PART 1
My father knew I was a man before I became a man. The act of becoming and the reality of becoming may be used interchangeably. Stories have it that I was named immediately my mother took in. My father defied the odds of “what if it is a girl in there?” and went on to give me a masculine name and not even a ‘unisex’ name that will fit whatever the outcome was. He named me Obumneme and Mark Anthony which conventionally are masculine names.
According to the story of my birth by my mother, she said she began to have pre-labor pains and signs in her hostel in the University of Nigeria Nsukka and there was no phone to call my father who was in Onitsha to come and help carry the cross which he was in fact the chief carpenter. My mother’s roommates took her to bishop Shanahan hospital and left her there to go and prepare for their final examinations. My mother who was a finalist too was in the hospital preparing to skip the FINAL hurdle of child bearing which I feel was a better final exam. Nobody in Onitsha was aware of my mother’s present predicament. No phone (I wonder how they coped) to call grand ma or even her elder sister.
Mother said that the next morning, my father had already boarded a bus to Nsukka to visit his wife without the knowledge of her state. Getting to her hostel, her friends told him she had been in the hospital since yesterday. He asked for the hospital and rushed to the address given to him. He walked in when I was deflowering my virgin eyes with its first droplets of tears. The doctor walked out of the room as usual leaving the room for the nurses and mother. My father walked up to him and asked him if his wife was as healthy as his son who was just crying. Doctor was confused and asked who he was. Father said “I am the father of Obumneme the boy crying now. Can I go and see my wife?” the nonplussed doctor Okayed and he went into the labor room…
PART 2
April 17 2013, at around 3pm, I called my father on the phone and he was sounding like an extroverted introvert. Read our conversation;
Father: hello! Junior kedu ije gi?
Junior: (Whenever he spoke Igbo to me, I felt important. Because I and my siblings saw Igbo as ‘big peoples’ way of communicating) I chuckled and said “ Adim mma”
Father: how was today’s paper and what do you have tomorrow?
Junior: today’s exam was ok but I have GS 101 tomorrow. Daddy you know I don’t know anything in math. I am scared.
Father: junior kwusi your nkoyeri and go and prepare for tomorrow. I will call when I get to Onitsha. I am in Awka now.
Junior: hahahaha(you need to hear how my father said ‘nkoyeri’. You will keep doing things that will elicit the word) I hung up.
That was practically the last time I spoke to my father in my life. He didn’t call again; I was busy engaging in group readings where I mocked mathematics and the students who knew it too well. I never knew God had excused my dad from the world. Night fell and I got tired of mocking people or was something inside inside telling me to be calm that sorrow awaited me? I can’t tell now. Out of the blues, a friend who doubled as a family friend had been called from home to stay with me throughout the night without telling me how fatherless I had become. He called and asked where I was. I told him and he walked up to me all smiles and a lively gusto. He Continue reading
(THE MAD MAN WRITES) 