SONGS ABOUT SURULERE

“I think you should leave Surulere.” She replied.

“Will you miss me?” I asked (as a joke of course - to lighten the mood and nothing else).

Jenue

“No.”

Her face fell and I realised quickly that she didn’t understand that I didn’t mean ‘no’ as in ‘no, I won’t miss you.’ I meant no as in ‘no. I constantly miss you. When you’re away from me all the laws of physics that already make no sense make even less sense. Distance isn’t relative. You could be anywhere in the world and if it wasn’t next to me, on this roof… I’d miss you.’ But she didn’t ask to hear that and things always sounded better in my head than I can put into words anyway. Still, I corrected myself.

“It’s just Ajah.” I said and her face lifted slightly.

“Exactly. Who writes songs about Ajah?” She sneered.

I laughed. I had to. Itara is a menace and a half.

“Is it by song?”

“Yes o. There has to be something in a place for someone to want to write about it.”

If I had to write about Surulere I’d probably come up blank. Not only because I’m not much of a words person but also because, generally, there isn’t much to tell. Everyday pretty much looks the same.

1. Wake up at ungodly hours- my dad handles dinner but I’m the breakfast person. I’m barely conscious for this part and it’s a miracle our apartment complex hasn’t burned down.

2. Get to school- spending 8 hours drifting in and out of conversations. I’m technically conscious for this part but still only half there.

3. Rooftop with Itara- the part where I feel finally, fully awake.

Itara

If I had to write a song about Surulere I’d start with the small kiosk down our street. The lady there sells these small chocolate flavoured biscuits that I can’t find anywhere else for some reason. I’m not a big fan but Jenue loves them, so if I ever have any money that I haven’t stuffed inside the hole on the side of my mattress, I use it to buy some and bring it up to the roof. Then maybe I’d sing about the roads. There are these two infamous potholes. One of the only times I’d ever seen Jenue in a foul mood was because her dad drove into one and proceeded to take his anger out on her. I know it's sadistic and kind of twisted but it felt good to see her seethe and rant. She has this tick where she bites down hard on her jaw and it transforms her entire face and… At that point I’d known Jenue for months, I could make a game out of mimicking her different facial expressions but that was something new. I never used to appreciate longevity - and for the most part I still don’t. But whenever Jenue does something I’ve never seen before I understand why I would stay… If I could stay.

Which brings me to the chorus of the song- my house. It’s a three bed and two bath with cream coloured walls that are now peeling. The size used to make sense when we were a complete family. My two sisters and I took up one room, my parents had another room, and what was left over was given to Ayodele. Then my dad took off with younger sister 1- Enitan, and left us with younger sister 2- Jaiyeola. Then he came back for younger sister 2 and I finally had my own room. What was left of us coped pretty well for long stretches at a time. But sometimes my mum looks around and she hates what she sees. I have my father’s face. I have his slight gap tooth, his dimple visible only on the left side, his crooked smile- not that she ever saw that. I’ve heard before that things can go yet stay, that things can haunt you. She’s called me that before once when she came home in a drunken stupor. My hands were cold and I was trying to take off her clothes and she kept yelling like… like I was what she said I was.

“Iwin.” ghost.

Yeah. I’d leave all that for a different song…

In the final verse I’d sing about the rooftop. I might mention the constellations. I only know one but Jenue memorised them all the day I showed her Orion’s belt. We’d lie down and look up. She’d be pointing at the stars but I’d be focused on the curve of her finger nail that connected to her index finger that connected to the rest of her hand. I’d trace the way it led up to her arms. They were long like the rest of her. When she’d drape herself over me, I’d run my fingers up the length of her leg. It was always a journey from knee to ankle. Sometimes she would pause her talking to giggle and swat away my hand. Then she would go back to the stars, telling me the history of Andromeda and Canis Major or something like that. I’d pretend not to know where she was pointing so she’d grab my hand to gesture at it. I’d nod because she was nodding and then smile because she was smiling. She’d place my hand back to where she swatted it away from and I’d start the journey from knee to ankle again.

I lied before when I said I’d start the song at the kiosk. I couldn’t start with that, or with the chocolate biscuits. I wouldn’t think of a melody for shitty infrastructure or a broken home. I mean I might spare a line for Andromeda or this makeshift balcony, but it’d all be filler. Because if I really had to write a song about Surulere… It would start, as it had ended, with Jenue.

Jenue

“I can’t sing.” I say and shrug.

“You’ve started.”

I laughed again. Itara is always pulling laughter out of me.

“You know, on second thought, I will miss you. I’ll miss this.” I said and reclined. She lay down as well then turned her head towards me.

“What’s this?” She asked.

And that is the million dollar question. What do you call it, when the first time a friend brings you chocolate biscuits you eat half of the packet before you remember to say thank you because you’re too stunned at the fact that someone saw a piece of the world and brought it back to you. Or when someone points out 1/8th of a constellation so you spend your break in the ICT lab memorising which stars mean what. Or when someone lays next to you and turns to you and suddenly you don’t have the words. Not for her question. Not for anything.

“Well this, as of right now, is procrastination.” I responded to her.

“Jenue. Change.”

“No.”

“That’s your business.”

I smiled and looked at the sky.

“How was your day?”

“Itsy,” I started

“Here we go.”

“Itsy bitsy spider, you ask me this everyday as if I’ll have a new answer.”

“You deflect everyday as if I’ll have a different question.”

“My day was fine. Boring actually. The highlight of it was biology class. The teacher caught these two guys fooling around under the desk and they're… they're going to be cutting grass till they graduate.”

“Two guys?” Itara frowned and turned on her side to face me completely. I resisted the instinct to shift away, but I didn’t look at her.

“People. I meant people. If it were two guys they wouldn’t even see graduation.”

“Yeah… yeah I thought as much.”

I don’t know why I felt as if I should fill the silence with an apology. Even if I did, what would I say? Itara had told me about the girl who had lived down her old street. About how they’d spend Saturdays with each other playing ludo, and dress-up, and … house. I remember that when she told me the only thing I could think was: what’s that like? And I didn’t mean to be with another girl, I meant being with Itara. Before her, I wasn’t an imaginative person. I barely fantasized, didn’t ever get truly ‘lost in thought,’ and my dreams were of me moving from recognizeable point A to recognizeable point B. But then there was Itara. And when there’s distance between you and a girl like Itara in reality, you'd want to live wherever closed that gap. Which is all to say- since I met Itara, I’ve spent a lot of time in my head.

And yes, it is difficult to not constantly reach, drift, and step towards her. It is difficult for there to always be space. But it's not impossible, and for all it's difficulty it’s not bad. If anything it's a thing that reminds me that I’m real and that I exist. I carry a lot of weight around but this is the good kind, the steadying kind. When I get too lost in the dreary monotone of my life. When every face and shape and colour start to mould into the same thing, I get this sharp tug in my chest, a nudge. It makes me think that somewhere out there is Itara and there's a distance between us that I haven’t closed. And no matter what it feels like- love, hurt, anger, frustration… It’s real and it's there and it's the reminder that I need that I’m alive. Itara makes me feel alive. Why would I apologize for that?

Itara

I said before that I was slightly sadistic but I forgot to mention I’m also a masochist. Nobody with a sense of self preservation would sit on a rooftop night after night with a sky that was something out of a romance movie and a girl that was also equally something pulled out of a romance movie. It would, admittedly, be one of those really crappy ones that could be played off as ‘indie’ or ‘alternative’ but we the audience know that that was code for low budget. Anyway, It’s not any sort of romance. Surulere is a shitty place to fall in love… not that that’s stopping me.

I looked at Jenue as she rolled her tongue in her cheek- another one of her ticks. When I met Jenue’s dad so much about her clicked into place. She wouldn’t like me saying that but it’s true. He sat perfectly still for a minute when he first saw me and it took him longer still to get up from the couch to shake my hand. He spoke slowly and in short stories, as if he had all the time in the world. Jenue didn’t like that. She sat behind me on the adjacent chair and kept pressing at my back, nudging for me to stand up. I didn’t move- half because I liked the sensation of Jenue’s hand on my back and half because I loved listening to him talk. I remember one day Jenue invited me over for dinner but she was still napping so I talked to her dad while he cooked. Well, more listened than talked. He was a strange man but he was interesting and it was fascinating to hear his inner monologue. It went a little like

“You have to boil your chicken extra long to make sure it’s dead. Or at least that’s what I do. Hm. To make sure it’s really dead.” Then he paused to dip his spoon into the pot- he was making pepper soup. “I used to teach about that. I don’t know if Jenue has ever told you but I’m a biology professor. One of the subjects that used to get my secondary students really excited was death, I don’t know why. I’d say ‘rigor mortis’ and they’d flip open their notebooks and their hands would start dashing across the page.” At this point he turned around to face me. The spoon was still in his hand as he turned so little droplets from the soup fell to the floor, but he didn’t seem to notice so I didn’t bring it up. “Rigor mortis by the way is a … condition. Your body stiffens and that’s how morticians know you’re dead. I’m sorry for oversharing this way. I know Jenue has told you about her mother’s passing and… And it’s difficult. For her and for me. But when she passed and I was at the funeral home and they were embalming her and her whole body was locked up I think I became the same way, you know? I couldn’t move or cry or… eat.” He pointed to the pot and laughed slowly. “But now I’m doing better. I’m trying to do better. Which is why I’ve been going to the gym again. And I joined this cooking class that meets every Tuesday night. And I’m here, you know, talking your ear off. And I’m sorry that you have to be a recipient of my grief but I don’t want to go stiff.” He laughed as if he said something funny. “The dead don’t speak and I want to remind myself that I’m here. Really here… No matter how many times I’ve wished I could move her over and make space in that casket.”

I remember I tried apologising and he had said something along the lines of “The only people that should be sorry are the government and hedge fund investors.” Whatever that meant.

Jenue

I wonder if this is the part in romance movies where the heroine, after 1 hour and 30 minutes of screen time builds up the confidence we’ve all been waiting for and confesses that she’s something along the lines of truly, madly, deeply-

“Why are you squeezing your face?” Itara interjects.

“Shut up.”

In love.

Which sounds stupid when I think about it too long. Which I always am. I’ve turned it over and over in my head a bunch of times. I even have a list of synonyms that I wrote down to make sure love was the perfect word.

1. Proclivity- But that’s a tendency to do something regularly, and everything with her is a lot more constant than regular.

2. Fondness- I think it’s a bit stronger than that. I’m fond of chocolate biscuits but I don’t think I’d memorise constellations because of it.

3. Attachment- Makes me think of braiding hair not a person.

4. Warmth- More like forest fire.

At the end of the day I know I love her because she’s there. Right there… And I’m already mourning the time when she’ll be gone. I know I should say something to her about my feelings but… But what if where she moves to is on the second floor of an apartment complex. Or the third. When she’s hauling her suitcase up the stairs I don’t want guilt about her unreciprocated feelings to be part of the load. I don’t want my feelings to be another thing that she has to carry. And I’m the most qualified person to say that because I know how heavy they are.

It’s a mini miracle that I get from point A to point B carrying them around. And everytime I open my mouth I’m scared that the words will come tumbling out. That’s if I could say:

Itara, since I was six all my teachers have had the same thing to say about me at parent teacher conferences. My dad has always understood but my mum never did. The teachers always said that they weren’t sure I was present. I’ve never had many friends or hobbies. I didn’t join after school clubs and when they let me I’d sit by the corner of classrooms during break time. This is supposed to be a love confession but it’s really me admitting to you that I’m not much of anything. But I want to learn to do things. I can learn to drive if it makes the transit to Ajah easier. Or take up carpentry to make settling into your room a smoother process. The point of this is … you make me want to try. You make me want to be more.

In one breath. And hey, maybe I will one day. I figure I still have a few days before she leaves. I hope I still have the chance to be the romantic heroine before the credits roll.

Itara

Jenue’s dad was right- about silence being for the dead. But it’s more than that. Ever since he said it all I could think about is how much being alive is questions in the classrooms, and half conversations with cashiers, and sermons at church. But it’s not enough that we’re speaking because, I guess, even the half dead can mutter even if what they’re saying makes no sense, even if what they’re saying is not the truth. Maybe the real hallmark of being alive is that we tell each other the truth.

I should tell Jenue that growing up with half a home has made me hyper independent. And angry. And bitter. It’s made me a lot of things I don’t want to be. When I look back and think about a time I was satisfied… that Itara seems so far away. All I know is that my hands have been outstretched for a long time asking for something I didn’t know the name of. And sitting on this rooftop night after night hasn’t made it easier. What do you call it when the whole Surulere sky doesn’t compare to the quick smile someone flashes at you? When you look at someone and then reach for the ground to make sure it's still steady underneath you? I want to ask her to answer the questions. I want to ask her if she can fill my outstretched hands.

But.

I want her to have someone that doesn’t demand so much out of her- especially when I have nothing to give in return. I want life with her to pan out the way I’ve seen it in my head. Her coming to Ajah. Me finding a knock off rooftop. Us sitting on said rooftop while she points at the stars and I pretend to know what’s going on. I don’t know if she’s happy but I know she’s at peace, and I don’t want to say anything that will change that… even if it kills me. But I have to say something, so I say-

“Jenue, It’s my last night in Surulere.”