When Ishmael met Papa..

Early last week, our driver Ishmael told us his mother had died and requested to take leave to attend her funeral. He was given permission and promptly departed. Yesterday, we heard through the help-vine that Ishmael was back in town. Sister Y called him to find out how far. Although I prefer to drive myself and have issues with drivers that cannot remember where they went yesterday or, once reminded, how to get there again, I had an interest in seeing Ishmael – one of the tyres on my car had gone flat. The idea of fixing it myself did not thrill.

And so yesterday afternoon Ishmael found himself in our living room being interrogated by Sister Y. Her courtroom tactics proved effective, as his dead-mom alibi soon started to crumble. Papa, one of the security guards, was brought in as witness number one to unearth the real story. Bored of the banter, I left the living room to continue working, only to be alerted back a few minutes later by aggressive shouting and the staccato impact of fist on face meat. Papa and Ishmael had come to blows. Once separated, the bizarre truth then started to leak out.

It turned out that Ishmael had faked his mother’s death in the first place to get sympathy money from us, as well as time off. Papa had agreed to go along with the story and provide cover should it be needed, gaining a cut of our sympathy money as his side of the deal. Papa had his own interests in play – he needed to go to his village for a relative’s funeral (whether a real or fake death, we don’t know). Ishmael, on the other hand, wanted the time off and the money to visit a juju-man. Specifically, Ishmael wanted to have the ability to appear and disappear at will, so that he could be an effective robber and sprite in the night. Papa had apparently recommended a juju-man from his village who, for a mere N20k, could bestow such gifts. The arrangement was that Tweedledum and Tweedledee would visit Papa’s village together – Papa for the real/fake funeral, and Ishmael to obtain the requisite magical powers.

Separated, Ishmael and Papa stood facing each other in our living room, as the Nollywood saga spewed its truth all over our Turkish rugs. Sister Y commandeered Ishmael’s phone to source for elements of corroboration in the story. She called one number, stored as ‘mummy’ in his address book. It turned out to be Ishmael’s wife. She called another number, with ‘mummy x’ as the associated name. Ishmael volunteered that it was his girlfriend. She then discovered his father’s number, and after some back and forth, found out that Ishmael’s mother had in fact died several years ago. By this time, Ishmael’s eyes had become bloodshot, and an air of defeat hung heavy about him. The curse of stupidity (see an earlier post) had done battle with an innate sense of superiority and won.