Hushpuppi’s death
Hushpuppi’s death
By Sam Omatseye
It is Ramon Abbas he bears. Even that name puzzles. Some reports anglicise his first name as Raymond. But it is Hushpuppi we know, poetic, lyrical and even symbolic. Hush implies silent, furtive, conspiratorial, shadowy. Puppy, in this regard, means playful like a week-old dog. That makes him a sly dog.
But then it has other origin stories. Some others date it back to the founding of New Orleans that gives the world Mahdi Gras, an unhinged carnival for pilgrims of pleasure. An immigrant woman invented a snack of a ball out of cornmeal and the city called it hushpuppy. Their own incarnation of akara. Even then, Abbas’ nickname is spelt ending with an i instead of a y.
The one picture that has trended of late features him in a shirt sporting a familiar brand Fendi. But another brand had been stalking him like a forest cat, slinking, longsuffering and calculating. It was a brand as counterforce: FBI. Nabbed in Dubai but caught in the United States, the sojourn of a colorful conman comes to an end. Behind bars, he will wear neither Gucci nor LV, but an orange top that will, at best, say INMATE.
Now he is no more Hushpuppi. He is now Abbas. He buried his real name in a casket of lies and deceit. He was reborn a glamour icon, one-named, abandoned home, and became a global Smart Alec. He was a man of means with no means of livelihood. He conquered cyberspace, dispossessed the gullible, stashed his global bank account, strutted the world, amassed dream cars, snored in palaces, dressed like a fop, preened like a peacock, seduced the young and befuddled the old.
He became a role model to a lazy generation that lapped luxury without labour. When he was caught, the FBI buried Hushpuppi and rebirthed Abbas. But where is the real Abbas though? Can he recognise Ramon again? He cannot. Like Sophocles’ Antigone, he “neither dwells among men nor ghosts.” He is in a dazed world, a wraith. He died twice; he is born again a jailbird, his third life. He was reckless. Now he is a wreck.
But Abbas is a tale for the moment, if in reverse. He was caught trying to denude a group of people in millions of dollars in palliatives in a time of pandemic. Abbas is a picture of avarice at a time of sacrifice. He was flaunting his shoes, cars, mansion, parties at a time when many hid behind homes, suffered in hospitals, coughed in misery, mourned or were mourned. He represented a heartless species when we were supposed to be our neighbours’ keepers, when many were suddenly whisked out of work.
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