By Ojo Deborah
‘Shuaib called me a bastard,’ he ran to the teacher and reported.
‘It was just a joke; don’t mind him,’ she said.
But such words are not funny to a child with no father.
‘Zayn is not fatherless.
He has a father.
The man is just absent.’
He heard his mother say to her new lover for the umpteenth time.
Zayn doesn’t want another man.
He wants his father.
But he can’t say that to his mother.
What if the man left because of him?
What if he was the jinx of their happy family?
Zayn is older now.
He loves an Igbo lady called Adanna.
Adanna must like him too.
Why else would she smile at his lame jokes
And show him how to make oats?
Her affection seems disastrous.
So, when she invited him to her home
With a promise of an ‘Everyone loves Jennifer’ ticket,
His heart lost count of beats.
He counted to three and told her his brother was waiting for him.
Knowing she hated lies and liars alike,
And the chance to build a life never reached the aisle.
Zayn doesn’t need another human.
He is enough, but still wants his father.
So off he went, hiring an investigator.
Two months later, his Dada turned up,
Getting out of prison on the governor’s order
after killing a man.
See, my father is not that bad a man.
There must have been a reason they let him go.
I will take him back with me now.
But his old man was like a young child:
Needy, wanting allowance, milk, and good shoes.
Poor Zayn got tired.
‘When did we swap roles? Go outside and build a life.’
His drunk old man smacked him hard, screamed, and cursed him out:
‘Don’t pray for my demise; give me money, you bastard.’
Never has a word hit him so hard.
Zayn raised his hand and struck him back.
Down went the man. That was really his demise.
The siren came, and Zayn lost his Dad.
The siren came, and Zayn thought he was a proper bastard.
