To Love And Be Loved

Chapter 1

For all it's grit and grime, all its dark, dirty underbellies, Victor thought there wasn't any city like Lagos. He was being driven in his car from the airport and soon the 21st century monster that was traffic held the vehicle in its grip. Drivers cursed, horns blared; exhaust fume danced in the air like dust; hawkers scampered in between vehicles, different wares balanced with almost geometrical impossibility on heads and hands. The sun shone angrily through the clouds, reflecting every surface, from car hoods to the buildings by the side of the road. Poles, thick with decade old wires strung up at every interval, like sentinels, watchers of the city.

Victor left New York frosty white and sub zero and he had cursed the moment he stepped off the plane. The sky had looked like there was a million suns and there was hardly any breeze even on the large expanse of the runway. It felt like the air was holding its breath. He was thankful when Segun showed up; the Bentley's AC was delicious.

"How have you been, Segun?" he asked his bodyguard/driver.

Segun was huge. His bulk filled the driver's seat and his bald head almost touched the car roof. The steering looked small in his huge hands, like a child's plaything. His biceps bulged through his black suit, threatening to tear the fabric. There was a jagged scar on the right side of his face that ran from eyebrow to jaw. His face was always expressionless and on rare occassions Victor had seen those thin lips curl into something like a sneer or those brows furrow into the beginning of a frown. Segun also didn't talk much.

Segun looked at him in the rearview mirror. "Fine," he said.

Oh good, Victor thought, fine was a very fine conversation starter.

Victor sighed and sank into the plush leather seat of his Bentley. He was terribly exhausted after spending eleven hours on of camera flashes and signing autographs, and coupled with his inability to sleep during the flight it all felt like he had just run a marathon, which really summed up how the creation process of his latest album felt like. His head was pounding and his cheeks hurt from smiling too much. He needed a drink badly.

He turned on the car radio, surfed from channel to channel and stopped at one where he heard his name.

"The Vic has been nothing short of phenomenal this year. He just signed a deal with Skybase Records."

"The deal of the year I hear," another voice added, the second anchor.

The second anchor's voice was familiar. He tried remembering but he couldn't put a face on it.

"Do you know that he is the first African to sign a deal with Skybase Records? "

"Yes, and that makes him Africa's number one export to the world."

Victor snorted, Africa's number one export, sounded like something he would find on the label of some cereal.

The whole record label thing had come and gone in a haze, from the negotiations to the proceedings to the signing. With the camera flashes and the blinding white papers, it all seemed like an alternate reality where things came and went at the speed of light.

"Do you hear that?" he asked Segun. "I am Africa's biggest export. That sounds like I should be in a can in a kitchen or something."

Segun shrugged.

They were almost at a standstill now. The sun rippled off mirrors. His headache was behind his eye now, pulsing like a second heart. He needed to drink and he needed to sleep. But only one could do him good. But why couldn't he do both? After all he was The Vic.

"Pemby," he said. The second anchor's name came to him like a flash of light.

Segun turned to look at him, eyebrows raised. "What?"

"Pemby," he pointed at the radio,  "she interviewed me at the loft, remember?"

"I remember, she was weird," Segun said.

"That she was." Victor laughed.

The interview he had done was thirty minutes of crystal clear sexcapades. Throughout she had giggled like she was being tickled. After which, off camera she had asked him to sign an autograph on her cleavage.

The traffic cleared and the Bentley sped on, eating the asphalt, engine purring.

"And to think that he's just nineteen."

"Yes, and he has been consistent all these years. Ever since the breakup of Black Division, he has been the most consistent artist this country has seen. Dropping hit after hit after hit. It seems like he is everywhere. And we just heard he would be releasing his third studio album soon."

Black Division was his life, Victor wanted to tell every critic and interviewer who had ever asked or talked about his musical career. That was why he never let interview questions stretch into the muddy waters of his past. It had been four years since Black Division and it still felt like yesterday, it still hurt like a fresh wound. He felt hollow. He felt broken. The Vic was only a persona, a shell. The real him was lost somwehwere in the past. Black Division was no more. The band was often regarded by some parts of the music industry as the band that burnt in the light of its own glory, others took them as case studies for the intricacies of substance addiction and fame.

 Things in life never did fall as orderly and as mesmerizing as a pack of Dominoes. No. When things fell apart, they fell hard, and sometimes there was collateral damage. Black Division fell, hard, and here he was, a drifting piece of debris.

"Before we take any callers, let us give you guys a taste of The Vic's Grammy nominated song 'Let in my Love'."

"Stay Tuned."

His voice crooned through the speakers. Convincing listeners to give up their love and their sanity and their bodies. It sounded like him, and at the same time it didn't. It sounded artificial just like how many things in his life was. Crisp and dry, without emotion.

He closed his eyes because he wanted to stop the radio, yet a part of him didn't want to. And almost immediately, sleep came over him, like slipping out of a cloth. He fell asleep listening to his voice.