverted back to the image of the disquieting masquerade mask. She felt a fresh jolt of anxiety.
Get a hold of yourself, she thought uneasily. “You aren’t picking anyone else up are you?” she asked.
“A man must make his bread,” the driver said. “Don’t worry. I get you there.” Turning down still another side street, he slowed to a halt in front of a carwash. It was operational, but not especially busy.
“Have another passenger to pick up,” he declared.
“Oh, whatever.” Thoroughly beaten, Ngozi leaned back. She took a deep, deliberate, calming breath. It didn’t help. With nothing to do and nothing to look forward to, she peered indifferently at the carwash. A glistening silver Mercedes emerged, paused briefly at the exit, turned left and drove off. Behind it, oversized tan and brow
n brushes continued to spin. She’d heard of twenty-four hour car washes, but had never had occasion to make use of one.
“So who are we . . . ”
“Shhh,” the driver hissed. He was staring intently at the car wash. Bemused and exhausted, Ngozi followed his eyes.
She let out a startled gasp. “Oh, great. What now?”
Then she saw. The largest spinning brushes detached itself from the interior of the car wash. Still rapidly spinning, it came toward them, as if it had officially checked out and was leaving work for the day. Ngozi trembled, unable to look away. It whipped water from itself as it approached.
“What’s—what is—you see that?” Ngozi babbled. “Are you seeing . . . ”
“You better move over,” the driver advised her. “It’s going to be a tight fit.”
She gaped at him. “Say what?”
The apparition continued advancing toward the idling cab. Ngozi guessed it to be about seven feet tall, four feet wide. It hadn’t looked that huge when it first came out. A giant spinning carwash brush. Oh sure, right, why not? Then she heard it.
“Oh shit, this isn’t happening,” she heard herself whisper.
Tock, tock, tock—the thumping of a small drum. Frantically she grabbed at her nearest door handle. She no longer cared where she was or where she needed to be. She was going to get the fuck out of that insane cab and away from its crazy driver and make a run for it.
The door would not open. The handle wouldn’t even budge.
“Let me out!” She kept her voice as calm as she could. Looking back she saw that the giant brush was almost to the cab. Her eyes blurred with tears of terror and distress. She blinked them away. “Please, sir,” she stammered. “Lemme out. Right now.”
“Now you just take it easy, big lawyer,” the driver admonished her. “She won’t hurt you. She just needs a ride.”
A thousand clashing, conflicting impossibilities were flying through Ngozi’s mind. That that thing approaching the cab was a masquerade. But masquerades were mythical beings. They were the spirits and ancestors. They didn’t exist, except in legend.
A remnant of full moon still lingered in the sky, its baleful light now illuminating entirely too many of her surroundings. She was in a part of the city she had never seen before. No street signs. First a strange man steals her emotions and then her cell phone and credit card. And now this thing was going to get in the cab. With her.