22.
The van was faulty and so it blasted more poisonous gas as it cascaded through the hilly street. The two police men in front appeared drunk and passed a cigarette between each other. The boys were all tied with a rope to keep them together in the back of the van. The van smelt of sweat and Ehis could see faint red on the wall of the van. It was dark but Ehis could see the wide street, now vamped with open stalls and families sleeping on mattress. The government had decided to fix the road and the houses and shops that were constructed close to the main road had been broken down amidst tears and complaint. The boy close to Ehis was sleeping now. They had both been arrested for the same offence. Suspected armed robbers. The police van had halted in front of Ehis, who had been sitting, brooding, in front of his compound. They asked him why he was staying in front of the compound. Without waiting for him to answer, one of the men pointed at him and said he was an armed robber, surveying the compound to rob later that night. Ehis was slapped and thrown into the van. People who saw this had a quick glance at the tinted hair boys and men on dread that were sitting on the van, swollen faced. With that, they concluded their story and sought for the boy’s kin.
The boys were tied and asked to sit on the floor. Their statements were written for them. They were asked questions and without waiting for them to answer, biros clicked and papers were shuffled. Ehis was awake through it all, waiting for his mother to splash water on his face and scowl at him for always waking up late. He had always heard of police brutality in school, but it always seemed far away. Something that one heard but never experienced. These men, in uniform, were from the same tales his father told him about the men that took his Okada and made him feel insignificant.
‘If any of una dy ready to cooperate, make him come counter’. One of the officers slurped at the boys.
Ehis was flabbergasted when the boys around him stood up one by one. They were asked to make bank transfers. Soon, the circle around Collins grew smaller and he and the young boy that had cried half way through the journey were the only ones left. Hopeful that they would pity them and release them into the dark streets to find their way home. He was surprised when one of the men brought a cane out of a locker and started flogging the boys.
The boy soon dozed off and left Ehis alone in his trance.
Ehis who was yet to find his voice sat still and stared as the police men laughed and exchanged tales of how they tactically caught criminals and made money from it.
‘No be only government sabi chop money, we sef be master planners’. They said.
That day, Ehis understood a different struggle for privilege. One did not have to be rich or be in a position of power to claim the title of privilege. Now, people were manipulating the social order and class so that they could hold rule over others, who they deem less powerful.
Ehis was thrown into a jail with an open latrine. He counted seventeen people along with him in this tight hell. He could not sleep and once, he woke up thinking he had heard his mother crying and his father pleading. But when he woke up, all he saw were darkness and strange faces and a toilet that would not be flushed in a thousand years. Soon, the stench got so powerful that it eroded his sleep and Ehis could not sleep. A man slithered up to him.
‘You look new. What did they get you for?’
The man’s stench was overwhelming. Ehis felt bitten and he wiped the tears off his eyes.
‘They said I am an armed robber’
‘Are you’
‘No’.
‘It doesn’t matter. You are whatever they label you as. Not all of us here are guilty you know? Hammed was caught close to a kidnapper’s den and they assumed he was one of the kidnappers who was on the run. Emeka was caught with a red handkerchief in his bag and they said he was a ritualist’.
These men he called took a flimsy look at the chattering man and stared back at the open walls with a million written messages.
‘What about you?’
‘Me? Don’t worry about that. It doesn’t matter anyway. No one is coming to save me’.
‘I though the police actually did investigations and interviews before locking people in cells’
‘Actually, they do. Just in movies. In real life, you are what the people in power say you are. The real world is brutal. You have to be rugged to survive. Life is so unkind to the good and the poor’.
Ehis stood up and gazed at the walls and faces of people who were either in deep sleep or staring at the walls. He slumped immediately and broke down. His cries were soft, silent and heavy. Some of the cell mates pitied the young boy while others turned their faces away and tried to find peace amidst the stench. He wondered why all these was happening to him. He didn’t deserve to be here of all places. Why did the universe deem it fit to show him this brutal side of life, too powerful for his fragile mind? The man who Ehis had been talking to slithered away and joined another group.
The next day, a female police offer woke Ehis up. She tapped the boy’s teary face and dragged him out of his cell.
‘Behave yourself criminal. Your parents are here’.