This short story is a very thrilling one, and grabs the reader right from the "get-go." The beginning starts as a woman on a bus has her earring pulled out by a thief. The thief is caught, ringed with tires, doused in oil and set on fire. I was very appalled that this was the punishment because of how harsh it was, and the fact that it happened right then and there. The people watching even cheered as the thief's body burned in the night. On line 32, the narrator says that "no matter how scarce fuel is, there is always enough for the thief." I thought that this was interesting, because this situation would not occur in America, as it does in the story, which occurs in Lagos. The narrator lives in the Niger Delta, which has endured a huge oil fire that has killed a lot of people, and he has come to Lagos to ask wealthy parishes for aid. While he is driving back to his brother's place his car breaks down, and because he knows nothing about cars, he pushes it out of the way. Randomly, a man in a suit shows up offering to help him. I thought this situation was strange. The priest thinks that the man is going to harm him- I don't blame him for his paranoia at all, given the opening scene of this short story. His paranoia is only heightened as he sees that the man has a gun by his side. After the car is fixed, the man in the suit asks to ride with the priest. If I had been in this situation, I would have most definitely said no, but the priest has no choice. At this point, I am starting to think that this man in the suit ulterior motives. As they are driving, they are stopped by police and soldiers who are checking cars. We are told that the police and soldiers in Lagos are not good people, and that they are the second worse right behind Kenya. At the "Operation Sweep" stops the police were drinking and playing cards, much unlike our "donut-eating" police here in America. After they make it through the stop, the priest begins to make small-talk with the man in the suit in order to make him more comfortable. The priest had lied to the man about having on a Rolex watch, and he figured he should try to make the man in the suit warm up to him in order to prevent harm to his own life. When they arrive at their destination, the priest is very concerned, however the man tells him that he is only "escorting" him because of the violence in Lagos. During their journey, the car breaks down multiple times. The last time the car breaks down, they pay a mechanic standing on the side of the road to fix it for them. The mechanic says that a coil in the car is just overheated, and needs to place it in water to cool it down. The man in the suit reaches in his pocket, and the priest is certain that he is reaching for the gun, and that his fate is sealed. Instead, the priest realizes that the "gun" was certainly not a gun, but just a bulge created by a poorly folded handkerchief. The priest instantly felt guilty for judging the man. The two had been together for an entire day, with the priest judging the harmless man the entire time. As a reader, I even found myself judging the man in the suit along with the priest. This goes to show that you definitely cannot "judge a book by its cover." I found this short story very entertaining because of the intensity and action, which ended up being nothing after all. With many of the stories that we have read recently, this short story gives the reader an insight into a different country and culture, and one that is certainly not like our own. As for the title of the story, I looked up the actual definition of "baptism," and found that it means to ritually clean something. I believe that the title is drawn from the gun actually not being a gun, and therefore the imaginary gun was "baptized" or cleansed, as was the judgment of the man in the suit.
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