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wily fox; rarely brutal or cruel. It shows he values my opinion. He of all people should know better.
    ‘So, Abikẹ, why are the windows of my newest jeep still not tinted?’
    Because how will my hawker see me when I drive past?
    ‘Because only government officials are allowed tinted windows in Lagos. Besides, it saves money.’
    ‘My money.’
    ‘Not forever.’
    ‘I do have other children.’
    ‘But you want Johnson Corporations to succeed when you’re dead.’
    Abikẹ: 2
    Mr Johnson: 1
       
     
    We continued like this but the score remained the same. By the end of the evening, I had won. As usual, we went through the Wednesday ritual of a robust hug. I often tell myself, while he crushes me, that Frustration is his way of preparing me for the world. Playing becomes easier if I believe the game doesn’t stem from perverseness.
    ‘Abikẹ, I’d like to meet this hawker of yours.’
    I hugged him back, my arms unable to exert a pressure his thick hide would feel.
    ‘Why not? I’ll invite him over sometime. Maybe one of these days you’ll run into each other.’
    As usual, it ended in a draw.
       
     
    I looked at Aunty Precious’s heaving shoulders. She had not answered me.
    ‘Aunty Precious, what’s wrong?’
    ‘Nothing,’ she mumbled, her head still buried in the crook of her arm.
    ‘Who was that?’
    ‘Nobody.’
    ‘What’s wrong?’
    ‘Nothing. I’m fine. Just go.’
    ‘I don’t want to leave you alone.’
    ‘Go. Your mother and sister will be worried.’
    She was leaning stiffly against the wall when I left, eyes closed, like a person who had fainted in a sitting position. It was a relief to step into the evening breeze. My mood soon sank when I remembered where I was going. Even the garbage wants to escape from my neighbourhood. At the end of each day, people pile their rubbish on to the side of the road and the next morning, you see the sweet wrappers and banana skins a few metres from where you left them, slowly being carried to their freedom by people’s unsuspecting feet. Oh, to be trash.
       
     
    As I turned into my street, I was disgusted by the ugliness that even moonlight could not soften. The rubbish heaps that looked like burial mounds; the candlelit house fronts that shed light on scenes made uglier by the flickering jaundiced glow cast on them: melon-bellied children chasing a lame dog with sticks, a man squatting in the shadows, showing solidarity by shitting pellets into his neighbour’s compound.
    I don’t know why people in my area get robbed. All our valuables put together and trebled would still be a fraction of what thieves could get from some of the houses I can think of. Whatever their logic, the armed robbers pay us a visit twice a month. We hear the gunshots, we cower and the next day we thank God it wasn’t us. There’s no talk of calling the police. We’re not their type.
    We are luckier than most to have a two-bedroom flat all to ourselves. My father’s leftover money combined with the sporadic generosity of his old colleagues and friends was enough to pay rent for five years. The lease contract is in a drawer in my mother’s room. Sometimes I wonder what will happen when it runs out. I have some money saved, but it is for the shop I want to start.
    As usual, when I got home, there were boys smoking on the bench by the stairwell, the tips of their sticks glowing red in the dark.
    ‘Boyo, how far?’ my neighbour’s fifteen-year-old son said, in a fake gruff voice.
    ‘Good evening, Ayo.’
    ‘I don tell you. My name be Rambo. You wan smoke?’ he said, offering me something that was too fat to be a cigarette.
    ‘No, thank you.’
    When we first moved in, Ayo was the only boy in our block I approved of Jọkẹ speaking to. He went to school every day, he combed his hair every morning and he knew what he wanted to study in university.
    ‘If you no want smoke gerrout from here.’
    A year ago I would have told Ayo to show some more respect. Ever