Page 1

O n his thirtieth birthday, Timi Lawson began disappearing in bits.

“How can he...” Ada choked from where she hunkered above his sprawled form. “Three? And right after...”

He tried seeing through her eyes. Naked bodies, entwined around the man she'd confessed to. A handcrafted birthday card used as a base for vodka glasses. Her love, slammed right back on her face.

“Why...” she whispered so brokenly, his chest clenched. “Why bring me here?”

Of all Timi's assistants, she'd stayed the longest, served the best, and torn off the first bit of him.

“I'm sorry,” the voice said. “I–”

As footsteps clattered out of the room, a sharp kick to his ankle bone had him yowling into a pillow. “That hurts!”

“Did you really have to do this?” the voice asked.

He raised his head, wincing at the intrusive brightness of an early sun streaming through the parted gauzy curtains.

Nejeere, his manager, stood at the foot of the bed.

Arms akimbo, small frame swallowed up in a suit pulled directly from Oliver de Coque's closet with Tom Ford aviators covering most of her face, as though to match her size with the authority her job demanded.

Which, frankly, was unnecessary. She was a JCW GP with a modified engine.

“She hates me now, doesn't she?” he mumbled.

“You’re aware the phrase not interested exists for a reason, right?”

He rolled off the bed, taking the covers with him.

He tucked a non-existent dread lock behind his ear, a force of habit since his hair remained tightly braided.

“And let her stubbornly go on pining for a man who doesn’t exist?

Blind to better men out there who would love her as she deserves? I like her too much for that.”

“May we not have the misfortune of being liked by you.” She lifted a red bra off the floor with a finger. “I approve of this one, she knows her underwear.”

“Nej,” he said, unable to tamp down his queasiness any longer. “Some privacy, please?”

“Oh. He finally remembers the meaning.”

She dropped the bra, hawk eyes combing the entire room, not excluding the humans in it.

Timi veered from her line of sight, tightening the sheets around him.

The first time she found a ringed array of tiny bumps at the back of his neck; his harassed dermatologist had bitten her own arm to prove it was indeed from an enthusiastic human tooth and not a nasty variation of an STD.

The genuine fear in Nejeere's eyes should have been enough to curtail his downward spiralling, but his anchor to sanity had fallen off the cliff, alongside his ability to mimic a functioning human.

Few days later, thin scratches along his back had greeted her eyes at the pool where he'd insisted they had their daily meeting, and he'd ended back at his dermatologist's office.

One more visit, and he feared the skin doctor would shackle him to her diode laser or lock him up in her little sauna, away from his wild conquests. A dream-come-true for every acquaintance baffled at how low the great Timi Lawson had sunk.

“Thirty minutes,” Nejeere said, once satisfied a scandal was unlikely. “We have a busy day. We'll check some profiles on the way.”

Timi began shaking the bodies awake. “You want me replying to those regurgitated wishes online? Why did we hire Jaja again?”

Nejeere held up her phone. “Profiles of potential assistants. I don't know which is sadder. Your rejection or that she anticipated it and still went ahead.” She tucked it into her trouser pocket. “Hopefully, your next assistant will realise loving you is madness.”

“Hopefully,” he muttered under his breath as she stalked off.

There would be no more assistants, but why tell her when she would find out herself soon enough?

The women eventually got up, and as he handed out white envelopes, he called their names in his head.

Headwina.

Jawstina.

Assizat .

Compared to other days, three warm bodies in his bed made him look like a Tibetan monk. But as three had become a momentous number in his life, it made sense his last indulgence would bear its significance .

Three months had convinced Uncle Jude seventeen-year-old Timi was worthy of an adoption, and of his name.

On the thirtieth of the third month a year ago, Timi had lost a massive chunk of his money to a bad investment.

Then, three months later, on the twenty-third day, he’d received a call at 23:33.

Uncle Jude, in his haste to return to Lagos in time for the film festival globe award, had collided head-on with a trailer.

After emptying his stomach into his kitchen sink, Timi had braved a visit to the accident site.

On the dashboard of Uncle Jude's mangled 2013 Corolla, he'd found remnants of bloody tissue from his bashed skull.

And as Timi slid boneless to the ground, guilt had brutally pelted out a series of if-onlys.

If only he'd had the courage to return the “I love you” the last time he told him, instead of laughing it off and asking him to act like other African fathers.

If only he never pouted when he said he might miss his award night.

If only he'd listened seven years ago when they argued the moral ambiguity of acting and the dignity of a robust architecture career.

If only he'd never stepped into that clinic thirteen years ago.

If only he'd never been born. Uncle Jude would still be alive.

Thriving, saving lives, continuously celebrated.

On the award night, shots of vodka no longer enough to deaden his soul and shut down his brain, he'd tried the pills a guy passed around in the club he'd gone to instead.

Three days in Jeli-Med hospital working through a pumped stomach, Dr Gyang and Nejeere's furious fear at what they believed was a suicide attempt, and his dilemma at whether they were correct or not, he'd decided to stick with less destructive escape routes.

Alcohol and women. Oh, the women. The mind-numbing bliss they provided was too short for his demons, but he owned Tim-dick; the name netizens had coined for his deviant appendage, and maybe his entire being.

His supply of women was endless. Lagos girls who wanted a taste of his critically acclaimed magical dick, endless agility, and his unbridled generosity.

And he gave his entirety, avoiding the ones like Ada who saw more to him than reality emphasised .

House 58, Morena street became his Nirvana. The pointlessness of Timi Lawson's existence narrowed down to Afrobeats, alcohol and sex.

Then, three weeks ago, something happened. As usual, while in his addled state, he conjured up an image of Uncle Jude. It was his defence against the small voice in his head laughing maniacally. You'll go mad and his face will become like the others.

Never. I loved him. He'll always be a part of me.

You mean the love you never told him?

He knew. He must have known.

But no matter how hard he tried, an impenetrable slab of skin remained stuck on Uncle Jude's face.

Panic-stricken, he drove to the main house he hadn't been able to live in since the burial, ran up to Uncle Jude's bedroom where a huge pencil portrait hung above his bed, and stared till his eyes watered.

Lined forehead from the stress of raising a self-destructive ward. Squinted almond-shaped eyes from showing too much concern. Pursed lips from suppressed exasperation. A groomed goatee adding a maturity to his timeless face.

For all his smiles and high-spiritedness, Uncle Jude was terrible when it came to taking pictures.

One look at the camera, and his face could only conjure scowls.

Timi usually joked about the camera capturing the true emotions regular humans would feel raising a son like him.

And Uncle Jude would drag him down and smack his forehead, saying, “Don't speak about my son that way.”

That night, repressed memories like muddy water from a rusted pipe descended as he buried his face in sheets that smelled faintly of lavender and detergent, drowning him in a crushing finality.

He'd run from an old life to live a life he could never live again.

Dr Jude Lawson was no more, and so was Timi Lawson.

He'd rooted his identity and purpose in the existence of his adoptive father.

Taken his protection, his devotion, and carved out a person worthy of such gifts.

And just when he was getting used to this person, death had reared its hideous self .

To preserve their memories, he couldn't continue living like he did, nor could he return to the man he'd lived.

His decision to discard Timi Lawson was easy. And on what day other than the one he turned a three-zero?

Two lives lived. A third beckoned. He could only hope the number three would play the lucky card this time and make it the last of him.

Dagger, his dumb bodyguard, jumped down to usher him into his Lexus LM as soon as Timi stepped out of the gate. Timi smiled at him, then threw one last look at the obscure decoy duplex. He hoped the new owner could wash off the grimy bit he'd left behind.

“Morning, sah,” Suleiman called from the driver's seat.

Timi gave him his own broad smile. A spread of lips that tore his face open. And he got an enthusiastic one in return.

“I'll be expecting you,” Nejeere said, then dropped her phone into her purse with a small smile.

Timi settled in beside her, drawing in his seatbelt.

Cutting Crew's I Just Died in Your Arms Tonight drifted from surrounding speakers, inner light dimmed to sunset hues.

And a sense of completeness clicked. These three had been with him right from the beginning of his career.

It was providence they would be there till the end.

He squinted at Nejeere. “Who are we expecting?” Her smile barely moved any facial muscle, but she might as well have been somersaulting and cackling with glee.

She turned, mouth open to a reply, but it snapped shut, her eyes widening.