THE STORY OF THIS DUDE - By Malcolm

This dude. This dude discovered masturbation right in his cot. This dude started clubbing round about the time his peers were joining Debate Club. This dude had his first sex before he had his first kiss. You know na. You know how the sex happened. It was that busty dark-skinned maid that used to wear torn clothes in the afternoon. The one who shook her body whenever she spoke. Nwamaka was her name. The first time this sex thing happened was when this dude came home from a hot afternoon at school. Nobody was home. Just this dude and Nwamaka. This dude sat in the parlour as the maid bent over to set down his food on the table. Her clothes were always torn. Now her bosom was nearly bare. This dude was 10, and was still getting his fingers around puberty. Nwamaka drew closer, and this dude got his fingers around her bust. Supple. This dude didn’t know what he was doing but Nwamaka was a sky diver. She set down on the cushion by the side, and this dude did all the humping. With maids there are no kisses, just stolen humps, sweaty shoulders, fingers creeping into garments that smelled of crayfish and garlic and kitchen.

This dude. This dude watched porn even before he saw cartoons. Don’t tell me you don’t know how that one happened, how he was watching a TV program with his siblings. Everyone was complete. His little sister asking him to put a channel with cartoons. His littler sister throwing a teddy bear up and laughing. His junior brother wanting a football channel, and his elder sister clamouring for African Magic. This dude was in front of the TV, the remote in his hand, dismissing all their requests. Then he changed the channel and the sounds came. Fuzzy images which this dude turned the antenna of the television to make clearer. It became clear. Two men and a howling girl. Nobody understood. Nobody, except this dude’s elder sister who jumped to the screen and flicked the channel. Blue film, she called it. Blue film. That name this dude had heard before but assumed was a film filled with blue colours. Now he understood. The next time he watched it. He was better informed. When his friends bought packets and packets of blue films and came to his house to watch. There was another occasion. In class, when some of his classmates gathered at a spot, at Ifechukwu’s desk, all looking at something. This dude walked there to see what. Everybody seemed tense but he did not cared. He cared to see the video. The blue film.

This dude, when he was still a jambite used to sneak into school to run things behind White House. Imagine who this dude has turned out to be. Imagine. Now that he has attained his full potential. Biggest fraternity. Baddest clubbing history. 15 pickups this month alone. 10 times HIV scare. Doctor Luke cured his Syphilis. Shot twice in a club. Smokes like a chimney. Lung cancer ahead. Clinically depressed. Right now, I stare at this dude. This dude I have known all my life. I stare at this dude as he lies in his bath tub. The water is foamy, and I hear the sound of a tap leaking somewhere. I stare at him, at the wrap of marijuana on the floor. Ashes and ashes of the substance. The smoke smells. I see this dude. His eyes are lifted in eternal reverie. His lips have many stories untold. I stare at this dude and then I stare at the razor in his hand, and the blood dripping from his wrist. 

By Malcolm