Sheriff, Mohamed. “Sori Clever.” Contemporary Fireside Stories: An Anthology. Ed. Philip Foday Yamba Thulla and Fatou Taqi Freetown: SLWS, 2017. 99-105.

Sori Clever

Anytime I witness someone getting drunk, I remember the story of the widow and the drunkard. Heard it told in a bar a long time ago, but it stuck so fast in my mind, it’s as if I were there to see how it all happened. How the drunkard in some way fell in love with the widow and how the widow too loved him in her own way. How she once told him if he stopped drinking, she’d agree to marry him and he had asked if she meant that and she had said ‘yes’ and he had broken down and cried. But all that is not the fascinating part of their story—it was after that that the unforgettable thing happened. No, no, not one of those dark haunting stories—a funny story, really.

The widow, Musu Kamara, a provision stall owner, was still young and beautiful, with two lovely daughters; the drunkard, Sori, can’t remember the surname, was an unemployed, middle-aged man, fighting chronic alcoholism. Quite a resourceful fellow, Sori was. Well, resourceful, really, at only one thing: he could charm even a miser into buying him a drink. He was fondly called Sori Clever. Story goes of how he got a heavy drinking miser, a certain Elvis, into buying him not one but two whole bottles of beer. To this day, Elvis, now an old drunk, I hear, continues to moan and at the same time marvel at how Sori made him part with two bottles of beer. He swore he was bewitched by the drunk.

Sori was once a protective guard at the Customs Department at the International Seaport where he had enriched himself as a member of a port syndicate that helped importers evade custom duties. A spendthrift he was, popular for his open-handedness at bars and nightclubs, starting sunup on Fridays till almost sundown on Mondays. He was always badgered by poor neighbours, friends and relatives whom he would help out of financial difficulties. Musu was a beneficiary of his generosity, putting her in business as a provision stall owner even though she had rejected his amorous advances over a dozen times. Before that, she hawked fruits on her head from place to place, rain or shine.

Sori's fortune took a plunge when he was jailed for corruption and he lost everything he had to the state. Many believed he was just a victim of the collateral damage caused by the crash of the man in the highest seat at the port management. Being one of the big man's sidekicks, running his shady, subterranean errands ,including customs duty related fraudulent transaction; he was swept along during the house cleaning exercise aimed at his boss who had fallen foul of the boss of all bosses, the boss who occupied the highest seat of state. Some say Sori's boss was a secret supporter of the arch political rival of Big Boss. Some say Soris boss "held Big Boss's hand underwater," which means he double-crossed Big Boss in a deal. Whatever the truth, no one believed Sori's boss went down because of his dirty deals. If that were the case, very few people would have escaped the big room that swept Sori and his boss. An old friend of my father used to say that in this country it's pretty easy to nail big men in big offices for corruption. "Most live well above their official incomes," he would argue when challenged. "Where are they getting the extra money?"

"Everyone lives above their income in this country," father, who loves a good argument, would say. "And without being in debt--a real miracle."

"When poor folks like us live above our income, that's a miracle... but when big men do, well, we all know what that is," he would end sarcastically.

Those were the many reasons given as to why Sori, his boss and eight others in their syndicate were fired, made to give up much of their ill-gotten wealth and serve various jail terms. After three years he was released from prison, a drunkard, penniless, homeless and friendless. All his friends turned their backs on him, except Musu, whose husband had just died. She gave him a room in her apartment and fed him two times a day. For this, Sori was grateful but he wanted money to drink. That, unfortunately, didn't come by easily. What little he got he spent on cheap, strong drink. His usual haunt was the Red Hot Spot Bar where he was once treated as a VIP. Once a talented stage actor, he would go to the bar to charm customers and perform all kinds of antics to get a drink. The reason he was called Sori Clever, but when he got more aggressive in his demand, harassing customers for liquor, making a nuisance of himself and embarrassing the management, he was barred from going to the Red Hot Spot Bar. Not daunted by that, he started lurking behind Musu's stall which was directly opposite the short drive leading to the Red Hot Spot Bar just acros the road, hoping to sweet talk some old friend into giving him money to buy drink. This closeness to Musu rekindled his attraction for her. He felt love in his heart for her once again.

TO BE CONTINUED...