I was this knock-kneed little creature with bulgy eyes and a head too big for my lean frame when we had relocated to Osongama in 1997. I had been battling convulsions and respiratory problems too. There were itches and scratches inside of my eye balls often. Then there were just bushes to deal with and no trace of civilization in what turned out to become an estate. Dad and Mom sweated their asses out to see us six kids in school plus random maids.
That painted us a family of eight plus a maid or two clustered up in a two bedroomed flat. Our parents had a room to themselves. The big boys and girl shared the other. Our maid slept in the dining where it opened into the room which during the day served as a parlour housing chairs which themselves housed roaches and rats, chairs long due retirement. At night, a mattress tired of being wetted on by the little guys made the parlour our makeshift bedroom .
Dad owned a MATE 90 - a scooter sort of - we used to dread the sound of whenever we erred. The sound of the scooter was nothing as frightful the man on it. That man didn't stop at nothing to bend you into his will. From yells to lashes with belts to slaps with palms the size of our faces to public shaming to whatever could bend us, we got them all. And so we were always afraid of being too expressive - sometimes a complaint was enough to earn you a burnt butt. Every time we erred, we would make sure to double our shorts before hanging on in anxiety waiting the steam of the scooter's engine, 'cause Dad made a point then to forbid was divine.
Things were hard though for my family I swear. But we knew we'd be better. Sometimes when my brothers and I had nothing to do - exhausted and hungry from long hours playing the holiday away - save for sitting on the sand staring into the sky at overflying planes and choppers, we would rub our greasy palms on our knees praying one of these 'birds' dropped bicycles we knew our parents couldn't manage. I always wanted a yellow one, as bright as the sun on the Biafran flag.
I must have been a child, but somehow my bulgy eyes saw life ought to have been better, livelier, merrier. Maybe neither of black nor white but grey would have been fine. I managed to hide my shame when Dad's motor cycled in to convey us home from school. I had not known our family ate a piece of the shame too until word had it my sister had innocently complained she longed to have Dad pick her up from school with a car too like her mates. You see, every thing you didn't get at home as a child, you simply just wanted those in school faced with other kids living with those.
Dad's bad book had me often in it, so I knew that was enough to have won Sister a ticket for lashings spanning long minutes. But it didn't! A little brush of thoughts I understand now Dad must have been broken 'cause it didn't last a year before he'd brought a small Toyota car back home as ours. That was one of our happy moments, just like when we'd gotten the luxury of a dining table. You know we could then talk when other kids whose folks owned cars talked if they weren't petty enough to remind us Dad's car looked a tortoise.
It was a different tale Life had to tell us at home. We didn't mingle with much of the kids in the growing estate 'cause there was no luxury of drawing perfect the blurry edges in our lives. There at home, everything our lips gave us with words in school got melted and smelted by Reality into an archaic building with a rusty roof and a matching gate the way it really was, against the better structured modern buildings. The clustered house alone told more stories than its choked-up inhabitants would have loved it to ever word. School to me was where I lived and acted the life that eluded me at home.
I never let my friends in school know where I stayed for that reason. I could stroll with you yet disappear at the death of time when you least noticed so you didn't see me lurch through the rusty gate in shame. It wasn't just about the shame, it had more to do with being made the bottom of jokes too. Sometimes it was a matter of self-respect being on our own, so some kid didn't have to lose a tooth for making us feel we wanted to feed off them like we were taught not to though hardship almost twisted us into asking for more like Dicken's Oliver.
But there was this love amongst us. Hardships did good to bond us. We had our share of family problems but we stuck together, keeping eyes on our asses. Somehow things got better; at least our little generator did good to attest we were getting better than a few neighbours. Mom used to wear a happier face too. Her joy was almost palpable enough to be held in the palm. That woman! Dad made a beautiful choice . Even Mom's hair times it sat disheveled had nothing against her beauty. I tell you Mom is a gem and I'm not just saying. Dad and she used to wear this beautiful smile I miss whenever we got good grades or won prizes in Church - we always did as few of the brightest heads around there.
Perhaps we would have stayed as kids who could share an orange amongst us all than grow up into bringing back from our schools results that didn't drag as much smiles. Well, quite understandable 'cause we all went through private schools where we got chances to rub asses with rich folks' kids . We must have committed crimes growing up to make mistakes our parents must have made too but couldn't believe we would fall for. Everything fell apart at once with our growings up. Mom's smiles lost its place to grief. You see every err on our parts gets blamed on her by Dad minute as her role may have even been. There are more wrinkles and lines on her face to tell she's had so much going on within lately.
It's 2017 now but I miss the years in that archaic building before 2007 would have us relocate. Hush, not the house but the memories that shadow it. I miss everything especially the love. We didn't all get the same treatments, but ours was a chain of emotions where you got loved by someone else who got loved by another person who despised you maybe. I miss when all I had to do with my life was eat and drink, breathe and live whatever came my way. I miss the innocence of childhood, and also the easiness of living without worries save for having to deal with neighbours' kids riding past me on fancy bikes while the sun had it's fill of scorching my hair to a brownness, or glaring at toys I had to improvise mine from the scraps around. Yes, Life schooled us our happinesses were ours to create! The three little guys eventually had a bicycle to share - a dream it was still.
I miss the conspiracy amongst us siblings. I miss Christmas and grandma's visits. I miss fighting and scrambling over nothing useful I can remember now. I miss being regarded as a worthy son. I miss being spoken of as a shining star in the skies and not a mould of darkness aiming for the pits. Would my childhood still count as innocent if I told you I miss our flatmate's daughter Angela, really so much I dedicate some nights to thinking about her? I miss her fair skin and glassy eyes and salty lips and fleshy thighs. I miss the lustful kisses stolen in the dark whenever we snaked to privacy away from the park. Folks never got to understand we'd taken stuff steps further when they called her my wife and I her husband. I miss the occasional rides in Dad's 'Tortoise' times the hired biker wasn't around to convey us three little guys to school - something else shameful. Things are easier here but they've chosen to fall apart too.
It's 2018 now and I miss too being there for people our fathers may never have sat over bottles of liquor or our mothers the same church pews, people I met here who turned family yet have gotten lost like the childhood I miss. Things have gotten way better for my family but worse for me. Well, I've watched a lot of people I would never have believed give up on me lately I now play defensive - that guys who gives up first on people so he wouldn't have to deal with them giving up on him like the ones before them. I miss the drive to scan through worded pages. I'm but also that young a man who misses scribbling nonsenses on blank pages 'cause he feels he's lost his touch. I fear for myself if I'd be as good as I'm convinced within to have my name on the cover of a touching story.
You see, for more than a year I've had to live with a tag reading 'failure' sat on my head. I've had to be reminded way too many times I stretched extra semesters when my mates are done and dusted with even serving this hell of a nation, and being compared to people I don't even know from any where around by Dad - especially some Victoria I wish I knew and fucked at least . I've been called useless too many times the words have lost meaning and carry no emotions. I've been cursed and abused and shamed. I've been reminded every day I'm headed doom's way, a future that would scare me for choosing to have brothers in the street.
Perhaps doing herb and drugs and being friendly with the thugs is what Dad never saw of me. Perhaps I am who I am today from the sum of every time I had to hear him say the words "Watch this your child Eka, he would not be a good one" to Mom. I don't know or care which! Sometimes I want to forget all of these scary thoughts and return to that archaic building with its rusty 'crown', to seeing Mom smile and not grieve from worrying over us. I still long to kiss Angela's salty lips and nibble on her skin a time more - this time more sensually and bargained, against the rushed and stolen ones. I ache to grope her in her darkest places, to look into those glassy eyes which burned love.
It's been years and I've still not been able to track that Angela who never minded my insecurities like I would never grasp the naked flesh of childhood's shared love. I pray this longing doesn't make of me a self-willed psychopath. I've had more down-moments these past years than up ones.
"Strong people," folks say, "cry at night."
Guessing this explains the mushy eyes some nights! I grew up thinking life got easier, screw my thoughts! I've been broken to suicidal thoughts. But no, I didn't survive being born six months and few weeks to end my own life, I didn't get warmed by the sun in that local incubator for months to later snuff my own life out with rat poison.
I have disappointed a lot of people, and myself all my life. I have caused Mom too much undeserved tears from the fears of her worries. I have messed around with people's hearts and trusts as much as people with mine. I have made people cry, and had my own share of sogging my pillow up with tears of bitterness. I have ended friendships for the selfish reason of walling myself in. I've taken to avoiding the 'Uncle' tag 'cause my inner man tells me I'm not deserving having lost that part of me that was always there for people in my own little way, at least with words be it midnights or early mornings. I've done too much herb and drugs my skin has lost as much colour as my lips, there's even a rash reaction on the nape of my neck. Sleep-inducing pills didn't hit me the last time I tried a slight overdose. The alcohol count in my blood has gotten higher lately.
But masking all of these people - myself inclusive - with smiles someday is one will that wheels me on. Lord knows I would be living better if I did the least of the few things brothers do to survive in the street, but I can't 'cause the people who believe in me more fears or tears if things go wrong. There's also a mansion to build and fun to catch as well as tears to mop with my success, and I'm not resting my ass until my passions fashion me that reality 'cause that blissful life isn't in the past but my future. Forgive me folks for begging you to never forgive me if I don't see to this dream. See you at the top amigos. Until then, I'm still that calm guy they'd never know has a maelstrom of thoughts swarming what sits on his neck always like sidelong refrains.
