KICKING THE BUCKET

The sharp sound of iron buckets hitting the west wall startle me awake –the third time tonight.

Usually, I am amused by the short sporadic loud cheers of “Hurray!” that follow each bucket clang, but today my mood is sour, and I am irritable. I have had to soothe far too many troubled souls, counsel them, and walk them through their new routine. I do not relish the idea of staying awake the rest of the night, nursing the inevitable pounding that is now starting somewhere above my right eye.

But I should have expected the game to be played, and for a longer time too. I should not be annoyed, no, not with a tradition started long before the times of my father and his father. And certainly not when there are so many new members to introduce to it, so many who need to diffuse their shock with humour. I wish, as I always do, that I could find some of that humour for myself. That there could be something to cheer about.

“Hurray!” they cry again.

I sit wedged between clumps of roots. The white marble stone on which I rest my head relieves some tension in my head and neck. I flex the aching muscles in my arms and back. In the bright moonlight, black yawning gaps in the earth six feet away gape at me. I look at them dispassionately. Two holes left to fill up is good but that can wait till the early hours of the morning.

I must have dozed off because another clang and a series of short loud cheers wake me up again. “For God’s sake!” I mutter as I get to my feet, and forgetting my earlier thoughts, stalk angrily towards the West Wall.

The west wall is exactly what I call it. It separates a vast graveyard from residential blocks on the other side. The eight feet wall, like every good wall, is thick and impenetrable. It also has razor wires running along the upper ends. The wall keeps the residents from constant reminders of the grim reaper, maintains the solemnity and privacy of mourners, and most importantly, prevents intruders accessing the sacred grounds. It is no surprise then that I stop abruptly at the sight of two pale trembling men in the now suddenly quiet section of the graveyard.

The men shout and jump in fright when they see me. They cling to each other, two small parcels squashed between their thin frames. I move away from the shadows cast by overhead branches, and allow the bright light of the moon to fall on me. They can’t help but get a good view of my Bodija Cemetry uniform. And with wild grateful utterances, they move apart, and rush forward.

They are barely out of their teens, and dressed in black: black caps, black tight shirts tucked into black skinny trousers squeezed into black boots. Their eyes are white and wide, and I can’t tell whether they are good looking or not. One of them launches into some sort of speech.

“Something!” he says pointing a trembling finger in an indefinite direction. I cannot follow his wild gesticulations, and it makes me dizzy to try. “Something!” he says again, his face twisted with the horror of whatever that ‘something’ is.

The second one is more coherent. “We heard something,” he clarifies looking around as he waits to hear it again. But just as it happens in thrillers, the sound has stopped at the arrival of a third party. We listen but we hear nothing.

Why, I think exasperatedly, do people expect a graveyard to be quiet? Why - of course it’s a stupid question to ask, but not for me. I have been in this graveyard a long time, and one thing I have learnt is that things are not always as they seem.

The men shiver as though this pleasantly warm April evening was a cold harmattan morning.

“Do you still hear it?” I ask, making an effort to still my irritation and impatience with their additional interruption to my night.

My voice, instead of reassuring them, only makes them uneasy. They step away from me, and I’m afraid I understand why. My voice is raspy and hollow from disuse and it echoes eerily in the silent night.

“No,” the inarticulate one replies eventually. He reaches out and touches my hand. It is solid under his touch. His friend looks at him, and he drops his hand.

“No, we don’t hear it,” his friend says. He turns to look searchingly into the night. There are many dark places between the tombstones, with shadows cast by huge mango trees distributed unevenly along the wide expanse of the land.

I take a closer look at my visitors, and understanding dawns on me. There is no doubt that I am really tired tonight and something that should  leap to the eye has taken me several minutes to see. I ease down my irritation, and as I have trained myself over the years, I become ready to be gracious in every way.

It is easy  because I know their type very well. As a wild young man, I had scratches such as those on their faces, and I lied every time inquiries were made about them. I would say a rejected lover scratched me with her  manicured nails. But the truth was that the branches of trees in the green bounteous fields beyond my father’s land had slapped my face and shoulders as I ran from their angry owner.

The men are nervous, ready to bolt at the sound of ‘something’. I wonder what they would say if I ask about the tears in their shirts, and trouser legs. I wonder if they would allow me to look into the stained parcels held so tightly in their arms.

“So, what are you doing here?” I ask.

“Passing,” the answer is barked at me sharply.

“We are just passing through,” the other says in a friendlier tone. He gives his friend a cautious look. He gets a nervous nod in response.

Of course they are passing through, what else would they be doing? The entrance and exit gates to the graveyard are both good fifteen kilometers to the north of where we stand. Passing through isn't how I would describe what they are doing.

“Ayo, Kola,” the incoherent one says in his staccato manner of speaking.

“My name is Ayo,” the other says. “And this is Kola.”

Kola nods nervously.

I do not introduce myself but instead offer to guide them out of the graveyard. They accept too readily. They want to get out. They want to find the exit gate. They want to return home. 

There is a home to return to.

And as we begin our walk, Ayo stays beside me, and Kola stays close at his heels. I am conscious of every turn of their heads, and of their startled movements when the night animals scurry around.

Ayo says without Kola’s inarticulate promptings. “How do you do it?” and then clarifies “I mean … how do you stay here in the graveyard at night without being afraid?”

Penance is the word that comes to my mind, but he will not understand. “Do you think it will be easier to stay here during the day?” I say instead.

“I should think so, yes!” Ayo replies earnestly. “It would be creepy no doubt.” He shivers. “But a lot less so.”

“But what are you afraid of?” I ask. “Creepy sounds that seem to come from the bowels of hell? Or dead men who might be walking around?”

Kola’s eyes bulge out at my words. He misses a step and stares at the ground with alarm. I am not sure which could be worse; the reality of his fears or the fear itself.

“One shouldn’t joke about these things,” Ayo says disapprovingly. “I’ve heard things…” he whispers in the confidential tone of one about to let out dark and haunting secrets.

“Don’t!” Kola implores.

Ayo frowns. The words are on the tip of his tongue. He struggles for a few seconds not to drop them, and succeeds.  

We continue our walk in silence and they watch warily as heavy clouds sail overhead obscuring the moon. The darkness of the night becomes complete.

They follow me closely, trusting what they judge correctly to be my years of experience in the graveyard.

“Where have you been tonight?” I ask finally, breaking the thick silence.

Kola and Ayo exchange looks. Ayo shrugs and looks away. He probably figures that it is of no consequence what secrets they let out to someone like me.

“The Estate” Kola answers, his voice dripping with pride.

“We raided Aminu Estate,” Ayo says importantly.

“Just two of you?” I ask with the right tone of incredulity. “Just the two of you… in that Estate?”

Aminu Estate is renowned for its beautiful homes. Its wealthy and influential residents invest in security gadgets costing millions of naira each year. Video surveillance, hidden cameras, motion detectors with GPS systems, and a number of wild ferocious dogs are somewhere on the list. I should know about it. Around me lie the remains of ordinary thieves who did not know what to watch out for in order to successfully rob the estate.

Perhaps I have underestimated Ayo and Kola. Perhaps I have presumptuously classed them among men who run wild in green fields next to their father’s land.

“There were more of us,” Ayo says quietly, a strange tension underlining his words. “We got separated from them and don’t know where they are.”

In the dark I see Kola look at me uneasily. I return his look but do not confirm his fears.

“We were to meet at our hide-out, but they didn't show up. After all our planning, all our hard work, they didn’t show up!” Ayo says. “We waited for a few hours but the police officers came, somehow they had tracked us. The whole place turned into a mini war zone, and when we ran out of ammunitions, we ran away.”

“And we came here,” Kola says his first almost complete sentence.

I allow a pause. “But do you know why you came here?” I ask.

“Why we came here?” Ayo says. “What do you mean why we came here?” He stops walking abruptly and stares at me.

“Ayo…” Kola says. He is trembling.

“Are we close to the gate?” Ayo demands but I do not answer him. He looks around him suspiciously, he can’t see much but he suspects rightly that there is no exit gate in sight. “Where is the damn gate?” I can hear the panic in his angry voice.

“The sound we heard earlier” Kola says trembling “What was it? What was it?”

“Where is the damn gate?” Ayo shouts.

“It’s a game” I say turning to Kola, and ignoring Ayo. “A game that will amuse you.”

“For God’s sake!” Ayo snaps glaring at Kola as the moon appears overhead. We can now see each other clearly.

We can also see that there are no gates next to us save the little decorative gates around the tombs and they don’t count, at least not to Ayo.

“I saw the blood,” Kola says quietly but bravely. He drops his parcel to the ground. It is heavily stained, and lands with a definite thud. His hand goes to a tear in his shirt. He looks at me so I nod gently.

“I know,” I say.

“Kola shut up!” Ayo says hysterically. “We are getting the hell out of here now! Right now!”  He is agitated. He looks around desperately and then turns to me. “Now look here old man, we don’t want any trouble, just show us the way out of this goddamn place!”

 I don’t look away from Kola as the clouds clear away completely. Ayo turns and sees a path that could only be the way out. He stands still as though struck. “Kola,” is all he says.

Kola does not respond. The wildness and fear are leaving his eyes. There is peace in his face. He looks suddenly handsome and terribly young.

“Kola,” Ayo says more urgently.

I realise with sudden empathy that for all his bravado, Ayo will not leave without his friend.

“Ayo said it was nothing,” Kola said looking at a spot just beyond the place I had laid dozing. He is getting more coherent as he accepts the situation. “When it stopped hurting I knew.”

“Yes,” I say. Kola will be the hero in this saga, no doubt.

“Are the others here?” Kola asks looking around at the evidence of my labours. The fresh earth, plot after plot, smoothed over with a strong rake. 

Ayo sits on the ground. He drops his own parcel and starts to weep, holding his head. He knows he will not see the exit gates.

“They were kicking the buckets, making the sounds you heard,” I say to him.

We both turn towards the direction we had come from, where they had heard the noise. Kola follows my eyes as I turn and look at the holes in the ground. We are silent for a while, the only sound we hear is that of Ayo weeping.

Kola goes to Ayo. He grasps his hands and pulls him up. He holds him close for a second or two, and then turns him gently towards the yawning holes.

“Come lie down Ayo,” He says kindly to him as he walks him towards the holes. “It is over now.” He pauses and looks back at me with a smile. “He has brought us ... to the exit gate.”

I look away as the weeping fades. I must accept one thing tonight; there will be no sleep for me. Not because more buckets will be kicked against the wall, as surely they will, and not because the cheers will be loud; perhaps even louder than usual, but because someone else has found a way home.

I remain here.