First and Second Collection of Stories From Chapter Two of The Book, I Beg To Differ.

A CHOICE

When evil visits, it is not always from a stranger. Evil can wear the face of a friend. When evil visited me, it came on a festive day – on a good and bright day when everything was merry and there was the promise of a big belly. That day, someone who was a shepherd came to steal; to maim; and to destroy - maybe one or more sheep, and I was the one he choose that day, a girl, a kid, at five.

 In the Celestial Church of Christ, asides the multiple Ipese that comes as a result of weekly success or breakthrough prescriptions from the Woli - which instructs that the one who seeks God’s benevolence would receive it via the feeding of (mostly) children with fruits- which was the usual practice if a woman desires to conceive, perhaps after many years of futile attempt. The ipese sometimes included adults (mostly on a larger scale- that could be for wealth, protection against evil, as well as favour from far and near). We generally looked forward to these days as it meant that we would eat and sometimes drink in abundance.

There are however two events that stands out every year and these are the Ikore Omode- an anniversary for the children, and Ikore Agba- an anniversary for the adult. 

Ikore omode was eventful and was celebrated across every Celestial Church on the first Sunday in June, and all children rode their day as princes and princesses, our faces eluding the excitement that kept us awake and fingering our gowns while dreaming and anticipating our very own Sunday. 

On our day, we were dressed in new flowing and sparkling white garments that was bought by our parents or gifted by a rich church member. We, on the said day would have the world eating out of our palms as we sang, danced, staged our tacky dramas and preached in clever stutters, to the ho and ha of our parents. It was our day of joy and we were glad in it so that we ruled the day with all of our little strength and gleeful delight. And there was plenty to eat and drink for the children, after all, it was our day.

Following this, Celestial Churches across the world held the Ikore Agba but not on a universal day. In a kind of agreement, the Churches picked different Sundays from few weeks after mid-year that allowed them to feature in one and others’ harvest anniversary with mutual benefits. It was a typical African thing- I have an event and sell you clothes that we all wear in a kind of uniformed anko, you come for the event and you got gifts because you were wearing the general uniform. The next time I have an event, perhaps a wedding of my cousin’s father’s daughter’s sister-in-law’s best friend, which was also now my business, you must buy my clothes and you must show up. 

That was another unwritten code. That is, the code of scratch my back, I scratch yours, so that every other week there was an Ikore and every church’s representative was there with their shepherd, elder, choir, and other willing members. There was singing, dancing, feasting, selling and buying of basa: fruits, soaps, power perfumes, and a couple of enchanted items which were believed to invoke the supernatural and were auctioned at ridiculous prices to the highest bidder. Ikore Agba would have us merry go rounding the town in pursuit of holy pleasures, although the adults were responsible for the children whose belly were mostly ignored.

That day was my Church’s Ikore Agba day. Mother was up and on, business as usual, smiling with all and sundry, and I was behind her, tagging along, begging mother for a bottle of Coke. Most have been less than five naira. 

“I want tu drink coki’’. Little me, I asked in my best beggary voice, the tears croaking through the words, willing that mother would listen. 

I tugged harder. I have heard the word ‘no’ many times, but this one hurt me so much badder. I thought that every adult I knew was drinking Coke, bought or given, and even some children already got lucky. Why won’t I just get me a bottle too and I would be ok, I pondered as I continued to attack the helm of Mother’s sutana, hoping against hope for a yes.

 “I want tu drink Coki naa”, I cooed, at that moment my thirst for the sweet chilled bottle of Coke was crawling up my throat and biting it into smaller pieces till my throat started to catch and felt like I was dying slowly and mother was not at my rescue. There was tears in my voice and being ignored was beginning to hurt and I felt that what was so bad to wish to drink coke on a happy day so that you get to be ignored and have your request denied. And as mother broke my heart with her final no, and unclutched herself from my persistent grasp and mingled with the merry crowd, I gave in to my pain and allow the bubbling tears to flood their torrents, while I began to claw through the faces and still bawling at my peak, louder and louder till I gained someone’s attention as my tear-stained vision saw mother blur away.

Then he was by my side, a man, much older than my father. He looked like an elder and even more spiritual than my father. He wore his white round full necked sutana with a white full cape with laced trimmings round it, a yellow sash resting smugly on his waist. The yellow sash meant he was an onibode. An usher. He walked towards me and called out to me, 

 “Maria, why are you crying?”

I looked up with childish trust and tried to muffle the tears and the hiccups totting out of my throat. Then sniffed my response and swallowed the tears. With quivering lips, I told him, 

“Is mummy that dinnor buy coke for me.”

“Ha, is that why you are crying, fine girl?” he asked entirely in Yoruba and I sniffed some more and nodded my head vigorously.

He pulled me into his robe, my head barely reaching his waistline, his perfume strong and familiar as he patted my head. “I will buy you Coke if you stop crying,” he said.

I dried my eyes in a blink. My right hand found a handful from the lower part of my robe and I pulled it into my face and mopped with intent, happy to find that I would finally get to drink Coke. 

“Follow me,” he says. And I followed; like lamb, naïve; to the slaughter.

We walked the path. He in front, I behind him. He wise, I foolish and unschooled. Following and simple, I walked with him. We went through the crowds and underneath the canopies, and through the narrow lane that goes to a string of endless weed and thorns and bush in the thicket. During the dry season, the church would clear the bush from time to time, and the wet seasons would have the earth thirsty and anxiously soaking up every drop that hit mother earth. We must have walked for about ten minutes but I didn’t seem to care. Just a few miles insight, a small patch of weed had been cleared, and the bundle of dried grass was neatly heaped together in pile.

In a few seconds, we were there and I knew I couldn’t hear the music from our Church anymore. He had found the pile and he looked at it and said,

“Come. We are there.’’

“Where is there?” I thought but said nothing. It didn’t feel strange maybe because I didn’t know what strange should feel like. I simply wanted Coke and he had my money for coke on him so strange was a fair price to pay for a bottle of Coke, wasn’t it? I asked no one in particular. 

He points at the bundle and holds my hand, and not once did his touch eludes force or made me cringe. The hand that held me was that of an elder, older than my father and very familiar. He guided me to the bundle and asked me to sleep on the pile.

“Take off your pants,” he said. I did. 

“Close your eyes,” he instructs, and I did. 

Then he was on top of me. Perhaps he held himself on his two hands or he was simply on his knees so that he didn’t feel heavy and I didn’t feel uncomfortable, but he didn’t feel heavy so I didn’t feel uncomfortable. Perhaps I would have cried when he started to thrust but I didn’t feel his bigness or his largeness was merely ticklish and not brutish and I didn’t whimper because my Coke was still his decision. He simply rubbed and I laid still and closed my eyes, obedient to the last tide that flooded from him when he gasped and said ‘haaaaa’ like there was a butterfly caught in his throat and he was letting it out, but I still closed my eyes and didn’t open it because he said I was not to open them.

Then he stopped and I didn’t know what he was doing and I didn’t open my eyes because he had not told me that I was free to open them. So, maybe he was just pulling up his shorts and letting down his garments and tying his sash over his waist and rubbing his palms together. But he soon held my hands and helped me up and I knew it was over and I was sure I would get my feverishly smoking bottled of chilled Coke and it will taste so good when it washed down my throat. 

Standing up and standing by his side, we started to walk back through the path we trod before. Through the lone thicket, through the narrow walkway and as we approached the music, he tugged at me and said, “Wait.”

I stood and looked at him.

“Don’t tell anybody what happened o,” he says, his hands pulling at his ears in a warning.

I nod my head and wondered what happened. I just want my Coke and I would be a good girl and that was what I wanted. 

He dipped his hands into one of the pockets attached to his gown and pulled out a wad of five and ten naira notes.  He handed me some and repeated his instructions while I listened. Grinning sheepishly, I nodded my head again and hurried along with him.

Out of the weeds, the party was still on, and no one had missed me. I scanned the area till my eyes fell on the giant drum for drinks which I felt lucky to now be a partaker of. I ran toward it and gave the woman my money for Coke. Instead of five naira, I had 20 naira and I made up my mind to drink everything by myself, then thought maybe I would give Isaiah one if he had not had one already. And I got my drinks and maybe I even shared some with my friends but I don’t remember too much again.

But the elder was not the end of it. He was only the beginning and there were more after him. More familiar evil that did not live on the streets.

 

A BROTHER'S SECRET

Sometimes I blame Mother, sometimes I blame Father, and a few times I blame them both.

My father, to fend for his family rode the okada. When he saved quite enough money he sent for his younger brother from the village. Then, Lagos was the city you go to if you had the ambition to be successful and great and far above you enemies and far away from them as well. Your other option was to travel abroad which required that you were a student and that you could pay your school fees. My father was not a successful student so he choose Lagos. 

Married and finally settling down in a home of his own, my father sent for his brother - who came and lived with him for a few months then saved enough money to rent his own house. Father bought another okada and his younger brother rode it with father and made his own proud money. Then Father’s brother asked his friend to come live with him because he was now living in a big room and parlour all alone and his poor friend had no home. My uncle was Brother Tessy, a short form for the name Tessilimi and his friend was Uncle Biodun. 

At home, I was growing fast and growing with my big brother would was now my official twin and I, his forward shadow. We knew every home in the twin building and we went in and out without much ado. Everybody was everybody’s friend so everybody’s home was home.  My Uncle took us to and fro from school and his home was our hood too. Uncle Biodun was nice.

Mother was still always busy and Daddy had his daddy routine that took him from home very early in the morning and brought him home late at night. We had our TV now and the stations hosted their shows in black and white. The colours on the TV had stripes of straight rows of rainbow colour still 6 pm in the evening when we hear the national anthem and the TV would run till 12 am at night. Some times NEPA fails us and the power goes out, so we all found our ways and we go out to play.

Sometimes, mother is in the kitchen preparing dinner and she doesn’t want to be disturbed. And because when you disturb mother, a slippers may fall on you, and her omorogun for stirring hot eba may strike you dumb in your face. You may get the cover of the round steel pot thrown at your head, face, neck, chest, stomach, arms, hands, knees or legs. The fact is, it could land anywhere. You may get a slap that shocks your back and sends a mad song into your brain which would cause you to dance with your mouth wide open, and sometimes dribble with saliva. Mother’s kitchen was a war zone so except she was calling you for help, my brother and I avoided it in all totality. In her kitchen, there were no stray fishes that fell on our palms and went to our mouth so why must we suffer? We were only children and we went to play.

Sometimes I was tired of the boring stories and tales of animalistic escapades that I had heard a thousand times before and again. And I would undo myself from the children’s play looking for rich adult conversations of, “I want to buy biscuit because there is a rumbling in my stomach.” Sometimes, I would be playing in Uncle Tessy’s parlour while he was away ridding our okada and his friend was busy reading books in the bedroom, and I would forward my biscuit requests to him. “I want to eat biscuit,’’ and he was so kind so he gave me. I would eat it all up and forget my brother. I can’t remember how many times we did this but I remember when he changed and gave me something to do to get his money to buy my goodies. 

Like that man from my church who was now in a suppressed space in the background of my memories and whose secret would burn in me for thousands of days, he wanted me to climb the bed and close my eyes and he would give me money for my goodies as I had requested. 

The first day it happened I had asked for Gogo. Gogo was a collection of small pebbles of colour coated chocolates that came in a pack. The pack was then 10 naira. I wanted them badly and I asked him nicely, after all, adults are nice people who gave and bought children gifts. He proposed that if I lay down on his bed and closed my eyes he would give me the money to buy two Gogos. I wanted them badly and thought why not close your eyes and then get money for Gogo that would melt in your mouth like liquid delight. That seemed like such a simple thing to do to get money for a pack of fine Gogo. So I said yes and went to lie on the big soft bed and close my eyes. And he climbed over me, and gently pulled my pant and gently thumped on me and stopped when the butterfly came. I could sense it from memory because he must have quivered and said ‘haaaa’ too. The quiver and the pause were what meant that it was done and over. 

Next, it started to happen so many times that I got so bold and stopped closing my eyes and I looked at the ceiling fan and tried to catch the number of spins that rolled when the fan is set on number one and how many it would be when it was on number two. Then I became bolder and allowed my eyes roam over the simple details of the bedroom, and stray back to continue with watching the ceiling fan spinning and spinning. And as the days went by, he didn’t bother to say “close your eyes,”, so that one day I saw the thing that came out of his “wewe’’ when he stood up to scoop it with a tissue or maybe a handkerchief and I thought this is something big to talk about with my brother and best friend, but was bothered about having to tell someone who was not with us about our secrets which he had instructed me not to tell.

Soon I started to think it was all together smart to have money of my own but I was unkind to not let my brother into our secrets, or my secrets. You see, I knew I was a child of God and there was heaven and there was hell, and I knew that good people would go to heaven and bad people would live in hell forever. And the fact that I was hiding something so good from my brother was beginning to bother me and I was itching to tell him. So the next time he begged me for a handful of Gogo I gave him first and second advised him to go and ask Uncle Biodun for money and he was sure to get his own Gogo too.

“Uncle Biodun?” He asked me. “He will give me money to buy this? Oya say truth to God,” he injects, and I said, “true to God.”

At that moment, I looked at him now and very excitedly told him how. 

“See he will tell you to climb on his bed and close your eyes and he would climb on you and small-time he will now gife you money tu buy anything you want.” I rushed through the words even though his eyes were clouding.  

“See, I still have twenty naira,” I showed him the money in my small pockets.

But the first wave of surprise and confusion hit me when my brother opened his mouth and did not shut it for a long time and did not eat the biscuit and was looking at me like I was mad and walking away. He said nothing worthwhile to me and went to sleep and I said nothing and ate my biscuits.

In the afternoon after play, there was a lot of whispers among all the children in our small compound and I looked at my brother and knew that he had told them what I told him. But it was exciting to see them angry and mumbling and picking up sticks and staging a fight. I think they knew what I didn’t know and they were appalled in the wrongness of my predicament and they wanted to make it right. But it felt good to be the centre of so much attention so I didn’t take any offence that he told them what I wanted him not to tell.

Above the rattle, a fine young brother lived upstairs. He was the big school material and our noise and rattling was disturbing him from his studying, so he yelled at us till he got our attention and a boy yell something back at him. He didn’t believe his ears so he called back and asked the boy to repeat himself. The whole bunch of us went silent. 

“What did you say,” he called again. We could all see the shock in his eyes and our hearts were now thundering and someone was pushing someone and asking, “Why did you tell him?” 

Then, another voice points at the boy and says, “He said Uncle Biodun is fucking Maria.’’

Above us and in his balcony, I could see him shaking his head. Then he flew into his slippers and rushed down the steps. Then he was with us. At this point, every child in the compound knew we were all in deep trouble. “What if he flogged us all and got our parents to flog us more? What if we don’t get any dinner that night?” 

We must have thought ourselves into a fever because we were silent till he came down. He comes and looks me in the eyes and although I didn’t speak, I knew that he knew that what we uttered was the truth. He pulled me towards me and my brother followed him. When we were several feet away from the other children, he asked me to explain, and I told him in simple terms the exchange between me and Uncle Biodun and told him the truth about how long it was going on and that I couldn’t count the number of times he climbed over me after I closed my eyes. He just stood there dumbfounded and looking at me the same way my brother looked at me yesterday night when he first heard. At that point, I started to know that Uncle Biodun had done a very bad thing to me if it makes every child angry and made this nice man become so dumbfounded. 

My eyes were leaking silent tears and my brother was drying them and Uncle Big Book was looking at me and gulping in short air with his open mouth. After a while, he regains a bit of his composure and tells me to stop crying and tells my brother to tell the other boys to leave it to him and that he would handle it. 

He followed my brother and hushed the boys and encouraged us to disperse and simply let him handle the situation. We went our ways but we continued to whisper in our hearts and we looked at each other and knew our thoughts even though we weren’t saying anything. The days that followed where days when we walked on eggshells, waiting for our parents to call us and ask us about Uncle Biodun, but nobody called. We only knew that Uncle had gone to Uncle Biodun and they had spoken in my Uncle’s home, although what they spoke about and how they said it was unknown to us. 

Days later, when we didn’t hear anything about if Uncle Biodun had been being punished, I was sent in as bait to investigate him about a particular clause that was of emergency concern, according to the word on the street. My brother had overheard from the older boys that babies were made during fucking and they were scared that I may be pregnant. They, therefore, sent me to ask him what he would do if I was pregnant.

That night, he looked at me strangely and asked me why I asked such a question. I was in the parlour and he was in the bedroom and we were talking like we knew it was a relationship, maybe it was an illicit one but we both knew that we had something and he owed me my answers. So he told me that I could never get pregnant because a person only gets pregnant when the man breaks a seal that was at the entrance of the woman’s “wewe place” and that he did not break my seal so I would not be pregnant by him. Although I was too young to know that a girl would have to grow into a teenager and would have to grow budding breast that would strain out of her clothes and poke peaks at men and that she would have to be bleeding between her legs every month and a man would have to be with her in the way he had been with me, in addition to breaking her seal before she can be pregnant, I accepted his answers and said ok. I got up and took myself out of the room and never went back to him.

Till I left Victor Fagbemi, I would never encounter Uncle Biodun alone. I had learnt slowly that he had done something terribly wrong to me and although I didn’t hate him then, I would hate him years later when I grew in full knowledge of the affairs of men on earth and the gravity of what he had stolen from me.

Uncle Biodun moved out of my Uncle’s home and his memories fought hard to be suppressed into the background of my head but I knew too much already. These memories stayed and grew with me to make me a different kind of girl. A bruised petal. A stole flower. A child; soiled and spoilt.