Children of the Street - [33]

Ebenezer shook his head. “No.”

“You think you’re tough? I can pick you up by your head and break your neck in two.”

His boys smirked.

Ebenezer started to leave, but Tedamm stepped in his way. “Get off my street corner. You hear me?”

“Try and stop me if you like,” Ebenezer said.

Tedamm and his boys watched him as he went past. Ebenezer set his jaw. Now it was war. Him against Tedamm.

Ebenezer’s home base was on the front veranda of the Prince Line Travel Agency on Knutsford Avenue. Every evening, street kids moved in as businesses closed for the day. Ebenezer shared his base with four good friends. They loved one another like brothers and had nicknamed themselves the Brooklyn Gang.

Besides Ebenezer, three of the boys were already back for the night. He slapped their palms in greeting and sat down next to tiny Mawusi, who was listening to music on a radio not much bigger than his hand. All of them had pitched in to buy the radio. They guarded it with their lives.

It was Mosquito, the fifth in the group, who was missing. Ebenezer asked where he was. Issa, a truck pusher and the official leader of the group, didn’t know. Issa was almost eighteen, getting to be an “old man” now.

They talked and ate, sharing one small bowl of rice. That was all there was. They knew how to pace themselves so that they ate equal portions. No one cheated. They left some for Mosquito.

“Eben, you’re first watchman tonight,” Issa told him.

Every night it was the same routine. They took three equal shifts to keep watch over one another until daybreak. You couldn’t just happily go to sleep without someone keeping guard. That was exactly how Eben had allowed his shoeshine box to be stolen.

The four stretched out on the bare pavement. Mosquito would pick out his own spot when he arrived. Eben stayed seated for a while to rest his feet, but then he got up to pace back and forth so he could stay awake. He wondered where Mosquito was.

Eben needed to relieve himself. He would make it quick, even though the chance was small that someone would come along and attack the sleeping boys while he was away for only a few minutes. With a few strips of newspaper in his pocket, Eben trotted to the end of Knutsford Avenue, where it dead-ended at a chain-link fence on Kojo Thompson Road. Next to the fence was a broken-down bola truck that hadn’t been moved in more than a year, its rear loader collecting garbage that was going nowhere. Eben slipped behind the vehicle, pulled down his pants, and crouched.

When he was done, he threw the soiled newspaper in the truck.

“Ssss!”

Eben turned to see who was hissing at him to attract his attention. He saw someone standing in the shadows at the opposite corner of the street.

Mosquito limped back to the base. He had hurt his ankle today while running after a tro-tro as it pulled into the Novotel Lorry Park. One had to fight to be the first to offer to carry passengers’ luggage for a fee. Mosquito was hungry and exhausted. He was looking forward to seeing his mates, having something to eat, and getting some sleep.

Issa started awake as Mosquito touched his shoulder. He sat up quickly.

“Where Eben dey?” Mosquito asked.

“I don’t know,” Issa said, voice thick with sleep. “He was on guard. Maybe he went to the toilet.”

Mosquito walked to the end of the street to check near the bola truck.

“Eben,” he called out softly. There was no answer. He went around the other side of the truck. Eben wasn’t there. Mosquito returned to Issa, who was propped up on one elbow waiting.

“He no dey?”

“No,” Mosquito replied. It was almost ten-thirty, ninety minutes into Eben’s shift from nine to midnight.

Mawusi stirred. “What wrong?” he mumbled.

“Where Eben dey?” Issa asked him.

“I don’ know,” he muttered and went back to sleep.

“Maybe he pass to the other side,” Issa said to Mosquito.

They started off in the other direction, toward Kwame Nkrumah Avenue and the UTC building. It was pitch black, but they could make out the shadows of scores of street kids sleeping along the sidewalk.

“You hurt your foot?” Issa asked, noticing Mosquito’s limp.

“Yah.”

At Station Road, they went in opposite directions, calling out Eben’s name. They searched Kinbu Road, then Tudu, going up as far as the Cocoa Marketing Board (CMB) building. Eben was nowhere to be found.

20

Tuesday morning, Accra woke up to a light drizzle. Dawson rose at 5:00 A.M. just so he could avoid the worst of traffic. At 5:30, when the neighborhood cocks began to crow like clockwork, he left the house and walked along Nim Tree to the main road, where he flagged down a cab. He arrived at CID by 6:00 and felt pleased with himself.

Barely an hour later, he got a call from Chikata and had to head right back into the rush-hour traffic he had wanted to avoid.

On Kwatei Kojo Street in Jamestown, a ditch-digging project had been going on for months. Every time it rained and the ditch was flooded, progress ground to a halt. The workers, who had been digging without the aid of heavy machinery, had arrived early Tuesday morning to empty the flooded channel. As they did that, they came across a dead body.