Making Wolf Read Free Page A

began with an all-powerful percussive blast. It was enjoyable when you weren’t two inches from the drummer.
    By the time I reached the graveside, women had their makeup in a mess from all the keening, and my deafness had reduced to a constant ringing. I cried when I poured dirt on her grave. I poured two handfuls—for me and for my sister, although Lynn hadn’t known Auntie Blossom as long as I had.
    No one comforted me. I made them all uncomfortable by just being there, but I didn’t care; I hadn’t done anything wrong.
    Later, I leaned against the stumpy palisade fence watching people leave in groups, headed for Auntie Blossom’s family house to be fed. A large shadow grew on the grass near my feet as someone walked up to me.
    “I didn’t expect to see you here,” said Dad.
    “It’s a funeral, Dad. Traditionally the family attends,” I said.
    “Ahh, but that’s the key word, isn’t it? Family. The family attends. And if that’s so, what are you doing here?”
    Oh, we’re all just comedians, aren’t we?
    “Dad—”
    “Don’t call me ‘Dad,’ Weston.”
    I was still afraid of him. Lord knows why. I didn’t need or want anything from him, and there was no way for him to harm me or my sister anymore. It was a great day for rekindling old fears.
    “Auntie Blossom was my family,” I said.
    “Hmf.” He cracked his neck. “Blossom always was soft-hearted. And a little crazy to boot.” Auntie Blossom had indeed been free-range mental, but there was no way I was agreeing with the old man. “Is Lynn here, too?”
    “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
    He was quiet for a time, then he said: “If you come to the reception you’ll be treated like mo gbo, mo ya. Take one step out of line and I’ll have you thrown out.” He spat and lumbered off, led by his large belly. With the warning he had lapsed into his own dialect, which I could barely follow. A more indurate man you could never find. I didn’t realize I had been shaking until he had gone and the fence began to rattle. I studied his phlegm for a while, watching it mix with the soil.
    A gust of wind picked up some leaves, spun them about near my right foot and then carried them up toward the palm trees and beyond. It left a patina of dust on my clothes. I brushed my shirt sleeves off as I went to look for the hired jeep so that I could go to the reception.

Chapter Three
    In more ways than one it was a mistake to go to the reception. I should have just gone back to the hotel and waited for my flight. I think my father’s threat stirred something in me. I wasn’t going to be intimidated. In any case, I thought a party would cheer me up. While the funeral is for the departed, the reception is for the departees.
    The organizers had cordoned the street off. A seven-piece Juju band played off a two foot-high stage at one end, with dancers all over the road. A few revelers, mostly male, held wads of cash and were placing individual notes on the foreheads and necks of other dancers, mostly female—a practice known as spraying. The smell of expensive perfume and savory food mixed with the odor of cow shit. There was still some dung where the cows had been tethered earlier. Beer and kola nuts and jollof rice and schnapps and pounded yam and soups and stews of all kind piled up on tables. Fireworks lit up the inky black sky. Nobody was drunk, but it was early hours yet.
    I felt apart from it all, I’d spent too long in London. I kept waiting for the police to show up because of a neighbor’s complaint. Most probably, the neighbors were among the guests and the organizers had paid off the police and the Area Boys. Which left the military, but I was told they were too busy fighting rebels up north.
    As in the cemetery, I sat at the periphery, at a table where nobody admitted to knowing who I was, which suited me fine, thank you.
    It looked chaotic but the organization was obvious once you knew what to look for. The band was set up