The plague of blackbirds was horrendous last year in Ghana. The long legged Geegaws normally plagued us one month out of the year one their way to the Sahara to die. The Geegaws don’t pick a specific month to migrate like most birds whose brains are just large enough to do the thinking that birds do like eat, mate, fly and die. The Geegaw’s brains are as large as two walnuts side by side. Thus the Geegaws have as much intelligence as a pesky in-law. So the Geegaw simply drops in uninvited whenever.
Mr Ashong and those Geegaws almost put me out of business. I don’t know why the Geegaws came in late June and decided to stay until March. Whenever the Geegaws come it normally rains and they become food for the crocodiles. The rains makes their feathers heavy and they move like old men wearing long tailed topcoats. This time they came, they stayed, and no rain. They flew around light as moths. The crocs went crazy. They turned their snouts to goats, cattle, oxen, and humans—the humans for trying to save the goats and oxen.
Mr. Ashong had a bad meeting with a croc as he tried to beat it off one of his prized goats. The croc left the goat alone, but took off with one of Mr. Ashong’s feets. These Doctors no more than witch Doctor’s--what do they know about antiseptics and infections? Ashong always a crafty man, decided to make a sport of his death. What else can one do as they lay dying? Since there was no one dying along with Mr. Ashong, he couldn’t very well wager a bet between him and the other poor soul to see who would go first. So in his diabolical mind he set out to pit me against Dede NuNu. There is no love lost between Dede and me, him breaking into my mortuary to steal my bodies. To get him back, I filled his embalming tanks with colorful fruit juices. His customer’s turned purple, red, and orange, leaked and rotted before his eyes.
Ashong called me and NuNu to his estate. Even then NuNu tried to run my hearse into a Kola Nut tree. Ashong’s guards separated us and we went into Mr. Ashong’s bedroom. He lay there wheezing and his jaws puffing in and out like a fish.
“To whoever builds the coffin I choose to be buried in, I will give a huge gift of land. It must be a fine coffin rivaling Chief Okwonko’s skyline of Accra.”
Land is very valuable in Accra. The ocean is to the south and the rocks are to the north. The cemeteries are backing up close to the trash heaps on the east. Then there is Ashong’s lands to the west. Neither NuNu nor myself can afford to buy Mr. Ashong’s land. And we don’t want to start burying folks next to the garbage heap. Else we lose customers to Nigeria. So we were very glad to get Mr. Ashong’s challenge.
Accra is a large city with big eyes, but it has larger tongues and ears. Asa Mr. Ashong’s driver soon told the whole city about the challenge his boss had given the “grave diggers.” The whole city of Accra wondered what could we come up with to rival and surpass Chief Okwonko’s skyline of Accra coffin with its belching smokestacks and SNIT Tower?
The lowness of that Dede NuNu! He bought a huge telescope and aimed it at my shop to spy on me and my men. Hah! But I fixed him. I found an old poster advertising the Top Hat Topless Club. A topless girl swam in a lake and her glistening breasts glowed in NuNu’s telescope offending his Islam. That fixed him.
Now besides Dede NuNu, those damned Geegaws was giving all of Ghana fits—eating people’s fruit and vegetables and eating the bark off my balsa wood and cork trees. The townspeople said, “Foolish Ashong, he should challenge men to get rid of these Geegaws instead of bamboozling men to build a box to carry his bones to hell.”
Of course they whispered that low behind his back. After all most folks work in one of Ashong’s belching factories or in his whore houses.
This is how I came to build the huge Geegaw coffin. I noticed one day that those birds seemed to follow one bird in particular. The leader had one tiny spot of red on his breast and the rest of the Geegaws did whatever he did. When he crowed they crowed. When he pecked they pecked. When he dropped lumps of Geegaw droppings so did they. And get this—when he fell over dead they collapsed into a zombie-like sleep. So I tried a little experiment. I caught a red dotted Geegaw. His head rose higher than the others and when he sang his chest puffed out like a full body bag. To be sure he was a leader I threw out a kernel of corn. He ate the corn while the others dipped and bowed at the dust as if eating. I made a noose and looped it around his neck. I ran around the yard flinging him wildly into trees and bushes. The others flew as if drunk off palm wine and bumped into trees imitating their leader. When I cut his head off, the others tucked their heads and died too. I knew then what I had to do. I taped heavy black paper over my shop window and me and my boys went to work. The doctors had only promised Mr. Ashong six weeks.
My spies told me Dede NuNu was building a replica of the Basilica of Rome coffin. Poor fool, I thought. Ashong is a Christian for sure, but he’s protestant. Dede NuNu’s brain works like a shrunken coconut sometimes. A funny thing happened at my shop as I worked on Mr Ashong’s coffin. Geegaws gathered at my place by the tens, then dozens, and finally hundreds. They weighed my trees down and stripped the leaves until the trees looked like weary souls. My men and I had to shovel Geegaw shit twice a day from around my place. The Geegaws settled on my roof and made it groan like an old sick man. The people turned their face away from Paa Joe’s Mortuary as they passed. Even Dedee NuNu turned his face instead of trying to strain his eyes against the black paper over my windows. On the fifth day of the fifth week me and my men put down our hammers. Even the Geegaws stopped crowing and shitting.
Of course Dede NuNu had finished his St. Peter’s Basilica before us. He had left pictures of it lying around in the Geegaw droppings for us to find and become discouraged. It was indeed a magnificent coffin. At each corner was carved a fig leafed Statue of David. Under the lid was an exact replica of the Sistine Chapel. It was lined with soft ostrich leather. But the rules said that the contest could not be judged until I was finished, so he had had to wait for me before he could roll out his contraption.
Mr. Ashong is not a stupid man. Near death, he thought of ways to line his pockets for the hereafter. Most of us carry to our graves a few shells and trinkets. Mr. Ashong was thinking of French Francs. He knew people would be coming from miles and miles away to see what could top Chief Okwonko’s Skyline of Accra. Ashong quickly constructed several leaning Motel complexes and a large concession stand. He knew his Islam would not let him sell beer, so he sent a donation to Minister Oral Roberts and received a Certificate of Christianity by Fed-Ex. He renounced Islam that afternoon. Who would waste a fatwah on a dying man, he reasoned. He had the Council to pass a law that said the only food or drink to be consumed had to come from the Ashong concessions. Hah! That was a foolish law. Three days before March 15 (Ashong picked that day because his daughter had read to him on his sick bed the story of Julius Caesar), People began to assemble a few at a time. Before you could bat your eyes it was multitudes. Women in head wraps carried large pots of warm banana and coconut stew, pea soup, and lamb. Some brought their own goats to sell milk. The Christians roasted pigs over low burning coals. Ashongs men with sapling switches tried to enforce his law about what to eat.
“What law is that, that says you can only eat food from Ashong’s boxes?” people yelled. They threw hot peanut oil at Ashong’s men, burning one on the nose. The goons retreated.
Palm wine flowed faster than the Volta. The police broke up fights with water hoses across the head. Bowlegged children darted between cars and skipped over drunken men. They chased waddling Geegaws with sticks. Chickens and pigs squawked and squealed as they met their doom with hatchets and scalding water. Rolls Royces, parked next to Toyotas. Rickshaws and bicycles leaned together. Oxen grunted and tore after the few blades of grass they could find. The poorer folk who didn’t bring their food gnawed Ashong’s popcorn and his strong beer burned their throats. When they pissed they killed the grass. Dogs yapped and snarled and tried to get at the chickens women tied up in trees. It wa
s a scene of ten circuses. Ashong’s men took bucket loads of money to him. Oh yes, one family arrived on the back of an elephant.
The 15th arrived stinking like wet Geegaws. It had rained the night before just enough to make a steaming stink hang in the air. Ashong’s men went to work right away selling soaps and perfumes and air fresheners along the route the coffins would travel. Luckily there was a wind that dried up the ground and drove away the bad odors. People craned their necks in the direction of my factory and Dede NuNu’s shop. Chitter chatter eased to whispers. Soon there were drums, In a show offish way with drums beating Dede NuNu had the two front doors of his shop removed so he could roll out the Basilica. And it rolled out indeed. Men dressed in white Cardinal’s capes and little red hats walked slowly with the Basilica as it rolled through the doors pulled by a choir of young boys in lacy robes singing in Latin.
“Ahh men…ahh men…ahh men…” over and over. And there were “Nuns.” Some I recognized from the Top Hat. The real priest Father Josh led the Basilica mumbling and looking squint eyed at his prayer book.
Some of the Catholics in the crowd went to their knees and made the sign of the cross as the Basilica zig zagged past. You would have sworn the Pope was riding dead in it. Little puffs of incense blew from the miniature domes. Someone released a flock of doves. But you should never mix doves and helicopters. To top off everything, Dede NuNu had hired a Helicopter to carry a large gold cross suspended over the coffin. This cross shined so it cast a golden glow over the Basilica and the crowd. They clasped their hands and worked their rosaries. Tears ran from a few eyes. All went well until one of the arms fell off the cross and it looked like and upside down letter L. And people further down the line who had not seen the cross, wondered why an L was flying over the Little Catholic Church. Of course Dede NuNu tried to signal the Helicopter Pilot by pointing below the helicopter, but the pilot misunderstood and flew lower knocking one of the fake Cardinals upside the head with the crippled cross. At the same time Dede NuNu accidently pressed a remote control he had in his hand and the great lid of the coffin opened up to reveal the Sistine Chapel ceiling. A few drunks in the crowd rushed forward and picked up the knocked out Cardinal and tried to throw him in the Coffin. NuNu pressed another button and the lid came down on the poor guys hand smashing it and causing him to utter unholy hail Mary’s. When they got to the huge clearing in town where the judging was to take place, they turned the coffin around to face the street. A couple of Geegaws landed on it and shit. Someone shouted “Paa Joe, you dead, man? Show us your stuff!”
I had my men remove the entire front wall of my factory—not to show off, but for practical reasons. My boys dressed in black four of them on each side grabbed black ropes and tugged forward. As they pulled the huge blackbird out of the warehouse, the sun seemed to shrink away from the clouds. Luckily the houses are low in Ghana for the wings of the Geegaw coffin stretched over the spectators and the houses. As my men pulled, the huge Geegaw did clip a few electric lines and send sparks into the air. A few of Dede NuNu’s nuns got their habits singed. The wings of my Geegaw coffin stretched as wide as a football field. I had designed a pouch into the Geegaw’s breast to serve as a bed for Mr. Ashong’s long repose. I lined it with red down from imported geese. A few real Geegaws flew tentatively next to the wooden one dipping as it dipped along. People stood gaped mouth staring at my Geegaw coffin. A few covered their faces. My men pulled it in place next to Dede NuNu’s Basilica. The left wing of my Geegaw stretched out over Dede NuNu’s contraption in a kind of patronizing way like a boss’s arm over a worker.