Oluwasegun Oke

Sweating on the podium of love Written by: Oluwasegun Oke This book is a property of Smashwords and therefore must not be re-edited, copied or used in any way without the prior consent and acknowledgement of the Author. The violation of this copyright is punishable under the law. I was nowhere I had wanted previously. So life became my mirror, and I was lost in its cruel reflections. Presently immersed forcefully for barrage of unwanted tribulations, and there is no going back. I did not have many friends growing up, but Ndidi was a genius who used to be adept at making fancy toys such as cars and robots from scraps of household items. Besides, our dreams collide, and there was never any tirade directed against me to force my consciousness into the folklore’s opprobrium until lately. I however stumbled upon Ndidi after 14 years. He asserted with a dented smile,” Life is a road full of pitfalls”. Although I was expecting to hear from him how he had become a professional engineer or being awarded some scholarship. But he happened to be faced with more odds than I could have ever imagined. His father had died in a plane crash, and his uncle took possession of their only abode. His narrative was quite different and must be the handy work of some scrupulous endangered atheist who enjoy inflicting sorrow on his dreaded enemies. He had parted ways with his siblings ever since being homeless, hopping from one residence to another in an unending cycle that ends in utter repugnance of both his personality and profession. He tried to express the unfathomably huge disappointment he had had to endure. He consequently couldn’t make it as a cartoonist and had to settle for a job as a bespoke tailor. But even with his problems, he hasn’t lost his ever delighted, positive and ambitious outlook to life. But not like me, I lost my dad too after he had won his initial battle against lungs cancer. I explained to my childhood friend how I had tried to meet up with all the sudden inequalities pertaining to peer pressure and adulthood. Most especially my being single in spite of the fact that I am a workaholic. “It is the new slavery”, uttered Ndidi. “You are given just enough to stay alive, wearing second hand clothes and feeling cheated with no hope in sight. “One has to be extra smart and particularly accessible to information in order to stay abreast of job offers and freelance opportunities. You now stay with your mother, right?” concluded Ndidi. “Yes”, I responded. I have a proposal, but I have to hurry to the customer’s abode I am heading now”. We exchanged phone numbers, then he disappeared into the lower end of the street. I was ready for anything and could not stop the dissatisfaction stirring me to perpetual disrepute. Even though I was brought up in a household that usually based its routines on Biblical virtues: Giving food to the needy and forgiving those who trespass and infringe on my rights. To some extent, it kept me in the good book of God. I remember very vividly my many anecdotes of being a force around which the world revolves. I told those who cared to listen that I would become a medical doctor someday and drive a fancy car with full air-conditioning system. Of course, I was a boaster, a trait I obviously inherited from my late dad. One of his idiosyncrasies was avoiding people with old scars, because of hypocrites who preferred hiding behind his giant personality. But his death was far from the will of God, because it was clouded by a turn of events which were days of great sorrow in my childhood anecdotes. My father was a lover of dogs, especially Alsatians. But there was this particular one who got the neighborhood talking and wondering if something was hidden by co-occupants who knew about the ferocious killing of a man perpetrated in early 1993. I was about 10 years old then. We lived in a community popularly referred to as an estate. It is usually characterized by tall buildings covering some hectares of land, network of roads, parks and basketball courts. Major used to be a very lovely dog that we all cherished and showered with a lot of love. I can recall how I used to share my snacks and even leftovers with him after school hours. But as it got older it became wilder and reserved, launching assaults on people he perceived as strangers. So my father decided to confine him to the veranda with chains around his neck. Although our fellow tenants of the building were not affected because he had grown more familiar with them. On the very day of the ugly incident, I was hearing bangs on the gate of our premises. This was odd as each compartment of our building had its intercom connection. Before long, there were some scuffles around the premises, I thought some miscreants had gained entrance into the building. In fact, I was at home alone with our nanny, so I opened our front door and came out of curiosity. It was not any miscreants as I had thought, but some relatives with personal issues who were prepared to shed bloods of a family on our premises. The fracas was marked by intermittent understanding which would make me to assume it had put the raging flames of resentment to an end, but unfathomably the crisis took up unprecedented escalations. Outraged by the desecration of his presence, our dog had been barking unrelentlessly during all this fracas. Suddenly, Fatai who was the first son of Mr. Toluwalase involved in the fight was alarmed by the level of injuries his parents had suffered, so he decided to hurry into our veranda and unchained the dog. The resulting incident had spiraled out of control, so one of the angry relatives ran outside and came back with a big stick which he used on the dog for a while, but the pet anger was unprecedented, so he fled the scene. There was now a disfigured body of a convulsing man on our premises. Seeing this, I ran inside and closed the door behind. I told our nanny who was cooking in the kitchen what had happened, she went to confirm it and called my father about the corpse in a pool of blood. Consequently, my father dashed out of his office and made his way back home. I drew the curtain when I heard the sound of his car entering the compound. He had a distraught look on his face, and later reached into his pocket for his cellphone. For about three hours after the incident, our concerned cotenants locked themselves in their cosy flat in shock and disbelieve. It took my father’s heavy knocks on their front door and assertion of his voice to awaken them for the travails of the following stormy years. Nigeria, being an Africa state where there can never be a sane reason to indulge in or be found to be in connection with any killing. My father conversed extensively with them into the cold evening. The air around our abode was filled with apprehension, and I had not eaten my already cold lunch on the center sitting room table. In addition, a dismayed couple who were also co-tenants fled from their flat out of panic. The police later came in with three patrol vehicles and took every married couple in the building away. Before this time, something disturbing happened. My father took a good look at his about to be estranged dog and shouted at him with his hands open wide intermittently to scare him away while hitting him with the big stick left behind, prompting the dog to fled reluctantly into oblivion. He feared that his precious dog would be killed on the ground that he was the mastermind behind the gruesome manslaughter. The plan was to lay all claims of the incident on the unknown mental health of our poor dog (Major). I couldn’t get much sleep all night long even with my younger sister and our nanny in the bedroom. My parents and their co-tenants all spent two weeks in the custody of the Nigerian Police. The situation first defied the intervention of some prominent figures before it took the last resort of one of my father’s contacts, in the name of a General in the Nigerian Army to put an end to the unlawful arrests and restore sanity. Although the dog came back after spending two days wandering in the streets; he was whimpering, so our nanny took pity on him. My father had played a part and saved the lives of his fellow tenants. But life took a downhill turn from there onwards. First, an old woman sat beside our gate for two months chanting my father’s name and creating a scene. It consistently aroused the attention of busybodies who traced it to injustice and unfair treatment. There was a day I went to a nearby stall I usually buy snacks from, then I overheard some men pointing at me that plans are on the way to re-arrest my father. Alarmed by this, I told my father when I got home, although he dismissed it by saying it’s a lie and that I should not go there to buy things any longer, recommending that our nanny be doing that thenceforth. Many routines of our formerly peaceful family, such as attending a nearby church, playing of loud music on our stereo and watching local movies were forcefully striped from our memories. It was virtually as if we had outgrown the same flat we had been staying since about nine years previously. Seven months after the ugly event, our fellow flat-mates who orchestrated the death of their relative informed my father of their resolve to relocate to another suburb far away from their current abode. My mother later urged my father to do likewise so as to avert any reprisal or the incessant doom looming around our vicinity. Four months later, we moved out and settled at Papa Ajao; a low cost suburb 18 miles away from our present residence. It followed through with freedom and peace of mind. At last, we could keep our heads up on the streets and embrace the grace from God himself. Life was looking up once again and we were looking forward to everyday. The only difference now is that, we would be sharing the same toilet and bathroom with some fellow tenants. It was odd to me at first, then my mother consequently advised that I should always wake up early in the morning in order to have my bath in the bathroom; since ignoring this would make me arrive late to school, which usually attract punishment. Secondly, unlike our former abode where most residents have cable televisions, the only entertainment for people in our new neighborhood is gossip. Of course, my mother was quickly updated with current affairs concerning happenings both on our street and the rest. But things took another turn when they realized that she was snobbish and preferred cutting them off instead, so they turned against her, and started calling her by the name, “First Lady”. That was not all, the toilet we were now sharing with our present co-tenants was in disrepair when we moved in. A bucket of water had to be poured inside, so as to flush down faeces after each defecation by tenants. There was also no water system, so altercations do happen from time to time. This is because most tenants are cursed with the bad habit of waiting for another to procure water and flush down faeces on their behalf. My father confronted our new landlord why he decided to cut off water supply from his tenants, but he was adamant that he would not restore it. This dismayed my father and he promised never to extend his stay in an abode where life is not comfortable. It took my mother’s interference to separate them and laid the matter to rest. Now there is another development of urgent concern, whenever the family of our landlord flush down their toilet upstairs, it would be leaking down the wall of the building, sending unbearable odour into our three rooms downstairs. My father reported this new development to him once more, he promised to fix it. But two weeks later, he had done nothing about it. Our health became infested with germs so it triggered my later episodes of severe coughs and spitting of sputum every time. It later prevented me from sleeping throughout the night and took up most of my afternoon hours as well. Hence I spent two weeks in hospital because my class teacher could not stand my consistently loud coughs and insisted I get absolute medical care so as to prevent it from deteriorating into tuberculosis. Two days after I was discharged and got back home from the hospital, my father suddenly suffered a serious heart attack at about 2:20 am. We rushed him to the hospital with foams oozing from his mouth, where the doctor confirmed that he had died in transit. For some reason, I was lost when our rooms became crowded with sympathizers. Perhaps I wanted to carry on with the life I was used to, but in reality, nothing will ever be the same. We left our present rented three rooms to a one room apartment two months after overstaying the payment duration of my late father. We also sold his car and used it to purchase some home items and opened up a shop close by. In addition my mother began selling frozen foods so as to meet up with our school fees. At twelve years old I started hawking groundnuts and oranges to support her and douse the tension of financial insecurity. We were not moving forward even though we gave it all our time, effort and attention. Before long, all our frozen foods and the likes escaped into the thin air with meagre income, so we came up with another plan: opening a canteen. At this point I was already 23 years old. It paid off eventually with hundreds of thousands of Naira saved up for the raining days even though the sun was still brightly overheard. I had dropped out of school and also sadly my younger sister had been impregnated by one of our customers. I could not stand staying under the same one room apartment with my mother, so I ventured into some activities which I later regretted after it all ended up badly for me. This include recording two songs at a music studio, driving a commercial motorcycle, selling mosquitoes’ coils and working as an unfancied estate agent. Having stumbled across my childhood friend Ndidi and exchanging our mobile phone numbers. I felt it in his voice that he had something brewing up. My name is Yemisi, I consider myself a rebell who believes in a decent income and the mutual understanding of those he loves. Furthermore, my youthful years have pushed me overboard that the only thing on my mind is how to get quick money and help my financially stricken mother. I am tired of being used like a little man. Nonetheless, I may sound like a disenfranchised resident, this is because a girl is involved, and her name is Palumar. Although she is trapped in a social cycle that I need to break; so please, don’t proclaim her wayward or a prostitute. It is somewhat a mystical world out here, everything is complicated and hopelessness is the only real thing for most of us. Before long, my bosom childhood friend had introduced me to a good business, and we had talked extensively about the risk and weighed the profit per capital invested; everything seemed so bright apparently, but you never know. For instance, I practically assumed that I was going to become a famous musician and later tried my hands on other ventures which made me to incur huge debts that my poor mother had to settle. She is obviously a good mother who wants her son to be patient. As for that, it is a shame that she is yet to realize that her beloved son is madly in love and ambitious. Above all, Palumar is slipping away from me gradually, and I can’t stand the ever escalating grief in her big brown eyes. In addition, there is another twist to this jungle-love prevention, but everything revolves around how much I can stake on my difficult future. It has been made clear that liquid soap is the new cash cow as I was told by Ndidi, and all I need to do is get fifty thousand Naira for us to procure the chemicals and other items in order to go into full commercial production. For some reason, I was oblivious of the amount as stake, my intension was to steal the money from my mother’s coffer. The day I carried out this desecration was just another stroll in the park for me. I had been a secret admirer of hers for years, now fate is bringing us closer. Without wasting time in the morning, I placed fifty five thousand Naira in the palms of Ndidi, he was surprised at first, teasing me that I was crazy and that the money was more than he had requested. I replied he get serious and start putting things in place for our soap factory to come to life. It took just the following day for my mother to find out about her stolen money. She confronted me about it and I denied, citing she was intimidating me because I did not have a place of my own. She bluffed my conviction and insisted I return her money or else she would throw me out on the street and forget she ever had a useless child like me. Consequently, it spawned a long feud that made our living together worst while it lasted, and of course the only source of comfort for me is the lucid dream of raising a family with Palumar. Ndidi was not joking around when he said it was a lucrative business. We commenced production after installing some equipment two weeks later. And for the first time in my life I felt I was doing something worthy of my time, effort and money. I was not even doing much, Ndidi was behind the workmanship at every stage which he enjoys because of his inbuilt nature. But I made sure I was carried along even during deliveries of our new liquid soap supplies. My mother called me a couple of times since she had noticed I was now barely home due to some reasons she had been alienated from. Business was booming and we resolved to continue sharing the profit equally whenever proceeds from supplies are pooled for each week. In two months I had already made eighteen thousand Naira, so I gathered the courage to approach Palumar and expressed my sincere wishes of spending the rest of my life with her. It was a bright Saturday morning, I went to her abode and spotted her going to take a shower in the compound which is just two blocks away from ours. Her mother noticed my staring at her daughter from their window nearby. She came out and called my attention, but I was tensed and reserved. However, I told her I was just walking by, and that I was on my way back home. She claimed to have seen me admiring her beautiful daughter earlier, so I concurred, smiling. She insisted the only way to her daughter’s heart is through her, that she can talk to her on my behalf but everything depends on how serious I am. I quickly replied that I was dead serious and ready for whatever it takes. Something came over me, so reached into my pocket and brought out seven thousand Naira to give her. Fulfilled that she would do the needful and make my life long desire to see the light of day. Since she convinced me to come back the following day, I thought about my foreseeable union with Palumar and felt an urgent responsibility of being her companion forever. The following morning, I was neatly dressed, now sitting in their rented one room apartment. Palumar seemed to look at me as if I was in the wrong place, but she carried on since I was conversing with her mother. Even though I was trying to give her all the attention a desperate admirer cherishes. She later walked out of the room having put on her dress, so I lost my patience and asked why her mother had not introduced us yet. She replied that that was the easiest task but first she needs to know what I do for a living, so as to be assured that her daughter would not suffer in my care. As a sincere secret lover that I am, I explained to her how I ran into my childhood friend and our healthy business together. “Ah..ah…”, she remarked. I replied by asking what was wrong. Then she insisted my childhood friend was playing me for a fool, and that I have to get rid of him as soon as possible. She hanged all her reason on the fact that I will need to rent a flat to the taste of her daughter and buy a fancy car for a start, so as to be an achiever and conquer her heart. If not she added, I am only building my castle in the cloud. I became lost and sweating profusely. I could not ask her for the three thousand Naira she had collected upon laying her eyes on me earlier. I got home distressed and held my peace thereafter to maintain sanity. So I looked back on it to know what my future holds. Ndidi is not my enemy, in fact his only crime was asking me for fifty thousand Naira. This money I was even planning of returning to my poor mother sometime yet to come. There must be something amiss, I was convinced. After all, what I wanted to do at first was to approach Palumar myself, which I haven’t. So I resolved I would rather hear it from the horse’s mouth than become a monster and lose my way. The following morning once more, I was waiting somewhere not too close to her abode. Immediately I spotted her I leaped forward like a giraffe and kept calling her name in a low tone of voice. She seemed disturbed as this had never happened in the nearly thirteen years I had known her. I simply told her that there was this new fast food restaurant in town that I want us to visit and have some private conversation. “Okay, let me take my bath first”, she said with that Goddess smile that I adore about her so much. Thenceforth some strange voices started speaking aloud in my heard. It was odd, so I looked around in disbelieve. I had never had any episode of such a psychiatric disorder before. “I am hearing voices?”, I shockingly affirmed. However, I carried on because I was already overwhelmed by the unprecedented joy of our first interaction. Now seated at a table in the restaurant I had recommended. “I don’t see you around lately as I used to”, she uttered. “Yes, I just got a high profile job at an oil company”, I replied. This I concocted because I wanted to make her realize that she need not look elsewhere for any financial favour thenceforth. Then her mother’s voice re-echoed like a loud speaker in my head. “Rent a flat…buy a car!!!’. “What!”, I exclaimed. “Are you okay?”, Palumar asked. I smiled and nodded nervously. “It’s the sauce, ehmm… I’ll be back in a minute”. I stood up and left for the toilet. While there, I washed my face and looked in the mirror. “It’s okay, you are just nervous. Just be calm, you will be okay”, I assured myself. Afterwards we both had a very good time discussing about symptoms of good and bad relationships. The outlook of wealthy families and their ambitions in life. I then asked her if she would consider a poor man for a husband, she answered, “No sane woman wants that”. It reawaken my mental faculty, suddenly all the nervousness and panic faded away. “My woman wants nothing to do with a poor man”, I said to myself. So I informed her that we will be taking some time off together later for nice cloths I wanted to buy for her once we are through with our meals and refreshments. It doesn’t matter that I lied about now working at an oil company, the most important thing is that I am now courting and relating with the most beautiful woman on earth. Our adventures continued even during the busiest hours of the week. I made sure I spent everything I had been saving from the profits of my share from the liquid soap business. Meanwhile the bad news was that the loud voices leaking from my head are still giving me a great concern. I wanted to know why and how to stop it for good, so I opened up to a local traditional medicines practitioner I used to know. He said some nasty things about its causes that I didn’t find very funny, including the fact that the last person he encountered suffering from it was a marijuana smoker. I told him I had never tried smoking before because of its repugnant smell. I then asked if he had any potent herbs or mixtures that can put an end to its disturbing episodes. So he gave me a concoction and I paid some good money for it. Initially, my two days of treating it was quit deceiving, because the strange voices and deep hums did not come up every hour as it used to before I bought the drug. But I later found out that the concoction was a complete scam. Although I stormed the traditional medicines practitioner’s residence to make my grievances known, and that would be my greatest mistake in life. To start with, I didn’t mention what I bought from him or why. The altercation drew a large crowd outside his residence, and I was drunk because it helps me to evade some of the episodes of the annoying voices. There is now a new rumor in town spreading like a wide fire. Nevertheless, my new cycles of mental engagements didn’t give me the time to think about what some people profess of me. Refusing to give up, I went to a cyber café to check on the internet the causes of my new misery. It got me confused more and I wondered if those articles were really put there by indeed registered medical professionals. Though I didn’t want to take the steps recommended online as I thought it might worsen the situation. Instead I resolved to see a doctor, but having spent all my money, now I would need a big financial favor from my business partner (Ndidi). I approached him and he asked why I needed it, then I lied. He probed further so I opened up. He warned me not to tell anyone about my new predicament, and I asked why. He asserted it as a mental illness and that people might stereotype and restrain my usefulness in the society. I begged him not to frighten me any further but to lend me the cash I requested. He concurred but insisted he have to withdraw it from the bank the following day as he had not such money on him. That was the last day I was a free man. I woke up and brushed my teeth outside as usual, when I entered our one room apartment, two hefty men were standing beside my mother. I discerned quickly that something was amiss so I broke away before they could lay their hands on me. They chased me through the shanties around our neighborhood, one was waiting as I jumped over the fence, so we started fighting. I took him out with some ferocious blows to his body and face. After that I continued running and was about to leave our street before another one stretched his leg across my part, I fell down and rolled on the ground thrice. I got up again, but this time I decided not to fight but to tear my cloth he had grabbed at and released myself. On my body now are shreds of stained clothes with deep wounds and bruises. I got to the third street and was about to enter a bus, but they refused me entrance because of my torn clothes and bruises. So I continued running along the tarred road. Unknown to me that the hefty men had been chasing me with their car all along. They overtook me before highlighting to launch an assault that overpowered my remaining stamina, and put a handcuff on me while I was pressed down on the pedestrian walkway by the tarred road. I was picked up and taken to a psychiatric hospital. I later found out that some of the reasons for my arrest was excessive aggressive behaviors, smoking of marijuana and hearing of strange voices. I challenged their authority and refused to eat nor take their drugs on three occasions, but it resulted in fracases leading to me being isolated from other in-patients. It was a revolting tactic I initiated so as to know if my present confinement would go away. Now continually prone to the verbal abuse and orders of nurses I consider inferior to me, forcing me to assume a slave’s mentality. Thus I have resolved to move out of my mother’s one room apartment and adopt a new name, “Freeman” upon being discharged from the Psychiatric Hospital. Having lived my whole life chasing happiness, presently my uncommon grief is despicable and centered on the stripping of my right to freedom.