DAMAGED

I was born in Lagos, to a very uptight, churchy, disciplinarian family. I was born when my father had access to a lot of money and my mother kept going up the cadre at her office, which meant more financial benefits. I don’t remember much of my childhood, but I remember a lot from when we lived in a mansion in River Valley Estate, Ojodu. I remember how I was never allowed to go out of the compound to play with the landlord’s children; they lived in the next compound. Their house was even bigger; it looked like a manor and it had other small bungalows, linked apartments where other people lived. These people were all workers for the landlord. He housed his carpenters, cooks, security guards – everyone that worked for him.

My mother never liked the idea of her children leaving the house, let alone the compound. It was around this time that she made a rule for us, her children (I am the last, by the way). “You must never visit anyone if they haven’t visited you yet. Don’t go to anybody’s house, especially the landlord’s. If you want to play, let your friends come here and play with you.” It wasn’t like she was nice to our friends. She scared them.

I remember playing with some kids from the landlord’s compound. There was a small door that allowed for passage between the two compounds, our place and the landlord’s. One of the kids was a boy named Moses. Whenever we played together, we would eventually act out some childish drama where I mostly played the role of the son. This one time, I had to play the role of wife because the girls couldn’t come out to play that day. I cannot remember how that went, but I know it made Moses want to be around me more. I was still 5, but would turn 6 later that year.

Some days after that particular play, Moses and I were in one of the unoccupied but furnished rooms of the landlord’s compound. We played a lot as I was a child that loved to play. At some point while we played, he was on top of me (we were both fully clothed) dry-humping me. It was funny to me and I did not know what it meant, but that day was the last day I saw Moses. I don’t know what happened to him, but I never spoke of our time in that room because he asked me not to.

Months later, I was out with my mother, visiting an aunt. She lived in Eric Moore Towers, Surulere. We visited her a lot. She had two older sons who never seemed to be home; we always met her with her help. On this particular visit though, she was babysitting two boys that belonged to a friend of hers who had to leave the country for some months. Me and these boys played in the guestroom, while my mother and aunt talked and laughed in the parlour. Soon, the play turned sexual, as fully clothed, the older boy began dry-humping me, while his younger brother held me to the bed. I kept feigning a struggle, like I’d seen in the movies, when someone is about to get tortured for information. It was fun. We were just playing, and that was where that ended. We laughed about it the next time I came to visit with my mother. Then the boys eventually travelled out to meet their mother, accompanied by their father who’d come back for them.

Before I got into secondary school, there was a church my mother took me and my siblings to. It was the Eric Moore aunt that introduced my mother to the church. We frequented the church for Sunday services. My mom would drive us there. I got popular in the children’s section my first day at the church. The next Sunday, the daughters of the head pastor of the church stole my attention from a boy I’d begun to like. His name was Armstrong. I don’t remember hers. On successive Sundays, I’d spend most of my time during service talking to Armstrong, and after service, I’d spend time with the other girls. I liked the youngest daughter more than a boy would like a friend. I really liked her, but I liked Armstrong more. He was 9, a beautiful boy, taller than I was, light-skinned, with hazel-coloured eyes. He always made me laugh. We liked to hug each other. We’d hug each other whenever I got to church, and we’d hug again whenever he had to leave. He always left before me. Sometimes, whenever his mother wasn’t in a hurry to leave, we’d sit together with other kids; he’d sit behind me, his arms around my waist, with his chin resting on my shoulder. I slept off on a mattress once, one random weekday we ended up in church, and I woke up to find him sleeping next to me, cuddling me in a spooning position. I smiled and went back to sleep.

Armstrong and I had about as special a friendship as any two little boys could have. Oh, he never dry-humped me and he never tried anything sexual with me. My family stopped attending the church eventually and I clung to the memories I had of Armstrong, hoping I’d see him again someday.

I never did, but the daughters of the head pastor, I did see. They visited us. I played with the girls. We gisted and played. I still liked the last daughter and she liked me too, but we were not as close as I was with Armstrong. And I didn’t know what to do about liking a girl – or anyone at all.

Time passed, and my family moved from Ojodu to 1004 Estate on Victoria Island. I was a little older and less playful. My brothers, whom I’d always played with (somewhat) and had lots of amazing memories with, became monsters. They looked for opportunities to beat me up and punish me for no reason. I became less and less the happy and playful child that I used to be. You can describe the experience I had with my older siblings as torture. I say torture because on many occasions, I bled from their mistreatment. Other times, I suffered public humiliation. They were just very cruel. Monsters.

None of this ever happened while mother was home. They always turned to their worst when our mother was away at work. Even my mother became violent. (But from what I hear now, she’d always been that way. However, after she had me and there were some health complications during which I almost died twice while still being an infant, she stopped being violent). The family was a mess. She always fought with my father; they never got physical though. But I would come down in the morning to leave for school and see broken ceramics all over the floor after hearing their raised voices much earlier. My father eventually moved out of the house and relocated to his hometown where he got a job. I think it was an excuse for him to be away from my mother because she had changed completely. She was now a hostile person and that toxicity got to my older siblings. They took out their frustrations on me. It all started affecting my academics and I began needing private lessons at home.

Secondary school was a missionary school. I started out as a day student throughout my JSS1. I was able to take my mind off my family whenever I was in school. My seniors liked me and were fond of me. They called me by the name of the organisation my mother worked for because they saw it on the car whenever the driver dropped me in school and then picked me up at the close of school.

Spending time with my mother’s driver, Usman, was fun. He was an educated young man with a mild Hausa accent, who I was able to persuade to let me touch his penis one of the numerous times he was talking to his girlfriend on the phone. I don’t know where I summoned the courage from to ask, but I asked. More than once. And he would tell me how it was a terrible thing for me to ask of him.

“Kai! Jinchuriki, that is a bad thing you are asking me, I swear,” he would say sternly but not unkindly. “Where did you learn this nonsense?”

In my head, I would say I caught my brother having sex. And from watching people have sex on TV.

Eventually, one of those days when he parked at the place in Lekki Phase 1 where he often had to stop to get me lunch before taking me home or to my mother’s office, I asked to touch his penis. This time, he let me. He was on the phone again with his girlfriend and I could see him growing a boner under his tight uniform pants. He spoke Hausa but he would occasionally say “Damn” and chuckle. Whatever he was talking about with his girlfriend was clearly turning him on. I waited for the call to end before I asked. This time, he didn’t respond how he usually did. He looked at me like he wanted to understand if I was some sort of alien.

Then he said, “Wait, let me drive out of here.”

He drove out of the place we were supposed to get lunch to a place that was mostly bushy. Then he said, “You can touch it.”

I was scared, but I went for it. I touched the full length of his dick through his pants. Even though it wasn’t a raw touch, I could feel it. I could feel dick with my palms. I really examined it with both hands. He opened his legs wide and I was able to reach his balls too. This was the first dick I ever felt. I was fascinated by how it got so hard, and to be honest, I was enjoying what I was doing. I enjoyed it so much that I had a boner too. I think I might have had a lot of boners before then, but that was the first time I realized my own penis could do that too.

Usman saw the bulge in my shorts and laughed softly. Then he said, “Jinchuriki, I don’t know why you’re like this, why you are such a bad boy, but this thing that you just did is not a good thing. Walahi. You see how I had to drive to this place to allow you. And you are too young for this thing sef. I now understand what it is, but I am just surprised that you are like this, I swear.”

He was unhappy about it for a while and barely paid any mind to me after that day. He wouldn’t respond to my greetings whenever I got in and out of the car. He came around later on though and we got closer.  He said he was not angry at me anymore, but I should never ask him to let me touch his “prick” again.

We bonded. We were like brothers. It was easier to talk to him about what I faced at home with my family and how I felt at ease in school. At some point he started telling me about girls. Maybe he thought it would change me, but I already liked girls. I just happened to like boys too at that point, but I didn’t know it yet. He was like a brother to me when my brothers were monsters.

I got into JSS2, and in my second term, I had to move to the hostel. I dropped my things in the hostel and registered and got my bed space and locker over the weekend. But for the following two weeks, I was a day student still. The day the driver was to drop me off in school for the final time, he told me to be careful. He was quite cryptic, the way he spoke, but in summary, he said, “Be careful with the friends you make and how close you get to those seniors. If anybody should touch you anyhow you don’t like, go and report to the housemaster.”

I listened, but I didn’t understand what he meant. I wish I understood that day. I wish I understood. Maybe the hell that my life turned out to be in that school would have been avoided.

TO BE CONTINUED

Written by Jinchuriki