If you ask me when Kareem met Kareem, I wouldn’t be able to give you a proper answer. If you asked anyone else in Oja Iya, they wouldn’t be able to provide an answer either. Everybody knows the same thing I do: that Kareem and Kareem’s friendship started out of the blue.

There is Abdulkareem Saadudeen, our neighbour—brown-skinned, very tall, and muscular. The kids in the neighbourhood mock him, they say he looks like the chimpanzees in Unilorin zoo. Kareem has strong simian features, which he used to get picked on for when he was younger. Then he started following Owolabi, who works as a bouncer at Club Spartacus, and his crew to the stadium. Sometimes they lifted local weights made with cement bags in Owolabi’s father’s garage. Slowly but surely, Kareem began to bulk up. When he resumed in SS2, everybody stopped calling him Obo dudu – black monkey to his face. Now, it’s a nickname that gets whispered behind his back within the confines of a safe space. Kareem has no history of violence, but there was no telling what those muscles could do when provoked to blinding rage.

In a mocking twist of fate Obo dudu became King Kong.

Twice, we were told of Kareem displaying his strength in a bewildering and jaw-dropping manner. Zainab said he once used his teeth to draw water from the well. Salamatu said he had deftly crushed a huge watermelon with just his thumb and forefinger.

“He chook his hands inside like Jet Li—icha! And the next thing, the watermelon crushed into pieces. Patapata!” She clapped her hands in amazement as she said this.

Someone said he beat up the math teacher in his school for asking him for his assignment.

Kareem ruled our neighborhood in the late 2000s—from Taiwo to Eruda to Oja-Iya. The girls daydreamed about him. From Ita-Amodu to Edun to Gegele, the boys envied him. Kareem was king—until the other Kareem stepped into the picture. Where our Kareem was tall and muscular, this Kareem was fair and slight. Where our Kareem looked like a great-value version of Djimon Hounsou, this Kareem could pass for Shemar Moore. They were vastly different. Girls immediately began swooning over him, and it became a topic of discussion—or a fight—every time they met for After Round One or Tinkotinko games.

“Your Kareem looks like King Kong! My Kareem is even finer than Ramsey Nouah!”

“At least my own Kareem can fight if those street boys waylay me and try to snatch my phone. Shebi I told you how they ran away when Kareem showed up! Your own Kareem—one wind, and he’ll fly inside that river in Oke Aluko.”

“They said his mother is a witch and that’s why he’s looks like an escape albino. Have you seen his eyes? They’re green like a cat’s own,” Ama muttered as the new Kareem on the block strolled by.

Everyone pitted the two Kareems against each other, but surprisingly, they never saw themselves as rivals. In fact, a camaraderie started between them. It was as if they knew there was enough of them to go around with the ladies. The two Kareems began to hang out together—football practices, school, parties, Quran memorization, PS4 game houses. They even wore similar colors on Eid day. To differentiate between the two, tags got added to the end of each person’s name. Kopiko—because the first Kareem had a skin tone that was a rich, uniform shade of mahogany, like the sweet, coffee-scented candy we all licked to stay awake during evening prep classes. And Milkose—because the other Kareem had the typical light-skinned features of Ilorin people with Fulani ancestry, like the caramel candy.

They were inseparable. They even started a rap group—Koffee and Kream. They mimed American gangster raps at birthday parties. They took part in the West vs. East Coast beef. They picked fights with people who went against one of them.

During the extension classes before the SSCE exams, the Kareems stopped hanging out together.

People said it was because a girl came between them—that she ruined their relationship the way women always cause chaos between men. Some said it was because Kareem Milkose went to a party with a girl Kareem Kopiko fancied. Hanotu, Kopiko’s sister told us it was no girl—that, in fact, they never fought, and her father was the one who yanked Kopiko away from Milkose.

She said the Kareems spent as much time indoors as they did outdoors. Sometimes they stayed in for long stretches, seemingly content in each other’s company. And when the jokes started about Kareem Milkose being Kareem Kopiko’s wife, everybody took it as genial fun—but Kareem Kopiko’s dad was disgruntled. He hated what he perceived as Kareem Milkose’s daintiness—his extremely fair and flawless skin. Kareem Milkose’s naturally sonorous voice didn’t help matters. First, he banned Kareem Milkose from coming to their house every day—except on Fridays when they went for Jumu’ah together. Then, he banned them from wearing similar clothes.

Ore ki ya ore, akobani o kin yarawon. Friends of friends are thick as thieves, always sticking together, just like conspirators bound by secrecy.

Hushed conversations about Kareem Kopiko’s dad began. Why was he always pouring spittle in a well-made broth? They blamed Kareem Kopiko’s wayward mother, Anulika, for it was she who was said to have caused so much mental strain on her husband and left him bitter and cynical about anything that brought joy and comfort to others. They said she left him empty after she sucked him dry and has taken the best of him then left him to be chewed up by life, the way orange gets suckled dry and tossed into the waiting mouth of a hungry goat. They blamed her for being Igbo—because it was that aggressive ancestral blood that had turned her husband into a joyless soul.

The day Kareem Kopiko’s mother’s scream interrupted the Adhan in the next compound—piercing through the soothing Muezzin’s voice calling forth to prayer—stopping people in their tracks as they rushed to the mosque. It was the 20th day of Ramadan. She had heard her husband yell her son’s name and rushed out, only to meet him sprawled on the floor, clutching his chest beside Kareem Kopiko’s window.

As helping hands rushed Kareem Kopiko’s father inside a passing taxi that was hastily stopped, no one remembered to use his parked car—just as they forgot to check on Kareem Kopiko. Then the stories began.

“Omo Yibo yen ni. O ti poison e.”
“It is too much thinking. It is too much drinking.”
“The enemies from his workplace have finally struck him with an arrow. Oh, such is the life of an auditor!”

They gossiped and wrung their hands. They prayed for Kareem Kopiko’s dad, their shaking fingers counting through their tesbihs—hundreds and thousands of murmured Ash-Shaafi.

Children in Ile-Kewu are halted mid-recitation, their tiny hands filled with fruits, dates, and things for the mouth. They are told to pray for Baba Kareemu’s swift recovery. At the foot of the central mosque in Oja-Oba, beggars are handed black nylons, softening under the weight of steaming rice. Relatives of Baba Kareemu murmur amen, amen as the toothless beggars lift their hands in prayer.

On the 25th day of Ramadan, Kareem Kopiko’s dad gave up the ghost. Loud wails pierced through the streets of Oja-Iya as Obirin Ile—wives and young ladies from different family houses—moved in throngs to commiserate with the family.

Through tear-stained eyes, Kareem Kopiko’s mother proclaimed that her son had killed her husband.

“O ti pa oko mi oooooooooooooo!” she wailed in a smattering of Yoruba. The women held her as she rolled down from the settee, her wrapper coming undone, exposing her smooth, reddish-bronze skin—the same shade as the earth whence she came forth to the hungry, leery eyes of Alhaji Basiru.

Sweat-stained veils travelled from musty armpits to dab at Kareem Kopiko’s mother’s face.

The news travelled far and wide, Aradugbo adding and subtracting from the tales they wove as intricately as the aso-oke fabric in Popo Giwa.

They said Kareem Kopiko was caught by his father eating in the afternoon during Ramadan.

They said his father couldn’t fathom his only son committing Kaffarah despite coming from a family of great Imams.

Others said it was because Baba Kareemu was stingy and refused to sponsor the mandatory feeding of sixty poor people to make up for the Kaffarah.

Iya Luku said it was weed Kareem Kopiko was caught smoking. “Ninu awe fah!” She added in disbelief.

Everybody shook their heads at the degeneracy of kids nowadays.

Kareem Kopiko took it all in stride. The rumours. The mutterings of curses from those who cry harder than the bereaved. The look of scorn. He let the scorching eyes of his extended family flame him. He even meekly bowed his head and murmured words of apology as Alhaji Bashiru, their Mogaji, lambasted him after the Janazah. He knew Alhaji Bashiru would have tossed him over the fence into the prison in Okekura if he actually knew. During the Fidau, he also endured the barrage of insults that came his way, the way Bembe drums accept the thunderous hits from the handler.

Kareem Kopiko knew their anger was momentary—the statement about killing his father was just something many parents utter when expressing displeasure at a child or trying to set them straight.

‘S’ofe pami ni?’ To prevent the child from going haywire.
‘O ti pami ooooo.’ To manipulate the child onto the right track after they have gone haywire.

Kareem Kopiko accepted his penance in peace, and he was proven right. By the time they held the 40th-day prayer for the dead, his family had completely forgotten all that was said in a state of grief. In fact, the Obirin Ile joked with him and praised him as he helped them carry the basins of meat where they gathered to cook. Friends and relatives prayed for him and pleaded with Allah to watch over him as their fingers tore into hot, steaming amala. His aunties called on Allah to be with him, as he is his mother’s husband now, through oil-stained hands, their cheeks shining like the puff-puffs they kept wolfing down.

He felt their empathetic eyes following him everywhere, and guilt squeezed at his heart. He wondered how they would have looked at him— would it be just like his father had? As he yelled his name, “KAREEMU!” Shock colouring his features, rapidly aging him.

Memories of that night flooded Kareem Kopiko’s head—the night he walked in on his father and Saka, who ran the kiosk down the street. Saka bent over; eyes closed in euphoric bliss. Baba Kareemu huffing and grunting, his hips moving in a rhythmic dance of passion. His bark at Kareem Kopiko to get out!

And how he become a shadow of himself after that day—fearing, wondering if his son would ever tell. His distance. His brooding. His deep shame that he kept hidden.

The urges he had successfully tamed—because what use was such pleasure if all he got in return was the deep look of hatred from his son? How could he explain that Senior Ladi and Gboye had once threatened him, a scrawny 12-year-old, to suckle on their members or get punished? How they passed him around the hostel like a commodity to be used, passed on, and discarded.

And that was why he feared. Why he tried to stop what he feared from repeating itself.

Why would God confront him with his sins in such a blatant manner?

So, when his heart gave way, and his soul fought to remain on earth, he made sure the battle was lost. Because to live was to live with images of his son—bent on all fours while his friend plundered him from behind.

And this is why Kareem Kopiko was grateful to his father for this last act of kindness.

For dying with his secret.