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his high cheekbones lay under a thin beard. He was in a tight pair of jeans, sandals, and an oversized, dirty-white corduroy shirt that hung on his lean frame like a furled sail, in spite of the wind. If not for his commanding height and presence, he could have been any other
agbero
at the border.
    “My friend, make we go inside,
abeg,
” Fofo Kpee pleaded with him. “Sit down and drink someting. Heineken, Star, Guinness?” He turned to me: “Kotchikpa,
va acheter
him de drink.”
    “
Rien
. . . notting!” Big Guy said slowly and firmly, barely audible above the sea murmuring in the distance.
    Apart from the invitation to drink, we didn’t understand what they were talking about. But this didn’t worry us. Having an
agbero
as an uncle, we were used to people coming to harass him for various things at all hours of the day. So we knew he would laugh his way out of the man’s harassment now.
    “We never said two, but five,” Big Guy said, waving his fingers, some of which ended in dead nails, before Fofo. “Where de oder children now?”
    Fofo stepped away from the fingers, saying, “You know my arrangement wid your people?”
    “
Quel peuple?
” Big Guy taunted.
    “Your boss,” Fofo Kpee said.
    “But
tu dois
deal wid me—
directement!
”
    “Ah
non, abeg,
make we celebrate first.
Gbòjé
. . . relax.”
    “No, I dey very serious.
Just moi.
”
    “You? You want do me open eye?”
    “I no want frighten or cheat you. We
dey
do dis kind business like dis. . . . I
dey
warn you
o. Abi,
you want play wid fire?”
    “We
dey
dis deal togeder,” Fofo begged him. “No fear. Everyting go
dey
fine.”
    Big Guy shrugged and surveyed our surroundings, his eyes as suspicious as those of a traveler who has been duped at the border. He cast a disgusted glance at me and my sister and looked away. In the distance, the sun was a ball of gold in the foliage of the coconut plantation that guarded the approach to the Atlantic Ocean. The water that could take us abroad frothed gray and wild, resisting the sun’s gold brushes, and on this canvas of water, the coconut vistas cast their swaying grids. The wind from the sea blew at the land in a mild, endless breath.
    “Big Guy, calm down, look at me,
o jare
. . . you worry too much.”
    Big Guy shrugged and said, “No, Big Guy no
dey
worry.
Na
you
dey
worry.”
    We could tell that Big Guy was disappointed. He pursed his lips so hard that we saw a bit of the red of his nostrils, embers of the anger he was fighting to control. As I said, I didn’t worry because I had seen Fofo in more difficult situations, and I was confident he would calm the man.
    “What about de house?” Fofo Kpee said, gesturing at our house.
    “What about it?” Big Guy said, without even giving our house a look, though Fofo continued to encourage him.
    Its zinc roof was completely covered with rust, and the two rooms had no ceilings. The walls were made of mud and plastered with cement, and in the narrow veranda, there were mounds on either side of the door, for sitting, which is where Fofo wanted Big Guy to be if he didn’t want to enter the house. The eaves were supported by pillars made of coconut wood.
    “You like it?” Fofo asked.
    “Your house
dey
OK for de business for now,” Big Guy said. “I want leave.”
    “You see, you see,” Fofo told him, chuckling. “At least I do one ting well.”
    “Well, after, we go build de one
wey
better
pass
dis one . . . bigger.”
    “Ç
a ira, ça ira
. . . Tings go work out.”
    Big Guy walked away, the disappointment still in his eyes.
    “Of course, only dead people
dey
owe us!” he said. “Only dead people.”
    “I sure say nobody go die. . . . Well, as de Annang people
dey
say, de dead no
dey
block de way, de killer no
dey
live forever,” Fofo Kpee called out to him, laughing. “See you tomorrow,
á demain o.
And make you greet
ta famille pour
me
o.
”

    WE DIDN’T KNOW WHAT to make of the motorcycle when Big Guy left. We stood around it