HIS KITO STORY (EDITION 24)
“How are you doing today?” Doctor Felix asked me in a voice that was trying hard to be free of any inflections.
He is an alumnus of my fellowship in school and oh-so-eager to please, a psychiatrist who is supposed to ‘fix me’. This was my first meeting with him.
“What happened?” he asked.
*
It was a Tuesday of no consequence, I remember. Hot, as these days are wont to be. I had gone to buy bread.
My mother always said my love for bread would be my downfall. I never understood just how literally she meant it until then. I went to my usual bread shop, the only place they sell decent bread in this god-forsaken hell-hole of a town, a shop located on a lonely stretch of road near the teaching hospital. Just beside my campus. I parked my car and put on my data to reply some of my social media messages before I stepped down. No point typing away at my phone while people tried to talk to me or worse still, while driving.
“Hello, I’m in town now,” came the whatsapp message. “Can we meet? I’m driving into town right now.”
I had been chatting with this dude, Francis, on whatsapp. He was someone I often saw around school. He had issues with the school at one time, one which I helped him fix. It was a surprise when we met on manjam; although, before then, I’d always had my suspicions of his preference.
He is puppy-faced and handsome in a high street magazine kind of way, bearded too. But then he was too young for me for anything serious. When we reconnected from manjam, he’d told me he was a model. I was not surprised, he is quite a looker.
“I’m busy,” I replied.
I didn’t want to meet him. I had not met anybody for some months now. I fancy myself a relationship kind of guy. I function better with stability and the flighty shopping that seemed to be rife in the gay community doesn’t really appeal to me. There is too much at stake. And anyways, most of the guys in this damn town are either jobless, very foolish or both. Celibacy was serving me just right.
I’d kept receiving email notifications of messages on manjam. 12 messages, 24 messages etc. I knew it was time for me to do something. I logged in, replied the messages and changed my picture to an unattractive one. I changed my description to include requirements that a prospective partner should have a job and be ready for a relationship. That reduced the torrent of messages drastically.
But this one guy kept sending messages repeatedly, till I gave him my whatsapp number.
Back to the present, I typed back at Francis again: “Where exactly are you?”
He replied. It turned out he was just around the corner, and so I agreed to meet with him.
I got out of my car and crossed the road to the shop, to select the loaves I wanted, the brownest ones. Buns, just how I liked them. I greeted the grandma that sells the bread and promised to send a shout-out to her daughter when next I’m on the radio (I work at my school’s radio station).
My phone rang then. It was him, the model. “Hello,” I answered.
“I’m in a grey Mercedes without number plate,” Francis said.
There was something about the words that set off alarms in my head. I ignored it. I asked the grandma to keep the bread for me, that I would be back for them.
I soon located the Mercedes and walked over to the parked car. There was someone in the passenger seat next to him.
“Come in,” Francis said, gesturing for me to get in the car.
When I was in, he introduced the guy in front as his friend who helped him bring the car down from the border. He said he was headed home.
“I’d rather just have a drink down the road,” I demurred. “Let’s go there please.”
“Ok,” he agreed and drove off.
For some odd reason, I began to feel uneasy. I couldn’t tell why. It must have been apparent on my face, because Francis noticed through the rear view mirror and turned around to smile reassuringly at me and said, “Relax.”
I tried to relax. I put my uneasiness down to first date butterflies.
We drove past the hospital’s back gate and into the fuel station. Immediately after we bought fuel, two guys materialized beside the vehicle and got in within the blink of an eye. They crowded me inside the car, one on either side of me. My uneasiness surged back up.
Before I could get a word of protest out, the car was back on the road, and the driver was going at a speed that rivaled how fast my heart was beating. I was as tense as a highly-strung guitar string. It was starting to dawn on me that I was in deep shit, especially when the first they did was demand for my phone. And Francis proceeded to delete the photos he’d sent to me from the media library.
Then, the guy in front turned to the back and said to me, “Oga, well done.” He stretched out a hand to shake mine, before continuing, “We are heading to the police station. My brother is a DSP and he has asked that we get him all the students that are fags in this school. We have gotten a lot of students but he wants more.”
Nonplussed, I stared at Francis. For a moment, I stayed silent, trying to organize my thoughts. When I finally spoke, it was with a calm I didn’t feel. “Why would you do something like this?” I asked, directing my question to the guy in the front, the one who appeared to be the leader.
The idiot Francis wouldn’t even meet my gaze.
The guy in the front replied, “Gay guys are thieves! They came to my house, my brand new iphone6 and my laptop, they carried them.”
He did not elaborate, and the story as he’d told it made no sense whatsoever. I felt myself begin to shake, especially when I took in how ugly this guy in the front was. He was black as soot with unkempt hair and nicotine-stained teeth. He looked literally like what the street cat would drag in. I realized his story was bollocks, and was built on the simplistic premise that if you are gay, then you are capable of just about any crime.
I began to beg them not to take me to the police. I pleaded.
“You will give us the number of all the fags in this school then,” the leader snarled.
A part of me that still found what was happening incredulous wondered whether these guys believed that gay people belonged to a secret underground network where everyone knew the other.
We kept driving around, seemingly not destined for any police station. They kept harassing me with questions, harassing me for information about the gaybourhood. In their frustration at my lack of corporation and as added act of intimidation, they retrieved a gun and pointed it at me; the leader even pointed the gun outward and fired off two shots in the air to let me know it wasn’t empty and that they weren’t kidding around. At some point, I felt so traumatized, that I wished they’d just shoot me and end the ordeal.
I passed out for awhile, and eventually came to back where it all started, at a spot near the shop where my bread was waiting. They shoved me out of the car.
“Come make I give you my sister,” one of them sneered. And they drove off.
They’d taken my Blackberry, wristwatch, my cufflinks, and shoes. Shaking from the ordeal, I walked over to my car and got in. And I cried. As all the pent-up emotions rushed through me – anger, pain, humiliation, shame – I understood how it feels to be raped. I had never felt more powerless than I felt at that point.
*
“I don’t remember a lot, sir,” I told the psychiatrist.
I needed him, for the trauma. I was still feeling the effects of that horrible afternoon. I was struggling with my concentration. And I was getting easily startled by everything. I was having a problem with getting into unknown vehicles and walking on my own along the road.
“You know you can tell me anything, right?” Doctor Felix said.
“I was robbed,” I said simply.
That was the edited version. How do I begin to explain the actual truth to him? And I think the worst part is that I may never get to tell anybody close to me the unedited story.
Written by Andre Zamani
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31 Comments
KingBey
March 31, 06:59Thank God for you. At least, you no receive the normal beating. Lol
DI-NAVY
March 31, 07:07This was indeed a mild kito. o nweka luck.
Jamie
March 31, 08:20HE WAS RAPED!!! They even stole from him… I’d never wish for beating or any of those he faced!!!
ambivalentone
March 31, 08:33Haba!!! Raped bi bawo? Where did he say he was raped? If its not mental-rape, biko, what kind are u referring to?
Diii'Okpara
March 31, 14:15lool @ o nweka luck…ókúkò igbo
???
DI-NAVY
March 31, 07:03Wow. I can imagine. Thank God it wasn’t a public scandal. You’ll definitely survive the trauma. Truth is, most of them are fags. You know there’s a difference between a gay and a fag.
Glad it happened this way and they didn’t strip you naked on the streets. Moral of the story, stay off these thirst hook up sites. Learn to trust your instincts basically cos all that glitters aint gold. Sometimes the devil go follow wear you kito with person weh be your better spec.
So sorry about that, thank God they didn’t even snatch your car. You’ll be fine Poster.
ambivalentone
March 31, 08:28I’m still trying to get my head wrapped around your ‘thirst hook up sites’ statement. Biko, WHICH gay site invites her members to church? ‘Be careful, trust ur instincts’. You shud av left it at that
Mandy
March 31, 07:12Amateur hour. That’s what this is. These ones are clearly new at the hustle of extorting and hassling gay guys.
Gay guys are thieves? They came to your house and took your iphone and laptop? Honestly, why did he bother answering if he was going to come with such a miserable answer
Masked Man
March 31, 07:14You’ll be fine, my dear. Time will heal you. Sorry you had to go through this.
But I got a lil question though, when two shots were fired in the air as testing-testing-1-2-1-2, no campus security of any sort? If it is so, then you are really lucky. You could have been shot dead and dumped somewhere.
You-Know-Who
March 31, 10:24If you ask me, i don’t believe this part of the story!
A-non
March 31, 10:36I wondered at that too.
enigmous
April 04, 00:52Bae…Kedu?
shuga chocolata
March 31, 07:48Andre Happy ayam you’re alive to tell this story, but sir you should not have gone in the jeep. Rather you came in your car like you wrote; i was expecting you to say I’m right behind you and follow them with your car.
But conji is a bad something….
you’ll get better, you need no shrink, all you need now is a friend who can console you yet give you a spank on ya head.
Masked Man
March 31, 08:30I don’t understand the spank on the head part, except it’s on the butt.
Jamie
March 31, 08:33Unfortunate… Anyone heard about the TIERS’s new customer care lines? Yes, we get to call when in need; as in, when in need of support and help of…well, any kind. Just ask and the attendants would decipher how genuine your needs are. There’s a phone line you could call for free within week days, and another you could call and foot the bills any day…
I don’t work for them! I thought to share…thought we should all know!!
Eros
March 31, 09:28There is only onr school I know of where shots will be fired in broad daylight and no one will blink….
wahid
March 31, 10:24Well, that’s not d story he told me. U truly hv edited this story.
Sinnex
March 31, 10:30So this was strange. I guess there is more to the story than meets the eyes. Kito in broad daylight…okay…that means no one is actually safe…I always had the impression that one only gets set up when one decides to visit someone.
I hope you overcome the trauma and move on with your life. I guess the best way to meet guys is actually organically like some guys said here. Go out more…
Wayfaring Stranger
March 31, 11:40**rove, rove**
Diii'Okpara
March 31, 14:13meet guys ‘organically’, you say? when all man be forming discreet?
personally I’d freak out if a guy winks my direction in public, it takes some skill to connect at that level(tb bars and hangouts are too discreet as well
You-Know-Who
March 31, 10:34Not to come across as disrespectful to the writer and story.. I don’t believe this piece that was put together in haste maybe. it felt like there were some actual stuffs left out and a lot of unnecessary rejoinders to garnish the piece. May i suggest that people should not formulate Kito stories; these are real life events that has marked a black spot in peoples life forever. it should not be joked or toiled with.
by far the worst kito story till date. (in terms of the read and events that took place.)
Khaleesi
March 31, 11:34It could have been worse but it wasnt! for that am deeply thankful! and … which city is this where people just let off gunshots in the air and nothing happens? I know we have a worthless police force, but still …
Delle
March 31, 11:59Scary, scary, scary! That’s why I don’t meet people. You see this Manjam them and Grindr…tueh!
Keredim
March 31, 12:23You said “Francis” was driving at breakneck speed, yet he got handed your phone and deleted the pics he sent you?
Also how did you expect him to meet your gaze, when he was driving the car fast?!
I don’t want to take away from this “Kito” story, but for a “kito” story to be believable, it has to be just that – BELIEVEABLE.
If i misunderstood the story, I apologise in advance.??????
ikhines
March 31, 14:16This story sounds like the stories you cook up on that your dead blog though?
Keredim
March 31, 16:03If its so dead, how come you still go back there to read it? Is your life that sad?!
Pink Panther
March 31, 16:11Lmao. Touché.
ivanko
March 31, 20:49Lmao
Geeluv
March 31, 12:43Obviously…. you just gave us an edited story also too.
Marc Francis of Chelsea
April 01, 10:28It’s so scary how you can be talking to someone for such a long time online and via messaging apps to the point we feel we can trust them and they turn out to be fake. It’s even sadder that he’d helped out the guy that set him up before. If for nothing else, shouldn’t that good turn take him off “the list”? People are truly heartless. I hope that guy particularly is betrayed in the worst way possible one day.
Icandy
March 06, 12:37Chai…….even cufflinks. Gawd