Free Every Day Is for the Thief: Fiction by Teju Cole Page A

drives off.
    We come off the expressway, and ease the car into the congested bus terminus near the housing estate. Rotimi speaks dispassionately, but the weight of the event is still there in his every word. It is about nine at night. The danfos are still active at the terminus, the bus touts are still crying out, but in fewer numbers than during the previous hour.
    —All three boys fell off the car. Two of them did not have a scratch. But Sola somehow slammed his head on the road.
    —My God.
    —And that evening was weird, you know. No one could tell me what had happened. Everyone knew, but I didn’t. I was there in the dining hall, and boys were offering me their seats, serving me larger portions than usual. It wasn’t normal. I knew something was up. Eventually, one of the prefects took me aside and said my brother had had an accident, that he had been taken to the general hospital in town. And, of course, my parents came to pick me up the next morning.
    —When did they tell you he was dead?
    —Not until we got home. It was unreal, you know. Sometimes it is still unreal, that Sola could just die like that. Just gone like that. I was all alone. And that was the last time I was ever in Abeokuta. I transferred to a day school in Lagos the next semester.
    We park the car outside the compound and Rotimi switches the engine off. We sit. We hear only the sound of the neighbors’ generators.
    —To be honest, my mother almost went mad. There was a lot of silence in the house for the first year afterward. It was unbelievably hard for all of us. For each one of us, in a different way.
    —I can imagine. And now?
    —We’re fine. Mostly. They’re overprotective, of course, but I understand. Even when I don’t want to be too careful, I have to think about them and I force myself to be careful. Just for them if for no other reason. Once I told them I had ridden on a motorcycle. My dad almost slapped me. And, you know, he kind of had a point.
    We both laugh. I take the diesel out of the trunk, and wipe my hands on a rag.
    —Ol’ boy, thank you so much for all this driving around.
    —What nonsense. Don’t mention it. I’m so happy to see you. It’s been too bloody long.
    —It was a good time, my friend. Stay in touch, okay? Let me know how I can help. Especially when you decide to take those American licensing exams. Don’t hesitate, use mymailing address, have me send you forms, whatever it is. The program I’m in is quite small, but there are always opportunities in New York.
    —Most definitely.
    He smiles, hugs me as if he were comforting me. He gets into his car and drives away, waving the whole time. And, because it is night, my mind continues to trace alternatives.

EIGHTEEN
    T he field I am standing in is mostly dust, but it has sere grass in scattered patches. Six men sit in the shade of a large Indian almond tree. One of them, a young man in a sky-blue cap, is blind in one eye. For some reason, I keep thinking his damaged eye is rolling over to look at me. It is hot and nobody talks. Ahead, near the wall that demarcates the field, a black goat grazes. The grass is so low and rare that the goat kneels on his front legs and eats in an angled position. He chews at one patch and shifts around on his knees and eats from another. Head to ground, rump raised in the air, outlined starkly against the off-white wall, he looks like a plane about to land.
    It is a school field but quiet because the children have allgone away on Christmas break. It is late afternoon. We are waiting for a container. My aunt built a school on the outskirts of Lagos in the late eighties. She spends all her money on keeping it supplied with resources so that it can compete with the many other private primary schools in the city. Uncle Tunde’s brother had, in October, filled up a medium-size container in Chicago and sent it to Lagos. The shipment contains books, personal effects, and a car. The car is a three-year-old Honda Civic. It is one