MY ODYSSEY 2 (FATHER).
I did not love my father like so many other kids did theirs during my earliest years, on the contrary, I detested him. I saw him as a tyrant, a killjoy who manufactured chores in the fat brown leather bag he carried to and from work; a hard taskmaster whose mere mention of my name signaled a ready task or an unsatisfactory chore which I had done and would have to redo.
He was a strict disciplinarian who I had thought atimes enjoyed wielding the stick a little too much, so much so that he buys the canes in their dozens and often soaks them to ensure their freshness and he used that many times to enforce the law in our home and there was a lot of need for enforcement.
I had grown up in a neighbourhood where kids had little prospects and parents held themselves to no accounts whatsoever. Our immediate neighbours had nine children and packed them in a one bedroom apartment. The most successful people we knew growing up where touts and porters and the culture of low-expectation was imparted from the earliest of years with some kids openly stating that rather than the conventional professions like Doctor, Lawyer, Journalist they would rather be a porter or a tout. The most successful persons in the area were the deviants who lived at the edge of the law, identifiable by their non-conforming jerry-coil hairstyles and big motorcycles. One of them was called Ajey whose brother, Oleyi was once my best friend until my father nearly killed me one night for staying out late hanging out with him.
That night, My father left an indelible mark on me both literally and figuratively. My life and the small of my back would testify. My life is a testimony of his decisions and my back testified as much with scars which are noticeable if I were to pull off my shirts. I love those scars as much as I love my life. They tell stories of a shared bravery, that of my father and mine. His bravery to lift the rod to spare me and my bravery to stand my ground and take it and to draw from it a very pertinent lesson that there would be consequences to every decision and the consequences may please me or hurt me.
The most lasting image I have of my father is that of him wearing a frown while clutching the end of a refrigerator wire, waiting for me in front of the gate, his forehead furrowed with worries, praying that I come home and flexing the refrigerator cords menacingly. He had flogged me that night, more than I have ever been flogged in my entire life. I received perhaps more than a hundred strokes that night, my very breath spared by the intervention of my mother who he threatened to send home to her father if she intervened. She observed my lashing for a while and then decided that she might as well go home to her father in the village if it would only take that to save her son.
When she intervened, coming between me and my irascible father, daring him to beat both of us together, my father relented and started hitting the door instead. I survived the night but the wooden door did not.
I was only eight then and that night, I hated my father. I hated her even more when he called me the next night and tried to rationalize why he nearly beat me to death.
“Tochukwu…” He called me with his unmistakable deep voice that often crackled like the start of a thunder.
“Saa” I answered, I loathed him then but I feared him more and would never despise him.
“Do you know why I named you after me?” He asked lowering beside me on the mattress that was dropped on the bare floor, the mattress where I slept with my elder brother Emenike who had not even come home then. The time that evening was 6pm and I was already home; the night I was trashed, I had returned around 10:30pm because I was insistent on watching Jet Li’s Black Mask in a local cinema where delinquent grown ups gather to see movies for N50. I had gone with Oleyi, the delinquent-in-chief who my father had warned me severally against seeing.
“No Saa.” I answered even though I knew. He had told me several times usually after a beatdown that he had named me after him because he loves me the most. He had told me that the love was due to the fact that I was born immediately after the death of his father who was also named Tochukwu and my delivery was seamless and without labour.
“Your mother delivered you in my car just as I was about to drive out of the compound” He said.
“Ok Saa” I responded curtly, wary of being too comfortable with him. I was still smarting from the pains of the beating I had received and my back and buttocks were still sore.
“You may think I hate you but I don’t.” He had said, patting my back. I winced and flinched in reaction.
“Does it still hurt?”
“No Saa” I lied and put up a brave face. He had always told me that as a man, I must learn to take unprecedented pains and declare to everyone that cares to listen and even to the intransigent walls that I was fine.
“I flogged you as much as I love you. You know anything could have happened to you that night?”
“Yes Sir.”
My mother walked in then and asked how I was doing. My father answered in my stead and said that I was fine. I wanted to tell my mother that I was not fine, that indeed I was scared of the heartless impostor that claims to be my father but I had not gotten the time. He had beaten me to it.
“Nne Oluchukwu…You will serve this lion of mine three pieces of meat from my plate.”
“Agu nwa!” My mother hailed me.
“You have proved yourself a lion for surviving the pain.”
I did not want to talk to him and would wish him away if wishes were horses but since he sat there, I responded with a forced cheer.
“Thank you Saa”
Then he fished out a book from nowhere and presented to me. I do not particularly love reading then but I was happy. The book was new and shiny and came in a vivacious green colour. It had the picture of a young boy riding a bull.
“Tales out of School.” He told me turning the book towards the pale yellow kerosene lamp that illumined the room. “It is yours” He added.
That was My Father’s way of saying sorry and expressing regrets about actions which he had been remorseful about. I was not usually excited by books then, choosing movies over literary attempts, preferring to derive pleasure from Jackie Chan’s “Drunken Master” than Chinua Achebe’s “Chike and The River” but then I was excited by the fact that the book had been a gift and that it was mine. It was an opportunity to own something in a family where everyone wore clothes and shoes so long as they fit and myself and my three brothers shared the same room and mattress. Owning a book was something I was sure that my brothers would not be particularly interested in and would represent my first exclusivity in possession. It was my first ‘mine’ and was delivered unwittingly by my father.
For days, I did not open a single page nor read a single line. Beyond admiring the picture of the boy who was atop a bull and the implicit bravery, I did not do much else. However, days later, my boredom caught up with me and I opened a page of Nkem Nwankwo’s story and was instantly trapped inside the world of Bayo and his school adventures. Having taken days to even open a page of the book, I took three days to finish it. I read it at home in the early evenings while I was too scared to go out and risk the sharp end of My Father’s wire, I read it on my way to school, threading the path to school slowly, stumbling and clattering into people and objects, risking the busy road with its impatient motorcyclists and commuters, with my knapsack on my back and the open pages of Tales Out of School in my right hand.
Afterwards, My Dad realizing that I had finished the story bought “More Tales Out of School” and then made me promise to summarize each one before he bought the next. Six weeks after that momentous trashing, I have had six additional books, Adventures of Souza, Return of Shettima, Eze Goes to School, Tales By Moonlight, Enid Blyton’s Rilloby Fair Mystery and The Strange Case of William Whipper Snapper.
Without realizing it then I had developed a love for reading that trumped my fear for my father. But the love was a tough one because I was expected to summarize the novels before he bought another one. In those instances when he bought more than I could finish, I learnt to lie to him by creating my own stories as summaries because I was quite certain that he was never going to read those books he bought for me. Between his business, his engagements in our local church and raising five children, he had no spare time.
So in a way, he inspired my affinity for literature.
As I grew up, trepidation turned to admiration for my father. I understood that he did what he had to do and that his sense of responsibility was unparalleled. The height of his accountability was when he told me after I had just finished Secondary School and had made outstanding results in both WAEC and JAMB, that his greatest fear was failing us.
“I do not want to come home if there was no dinner…I tell myself that everyday.” He told me then, I was nineteen and he had stopped teaching me with the cane then. We sat side by side in his shop, on a long bench and stared across to the road while I sipped fanta and listened with a newfound reverence to a god that lived only for us.
“I do not want to come home if I don’t pay school fees. It is my duty to not only discipline but also to provide’’ He had stood up after then and rushed towards one of the passersby, a girl of about twenty-three who had speculatively looked into my father’s shop.
“I have good original Philips iron Dear.” He coaxed, holding the girl by the hand. The girl snapped her hand away and sighed to his face. He turned and started back fanning himself with his rubber fan. I would have slapped the girl if her cheeks were any closer to me as it had been to my father.
“Too…You see how slow business is?” He sat beside me “So when you ask for me, you have to also ask where I got it from.”
He popped open the top buttons of his sky-blue shirt and fanned furiously. That was when I observed that he had bought me a cold bottle of fanta but took none for himself.
I came full circle when I graduated, my education fully-funded by him with the assistance of my indefatigable mother. He asked for nothing; not even when I got a job and bought him a shirt and a tie.
“Nnaa…I gbanigo.”
“Daddy…this is just the beginning.” I borrowed a phrase from Nollywood, usually written at the end of a movie to warn the viewer to brace up for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,6, 7 and then seasons 1-39.
“To God be The Glory.” My Father said, unwittingly drawing from the same Nollywood theme, with that being a phrase that assured the viewer that he had indeed survived thirty-six hours of uninspiring and lethargic production.
“I am glad that I had fulfilled the oath I swore to you when you were born.” He said taking a swig of a bottle of his Guiness stout. I stocked the refrigerator with his favorite drinks and was also taking a bottle Heineken. Six years ago, he would have brandished a refrigerator wire and torn my back with it for drinking alcohol but then he allowed me to share a bottle with him and tell stories about vows he had taken.
“Which oath did you take?”
“My Father, your grandfather did not appreciate the value of education and did not train any of us in school. I stopped schooling at standard two.”
“Saa” I answered, I loathed him then but I feared him more and would never despise him.
“Do you know why I named you after me?” He asked lowering beside me on the mattress that was dropped on the bare floor, the mattress where I slept with my elder brother Emenike who had not even come home then. The time that evening was 6pm and I was already home; the night I was trashed, I had returned around 10:30pm because I was insistent on watching Jet Li’s Black Mask in a local cinema where delinquent grown ups gather to see movies for N50. I had gone with Oleyi, the delinquent-in-chief who my father had warned me severally against seeing.
“No Saa.” I answered even though I knew. He had told me several times usually after a beatdown that he had named me after him because he loves me the most. He had told me that the love was due to the fact that I was born immediately after the death of his father who was also named Tochukwu and my delivery was seamless and without labour.
“Your mother delivered you in my car just as I was about to drive out of the compound” He said.
“Ok Saa” I responded curtly, wary of being too comfortable with him. I was still smarting from the pains of the beating I had received and my back and buttocks were still sore.
“You may think I hate you but I don’t.” He had said, patting my back. I winced and flinched in reaction.
“Does it still hurt?”
“No Saa” I lied and put up a brave face. He had always told me that as a man, I must learn to take unprecedented pains and declare to everyone that cares to listen and even to the intransigent walls that I was fine.
“I flogged you as much as I love you. You know anything could have happened to you that night?”
“Yes Sir.”
My mother walked in then and asked how I was doing. My father answered in my stead and said that I was fine. I wanted to tell my mother that I was not fine, that indeed I was scared of the heartless impostor that claims to be my father but I had not gotten the time. He had beaten me to it.
“Nne Oluchukwu…You will serve this lion of mine three pieces of meat from my plate.”
“Agu nwa!” My mother hailed me.
“You have proved yourself a lion for surviving the pain.”
I did not want to talk to him and would wish him away if wishes were horses but since he sat there, I responded with a forced cheer.
“Thank you Saa”
Then he fished out a book from nowhere and presented to me. I do not particularly love reading then but I was happy. The book was new and shiny and came in a vivacious green colour. It had the picture of a young boy riding a bull.
“Tales out of School.” He told me turning the book towards the pale yellow kerosene lamp that illumined the room. “It is yours” He added.
That was My Father’s way of saying sorry and expressing regrets about actions which he had been remorseful about. I was not usually excited by books then, choosing movies over literary attempts, preferring to derive pleasure from Jackie Chan’s “Drunken Master” than Chinua Achebe’s “Chike and The River” but then I was excited by the fact that the book had been a gift and that it was mine. It was an opportunity to own something in a family where everyone wore clothes and shoes so long as they fit and myself and my three brothers shared the same room and mattress. Owning a book was something I was sure that my brothers would not be particularly interested in and would represent my first exclusivity in possession. It was my first ‘mine’ and was delivered unwittingly by my father.
For days, I did not open a single page nor read a single line. Beyond admiring the picture of the boy who was atop a bull and the implicit bravery, I did not do much else. However, days later, my boredom caught up with me and I opened a page of Nkem Nwankwo’s story and was instantly trapped inside the world of Bayo and his school adventures. Having taken days to even open a page of the book, I took three days to finish it. I read it at home in the early evenings while I was too scared to go out and risk the sharp end of My Father’s wire, I read it on my way to school, threading the path to school slowly, stumbling and clattering into people and objects, risking the busy road with its impatient motorcyclists and commuters, with my knapsack on my back and the open pages of Tales Out of School in my right hand.
Afterwards, My Dad realizing that I had finished the story bought “More Tales Out of School” and then made me promise to summarize each one before he bought the next. Six weeks after that momentous trashing, I have had six additional books, Adventures of Souza, Return of Shettima, Eze Goes to School, Tales By Moonlight, Enid Blyton’s Rilloby Fair Mystery and The Strange Case of William Whipper Snapper.
Without realizing it then I had developed a love for reading that trumped my fear for my father. But the love was a tough one because I was expected to summarize the novels before he bought another one. In those instances when he bought more than I could finish, I learnt to lie to him by creating my own stories as summaries because I was quite certain that he was never going to read those books he bought for me. Between his business, his engagements in our local church and raising five children, he had no spare time.
So in a way, he inspired my affinity for literature.
As I grew up, trepidation turned to admiration for my father. I understood that he did what he had to do and that his sense of responsibility was unparalleled. The height of his accountability was when he told me after I had just finished Secondary School and had made outstanding results in both WAEC and JAMB, that his greatest fear was failing us.
“I do not want to come home if there was no dinner…I tell myself that everyday.” He told me then, I was nineteen and he had stopped teaching me with the cane then. We sat side by side in his shop, on a long bench and stared across to the road while I sipped fanta and listened with a newfound reverence to a god that lived only for us.
“I do not want to come home if I don’t pay school fees. It is my duty to not only discipline but also to provide’’ He had stood up after then and rushed towards one of the passersby, a girl of about twenty-three who had speculatively looked into my father’s shop.
“I have good original Philips iron Dear.” He coaxed, holding the girl by the hand. The girl snapped her hand away and sighed to his face. He turned and started back fanning himself with his rubber fan. I would have slapped the girl if her cheeks were any closer to me as it had been to my father.
“Too…You see how slow business is?” He sat beside me “So when you ask for me, you have to also ask where I got it from.”
He popped open the top buttons of his sky-blue shirt and fanned furiously. That was when I observed that he had bought me a cold bottle of fanta but took none for himself.
I came full circle when I graduated, my education fully-funded by him with the assistance of my indefatigable mother. He asked for nothing; not even when I got a job and bought him a shirt and a tie.
“Nnaa…I gbanigo.”
“Daddy…this is just the beginning.” I borrowed a phrase from Nollywood, usually written at the end of a movie to warn the viewer to brace up for Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,6, 7 and then seasons 1-39.
“To God be The Glory.” My Father said, unwittingly drawing from the same Nollywood theme, with that being a phrase that assured the viewer that he had indeed survived thirty-six hours of uninspiring and lethargic production.
“I am glad that I had fulfilled the oath I swore to you when you were born.” He said taking a swig of a bottle of his Guiness stout. I stocked the refrigerator with his favorite drinks and was also taking a bottle Heineken. Six years ago, he would have brandished a refrigerator wire and torn my back with it for drinking alcohol but then he allowed me to share a bottle with him and tell stories about vows he had taken.
“Which oath did you take?”
“My Father, your grandfather did not appreciate the value of education and did not train any of us in school. I stopped schooling at standard two.”
My mother had told me that story about how my father had taught himself to read and write by serving the early catholic missionaries including Blessed Fr. Cyprain Michael Iwene Tansi.
“Education is the future and the key to independence and that is the legacy I had sworn to bequeath to all my children.” He said.
I love him. I know I do now. The fear and detestations were just misrepresentations of childhood fear. I often pretended that I was happy to see him in the evenings whenever he came home from the market bearing his ever-present leather bag because I was mostly afraid that he would trash me if I don’t. Then I used to pray that he does not come home so that I could be free to hang out with ‘Achinkata’ and ‘Oleyi Isi Efi’, both of whom had since been gunned down by the police, now I am so glad that God had not answered that prayer.
As I approached my birthday, adding another year to my years, I struggle to confront his mortality even as I contemplated mine. Other things being equal, he would bow out before me and I am already crying in anticipation of that day in the future, probably 120 years from now when he would not be around to hector and inspire me and discipline and scare me.
He has set a standard of fatherhood and redefined its meaning for me. He has taught me that fatherhood is not just about siring a child but about following up and following through. He taught me that fatherhood is about standing one’s ground against one’s kids even if they hate you for it. He taught me that fatherhood is about laying down the law and keeping promises. It is about responsibility and accountability.
He taught me that Fatherhood is about choosing to spoil the rod and spare the child.
I have got big shoes to fill as I gradually steps closer to the inevitable fatherhood. I hope I become the kind of father my children would worship just as I worship my father now, as a god in his own right.
This is his birthday too.
No comments:
Post a Comment