Incandescent Dreams

Papa Madu was one of those stooping Africans selling children’s books or pleated fedoras around Time Square. He’d set up his table at 8am, the earliest his permit would allow, and he’d greet the throng of pedestrians with cheer. For hours each day, his dark eyes saw nothing but a sea of pale, dispassionate faces, drifting by his stand without veering to acknowledge the humble space he occupied in this world. Yet, Papa Madu did not show sadness or concern because he was an actor, a thespian by trade.

Wayward tourists were his most frequent customers. He would wait for their eager eyes to fall prey to a scarf or a pair of shades. Then he’d gauge their interest and make an offer, fumbling to dilute his deep Nigerian accent with American expressions such as “awesome” and “cool”. I imagine people found this amusing, even charming. The word “awesome” sounded exotic coming from his wide mouth and chapped lips, his voice as expressive as a contrabass in its limited range. At home, he spoke a creole of English and Igbo uttering each word as if it were special to him.

When Papa Madu made extra money from tips, he’d slip it into the back right pocket of his khaki’s where he kept his daily contribution to The Mazi Ngozi College Fund. That money would later be transferred to an emptied jar and hidden in the far left corner of a broom closet. Once a month Papa Madu would empty the jar to make a deposit at Chase Bank.

At times, I’d stumble upon the ATM receipts sitting beside the tray where we kept keys and loose change. It took all of my discipline not to unfold them and see that my future rested upon the support of $326.58. I wondered if Papa Madu knew that some people in this country, perhaps many of whom walked past his stand everyday, made that much money in one afternoon. Still, how long had he been saving his tips? I had always known him to be frugal, but until then I didn’t fully grasp how meager his savings were.

Years before he met my mother and began selling items on the street he was a doorman for a Park Avenue flat. During those years he had plenty of time to search within himself and relive the dreams he kept stowed away under the constant pressure of survival. He would look beyond the stretch of the green canopy marked with the building's address, beyond the silent glares of guests and renters and he’d see a two bedroom Victorian home with pastel blue siding and white trims. He’d see his wife hanging sheets to dry on a cool afternoon, the sun kissing each contour of her dark complexioned face. And as she strained to clip the sheets to the line, her neck would crane and stretch like a daffodil bending in a gentle breeze and he’d standby absorbing the view, almost hidden by the shade of the verandah mixed with the tone of his own complectedness.

Then Papa Madu would call to her, and her name would unroll from his lips like a spell. She would be called Anuli—Anuli meant joy. Papa Madu could not hide his bias towards this name, for the first girl he’d ever loved and never kissed was named Anuli, so if he could imagine anyone’s face it was hers turning toward the patio, her eyes squinting in the sun, her easy smile and high cheekbones disarming him like whiskey washing down his throat. 

I was a day over eleven when Nne and I picked him up from the precinct for chasing a Vietnamese boy down Broadway. Before leaving the house, she took a moment to compose herself, leaning over the kitchen table with her eyes closed after placing the phone on the reciever. We took a local train downtown to where Papa Madu was being held. Before opening the main door Nne paused to veil her anger with embarrasment. Almost instantly, I spotted Papa Madu sitting quietly in a corner, his head bowed.

As the story went, a Vietnamese boy had been stealing grapes and other fruit from street vendors in the area. Nearly three or four times a week he would lift a mango or an armful of apples, dump them in a sac, and run away as quickly as his little feet could carry him. The Africans called him “Cricket” because of his size and stealth.

When the Vietnamese boy snatched a fedora from Papa Madu's table, he was pursued for several blocks before my old man seized him, lifting the child from his feet and pinning him against a wall. The boy wailed until he was rescued from Papa Madu's grip. This was the story as told by an eyewitness. There were a few other vendors standing by in Papa Madu's defense, each with their own sympathetic versions. Papa Madu would not recall the details of what happened, only that he felt great sorrow for his sudden anger towards someone so helpless and pitiable. 

I caught a glimpse of the Vietnamese boy in question, every feature of his sullied face spoke of deprivation. Behind his flitting eyes, while we were all feeling sorry for his circumstances, he was probably figuring how to rob us all, eyeing the belt of the female officer the way only a small child would dare to do.

Just moments before Papa Madu lifted his head and set eyes upon me I caught him rubbing his thumb and forefinger together as if feeling the texture of something. I knew then that he was dreaming of the amber earth, the moist soil of Urrunebu.
Despite the linoleum floors and flourescent lights of the precinct he could have been kneeling in the dirt with a trowel, pulling up yams and casssavas as large as his chest. Such joy he would feel knowing one could give to the earth and it would deliver gifts wrapped in soil and moist roots. He could still hear his father's voice ringing in his ears like tinnitus, clearest and most audible in the quietest moments. Papa Madu did not know the truth of silence because all of his thoughts were underscored by his father's disemodied voice. And before his father died, having lived a humble life tending to the earth, he said something to the effect of: Love the land and you will never starve, beg, or steal.

Nne signed the papers for his release. The Vietnamese boy’s name was Thao. Although the boy was visibly upset and would not make eye contact with any of the adults hunched down to his level, promising him a better life from then onwards, I could tell he had siblings who often stole from the street and when he returned home they would probably flog him for being slow enough to get caught.

That night Papa Madu bought French baguettes, a bottle of apple cider, yams, plantains and fish from the African market as well as canned beans of black, kidney and pinto. He cut and fried the plantains with the yam and boiled the fish, adding it to a stew already laden with beans. He spent a week’s worth of earnings to make that dinner. Perhaps he wanted to please Nne, to look less pathetic in her eyes though it didn’t spare him her sharp tongue later.

I chewed the yam lovingly and licked my fingers while they fought. I could not see them arguing but I felt their voices shuffling around me as our apartment was small, the walls were like air. Papa Madu had not even served himself or Nne a plate. The dinner was for me. Before bed he gave me the present that was a day overdue. He knelt down before my bed, smiling without showing teeth. He was an old man then, even considering how much older he is now.

He gave me a leather bound edition of To Kill A Mockingbird. Papa Madu could not read the book himself, but he knew that I had been studying it in school using a borrowed copy. Then he squeezed my shoulder and said don’t worry you will never be a Thao.

During the summer months Nne made extra money braiding hair. Women would walk up to our second floor landing with packets of long dark weave in a plastic bag and several of their children in tow. Our apartment became a hair salon and daycare all at once, so Papa Madu and I would take the train uptown to the Bronx and sneak into a movie theater for the afternoon. Papa Madu enjoyed American films very much because they were joyful and had a positive message for the audience.

We would sit at the back of the theater and cross our legs over the chairs in front of us, chatting in hushed tones. Papa Madu would remind me that as a child he’d acted in several plays, some of which were held in the presence of respected elders and village leaders. Many of the actors had no formal schooling, rendering them incapable of reading a script.

Knowing just the bare elements of any stage drama they would harness their own tangles with love and hate and jealousy, improvising entire soliloquies, eloquently spoken before a captive audience. It was my grandfather who built the public theater from wood and corrugated tin.

Papa Madu could not speak of the public theater without tears filling his eyes. It was not so much for the loss of theater that he wept but that even after so long the memory of it was as fresh and raw as the blood coursing through his veins. Sometimes he feared that if he closed his eyes long enough he would never know if they were truly open again.

It was during those few years before I started college that I learnt how much of himself Papa Madu saw in me. I admired Papa Madu enough that I imitated him at times but it was in the unguarded genuine moments that he saw his likeness. I did not have quite as active an imagination as him. Like most people I saw things for what they were rather than what they could be. I was practical and unextraodinary, tending to books and math.

Papa Madu could not live a life separate from his dreams. He embraced them as if they were indicative of the future. He regarded each of his dreams with gratitude, holding onto them they way you would of a memory.     

On my first day of college he gave me five hundred dollars. It was all the money he’d managed to save in eighteen years. The check was written in Nne’s handwriting but had his illegible signature at the bottom. I remember that he folded the check into two perfect squares and placed it in the breast pocket of my shirt. It was the best he could do.

We exchanged very few words. By then we'd learnt to coexist in the same space without the need for formal conversation. He was quiet but not unusually so. Rather his face was meditative, though brimming with the tide of his own resplendent thoughts.