‘Haha!’ the audience laughed in appreciation. Brother lit a lantern and in its sickly yellow glow he continued to ply his dreams. Sometimes the details of the send-off party were dwelled upon, the exact venue (usually the front of the shed – but cleared and cobbled and street-lighted – was chosen). Particular persons would be commissioned to see to particular aspects of the celebration – inviting the Governor, hiring the seats, buying the food and drink, and, of course, the trip to Jamaica to buy A-grade marijuana. The dream trip ate far into the night, till the chatter and passing footsteps outside grew quiet and the cold began to pierce with a knife and the hallucinatory fingers of marijuana slowly released their grasp upon their brains; then they got up one by one, stretched and yawned and mumbled good night, and disappeared into the dog-yodelling night to their wretched hovels.

Outside on the street, Brother was a hero. Women and children would point at him as he hobbled past on his one good leg and the wooden one and repeat to themselves the story of how he lost his leg to a soldier’s bullet, two years ago, in the post-June 12 riots. By the time I was a month on Poverty Street, I had heard over five versions of it. In one version, Brother had killed two soldiers with his bare hands before a third soldier shot him in the leg (right, at the knee). This was the most heroic of all the versions. When I had asked Joshua if it was true, he had shrugged and said, ‘You mustn’t take everything you are told literally. Hyperbole is a legitimate device in storytelling. Most stories, in order to achieve maximum effect, have to be exaggerated.’

Another version I heard from Brother himself. It was on the day that I first saw him; it was also the day Nancy poured okro soup on his head. In the hot afternoons, business was always slow at the restaurant, and I could sit in the empty room with my dictionary to learn new words, or do exercises from past question papers. It was a Monday.

The restaurant was rectangular and long. The door that opened to the street had a bead curtain through which I could watch the cars pass whenever I raised my head – I was seated at the head of the long aisle, against the wall; immediately to my right was the door to the kitchen; before me, on either side of the aisle, were the tables covered with white-plastic tablecloths.