THE SQUATTER

I do not have friends, but if I did, they would all call me owl.
It was one in the morning and the top of my screen slid down
to notify me of an unsolicited caller. I blinked at the nameless
digits, sneezed, wiped my nose and rejected the call.
Lowering my head back on the chair’s arm, I resumed
watching my Blumhouse movie. The stranger called again,
disturbing my solitude, and I swiped my phone screen so hard
my finger left a scratch.
“What?” I yelled. I should have asked who it was.
A rasping voice exhaled from the other end, and when it
finally spoke, I recognized it at once.
“Tammy,” said my brother’s friend. “I did not see you at
the party… you home?”
I sat up, my heartbeat spiking.
“Is anything wrong over there?”
“So you are not at the party. I knew it!”
I almost face-palmed. Now Boma would know I was one
of those closeted people. Lucky for me – I had a solution to
every problem.
“I just left with one of the server girls,” I replied. “We are
at her place now.
“I hope you story is true,” Boma laughed. “You do sound
like someone still in bed.”
 “Yes,” I said. “We just got in bed now, that’s why I
ignored your first call.”
Before he could reply, I terminated the call, sighing in the
dark sitting room of my brother’s apartment. The only light
came from my phone screen, bathing the underside of my face
with its glow. This two-room space was all his money could
afford, and I was a squatter – one of his parasites.
I still wonder how my brother manages to gratify all the
girls flocking toward him like cattle. They must be already
moneyed – those girls – or they genuinely loved my hustling
brother. In these parts, girls only want money.
Once my movie ended, I drank some water, went to pee,
drank more water, and collapsed on the couch to look up my
brother’s apartment on Google earth. While zooming in on
Africa, lights from outside probed through the front window,
and I jumped to close the curtains.
A car zoomed to a halt in the street, and three shadows
alighted. Peering through the window, I gasped as a shadow
pointed in my direction. My brother mentioned nothing about
visitors before leaving for his stupid party.
They left the car running and ran themselves. When I
confirmed their trajectory, I dove behind the curtain, glad I
was an owl and all the lights in the house were off.
A hand gripped the door handle from outside and shook,
flinging it open. I almost choked on my spit. I had left the
door open!
 A tall man came into the house first. He had on huge boots,
and smelled like weed. I prayed to God not to make my
silhouette visible. My phone was still on the couch and the big
man saw. When his comrades filed in, he had already slipped
the rectangular device in his back pocket.
“Bruno,” said the shortest of the trio. “Is everywhere
stewing?”
“I never check,” Bruno grunted in his thick voice. I heard
his heavy footsteps in the bedroom. Bruno slammed the closet
and bathroom door and returned.
“Everywhere is stewing,” he replied.
“Good,” said the dwarf, whom I assumed was their leader.
In the gloom, I could see none of their faces. My eyes
watched the open door. If this was a burglary, I could escape
before they saw me.
“We must plant it before the brother returns,” the third
musketeer chipped in. “It’s already two o’clock.”
“Okay, let’s move.”
Unlike in movies, the three intruders ran out to the car,
leaving me in the house. Lock them out, screamed my brain
but I did not. My wobbly legs were already leading me into
the bedroom I shared with my brother. A car boot banged in
the street and I hid myself in the closet, crouching behind the
hung-up clothes. I heard grunting. The intruders were pulling
something heavy into the sitting room.
 “Tamuno,” I whispered in the claustrophobic space. “What
are you doing in this closet… even after all the movies you
have seen? Do you have a death wish?”
I became Prometheus after stealing the flame, an Olympic
torch-runner. I emerged from the dank closet and ran into the
stinky bathroom I also shared with my brother. The rusty
showerhead above dripped brownish water. At once, I
regretted my decision.
The men wobbled in with their load just as a tiny scorpion
came crawling from the drain in the floor. Tiny scorpions are
the most dangerous; I almost heard Bear Grylls’ saying in my
head. I closed the bathroom door, which unsurprisingly could
only be locked from outside.
“Arrange it on the bed! Quick!” the dwarf commanded and
I heard shuffling.
“You cannot unzip an ordinary body bag? Abeg move!”
I heard an unzipping sound and more grunting as they
dumped their load on the bed. In the bathroom, the scorpion
had begun crawling like a deranged cockroach so I sat on the
toilet, resting my legs on the walls. What were those sickos
doing in my brother’s house with a body bag?
The tiny scorpion ran around in circles and I watched it.
Then it disappeared. I sucked in the air of putrefying waste. It
was crawling up the toilet seat.
“This blood has stained my gloves now,” Bruno groaned.
 “Which blood?” The dwarf inquired. “I thought there was
no blood. Let me see.”
It was true. The possessed scorpion had really crawled up
the toilet seat. I pushed my legs higher up on the wall and
scootered back until my neck hit the cold cistern.
“It must be another person’s blood. You know we
borrowed the bag.”
“I must wash it,” Bruno said. “Someone put on the lights.
Who knows what else I have touched.”
“But you are putting on gloves…”
Someone put on the bedroom lights and another shouted.
Bruno was already in front of the bathroom. I could see two
vertical shadows underneath the door. I flick the scorpion
away, hoping it crawls back into the drain.
“How did Kola manage to steal Friday’s babes while living
in this shit-hole? In his next life, he will think twice before
crossing the Two-skulls.”
Upon hearing my brother’s name, my eyes exclaimed for
my mouth. The bathroom walls began to unravel and the air
no longer held the secrets of acridity.
Bruno opened the door and burst in as if he owned the
bathroom, the house and the entire street. His boot crushed the
scorpion. At first, Bruno did not see me perched on the toilet
seat. He did not see my spread-eagled legs resting on the
walls.
 “This pauper doesn’t even have a sink in his bathroom,”
the big man said. He grabbed at his groin and swiveled, and
then he saw me. I stared at his mask, frozen.
“Jesus!” Bruno clasped his mouth and fell back. He lost his
balance, probably from the scorpion juice, and hit his head on
the tiled floor outside the bathroom.
“What?” The dwarf yelled from the room. They must have
come to look, because the third musketeer let out a shrill cry.
“He’s not moving, why is he not moving?”
“John,” the dwarf said. He sounded calm. “John!”
“Why are you calling me?” the third musketeer replied.
I kept my eyes on the dead man in front of me. One hand
lay on his groin, but the other was askew. Blood cushioned his
masked head from the floor.
“Check the bathroom,” the dwarf said. “Bruno saw
something before he fell.”
I let my legs fall, remembering. Friday was the real name
of my brother’s friend. Yes, his friends mostly called him
Boma and F-bomb, but his real name was Friday. The bastard
was the one who called to know if I was home.
“Why should I check it? You want me to die, so you can
collect all the money. Check by yourself.”
My motion slow and oily, I got up from the toilet seat,
wincing at the pain in my buttocks. All of this meant my
beloved brother was the one in the body bag. Bruno’s
imposing figure blocked the entrance, but I had the element of
surprise. They were unarmed, after all, and the monolith was
down.
“I have an idea,” John said. “We can smoke the bathroom
and leave, make it look like Bruno did it all by himself. There
are probably nasty insects in there, and I don’t want to carry
that beast back into my car.”
“Okay,” the dwarf said. “Bring out the can. You throw it,
and I will shut the door. Make sure you don’t touch him.”
I bunched my fists as the dwarf approached, hearing the
blood pumping into my ears. What happened next would have
surprised even a lunatic.
As the dwarf came into view, I tried to attack him but
could not move. There was a diminutive gun in his hand. He
bent to grab Bruno’s legs, and saw me standing there. His
head was sideways, so his jaw extended, and he tried to
straighten himself. John crashed into him, screaming “For
Two-skulls” and they both collided with the wall.
There was a snapping sound, and when only John – the
third musketeer got up – I attacked. My right foot caught him
in the neck, and he flew. The dwarf’s eye watched up from the
floor, unblinking. His neck was at an odd angle and the gun
kissed his ear.
“You will die today, bastard!” John said and came at me.
He tried to stick his thumbs in my eyes, but I grabbed his
collarbone and pulled, throwing him into the bathroom. This
masked man called John was as stubborn as John Wick. He
jutted out his elbow and it caught on the doorway. Then he
kicked me as I reached for the gun. I fell on Bruno and the
dead man exhaled, making me fear he had risen from his
predicament.
John wrapped his hand around my neck and gripped at my
stomach, squeezing.
“This money,” he said. “Only I will eat of it. Your brother
was a very smart fool. Even after stealing Friday’s girlfriend,
the idiot went on to steal his money. Thank you for killing
those two.”
He twisted, sending me back into the enclosure of what
was the nasty toilet, and threw in a small canister after me.
Then he fastened the bolt on the door.
“Let me out!” I screamed, banging on the door. The
canister behind me began to hiss and John chuckled.
“Enjoy your fishbowl, little fish, for you shall soon be
smoked.”
He grabbed some things off the dead bodies of his fallen
comrade and ran, leaving me to die in the miniature gas
chamber. In times of stress, I talk to myself. This situation
was no different.
“Tamuno,” I whispered, as my mother would have before
she died in that accident. “Your brother is dead and you know
it. John trapped you in here and you know the door it is new.
How do you expect to break it down? Move before the gas
kills you.”
I held my breath. My throat tasted bitter as it constricted.
My eyes bled water.
The window!
I craned my neck. There was a small window in the
bathroom, a few feet above the water cistern. I could break the
glass, the gas would flow out and maybe I could call for help.
Outside, a speeding car left the street.
My cheeks puffed from the lack of air and I took off my
shirt. I ripped the piece of clothing in two and tied one around
my face. The gas persisted. It hurt my eyes.
“You are going to die! Use water!”
However, there was no sink, and the shower no longer
worked. We had to bath with buckets, and I left them outside
after washing. I ripped off the cloth. The gas was not letting
me think well. I dipped the torn shirt in the toilet bowl,
ignoring the pieces of flotsam bobbing around me. I wrapped
the soggy cloth around my nose, and immediately the aroma
of shit replaced the stench of the gas.
I wrapped the other piece of cloth around my fist. My
vision grew distorted. Four iron bars were in front of the small
window, and as I tried to punch the glass, my little finger hit
one of them. It broke.
“Uh!” My eyes rolled backward and I almost fell. I gripped
the guilty bar with my other arm, thinking of the things I
never did, the stupid parties I never went. If I somehow
survived, I would be an idiot, like my brother, I would live.
Groaning from the pain, my crimson eyes latched on the
white ceiling overhead. Asbestos; the poor man ceiling, cheap
and papery. Thank God for giving me this shit-hole.
My legs were heavy but I got on the toilet bowl, trying to
balance. My first punch went through the ceiling and some
powdery substances got in my eye. I tore away pieces of the
material until I spotted a piece of wood. Then I grabbed it and
hoisted myself into the roof. Thinking always makes things
simple.
Crawling on all fours, I punched through the sitting room
ceiling and found the couch. My head throbbed. Using the
wooden rafters as support, I got up, calculated and jumped. I
fell on the couch all right, but my right leg hit the floor before
this happened. A compound fracture is when the bone sticks
out of the flesh after an accident. That is what happened to my
leg. I almost died on that couch. I sat crying for a few
minutes, hallucinating from lack of air. I tore away the wet
shirt and wrapped it around my bone, daring and damning
infection.
The front door was closed and so were the curtains. It was
probably around three in the morning. If I died here, nobody
would find my body until it began to smell. There is no
neighborly love in Nigeria. Phlegm rolled off my lips as I
tried to think. Then I heard the sound.
 No! Please, God! No! I banged my fist on the chair, as the
car stopped in the street.
“Are you sure you saw a boy?” Boma alias Friday asked as
they got down. “What did he look like?”
An inhuman sound escaped my lips as I hopped to the
bedroom. They would never let me go… not alive! They
wanted to see if I was dead, and I would give them dead. I fell
into the bedroom, and saw Kola arranged on our bed. He
looked like someone still alive and sleeping, and I wanted to
wake him. He knew how to fight.
“Move, you fool!” I cried to no one. My leg felt alive.
They kicked the front door open. I expected more but I
only heard two familiar voices.
“You don’t need that,” John laughed. “I already smoked
the bastard.”
“When you smoked Kola, I had to suffocate him myself
before he died. You said he killed Bruno and Obodo?”
“Yes, he was like a demon.”
“Let’s check then, because the Tammy I know does not
fight.”
They came into the bedroom. The canister had finished
emptying its contents and they must have floated up into the
ceiling. I lay in the toilet, praying they did not notice the
unlocked door.
“You will see that I smoked him now.”
 Stupid John opened it and I shot him twice in the face. He
fell on his comrades. Dead.
“Tamuno!” Friday said. “Are you there?”
I laughed, weeping. “No. I am at the server girl’s house.”
“Tammy, I don’t want to hurt you. I swear! They weren’t
supposed to meet you here.”
“What did he do to you?” I screamed. “He was your
friend!”
Friday came and I lifted the gun. “You cannot understand
even if I told you. He messed with my pride, and if I don’t
strike, my people will say I have lost my manliness.”
“Two-skulls! They your people, right?”
He leapt in front of the door and landed on Bruno’s hand.
He lost his equilibrium and fell. His bullet hit the window and
the glass shattered. Mine hit him in the stomach.
“Tamuno, please…”
The second bullet replaced his eye, and four dead bodies
littered the doorway, three of them murdered by my own
hand. Thankfully, I was twelve and it was only self-defense. I
was only protecting myself.
I slithered towards Bruno’s body, and took my phone. I
knew dad already kicked us from his house, but he still picked
my calls. As I rang him, I hoped he had not passed out drunk
with his new whore wife.
 “Tamuno,” my dad exclaimed. “Why are you calling me by
this time? Are you mad?”
I was slipping from the loss of blood. Death and mother
called my name.
“Daddy… please come over to Kola’s place. I killed some
people.”
I fell, leaving his questions unanswered. He would come;
he knew what it was like to kill people. My head fell on the
drain, father hit her many times until she drove herself
literally to hell and glass shards pierced it. The phone slipped
from my grip, giving the man a chance to redeem himself.
I will not go to parties, mother. I will not associate with
bad people. Push me away from thy bosom, mother, and let
me live. Let me stay with the monster you married.
The last smell I perceived in the tiny space was that of
rotten banana, and I began to wonder if it was my brother’s
last meal.