Who Am I? I Be Man!

It still rang in my head; it had replaced the sound of sirens from when mum died in 2008. I sat at the backseat strapped in with my seatbelt when the car somersaulted over the cargo trailer, I still sat still inside the car that had now turned upside down; crying when flashes of blue and yellows lights lit up the dark ‘Pipe road’ Ibadan Nigeria.

I watched them rush up to me and pull me out and then move to mum, but, mum was motionless and they put her on top a rectangular stretcher, they put us in different ambulances and that was the second to the last time I saw her. The last time was two weeks later when Uncle Phillip asked me to wear black. This time, she lay in an enclosed box; it was metal and shiny.

It would appear mum loves lying down. I often wonder if she’s still lying down now. Since the incident, I hear the sound of sirens at least once every day until Uncle Phillip sent me to a boarding school three weeks ago.

“Woman-man!” became the new ring.

I stared in front of the mirror.

“You shake your buttocks too much when you walk,” “you walk like a girl,” Uche my classmate had cautioned.
I looked at my buttocks, a fair reflection of mums, I spent a lot of time with Uncle Phillip’s daughter’s and I could see a reflection of their steps in mine. How they swung their hands to the left and right as if invincible strings attached each hand to the opposite leg.

They took the taunting to a new level this morning when Caleb called me a ‘faggot’; I was indifferent until people began cautioning him, while some were laughing hard. I didn’t know the meaning of the word until 10 minutes ago, my Oxford dictionary put me out of the misery (or into it; I’m not sure). I wondered why he would call me that; I wondered why he had to be so mean.

I looked at the mirror. My once upon a time smooth face, now pimple infested, my broadening shoulders, the grey hairs beginning to appear on my chest, I pulled my boxers down so I would see my hardened penis, I took few steps to and fro, mimicking a male colleague in.

“I be man!” I declared.

 

 

This piece was written by Chukwukere Nwovike