SOLOMON'S BRIDGE {Part I}

FOOTSTEPS *5*

THE BOY

It's a cold Thursday morning. The boy stands under wide, canopy branches of a flaming bougainvillea tree, opposite a brownstone building called Diamond apartments, waiting for Oga Big Time. He shivers under his navy blue hoodie, hoping the bitter cold doesn't morph into a drat drenching downpour. This time of the year, the rains are rude visitors, coming and going as they please, without any warning, always angry, and loud. When they start, he tries to listen to the sounds, to the hidden divine ranting...

Last week Monday, after shining Dr. Jay's shoes, the white man asked him why he doesn't go to school. The boy told him the truth... things... just don't add up, in the history books. For example, why are some white people always coming to Africa, to tear it up, dig it up, burn it up, loot it up... The lectures in school teach colonization; but they don't teach about the scramble for resource control by whites, or their subtle systemic land grabbing...

Dr. Jay sighed, and gave him a bigger tip. Its a hustlers life, and 'the boy,' as he is known on the streets, may be only sixteen, but he's a born hustler.

On every other Tuesday, Ms. Edima pays a lot for him to wash out her shop, Eddie's Place. She thinks that he's a cult boy, because of his daily navy blue hoodie, singlet on black jeans, his particular way of bounce walking, his particular way of doing some things! She's always talking about salvation, and loving your neighbour as yourself, and preaching about Cain and Abel. Cain, who hated Abel. Cain, who built his city in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Now, to the boy, Cain is a vagabond, a fugitive upon the Earth... an alien in outer space on a parallel universe; Cain made the boy think about the wheat and tares, from the book of Revelations. He's not in any cult, and he's not a racist. But for the right reasons, give him a gun, and he'll shoot. He'll shoot Cain. Did Cain have a right reason, though? For killing Abel? And, isn't that the problem? Isn't Cain... still... Killing Abel?

See, this is why he likes Ms. Candy. Because, she gets it. She can talk real stuff with him, make his brain expand. But she's got a temper like a freight train! There's just no stopping it along the way! In one word; that chick is crazy. He doesn't fool around with her jobs. Every Wednesday, he washes her red toyota corolla, makes it shine brand new. One day, he was coming back from job hunting in the city center, so he decided to check in with Ette Moses, to see if anything on Diamond needed fixing, and he caught sight of her on her way in. He does not know what this bird did to this woman, but as he was walking up to Ette Moses's throne-chair under the big bamboo tree, he saw her stabbing this poor blue jay with the pointy heel of her stiletto, over and over again, with power, and rage. She just kept doing it till the poor blue jay couldn't cry out no more. Then she spat on it's carcass and went in through the front doors. A woman that can do that? She's bad news! One chance!

Then, on Thursdays...

Five thirty. He's been here, standing like a tree beside a tree for thirty minutes, all for the money. He needs a lot of money, and there isn't much of it in Canaan City, only scary prophecies, and interesting histories, like, the legend of the three Captains pile of gold, some say, is hidden in the old cave of the shadows of mist, and others say, are stashed in the Cardinal's brigantine, the Europa, where Club Mario's stands, today.

Maybe he'll find it, one day.

Oga Big Time finally exits the brown building, jogging across the road to meet him. He is a tall, good looking, rugged man. A rugged man to the core, because he could survive anywhere, in rich boulevard's or poor slums, he knew the score.

They slap palms and hit their knuckles, "Hey boy!"

"Oga Big Time. Respect!"

"Wetin you carry come?"