Your mother lifts a vial of oil over your bent head. She murmurs something; she says a prayer: jee nkeoma, she tells you to go well, like the ones before you.

“Whatever you lay hands on will prosper.”

“Amennnnnnnn.”

“Good things will come to you.”

“Amennnnnnnn.”

“May the roads never swallow you up.”

“Amennnnnnnn.”

“Just like the ones before, you will go and you will return.

“Amennnnnnnnn.”

These sets of amens were your loudest—a far cry from all the murmurs of agreement to your mother’s prayers that you are known for. Perhaps, it is the drop of oil seeping through your skin into the four chambers of your heart, relieving it from its former rock–hard state. You've never liked prayers; you never believed in its efficacy. If prayers work, why has there been no evident change since your mother started praying—your mother has been praying since you uttered your first words. But today is special; today marks the beginning of a new phase.

It is one thing to leave and another to return—and not just return, but return successful and healthy. The others had gone and returned with nothing but tales of the larger cities they once lived in; empty stories of people they could have become but are not. From an early age, you decided to be an exception. I must make money by fire by force. Whether by crook or by hook, I must be rich, was your mantra, a daily reminder that you had to break the ancestral cycle of perpetual lack, hunger and poverty. It’d end with your parents.

You hug your mother one last time, her tiny frame against your broad chest and shoulders. Your days of lifting the cement blocks—your makeshift dumbbell—from the block factory that you sometimes worked in, close to your father’s house, have finally paid off. You have the body that the girls want, but not the pockets. Your overall physique was to die for, thanks to both your parents. Your mother successfully passed down her light skin and pointed nose, and your father his intimidating height, full brows and decent hairline to you. But those don’t fill your stomach when hunger strikes. instead they worsen the situation; they remind you of the saying, no be fine face we go chop.

Maybe, just maybe, if you were a girl, pretty privilege would have been in your favour— your pretty features would have come in handy. Men who don’t know how to spend their money would lavish it on you, just like you have seen them countless times lavish their money on girls who aren’t half as pretty as you, much less your sisters. But you aren’t a girl; you are a twenty-one year old boy. And by societal standards, you are expected to act like a man: provide for your immediate family and by extension, your extended family, or risk the possibility of continued poverty. Your children, if they do not break the cycle, will also suffer. It was left for you to decide.

A year ago, these restless thoughts came to you. You were sitting on the verandah of your fathers’s house, engrossed in the old newspapers he borrowed from his friends at the town hall where they play the game of draught.. Although you liked to keep abreast of the events happening in the country, and the puzzles at the back of the newspapers rattled your brain in a way that you enjoyed, you had read the old newspapers four times over out of boredom.

You were solving the puzzles when your secondary school classmate walked toward the verandah. At first, you did not recognize him; you mistook him for a stranger asking for directions. Your father’s unfenced compound, which sits a few metres away from the tarred road was and still is a spot for people. Passersby often wander off to take cover on rainy days or sunny days under the mango tree in front or ask for directions when lost. It was normal to see strange faces approaching your house, it was no big deal to see the young man walk toward you until he called out your nickname.

No one called your Lex Luthor—a character in your favourite DC superhero series, Smallville—except your classmates. You had adopted the name because you thought the character was rich, cool and badass. You were christened Alexander at birth, after the Macedonian King. Alexander the Great, because your father had a thing for Greek and Roman mythology. You automatically knew it was a boy from your class. A closer look revealed it was Oghenetega. Scrawny looking Tega!

You covered your mouth with your hand just in time to stop yourself from calling him Scarecrow Tega—a name your classmates plagued him with. From what you remembered, he was all elbows and ankles.

It was a wise decision to cover your mouth that day because the Tega that extended his hands towards you in greeting was everything but scrawny. He had grown enough flesh to conceal his skinny limbs and even had some to spare. You shook his hands and beckoned him to sit on a bench. He started by telling you how he had left Warri immediately after graduation to move to Abuja. He hadn't bothered to further his education like the rest of you. He knew there was no hope for him there. From Abuja, he left for Ghana.

“Lex Luthor my guy, I dey tell you say notin dey Warri,” he said, “if you wan hammer, you gats leave Warri o.”

“Tega you know say i nor fit leave Warri like dat, na here my Maale born me. All my life dey Warri, where me wan take start? You had complained.

“I know say e nor too easy like that but nor reason am, I go put you through. You na my G.”

Tega assured you that day that he would call you when the right time came. He asked after your sister Venus (he revealed to you that day that he always had a crush on her). Then he squeezed wads of fresh-out-of-the-bank naira notes into your palm, apologized for not staying longer, and promised to keep in touch.

After he left, you blinked, checking if your eyes had failed you.You couldn’t believe that the Tega that your entire class thought would never add weight had become robust just after a few years after school. Truly, there was nothing money couldn’t solve.

That night, you became restless. The thought of money kept you up. You thought of possible ways to make quick money and the cities you could live in to achieve this. That was when you decided that you would leave Warri.

Months went by, and Tega never called you back, but you planned your way nonetheless. You went about it in a low-key way, asking questions about cities you thought would bring money. You told them you were asking for a friend. You were careful not to divulge your secrets too early, to prevent wagging tongues from bringing it to your parents’ ears and ruining your trip before it even started. You would tell them about your plans of leaving home when the time came, even though you did not exactly know when that would be.

You never thought your turn would finally come—the day you would kneel before your parents for their blessings to guide you into a strange land. It was a tradition in your extended family. Young men and women knelt before the family to receive prayers of blessings before they relocated to a new city. Your father and his two immediate younger brothers had received theirs when they relocated to Warri many years ago. Your other uncle, who no longer talked to the rest of the family members, had also received his before he left for Cameroon. Your older cousins who traveled before you also received theirs, even though it had amounted to so little. Almost all of them had come back home with nothing to show for it.

Your mother wipes the tears pooling around her eyes. It’s the first time any of her children would be leaving. She had witnessed this happen many times, had said a few words of prayers for your cousins before they left, but never for any of her children. A grip so firm that it startles you makes you shift your gaze from your mother—it was your father.

“Alexander the Great,” he gives you a hard pat on the back. “My son, my first fruit, do not disappoint me. Remember the home you come from, remember the people you left behind. Don’t be like your Uncle Nduka, who went to Cameroon and forgot everything about us. Remember, if it ever gets tough for you out there, come back home. A person is never rejected in his father’s house,” he finishes in a shaky voice.

Tears pool around your father’s eyes, but he doesn’t shed them. Where you are from, men don’t shed tears; they don’t easily express their feelings. Rather, they bottle it up and go about their day with a sour expression, because if they did as little as shed a tear, it signified that they were weak, and weakness is not befitting of an Igbo man. So you wipe the tears welling around your eyes. The whole family is watching you—a few members of the extended family had gathered to say their prayers as well as bid you farewell—you have to be a man.

“Go well, my son. It shall be well with you. God will lead you.” He hugs you.

Others take their turn to hug you—first your sisters, then your cousins. Your uncles’ wives join in, accompanied by their husbands.

They file out of the house, your sisters and your younger cousins fighting to carry your bags to the tarred road.

Parked by the road is an okada man waiting to drive you to the park. Tega had sent him to pick you up. His engine roars as he throttles his bike. Exhaust fumes sting your eyes. You stop yourself from scratching them because if you start, you won’t stop. You cannot afford to have itchy eyes on your big day. Everyone is waving, so you wave back as the okada man propels you forward into a future filled with uncertainties.

Three weeks ago, you received a call from an unknown number. You were reluctant to pick up. There had been rumors going around town that strange numbers called random people and jazzed them; they asked the receivers to do all sorts of things like call out the sixteen-digit numbers on their Automated Teller Machine (ATM) card, ATM card pins, and their Bank Verification Numbers (BVN). You did not want to fall victim to fraud. When the caller did not stop calling, you answered it. It was Tega. He apologized for not keeping in touch as promised, asked after Venus, and asked you to drop your account number for a little “something” to appease you. He told you about the arrangements he had in place for you. In three weeks’ time, you’d be on your way to Abuja.

In the park are different buses conveying people to their different destinations. Atop these buses are mini signposts made of wood, indicating different cities. You search for Abuja. When you find it, you walk towards it. There is only one empty seat left. The driver tells you you are lucky (because that is the last bus traveling to Abuja) and directs you to a bespectacled woman sitting in a room no more than two inches larger than a kiosk to pay for your ticket.

Passengers are boarding the bus. They file in one by one according to their numbers. You take your seat close to the window and shut the door of the bus tight. A random woman starts to sing somewhere at the back. When the singing stops, she begins to pray, covering all the passengers with the blood of Jesus. Usually, you would have blocked your ears when something like that started, but you find yourself concurring with her prayers. Today has to go well.

The driver starts the journey immediately after the prayer. He tells the passengers to wind up all the windows to allow the air conditioner to circulate cool air. As he swerves out of the park, he fiddles with the radio, shuffling through songs. Finally, he settles on one and lets it play. Pray For Me by Dare Art Alade fills the entire bus.

Pray for me

Gbadura fun mi

Pray I find my way

K’ori bamise…

Forgive me father but I got to take a chance…

You close your eyes as you sing along with Dare. This is a good sign, you smile to yourself. For the first time, your mother's prayers will be answered.