25/08/2021
THE BLACK SHEEP (2)
I knew and loved Oladeji very much. We all went to the same school, except for our baby sister. Oladeji’s academic prowess and humility is top notch. Anytime I had a school assignment or academic challenge, I was always quick to approach him and he has been quite helpful. It is only funny that while Happy is the strong force that repel neighbour’s kids from relating with us, Oladeji keeps attracting people, both known and unknown to us. People always wanted to associate themselves with us because of him. Not until much later, Happy used to be my close alibi. Far from his thuggery, he seems kind and playful, in fact, we spend more time together and he often accompany me home from school with his friends or otherwise gang. I once hinted him of a student in the higher class who often bullies me and to my partial expectation, himself and his gangs taught him a violent lesson of his life. I was happy then because I understood so little about life. Even though I loved Oladeji and wanted to be like him, he is emotionally distant from me, largely because he is always occupied with activities.
Happy repeated class twice, while in school which made him only three years my senior and worst of all is his uncanny behaviour towards the school authority, which would constantly make our parent frequent the school. Apologies upon apologies was the only thing that kept Happy till his final years in the Secondary school. An incident would have led to his dismissal, if not for our parent’s quick intervention.
While in his finals, he impregnated a lady in his class, then went ahead to administer pills intended to abort the pregnancy. Luckily the lady’s parent dashed to our home, instead of reporting to the school authority, being led by the agonizing daughter to create scenes. While my mother was crying aimlessly and placing curses on Happy who absconded immediately they arrived. My father who only just returned from work had to apologize to the parent of the young lady. He also promised to take care of the bills involved in taking care of the lady. Almost at that period, I started distancing myself from Happy whom I feel was not only a disgrace to the family, but also making our parent spend unnecessarily. Every time I approach my mother for money to cater for some extracurricular activities, she would always make reference to how they have been spending so much to cover up Happy’s misdeeds.
THE BLACK SHEEP
My earliest childhood memory was one of terror, one which my tender eyes witnessed in our home. Even though I was yet to attain the age of reasoning, I had both the sense of personal judgement and a fear which would forever be etched on my psychological perception.
Mr and Mrs Desire got married during the cold harmattan of the year 1990. In no distant months, they had their first son named Oladeji because Mr Desire was the only son of his parent (his siblings were female). Two years after their first, they gave birth to another son named Happy. Mr Desire was so glad about his second son because he has always anticipated more male children. Five years after the second, I was born, a male also but there was not so much celebration since the couple were particularly looking forward to a female child this time, especially for reasons which would be known later. We eventually had a sister in the early months of 2007. She would be the last born and baby of the house.
Oladeji, the eldest child of our family was quite a joy to the household. He grew up smart and brilliant. He wasn’t just the pride of our family but also of our community. Happy was quite the opposite and he was so good at it. The reason he was named Happy was stated earlier, but all he has brought upon the family was sadness which started even before I was born. He was often thought of as the devil’s incarnate.
I was just three years of age when I witnessed my father beat Happy to a point where he passed out. My father who was wild and my nagging mother immediately changed their mood to one of regret and evident love. Tears flowed freely while trying to revive him and there was no calm in the house in the house until he was fully revived. It was much later I knew Happy bathed a neighbour’s son with hot water due to a disagreement between them and this got my father extremely mad at him. My father is a gentle man, he hardly lays his scolding hands on us. The worst he would do was to make us serve a slight punishment. This day however, I saw anger boldly written in my father and he was just fed up of Happy but not to the point of losing him eventually. No parent would want to lose their child, especially not in their hands.
After witnessing the whole incident, I did not know which I feared more between my father and Death itself. Throughout my life, I was always cautious of ever making my father angry. Happy however continued his mischiefs like nothing happened. My mother would also not stop nagging and waging curses, abuses and statements filled with regrets like she would have aborted him if anyone ever told her he would turn out that way. On the converse, I guess the incident changed my father. Though it may not be clear to me as a kid, but as a grew older, I started knowing him to be extremely reserved. He hardly does anything when complains about Happy reaches him. He would simply summon him, telling him, “Be careful”, while he apologizes intently to the victim’s party, if there was one...................................................................
To be continued..
