the one that will take us

-these are your potatoes. surely you had no plans for them.
-well actually...
-they must be rare. irish
-they have to be taken from bamenda
-perhaps originally from mmok mbin
-yes, so you understand
-since it must be so. what shall we do with the oil?
-i wanted to make soup
-i have no funnel. we'll deal with it later.
down to one of the chic cafés and installed ourselves in a table outside. we would have to move ourselves as soon as the rain starts as it does every day. i discussed with the people who cook meat on theft-proof gratings over rusty oil barrels. they said there is cow meat and icelandic mackerel. after moving the table to a dry place, one of the parties showed up. a nigerian with working-class boston accent claiming to have come from a meeting with american oil prospectors in limbe. after introductions and debriefing a friendly man and a quiet man arrive. they are talking about a murder of the morning. the oilman and i reluctantly stop discussing bob's bar in victoria island with its pot pies to hear details.
two young men pry up a corrugated iron sheet on the roof of a boutique not more than a couple blocks away. crawling inside and cutting or burning a hole in the ceiling, they help themselves to several cartons of cigarettes. they are seen. a mob forms. they are subdued and burned with battery acid (450 f/L) and gasoline (550 f/L, but cheaper in the local black markets) the police arrive as the mob disperses and take the men to the hospital, where one dies on arrival and the other several hours later. if the police arrest the men before they are murdered, their job becomes much more complicated: the public will be angry when they bribe or wit their way out of custody. if the hospital doesn't refuse them treatment, its job is also more complicated: they routinely refuse treatment to dying people who cannot pay cash in advance, so it would not do to give special treatment, much less to thieves. the friendly man, also a rich man, explains that the staff pleaded him not to complicate things by giving them money, removing obstacles towards treating the remaining dying man that he visited that morning. just let him die, please. the quiet man agrees that he watched all of this happen.
he was in a bind. as a radio personality respected for his progressive opinions, he cannot condone extrajudicial killings and torture when he discusses the issue on air come morning. yet as a mayoral candidate, he cannot alienate his voters by denouncing a popular form of justice. we resolve two things: first, it's the fault of the judiciary for not reliably preventing crime and correcting delinquients-people don't love burning thieves, but they feel it's the only deterrant. second, its the fault of the nigerians and their pop culture for letting the practice spread to us.