Sea
LAVENDER
BY
CHIKA ONYENEZI
Argus Enterprises International, Inc.
New Jersey/North Carolina, USA
A-Argus Better Book Publishers, LLC
Sea Lavender © 2011
All rights reserved
by CHIKA ONYENEZI
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ISBN: 978-0-6155512-7-2
ISBN: 0-6155512-7-0
Book Cover designed by Dubya
Printed in the United States of America
THE SEA. THE SEA
In the beginning was the sea, and the sea was the world
The sea. The sea. Rising fiercely against my black skin. The furry of the storm grew louder as I sat in the small boat roughly sailing into the wild. First I thought I was dreaming, but there was no time to believe it, just a race for survival against the master punch of the sea on the raft I was sailing in. like a big hammer hammering down a spec. I held on. Breathless. Sweating. Thinking If I would ever survive against the sea. The air was cold. But I was sweating as I put together the woods of the canoe against the dark sea. I held the two woods crossed on the boat as the strong wind pounded my canoe. Refusing to sink, it floated on, tumbling against the wild wind and landing in the middle of the sea. I held on to the woods. Till every splinter of the wood is broken before I would ever think of drifting away in the muscular arm of the sea. Darkness has conquered the day; the arms of the night slapped the living daylight off the day. gripping. Killing. Totally overwhelming. The taste of darkness bitters my mouth as I struggled against unnumbered foes.
My muscles clung closely to the woods and my heart buried in fear. I remembered the art of survival. The last book I set my eyes on in the library along the government house road in Owerri; dusty and old, yet held such wisdom as to make fishing line out of your cloth and bait your hook with your very skin when your plan clash in a lonely Island. Before this very strange event I found myself in, I munched the pages in lonely times. The first step in the face of crisis was to conquer the fear. Burry it. Hide it away from the lustful eyes of the sea. Keep on as long as you can. The rescue might be close. I held on to the wood, like a sinner in front of the cross, smelling salvation and tasting his redemption. The woods remained strong in the face of this very monster buried deep in the sea. Be strong. Be strong. I told myself severally. I held on. And on. And on.
Salty taste of the sea pouring dreadfully into my mouth, drowning me as we dove into the bed of sea with our arms locked together , thrown out of its deadly jaws by the wave again. I was alive still. Breathing. Strong. Living each second with dread. Looking at my life about to be wasted. The wrath of the sea against my very self. I closed my eyes. I held the wood. Listened to the cry of the monster sea, like a wounded Crackers in The Clash of Titians. Death was close. Death was obvious. Death was naturally. I waited patiently for it.
It grew louder, siren crying from her the depth of very voice; Sweet melodies to guide me to the underworld. Let me die like a warrior. Let me be guided into the kingdom of where I don’t know. Just like after Sunday mass. Just like heaven. Just the angels we heard off.
Not siren, not her death song.
Will I make it, what happened to me? Thoughts raced through my mind or questions I didn’t really see as questions. Or is Valkyries true? Just like in History one-”o”-one. The lecturer pacing up and down. Glancing through the text book. Telling us about the Viking and their great god Thor. The Nordic and their culture. It all seemed real in my realm and the charm of my youth. An old lecturer who spent most of his youth before the ancient walls, glancing through the glamour of foreign culture and fending them with himself, coated with it and proud of it. All glamour for a young man looking at the university fraternity with another spectacle. A member of a cult. A cultist. Like a flickering picture; the blood, the life, the promises of Valhalla, yes Odin will heal every of our wound. Sailina! Sailina! To my brotherhood in the jungle, to whom I shear the same lust for blood; fight by day, die in the evening, leave with Odin at night, before morning all your wounds would be gone. The days of gun, axe, intelligence and brute, within the four walls of a Nigerian University. At the end we were men. At the end we lusted for blood. Just men that lusted for blood.
All of sudden I could think. I remembered my childhood. Memories of it flooded my mind. A secret I had often preserved and coated in my silky mind. I was small, I was thin, I was black, I was handsome, I was just a kid, I could think, I could remember. Seating in the classroom looking the teacher in her rimmed Lennon spectacle laughing, reading the poem out loud. But cautiously looked. Closely watch our lips in case we err.
Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.
We all swung our hands at the away and watched her closely. Never knowing how dreamy life could be. Never knowing about the sea. Never knowing what it felt like to hold on to a canoe in the middle of the sea. Just fresh, just new. Milky kids, milky head, milky lifestyle. The teacher in her red satin gown pointed at the word boat written boldly on the blackboard and said, “repeat after me.” While she spelled out the word, b-o-a-t.
“You, Adrian, spell it.”
I was startled. My mind wasn’t really there; I was thinking about the stew and the rice in the black pot when she asked me to spell the word. I was in for it. Really in for it. Aunty doesn’t literarily spare the rod. In fact, she wielded a rod. Definitely the child will rot for failing to provide an answer to her question. She dragged me by my ear out of my seat. She made me kneel down in front of the class while she taught. Later she gave me four on my palms. Maybe because I was four years old.
“Flog the four on the four,” I thought as I walked home, her soft palm in mine.
Yes her. She was all milky in her chest, all beauty—blossomed and ready, cheeky and black. Her was our maid. Her brought me back from school. Her cleaned me up. Her taught me the language of the dark. Her made me do it. A kid in blue sky Physical Education dress, with feet less than a foot. Just a kid. Just a kid. I couldn’t really remember all or every tiny detail—the what lead to what stuff. All I could see was my tiny penis in her Vagina, rubbing against her world, rocking and rocking deep. Deeper and deeper into her. She made me do it. She thought I was cute, cute enough to smell her Vagina. She taught me the language of the dark room and pressed me to go in harder, even when I was weak and told her I was really weak.
If you think I am lying, ask the dark mahogany door still standing on its hinges, guiding one to the Kama Sutra room. Ask the backyard with a giant ladder leaning on our wall where she first kissed me. Ask the white paint smearing the two story building. Ask the black metal gate, sloppy downward, cemented across, the very place I built my sand castle, raised my flag and slept at night, just to wake up and saw that our neighbour’s car crushed it. Ask the lane that ran lazily across, opening its anus to the river. Ask the ferns growing slowly in the river. Ask the lavenders standing in our backyard, yes the blue beauty my father cultivated and nurtured. The all saw it. The ghost, men and all. I never said a word. I took it as whole, accepting the pleasure that comes at the peak but rebuked the pain of going on and on even when I was weak just to satisfy her very insatiable sexual libido. I never knew what all these were. Had no inkling. Never thought about it. Was too innocent even to consider how evil it was. But the next day, when the day has been silenced, no one standing in the kitchen or running around the house. She took me into the room to rock her world. It happened again . And again. And again.
It was a beautiful world then, with lazy orange sky filling the evening. The uncompleted house beside us stood tall again with bamboo sticks in it while I peeped through the window to see the good-evening people. The huge sun, resting slackly at the end of the sky; almost ready to go to bed. The radio sang the wedding bell song:
…My little baby
Getting married today…
Pararam ra ram para ra ram!
I held on to my world. A dreamless one, a fulfilled world. My dog barked inside the house, yes we were famous. We that had a dog and seat around the television to watch Famous Five with him. Me, my sister, my brother, and then Whiskey. We were the famous five. But not five in number. We were just three. It was magical moments. Moments you will like to live in again and again. Forgetting to grow up and face a world wild and wild in all sense of it. The world of men. Where men, fetch the fire wood, men break the fire wood. Men do the thinking. Men provide the clothing. Yes men, yes it’s all about men. Thanks to men. No wonder God created men first; just to see them do all things.
Truly I was small. Small enough to take my toys into the abandoned bed. I had a toy in with big eyes, painted green and shiny. It was the effigy of handsome boy. I also had another toy, an effigy of a pretty girl; blue eyes and red cheek, blushing in her state. I called them husband and wife. I was the priest. I celebrated the mass for them. I prayed and joined them severally in holy matrimony. I did it over and over. The wedded uncountable time. I really enjoyed it. Well it was all they could get for me; rubber toys in the early nineties. Early. Very early nineties.
My father stood at the mahogany door to my room, watching me while away my time. Maybe he left me because I was small. Because I could barely speak. I was learning. I was strong. I was the favourite of all. He stood tall, with red blood eyes and hairs on his jaw. A broad man of a father he was. One who worked with his bare hands, fed from his bare hands. He was a carpenter. I once went to his workshop; he had boys who worked for him. Watched woods sawed into pieces. Break every bit of it. Later it was made whole again. But this time, it turned into a beautiful chair. It sat completed on the show room. With expansive clothing on it. Yes, it made me think of the world as a carpentry process. Everything must be broken before it will become whole again. Everything must die to live. Everybody must rise from his ash, just like a phoenix.
The dinning was always broad and round with a mother whose heart was large placing the food on it. I loved Saturday morning, I loved the stripped curtain. I loved my sister and brother. I loved my Mum whose heart was large. I loved Her, Her showed me the world, wild enough, broad enough, the very world of sex, sweet and humiliating. Doing it again and again and again made the world blues. I never said a word about it and never will I say a word about it. It’s just that secret, it’s just our beginning. It would die in our minds. We would take it to the grave.
“Let us pray,” my mother said after laying down our food on the table.
“Father, bless this food we are about to eat, in Jesus name,” my father beseeched.
“Amen,” we all chorused.
Is a prayer I have heard and could remember. The only prayer he ever said. The only prayer he ever will say before eating. My mother was light in complexion. Not as black as me, not as black as my father. She was different; she was beautiful with full sets of shinny teeth. Blessed with a golden smile. Her hair black and artificial; a lady always sew it with needles most of the weekends, I could remember. Cooks like she was an LG contestant on a high priced cooking competition. She worked with a food packaging company in the city with tall light and paved floor. She brought back loads of packaged food every weekend: spaghetti kind of.
While I ate, I watched wrestling on the television. Hogan took on Undertaker fiercely. But each time he brought him down, he rose sharply. Hogan was surprised. Before they knew it, I was in front of the television with my food in my hands. I loved the fight, the battle. The ring. The defeat. It made life worth living. It showed how men were measured. Men who lived by their fist and earned a living with their fist.
“Dad, could you beat Hulk Hogan?” I asked him.
His black face flared towards me in astonishment. He brightened up. He laughed and said yes. I imagined both of them locked in arms-lock. Hogan dragging towards the end of the ring and slamming him on the centre. The referee bleats out, “One, two, three” the lazy bell rings “gam, gam, gam.” It was all in my head. I could think. I told you I could. I could see the world in a lazy mood. In my head another world lived. A world of dreams and impossibilities. Yes, I once dreamt of an airplane crashing in front of my house. A white man came out it with plenty of gift for me. Yes, the white man we saw on the old black and white television. The one with a white moustache. Finally I helped him repair his plane; he paid me gracefully and flew away. I had a vivid imagination.
I could read. I could walk. I could talk like the man in the eighth o’clock news; repeating it word after word and singing it among my peers.
We trekked down the dusty road of Owerri to the sparkling library of those days. I mean the early nineties. Sparkling books laid straight on the shelves, the shelves tall enough that you would have to ask the attendant to access the books from the top shelves. We could borrow. We could use them as much as we wanted. Truly, I couldn’t really read, but I could understand the pictures. I watched the pictures on the Famous Five series, watched the pictures on Thomson and the Fire. I loved the pictorial books. Glanced at them before the sun withers. I hoped that someone at the far end of the room would deem me literate and worthy to read and spell. But I couldn’t, I could look at the pictures; just the pictures. The world of the book was beautiful. It showed you a different magic. A magic you could only bring to reality in your dream, eventually wake to see your father and mother, your sister and brother, Her and the white painted building. I loved the round rubber seat and large table of the library. We stayed till evening came before trekking down to our house downtown. The moments flared like a gas into the sky; like a beautiful firework, it spread in the night of the blue sky. I was beautiful. I was fanciful; I lived in this very world. Yes, I lived all of it. In this very garden of good and evil.
I lived in a world of colours; golden morning, blue afternoon and orange evening. It was beautiful and graceful to behold. But troubles came in the morning. Turbulence has his teeth painted red. I saw it in that very August of the early nineties. The sun has gone awry with shinning. The rain has gone away to visit distant lands. The ladybug flew across and I caught it, added a string to its feather and held the other end of the string while it flew and it couldn’t fly away. Trouble came. It came in the form of a man. The same man in black with red, blood shot eyes. It touched Her wings. I was too attached to Her. Maybe I loved Her. Maybe I liked Her, but there was something between us.
Her had finished pounding me on the large spring bed. Left me dry and dark to play and make merry with toys. I saw my father through the window driving home early in the mid-hours of the day in his white Peugeot. I was on mid-term break. Her was staying with me. He left his wood and his Phoenix art to come back to the house. Maybe he missed something. Maybe he wanted to get some rest. But it was unusual. Far from the reality. Ugly, ugly. He parked under the pear tree and peered at the house as if he wanted to steel something. He walked into the gate with a bag in his hand. I stayed quietly in the room, waiting for him to enter. Yes, I felt bad, I felt an evil coming. I felt tragedy along. My little mind changed. It was too large to understand the adult game. It was too large to see through his heart.
He smiled at me, “Adrian, how are you?”
I didn’t smile back. I just stared. Hoped he would leave soon.
“Why, did you come back early?” I asked.
He looked at me, his black face flared and brightened.
“Guess I am sick, OK. Daddy is going to do some magic for you now. Take this one hundred Naira, go to the Mama Chichi shop and wait for me, I am taking you out.” He said. She stood in the corner, her eyes lit like a lamp, bright with love and smile on her thin lips. She touched my head and urged me to go, that she would be with me soon.
I hated the smell of her shop. I hated the lollipop; I wanted just tea and not too sugary biscuit. Mama Chichi didn’t have it. Her biscuits where coated with sugar and designed with sweeteners. I hated the taste of it. She doesn’t sell tea; I could only make tea in the dinning. I hated to be touched by her kid, Junior. Junior was always white and dried. Rubbing sand on his hand and smearing it on my clothes. I had to hit him once; but was cautioned by the mother. I left in anger back to the house.
I pushed the door open, silence exuded from the soul of our house. The kitchen was empty; I didn’t see Her sitting in the stout makeshift seat she used to sit on when she was doing nothing. I could smell her scent. I could smell her heat. I knew her. I knew what she was made off. I knew she was getting it on with someone else. Silently I walked to the master bedroom; opened the door. I wasn’t shocked to find my father pounding her from behind. She was screaming like she never did with me. She had found a better mate; one strong enough to make her scream. They didn’t notice me. I closed the door and slinked away.
I was feeling something. Something like a pile of jealousy packed in a juice container; I drank it. All of it. It was sweet. It made me look at her with disgust. It made me hate her and my father. The sea was rumbling, strings to turbulence playing. I was small, yet I could think. My father has taken my girl. He stole Her. I had sensed it from the moment he arrived. He had come around to steal something.
It was my very first ship to face the storm. It was my very real pang of jealousy. The made love till evening and washed off in the shower. My sister and brother returned from their extra-moral class late and happy. Reciting effectively what they had learned. They were older, bigger and without front teeth. They marched and played together. They went to school together. They did everything together. But I was alone. I stayed alone; building my life with the bricks of loneliness. I loved her alone...till today.
In the evening my mother came back all smiles. Her face lit as usual; powdered with beauty. I loved her. She cuddled me, while I still watched The Count of Monte Cristo. I couldn’t take my eyes off the television. I couldn’t let anyone touch the television. If my brother or sister touched it, I would cry loudly so Her would scold them.
When Her passed me and smiled, I glared at her. She could see that I knew. I knew what she did with my father. I knew he entered her from behind. I knew his hands caressed those fair coloured breast. I knew he dug deep into her wetness. I was small, but yet I knew. I knew all that happened.
I saw my Mum putting cereal in my bowl. Pouring milk into it. Just a cube of sugar was alright because I didn’t like it. I came and hugged her leg.
“Mum, Dad came early from work today,” I said
“Sure?”
“Yes,” I said looking at her surprised eyes. “He gave me one hundred Naira and sent me away. I came back and found him with her. They were bathing together.” I wanted to exonerate myself. I wanted to act as if I knew nothing about the sweetness of the world, the dampness between her legs.
“A hundred Naira? Bathe together?” my mother asked, the smile on her face fading rapidly. Let me tell you what one hundred Naira is worth. A biscuit of round shaped five inside a packet went for one Naira. One hundred Naira was a whole lot of money for a boy of four. Money I couldn’t spend in two years.
I have released the birds to my mother unceremoniously. The pigeons of disgust. The very birds groomed in her absence; now matured and eating from her plate. I knew what would happen; the same fate of cock that ate our corn; my father took it and cut off its beak. I knew the pigeon of disgust would be de-beaked tonight; cut off and left to bleed in silence. I wanted her to leave. I loved her, that’s why I wanted her to leave.
I could hear the noise inside the room. Frantic and loud. Panic and slaps. I only heard my mother’s voice. My father was silent, as silent as an ant. Yes, he was guilty. He should face his guilt. I imagined the story uncle Tom told us about America when he returned. He said that a similar event in America would be greeted by the spouse picking up gun and shooting the hell off the head of the two cheaters. But my Mum didn’t have a gun. Though she had a knife she never used it against someone. She just beat her and beat her. Mum stood at the door crying. The three of us held her steady. Begged her to stay alive. She jumped up all of a sudden and started throwing her things away. My father crumbled in his bed, cuddled and thinking. He knew it was me, he knew it was the little boy he brought into the world. I knew he would hate me. I hated him. I knew Mum would pack her things and leave. To hurt my father the more, she walked over to the lavender garden and hacked it down to nothing. I wondered how the innocent lavender could also be a victim of her anger. Yes, I had heard him make mention of how much he would earn with the petals and the oil of the lavender. An experimental purple flower that could yield millions in the early nineties. He truly went on a special course to care for the lavender and provide for it the much needed environment to grow in. The money was gone. Hacked down in anger. Hacked down by me. By my very tongue. I did it, I spoiled it. It was too late to stop her. Too late. All I did was cry. Cry.
Three days later. She’s gone and my father was still silent. We still sat in the dining room munching fried potato. My mother never left. She nurtured and took care of her property still. The storm raised beyond our very neck, threw us very deep into the depth of the sea, and, in the end, left us hanging on a plank. This was where I began. The lavender gone. The expensive money vomiting plant.
I remember. I was small, but I could speak.
THE ODYSSEUS
The journey of Odysseus, son of Ibem. Mower of sea, raider of borders
The sea rested, the morning came, darkness conquered. My boat broken, but refused to sink. The old wood splintered and sailed away. The floor was quickly sucking in water; I was busy with a broken pan scooping the water away and quickly. I noticed the knapsack on my back. I almost forgot. I had tools in it. I had a wrapper in it and other valuables. From the book I saw in the library: The Art of Survival I could sail for months without sinking. I could make a sail, repair my boat, and eat. Float. And float. My cloth was wet, a velvet shirt coloured with flowers; coloured with Lavender, painted in its purple. I knew that very flower. It was cultivated by father in his experimental garden. I knew it well; it has four stamens, a solitary pistil, a five tooth calyx, and a five-lobed tubular corolla forming two lips. I knew the morning smell. It smells good. My trousers were long enough to cover my legs; at least it helps in the cold.
This was where I began to survive in the sea. After surviving the cry of siren last night; its storm and wild words. I knew I was meant to go on. I knew I was Odysseus of the twentieth century; the son of Ibem. Ibem a carpenter in the street of Ojaku in Owerri. It’s my time to sail far, be the mower of sea, raid borders of water. The voyage just began.
It was in the library that I learnt of Odysseus. I tried to recount his epic journey; Calypso the goddess and his motherland Ithaca to which he must return. I am lost in the sea too. Not knowing which force that brought me to it. Not knowing the wind that blew me this far. Left to survive with nothing; but yet found something which must keep me going. Odysseus set out on a voyage, but I neither prepared for one nor set out for it.
I opened the knapsack, brought out a box of nail, also a hammer. Quickly I put the content on the floor of the canoe and tore out pieces of the bags flap because it was large. Nailed the hard leather on the broken floor of the canoe. It floated again. I broke all the woods placed to demarcate the canoe into parts. I nailed it into a mast. Tore out a rope from the content on the floor; tied the wrapper like a mast on it. Mounted it in the middle of my canoe and tied it at the back of the canoe. I directed the wrapper against the wind, navigated towards the north. The first step in solving your problem is always to take charge of it I learnt in the very art of survival.
I was the captain, the engineer, the carpenter, the crew and the sailor of my ship. It stood fiercely against the sun of Africa, gently rowing towards it. The mast sailing to safety. I was a sailor. I knew what it meant to sail in the waters alone. Put bridges where you need them. I stood fiercely, closed my eyes while clutching my mast, and faced the sun, the sea breeze blowing through my chest. My shirt dried and rising with the wind.
***
I lost myself in trance, deep into my past. I was ten years and grown. Old enough to farm and weed. Old enough to hunt and roast. Eat and merry. Party and love. But the darkness was yet to come. The hare days are gone. I was grown, short; but not stout. Black, but not bold. I could draw the people in the street. I could draw the sun and its cloud. I could draw the sailor in the waters. I had a pen and a pencil; stood under the guava tree and drew a beautiful world. My mother was still beautiful and calm. We were all together, the events of Her totally forgotten. But my father still treaded my case with caution, avoided my eyes and saw something I couldn’t see in me; maybe a beast. I wasn’t handsome, I wasn’t ugly but the girls avoided me. I drew alone. I painted alone. I played alone. But I yawned for the very love I missed. I grew up knowing I should be with Her. Make love to Her. I wanted another Her. But I wanted to also be alone at the same time.
My father grew older. Older in manner of doing. Lamented about his lavender garden in quiet times and when my Mum wasn’t around. The lavender was the symbol of his lust, the symbol of our shame, the symbol of my jealousy. It was all in the lavender.
My mother was not paid for several months, in the late-nineties. Abacha cracked down on their company, froze their chairman’s assets. It was the days of brutality in the government. We heard it, we felt for it. We heard that the United Nations has placed sanction on Nigerian, prompting the military junta to carry out an election. We felt the economic turn-around. Our house felt it most. Things were beginning to shrink. What could a carpenter do when things are not getting better? After cutting wood and nailing it back together, who would buy it? Was it the poor people living around us? Everybody complained, the civil servants cried and the saying goes then “as poor as a civil servant”. The petty-traders rubbed shoulders with the civil servants and abused them openly. The state government owed them salary for a year and six months. Yet the people didn’t talk, they never revolted, never demonstrated. Everybody was afraid of dying even in the face of misery. The military government played with our oil money and treated the people like trash. We were still alive. Living each day as a whole. Fela Anikpola Kuti blaring in the background blaring,
I no wan die,
mama dey for house,
papa dey for house...
so policeman go flog your yash you no go talk
He knew what the people of Nigeria where made of; cowards. Men who are afraid to die, men who are lazy to fight for their rights. Men who couldn’t stand against evil. Men who decided to sit in their misery instead of fighting to make their lives better. That was the Nigerian way; a cigarette in your mouth and pleading in your eyes. I imagined it and drew it on paper. A sad man with a cigarette in his mouth. For me, it depicted the true Nigerian in his gloomy state and yet proud of his life.
My brother and sister have gone to boarding school and were studying. I was still in primary school. Strong and not bold. My dad came back one evening weak and weary. Old and worn out. His face sagged sadly. He was a true Nigerian, just like my painting; suffering, living the life of a dog, yet happy and satisfied with the military rule. I imagined him alone standing alone in front of the government shouting, “Give me my rights!” It made me laugh and later sighed.
“Give me a bottle of cold water,” he said.
I went down to the refrigerator, the water wasn’t cold. There had been a blackout in the city for past two days. The refrigerator was hot, and the water was hot too. I poured it in a glass and served it to him. He tasted it. As I was leaving he poured the water on me.
“You stupid animal, ingrate, idiot, goat. No wonder you can’t learn anything in school. I asked for cold water and this is what you gave me?” he said, barking like he had never done before. “Since you have decided to treat me bad I will start treating you bad too. You are the cause of my trouble, the genesis of all my trouble. You spoiled my lavender garden.” I stood there puzzled at the abuse, thinking of where I might have gone wrong. I was full of thought and soft in the mind. Did I really spoil the lavender garden? About my education, he got it right. I had no interest in mathematics. I couldn’t read words. Yet I was about to enter the secondary school. I just loved to draw, to see the world through my pencil and brush. If they asked me, I would have told them, but they never asked. All they wanted was for me to become a doctor. He wanted me to treat patients and become the gentlemen he could never be. If I was an experiment, I was failing.
My mother heard him abusing me from inside the kitchen and ran out to put a stop to it.
“Why are you raining abuses on your own son?” my mother asked, her pretty face stripped by worries.
“Imagine, I asked this boy to get me a glass of cold water. He went into the kitchen and poured a glass of hot water in the glass for me to drink. May God strike him dead,” he shouted, his face red with anger. The string of curses abuses raining from his mouth were ungodly.
“Stop. I said stop it. Don’t curse my son again till you die. Don’t even try it, don’t you know that we have been without power for the past two days? Must you show him that you hate him? Must you show him that he doesn’t know anything in school...” my mother exploded like gun powder. Tied her wrapper to her waist and beat her chest repeatedly. I stood there full of thought. Imaging what I may have done to deserve this kind of abuse. I was small, but I could understand; it was all about being a man. It was all about rubbing shoulders, maybe because I was as tall as him; even though he was short. I knew my fate as a man. I knew darkness was coming upon the daylight.
But I was much a man. Much a man to know that I needed to learn or I would perish in the future. Much a man to know our society hated painting and saw nothing good in an artist. I started afresh, with a lantern, my Mum and the night flies; we started learning. My Mum taught me to read with Oliver Twist. Truly I wanted some more. I began to enjoy it greatly; so my learning quickened. After that, I could pronounce anything and looked up strange words in the green dictionary on the thick desk. I read a Tale of Two Cities, I read Pickwick Papers, I read Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, and I read the Dubliners by James Joyce. Our library was filled with books. Books that my father didn’t know how to read and never cared to read. My Mum nurtured the library and prescribed books like tablet for me. Soon I was engrossed in the world of books. Over the next one month, she wrote them down on a piece of paper for me to go to the library and read them; Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Elechi Amadi’s Concubine, Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God, Peter Abraham’s Mine Boy, Ngugi Wa Thiong o’s Wizard of Crow, even his Petals of Blood.
Like little David Copperfield; I read to read to run away from the abuses of my very own father. From the poisonous gland in his tongue. Poverty and age worsened things. I read under the tree, I read with the lantern; the flies kissing the light with their tongues. The idea stood in their wings; I knew where I was going to end; deep in the bed of books. I was alive now, I was no longer ashamed of my very self. I could read. I could write. I could draw and paint. I was ready for the future.
The few months that followed by were significant in my life and in the history of my state; Imo. Gradually I was becoming an educated man, not a school goer, but an avid reader, who roamed the world with book, lived on the street of Wessex with Thomas Hardy, probed London with Charles Dickens, and followed Mark Twain in his adventure of Huckleberry Finn. My perception of world became wider, I could see clearly now. I was caught up in time, each minute; each second was locked in my very pocket. Upon all the thousands that witnessed the events that sparked up in Owerri, it was I who vowed to unlock the history. I was never afraid of the road, or men, or wind of fate till I heard the most frightening new of my life. That faithful day, my brother ran back home panting, “Adrian, wake up Owerri is burning.” I wondered how a city as big as Owerri could burn, send up flames and ashes into the sky. I wiped the sleep away from eyes and followed him outside. Truly, Owerri was burning. In every distance, flames were going up and roaring into the sky. Thick black smoke rose above the sky. Owerri literarily lit up with fire. We gave the keys to my sister asked her to lock the doors.
“Don’t let any person come in, do you understand? If you don’t know him, don’t let him come in.” my brother warned closely and sternly. We ran deep into the dusty road in the august, towards the street gates. Quickly we dashed into the main Orlu Road. We saw the mob rising in anger, chanting “Otokoto Wayo” with axe, guns, sticks, machetes and many other dangerous weapons .
Otokoto was a well-respected man in the society, ran a hotel business and made lots of money out it. He had many properties along our street and lived larger than life. His first child was an alleged kidnapper; shot and killed by the then very government in the peak of his for kidnapping. Today was the day of father. We wanted to be part of history; we wanted to write our name in the list of the first witness, first-hand witness. We wanted to become the oral story-tellers; capture the whole of the event and pocket it. Soon we blended among the angry mob marching to his hotel. From the murmuring of people; his crime and money making method has been found out. He killed innocent people to provide meat for cannibal and blood for rituals, parts for those who could buy. He stored his victims in the refrigerator. We followed the angry mob to the gate where they quickly pulled down the gate, bartered the gateman and left him to run for his dear life. The chanting received a higher volume, on closer to maximum on a home theatre audio set. Quickly they started exhuming human bodies from his backyard. We saw them, lied beside the plantain; long dead and rotten, fresh dead and rotten, just rotten. The bodies piled the more till people where anger greatly at what has become of them; mere animals to be hunted down this man. The mob started tearing down his house. We were there when the military governor and gave them the orders to carry on after seeing the sight of his atrocities. I saw the governor shed tears, his oddly handed him a white handkerchief. Much after he identified with the mob, addressed us (I was angry too) and gave us the order to bring down any corrupt person in the society. The people had a list of them and their activities. As he left, fire was lit on the hotel. Flames busted like anger into the sky. I prayed silently for the dead.