Every Day Is for the Thief

Despite his family’s warnings of danger, the narrator wants to take the danfo (the local public transit) to experience the city. His Aunt and Uncle are surprised he wouldn’t rather have a driver take him around and even try to enlist a visitor to the house for the task. The narrator stands firm and soon heads to the local bus station.

He describes the touts whose job is to fill the 14-seat bus as quickly as possible: They have a no-nonsense attitude and swagger that extends to their whole identities and that they expect other Lagosian citizens to adopt as a survival strategy.

The narrator’s Uncle Bello tells him a story of being accosted by a man who demanded money. When the man threatened him for more, Uncle Bello’s only recourse was to threaten the man right back, so he did, hiding his fear and saying he’d kill him. The man backed down, and Uncle Bello gave him another bit of money to save face, amounting to about $3 in total.

The narrator is keenly aware that he must be like his uncle: cool and collected but ready to threaten violence. This is what he’s thinking when he’s interrupted by the sight of a beautiful woman.