Story: Letter from Nigeria

It’s not like Otis Garvey is snooty. I don’t think he’s snooty at all. But he wears a plastic optimism that reminds me of an evangelist who smiles and grins and says it’s a lovely day even when the hailstones are chipping the paint off his car. So it gave me a secret satisfaction to watch Garvey open the letter from Nigeria and read it with a serious look on his face.

“Oh the poor woman,” he said.

Although the letter was addressed to Otis Garvey, the mailman had delivered it to me by mistake. So I kept watch. And when Otis came outside to edge his front flower bed I stepped onto my porch and waved the envelope. Garvey is a recently retired teacher who taught at a second-rate private school and who accumulated a great paunch during his career. As he came over to me for the letter, he huffed and wheezed and hitched up his pants and smiled amiably at me from the front walk.

“Lovely day, though, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“What’ve you got there for me?”

And I handed him the envelope. He mumbled something I couldn’t make out as he used a grass- and dirt-stained thumbnail to slit open the envelope. He flattened the letter on his fat thigh, but when he held it up to read, he couldn’t see anything even when he stretched out his arms and leaned way back. Fumbling with a pair of glasses in his breast pocket, he drew the letter in to a reasonable distance and started mouthing the words.

“Dear Mr. Garvey … widow of the late General Mbambo … assets worth $US 40,000,000 … locked in an account … building an orphanage … need funds to commence estate administration …”

“Oh the poor woman,” he said.

“Otis!” I said.

“Yes?” and he looked up at me with a childlike glow around his face.

“You know this is an old scam, don’t you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. She’s opening an orphanage.”

These men! No matter what strengths they claim to have, they still need our protection.

“You know …” and a faraway look settled across his face. “I grew up in Nigeria. My parents were missionaries there. I still have a few contacts. Not many, mind. Not after so many years. But there are still a few people who remember the old days.” He folded his glasses and stuck them back in his breast pocket. “I’d really like to help out this Mrs. Mbambo. Give something back if you know what I mean.”

I shook my head as I watched Garvey shuffle back to his own front lawn. The letter waved and flapped from his back pocket as he stepped on his hoe and lifted a fresh clod. There’s no helping some people.

The summer was long and hot. Garvey pottered around in his front yard, dead-heading petunias and pulling up weeds. In the evening he turned on the sprinkler and watered the east half of the lawn, then moved the hose over and watered the west half of the lawn. Once a week he ran the mower in a precise checkerboard pattern across the lawn then back and forth with the fertilizer. And part way through the summer he introduced his pièce de resistance—little lights on either side of the driveway that turned on at dusk and turned off at dawn.

Then, at the end of the summer, something strange happened. A silver Mercedes pulled up in front of Garvey’s house and a slick-looking man in business suit and dark glasses hopped out and rummaged through his trunk. He pulled out a sign and pounded it into the front lawn: “For Sale.”

I didn’t wait for Garvey to potter around in his flower beds; I went straight over and rapped on his front door. When he answered, it seemed to me his expression was a little too smug.

“You’re selling!?” I tried not to sound upset. It was only Garvey after all.

“Yes. Yes.” He was twirling a pinky around in his ear. “Had to.”

“Oh?” I tried to sound interested without seeming nosey.

“You remember that letter from Nigeria?”

“Yes.”

“Well I sent Mrs. Mbambo $10,000.”

“Oh dear.”

“Turns out I know somebody in Nigeria who knows somebody who was a Colonel serving under general Mbambo. So it all seemed to check out.”

“So you lost —”

“Yes. Lost track of Mrs. Mbambo after our family came back home. Of course, I didn’t know her as Mrs. Mbambo. Back then she was Irene Taylor. We went to the mission school together. Anyhow I was glad I could help her out and sorry that her husband died. So we’ve carried on quite a correspondence since she contacted me. We’re getting married you know. I’m selling everything and moving back to Nigeria.”

I backed out through the doorway and stumbled back home in a daze. Damn! I kicked one of Garvey’s stupid lights then climbed the steps of my front porch and slammed the door behind me.