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and my elder brother, Yemi, to Lagos’s Bar Beach to witness the death by firing squad of the notorious armed robber Lawrence “The Law” Anini and his gang of seven robbers. A few years later my brother Yemi was also to die by firing squad as an armed robber.
    Anini and his gang had held Lagos hostage for over three months, so much so that the head of state had asked the inspector general of police on national television how soon the robber was going to be arrested.
    We did not hate The Law; he did not bother us. He only stole from the very rich and from the banks. On one occasion when the police were after him and his gang, he had torn open a bag of naira currency notes and flung fistful after fistful into the air. There had been a stampede as the people on the street ran into the road to pick up the money. In the ensuing melee, he had escaped with his gang, and the next day the
Lagos Daily Times
ran the headline “The Law Beats Police Once Again.”
    My mother objected to our going to witness the shooting ofthe robbers, but my father paid her no heed. He told her that these days some robbers were as young as twelve, and that he wanted us to see with our eyes what happened to those who did not obey the laws of the land.
    “Did you not see the ten-year-old boy nicknamed Smallie who was shown on television the other night? The robbers said he was the one who crawled in through the air conditioner chute into most of the homes they robbed. They said he ran away from the Lagos Remand Home at six and was a hardened marijuana smoker.”
    “But think of all that blood, Baba Yemi. I don’t think it is something that the children should see. There are other means you could use to persuade them. Besides, the beach is usually filled with people smoking and drinking on execution days.”
    My mother said this while looking at me and my brother Yemi for support, but none was forthcoming. I was looking forward to attending the executions. My friend in school who had attended one told me there were
suya
sellers hawking barbecued meat on sticks and itinerant
bata
drummers drumming for a gift of pennies. I was not about to miss this because of Mama’s squeamishness and misgivings. My brother Yemi was silent as usual. He was busy polishing his sandals. First he applied very little polish to the sandal’s leather surface; then he took it out beyond the concrete steps to dry in the sun. He then brought it back indoors and began rubbing the leather tenderly with a piece of clean rag. Dad had once remarked that if only Yemi paid as much attention to his books as he paid to polishing his sandals, he would come out tops in his class.
    The Lagos Bar Beach, which was formerly named Victoria Beach in honor of Queen Victoria of England, had lots ofmyths surrounding it. It was said that once every seven years a large animal that was neither fish nor fowl was cast on the beach by the furious waters of the Atlantic. A crowd would gather from the length and breadth of Lagos armed with knives and baskets to get a piece of meat for their cooking pots. The most amazing thing, according to those who had witnessed this event, was that no matter how much each person cut, there was always enough for the next person. This was why the meat was called the inexhaustible Bar Beach meat. It was said that just as mysteriously as the animal had appeared, the inhabitants of the city would wake up one morning to discover the big animal had disappeared.
    It was also said that a beautiful mermaid would lie naked on this beach every full moon during the seventh month of the year and admire its own beauty as reflected on the water, that whoever was lucky enough to see the mermaid naked could ask for anything that he wished for and his desire would be granted. It was said that the mermaid called Mamiwata was the one that gave a guitar to the legendary guitarist Sir Victor Uwaifo.
    We were going to the beach in Dad’s brown Lada car. It was still new then. That was