6. I cannot say that my tongue froze when I saw David. I am a writer. When I have to capture a moment of shock, I use expressions like "words freezed in my mouth, my tongue went limp, the between my lips refused to allow my tongue taste the damp air". But when I use these terms, I do it for poetic contributions and dramatic responses. When I saw David, words did not freeze in my mouth. I knew what to say but I didn't know if it was the right thing to say. I hadn't seen David for a long time and my next word would seal the image of us reuniting after eight months. I knew that whenever I remembered this moment, I would return to the first word that escaped from my lips.
It would either comfort David or myself, hurt me or provide an escape from our glum reality. My next words would capture the painful hug and the unrolling of words from our mouth. David saved me the trouble.
"Destiny, I thought you wouldn't remember your way to our area. I can see the glory of Unilag on your face" He joked. His voice carried the comicality that was associated with him. David could fit in as a comedian. He used to be funny. My hands ran over the pimples on my forehead and I looked at my lean countenance as if it was the first time I was seeing my own body. He rested his weight on his left leg and limped with his right leg. Holding a walking stick would have come in handy to him. We shook hands. Hugging would have been more of a feminine response. We had both grown up in the harsh streets of Alapere. We had foreknowledge of the education that the harsh streets of alapere had to offer. We had engaged in street fight and football competitions when we were younger. We rolled metals in circle shapes and we had pedalled them with straightened hangers and rolled them up and down the streets. We went to the same secondary school. Although David didn't graduate with my set. He had repeated SS1 twice and had gotten his admission withdrawn. He had written waec from an external centre and had lived with his mother ever since. Even back then, David's punishment was different from ours. Although we failed to notice till we grew older. His step father didn't show as much love to his step son as he gave his own sons. In fact he didn't show any love at all. I wasn't much of a trouble maker growing up. But whenever I caused a ruffle, I usually had the belt on my hands or back. Cain was a rare visitor and I hated when the prostitute had to visit. David's stepfather deemed it a worthy punishment to make him sleep outside after every misgivings. This punishment was so constant that he made a temporary mat out of straws for sleeping on the church. And indeed he slept there for many nights. We weren't aware of this until the day David had an argument with a boy from the same class. The boy, whose name was Faruq, had a sister who was an early riser and had seen David sneaking out of the church every morning before the cock crow. Faruq had kept it a secret until the day that David's punch flung the gate of his conscience open and allowed the words to escape. But that was a long time ago. That was before I gained admission into the University of Lagos. I thought things would be different now. But seeing David in his state was a reminder that change wasn't always punctual.
"You look dead. Are you competing with me?" I sat down beside him on the bench in front of his grandmother's house. David sat down and spat before he spoke. "I have been called worse".
A whiff of silence blew past us and none of us said anything for a while.
"How is school?" David broke the spell
"Boring. Interesting. Fun. Stressful .It's complicated”
"I wish I was in school too mehn. I didn't write Jamb this year because." he stopped in the middle of his sentenced and broke down into sobs. This was really awkward for me because I hadn't seen a guy cry in a while. David was 22. By society’s standard, He was already a man. They were scars on his head that his hair failed to hide. His feet were swollen and they were mosquito bites on his neck. I had no idea what to do. A year ago, I had visited a friend of mine in the hospital. A cultist who was shot three times in the leg. He would live the rest of his life in a wheelchair. I left when he started crying. His sobs were too loud. I gave a lame excuse, promised to return and flew away. I never went back after that day. There were no words in my dictionary that was appropriate for this uncomfortable moment. It was always inconvenient whenever guys cried in front of me. I wanted to hold his shoulders but my hands stopped in mid-air. I was too sensitive to touching to even say or do anything. So I allowed him cry and suffer alone. His snivelling slowed down after a few minutes. When he looked at me there were tears in his eyes.
Only tears. No sign of betrayal that I had let him cry alone.
"I am sorry" he muttered.
"It's cool. We are all allowed to be bitches sometimes". He laughed. A shallow widening of lips.
A whiff of uncomfortable silence hung around us again. I was getting impatient.
"Who beat you? Who broke your leg?” I asked.
David heaved a sigh "My step father".
I knew that the way it happened to David would be different from the way I pictured it. I would see his uncle, a dark sturdy man in his mid-forties, holding a four mouthed koboko and whipping David's naked body. His mother would be holding his knees, begging and pleading. He would start with his hand. First, David would feel the pain in his hands, then the pain would ripple down to his feet, and then his heart would burn. His body would be a map of stories. Stories that lived in the scars. Holding his thought and ready to fill his eyes with tears whenever his eyes felt dry. Perhaps I could have imagined how David's body was humiliated, but I didn't. I didn't want to imagine his mother sitting down nonchalantly while his step father kicked and flogged. I didn't want to see the picture even though he gave me the frame. I couldn't say "sorry". Apology couldn't fill the void that his pain had created. We talked without speaking.
"I came back from church late. Normally I am used to him sending me out. I was prepared to sleep on my regular straws. I stopped giving explanation for my actions a long time ago. I always keep quiet while he talks and gives me the punishment he feels is due. But that day, he started flogging me before I could say anything. My cheeks were burning with slaps. I do not know how he got the koboko. Those long ones that they use on cows. He unleashed them on me."
David stopped to take off his shirt so that I could see the Map of Atlantic Ocean on his back.
The whip had crafted a mirage of circles and curves around his neck and on his abdomen. “He flogged me carelessly that day. Neighbours were shouting, begging and threatening to break down the door. It was embarrassing. My own mother...my own mother was watching TV while this was going on. He broke my leg. After a few days in the hospital, my mother told my grandmother that My step dad just lost his job and had gotten drunk that night. "He isn't always this extreme" My mother said. David stopped talking. He coughed for a long time and spat.
"Guy if to sey my life Na film. I no go like watch am". And with that revelation, his sobs returned. It was then that I left my own body and wore David's face. I saw through his own eyes and I pictured him. Leaving with his step father and mother. Watching his own mother take sides with his stepfather because she was scared his whip would turn on her. Or perhaps she was scared of having another runaway husband. I pictured myself sleeping on a mat of straws in a church.
Allowing the mosquitoes drink from the little red in my bones. I saw myself failing SS1 twice because my uncle had detained me at home on days he knew I had exams. I imagined my skin. A body foreign to me. Scars that hold no memory. Some memorable, some forgotten and some foreign. I imagined my step siblings writing Jamb and attending universities, while my own hands were cuffed by the dictates of my mother who wanted me to help grow her business. I thought I knew suffering. But compared to David, suffering was a stranger to me. Suffering had knocked on David's door and brought its own mat. I pictured David, watching his friends live while he died slowly. I wondered if he had cried. When admission slied me the first time, my pillowcase had been wet with tears for a quarter of a year. I wondered when tears became too little to show David's pain. His tragedy was so big it couldn't fit at the tip of his tongue. He had to stammer and cough and spit. I wondered how many times rebellion had shifted its way into his mind. Where would he have run to? Perhaps he knew where he would have ran to, he just didn't know where to find it.
"What of you. You no Dy gree fat?” He asked.
"At least I have two legs."
"Your mosquito legs."
A moment of excitement swept the whole street as shouts of " Up Nepa" enveloped the air.
Soon children ran inside. Women put a pause on their gossips to enjoy their soap operas at home.
The compound soon became empty.
"I'll be going to my uncle's place next week. He came here to apologize last week. He promised my grandmother that he would not lay a finger on me again."
"I'll bring you a wheel chair the next time I'm visiting".
"All will be well".
"So, you miss sleeping in church when you have roof over your own head?"
"It's not as bad as you think." He looked at me. "I am used to it. Pain and I are old friends."
"You can't go back there. It's everything but safe."
"My grandmother is old. All of her children have abandoned her. The house stinks all the time. My uncle has promised and I'll hold him to his words. At least there I eat well, even though I'm always the last person to eat."
"What?"
“I eat when everyone has bellefull" he stopped to explain. "Maybe this time he would send me to the University.” I wondered if he was crazy or perhaps he just miss his suffering. Being a child who had grown used to pain, maybe he was starting to miss his torments. University had changed my mind set. I expected disappointed from people. I lost faith in people a long time ago.
But David had a puerile disposition towards humanity. I could picture his uncle. Coming to beg after the hospital bills had been paid by his dying grandmother. A ploy to save his name. I was sure that his mother had followed him because she had missed having extra hands in her business.
I was sure that David's mat in the church he slept wouldn't miss his body for too long. And I was sure that when i came back next year, David would be on wheelchairs. We lived in a generation where everyone is cursed with wisdom. Everyone believed that their own disposition should be the universal sense. And thus, to prevent an argument, I avoided an argument with him. I knew what to say, but I chose to say nothing "All will be well" I chorused.
Written by Festus Obehi Destiny. 21/11/2011. 1:35. Based On a True Life Incident. (I haven't come up with a name yet)