Thumbwars

Chapter Three

Nortey Jr., Sam - Thumbwars [Avidbook, MF, Contemporary, New/Young Adult, Urban Fiction] Chapter Three

“Welcome aboard British flight 729 headed for Accra, Ghana, with a stop in London, Heathrow. Buckle your seatbelts and prepare for takeoff. My name is Hugh Masters. I’ll be your pilot for today. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask any of our staff members. Welcome, once again. We thank you for choosing British. We hope that you have a safe and pleasant journey to your final destination.”

Barely perceptible, a twinge of anxiety seemed to tap upon my shoulder. I fumbled for a magazine in the seat before me. I’d hardly begun to turn the tattered and dog-eared pages advertising trips to far-off and exotic places, when suddenly, I felt my attention turn towards an unknown place. Although equally unfamiliar as the blue Tahitian paradise that splayed itself upon my lap, this unknown place seemed much closer. Perking my ears, I heard a voice from my left that immediately triggered my senses. Hoping to give an image to this strange voice, my eyes followed and successfully found the source. All of this happened so instinctively and naturally.

“Hello, my name is Bannerman. Henrik, that is. Henrik Bannerman,” this man said in a British-sounding accent, perhaps from Kent, Exeter, or parts thereabout in southern England.

He seemed amiable enough. Intrigued instantly by his accent, my own voice no longer seemed as good to me. I introduced myself in an accented voice that I thought would sound intelligent and cultivated, almost like that of the James Bond actor, Sean Connery. The accent was, however, a strange hybrid between French and Australian. I believed I could be anyone. After all, it was when I was other people that could see me...

“I’m sure you can’t wait to get home,” I said.

“Yeah, well, unfortunately, with all the work waiting for me in Ghana, I won’t be able to have a beer and watch football with my mates from Accra Boys Prep. Excuse me, I forgot to ask, where you were headed.”

“Ghana,” I said unable to mask my surprise that Henrik was also visiting Ghana.

“You’re Ghanaian?” Henrik asked.

“Well, my parents were born there. I was born in the States. I’ve been there before, but I was too young to remember anything. Except the things my mother had told me.”

“Brilliant. It will be a real homecoming of sorts! The people are so full of life and vitality. You’ll find Ghana to be a paradise where everyone seems to smile all of the time. My family and I have been there for some time now, and I’m continually struck by the hospitality of the people.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you can stop anyone on the street to ask questions. The next thing you know you’re seated at a table being served the choicest cuts of meat, the finest beverages, and are forced to eat everything before ever raising a hand in objection.”

“Sounds too good to be true,” I said.

“Oh, you’ll see for yourself. I’m sure your family must be thrilled you’re coming to spend some time with them. Trust me, they’ll make you feel as though you’re at home. It’ll be as though you have been away for only a day. I’m certain you’ll love it.”

“I don’t know. You and everyone keep saying I’ll just magically love this place where everyone smiles. I don’t know if I’ll be able to love a home I can hardly recall.”

“Why not? Besides, you know what they say in all the books, ‘you can’t call a place home until you’ve left and come back to it again.’”

“But they also say, once you’ve left home, you can never return because it’ll never be the same. Anyway, I just don’t think I’m in the right mood to be going anywhere.”

“The right mood? Explain. I’d think returning home would make you feel good.”

“These days, I just haven’t been myself. I mean, I don’t know if I’ll be able to… Oh, I shouldn’t burden you with my… Besides…I don’t even know you.”

“Well, I don’t know you either and you know what that makes us?”

“What?” I asked.

“Two people who don’t know each other with at least twelve hours to kill. I’m sure that between the two of us, we have stories that would take several lifetimes to tell. To top it off, that frumpy mag on your lap doesn’t seem to be holding your interest too well.”

“I guess you’re right. And besides, snapping my fingers or tapping my heels three times won’t get me any faster to where I’m going,” I said.

“Splendid. You must excuse me for asking, but what’s your name, once again? I seem to have forgotten it.”

“Richard,” I said.

“Have you ever picked up the phone after hearing it ring? You don’t say anything. You just sit still and listen to the person on the other end call out your name repeatedly,” I asked Henrik.

“Why would you do that? Was it because you didn’t want to speak to the person who phoned you? No, it was probably a telemarketer who had gotten hold of your name from a bloody list you were put on for buying something as insignificant as air freshener over the internet,” he said assuredly.

“This has nothing to do with the person on the other end of the phone. Haven’t you ever felt like not answering when someone called out your name? You ever go outside and start walking. Everything’s quiet. You’re moving to your own beat. Maybe you’re daydreaming and then all of a sudden, someone you know calls out your name.”

“Yeah, go on, chap,” Henrik says.

“Well, your whole train of thought is interrupted. Obviously, you can’t ignore this person because you know him or her. And you do what you’ve done a million times before.”

“You respond, I hope,” said Henrik.

“Yes, but did you ever ask yourself what you’re really responding to? Sure, it’s a name that’s your own, but at the same time, it’s one you had absolutely no choice in choosing. What’s worse is that this name might not even match the person you consider yourself to be. When you really get to thinking about it, it’s as though we’ve been programmed from birth to respond automatically to our names without ever thinking otherwise. Some days, I just don’t feel like responding.”

“Why do you say that?” Henrik asked. “The relationship between you and your name changes all the time. It’s more than just a simple knee-jerk reflex. I could go on, but we’re not here to bore each other with jargon and circular tautologies.”

Beginning to laugh, he said, “In any case, most things amount to nothing more than silly name games.”

“Silly games?” I snapped.

“One more question before I let you get on. Is it really your name that bothers you? If it is, couldn’t you simply just choose one that better suits you?” Henrik questioned.

“I don’t know if one name could ever suit all of who you are,” I said with a slight air of disdain.

“Dear heavens, of course not. We’ve all got different faces, and I’m sure if we wanted to, we could choose a million names to give ourselves. On top of that, can you imagine all of the legal documents it would involve?”

I laughed.

Henrik said, “We all make up names for ourselves and others. My girlfriend never calls me by my real name. I never call her by hers. I even think she prefers the names I give her to her own. Come to think of it, since I was a child, I’ve always given names to things and people. I suppose one might say it’s a bit possessive, but in my own way, it’s a way of getting closer to them. Getting back to what you were saying, the fact that we can call ourselves more names than we could ever count is not, in my opinion, at the heart of the matter.”

“What is, then?” I questioned.

“Let me explain with another question. Hypothetically speaking, let’s just say you could call yourself whatever you wanted. Do you really believe, when someone you know, calls out your chosen name, it has only to do with you and not them?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Well, if the answer is not immediately obvious, don’t worry. It’ll come to you in your sleep, while you’re dreaming. Don’t look so lost, chap. My good friends know not to fuss over my cryptic remarks. Continue with your story. I’m eager to hear the rest,” he said, smiling.

Perplexed, I said, “I never should’ve started to...”

“On the contrary. I’m under the impression you’ve been wanting to finish what you started for some time now. Once you start talking, I’m almost certain you’ll begin to feel good again.”

“Well, where should I begin? With the woman I lo… My father who wanted more than I could ever be or the woman who thought she could love me.”

“Well, well, well,” Henrik said with anticipation. “Don’t begin with the women of your life because they always seem to be at the beginning and end of a man’s problems. The middle is always the part that people leave out in the story. Often the most interesting. Start with the middle.”

“Okay, my father. I don’t think he did anything intentionally.”

“Classical case. I know it almost by heart. Your father loved you but didn’t know how to show it. He wanted you to become something you didn’t want to be. You tried to fulfill his wishes, but there came a point where you couldn’t. And like everyone else these days, you’re trying to trace all of your problems back to your childhood. Is that about right?” Henrik questioned.

“Well, sort of.”

“Wow, that psychology professor at Uni really knew what he was talking about,” Henrik said.

“You see, it’s more than that. I mean, it’s what I did. Well, you begin to think your whole life is tied to this one dream, a dream that isn’t even your own. You start to see yourself living only for that dream. You do everything to make it happen. Most people would’ve realized the dream was no longer worth living.”

“Forget about most people. Why didn’t you do that?”

“I don’t know. I can remember doing and saying things to convince my father I could be an engineer.”

“I understand a bit. We all lie at one time or another to please our parents. What makes your story any different?”

“It’s all my fault. I simply should’ve faced him and said I was one way and couldn’t be the way he wanted me to be. But it wasn’t that easy. I mean, I couldn’t just stop pretending to be someone else for my father anymore. I just couldn’t stop because…because I was doing it without knowing it. This is going to sound crazy, but one day, people told me I was pretending to be myself. Well, they didn’t say exactly that. They said even though I looked like myself, I looked like someone else.”

“What do you mean? That’s absurd. You can pretend to be someone else, but how can you pretend to be yourself? You can look like someone else, but how can you not look like yourself at the same time?” Henrik asked.

“I don’t know, but I believed what they said. I mean, they could be right. After all, I painted my father a picture-perfect lie of the person he wanted me to be. If I did such a great job acting for him, maybe I kept on acting, even though I thought I was being myself. Maybe, I began to look like someone else, even though I looked like myself.”

“One minute, chap. Let me clarify this. One day, you get up and people lead you to believe that you’re acting when you’re being yourself. These people then tell you that you look like someone else, even though you’ve never altered your face or ever put on a mask. Did these people ever tell you who you really were?”

“Well, she couldn’t exactly tell me,” I said.

“She? I thought we were talking about people?”

“Yes, but she…It’s complicated. I…”

“Well, we’ll get to that later, but what exactly did you do after all of this?” Henrik said in a perplexed tone as he squinted his eyes.

“I tried to be myself and stop acting like someone else. I tried to become the person this woman said I acted and looked like,” I said with growing conviction and certitude.

“Hold on a minute, chap. I humored you before with the name bit because I thought it’d be the buildup to your story. But the pretending bit sounds pretty nutty, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Think about it for a minute. Haven’t you ever wanted to be someone else just for a second?” I asked.

“Well, yes. Sometimes you see an actor on the tele or a character in a book and you wonder what it’d be like to be him for a second. But reality kicks in and you’re back to your old self again.”

“How do you know that you just go back to your old self again?”

“I don’t know, but I just do,” Henrik responded in a slightly uneasy tone.

“How can you be so sure you stopped playing the movie star or book character? Maybe, without realizing it, you’ve said or done something they did, or maybe you even made a face in the same way they did.”

“Maybe. I’m not so sure,” Henrik said more perplexed.

“If you’re not so sure, then what I just told you can’t sound so crazy. How can I make you understand? ”

“‘Who you truly were?’ How can you be so sure what those people or what that woman told you was the truth? How can you be so sure that while you were ‘acting,’ you weren’t being yourself all along?”

“I told you all of this would sound crazy. I just don’t know what more to say.”

“You’re right. Terribly interesting. And paradoxically bizarre. Could make for an interesting read one day,” Henrik said.

“Funny you say that. Sheila would say things like that.”

“Let me guess. She must be the woman you were just talking about, the love of your life.”

“Hey, I thought we were leaving women out of the discussion,” I said in mild retaliation.

“Sorry, chap, don’t get so bent out of shape. Didn’t mean to dredge up sour memories. Like I said, without meaning to, look at where we’ve come to. Women. The woman in my story still tells me that we men are not really the strong ones. She says we turn the women men fall in love with into perfectly painted porcelain dolls.”

“What did she mean?” I queried.

“Oh, I’ll get to that,” Henrik said. “What’s more pressing is what I’m on the verge of doing. This trip, unlike other trips, will be the most important. I’ve got to close several deals, both personal and professional. Personally, I stand to lose everything precious to me.”

“I don’t understand. I’m lost with porcelain dolls and you losing the world. Talk about a woman having power over you,” I said.

“Well, let’s just say she’s shown me a love far from ordinary, and I mean that in every aspect if you follow my meaning,” he said, cracking a sly smile. “More unpredictable than any I’ve ever experienced. When you know what this kind of love feels like, good love, you cannot get up, walk, and run from it. Your only choice is to confront it.”

“Where did you say you were staying in Ghana?” I asked, in part, to change the subject.

“A place in Osu, Accra. Tell me about the woman who… ”

Interrupting Henrik, I said, “That’s funny because I’m staying there as well.”

I raised my right hand to scratch my forehead. After that, with both the thumb and index finger of my left hand, I began to trace the circumference of the ring on my right hand.

Before they met and completed the circle, Henrik asked, “Is that a Bale college ring?

“Yes,” I said, releasing my fingers from the ring.

“I was class of –. Do the Beavers still rule?” Henrik asked.

“Yes,” I said, giggling.

“How are old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?” Henrik queried.

“Well, in three weeks, I’ll be twenty-two.”

“Wow, you’re a mere child. I’ll be damned. I never thought I’d run into a Bale alum. Let me give you my address and phone number in Ghana. Perhaps we could have a spot of drinks. I know a place that concocts the best White Lady in town.”

“Who could refuse such a tempting offer?”

It was at that moment I really took notice of Henrik’s appearance. He could’ve easily been Robert Redford. In his mid- to late thirties, he had piercing blue eyes, dirty blond hair; his face was slightly wrinkled and weathered by a combination of years passed and the sun’s rays.

As Henrik and I chatted, an air hostess came by and asked us if we’d like something to drink.

Casually, Henrik said, “Two martinis, straight up, not too dry.”

Henrik handed me my cocktail glass. Before he received his martini, I’d finished mine and began to eat the olive.

“Easy, chap,” he said, “don’t drink so fast. You’ve got to savor the taste of the gin and the vermouth. After you’ve finished the last drop, you can eat the olive.”

We ordered more martinis. While discussing politics and philosophy, we spontaneously and simultaneously began to laugh. We continued until I’d fallen asleep.

I opened my eyes, unsure of whether I was still dreaming. Unaware of the time, I looked at the unfinished cocktail on the foldout tray before me. I found my girlfriend Sheila’s eyeball at the bottom of the glass. Frighteningly, it didn’t seem out of place. It just remained at the bottom of the glass.

The dark brown color of her eyes resembled the black hue of the olive.

That day, when Sheila had broken up with me, she stared at me with a disturbing confusion in her eyes. Then and now, I tried to escape her gaze.

Panic-stricken and peering at the cocktail glass, I focused on the glass and its reflection of me. I hurriedly lifted it to my lips, swung my head and neck back, closed my eyes, opened my mouth, and swallowed the olive whole. Beads of sweat ran down my face.

Her eye was gone. It was no longer outside of me. It couldn’t look at me anymore. It was inside me.