The Shoemaker of Eko

In seven days, the world was created. Humans walked the soil of the earth, ate its fruits and drank its water. The spirit of the Almighty hovered above, and then, there was me. Orí. Created by the Almighty for a sole purpose, to escort, guide and guard humans born into the world throughout their lifetime. No one sees me, living or dead, but from the moment of conception, until the moment breath ceases, I am.

Eons after the world was made, he too was born. Okiki grew to become a fine man, who, though lanky and leggy with skin as pale as curd, had a charm to his appearance. Sometimes, he talked too much, other times, he laughed too much, and some other times, he cried too much but hard work was his mantle. He became a cobbler at twenty-three after his mother's passing. A job tagged the common man job. But Okiki never thought this way. He wore his trade with pride and did his work diligently. 

Being Orí, the spirit of destiny, I can do only so much. I am fore-knowing but not all-doing. I can see the possible outcomes of what a life may become if certain decisions are made, but I cannot decide the outcome of your fate. It is like how the first woman’s Orí foresaw that eating the fruit would curse mankind, while refusing it would preserve the Garden’s blessings. Destiny comes alive through the choices made by its host. So, even though I am  the guardian spirit, I do not control any man's actions for the Almighty gives free will. I only set out the various ways a human may follow and lead him to the end that he might meet. 

~

A month before Okiki was born in Abeokuta, his father drank himself to his death in a canal one moonlit night. His mother wailed and tore at her skin mourning a husband who forgot how to love her – a man who shamed her until his dying day – and fearing for the future of her unborn child. 

Many a time, people said to her, ”Yemisi, you are wasting your time with this man. He has nothing to offer you. Why don't you pack up and leave?” But Okiki’s mother was the proverbial faithful woman and so she stayed with the man who left her eyes black from punches and red from tears.

People said many things about Okiki at his birth. Some said he would become a drunk like his father. Others said he would never make it in life. They believed that because he was raised by a widowed mother, he was hopeless. Made from nothingness, for nothingness. From the moment I was assigned to him, I watched them talk about these scenarios they had made up in their heads knowing that Okiki had come with his own destiny and only he could fulfil it. 

As a boy, he cried so often, wailing at night that his mother would run to her neighbour, Iya Bisi, to help her nurse him. He was Yemisi’s first and only child and she knew nothing about motherhood. Even more, she worried about raising Okiki to be different from his father. Iya Bisi, an expert in child affairs, was always willing to help. With seven children of her own, rearing  children was a breeze. Iya Bisi would say to Okiki’s mother, 

“Yemisi, you worry too much. Kilode?” And then, she would loosen the knot of her Iro, and pick up the child and rock him. 

Okiki’s mother would watch with the keenness of a child, learning how to calm her son and praying under her breath, asking the Almighty to keep him away from evil. 

By the age of ten, Okiki hungered for more. The need to rise above the life he had been handed burned in him. He could never understand why people still looked at him and only saw the son of a drunken loafer, as if he bore his father’s sins. He knew he wanted more than survival. He wanted a life that made them all eat their words. For himself. For his mother. And he swore that he would have it. Whether the world helped him or not.

One time, when he was twelve, Okiki and Iya Bisi’s sons were playing monkey post in the compound. Kamaru–a short, bow-legged boy with a sharp mouth– only a few months older than Okiki, protested against the last goal Okiki’s team won. They were leading by ten points to two. Red-eyed and panting from frustration, the boy cussed at Okiki calling him the son of a drunkard. 

“See as him be, na why nothing dey your head. Be like your papa when na so so drink e drink until he die.”

Okiki froze for a moment. Not because the words hurt, though they did, but because something stirred up in him. Then with a quick snap, he charged towards Kamaru and smacked his head so hard, the boy fell to the ground with a thud. 

“You dey crase. Your mama round full everywhere like balloon when go soon burst, and you still get mouth to curse me. Leg nor even straight, you nor get anything reach me. Ode!” He spat the words.

That evening, Okiki’s mother beat him and begged Iya Bisi to forgive him for he was only a child. He had bitten the fingers that fed him and disgraced a woman who had raised him like her own, over a silly game of monkey post. That was the last day he played monkey post with any of Iya Bisi’s children.

~

Years on, my hopes remained high for the man. He had one goal. Not to be like his father who lived every day of his life as a loafer. I have been a guide to many before, but there was something particularly intriguing about Okiki. When Okiki started mending shoes in Abeokuta, he built himself a small stall at the market, with sticks, stones and zinc, for his business and a large number of customers visited. I watched him mend the soles of many shoes and polish their leathers to a glistening shine. He was a god in his own light. Making and mending. Like the Almighty. 

Five years after he began his trade, Okiki packed his bags and moved from Abeokuta to Lagos, the city that promised success and excellence. It was the year people believed the world would come to an end and same year, people believed in a lot of opportunities. I, his Orí, was very excited for the opportunities he would meet in the big city. He had come to Lagos bare, with little money, but I did not fear that he would survive for the man was a survivor. Okiki pushed through, sleeping under a few bridges at night and during the day, hawking himself through the streets seeking customers to mend their shoes. He was caught up in many fights. Sometimes, with a bus conductor, other times, with other occupants under those bridges. 

“Your mama nor born you well. Koni dafun e,” one would say to him. And another, “e nor go better for you for this life. Oloriburuku.” 

Okiki was one to fight back. It was an amusing sight, a man as skinny as he was, engaging in street fights, earning himself cuts and wounds but leaving the counter party with same.

Some nights, he cried himself to sleep. Some other nights, he would stand by the edge of a bridge staring into the water beneath. He never thought about plunging himself in. He would only stare, lost in his thoughts. One time, while cars sped past on the bridge  in daylight, he watched a man jump over, his body cutting into the water like a piece of rock. It was the first time he would witness the infamous Lagos lagoon deaths. 

After months of sleeping under bridges and squatting with acquaintances made on the streets of the bubbly city, Okiki saved up some money and rented a bedsitter in Orile. Two weeks after he moved into his new place, Okiki met Madam Rose while he was in the neighbourhood, seeking out customers. He walked the streets with his wooden toolkit slung on his left shoulder and a stick in his right hand for which he beat his toolkit to announce his presence. As he walked, the woman alighted from a taxi in front of what we both believed to be her gate. A look of disappointment rested on her face. Her right foot was bare and in her right hand was her shoe with a peeled off sole. She was a short woman, very stout and she had the look of a strict headmistress. She hastened towards the gate, tiptoeing on her barefoot. 

“Excuse me, ma.” He ran up to the woman. “I dey repair shoes, I fit help you repair your shoe. Sharp sharp. I no dey waste time.”

The woman looked at him, up and down, and asked,

”You say?”

”I fit help fix your shoe, ma. I can fix it,” Okiki responded. 

”Oya, wa. Let me go inside to get an umbrella for you to make a shade. You can sit here and start work on the shoe.” She pointed at the curb by the gate. ”Please, fast o. I am already late for my party. I just came back to change the shoe.”

”Ese, ma. I will start the work now.”

Okiki sat by the curb, and set his tools down to work. The sun beat his head and beads of sweats formed on his skin. The woman came back with an umbrella and set it above him. She returned to the house while Okiki continued with his work. The sun soon had pity and began to dim its light. Okiki wiped the sweat from his head with the back of his palm and continued earnestly, applying glue to the sole. I watched him in admiration like it was the first time I would see him at work. He was soon finished. He took a few moments to check the work that he had just completed. It reminded me of the first time the Almighty created everything and looked at it, and saw that it was good. Okiki saw that the shoe was good. Then, he rang the bell to alert the woman. 

She came back out but this time, not alone. With her, was a girl, mid-twenties, with eyes beautiful and skin dark and clear, like crystal. Her hips curved below a very thin waist and her hair was full and lush. The moment Okiki lifted his eyes from the shoes to her, he was taken. 

“I... I have finished the work, ma,” he stuttered. 

I giggled. This man, I said to myself.

”Thank you,” the woman said. ”Ladun, take them inside.” 

The girl took the shoes from Okiki, her hand grazing his skin. Their eyes locked, then she looked away.

”You are not wearing them, ma?” Okiki asked Madam Rose. 

“Not anymore, my dear. I would just wear these ones.” Her eyes went to the different pair of slippers she had changed into. Okiki's eyes followed and then they were back to the girl's face. The girl told her mother goodbye, gave Okiki a small, almost imperceptible smile, and shut the gate behind her as she returned to the house.

Okiki began to pack his tools. 

“Gba,” the woman said, handing him over some money. 

“Ese, ma.”

“Wa, is this work not hard? Trekking under the sun every day looking for shoes to mend?”

“It’s hard, ma, but it’s the only thing I know how to do. I’m saving for a shop.”

She sighed. 

“See eh, I like you. I have a big shop in Idumota. I am looking for a sales boy. You can still do your shoemaker business on the side, if you want, but I’d pay you very well. My daughter, the girl you just saw, helps me in the shop but an extra hand would be very helpful.”

At this point, I was both happy and afraid for Okiki. This was the turning point for him. It was the moment I had waited for all his lifetime. 

“I can do it, ma.” 

“O da. Good. Come to Idumota tomorrow. Ask for Madam Rose, Alaso. I sell George wrappers.”

“Okay, ma. E seun. Thank you.”

“Your name?”

“Okiki, ma”

“Okiki.” 

~

On his first day at Madam Rose’s shop, I followed closely, watching as he got on-boarded into his role as sales assistant. She was there too. Ladun. Okiki watched her lips as they moved slowly while she explained his duties to him. 

Okiki nodded as she spoke, directing him on how to keep a record of everything in stock for each month. He was taken not just by her lips as they shaped each word, but by the quiet authority in her voice. Every now and then, he caught himself forgetting the instructions, as he watched the way her hands gracefully moved across the ledger. His heart beat a little faster, and when she leaned in to point at a line in the book, the scent of her hair drew him closer. I wished I had human hands to slap him to compulsion as he began to drool slightly. I was in his head, listening to his thoughts of how he wanted to put his hands all over this woman and to feel her body next to his. It was only the grace of the Almighty that kept his penis from showing the thoughts in his head. In moments like this when I realise that my human is playing with fire, I put in words of caution in their heart. So, I spoke into his heart. I warned him about the risks of having the hots for his Madam’s daughter. Lusting over Ladun was like playing with the chick of a mother hen. And so in the same breath, he told himself he cannot afford to be with the daughter of his madam, and a few weeks after, he accepted that he could not have this girl and he rested. 

I was glad. 

~

For the first few weeks at Madam Rose’s shop, Okiki stayed diligent. He arrived before the shop gates were unlocked, sometimes sweeping the front steps before anyone else showed up. When customers flooded in, he darted between them with the grace of someone twice as experienced, lifting heavy rolls of fabric onto his shoulders, measuring and cutting cloth with careful precision, remembering names, prices, and preferences without glancing at the ledger. By the time Madam Rose called out instructions, Okiki had often already done them and by the time Ladun asked for help, he was already beside her, handing her what she needed.

When business slowed, he didn’t stay idle. He repolished the glass counter, rearranged stock, and restacked the shelves neatly. In the evenings, after he closed from the shop, he would do a bit of shoe mending. One afternoon, Madam Rose, watching from behind the counter, shook her head with a small smile.  

“This one,” she muttered to herself, “God stitched his head properly. Such a hard worker.” And Ladun, folding a wrapper nearby, caught the words, and smiled too.

After a few months of working with Madam Rose, Okiki came to her behind her desk. 

“Ma, there’s something I want to say.”

Madam Rose lifted her head from the ledger in her hand. “Talk, I’m listening.”

“I want to open a shoe shop in Idumota. I would be mending and selling shoes there,” he said.

Madam Rose looked at him, with the eyes of a doting mother. She had grown fond of him, especially after hearing his story of how he survived being raised by a widowed mother and shamed for being the child of a drunk who fell to his death in a canal. 

“Are you sure you are ready for this?”

You are not ready, Okiki. I whispered into his heart’s ears. But, he would not hear me.

“Beeni, ma. I am. I want to start my own life.”

Madam Rose sighed. She stood, loosening the knot of her Iro and retying it. She too knew that the man was not ready to stand on his feet. But, as Okiki would have it, it was his way or no other. 

“If you say that is what you want, I will support you. I will give you a loan to pay for your shop.”

Okiki leaped for joy. He prostrated before Madam Rose. “Ese, ma. God will bless you, ma.”

The man went on to start his business of mending soles and creating his own designs. In no time, he was making waves in the market. His fame, like his name, had spread far and he grew more successful by the day. He was no longer Okiki, the drunk’s son from Abeokuta. He was now Okiki, famous shoemaker of Èkó.

At this time, I could not be more proud of Okiki. Perhaps,  I might have been wrong about the choices he made. He was living up to his name. He was successful and he was beginning to prove that he was not of the same cloth as his father. But, it was all too sudden and I feared for him. Okiki was a stubborn and callous man and just as he talked, cried and laughed too much, he also did too much. The man was easily distracted. All it took was for him to gain the upper hand, like he did those years of playing monkey post with his peers, and his true colours would be revealed.. It was evident in the life of this famous shoemaker of Èkó that, as they say, money exposes a man. 

~

Okiki’s downfall began like rain, slowly, pitter-patter, then suddenly. The man had made wealth and soon, his conscience began to fade. I would speak to him for days, asking him to slow down in making decisions but he would not hear me. He invested in everything, taking unnecessary loans, and making deals without proper thought. I knew he had a bit of senselessness but even I was shocked by the mistakes he was making. 

On a morning like any other, he woke up in his nicely furnished apartment somewhere in Ebute-Metta and thought to himself, “I have made money, I have shamed the people who thought I would become my father. My business is flourishing, I can afford anything I want. What is stopping me from getting the woman I always wanted?”

So, he arose, and went to Madam Rose and said to her, 

“Mo fe fe Ladun. I want to marry Ladun.”

Madam Rose turned, the roll of George wrappers balanced in her hand slipped. She stared at him wide-eyed. 

“You want to do what?”

Okiki looked at her with confidence. “You know I love her. And I can take care of her.”

Silence stretched between them. Madam Rose sighed, reached for her Iro, loosening and retying as she always did when in deep thought.

“Okiki, you’re like a son to me. I have watched you grow into a very fine and lovable man. Hardworking too. But Ladun is my only child,” she paused. “Do you understand what you are asking?”  

He nodded.

She looked at him long and hard, then exhaled deeply.

“If my daughter will have you, then yes, you have my blessing.”

And Ladun would have him. 

When her mother asked her if she would accept Okiki, she answered shyly, “He’s a good man, Mummy. He has achieved more with his hands than those men with degrees who have come before.” 

So the two wedded in a grand ceremony. And Okiki showered her with love. Gifts. Good sex. And everything in between. 

But many months later, he met Tammy, a fair-skinned lady, with hips rounder than Ladun’s and breasts fuller. When she walked past him at The Palms Mall in Lekki, Okiki caught a whiff of her perfume. And so, it began. 

Tammy was different from Ladun. And not only in hips and breasts. She was not as calm or quiet. She wanted to explore the world, buy the nicest things, drive the nicest cars and travel to the most exotic places. Ladun was level-headed. She knew how to manage expectations. Okiki was a well to do man but not that rich and Ladun knew this. Okiki, however, did not seem to know the size of his pocket. It is little wonder that he did not know that he could not afford the lifestyle of this woman he had begun to bury his penis between her legs. 

Ah, Okiki, child of his mother, son of his father. Is this how you would be cut from the same cloth as the man you did not want to be?  I lamented.

Ladun began to notice the changes. Money was becoming a problem and his business was no longer flourishing. His clients had begun to patronise other shoemakers. The few celebrities he had garnered begun to lose trust in his work. He was rarely at home and when he was, he would complain and nag and pick fights. 

The first time Ladun noticed something was wrong, she overheard him on the phone, pleading in hush tones with a supplier. Days later, she visited his shop and found the once-crowded shop nearly empty. The shoes displayed were untouched and covered in dust.

At home, Okiki grew quicker to anger, slower to smile. The man who once bragged about every new sale now grumbled over bills, snapping at every little thing.

He came home one evening to a meal and complained of too much salt. He yelled, banged the table, tipped over a glass, smashed a plate on the floor and warned her not to come up to the bedroom with him. 

And when she asked, “Oko mi, what is the matter? Why are you so different from the man I married?”He raised his hands at her, for the first time, and struck her cheeks.

Ladun took a few steps back, shaken. 

Okiki looked at his palms, like they were not his, shocked by his own stupidity. 

“Ladun, I’m sorry,” he stuttered. 

Her eyes blazed. She stomped out to the room and began to pack her bags. Okiki tried to stop her, begging her on his knees, asking her not to leave. 

Ladun stopped at the door and turned to him. “I thought I was a good judge of character but you’ve proved me wrong. You can have your concubines who feed off you like leeches and suck you dry. But when they are done with you, don’t think of coming back to me.”

And with those words, she left. 

For days after she left, I watched the door to Okiki’s home wondering when Madam Rose will barge in to unleash terror, but the woman did not. And so, Okiki, without any shame or fear, moved Tammy into his home.

Tammy was a rot under a floorboard, but Okiki would not heed my voice when I warned him that she was no good and that she was only here for his wealth, one he was steadily losing. It did not matter that she laughed louder or was better in bed than Ladun, she spent without restraint and Okiki, too proud to admit he was sinking, let her. So when she promised him dinner after a hard day of work, Okiki returned home that evening, eager for her meal, only to find an empty house and a note, written in red ink on the coffee table, telling him his bank account had been wiped clean. 

Thanks for the ride. Don’t look for me. You’re broke now.

He checked his bank account. Empty.

At first, he laughed in disbelief. Then, he laughed like a madman. And then, he stopped laughing. 

His heart sank. He struggled to breathe. I watched him as he fell into the sofa, his chest tightening and his eyes welling with tears. 

“Ah, aye mi. Orí mi,” he wailed. “Is this what my life has become?”

Okiki wanted only one thing in life –-to not be like his father, a waste of space, a bag of foolishness, but the truth was he was his father, cut from the same cloth as the man. Shaken up like leaves drained by heavy downpour, Okiki heard my voice. And he knew.