Every Day Is for the Thief: Fiction by Teju Cole

. You have become wealthy and we must become wealthy too.
    Area boys. Unemployed youth in Lagos neighborhoods, notorious for exacting fines and seizing goods. They operate in gangs and report to a godfather. The city is full of them, and no laws of the land or of human decency apply to them. It is also well known that, at intervals, the police murder numbers of them and deposit their bodies in the lagoon. Every Lagosian has stories about the area boys. It is well known that no one can win an election in Lagos without their support. Mr. Wuraola says softly to my aunt:
    —They are only after money. What they do is follow the containers all the way from Apapa to wherever they go, and then they demand money. They did the same last year when I brought in a shipment.
    Money for nothing. Uncle Tunde is infuriated and he, too, starts pacing near the Civic. The men who have been sent to pacify the area boys come back to us.
    —We gave them five hundred, sir. They are asking for more. They say they want fifteen thousand.
    More than one hundred dollars, just for walking through the gate. My aunt has no intention of paying, as she has already spent too much on clearing the goods. Her friend agrees with her. And, in any case, no one has that kind of ready money. The area boys can see us deliberating. They start shouting.
    —What if we had met you out on the roads? There’s no telling. We could have killed you!
    —Yes, you’re lucky we are here only. Is it too much to ask that you share the wealth? Nobody leaves this field until weare satisfied. You hear that? You hear that? Nobody leaves. We’ll do whatever we have to do.
    —That’s right. We’ll rip open these boxes and take our share. We will become rich today. We might even take the car. It’s a nice car! Or if we don’t take it, we can smash the windscreen.
    We are silent. They move closer. Their eyes are bloodshot, their chests stuck out. There is tension in the air, a tension in the divide between our bewildered silence and their complete lack of inhibition. Let them open some boxes, my aunt says in a low and angry voice, maybe they are really into books. We outnumber them almost three to one, counting only the men in our group. And the area boys aren’t particularly impressive in stature. But it makes no difference. They are primed to maim or kill as the spirit moves them while, on our side, we have ordinary people who have only the normal instinct for safety. Uncle Tunde says to Mr. Wuraola:
    —Can we call the police? I have a phone, let us call the police.
    —It’s no use. The police will come, sure, but they in their turn will ask for thirty thousand. We’ll have to pay double. But don’t worry. These guys can’t do anything. They are just posing.
    I am not so sure. The area boys strut around. They continue shouting. The drivers, desperate to calm them down, go over and give them another five hundred naira. They take it but renew their demand for the fifteen grand. Thetension builds, minute gives way to minute. A quarter of an hour goes by. The area boys stop shouting but they continue to pace around the field, eyeing the boxes and the Civic. For some reason, they don’t come right up to where we stand. They simply trace a semicircle around us, the perimeter of which they walk back and forth. Something in their movement brings to mind hyenas keeping their distance from a carcass.
    We are unsettled. My aunt sits in one of the vans, holds her head in her hand, and quietly begins to cry. I feel like a tuning fork, vibrating with an unfamiliar will to violence. There is nowhere to run to and I have no desire to run. I can no longer bear the violation, the caprice, the air of desperation. If they attack, I say to myself, I will crush their throats. I think of myself as a pacifist, but what I want now is to draw blood, to injure, even to be injured. Crazed by the situation and by the need for an end to it, I no longer know myself.
    And then, as suddenly as they