NO HONOUR IN THE BLOOD

Circumstances following my father’s death have caused me to have to make some major life changes, some of which has made me something of a nomad in Lagos. I’ve been in and out of Lagos a lot in the past several weeks, and whenever I’m in town, I crash at my best friend’s place. During my most recent stay in Lagos, I was at my friend’s place as usual. (For the purpose of this story, we’ll call him, well, his KD pseudonym: JBoy).

So, one Saturday, while at home in JBoy’s place, I had some novels I wanted to give away. So, I took pictures of the books spread out on the floor and posted it on Facebook. People flooded my comments section and then my inbox, snapping the books up. Arrangements were being made in the DM on which books they wanted and how the books would be delivered to them.

That evening, JBoy’s laundryman – a chap named Miller – came around to drop off some clothes for him. He is this kind of service-person who is apparently educated but is hustling his way in life. JBoy wasn’t around and this man needed to see him, so he waited. As he waited, we got to gisting. He saw my books on display and asked if he could take some. There were novels that hadn’t yet been claimed by anyone, so I said okay. He took four books. However, two of the four had already gotten claimed by a girlfriend who stays in Abuja. He had gone home when I noticed he’d taken those two books. So I hit him up on WhatsApp (we’d earlier exchanged numbers), wanting them back. He said okay. He gave me his house address and said I could come for them the next day, which was Sunday.

Then he added that he’d like me to come to his church. I declined. I didn’t even know he was a Jesus boy, but I would soon find out, because he got fired up by my declination and began sermonizing. I found his preaching mildly irritating but generally amusing – but from our earlier camaraderie when he was at JBoy’s place, I liked him. So instead of telling him off like I would any other Jesus busybody, I kept giving him polite but distant responses intended to quietly shut down the conversation. Eventually, the convo ended.

The next day, in the afternoon, when I knew he’d be back from church, I went over to his place, which wasn’t very far. He welcomed me in, offered me cooked corn, put on his generator, started ironing –

And began preaching to me again!

This time, he went into more details about how he gave his life to Christ, talking about the things he had to give up: smoking, womanizing and hanging out with the undesirable characters that were once his friends.

I could feel my annoyance rising; I have become very atheist since my father’s death and I have lost the agnostic patience I used to have for religion. To have this guy repeat his performance from yesterday’s WhatsApp chat irritated me, and I soon cut him off and launched into a diatribe about why I just don’t give a fuck about his Jesus and his god’s love. I talked about my father’s death and I talked about my sexuality. I was really pissed and my anger made me unusually vulnerable, so much so that I could talk about these things. Another reason why I was frank like this was because during our interaction the previous day, he’d come off as a really decent and open-minded guy.

However, at some point during my tirade, I noticed that he was looking shell-shocked; I didn’t know which one had shocked him the most – the fact that I had said a few times that god can go fuck himself or that I’d told him I am a homosexual. Whatever was the case, realising that I’d spoken too much, I calmed down. Things became a bit awkward, and I tried to be conciliatory by asking him if we were cool. He said yes. I asked him if anything I said was going to be a problem, and he assured me that we were cool. That he was going to make some more deliveries at my friend’s house later that evening and we would see. Thereafter, I picked up the books and left.

Later that evening, he came to JBoy’s place. We greeted, hugged even.

We saw again one more time, when he came to make another delivery a few days later. Again, we chatted for a bit. It really seemed like we were in a good place.

Imagine then my surprise days later, after I left Lagos, that JBoy called me to tell me that this guy had apparently gone to mouth off to someone in their church (yeah, he also goes to the same church as JBoy) that I came to his house and made a pass at him, and this person he told then gleefully came to pull a gotcha stunt with JBoy, where he was like, “See what Miller told me about someone who was your houseguest. So your houseguest is gay. That means you are gay too. No wonder you are not married.”

I was so incensed when JBoy called me with this, and immediately after our call, I called Miller, lashing out at him when he answered. His rebuttal was that he merely talked to one person.

ONE PERSON WHO YOU LIED TO?!!!

He protested, saying that since he has dealings with JBoy, he just wanted to find out something.

Interpretation: He wants to know if his customer is gay too! So he concocted a story and gossiped it off to a church member.

So he’s apparently not just a liar, but a gossip, a nosy fucktard, and a reckless busybody who apparently doesn’t care that his gossip might harm people.

But the blood of Jesus is his portion.

My friend will be fine. This isn’t the first time he has had a brush with religious homophobia that threatened his standing in church (story for KD on another day).

But I am upset. Upset that a lousy-looking idiot is using my homosexuality to make himself feel attractive. He said he gave up womanizing; now I have to wonder if he gave up women or if it’s women who just aren’t checking for him, so he has to make himself someone that a homosexual might want.

I am so upset!!!

Written by Pink Panther