What Goes Around.

Witnesses on the long, murky Adeba Road would later describe the spectacle of Ajala’s theatrics like this: hands clasped atop his head, his chest bare and a wrapper tied loosely around his waist, he dashed down the road screaming, “Help me! Egbami!” at the top of his lungs beneath the drizzle of that cloudy morning.

Some witnesses considered Ajala a compound fool and simply continued their morning routines, unperturbed, as though his cries were as ordinary as the kukuruku of the chickens. Others, however, stepped onto their balconies, peered through their curtains, or craned their necks from their shops, puzzled by the reason for the charade.

As his cries grew louder, he first stopped at Miss Tura’s salon, which also served as her home, hammering against the metal container in a frenzy and pausing at intervals to catch his breath.

“Olólùfẹ́ mi! O dé jọ̀ọ́, mo ti dàrán! Just open the door!” he bellowed.

But the salon remained as quiet as a graveyard.

Everyone suspected Miss Tura was inside and silently cheered her silence. They wondered why he thought she would come to his rescue after his vehement refusal to support her and her five-year-old son, who was a striking image of him.

With no luck at Miss Tura’s salon, he ran deeper into the street.

“Help me, oh! Somebody help me!” he cried, splashing through puddles of stale water barefoot and kicking aside the innocent chickens in his path.

After about a kilometer and a half, witnesses said he stopped at Akanbi’s mechanic shop.

“Is Akanbi here?” he asked hurriedly to the first junior mechanic he saw.

“Akanbi! Akanbi!” he shouted, running through the junkyard.

But Akanbi was nowhere to be found.

Only the nagging of the mechanics could be heard as they reminded him that he was banned from the shop and that he was disturbing their peaceful morning.

The remaining spectators, however, thought it foolish for him to consider Akanbi’s shop. Had he suddenly forgotten that this very mechanic yard was the same plot of land he had secretly sold from under his brother Akanbi? Had he forgotten the trouble Akanbi went through to get it back?

They simply marveled at his sheer folly.

With another dead end behind him, Ajala burst out of the shop and was met with the guffaws of his neighbors on Adeba Road.

“Oga! Oga! He is here!” one of them shouted into the now bustling street.

But the laughter quickly turned to eager watching when four hefty thugs appeared at the edge of the mechanic yard and released two brute dogs after him.

Everyone watched as Ajala sprinted farther down the street, his wrapper gone now, torn away in the struggle to escape.

“Ewooo! Oluwa, ṣàánú!” he screamed as he ran.

That night, the moon found the witnesses lying awake in their beds, wondering who might have sent the thugs and what Ajala could have done to deserve such humiliation.

But the answer lived quietly on the street. With the Baale and with Ashabi the meat seller.

Ashabi, who had sold meat on Adeba Road long before the streets had names. Ashabi, who lay in bed each night asking God the reason for his bad luck.

An old man who only wanted to teach his second son a lesson for stealing his goats, the only source of his livelihood and happiness.