A SHORT LEO STORY

Leo(A Short Story)
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LEO


Leonard Michaels was convinced he was fundamentally flawed. In his younger days, he was freckled, big-boned, slow, inefficient, strange-named, abandoned, and most traumatizing, orphaned, or so to speak. His mother was a harlot, for no one, not even he, knew of her state, and his anonymous vagabond father, was Mexican.
Leonard’s mother was Nigerian, from the capital of the State called Edo in the South; she voyaged before his birth on a reclusive mission, for she would not conform to fate; she would not perish, an indigent illegitimate heir of a traditional monarch, for which reason she was a castaway (she and her mother, that is), sentenced to wallow in penny-pinching poverty. When she arrived Nigeria upon deportation from Mexico, she found she was with child, and she was expectedly unsure who the father was. What would it matter anyway? He would be some wretched scum, and to think whoever it was would care would be preposterous. This made her life doubly twisted. She comprehended suicide for herself with the ‘thing’ still swimming in her belly, but the tablet stuck to her palm like glue, and every time she tried throwing it into her mouth, it just wouldn’t leap; so, giving up in a well of tears, she decided it would be best to let it live. But with who? Certainly not her; she was a full-blown curse, and would very much love for him to never set eyes on her, even if the eyes were still innocent new-born ones.
Now, her ‘Iye’ was half-alive with a toe left into the grave, and if she could, she would only foot her bills with great persuasion, for the diseased hag was a staggering Ninety-two years old, and stricken with oedema, if only to name a few of her infirmities; so you see, her justification was apparent. Leonard knew little of these and only had of his mother, a letter, tucked just above his fat little head in a padded cane-basket he was snuggled in;
She settled for the Omo-Osagies. They were a family of seven already, but really the only option she had; it would be better to hand them his future, than she making the incomprehensible decision to send him away to some scrawny orphanage where he could be starved, abused or, parceled off to some witch-clawed household. Now if the Omo-Osagies chose to do this, it would not be her making; but that didn’t change that her fragile mother-heart bled. The Omo-Osagies were her benefactors for a time, and she had not encountered them, two years to that day she left him at their door, for she was still in her third year in a Technical College when their breadwinner passed away in a gruesome robbery; hence, they could no more hold her up, and since then, it had been hell-bound misery all the way. Her fortune was set, but not her child’s.
When she discovered their extant address, it was no more in the Government-Restricted-honey-area of the capital, but a bustling, fast-themed, rugged, tin-pot district, in a baking-hot, half-frustrated, half-fallen two bed-room apartment. Astonishment crumbled her stance as she beheld the degeneration of the angels of her distress; but they didn’t deserve such a tragic fall, not when all they did was show her kindness; and she hoped earnestly that they still had a little to spare her dear one.
She would give him an Oyinbo name; she thought of Leonardo, but the Spanish undertone brought sour memories. Leonard was neutral, and Michaels; yes, Michaels, was more American; now she didn’t have a problem with American; Maybe the Oyinbo name would bring him better fortune, and he could very well settle miles away from that ill-fating Nigeria, in Obodo-Oyinbo; he could strike gold and have a radically different life from hers; She anchored herself on a great number of rather distant, dreamy, and fantastical possibilities that change of name could orchestrate for her son. With hope however suffocating, comes some profound insanity and his mother would very well go wild with gladness if her guesses were even about the tangent of the pictures in her head.
It was a Sunday, and the perfect time to ‘drop him off’. Her letter was grieving on every page with ink slurred by tear drops, and fleshed therein, was a cathartic sandwich of pleadings upon lamentations, then a shy withdrawal from shameful details, to more sympathetic drudgery, and unending recounts of  heart-melting sadness and apologetic nonsense for reasons that neither made sense to the reader nor the writer; but it had to be lengthy; it would contain a philippic tirade to life, an epigram to the receiver, a dirge to the writer, a farewell to the object of the letter, momentary trips down memory avenue, and then take this pattern for ten pages and one. If it was some kind of succor, she never knew, but when she hit the final period, the letter as well as her heart seemed to sigh; she looked keenly into the bowing dim flame of the kerosene-lamp on the cobbled writing-desk. It was a symbol, and she reckoned this verily.
Everything around her were symbols. She was a nonentity, and that was undeniable. Life had programmed her existence from start to finish, and Luck would be her apparent foe. Her eyes burned, her heart ached, and she beat her chest violently with her fist. She could feel the tears scorch her face, as it welled up and rolled down her cheeks. It was no new event for her to weep that way.
She planned to flee to Cotonou, to find some filthy rich rake, that would stuff her with good bread and butter for as long as he could contain her, and she would give him everything; she wouldn’t even hide that she just wants the bread; so, clinging to him like sole to shoe was her steadfast resolution; but she would no more be an open prostitute. She was a fading beauty with sallow caramel skin, a fawn face and the brownest almond eyes, that had become dotted by grief and many a day of consoling a broken spirit. She looked herself over in the mirror; her hips were rounder, her busts fuller, and her thighs had added on some fat. She was faring much better than when the disease betrayed her and her mother, not before long, plunged into bed-ridden devastation. She had, herself, almost died of that ‘gonorrhea’. Her boy had to have a different life; but she was already enlisted among the living dead.
Leonard was only told that his mother said in the letter where she was from, and that his father was a foreigner, and that she was sorry she had to leave him, and nothing more, but the reader knew it was some out-of-wedlock error, with more facts carefully left unsaid.
The Omo-Osagies kept him. The young widow, Evelyn, was moved with compassion the minute she set eyes on the wailing baby, and just scheming through the masterfully crafted letter, fashioned to draw sympathy even from a heart of stone, her tears came down; she already had five to feed, but one more won’t hurt it. Besides, what else could be done? Any other course of action, would be much too uncertain and truthfully cruel. Evelyn, was a seamstress and over the years, she acquired a cold room, and wholesaled frozen viands, but the effect was telling on her. She was just a little fleshier than a match stick, and the hollows continually ate deeper into her shoulder blades, with pallid grey strands eroding her formerly bountiful dark hair. She had five boys, emphatically so, to raise and this duty was what jolly-old Dave laded on her to muster, for her husband’s name was Dave; and Leo made them six. It was simply, a mad house with mad responsibilities and madder bills.
That Mexican, as Leonard swore, must have been a wastefully fat man, with the weakest, glossiest hair that could never stand, and never gather enough fuzz like everybody else’s. He had very fair skin, unusually peachy lips and liquid ocean-green eyes. They reminded him that he did have a father who had emblazoned on him that enigma; it would have been different if he looked like everyone else; it would have been more comforting.
The letter didn’t say, but Evelyn had told him when he came of proper age, that his mother was a whore; and that was why she wasn’t sure who his father was; an intercontinental whore, with as much discretion as a bitch on heat; and that reaffirmed that what the letter disclosed was indeed truth. His difference was the undeniable proof that he was a product of her most repulsing, regrettable encounter; little wonder she got rid of him early enough; and brooding on these tragedies for most of his infant, adolescent, and teenage life, feeling misplaced, rejected and unloved, was unavoidable; though many appraised him special and principally, the female folk would flutter sly lashes with sinister intent, that as far as he could read, entertained the vainest of thoughts behind. He had tried many a love letter in his Secondary school days, and faced open confrontations; abnegated relationship bids, and consequently, the population would mark both he and the gutsy, lightening-love-struck, feather-brained female. He was therefore nicknamed, Leo-Romeo.
Those days went by in a haze, and in time as he suspected, those things didn’t count anymore, appearing only as lost memories, recalled momentarily in his mind’s eyes, and quickly passing away. Reality reclaimed relevance, and in time, no matter how the Omo-Osagies accepted him and cared for him, he would no more belong with them. He would soon have to care for himself, and that day was coming upon him, speedily.
In the twenty-fourth year of his life, he had shed good flesh, his skin gathered blotches, red spots dotted around his eyes, and his angular chin had grown out a spongy goatee. He had metamorphosed from his cocoon of childhood-debilitating lacunas, devouring uncertainties and insufficiencies into a witty, ambitious, smart-aleck with much biting sarcasm burning in his cheeks each time he uttered speech, yet he lacked the milk-and-grain of Nigeria’s quagmire-ridden system; and the ‘sugar-graces’ with the enthroned. His brothers were then dispersed; Emmanuel, the eldest, four years between them, had journeyed to Jos. He would labor, earn money off a part-time job, and together with the proceeds of his inheritance and some piled up savings, be equipped for Law school expenses. It had been pushed for too long by financial constraints; he made a vow to himself and his mother, to make it concrete that time. Steven, the second, had studied Political science and was at the moment, new blood in the civil service, and it took a long time to rise in the Ministry; one had to do so stealthily, with some inadvertent dash of dishonesty, excusably performed to grease the common wheel. Richard, the third, was then, a Computer Scientist, running his own Café in Port Harcourt, where his girlfriend resided. Ose, the fourth, was a fresh graduate and had just begun his hustle, but he had been running a Cosmetics store in the heart of the city, and was occasionally an affiliate marketer for other behemoth brands. Ebo, the last, was in his final year, pursuing a degree in Botany, so, the financial reins were loosened on Emmanuel, and he considered it timely and expedient to satisfy his dreams; So indeed, it was, ‘every man for himself’ thereon.
Leonard was now much like an appropriately-fleshed carrot, and mountain-heighted; he settled for a Laboratory Science Degree, for they had not the means to push for his ‘Surgeon-desires’. It was a comfortable choice for everyone. His passion sparked in quiet hours however, for photography and media production also, which were at the time, the insignificant arts; just as insignificant as whatever hope he was brewing; it was all like the tale of a lame man strapped to a wheel chair, looking to reach the peak of mount Everest by either magic or madness. In the meantime, he needed a job, so he decided to go chase that for subsistence. He would move to Lagos to facilitate this, but when he made it known to his family, bitter dissatisfaction and disapproving high-brows shoved it aside. Emmanuel remarked with a ridiculous chuckle that he wouldn’t survive a month in Lagos, and Steven narrowed it down to a day, but Leo was far from mortified, rather, he was resolute with this decision; he had other plans to milk the big apple and gather whatever goodly harvest it could produce, no matter how long it took.
Those thoughts were rosy, but when he arrived Lagos, he knew his brothers were not bluffing. The quickest job he could seize, was that of a doorman for a restaurant (if at all, his looks granted him this good fortune), and in a short time, he ascended to a sales attendant. The shifts were insanely tasking, but so was his grit constantly slain and reawakened. He was a squatter in the mean-time, with a friend of his in Ojota, who promised to house him eight months and no more, then, he would be made to pay a quasi-rent. He worked that job, six months and signed up for week-end night shifts at a round-the-clock mart for a sizable sum. At the end of his first year in Lagos, he had gotten a raise and for his Computer literacy, he was considered fit to fill a nascent vacant position for payroll and book keeping methods-appreciation; things appeared acceleratory, but his life tumbled over after a very unexpected, almost unbelievable encounter.
It was June 3rd, 2012. Leo had the late shift at the restaurant, and he was attending with a heavy-eyed visage to a couple who seemed to be there on a Wedding anniversary celebration, when a certain girl stormed in, in a frenzy, imploring him to secrete her, stuttering with great dread in her eyes, from the ‘very bad men’ that were tailing her. She was a feline, light-skinned girl holding up red stiletto heels in one hand, and a turquoise miniature travelling box in the other. Her lavish hair was about like a rebellion and she appeared as one who had been crying, as mascara came down her eyes like a ritually-traced smudge, to her cheeks, and a smutch colored the side of her lips, and Leo could notice in those few seconds how beautiful she was. But he would not be giving her his ears for much longer. It could portend chaos, and diners were already staring and murmuring; concerned diners meant frightened employees.
“I am sorry, miss” he eyed the crowd cursorily, then said to her gently; she could very well have been a maniac “You have to leave. This is a place of business, and you are making our customers worry” he looked straight-faced at her, but she didn’t care for it, considering, her attention was behind her, to the door. But just where was the doorman when she waltzed in like that? “Can you at least…”
“Look” she was in no spirit for quitting it seemed “I know you don’t know me, but… see…” she turned quickly to the door and contorted her face as she returned it “I am telling you the truth…” she fell to her knees and went forehead to the ground, and began to grumble. More intense ripples of curiosity rustled the crowd again “They are going to kill me if they find me here…please, you have to help me…” her voice was calculated then, and she looked to his name tag “Leonard right? I am begging you” she stretched praying hands and picked up her feet.
“You don’t seem to understand” he sighed a tired sigh; it couldn’t have gotten any worse “I have already told you it doesn’t matter whether or not you are telling the truth… you have to go right now, madam…right now…” he went around the counter and stood before her with a determined countenance and a hand on his right cheek, making his tone as steel “This is your last chance, if you don’t leave, I’ll call security to throw you out” he threatened, plainly.
“Is it money you want? Listen…” she kept looking over her shoulders “I can have 500k wired to you by tomorrow… sincerely…” she touched a finger to her tongue “you just have to hide me that’s all… I will show you my account balance, and write you a cheque after… please, just do this one thing for me” she was undoubtedly out of her senses, and her offer, a flat lie, so, how could he trust her? He did not know why those men were after her, or if she was just a criminal fleeing the police, or what terrible thing she might have done; but she could still be in some danger after all, and might not have done anything wrong all the same. He had no time to brood over his options. The greater possibility tugged at his reason.
“How can you expect me…” he paused, looked about with great concern, then pulled her by the arm, so that she stood in front of him, and his back was to the dining area. This alone, meant trouble for him. What would he say she wanted? “I can’t just help you when I don’t even know why you are being chased… don’t you think I’ll be unreasonable to do that?” he was loathing that he was considering it at all, but who won’t? for reasons moral or amoral, that would be the death of him.
“Look!” she exclaimed with a tremble “they are already here!” and went timidly around the counter, then began to duck her head behind it, as a group of guerilla looking men peered through the door and made to enter, but they hadn’t seen her.
Leo decided to test fate. He would be that soon to be jobless fool, and help her. He took her hand again in quick motions and led her through several doors, right through to the emergency exit door that led outside. His colleagues beheld this with faces enshrouded with awe. They demanded to know why he thought bringing a non-staff into the building, then through the Emergency exit was a sane choice, but that was after he had returned. He invented some story that she was his sister, and he was simply aiding her evasion from an abusive boyfriend, but it didn’t quite add up in the end.
He got reported by ‘Benson’, his arch-nemesis, whose itching scorn for Leo seemed to regenerate by the hour; probably it was because he was a dwarfish, unattractive vermin male, and Leo was the antithesis, but the looks alone didn’t annoy him; Leo was after-all that self-absorbed nip-wit who didn’t falter wielding the sword of innuendos to prickle his ego and exhume his shame; Leo rather sorely despised cosmetic undeserved courtesy, and had sworn in his despicable moments, that he was going to get that ‘Benson’ fired before he moved elsewhere.
Leo bore the penalty of a postponed payday and suspension for it, but before it took effect, the girl returned, true to her word; that was three days after and he had concluded that she was indeed a crook, and for conscience-sake alone had he helped her, not the Mars-bound offer she threw in his face.
“Welcome to…” he had begun, but recognition hit him, as he lifted his eyes “Oh…It’s you” it was her; just a put-together version; with abundant tufts of artificial hair, licking her back, and a prissy black gown, embroidered with deluxe lace over its borders and neck-line, hugging her magnificent figure.
“Hello, again” her scent was like spring flowers, and her face was sweet, and effortlessly glowing; that, no doubt, he thought indifferently, was squarely makeup’s design.
“Hello to you too” Leo cleared his throat and took his focus to the stacked steel trays before him “So…” he lifted his head again for a second “What can I do for you?” he abruptly interrupted himself as though her presence had just dawned on him “Oh you don’t need to apologize or thank me for before” he cautiously lowered his voice, making his tone as steel “Your reappearing might be trouble again, that’s just my concern… so I just want to know you came…very briefly” he paused, thinking of how more emphatically he could make his point “I cannot afford to explain myself again… in case someone sees you, so if there’s something you’d like to say, make it quick and kindly leave” He was slightly offended, but didn’t want to bother asking questions about that day; in his mind, it was erased.
First, a smirk lit her face up, but she was laughing that time, and Leo looked to her, hearing her giggle “Did I say something funny” he was entirely clueless.
“No…” she shrugged her shoulders “it’s just, I wonder how you still cannot see what’s before you”
“What?” his eyes swayed to the marble-top “What is this?” he lifted the paper to his eyes. It was a cheque; a handsome million naira cheque with some silver keys by its side, that made his jaw drop and his throat constrict “Wh… what’s this?” he stuttered, lifting astonished eyes to her.
“We had an agreement, didn’t we?” she rolled her eyes and laughed again, flipping her hair proudly behind her as envious eyes turned and head joined to head in gossip “Those” she pointed to the keys “are for your new apartment in Ikoyi”
“A million Naira” he scoffed and looked away, then back “And a new apartment in ‘Ikoyi’… and you think that I am just going to accept these…” he nodded to the items with an absurd smile playing about his lips “things without knowing who you are… who those men were, why they were chasing you… or what you did… or if you’re here for mischief…or…” he shook his head and chortled “I mean, can you begin with your name?”
“Okay” she began in concurrence “Adebisi” and tilted her chin skyward “Adebisi Reynolds”
“So what happened that day, Adebisi?” he continued on “Either tell me, or be on your way with your money and your house… I have little time left” he looked at her confidently, then to his watch, though, clueless where from, that defiance had come.
“Okay…okay…” she riposted rather childishly “but you have to have dinner with me” her eyes sharply lit up.
“Excuse me?” Just then, three people walked to the counter and his manner changed as he attended to them; after-which, he put on his initial mien.
“Just one dinner, Leonard… A proper introduction” she retorted flippantly and began to conduct herself in a flirtatious manner. She was crazy.
“What are you talking about?” he was truly dazed.
 “Ever heard of the Reynolds dynasty? My father can actually” she gave a belittling assessment of her surrounding “buy off this ‘restaurant’ in my name by tomorrow if I so wish”
“Alright… and that is relevant to me because…?” he shrugged his shoulders, curled his lip and folded his arms upon his chest, waiting for her to proceed.
“Okay, look, those men were not after me per se” she walked with a suave gait to the counter and rested her arms on it; she now being barely inches from Leo’s face, his heart raced “I kinda took something I wasn’t supposed to… so they were only trying to protect me”
Leo paused, thinking it all over, then shut his mind to everything.
“Your intentions may be pure” he slid the cheque and keys over to her, and held her gaze “but I cannot take it… because I can’t trust you…” he withdrew from her “I have work to do” then went back to his trays. His very knees wobbled as he turned away from the gold, but his composure was ice.
“Why are you being so difficult?!” she protested, feeling utterly demeaned, realizing she was making a scene, and grateful that this would get to Leonard.
“Because we are in Lagos…” he rubbed his palms together and said conclusively “and around here, you can’t just accept things like that from just anyone… I’m sure you know that too”
“Geez!” she drawled, with a slender hand to her forehead “What the heck is wrong with all you poor people?” she threw her head backwards and many eyes widened at her from the dining area “Okay” she eased up in understanding and her arms went akimbo her waist “Go. Cash the cheque, and check out the apartment” she pulled her bag from the counter “You can call me after” she passed him her card “if you’re still interested in that dinner” she smiled pleasantly, dimples showing on her cheeks. He gawked as she made a dramatic exit, leaving him in the company of her gifts and a nauseated crowd.
Now, he didn’t know what to make of that encounter, but he was in more of a quandary about what to do with her claims. Who exactly was she? Was he going to get into trouble if he cashed that cheque? What if the money was compromised and it was just bait? And the apartment; what if it was some kind of trap? He decided to take the night to try the possibilities. It was treacherously tempting.
When he briefed Ikenna about it, his exact words were “If you know what is good for you, my brother in the Lord, forget you ever saw that girl oh… go and tear that cheque, after, you can go to Lagos bridge and throw the keys to that apartment away. I have said my own o. Awoof dey turn belle” he ended with this cliché and went to bed with unchanging certainty, but Leonard could neither sleep, nor, be certain. He thought his way through the night and at first light, he made up his mind. He would get rid of her gifts, forget he ever saw her, and do as Ikenna advised. There was nothing else to do.
……..
Three comfortable months went by, then Evelyn fell very ill. Money was shy for the first month Leonard and his brothers longed for it; then, he knew he had no choice. He actually kept the gifts for fear of their reality, and in desperation, reclaimed them, cashed the cheque and was awestruck as the numbers concreted into minty notes before his very eyes.
Much was settled on account of this, but he likewise wondered about the apartment. It wasn’t until the pass of another two months that he visited it and it was no monkeyshine either. The girl gathered some trust in his heart then, and he began to doubt his doubt; so, however irreconcilable it may seem, when the following week came, he rang her, and accented to that dinner. He was unsure about the honor in his actions, but he fully justified them.
The conversation was direct and unfettered. She told him of her ailment; Adebisi was a kleptomaniac, though, a scion to a billionaire in truth and heir to his estate;
“I just can’t help it… you know. I just like taking stuff and getting away with it” she remarked rather shamelessly, and he rightly guessed that, that must have been what that tantrum was about that day. But the crux of the evening lied not in this shocking revelation.
“I have a problem and you Leo are the perfect solution”
“What could you possibly mean?” he had become at home in her presence and considered seriously that she was insane. Now he couldn’t solve that.
“Let me spell it out clearly” she cleared her throat “I am twenty-nine, and my father says that if I cannot birth my successor before I’m thirty within the confines of a legitimate marriage with a legitimate human, he would only bequeath to me half…” she coiled her tongue, for the word repulsed her “of my entitlement to his estate”
“I’m sorry” he curled his lip in confusion “I still don’t know what that has to do with me” but he suspected a possibility by common sense.
“Oh, a lot my darlyn” she beat the air with a hand “You will very well please me for a husband…. Don’t you see?”
He was sipping on wine and choked on it, drowning in a cough as his eyes became wet with tears.
“What?!’ he was finally able to speak.
“Marry me Leo…everything I have will be yours” she widened her eyes with desperation awash her face and her eyes aflame with longing “Everything”.
“Is this a joke?” he was partially composed, and partially believing what he was hearing.
“Not at all” she shook her head “We can have a little ceremony in two weeks if you and I so desire…” she upped from her seat and crouched before him “You can’t possibly refuse this, can you? Would you?” it was a devilish confrontation and his heart beat so hard against his chest, he feared it would give way. He looked her over; he wasn’t expecting that; anything, but not that. The idea was scary considering all the pitfalls that marred his consenting to what she asked. It would be atrocious; but an atrocious secret; No one had to know; his mind perused the honey and gall of the proposal, and upon the night of a stormy Monday, he decided he would accept; he would make his demands first, then, negotiate, to make as good a bargain, but he would accept.
The odds were heavy in his favor; he would finally be able to repay the Omo-Osagies. There was nothing wrong with his decision. It was just priorities; and upon this conviction, Leonard sealed his fate with the kleptomaniac billionaire, unabashed and devoid of regret.