The Prodigal Son Returns.

My father and I had not spoken in years when the news of his death reached me in Japan. We fought and I left home when I was sixteen years old. My mother had just passed and my maternal grandmother was still alive, so I moved in with her. A year later I was on a plane leaving the country. 

I was always getting into trouble, always getting into fights back then, and my father couldn't deal with it anymore. He was the C.E.O. of DANSCORP and he wouldn't have his only son turn out to be such a disappointment. His legacy was on the line. I didn't care about all that back then, I was just a kid hurting, and I was taking it out on the world whenever I got the chance to do so because the only time anybody paid attention to me was when I acted out. So I acted out in school and got expelled from a couple of schools before I was taken by a school owned by one of my Dad's rich friends.

"You got your grandfather's anger in you boy. I just pray it doesn't get you into trouble as it did him," grandma would murmur. She was the only one who could calm me, she was the only one who tried.

Everything seemed well for a while when I moved in with grandma and she really got through to me, she made me see there was more to life than the anger and pain, that there were other ways to solve problems other than with my fists. I managed to make friends for the first time and even had a girlfriend. Everything was perfect in school too, my grades were great but then one day I got into another fight, it was the only time I didn't fight because of myself, I was defending my friend, Abbas, and ended up hurting Mahmoud, who happened to be my girlfriend's older brother but the biggest asshole in school. I was asked to apologize because he was the son of a senator, I refused and got expelled again.

"You're going to the United States to finish the rest of your school," Dad yelled. He must have thought he was doing the right thing, with my best interest at heart, but I didn't see it that way.

"He's almost done with his school here, Micheal. Going to a foreign country where he knows nobody won't do him a lot of good," grandmother tried to reason with him.

"With all due respect, you have no say in this matter! You are the one who spoilt him like this in the first place!" father thundered.

I stormed out of the house and later that day, I and a couple of my friends got into a fight with another group and it led to us getting arrested. I called my grandmother to bail me out, but she showed up with my father. He was so angry that he had his manservant Khalid take me home and keep me there. My arrest was the final straw, Dad was done with the problems I brought him. The news of Danny Danjuma getting arrested had gotten out and I was popular. The worst thing you can do as a Danjuma is getting the wrong kind of popularity.

A month later I was at the airport, saying bye-bye to my country, to my home, to my friends, to my girlfriend Aisha, and most importantly my loving grandmother. She died a year later, and I blamed my Dad for not being around when she passed, just as I blamed him for most of my mistakes. It is only later in my life that I realized that only a loser blames his or her mistakes on the actions of others. People should own up to their mistakes, correct them and move on. A lifetime of making mistakes has a way of making a man wiser, I suppose.

Getting to the United States I fell in with the wrong crowd again, a Japanese kid named Yamato Koji. He was the son of a ruthless Yakuza boss in Los Angeles and he was my best friend. We met during my first year in school and became friends almost immediately. I didn't know he was a gang boss's kid until later but it wouldn't have made any difference if I did anyway, it probably would have even made me wanna be friends with him even more. Two years later, I dropped out of school, Koji's Dad died and he became the new boss, and a whole lot of shit went down. "A man's life is a series of stories" as Master Kankuro always said.

My father tried to contact me when I was in the States through a lot of his people over the years, but I wasn't interested. When I dropped out, he came over to Los Angeles himself to talk but I wasn't interested in what he had to say either. He decided to stop sending money to me, cutting me off totally, but I survived.

Then three years later He arranged a dinner at the hotel he lodged in, and I went there to meet him. The angry strong man I knew was gone, and a frail, more reasonable man sat in front of me. We talked for at least an hour, he seemed interested in my life.

"How have you been," he asked smiling brightly.

"I've been good, Dad. What about you?"

"Not really good, son. Can't you tell already? It's diabetes, by the way, nothing dramatic like cancer," he chuckled.

"Oh, that's a relief. I guess money can't really buy health, right? What are you doing here, Dad?"

"In Los Angeles? Would you believe me if I said I just came to see my son?"

"You stayed away for all this while, why are you here now?"

"I thought you didn't want to see, or talk to me, Danny."

"Well, that's another story entirely. Why are you here now? You're not dying of cancer, so..."

"Well, I came to see you, and tell you that I am leaving everything to you when I die. The company, everything. You're my son and heir."

"What? I don't want it!" I screamed

Oh, I know you don't, and that is precisely why I am giving it to you. Do you think you have a good life here as a criminal? You think I don't know what you've been doing with your life! It's a disappointment, but you're my son and I need your help all the same.

"If you don't want it you can give it all away when I die...if you don't end up dead before then," he stood up and walked back to his room.

I wanted to follow him, but I stopped myself. I regretted that decision, it was the last time I saw him. 

A lot happened after that night, most of them not good. I ended up in Japan shortly after that, and a few years later I came home. Ten years away from home, it was a very long time to be away from a place, everything and everyone had changed.

The airport didn't change that much, though. It's after all government property. "They didn't have time or resources for things like maintenance then, why would they do now," I whispered to myself. I found myself standing amongst a crowd, some getting into cabs and some into personal vehicles, their family members there to meet them and welcome them home, dressed in colorful traditional attire, singing joyously. Family and friends, those were things I never really had. Even when my mother was alive we were not really a family, they had grown apart, my parents. I blamed my father for it all, although I did not know what had happened before that drove them apart. Standing there in that crowd with my backpack in my hand, the only thing I could get out of Japan, that was when I realized how alone I was in my own country, nobody was there to meet me. I was about to call a cab when I heard a voice call "Hey, Crazy Dan!" I looked into the car where the voice came from and I recognized him at once, he was still as skinny as I remembered, and he had on glasses as he did in high school too.

"Abbas, oh God it's you!" I screamed.

"Yes, of course, it's me," he chuckled loudly.

"What the hell are you doing here," four eyes, I laughed loudly too.

"Well, I came here to pick you, and of course welcome you back to Lagoon city," he grinned widely.

"How did you find out I was coming in today?"

"You called Khalid, didn't you? Well, Khalid told me to come to get you since he's kind of too old to drive you around the city, and I am your lawyer now. Your Dad hired me some months before he died."

"Oh, you're a lawyer now? That's nice," I murmured.

"Yes, a lot has changed since you left," he replied still smiling like a child.

"Yes, of course. The poor maintenance culture is still the same though, and the government still doesn't give a fuck, I bet."

Oh on that I agree with you, brother. The government is still filled with corrupt, opportunistic bastards and thugs. Everyone is just fighting for his and her own pockets and stomachs now, it's never been this worse.

"Good guys with good hearts like your Dad are out of politics and the ones who stayed saw joining them as the only option."

"My Dad was one of the good guys, hun? I bet all the chaos means more money for lawyers like you, doesn't it?"

"Well, we have got to eat too, and yes, your Dad was one of the best guys this city has lost. You'll see."

I guess I never really knew my Dad, I never saw him as anything other than the father who abandoned me when I needed him the most so everything he did or stood for in the city was not my concern. "Add selfishness to one of the weaknesses you must work on," Danny, I whispered to myself. 

"A man is born imperfect. But just as a baby grows in time, he can seek to perfect or at least subdue his imperfections to the utmost minimum. Only then does the child become a man and the man really become a higher animal, only then is he a better man among his peers," the words of Choji resonated in my head like I was freshly hearing them.

Abbas drove past Koroba avenue, my grandma's old neighborhood. Just seeing the place again nearly brought tears to my eyes.

"We had some memories in this neighborhood," Dan, Abbas said, bringing me back to the present.

"Remember when you tried to hit on Michelle? Damn, that was so embarrassing."

"Man, I liked that girl," he laughed loudly and I joined him as we both laughed.

"Speaking of Aisha, she is one hot girl now. You guys talk?"

"Nah, man I've been busy. You and I didn't talk so you should know I didn't talk to anyone."

"Well you're back home now, and man you're looking good too. You're all bulky like one of these fighters. Picking up from where you stopped shouldn't be hard at all."

"Well, I have to hurry my father first."

"Of course, God rest his soul. And oh, your little brother is so anxious to meet you."

"Who? "I asked looking confused.

"Your little brother, Micheal junior. You really didn't speak to anybody for ten years, hun?" he chuckled again.

"I was really busy, Abass. I was really very busy."

"Well, once again, welcome home Mr. Danjuma. I have missed you."

"I've missed you too, brother."

The car slowed to a stop in front of the giant gates I hated in my childhood days. The gates have Danjuma mansion boldly engraved on them, they brought all the pains and anger I had since then tried to bury but failed. These pains and anger of days gone mixing with recent ones made me tremble. 

The gates open widely and Abbas drove into the building we passed many buildings before getting to the main house, which is the biggest part of the mansion. The doors flung open immediately the car stopped, and An old man I immediately recognized as Khalid walked out using a cane as a third leg. I looked up at the window of what used to be my room and a young face looked back, he had the cornrow hairstyle and his angry face reminded me of myself.

"Welcome home, son," Khalid whispered as he embraced me.