Free Blackass by A. Igoni Barrett Page B

ricocheting off swaying silhouettes, showed a path across the dance floor. The moody melody of Bobby Benson’s ‘Taxi Driver’ boomed from speakers in the ceiling. Arranged along the walls were widely spaced tables, many occupied and shimmering with drinks. Near the entrance, a man and woman danced with their arms around each other’s waists, their heads on each other’s shoulders, and their feet scraping the floor in a sleepy harmony that paid no heed to the music.
    Syreeta headed straight for the bar, whose long wooden counter was decorated with a pair of imitation elephant tusks stuck upright in pedestals, one at each end. Behind the counter stood a drinks cabinet stacked full of liquor bottles, their cognac browns and campari reds and curaçao blues highlighted by narrow beams of halogen light. As Syreeta climbed on to a bar stool, the barman came forwards with a happy-to-see-you smile and greeted her by name.
    ‘Evening o, Clement,’ she responded. ‘How work today?’
    ‘Work dey, my sister. I no fit complain.’ To Furo he said, ‘Good evening, sir,’ and after Furo returned the greeting, he reverted to Syreeta. ‘Make I bring the usual?’
    ‘No, I’m not staying,’ Syreeta said. ‘I just want you to do something quick-quick for me.’ She opened her handbag, drew out her BlackBerry, and fiddled with the keypad. ‘Abeg take a picture of me and my friend. Come to this side – I want the bar to show behind us.’
    ‘No problem,’ said the barman as he accepted the phone from Syreeta’s outstretched hand. He walked to the end of the counter, lifted the flap door and passed through, then stopped a yard away from their stools and, holding up the phone, said, ‘Tell me when you ready.’ Syreeta turned to Furo. ‘Put your arm around my shoulder.’ He hesitated, mystified about where she was going with all of this, but spurred on by her stare, he obeyed. She leaned into his embrace before saying: ‘Don’t face the camera, look at me.’ He locked his gaze on the clear skin of her forehead and pulled a tense smile, and when she called out, ‘Ready,’ the camera flashed.
    Back in the car, after switching on the engine and adjusting the blow of the vents, Syreeta held her phone two-handed against the steering wheel and tapped the keypad for several minutes. ‘Rubbish!’ she muttered at last. With a hiss of annoyance, she tossed the phone along with her handbag on to the back seat. Then she said to Furo in a composed tone: ‘Time to go home.’
    Home was just around the corner from The Palms. The car turned off the highway and sped through a succession of side streets that threw off Furo’s bearings, and then cruised down a stretch of blacktop which ran from end to end of a housing estate. On the left side of the road stood a high fence, beyond which was the rest of the world. On the right, arranged in a barrack sprawl of identical roofs, was Oniru Estate. Syreeta parked by the side of the road, metres away from the second gate and, after climbing down barefooted from the car, she opened the back door and took out her red-blinking phone, her handbag, the plastic bag containing her packed meal, and a pair of rubber slippers, which she slipped her feet into before beeping the car locked. Furo followed her across the road to a plank footbridge balanced over the roadside gully, and then through a pedestrian gate into the residential area. White sand, a deep layer of it, covered the pathways between houses. They trudged through this seabed, her slippers flinging grains back at him, his feet sinking with every step. Sand slipped into his shoes and chafed his ankles, and by the time they arrived at her apartment, there was sand gritting between his teeth.
    Like most houses in Oniru Estate, Syreeta’s was as down-to-earth as a concrete bunker. The slapdash architecture only allowed for one design flourish, which was the whitewash on the walls. The front door opened on to the kitchen. Syreeta had switched