Reminisces of the past

A few weeks ago I ran into my teenage friend. O Boy! We hugged, laughed and slapped handshakes before we could even notice we now had beards on our faces.

God! He was looking so handsome! And I told him that. He too felt I was looking better than he expected, whatever that meant. After the hugs came the catching up time, we walked to a cool spot where could relax and gist like those days.

I was the first to begin with updates. I’ve been to UNN, served in Kano, worked in PH and Lagos; now in a firm I co-founded... he was looking somewhat em... I can’t really describe it, but you see such looks on junior children when they walk into senior classes. Well, I offered him turn to update me...

‘Nothing really you know... I’ve just found my way to Lagos to hustle...’ his smile was malnourished. I understood how painful it was measuring history with your childhood cohorts on a ‘bad day’ so I changed the gist.

‘Ha! When last were you at AGB?’ – AGB is our short form for Agbor. I genuinely wanted to know about my childhood place.

‘Long time-o, but I get gist about home all the time’

‘Ehn?’

‘E don tey-o! What of our guys dem now?’

‘All man dey...’

‘Stone nkor?’

‘That wan dey somewhere for Lekki, na big boy now-o. Im dey for one Construction Company’

‘Nwaka nkor? Ha! Nwaka, that guy wahala me no be small!’

‘Ahhh...Nwaka na old gist now? E don tey Nwaka die... dem com hit am for house!’

I have heard how cultism was eating deep into the Agbor youths. My siblings had told me about our neighbours who had lost some loved ones to either warring ‘families’ or the government’s SARS. But Nwaka’s death was a deep shock to me. He had everything that could make life a paradise, the youngest son of the wealthiest man in our then neighbourhood. His father was our landlord. I recalled how I had to scamper to hiding as a teenager when Nwaka called young guys in my neighbourhood to see a Jew guy scrubbing the floor.

I was the only grown child beside my sister, Hady who could help with house work at the time. Mom shared house chores between me and Hady. Cleaning the floor was only part of them. Nwaka’s mockery was hurting, but I returned to clean it.

A few years later, I decided to take up a job at a construction company to support my Mom who was having difficulties in her business. Dad was on missions and he hardly visited. I needed money for my SSCE but Mom’s biz could only support the kitchen, things were really taking the worst turns. A brother in church offered to place me as a casual worker where I could earn N750/week. It was a great offer, GCE form was only N1300 at that time. I worked Saturdays and beyond 5pm to earn N950/week. One fateful Sunday as I walked out of our gate, my friend rushed at me...’No! Salvy no. Don’t come out they will laugh at you. Everyone on the pavement is saying you work’.

I was so depressed, I had tried to miss up with the children of the neighbourhood for 2 years since we moved in, now that it seemed like I was succeeding, they seem to hurt me all the more. Only two days before, they had dared me to have sex with a girl, and I failed awfully! Trying hard to explain the meaning of fornication to them. Now I felt really bad...tears just flowed freely down my cheeks as I walked back to the lonely house. Emy, my friend followed me – obviously empathic of my situation. He offered to take me to a ‘Big Paddy’ for help.

It was twilight when we got to Emy’s cousin’s place. He introduced me as the ‘ajebor’ that needed help – he had pre informed him on the purpose of our visit. Everyone in the balcony roared with laughter. I wished for disappearing powers. Pardy took us to the back of the house and sat us down – he went straight to his lessons.

‘Don’t mind their laughter, soon when they start seeing you as a big boy, they will forget how you were before now. There are three things that earns respect for real men – baffs, babes, and power...’ – you ought to have seen me listening to this lecture. I would have made an ‘A’, if a test was placed after the class.

‘for baffs – Emeke said you work. Ehen! That settles that. But let me warn you, nobody must know you hustle. Everyone hustles... but nobody else should know where and how you get your dough! When you get your next pay, come around one of my boys will take you and Emeke to where you can baff-up!

Ok. Now when your baff up has been arranged you will be able to carry yourself with respect and then we can find you a good babe...!’ – my heart leapt. Chastity has been a routine message in my upbringing. I could quote all the scripture references on fornication. The consequence in the Old Testament was stoning outside the camp! My heart was racing in excitement and fear. The thought of Nwaka dropping dead at the site of the pretty girl I was would be parading soon and the thought of offending God – my dad has always said, ‘God particularly loves you Salvy, if God needed a boy to gist with, it would be you’. Though I had tried hard to figure how he came about that assertion, the thought had always made me regard God equally as a Friend and Father. Now I wander what He would be thinking when, Pardy would be teaching me how to have sex in a few days time – it was barely 5 days to my next salary and I would be spending it on baffs on the sixth day, so by the tenth day on the max, Pardy would show me how to have sex with the babe Evelyn would ‘arrange’ for me. That was the plan.

‘Stand’ – he motioned me to a corner of the house and regarded me closely like he was some slave merchant. ‘You will need to be coming every weekend for gyming, ladies like men strong. Ehn?’ – nothing to think about, I accepted. ‘then if anyone talks to you anyhow just say – I BE PARDY BOY-o! Nobody will touch you. But if they do...’ – he smiled wryly, stood up and left – ‘...just tell me. NA THEN I GO SHOW U POWER!’

I got home late and avoided mom as much as I could – she has a way of seeing through your eyes into your thoughts. She could tell the past, present and accurately predict the future by simply looking into your eyes or even make you to start ‘singing’ before she would say a word.

Next weekend I got my salary, but Hady was in school and needed money. Huh... my mom won’t ask me for the money, she knew I was saving for my own education, but her prayers that morning touched my heart – ‘Father, it is written...I know Hady will never beg for bread nor would she be ever forsaken. I declare that by the end of business today she will have enough to return to school’. We all knew that was a difficult faith to summon. At the end of the day she had enough for Hady’s upkeep, but her transport! God why? My week’s pay was just enough for that... I sat outside looking at the setting sun, my heart weighing the new baffs, the new babe, and becoming Pardy’s boy against being the answer to Mom’s prayers. She has always noted, God answers prayers through people, Be the one they would say – you were the answer to my prayers! I could not feel either of Hady’s hugs nor my other siblings as they thanked me for the t-fare, I wasn’t doing it cheerfully, I just felt compelled.

Weeks passed and salaries received, yet I could not get my baffs, the babe nor become Pardy’s boy. There was always some opportunity costs, decisions to make, and each time something within would compel me on the alternative. I soon realised it was not the money that was restraining me, but some inner will to live up to the words of my parents – a will to be A FRIEND OF GOD AND A HELPER OF MEN as my father would say to me and a knowing that I was NOT LIKE THEM as my mother would always sing.

Emy had informed me that I had a new babe, she was pretty and from a rich home – didn’t need my dough nor was she interested in my baffs. She would take care of those if I could change my extra moral classes to Odili, where she needed desperately to prove a point to other girls. Like me, she was under neighbourhood influence to impress. But much as I tried, I couldn’t. While I tried to explain to Emy how I am being watched by God, His hope that I would not disappoint Him and how that makes me different from others, his brother Bee roared angrily from his room – ‘stop that holiness crap! You are a Jew man. You can’t perform...’ – he was hurting me again and I guess it was all showing on my face, cos he paused on seeing me and continued in a big-brother’s tone –‘ ...a 19 year old virgin will be knocked stiff in bed! His koko will congeal...and before you know it you will never be able to perform again...’ – he tried to persuade me, but nay, my heart was made up.

We now stood before ourselves, fourteen years in between. I would not need to inform him that my koko did not congeal, we all know better now. What I hoped he should have learnt and would teach his sons was NEVER TO JUDGE THEMSELVES BY THE PERCEPTION OF OTHERS BUT THE TRUTH THEY KNOW AND THE FUTURE THAT IS SET BEFORE THEM! I also wished he had realised ASNF was true – A SON NEVER FORGETS!

Despite the peer pressures and the desire to walk away, to do it like others, the careful teachings of my parents and their stern corrections had rang like bells through my mind at moments of grave decisions keeping me IN THE PATH THAT I MUST GO.