The Girl Who Never Cried
The first time I broke a plate, I broke a full cooler of them. The crashing sound of their fall made my head ring like a cymbal or an old alarm clock so senile it rang at the time of morning when sleep was sweetest. I stared at the ceramics sliding down the now open cover of the cooler.
A part of me was working itself into a panic because I knew my mother would surely kill me, flay me and spread my skin on the grill. Yet something bubbled in my throat, my hand crept over my neck in an effort to stop the laughter from spilling out of my mouth just as my mother ran into the kitchen.
“Jesus! Jesus!” My mother cried out.
You see, my mother was a woman particularly inclined to strong emotion. She could rave and scream at the slightest misbehavior, talk way into the night when annoyed and a lot of other obscene behavior. I stared at her as she looked at the wall and tried to control her breathing. Then she bent down, picked up the cooler cover and bludgeoned me with it.
Instinctively I raised my hand to protect my face from the onslaught. She hit me over and over again, crying out as she did.
“I don’t know, I don’t know”.
I must speak in my mother’s defense.
At that time we were quite poor and could not afford the mass destruction of valuable kitchen utensils (which we were not even allowed to use for everyday meals) like the ceramics. She was repeating the “I don’t know” because she knew not what to do with me at the moment.
No one ever knew what to do with me. My biology teacher caught me making a noise in class one day and he came over to me angrily.
“Precious Makinde! What is your problem?” He asked.
I stared at him a little bit confused. What did he mean by what is my problem? Was it my fault that my classmates enjoyed my wry humor that wasn’t even humor at all but an unconcerned behavior towards things that cracked them up daily.
“How did you do at that maths assignment?” Jide asked me.
“I don’t know, you’ll have to ask Mr Cletus seeing as he is the one marking the sheets” I replied. The whole class burst into laughter at my remark, some throwing their heads back and other hitting the table outrageously. It was obvious to me their laughter was exaggerated and I looked at them, puzzled for a moment before I realized they were not even laughing at today’s remark at all, but all the countless other remarks I had made.
Sometimes, my remarks were not that funny and even my classmates who were children at the time and couldn’t understand anything knew there was something wrong with my behavior. I had come back to my seat after break time one day and my seat mate Chidera told me snidely “Bolu your best friend came to see you again today”
I looked over to Bolu who was sitting at the other end of the class and eating an apple sloppily. Bolu was a student with Down syndrome who had developed an inordinate amount of affection for me.
Truth be told, she wasn’t learning anything and the only reason she had been allowed to be in our class was because her mother begged fervently, saying that Bolu loved to be around her age mates. In our class of fifty, I was the only one who could ignore Bolu’s crooked walk and her sloppy mouth and that was because I didn’t care, how did her disability have anything to do with me?
Later when Bolu came over and stood by my table, looking down at me with that permanent grin pasted on her face. I called her name to make sure I had her attention “Bolu” and her smile faltered, indicating that she was listening.
“I want you to stop coming to my seat. Don’t come to my seat again” I finished. Chidera looked at me shocked. The whole class stopped what they were doing and watched us. Bolu kept staring at me and her face was no longer smiling. This puzzled me because I had hitherto believed the smile was permanent.
After some time, in which I busied myself with the note I was copying and she busied herself with staring at the back of my neck, Bolu walked away. No reply, No protest, I guess I hurt her feelings.
That’s why I could not blame my biology teacher for getting annoyed that I turned his class into a marketplace. I received three strokes of the cane that day. During the caning I stared at him much like Bolu stared at me when I dismissed her. I was not going to cry but I was quite disturbed that he didn’t know I was trying to change.
Periodically, I tried to tune down my interactions with the other students because I knew anything I said would elicit laughter.
***
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“Precious! Come and see” my mother called me one day from the sitting room.
I was in the kitchen washing plates but I quickly wiped my arms and went to see.
You know when people say “come and see o!” it is usually something exciting or terrible as the case may be. My mother was standing in the middle of the sitting room. She was wearing a loose Buba and she kept messing with the shoulders, not really giving me the chance to see if they weren’t sitting well because she kept forcing them to look like they were sitting well.
I folded my arms and stared at her, when she gave up on tugging at the buba she picked up the wrapper that had been pooling at her feet and proceeded to tie it around her waist. After tying it, her face lit up and she raised one arm and looked at herself, raised the other arm and looked at herself in that pompous way African women do when they believe they look good.
“How do I look?” She asked beaming at me.
“You already know na, see how you’re smiling,” I told her. She eyed me with a sneer.
“What are you saying? How do I look!” She asked.
“Let me go and bring the tall mirror for you” I said, walking into the house.
“Precious Makinde!” She shouted after me. I did not turn back.
***
There were times when I actually got in trouble for my queer behavior. Like one time in church, I had been staring at this six year old girl as she rubbed her feet on the floor with the carefreeness of the very young.
We were all in the children session of church and had two Sunday School Teachers watching over and teaching us the word of God. So this little girl kept rubbing her high heeled feet on the floor as if the tiled floor was snow and she just couldn’t wait to skate on it.
I knew she was doing a very unwise thing but I just couldn’t bring myself to call out for her to stop. Few minutes later she slid on the ground and fell with a heavy thud. The split second it took me to realize she had fallen was enough for her to feel the pain and cry out. I burst into raucous laughter, holding my belly with one hand and the chair with another to keep from falling.
There was silence, even the crying girl had been shocked out of her tears. When I realized no one was laughing along I stopped abruptly.
“Precious Makinde!” One of our teachers called out to me. His voice trembled with some sort of anger. He beckoned for me to follow him to his table at the other end of the hall. When I was seated in front of him he peered at me over his glasses.
“Why did you laugh when she fell?” He asked me. I stared at the hairs jumping up and down inside his flared nostrils.
“Nothing Sir” I replied
“What do you mean by nothing? A little girl fell and you burst into loud laughter. Did you not feel pity for her? Why did you not feel pity for her?” He prodded. Throughout his rant, I had noted that his words held a hint of accusation. I looked at him incredulously, the old man reared back at my look. There was suspicion in his eyes.
Somehow I just knew that he was thinking I was a possessed child. No other reason for my callous behavior than possession by a demon.
I was made to sit through an hour of boring advice; he told me the importance of loving my neighbor as myself, giving me biblical examples. After the advice he prayed for me, asking the spirit of God to come into my heart and make me pure in mind and spirit. I thanked him and went back to my seat, wondering at the futility of the prayers.
***
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The boys at school were fascinated by me. We were SS2 students and were old enough to start thinking of romance. Many of those boys approached me and received the mouth flogging of their lives.
One day, Emeka came over to meet me. Emeka was a boy I secretly admired because he bore some resemblance to my elder brother. Anyway, he swaggered up to me one fateful Tuesday when I was sitting quietly in my seat and reading a short novel for entertainment.
“Precie” he called in way he must have thought was endearing.
“My name is Precious, and what can I do for you?” I asked him, I didn’t even bother to look up from my book.
“Haba now Precious. Won’t you still look up to see who is speaking to you?” He asked
“I know who you are. How can I help you?”
“You’re talking like you’re in an office. I’m now too shy to say what I want to say” he cried
“That’s too bad. And your time is up already” I said, looking up at him. He was incredulous.
“What?” He asked
“Time up. Please leave my seat. Thank you.” I said and went back to my book. He stood there for a moment, perhaps hoping that I would raise my head and rediscover his existence but I did nothing of the sort. He finally left me and went back to his seat. This sweet treatment I gave all of them made them see me as some sort of competition or a freaking initiation to manhood.
What puzzled them was the fact that I was not rude, yet my words could be very biting. I had no problem expressing my feelings, I once told one of them his mouth smelled and he should talk to me from a respectable distance when I noticed him leaning close to me, his dreadful mouth odor coloring my senses. His friends laughed loudly at him when he recounted his ordeal, many of them declaring that they didn’t blame me. The boy’s mouth really smelled like the sewer.
During break time they would stand at the door of our class and watch me in what they thought was a surreptitious manner. They would be holding parcels they intended to offer to me to curry favor. I rejected all parcels of guys who were brave enough to come over to my seat.
I didn’t need their snacks and drinks, I had my own money and could buy mine, and even on the days when I wasn’t given any money to school I was too proud to stoop that low.
I was sure I was the cause of many sleepless nights for SS2 boys and their girlfriends who disliked me because of their boyfriends’ stupid fascination with me. Those girls belonged to the “girlfriends association “ that would have been better named as “I hate Precious association. They used to try their best to get me in trouble with teachers but it never worked.
I was just a damn good student, quiet and respectful and always ready to assimilate a new novel or scientific theory. All their plans ended fruitlessly and they gave up when we entered SS3. Perhaps their oil lamps of hate had burned out or they had finally gained some much needed common sense and realized that I didn’t much care about the boys or them.
***
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When I got into the university, I showed my excitement at my good fortune by focusing on my books and staying by myself. Surprisingly, I found that the university was a different environment from the secondary school environment. Here, no one cared if you wanted to be alone. They were capable of boot licking and fighting their way into being friends with you so long as they thought the friendship would profit them in some way.
It was through this selfishness that I got saddled with two friends Ruki and Ambrose. After a while I had to admit I kind of liked them.
Ruki had a certain dry humor that almost matched mine. Ambrose on the other hand, I considered as someone who was a guy outside but a girl inside. He seemed to get me so well sometimes that it surprised me into liking him.
He understood my need to be alone most times more than Ruki, my lack of emotions was also ignored by him. At one point, he was more of Ruki’s friend than mine. She needed him because he gave the best “guy advice” and since I was totally bereft of guy attention at that time, I didn’t need his services.
Then I met this guy, Andrew, at the bank. We were both waiting for our turn on the chairs in front of the cashier.
He was light skinned and sturdy of build. He was also bold, quite bold to talk to a girl who seemed totally uninterested in the conversation.
“It is appalling how they keep us waiting here, right?” He asked me. I adjusted the earbuds in my ear to show I wasn’t listening and he turned away from me with an “okay” and a sigh. Somehow, I began to feel quite uncomfortable with my action. Not guilty, just uncomfortable. I still blamed him for trying to start a conversation with a stranger who was obviously busy in her own world.
Later, when we had both been attended to we met again at the door. Graciously, he indicated that I could go in before him with a noble flare of his arm. I rolled my eyes inwardly and stepped into the compartment. The doorman greeted me and wished me a nice day and I walked down the steps into the blazing hot sun. As I have always had a problem with UV rays on my eyes I quickly put my hand over them to shade them from the sun.
“Hey” the young man called behind me. I turned and saw him standing beside a dark blue car, key in hand. “Can I drop you off?” He asked me with a smile. I stared at his dimpled cheeks, the car and finally the hot sun and I decided to defeat my flesh for once and follow him in his car.
He was a perfect gentleman during the ride and we talked about the deplorable state of our school environment, the deplorable state of the country, and we discovered that we shared something in common – we had both given up on school and country.
Soon enough we reached my hostel, I slang my bag over my shoulder, thanked him and was about to open the door when he begged me to give him my phone number.
That evening he called me and I declined his offer to have dinner with him at a nearby restaurant. Two days later his call met me at a time when I was bored and vulnerable. I told him to call me back in ten minutes, then I called Ruki and told her a guy wanted to take me out. She screamed so loud I had to remove the phone from my ears to save my eardrums from mortal peril.
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“Ohhhhhhhh! I’m so happy for you!” She squealed. Then she came to her senses “Tell me something about this stranger though.”
I told her his name was Andrew, told her how we met. She asked me if he was cute and if he looked financially comfortable. I told her he was light skinned with dimples and a hot body and he looked quite rich and soft. She started screaming again so I ended the call.
I and Andrew went out for a month before he told me one day that he couldn’t see me anymore. The evening he broke the news to me I was sitting on my bed cross legged as we discussed.
“Why have you come to this decision?” I asked him. My voice was level and smooth.
“I don’t know, just don’t want to do this anymore” he replied
“This? Like the sex? Or the love you claimed to have for me!” I laughed hysterically, I could barely recognize myself.
“Precious calm down! I hope we can be friends though. I’ll see you around” he said and ended the call.
I stared at the phone in disbelief, I briefly thought that if I was in a movie, I would have flung it against the wall. But this was real life, and there was no use ruining a perfectly good phone because of a perfectly rotten man.
I rolled the word “rotten” around my tongue and began to laugh.
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