witch’s brew of foul smells. My compatriots seemed to share none of my
sensibilities though. Bank workers, students, area boys, lawyers, cops and
robbers...they all milled around in their out-of-uniform Saturday attires,
sloshing through the black mire (an impressive amalgam of mud, urine, diesel,
corn cobs, ice-cream wrappers, engine oil, and snot); dodging hawkers,
motorcycles and street thugs. They danced to Obalende’s pulse without giving
a thought to the absurd twists and beats of its rhythm.
Obalende! Oh, Obalende! I luxuriated in its lewd poetry just long enough
to gather my wits and plot my journey. The effects of the fuel strike were yet to
clear and continuing the wait for a bus might just end up surpassing Becket’s
‘Waiting for Godot’ in sheer drama. With the bizarre set and cast provided by
Obalende, such great drama was always to be expected. However, I had a book
launch to attend. I made for the taxi stand where for a little extra fare; I could
share a ride with a few others to Ikoyi. Little did I know that ‘the greatest
drama ever’, even at sleazy Obalende, awaited me yet.
It was an old Datsun. Note the two words ‘old’ and ‘Datsun’. In 2004,
when an automobile is qualified as such, it has been effectively classified as a
relic. Even the way it stood parked at the head of the taxi queue spoke of
certain panache, of unabashed self-awareness. I chuckled, but then had to
stop myself from gagging when I saw the driver. A plump little fellow in a
cream jacket with large pointed lapels like those seen on Soul Train music
stars of the 80s; he had on a severe brown beret, pressed down in a brave
attempt to ram his bushy hair into place. Add to that bushy eyebrows and
moustache and you’ve almost got the full picture. But the greatest sight of all
was the purple bow-tie he sported. My jaw fairly dropped to the ground at my
first sighting of this quaint apparition. He was in the middle of an argument
with a kola nut chewing elderly man who was resolutely seated in the front
seat. There was only one other passenger in the back seat, another old timer.
As I moved closer, a fourth passenger wearing head phones and holding a
walk-man in his left hand, approached the vehicle and then, at that self-same
instant, an anomaly took place. Four phones beeped together in fairly quick