Her Father's Daughter

“The fire I see in your mom, keeps me warm. You have your mother’s fire. Don’t let umu uwa quench it” that was my father’s advice when I left for boarding school years ago around the time I started hating men.

I hated men even before our first fight and the ones that ensued after.

“You have grown wings right? I would clip those wings. I would beat you and chain you down! Are all the men finished in the world? When did this start?” My mother’s words in last of the many fiery fracases that my sexuality ignited. Moments like this, she forgot I was her daughter and rebuked me as if I was just ‘my father’s daughter.’ You might think her sadness was a result of my father leaving her; he did not, well, not voluntarily.

Everyone has something they fall back on, my mom was the religious one, she believed till her prayers did not save my father even after my agnostic father resigned to praying with her. Her temper flared occasionally and booze became her opium.

My dear, this is not some poignant tale about my mother, it is about me; my father’s daughter.

I hated men not before I told my mother about Uncle Chidi. A family friend’s son that spent some time with us during long vacations. How he touched me in ways that were not proper or how loathsome it was when he called me his Wife. I hated men that cold December when he stained our couch with blood from my between my thighs when I was younger.

My hatred grew when my Dad learned about this and was arrested for beating Chidi up. It grew when Chidi’s parent made the police see me as a liar and damaged good. When Chidi’s father opened his tobacco stained tooth and said 'if it did happened, I must have seduced his son’ because I wore bum shorts and sleeveless tops in my father's house.

Perhaps my hatred for men started after my Dad told Chima, the man that bailed my dad that time, the one that works in Fidelity Bank, the one whose wife is the loud mouth at every beauty salon; Agnes, the one whose voice you could hear before you see her. From what I could gather, wherever thirsty ears where, she couldn't help herself by drowning them with details about the arrest and the 'incident’ that led to it.

My mother, the first woman I genuinely loved tried insulating me from the stigma and labels people were brandishing me with. She opined that I should go to a boarding school far away. My dad did not agree.. at first, he said he knows I have a fire, the same fire my mom has, the one that can burn down walls of hate. Fire that could keep the vultures of the world at bay. My mother I assume, touched my father in places he liked to be touched, with a bribe of palm wine, he later acquiesced and I was bundled to Federal Government Girls College, Minna.

I hated men and found solace when I met Leila, when she smothered me with love. With every comfort and everything a man could give me. She was the girl everyone called a 'bi-sexual’ in hushed tones perhaps, because she was intelligent, charming and friendly to both sexes. My hate grew when it was no longer news that she was already married off to a man from another wealthy family while I was seeking admission to the university.

They grew with each second that ticked in that vapid celebration Leila begged me to attend as her 'rock’. They grew when she met the groom and they drove off to her new home. Only highlight of that occasion was how I smiled thinking of how she'll open one of the gift boxes and see the vibrator from an anonymous well wisher.

I began to hate society when like a dicotyledonous plant, the root of hate grew deeper after my father passed and his brothers tried seizing all of his properties. His house, a rickety Peugeot and few lands in the village. They succeeded in taking some. My mother and I were called for several meetings, the most stupid of which was the one that included women. Women whose surname were their husbands, women with no villages but their husbands, women with talks that make neandertals look smart. Umu Ada they echoed is what they are called, chastizing my mother and I.

I remember looking at my mother whose flames my father once bragged would scare the vultures away as they were ironically drowned with alcohol after his passing and the black clothes extinguished whatever little spark remained.

I hated men, I gave Charles that yinmu face when he approached me. He had the calm my dad had. I remember spilling wine at him when I was a bit drunk at Grand Ibro one night, and he shouted “all these fire, I love it!” I looked at him and saw a lunatic. A lunatic I saw, till I apologized and he started selling dreams to me, me that has been living a nightmare. I bought and we slept together.

I hated men but Charles was a mad man, a crazy lover, everyone outside us saw a calm gentle dude. Charles was charming like my dad and was overly possessive of me. I told him about my preference to girls and he was still unbothered… till I told him about Leila. Leila, Yusuf’s wife. Yusuf, Charles’ political god father.

It would be 5 years till I saw Leila again. This time in Abuja on a cold November morning. I was living comfortably in Wuse Zone 7, around Lome Crescent. I strolled with my dog, we just passed the front of crown Princess hotels, when I saw a familiar figure waving at me. The figure was still standing at the gate of Standard Organizations of Nigeria’s headquarters there. She smiled and like someone that just completed an excruciatingly difficult puzzle I was happier than I have been since Charles. We had drinks at Molarex hotels in Wuse Zone 2, she talked about her control freak husband and how he mishandled her. In no time, she was on my bed, sweating stark naked laughing about the vibrator gift incident.

I hated men when Yusuf, Leila’s husband called me and told me not to see Leila again. “Fuck off my phone!” I yelled and hung up. My blood boiled when Leila called and told me how Yusuf beat her with his belt after he learnt from their driver she saw me and we went home together.

I hated life that moment I told Charles to come home and see what his friend did to Leila. I hated everything about life when I saw the both of them on my bed naked laying lifelessly. With gun shot wounds to the chest of Charles and at the neck of Leila.
I hated that I didn't see who blacked me out. I hated that I woke up in my mercedes with a gun and a bottle of whisky.
I hate society and the justice system that believe I shot two people I genuinely loved.