I Remember My First Trip

I remember my first trip to America. It was more than ten years ago, in the summer month of July. It felt like a dream, boarding the plane in Muritala Mohammed airport in Lagos, Nigeria, next stop being JFK International in New York. I kept saying to myself that this couldn’t be real. No way could it possibly be . . . yet it was real. It was happening as I boarded the plane, settled in my seat, and watched the plane taxi off the runway into the midnight sky, leaving my home and Africa behind.

I grabbed the armrest of my seat while looking out the window beside me as we soared higher and higher into the clouds. The crowd in the Economy class section of the plane broke into a cheer, like we were off to an afterparty special event. I would have preferred settling in the Business or First Class section, but you’ve got to have plenty of bread to spare to afford that luxury. In the Economy section, you had to deal with narrow seats, awful leg-room, and pray the fellow seated beside you doesn’t have a mighty elbow. Even worse is whoever that’s beside you isn’t long-legged to be digging into your backside. It was very inconvenient, which is why I prefer having a window seat than sandwiched in the centre aisle. A bad conundrum is knowing how many times you’ll need to get up and go pee in the back; double bad if it’s preoccupied and there’s a long like of folks waiting their turn. You get the picture, don’t you?

The most ingratiating moment consists of listening to children whine, cry, and grumble all through the flight. There were times when I truly contemplated suicide. The good thing was that it didn’t take long for many to start falling asleep. For me, sleep came late. I simply couldn’t force myself to nod off. This was a historic moment for me, and I wasn’t yet done cherishing it.

Our next stop was Charles DeGaulle airport, in France. We deplaned, and then made our way through the airport to another section, where he had hours to burn before boarding our scheduled flight that would take us across the Atlantic. Only then did I allow myself some hours of sleep. 

It was dark again by the time we drew closer to America. All I saw was a dazzling panorama of bright, colourful lights that stretched as far as my eyes could see into the horizon. Lights, lights, and more lights. Then we began our descent, and everyone stayed quiet as we taxied down the runway. The room broke into cheering again as the plane slowed to a final stop.

Homeland Security waved me through, and I still had butterflies dancing in my gut as I followed the crowd to claim my baggage, and then I was outside the airport, setting firm foot on American soil. The ride to my friend’s home in Mount Vernon was smooth. I got to take some shots along the way.

Hard to believe that before that day, it had only been a dream I’d whispered to myself about visiting America. That dream had now become a reality. What came afterwards was beyond my imagination.

Check out my recent interview: https://readershouse.co.uk/index.php/2024/05/06/damien-dsoul-unveiling-desire/

A Cold Day Walking into Central Park

I woke up to a cold morning like every other morning had been for the past month and the month before. A cold morning in Mount Vernon, New York. It was March 2013. The snow outside had already begun to melt, but the cold, blustery wind wasn’t going anywhere. I huddled under my twin blanket, seeking comfort, but it wasn’t enough to keep from feeling the bite of cold. I got up instead with no other intention but to face the rigours of the day, one way or another.

My friend’s Dad, whom I had been residing with, reminded me the month was soon ending, and if I was going to spend another month living with him, then I’ll need to fork over another 500 Dollars rent. My pocket was dwindling already. If I kept spending that large amount, I would barely have enough to keep me going for another month. 

I might as well have become stranded in America.

I did a rough calculation and told him I didn’t think I could pay for another month. He nodded solemnly and said he would speak to the landlord later. My old man’s Dad taught at an urban institute in Brooklyn. He wore his hat and scarf, picked up his briefcase and left me alone in the apartment. I had nothing but lots of quiet all to myself. The sort of quiet that can drive you insane if you let it. But such was what I’d become used to since coming to this part of the world.

I opened my laptop and tried to do some writing, but nothing came forth. I was worried, deeply worried. I was getting closer to being destitute, and I couldn’t think of any way out of my predicament. I’d laid in bed praying for a Hail Mary, and nothing seemed forthcoming. The eerie quietness in the apartment seemed to weigh down my dilemma.

I showered, dressed up, and left the apartment.

The apartment housing wasn’t far from Mount Vernon East Station. I went there and got myself a ticket, and rode it to Harlem. I got off at 125^th Street Station and decided to walk from there. 

I walked past Marcus Garvey Park, but it stopping there seemed so dismal. I continued along Fifth Avenue. Realizing I’d been walking for a long time and my feet were growing tired, I stepped through a side gate and strolled into Central Park.

I found myself a lone bench and sat there to cool off my heels while admiring the steady flow of humanity around. My mind raged inside my skull, trying to take stock of my dire situation while my eyes roamed the vicinity. Across from me was a pond, and I sighted an old white man leading a kid towards the pond’s edge. They were admiring a raft of ducks circling the water. I couldn’t help feeling slightly fascinated by the old man and the little kid, watching the way they interacted r. I imagined the old man as my Dad, and it got me wishing my Dad and I had done something similar to this before. Not something you’d expect a Nigerian Dad to do, but the thought of it warmed my heart nostalgically.

The thought of the old man and the little kid got me imagining where they came from. I began sketching back-stories in my head regarding their past: I imagined the old man hadn’t seen his grandson in ever, and this outing was their first time bonding together. I tried concocting ideas of whatever could have led to them never encountering each other until that moment. It was out of that brainstorming that the idea for my forthcoming novel LEMMON’S JOURNEY came about.

I got up, feeling better about myself, left the Park, and continued my walk down Fifth Avenue to Grand Central Station. I spent the next few hours viewing the latest MacBook laptop at the Apple store. Hours later, I stopped at a restaurant to fill my stomach and rode the train back to Mount Vernon. I was buoyant and rejuvenated when I returned to the apartment and got busy starting work on the novel I had in mind involving the old man and his alleged grandkid.

My friend’s Dad returned later in the evening. I told him I had changed my mind and would pay rent for another month’s stay. His response was the least news I expected to hear, and it killed what little happiness I’d saved up for the remainder of the day.

“No can do,” he said. “I already told the landlord that you’ll be leaving, and he’s agreed. I’m sorry, but that’s how I do things around here.”

Without further word, he marched into his room and slammed his door in my face. I returned to mine and tirelessly asked myself what I’d done wrong in life.

Two weeks later, May came around, and my days of homelessness began. I left the apartment with my luggage in hand without a farewell from my friend or his Dad. Neither bothered walking me to the train station. I rode the train to the city and got on a Greyhound bus to Washington, D.C.

Breakfast and Sex

I woke up from bed horny, hungry, and desperate for something to do. My mind was racing beyond its tracks. Directionless. I felt cramps stabbing my abdomen. I flung the sheets off me and raced into the restroom to take a piss. That done, I was still horny and hungry.

The hotel had a 24/7 schedule. I called the lobby and arranged for breakfast. They told me my service was on its way.

I laid in bed naked, anticipating breakfast while contemplating my sense of arousal. My hands were at twelve o’ clock: my left one pinched my nipples while my right stayed squeezed between my thighs.

I needed a cigarette. Bad. But I needed a man’s head resting on my crotch in the worse way.

This is supposed to be my spring vacation. The first time I’ve been away from my office in years. I shouldn’t be this alone, except I am. My boyfriend said I’ve got abandonment issues and decided to split. My shrink said that I was holding onto the past too much.

Time to let go and embrace the future. Go out and mingle: make friends; fall in love; have terrific sex, just stop being suicidal.

Where to go? No idea. All I wanted was someplace warm, sunny, and laden with gorgeous hunks to envy.

Ibiza.

I packed a bag, and now here I am on my third day, horny like I’ve never been with no fucking boyfriend. Even forgot my dildo back home.

A knock on the door—room service, a man announced.

I approached the door, held my breath for a moment and then exhaled before opening it.

The young man’s eyes popped when he saw I was naked. I gave him a look that said I cared less to be decent.

“Ma’am . . . I brought your breakfast,” he murmured.

“Oh, good. Thank you.”

I stepped aside for him to push the food trolley into my room. The young man stopped the trolley beside my bed, then turned to me.

“Will that be all, ma’am?”

Anxiety and lust in his eyes. I reached for his hand.

“Are you good with your tongue?”

My latest book FATHER’S LAND is currently available on Amazon.

Touch the Sky

Once I flew so high

I could almost touch the sky

Then I returned to earth

Opened my eyes and realised I was in bed. 

Into the New . . . Leaving the Old

Jan. 1st.

You wake up into the early down of the New Year with so much expectations on the mind. Like been born anew, wanting all dreams and desires fulfilled before summer . . . Yet its still winter. The sky is ocean-blue with wisps of clouds, but the wind is merciless against your huddled face.

So much to dream, and little or no time to brush your teeth.

By this time last year, I was coming awake in my friend’s apartment in Mount Vernon, New York. I wasn’t happy. Or rather I wasn’t content with where I was starting. I’ve lived under people before, so its gotten easy for me to know when my stay isn’t welcomed anymore. Of course I would have packed up and left, but if only I knew where to go. The weather forecast wasn’t helping either. I’d have loved to head down south. Too bad the borders wouldn’t open to an Immigrant traveler/writer like myself.

I was waiting to attend a writers conference in New York City that was several months away at the time. My visa was meant to expire in the summer. I stayed with my friend another two months, after which I became homeless. Picture a foreigner in the States, spending homeless nights at the NYC Port Authority building, and you’ll know what I mean.

But who was I to know 2013 would start out so interesting? And now it’s 2014. My God, where did all the previous months go? Into the new, I guess.

Wouldn’t we all want to know where we will be by summertime. Would we have changed by then. And if by chance we have . . . Into what?

An Unpublished Memoir Pt. 3

The need to travel was an urgent desire I couldn’t stem down. Like a fire burning in my gut I felt would consume me had I not set my mind toward it. My date of travel was set on June 12. My birthday was a few days away and I was determined to  spend it in a foreign land.

Was I afraid to be doing this? Very much I was. I was so afraid some nights as the inevitable day approached, I thought I felt my blood boiling underneath my skin. It was a big risk I was taking: quitting my job and setting sail for a world I’ve never been to before, all to see about chasing after a dream of becoming a published writer. Some might argue (and really, a lot of my friends already did before I took this decision), against my going all the way to the U.S., to see about getting my book published. The irony is that I know few people around me who indulge in the habit of reading anymore. Creativity is something that’s lacking in my society, and even then it’s hard getting normal folks to understand the magic behind stringing a pair of words together to create a thought process.

The day arrived, and I boarded a flight from Port Harcourt to Lagos, and spent several hours in a lengthy queue before getting my passport stamped at the Lagos Muirtala Mohammed Int. airport. Plenty of travelers there, though I doubt any of them had the same journey mentality as I had. The hour arrived and we all filed into the plane an hour before midnight. I must have held my breath when the plane took off into the air, and plenty of fellow Nigerians occupying the Economy class section of the Arik flight burst in high spirits of hand-clappings and praising as the plane’s wheels left the earth and took us into the sky. I looked out my window and the city’s disappearing lights, wondering if I would see everything again in the same way as I was then leaving.

I remained in my seat soaking up everything in disbelief. I had a novel in my hand, but I was too caught up in the moment to think of opening a page. Moments like this, you feel your life flash before your eyes: everything you’ve been through before and how it all possibly somehow led to this moment, to this action happening. You weight every choice you’ve made against choices you didn’t take, and you keep beating yourself over the head about it: Am I doing the right thing or not?

That question has never left my head since I arrived in the U.S., and even after I left. Even as I sit down to write this, I still don’t think I’ve arrived at the answer. I can only take a cue from that classic movie The Sound of Music:

“Somewhere in my youth or childhood,

I must have done something good.”

 

 

Miles from Home / Maine

Only recently did I go through my photo collection and realized during my first trip to the U.S., how much snapshots I took especially during my two-week stay in Maine. Some of it breathtaking even to me, and others just knockoffs. It’s too bad I never got to be a photographer for National Geographic or maybe a celebrity magazine like the Rolling Stone.

Picture me for the first time miles from home. hundreds of miles across the Atlantic over in the U.S. in the state of Maine. The ride from Boston to Maine was a long one, no doubt. I was practically dozing by the time we drove into the New England state. To tell the truth, my eyes hadn’t being this open since I boarded my flight from Lagos, Nigeria and landed a day later at JFK Int. You’ve got to be awake to see all of that happen, at least since it’s the first time. Everything pretty much looked like I was watching a 3D movie. An added bonus was it was the middle of summer. Yet in New England, I couldn’t help feeling the cold dig into my skin. Maybe it’s because I’m an African. When you’re in Africa, the sun is just about your best friend. You don’t get to see the snow while back home. Hell, you don’t even know what snow really is except what you see on TV.

So coming to the U.S., was as much reality check for me than anything else. I might as well have donned a space suit and say I’m off to Mars.

The city is called Bath. A quaint and quiet place that had more mature population than they had young ones. Sometimes when I walked the streets wearing my Nigerian outfit, I felt so out of place like a lot of folks there hadn’t seen a black man before. Worse, that they hadn’t met one who hailed from the Motherland. But that’s just me talking. Needless to say, I had a wonderful time being in a foreign land. Almost made me wish I wasn’t returning home at all.

 

A Walk through Bath, Maine. Pt. 1

I walk out of the house and stand in the drive-way

This happened the first day

And I knew right away

I wasn’t anywhere near home, hardly so

This wasn’t a land I thought I know:

 

The air smells different

The wind acts like its my friend

And to my amazement, though the sun was high in the sky

I wasn’t breaking into a sweat!

 

I went for a walk down the city streets

Past the bridge with cars speeding under my feet

There’s people walking by, driving cars or riding bikes

Neither having the same skin as I

Though they too share a smile just like mine.

 

The streets slopped up and down my feet

wide and zebra-crossed, they almost seemed to feel

Shops to my left and right, my eyes won’t stop their roaming spree

I sight a bookshop around the corner – my heart takes a leap

There is an old lady seated behind the counter

She welcomes me with a smile

I leave with a purchase, we wave and smile to each other as I depart.

 

I walk to the direction of the river

Blue and pristine: the color of summer

There’re families sitting together and lovers strolling by

A copy of Ralph Ellison’s ‘The Invincible Man‘ is in my hand

My lips taste the smell of the river’s water;

Soon, this dream will end and I will come awake

And all this will fade away

This Garden of Eden.

 

But for now, my mind rests

And my body relaxes in happiness.

 

 

Destination: Maine

I’d spent just two nights in New York City before I was on the road, destination Maine.

It was going to be a long trip, though I just didn’t know how long it actually was until I was on it. The weird thing a lot of folks back in Nigeria don’t realize is how big the United States actually is. And if you can comprehend that, then imagine how big a country like China or even Russia might be compared to the States.

But as I was saying, I got on a Greyhound bus and rode it to Boston. The lady whom I was intending to meet was going to meet me there. The ride was lovely, though I got to complain about the college grads in the bus with me that for some reason couldn’t stop chattering every time.

Five hours of being on the road, your ass is bound to feel like a slate. But it was a cool trip, never being on such a cool trip like that before. And Boston sure looked inviting from the window station. Would have loved to head outside and explore, except when you’ve traveled halfway across the world from Africa, the last thing you want to do is get lost in the city. Much better getting lost in a jungle. At least in there, the lions are bound to keep you company . . . if they don’t think of coming after you.

The lady who’d traveled down to meet me was there, and we shook hands first then gave each other a  hug. Her husband came with her: he’s an ex-Navy African-American, and you never would have though of it from the way he looked. It would have being great to stop somewhere and get something to eat, but we weren’t done with our travel. We were still a long way from Maine, and the ride sounded like it would be even longer. A good thing we weren’t taking no bus.

As the wife drove and the husband and I made conversation, I thought of the lines of a Lauryn Hill song, and scribbled down these words on a notebook I carried with me.

 

EVERY GHETTO

Every ghetto

Through every barrio

Every street

My feet pounded on

Dry earth

On wet rainy sky:

Amtrak or Greyhound

Passing scenery I waved at

Smiling faces, though some doleful eyes

We sleep, dream and cry

Tomorrow passing by

I come to you

I come for you.

 

 

1st Journey: New York

My first trip to the U.S., happened in the summer of 2011. I had gotten my book: “The Artist at Work & Other Short Stories” published, and I believe the book was my good luck charm toward securing me the tourism visa I got from the American embassy in Abuja, Nigeria.

What a lot of Americans may or may not know is for an African obtaining a visa to come to the U.S. is kind of like the proverbial ‘letting a camel pass through the eye of a needle’. In other words, it’s very hard. Most often get turned down month after month. Attending my visa interview at the embassy building was almost like graduating from the university. It felt like pulling teeth. I couldn’t help but punch the air when I made it through.

At the time I was sill working for a French multinational oil company, but I quit last year when I decided to undertake my second amazing U.S. trip. I’ll tell you about it in a couple of fresh posts after this, though I hope you’ll all still be awake to hear it, ‘cos it’s a burn burner. Anyway, I came to the U.S. in June on a three-week trip. I spent my first three nights with a friend of mine whom I hadn’t seen in a long time who resided in Mount Vernon, New York. We hopped on a MetroNorth train to the city and he showed me what most Africans back home only get to see about the U.S. in foreign movies.

New York City is great. It’s wonderful, and in the summer, lots of lovely things to see . . . and buy. But God knows, it’s not the sort of place for a foreigner to start a new life. Matter of fact, I’m surprised they still call it New York City. There ought to change its name to Tourism City. Almost everyone I passed on the street was a tourist, and carried a camera like I did. Couldn’t even ask for street directions because no one knew where they were going . . . yet they all looked lovely like there were out to somewhere. I kept asking my friend how come everyone’s dressed for a party, and we’re the only blokes who aren’t invited?

As a writer, I’ve grown to understand that I allow myself to soak up ideas much like the human body gets a twitch when responding to stimuli. America is a country I’d love to make as a second home, because everywhere I looked, the whole time I was there, something was happening. Activity was constant, and in that whirling constancy is where my Muse lies waiting. Back home, I never get this much influx of ideas. Everything’s pretty much the same. Everyone walks around with their problems. Most people have long forgotten how to laugh at a joke.

But I time in New York was memorable. Unfortunately I could only stay for three days before hopping on  a bus and heading up north to Maine, where a writer lady whom I’d being communicating with back home resided and was expecting me.