by Derek Owusu
15
The pirate film we were watching mirrored my half posture among these white bodies sitting tall. The opening scene begins with singing and stretched arms anticipating the embrace of the good life. Then, the spectacle – the white upper class – father, rector, whatever, on the keys – enunciating every word of a rap written to help shake people like them off. Drum machines and keyboards are replaced by the more civilised piano, and voices full of money sing in unison the coarse lyrics smoothed over by their gentle diction and intonations. The black nerd is replaced by white intellectuals, keys on the piano unlocking racism I never knew existed. We were at a friend’s house and his dad, hands worked to black by the grease of his motors, sat with us, a break from the MOTs and overcharging OAPs complaining of cataracts and not carburettors. The opening scene continues with Pharrell’s chorus being sung by members of a church known for exorcisms and civilising missions in Africa. A line is said, removed from irony because of past pale hands tightening a noose – the Wayans brothers too unsophisticated to realise this truth. The dad among us laughed, licked his brandished teeth, satisfied on his break without having something to eat. I saw his pupil in the corner of his eye, so strained it nearly spilled out like mascara. He called me a nigger without opening his mouth. The movie played on and I wondered what was said when I wasn’t sitting in this house.
16
How much pride did she feel removing my belt with one hand, seeing my jeans drop like trite comedy, an erection on the way but blood not knowing exactly what to do. I couldn’t take my eyes off the cracked plaster, where a mirror used to be, as she rubbed and squeezed, kept her knickers on but tried to remove my boxers while I forced my body up against the wall. I wanted her, but not this, and as the kids ran past the bathroom giggling and looking through the keyhole, an older voice moving them on, there grew less of me for her to hold in her hand. But we rubbed on until I opened my eyes, both of us now sitting at the top of the stairs, in love and enjoying the view. She drew red crayon on her lips and asked me to be her boyfriend. Between kisses, I looked around for my belt – my mum can’t know I’ve lost anything today. But I didn’t want to pull away, and soon, I forgot. Of the girl, the last I remember is my mum asking me who she was between strikes from the belt that was to replace the one I had lost.
CHANGE
* * *
Anansi, the weight of the world can never fall on the sky, so this is why your father has no empathy for me. Does he sleep to my stories or are you weaving words without care? Creep to his bedside and wake him with these pleas, and I’ll wait for the raindrop that proves his sympathy.
1
The distance behind us pulled itself into shapes in motion – something trying to be free and the night exposing something troublesome. The four of us stopped as the pacing got closer, the urgency in the stride frequency preparing us for a loss. ‘Phones, phones.’ My white friends pulled out their 3210s and Nokia face-offs while I felt in my pocket thinking I could assemble a cellular on a cellular level, use shaking fingers, the feelers drawing attention to the coins in my pocket, to bend reality. In this moment I was the shelves I had stolen from and the purses I had pillaged, justified, I thought, because it was unfair others had things and my material wants endlessly sought satisfaction. ‘You’re safe, you don’t need to worry.’ They said it like I should know better, like they were tired of explaining this. Slowly, they headed back into the half light that housed them. The four of us continued on our walk home, them feeling naked and robbed, not because of their loss but because I was safe. ‘Bad boys’ weren’t just mindless men morphed from the darkness, but people like me. I looked at my friends and for the first time I felt a power I was sure they could see – I was no longer worried they would leave, now there were others just like me.
2
I watch a little black boy standing outside a shop, pretending not to be bothered by his white friends inside spending money. I walk over and give him a two pound coin and remind him to eat whatever he buys before he gets home. My mum wouldn’t approve so I know his mum wouldn’t either. Wide, his eyes look like mine and I fall in love with how grateful everything about him becomes. ‘Safe, man!’, he says. He smells like cocoa butter and DAX and I follow his scent up to the door and watch as he stands in front of the colourful sugars with snappy names. I know he’s savouring being spoilt for choice; I’m sure when he takes a bite of whatever he buys I too will be satisfied. And a memory comes back to me of the first time I held a pound coin, given to me by a stranger who smelled like cigarettes and Blue Magic.
3
My mum carried around the ultrasound now come to life – an image swollen with my future – to show me nothing’s black and white. I imagined a fragile sticker on her stretch-marked stomach and always walked behind her as she climbed the stairs. We’d fall asleep together, me supposed to be watching over her but getting caught up in the lethargy of her movements. I would wake before her and lift the kente from her stomach, the cloth getting acquainted with who it’d hold up, and imagine the smile of my soon-to-be sibling. And as I’d fall back to sleep I’d ask the bump for their name and glide my fingers over stretches and paths, trails to a world and a body’s resistance to the light. Dribbling in the womb became spittle in a bucket, only my hands touched it, and pouring it out was simply wiping the baby’s mouth. When my father walked out, I walked in, with a Cornetto in one hand and my pocket smelling of Deep Heat. Then my mum grabbed my hand so I could feel the kicks, but as I touched her stomach I knew it was a palm trying to connect with me through the skin, and my bond with my brother touchingly began.
4
She says she can’t get up, that my dad looked down at her and walked away, his steps silent, like a stranger, like no one, only hissing sounds between his lips as he sucked the evening’s meat from his teeth – just another day. Her hand is on her hip, a position she’s used to, dancing alone to a beat she doesn’t own. My bedroom door is open so she crawls across the floor, metamorphosis to tεfrε my father has chosen to ignore. She reaches out, one hand on the bed frame, weak, but it shakes, trembling like it fears it’ll have to cover where she lay. But she reassures it with a second hand and slowly, she stands.
A ward like this gave me my brother, memories where I could see life contributing to every colour, but today the sedate shuffling of nurses is different, lacking, less, there are no hearts left, and what was once a fast beat is now slow feet dragging with grief. I hear no babies crying but whimpers of a soul worn out – the hospital holds no excitement; who am I holding this time? My mum, she’s too weak to hold her head. I lean over and let her hear the heart she brought forth to beat out her sadness, a child soaking it all up. She cries like gentle hiccups, trying to open her mouth to speak; I lift her to see her cheek and give it a kiss intended for two – Mum, I’m sure she would have loved you as much as we do.
5
I’m on first-name terms with my dad, the man my mum says should be on my birth certificate. I see him sometimes, usually once he returns from Accra, business trips that require Primark gifts and six months’ saved salary – this mouse-like miser of a man would suddenly open up, speaking and giving enthusiastically when a runway crossed his mind. I’ve been building the courage for years, trying to pull my voice from a well that deepened with every strike, intimidated by the width of his arm when he wore traditional garb. As a child, I wished the colours of his kente would soak into him and give me a father whose personality was luminous; instead he’d pass on darkness to my eyes. But now I have the courage, just enough strength to go against the awkward, ominous silence that will follow my questions. A few years ago, I would have shielded my face hearing a feather float – a silence spoke of violence, an oncoming slap or a fist, a release to appease a broken heart for a life that God didn’t give. I ask why he didn’t show us any love, behave like the fathers who teased me as a child. ‘K, I’m incapable,’ he says. His head is low and I can see he is balding and for the first time his Ghanaia
n humility betrays his Nigerian features. ‘My dad, you don’t know,’ he says, ‘when he used to see me on the market he would ignore me. I don’t know.’ And for a moment I’m soft enough to let the weight of his confession mould me, leave an impression I’d carry round with me from now until the end. But then, I remember, years ago, a man’s voice from our bathroom telling someone on the phone he loves them. My mum was asleep upstairs and the next day was my dad’s fourth trip of the year to Ghana.
6
The hospital visits were every six months. Time off school isn’t as fulfilling when you can’t blink without pain, move your hand or cough without feeling the pressure of living. Tests showed no allergies but my dad returning stopped the symptoms that started with his departure. His presence felt oppressive but without him my body reacted the way I wouldn’t allow my emotions to. On regular days, I’d greet him and take his groans or yeahs: but returning salutes, akwaaba, revealed a truth: a, ‘How are you?’ or ‘You takin’ it easy?’ Was a panacea brought back from his home.
7
He’d had enough practice – you could tell by the dark stains on the tops of his shoes. I wouldn’t let him get used to dragging his feet, so I lifted him out of his stroller, pushed him up overhead, his soles gliding back and forth faintly above my shoulders, giving him a taste of what it felt like to be above me: he has to be, my saviour – my reason for living. He baptised me, saliva on the top of my head like syrup spreading across my thoughts, my brother so lovable. He came forward, swaying, or maybe the floor shaking but in the moment I couldn’t tell, so focused on the miracle of teaching that anything else seemed possible. He stood a few centimetres in front of me, one foot forward, his left, but I’d seen him beat his bowl of baby food with his right. He remained in that position, his torso teetering, a boxer learning to stay in the fight. Our local shopkeeper called him Tyson, my brother, big for his age and his chubby balled fist resembling a baby boxing glove. But here before me, his hands were open, stretched out in front of him because he wanted to be picked up and lay his head beside my neck. But, as I had, he would have to work for affection, nothing would come to him. He brought his left leg back and started again with his right. My smile at his discovery excited him and added to his unbalanced shaking, the unsteady jittering of laughter and weak legs. His left foot followed, and then another step; and then another, and another. ‘P, you’re doing it!’ His joy from the journey nearly toppled him before he fell into my arms, Mike into D’Amato, a victory for us both.
8
A boat party on the Thames is the first time Miss Harry speaks to me. There was purposeful avoidance in the way she walked around me in class, collecting other students’ work with small talk but acting in a daze when she lifted my sheets. During an assembly where she sank too comfortably into her seat, she rose to reveal a pink thong above her curve-concealing trousers. The laughter, I thought, was forced, to dissolve the embarrassment. But me, I didn’t laugh. I just looked at her and she looked back. Now I’m leaning over the sea, watching its foaming, soapy so fish stay fresh, reflecting the corner of the sky where the moon is bubble-wrapped in darkness to protect it from poets. Miss Harry walks over and asks why I’m out here alone, and I answer with the truth, that I was hoping sympathy would compel feet heading for another dance to walk out into the fresh air and let me dream I had a chance. Miss Harry says anyone would be lucky. My left arm goes numb; she’s staring at me to see what she’s done. Thank you, Miss, I say. I bring back structure, the scaffolding of the school, the respect in my posture. She looks over the edge of the boat, focusing on the split in the sea, thinking it must be satisfaction these dark bodies of water receive. A smile and she walks away, a secret pressed tightly within her gait. Once out of sight I turn back to the distance, the wind whistles with my pining, a soft sound above water, a symphony without rain, a heart pierced without pain.
9
Our bathroom was filled with bath soap instead of bars and shower gel, my mum being unable to tell the difference, so when I tried to masturbate for the first time, the right consistency was close to hand. For a few seconds I rubbed and expected the suds to create a sensation that would turn me into a man. At fifteen, my cousins brushed beards between bringing out their dicks for banter, so I assumed maturity flourished because they were open to tags like Onan. Testosterone, I thought, must be forcing hair from follicles, and being versed in the use of a phallus made everything sexual well-balanced, uninteresting and only useful when ticks signalled moving hands or rare consensual pleasure. To them, a flaccid penis was nothing amorous until engaged. But now, at eighteen, my beard still fails to connect, and porn is a page I haven’t turned yet.
10
Once the satisfaction speaks to my entire body it becomes clear that not all sins are equal. As taught, I tie a knot in the latex opening, place the filled prophylactic in tissue and put it in my pocket. My hand hovers over the youthful receptacle while I hum songs of worship I was taught as a child, Ghanaian gospels I would clap to, trying to move my mother with my praise. God’s jealousy of old flies through folds of time, forgiving my mum being deified but standing above, peering down like a parent who’ll never be satisfied. Every night I’ve prayed the same prayer through compulsion and fear of the numinous; but tonight I’ll fail to bring my palms together without regret at not having tried a different position. She had invited me in, put her hands on my shoulders and collapsed me into a chair. She moved the thin wrapper into her mouth like unleavened bread, prepared me then moved material to the side, lowering the experience of her sins on my thighs. And I sat on her tongue, Jonah 1:3, no longer able to spit out James 4:17 to save me from the judgement of my desires. The journey home, bus deserted, I hold the seat in front, a crash imminent, and with my hands secure I rest my head on my forearms, thinking back to when I’d pushed her thighs off my own, fearing I’d fall out of the chair as it groaned. And as I draw closer to my street and stare blankly at my phone, a mirror blazing, I feel the heat of hell unmistakably my own.
11
I found porn between my dad’s vinyl of Prince and Rick James. Its plastic casing reminded me of pirated games, cheating companies. I was disgusted, bypassing arousal because I’ve never known sex – the pressure, the pulsing, the sweat and post revulsion. But I’ve felt close, and that’s what I want. I daydream of dissolving, reaching for you to join my dissolution. Our skin touching, I imagine we become who we’d like ourselves to be. But we’re blocked, never really touching, scientifically speaking, and look absurd while we’re fucking. I’ve said I’d rather not, not tonight, but I know the mood swing will end in a fight – manipulation, out of sight. So I give in, am taken in, a smooth swallow, then rapturous applause, building, only to plummet to slow palms, a sarcastic clap – a peak nearly reached; I climb the crescendo one more time, I feel like I’m going to die, shrieks and scratches on my chest, shouts to go deeper, having nothing left. So out of breath, so out of my zone, and as I climax I’m dreaming of being home. And then we’re done, both bereft, smouldering without satisfaction, a fire drained of air. Her bloodshot side-eye makes me want to run and hide. She needs a man and I’m a boy; she wants to make love and I want to be in love. I imagine myself small, knees up, my temples against my caps and my arms wrapped around them. Footsteps pass me and someone asks … but there’s nothing wrong with me. I climb out of bed, pretending to scratch my pubic hair to conceal my flaccidity. I close the bathroom door. With my head in my hands, feeling my penis retreating, embarrassed by how we’re leaving, I sit on the seat and cry.
12
I’ve been cosplaying with my clothes since earning the money to fill my wardrobe, starting with two three-piece suits hanging either side of the railing like large ornamental earrings on a face that doesn’t need much dressing. Tracksuits were folded beneath tailored cuffs, the descent of man, with skinny jeans stacked next to those and a partnered pile of £3 muscle fits from Primark. All black. Jamal, Marcus, Del Boy, K, Nana – whatever day of the week a new
name, look and stride would guide my inverted feet. But one thing has stayed the same since I started pushing my burden uphill everyday: my dark shades, dark shades that hide red eyes but can’t cup falling tears. Feet firm in front of my mirror as the moon looks on and muses the same – wondering which one of me is standing before you today.
13
I am a regular at my brother’s school. The sight of me always draws an embarrassed but proud smile across his face – older brothers emanate power but bring infancy into focus. We’re watched as we walk out and I know tomorrow he’ll be asked, for the tenth time, ‘Is that guy your brother?’ He’s one step away from a sprint, struggling to keep pace with me as we walk home, neither of us talking but enjoying being seen together, me looking after him and him feeling like my equal. We’re stepping into the house before he asks what’s for dinner; he can smell the rice but wants to be wrong, I want to be wrong, the corned beef stew on my tongue becoming the taste of PERi-PERi chicken. ‘Go and get changed and I’ll dish your rice.’ He takes his time then sits on the edge of the sofa, knees ready to hold the plate, tray and rice. I bring in the Nando’s and again there’s that smile, embarrassed but proud.