Brother I have A Story To Tell; I visit the underbelly of Lagos

Brothers, I have a story to tell. But the sisters will read it anyway, and loudly complain about it too — complaints I will ignore.

I want to talk about the truth. I’m tired of reading vapid, barely literate introspective vanilla-speak from people content to talk about their beautiful inner turmoils. And that’s what it is, isn’t it? It’s never a really embarrassing turmoil. It’s never a struggle with hate, or with worth, or with virtue, or with disgusting vices, or with lies, or with real pain. Never truth. I will tell you the truth.

On this fateful day, after hearing a lot about the fabled happenings in a certain bar in a certain part of Lagos, I steeled my nerves and ventured into it.

Now, this part must be crystal clear. This bar doesn’t advertise itself as a bar. The painting has peeled, the building looks shabby, there’s a nasty gutter in front of the entrance, and it just looks really bad. The only reason you would know it was even a bar is the soft tempo of music and weird Christmas lights on the fence.

If I had a whole year, I wouldn’t be able to tell you why I entered into that bar. Was I curious? Was I bored? Was I mindless? Who knows.

Before we go on, I think I owe you some understanding of my life. I think this detour is necessary. You see, both my parents are pastors, and they attended a church where all the pastors were wedded to Pastor Mrs. The sort of church where everyone wins all the time in the name of Jesus we pray. The sort of church you go to thrice a week, 24 times a month. The kind of church where all your uncles and aunties were pastors and elders.

I attended a church school, as they call it these days. So not only was I baptized in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ thrice a week, I also began every morning assembly with the gospel. Assembly was merely a different kind of church service that ended in school announcements. My parents even found a way to pay me through another church school, since our present church university was too expensive. Praise God somebody.

So I have grown up in a strange circumstance where good behavior is generally expected and bad behavior is frowned upon. I did not know of any adult that cheated on their wives, smoked, or even drank beer. The first time I saw someone drinking at a relative’s wedding, I remember gasping in horror. Unfortunately, that experience taught me nothing. And I grew up, hairy balls and all, assuming that everyone — everyone consequential anyway — had a similar life to me. That is why what I saw when I walked into that bar had such an effect on me.

The first woman at the door was in some short jumper corset thing that revealed 75% of her breasts. She tugged at my shorts — come now. I looked scandalized, but I was determined to get to the bar. You see, in the ten seconds before I entered this place, I had come up with an interesting scheme. If someone asked me where I was going to — because I do look innocent (what?) enough to be asked that — I would just say I heard there was a bar here. And then they would either tell me there was no bar or point me to one, where I would order my trusty Orijin and have a refreshing evening.

So I had to get to the bar.

At the entrance of the bar stood five — or maybe six — men, and they all started fighting for my attention like I was at the market.

What do you want? Cana? Scottish? Ghana? Kolos?

No, I don’t want any of those things, thank you. I just want a beer, I said, and they looked disappointed, like their gambling ticket had cut. Then I went over, sat down, and asked for my beer. Then I took in the scenes.

There were maybe 5 or 6 women. They were clearly selling something. One was near 6 feet tall, with old breasts, and a titanic midsection. Another must have been fifty years old, but she hid her age badly with mascara. A third committed the cosmic Nigerian crime of having no ass. And so on, and so on.

I felt disgust, but I also felt pity. These were real people, with real lives, whose day job consisted of sleeping with strange men — men who were disgusted by them. Men that they also disgusted, joined in hot sweaty passion empty of love — filled with nothing but raw slavish selfishness. Then I moved on to more practical questions. What is the retirement plan for a job such as this? Do you save for your retirement yourself? Can you keep going at 60?

I could have gone on, but the characters in the bar took my attention off the women. They all had hard faces, and one could tell that this was the sort of place where someone could easily get killed. It was the sort of place where robbers may meet after a good evening out, or meet to make a plan. It was, as Jesus would have it, situated nearly underground, and as I looked at the ceiling and saw the watermarks, I realized the building could collapse on us all right now. And somehow, I believed the people in that room wouldn’t mind one bit.

This wasn’t the Lagos I knew, even though I saw participants in this Lagos everyday from the window of my Uber. I saw them everyday, and I knew nothing about them. Where does the danfo driver, the bus stop tout, and the pickpocket retire to at night? Where can they lay their head release their inhibitions? I didn’t see even one person that looked my age. Even my agemates here were already hardened by pain and sorrows of a kind I could never comprehend. This was it — this was their life. I felt like it was hell.

I wondered if my boss, in his sharp suit and brisk manner, had ever been in a room like this. What did he think of it? What of my many pastor uncles? They could have been, for all I know. What did they think of it? Perhaps they have higher class establishments that are much of the same. My friends tell me this — but a little more polished — are what Lagos night clubs are now. I have never been in one.

Fine boy, you go fuck?

I go give you correct doggy.

Buy me Orijin even if you won’t fuck.

My heart was racing. Try to imagine it, if you can. I was born an upper-middle-class Nigerian, taken to school by private car drivers, attended a private university — which, of course, had its own share of whatever this is, but none as blatant — and I suddenly walked into a place where none of that meant anything. It was a totally new world, a world that I expected to exist, of course, but not one I ever expected to find myself in. I wondered how many men and women had been murdered in this building. I was sure the answer would be higher than zero.

I write all this to say I just want to be a good person. But I am not sure being a regular at places like this makes me a good person. What would my poor mother do if she heard that her child — that she paid thousands in fees for at a private university — is finding love for five minutes in the arms of a hooker?

I just want to be a good person. But is this the sort of thing a good person does? Every visit does nothing but corrupt my soul. I can feel my soul getting blacker each day. Do I wonder about God’s forgiveness? No, I don’t think I can forgive myself. There are no innocents in hell.

To be clear, I’ve made my rationalizations for this behavior. It isn’t like the other relationships I have been in have been much more dignifying in their honesty about their benefits. After all, there was even a time I used to give someone something resembling a girlfriend allowance. I thought it was something that everyone did. If I can accept that transaction with equanimity, why can’t I accept this similarly foul one? Isn’t the difference merely a question of degree, not type?

I tried that argument over and over and over in my head, and it made sense.

So I took the plunge. Why? Why not, friends. Why not?

The childbirth scars, I must say, are the worst part of this adventure. A clear reminder that these are real people, with generations in front of them. The negotiations are the worst part. Like you are pricing fish at the market.

Blow job? 10k.

Short rest? 7k.

Anything you want, as long as you pay.

This is someone’s sister, someone’s mother, someone’s child. What about the men one encounters in those dimly lit hallways? They never look you in the eye, you see. Old, young, it doesn’t matter. Their eyes are fixed to the ground.

Only the women look into your eyes, searching for any hint of lust to latch on. Business is business, and the more customers, the more money they can send to children, and even husbands back home. So maybe I am a good person. If I didn’t do this, someone else would.

In one room, I found a calendar from a nearby church hung on the wall. On one door I found a church sticker: this is my year of financial breakthrough, 2023. It clearly wasn’t. Some rooms are better than others — some have ACs and a flat screen TV and boxes of fake Nike shoes. Others are worse, with no carpets, no TV, no church stickers.

I wonder what prayers a poorer woman would have. God grant me more disgusting men to fuck? So that I can buy a large screen TV? Or maybe God grant me more disgusting men to fuck, so that I can pay my kid’s school fees. I felt pity, desperation, bitterness, and helplessness all at the same time. If I am not a good person, what am I?

The eyes, chico, they are all empty. And why shouldn’t they be? They are dead inside — and I am too, for me to be here. After all, business is business.

By the end of a week, I wasn’t bothered by how many people had been murdered in the building. I was bothered by how many had taken their lives.

My wife says this often: just do your nonsense outside and make sure I don’t find out. Maybe that is what my Pastor Mrs. mother told my father. Maybe that is why they have had such a long and celebrated marriage. Maybe I am also just doing my nonsense outside and no one is finding out. This is even the best way for no one to find out. After a few nights here, the faces start to blur. Even women you have seen before start forgetting your face.

Fine boy, we don fuck before?

Notes
This is part of a series of collaborative essays between me and acquaintances. If you’d like to share your story on this Substack, shoot me an email.