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It was the fire crackles that caught his attention. Barima chuckled and shook his head in amusement at the sight of the tired oats box that had refused to go to hell with its comrades. It lay a little far away from the tiny furnace. He watched it, wondering what kind of impatience would stop a person from gathering trash properly before striking a match.

His eyes darted to the brick alley that led the tenants in and out of the big compound house and the flower beds that flanked both sides. The children were heading out for school, hand in hand. He took his time to count them, eleven children in total, and then made a prayer for them, “May they not grow up to become people like us,” he said to his companion, Kissi, whose legs wouldn’t stop shaking, sweat trickling between them. 

One wouldn’t think Kissi even brought up the idea of raiding Alhaji’s compound today. Barima wasn’t paying attention to him. Instead, his eyes were fixated on the massive house ahead of them. He searched for their target window. It was too easy to locate, as it was the only one that was different. While all the other windows were louvered, that one had sliding glass. Alhaji’s window. Landlord’s window.

They hid in the backyard until they caught the shadow of the last person leaving the house through the alley. Her bright pink headgear was probably meant to catch the attention of potential customers easily. In a saturated market like Kotokuraba, you had to be different somehow. Her backside bounced with every step she took, while her protruding stomach went ahead of her. Her swollen legs took slow steps, and the tip of her scarf hung behind her head like a flag, dancing to the tunes of the wind. She hailed a taxi right in front of the house and crawled in more slowly than a snail would. 

Barima wondered why a pregnant woman had a bag clutched under her arm, going to the market. He would never let his wife go through that. He was going to make a lot of money and give his wife and children premium comfort. That’s why he was here—to get gold and to start a foundation of wealth for his future. 

Now they were convinced they were alone on the big compound. The two-storey building stood gallant before them. Its green emulsion paint was peeling slightly at the base, leaving patches that looked like living things if one looked closely. One of the patches looked like a bird’s head, another resembled a stretched finger. Kissi shook his head. Maybe he was hallucinating. He didn’t even taste weed this morning, so imagine he had.

Barima knocked Kissi back to reality, smiling sheepishly as though he just had a lightbulb moment. 

“Can you see the ladder?” He pointed to the ladder that rested near the chicken coop. “We can just climb it and open the window from here. It’s easier,” he swung his forefinger up and down, left and right, as if to emphasize his point. “Anaa?”

Kissi shook his head, “Brother, I thought you were the wiser one. The window faces the Anglican school, in fact, the main street. The moment we climb from this side, the whole world will see us. Me, I wouldn’t like to wake up tomorrow morning and see my pictures all over every newspaper o,” he retrieved a tiny bottle of gin and took a sip. He grimaced as if to resist the hardness of the alcohol.

He motioned for Barima to take a sip, but he declined. Barima always liked to go on missions with clear eyes. At least, one of them had to see clearly, and it was most certainly going to be him. He turned his attention to the ladder. “You’re right,” he patted Kissi on his back. “Let’s just get the door.” 

They jumped carefully over the grass and thorns and tiptoed their way to the open compound. They took the first staircase on their left, quietly yet swiftly. There was no time. All three doors on the left lane belonged to Alhaji’s family. Barima retrieved his screwdriver from the back of his pocket and headed for the door while Kissi looked around to make sure they were safe. 

Two

There are some unions that may seem ordained by the heavens, and we don’t consider how they might end when the beginnings are pleasant. Barima and Kissi met under very insane circumstances, but their relationship became an enviable one. They became brothers. 

It was a warm Tuesday dusk, and Barima was on his way home from town after hours of running to and from cars in traffic under the blazing Pedu Junction sun with his shoe polish and brushes in hand. His hunger propelled him to reach into his old, slightly tattered tote bag for the ‘bofrot’ he bought from Ama ‘bofrot wura’. It was cold and hard already. With each step, he took a huge bite and washed it down with pure water. 

The day had been good. At least, he got Coke and bread to eat in the morning. It wasn’t every day he got this fortunate to make his stomach smile in the mornings. Sometimes life required dry fasting, and he had to offer his stomach as a living sacrifice until evening, when he made a little cash. God being so good, he could make about fifty cedis a day, but today, he only made fifteen.

From a few yards away, he spotted a man struggling to get a grip of the sides of the gutter. He was sprawled over the side of the road with his left leg dangling in the gutter. His foot obstructed the trash that drifted slowly, while the dark, foul-scented water flowed past his feet.  His right leg lay straight on the gutter, reaching the other side like a plank across a bed. 

Saliva drooled from the left side of his mouth, wetting the ground. His eyes were dreamy as though he had just woken up from a deep sleep, and his speech slurred. He struggled to lift himself up; several times, he tried and failed. He looked like a fly could knock him down. 

Upon reaching his side, Barima felt a punch in his gut. He wanted to help him. He drew nearer to survey his face. And while he looked, two old men who sat on a log of a tree facing the street asked if he knew the man on the ground. 

“We also don’t know him. He just staggered here from nowhere. He’s drunk,” the first man told Barima. 

“These young men. Kai!” the second man said, spitting after the words as if to send them away faster. 

“I’m thirsty. Please. Someone. Give me water. Please!” The gutter man cried in anguish. Passersby watched and passed swiftly to avoid the “poverty-stricken, probably disease-infected, intoxicated” stranger on the floor. Nobody was touching him with their hands to help him up. So he fought, struggled, and whimpered in pain until the kind-hearted Barima stopped in front of him.

Barima called the pure water seller. Combed through his pockets and found two fifty pesewas coins. He bought two sachets. “O’boy, take this and wash your face,” he handed one sachet down to the man.

“Take this and drink,” he gave him the other sachet.

Barima stretched out his hands and helped him up. “I’m hungry,” he cried. Barima looked around carefully. Nobody else was making a stop. Nobody seemed to know him or recognize him from anywhere. 

Barima had a kind heart. He didn’t have much, but he liked to give. That’s why Afua liked him, for his selflessness. He knew he was going to marry her; that’s why he had to work harder. To make him deserving of her. Money is everyone’s love language, especially women, especially Afua. But somehow, she stuck by him, though he was a pauper, living from hand to mouth. “I believe in you, my love,” she would say. You see that susu box under his bed? All the money in it was for rainy days. Rainy days were days when Afua needed money for hair, food, or transportation to and from home when he wanted her to visit, so he dropped three cedis every evening.

That evening outside his small room, he sat with the gutter man, whose name he later came to know as Kissi, on his sorrow-stricken bench that was fighting for its life. Kissi said he was from the next two towns. His stepfather beat him up badly and threw him out of the house, and he decided to come here to find work. But he was unfortunate enough to enter the wrong trotro. He was robbed of his little savings and thrown out of the blue mini bus, like a rag onto the side of the road. 

“Maybe my mother was right. Maybe I’m an unfortunate child,” he wiped his nose. 

“Barima nsu,” Barima consoled him, handing him three pieces of ‘Abodoo’ and a small plate of ‘One-man thousand’. Kissi said it was his first time tasting those. “My neighbor o, Mama Dorothy, she brings me some whenever she visits her husband in Akosombo,” he pointed to Mama Dorothy’s house a few houses away. 

That night, Barima lay on his back, both arms crossed under his head. He stared at his leaky ceiling and asked himself several times if he had done the right thing. What if Kissi was even the target of a manhunt? What if he wasn’t human? “It’s your senseless kindness that will kill you one day,” he remembered the words of his uncle. That day, he got back home from school, saying he had given half of his food to his sitting partner because she came to school with nothing. He was just eight years old.

Three

Kissi started following Barima to the traffic to sell shoe polish and brushes. Some days were good, others reminded them that poverty wasn’t just near, it lingered behind their walls and wouldn’t hesitate to show its full face when it felt like. 

What seemed like some bad days became a lot of bad days. On some days, both of them came home empty-handed. Maybe it was the weather. Or was it just the economy? But how much was the shoe polish? 

“These car owners would rather go buy shoe polish from malls for higher prices than to patronize roadside boys. They think they’re doing us!” Kissi complained.

Kissi was the first to hatch the plan. “I have an idea. It’s not a good idea. But we can get rich faster than we can imagine,” he said one night while they both stared at the leaky ceiling. That evening, they shared a long, thin tea bread and a bottle of Sprite. They later managed to scramble for some coins around the room and got another bottle of Sprite to top up.

It took Barima two weeks to think about Kissi’s crazy idea. And soon, they dropped their shoe polish business and set out to become broad-day thieves. They planned well, and so far they had been out on eight missions. 

Alhaji’s compound came into the conversation when Barima’s ears caught gossip that the man had returned from Dubai with pieces of gold. He wouldn’t lose anything by giving up a few pieces. He was already affluent. They had to get themselves a few pieces.

Four

A few clicks and turns here and there, and Alhaji’s door flew open. The strong Arabian perfume that hung in the room hit their faces. Barima smiled back at the family portrait of Alhaji and his entire family. Alhaji was in the middle, his plain green Agbada flowing down to his feet. His cap sat proudly on his bald head, tilting forward a little. His beard was neatly combed out. His big eyes shone with joy as his hands rested peacefully on his wives’ laps, one on his left, the other on his right. 

His two wives were clad in turquoise green boubous, tiny shimmering pearls spread along the hems. Elegant gold necklaces and bracelets adorned them while beautifully crafted turbans sat on their heads. Four young ladies and two young men stood over them, all of them smiling their hearts out to the camera. What a perfect photo.

Barima took a minute to admire the room, the thick curtains and the heavy carpets. The television in Alhaji’s sitting room was the largest he had seen. He stood there wishing he had one. But there was no time to fantasize; they had to find where the gold pieces were and harvest them before the universe turned its back on them and disrupted the flow of things.

Alhaji barely stayed there; though he owned the apartment, he only came around for visits and for inspections around the property. But the duo didn’t know this. It was his second wife who resided in the apartment, the one on his left in the family picture. This week, she was in Nigeria buying fabrics for the upcoming Eid; her shop had to look like a colorful garden. 

Barima tossed and turned his screwdriver into the bedroom lock and swung the door open. Kissi, the teacher of the trick, did the same with the opposite door. They ravaged the rooms in earnest, as if they were on a treasure hunt being witnessed by millions of people on national television. 

Wardrobe doors flew open, and their contents flew along. Barima opened the drawers under the dressing table and searched thoroughly. He was about to close the last one when something caught his attention. A stash of notes. Ten Ghana Cedi notes. He squatted and swung his cross-body bag from his back to the front. He took all the bundles, six in total. 

Kissi found some dollar bills and forgot they had come there to look for gold. He stuck them into his back pocket and threw words from his side of the room to Barima, “I’ll stand by the door and keep watch.”

Barima kept searching, raising the mattress and inspecting the insides of pillowcases. A whole one-hour search and no gold seemed to be in sight. Could there be no gold? Was it just mere, empty gossip? He grew weary.

“I don’t think there’s any gold here o, mabrɛ.” Hopelessness carved itself like a map on Barima’s face. He dug into his bag and brought out the bundles of money. “We didn’t get the gold, but at least there was something,” they jumped and danced as if their future was set for life. “You didn’t find anything?” he asked Kissi

“No o,” Kissi scratched his head, looking everywhere but Barima's face. 

“No problem, we’ll share this one.”

“Brother!!!” He danced in excitement.

They left the doors ajar and crept around the walls till they were out of the compound. 

Five

Kissi fell asleep, leaving his clothes on the floor, as always. Barima always told him sleep will make him miss a chance one day. He was a fast sleeper, and he slept no matter what, unlike Barima, whom sleep seemed to have abandoned. He literally had to beg for sleep before it came to him. Every single night.

So as usual, Barima picked up the clothes to arrange them in their small wardrobe. Something fell from the jeans pockets, stopping his hand in midair. When he looked down at his feet, what he saw made him question his reality. His heart thumped faster. He squinted to steady his sight and make sure he was seeing well. 

Scattered at his feet were ten shiny hundred-dollar notes. 

Dollars?! Inside this room?

“Kissi,” Barima shook his roommate, “Kissi,” he shook him harder. Kissi jolted out of his sleep looking around frantically. “What is this?” Barima lifted the dollar bills in the air. Like a flash, Kissi stretched his arm to grab them but Barima pulled his hand away behind him. “I ask again, what is this?”

“Massa give me my money!” Kissi commanded, fighting to collect the notes. 

“Ah, Am I dreaming? You told me you didn’t find anything, I’m here thinking of giving you your share of the money I got, and you got...” he looked at the money in his hand again. “Dollars?”

“Give me my money o.”

“I’m not giving these to you, I swear!”

“Are you the one who found them?”

“Why did you lie? When did you start being this greedy? After all I’ve done for you.”

“There he goes again. Always reminding me he picked me up from the gutters.”

“Didn’t I?”

“Am I not permitted to do well for myself?”

“So you lie and hide things when I have been transparent with you?”

“Boss, give me my money.”

Barima stuffed half of the money into his pockets and stretched out his hand for Kissi to take the rest. Kissi took it and fought to take the remainder from Barima’s pocket. Barima resisted, restraining his friend with his hands and pushing him onto the firm mattress they bought only a month ago from proceeds of their last two missions.

They bought it together with the double-door fridge which stood proudly behind the door and housed not only sachet water but a few fizzy drinks and some fruits. They were “rich” now, eating fruits. Barima’s uncle always said a rich man is the one who is able to eat healthy, and eating fruits is eating healthy. His favorite things to eat were fruits, watermelon to be precise. But Barima hated watermelons; he thought pineapples were the best.

The two friends struggled for the dollar bills, Barima naming his friend an ungrateful leech while Kissi named him greedy. A note fell on the floor, and Barima bent down to pick it up while restraining his friend. He lifted himself up only to meet the sharp, shiny tip of a small knife. Before he could blink, Kissi drove the knife into his friend’s neck.

Barima gagged. His eyes bulged while his lips trembled. Blood gushed out from his neck. The thick red liquid streamed down his shoulder till it landed on his grey t-shirt, marking its territory. “Why, why, why?” He asked his friend. 

Trembling, Kissi dropped the bloody knife to the floor. Barima fell to his knees, then to the floor, landing face-first, while he clutched his neck and tried to stop the blood, but it gushed out uncontrollably. His legs shook relentlessly until his whole body stopped moving.

Kissi paced up and down the room. 

“What have I done?” 

He sat on the bed and got up almost immediately because his body wouldn’t stop vibrating. Sweat trickled down his face. 

“What have I done?” 

Everything in the room seemed to stare at him now, and to point accusing fingers at him. Fear gripped him as he looked at his friend lying down lifeless. The friend who saw him when no one did, the friend who saved him, the friend who fed him and showed him so much love. 

Kissi washed his hands clean. Packed his bag and stealthily walked out of the room, closing the door behind him and not looking back, scared to face the accusing fingers. He ran as fast as he could, weathering the cold midnight air.

Back in the room, Barima lay down in his own blood, cold, cold blood. His uncle was right. His kindness sent him to an early grave. 

A few days later when Mama Dorothy came by with some Abodoo and one-man thousand from Akosombo, the first place she stopped was Barima’s door. A foul smell hit her nostrils, causing her to stagger backwards. The woman who lived across Barima came out, ‘You can smell it too? It seems they are not around, but I don’t know what smells so bad in there,” the woman said. Mama Dorothy looked around, dropped the bag in her hand and slowly pushed the door before her.

The blood on the floor had thickened, some parts already dry. Barima had bloated and some parts of his face leaked. The foul smell hung in the room and clung to the curtains. 

Her voice box broke loose before her mind could process what her eyes were seeing. She screamed at the top of her lungs. Neighbors rushed to her side and met the gory scene. 

They wailed. There was no need to wonder who did this. His roommate was gone. Two boys ran to the police at the junction who came to take his body away. The police later launched a manhunt for Kissi.

“It’s your senseless kindness that will kill you one day.” His uncle was right.