My 37 Year War With Satan: Biodun Rotimi

Please note that all the characters in this story are very real people, and I used their real names. However, do not judge them, as I have said in my website, no one is really responsible for their actions. Even I have had transgressions in my life, so as Jesus said “He who is without sin, let him/her cast the first stone”.

Part 1, before satan fully attacked.

My name is Biodun Rotimi, I am the third born son of Ola Rotimi who was a professor of Theatre Arts (university of ife/OAU and university of portharcout, Nigeria) and Hazel Mae Rotimi, a white American who was a trained singer and artist. She particularly loved pottery, making things with clay and many other kinds of arts and crafts. They met at Boston University, when my Dad went to the US on a fullbright scolarship, first to Yale for his bachelors and then to BU for his masters. I was born and raised in Nigeria and lived there until I was 22 years old (1990 ), except for one year (1980/81) when our whole family went with my dad to America (Iowa city) for his sabathical. To date I have spent more years in America than Nigeria. Most of my war with satan happened in America. I currently reside in Nigeria. I quit my job at Bank of America in Texas USA, immediately I found out the company had given a 500 million dollar loan to Elbit systems which makes military weapons for Israel. This was a couple months after Oct 7th and Israel was in the heat of their genocide against Palestinians.

Let me start from the very first significant thing I believe, looking back now, satan did in my life. It was around 1987, when I was 19 years old. At that age, the world was still very normal to me, meaning I knew nothing of satan and his activities in the world. I attributed things that were happening around me to human nature and natural events. Anyway, one particular day I was listening to a cassette tape we had, and “Careless Whisper” by George Michael began to play and I was awed by how nice his voice sounded. I immediately thought to myself “men if I could sing like that, I would get some really pretty girls”. At the time, my normal singing voice was not good at all, when I sang alone, but when singing with the cassatte/radio, it sounded great, and so I began to sing to the radio a lot. I mean up to 5 or 7 hours a day, for no other reason than I enjoyed it so much. I really believed the way my voice was is the way it would be forever, but strangely, within 4 weeks or so, I noticed it began to change. First I got a sore throat and after it went, my voice sounded a little different, and started getting better and better, and I said to myself, wow! if this goes on, I will soon be able to sing alone without the radio/cassette, and it would sound great, and so I began to consciously develop my voice. My mother was a trained singer, and I found a book in her room called “training the singing voice”. I read it and saw how the author described the changes that happen to the voice when you begin to train it. The vibration goes from around your adams apple to your nose area, and the circumfrence of your throat goes from wider in the adams apple area to wider in the nasal area. This concurred with what seemed to be happening to me physically in my voice area. I was definitely getting ringing in my nose area, where it used to be in my adams apple area, and more widening of my throat in the nasal area. I’m not sure exactly how long but certainly within a year, my voice was so good, I could sing without a accompanying professional singer performance. There was a new popular singer back then, called Anita Baker, and my voice sounded exactly like hers, but maybe a little better ( yes I am a guy, but my voice at the time sounded very much like a natural woman ). One day I was alone in the house and singing an Anita Baker song in the shower. One of our friends ( Michelle Prest ) came in the house and heard me and said “Biodun, is that you?” I answered “yes”. He was surprised and said “I think say na cassette dey play”. I completely agreed with him in my mind, because I could hear how I sounded. Anyway, this went on for another year or so. Because my voice sounded good enough in stand alone mode, I began to take long walks too, just to sing to myself. After maybe one and a half years, suddenly one day my voice was gone. I would sing to the radio, but all there was was like an empty shell of a voice. I was confused, but then just thought naturally it would come back again, and it did. After maybe 2 weeks, it was back almost 100%, but then again in another 3 weeks or so, it was gone again. I thought again it would come back, but this time it never did. Just an empty shell of a voice. I did not enjoy singing again very much because of how it felt and sounded.

We lived on uniport campus and I had a very good friend (no name given), and in those days we used to do what we call “deal”. For instance we would canvas the the neigbourhoods looking for unguarded fire extinguishers, which we would steal, and then sell to get some money. Not that we really needed money but it was so much fun. My friend told us about mecury, that it is what they use to make money. They would go through a process of putting the paper cut in the size of Naira in some bowl and then add a liquid with the mecury to make the money legit. He told us mecury can be found in the electricity generators they had on compus, so we made a plan to go get some mecury. This would be the biggest “deal” we had done so far. The day came and we went to the generator in Choba park, just me and my friend. We breached the fence surrounding the generator and stood inside in front of the generator, which was buzzing loudly with electrical power. My friend lost his nerve and began to shake with fear. He was holding the big screwdriver we took to release the mecury. On seeing him compromised by fear, it made me very angry and I grabed the screwdriver from him and lashed at the glass case containing the mecury with all my might. The glass cracked on the first strike, so I immediately struck again even harder. The container broke a large hole and started pouring the mecury. My friend quickly took the large can we brought and started collecting the mecury. As it was pouring into the can he said “we’re rich!…. we’re rich!”. We filled the can completely and left. We parted ways with him taking the can of mecury with the idea he would sell it to the people who would process it and use it to make money. Nothing came of it, and my friend kept giving some excuse what happened to the mecury. We felt we had been duped and they had cut us out of the profit from selling the mecury. At some point my older brother enitan, while we were talking to someone about the situation, mentioned “Biodun has something in the pipeline for <his name here>”. Meaning I had plans for revenge. I had no such plans but said nothing. I had a feeling he was just boosting my ego, like “Biodun is not someone to be messed with”. In those days my motto was “vengance is mine saith the lord”. I always kept such things up to God. Most importantly, I had no real evidence he was lying to us as I never saw them spending or having any extra money, so the jury was still out on that case. That is why it made so much sense to leave it to God, because he would know for sure. Sometime after that, <his name here> suddenly went mad. First they told me he was at the campus gate directing unseen birds in the air. Later I saw him around one of the girls hostel we called block B, and we sat on a car and I was trying to talk to him, but everything he was saying was completely incomprehensible. I had no idea how to react to this, because I liked him very much. He was maybe my closest friend at the time and I felt a deep sense of loss mixed with confusion. Something was telling me this may be because of what he did concerning the mecury, but I was not happy at all if that was the case. Looking back now, I’d bet it was satan, trying to make me take revenge based on the anger I felt at being duped.

One day we were in our living room listening to a Bob Marley album. The song “me and them” was playing and at some point, he sang the lyrics “but now its too late, you see men has lost their faith.. eating up all the flesh from all Jah..”. It resonated with me, as I now felt some guilt about eating animals. I did nothing at the time, but kept in the back of my mind, someday I will make an effort to stop doing that.

In 1990, I graduated University of Portharcout with a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering. My grade was a pass, which is below third class. I was very happy with that and just wanted to move on. I knew it was not reflective of my ability at all, and did not care. I always knew I would have no problem in life, and in fact be very successful. In my very early years I was always the top three in class, but that changed mysteriuosly in secondry school form four, which is tenth grade in American schooling system. I began to come almost last in class, and this continued maybe till I got my Bachelors. It never really changed my happiness. So I came to America in November of 1990, and arrived New York City, to live with my brother and sister in Staten Island. My family and my cousins family where always *very* close. We always enjoyed each others company very much and were so giddy with happiness whenever we visited each other. When I arrived in America though, things had changed. The most senior (Niyi) had kind of abandoned the others giving them an image like they are “neer do wells”, so it was him and his wife and children against his brother (Niji), my brother (Enitan) and my sister (Oruene). I was living with the three, but Niyi would call me specifically some times and arranged a day when I could come visit him in New Jersey. The day I arrived in New Jersey, Niyis wife (Angela) picked me up at the train/bus station. I was so excited to meet her, and started chatting happily. Next thing I know, she started asking of my plans. I told her I would be applying to colleges to do a masters. She said “what if that doesn’t happen, then what?” I was surprised. What kind of thinking is this? Anyway, I started to come up with possible contingencies, and at everything she would say again “what if that doesn’t happen, then what?. I had never encountered such a situation in my life before, someone seems so stupid they have to have a plan for every single contingency to the ends of the earth. It was not only the questions, but the aggressive tone she was using. This is someone she has just met for the first time, how can she consider that I am an idiot that doesn’t know how to move about my life? I immediately realized I was talking to a fool, and stopped talking to her. It was very sad to me because I had great expections of the friends and new family members I would meet in America. I knew I would never be seeking out her company in the future. This was my first encounter with what today I call a “satan idiot” that I figured was just an American phenomenon. When we got to where Niyi was, I mentioned nothing of this to him. Nothing significant happened for the next year, but I applied to many universities to do a masters in Computer Engineering, and got rejected by all, but City College of New York. I think I was visiting an old friend of ours called Gloria Hart ( now changed her name to Dele Husbands ), and she suggested I apply to City College which was just a few blocks from where she lived then. I took her advice and to my surprise, the accepted me. They did not have Computer Engineering, so I “settled” for Computer Science. To this day I believe God did that change for me, because it turns out Computer Science was so much better for my life, not to say it had so much more job opportunities. Amen.  

While staying with enitan, Oruene and Niji in Staten Island (78 Lockman Ave), my first year in America, my Dad had given me his computer to give to enitan to fix. I gave it to him and the computer just stayed on a shelf for ages. enitan never found time to take it to a computer repair. I was not happy about it at all, but instead of confronting him, I decided to take it to the computer guy myself. I also considered that enitan was a working man and did not have so much time to do so, and since I was pretty much free without a job, it makes sense that I take it. The only issue was I was so new I did not know my way around, but I took the chance anyway. The computer guy fixed the laptop which we returned to my dad. One day at the Lockman Ave apartment, we were all discussing about white people ( I certainly did not bring up the topic ). Complaining really about their behaviour and I agreed with a few of the points that were made. I had also noticed how white people seemed to behave toward non whites, but at one point enitan now said “they have little dicks”. It took me by surprise, like why say such a thing. First off, doesn’t he know I have a small dick myself? Second, why would you measure a person by the size of his dick? It seemed like a very low level way of thinking or critisizing a people. A little later my sister Oruene called me one day and said she had saved some money so I can get on my feet in America. She gave me $500, and then said to me “but you must pay it back. Don’t think I’m like enitan that would give you free money and you will not pay back”. I was shocked. We never acted like this toward each other in Nigeria. When she told me this, I had already spent $20 from the money, so I quickly asked enitan for $20 to pay her back the complete $500, as such a situation with Oruene was horribly abhorrent to me. He gave me the $20 and I immediately gave Oruene back the $500. She started crying like I had hurt her somehow. On another occasion, my sisters job was having an office party and she could bring someone along, so she took me. I was very excited especially to meet some pretty girls there. In those days, I had just come from Nigeria, and in Nigeria, we never wear deodorant. I was very used to going natural and loved it. On our way back from the party, my sister began to express her complete dissapointment with me, how I embarrassed her by stinking up the whole place. I was completely shocked at her treatment of me and very very angry inside, but I said nothing. I couldn’t wait to be on my feet so I can just live by myself without this kind of uncompassionate behaviour. The way I saw it, a stinking character is a lot worse than stinking armpits. And I didn’t think I smelled that bad. Between this and the $500 situation, I really did not like her anymore. I later got in the mode of wearing deodorant when I went out, but to this day, I don’t really like it. I’m back in Nigeria and now sometimes when I go out, I go natural and never notice any bad odor. Quite a lot of people in Nigeria still don’t use it and I like that a lot. I feel so much freer here ( I also don’t like to wear a watch or neck chains of any sort. I feel a tiny bit imprisoned by them, and just love total freedom. Just clothes ( of course I love them ), and slippers). 

Another day in Staten Island, I went down Lockman ave and around the corner, where there was a basketball court. I began to play by myself. After a short while, a group of black boys from the projects close by arrived. One of my hopes when coming to America was to meet and make good friends with black people in america. The image I had was painted by movies/shows by Eddie Murphy, Richard Prior, Bill Corsby, and of course all the music and videos. They began to play with me and they were very rough and uncaring. I never got the ball and they were insulting me a lot, how I could not play at all. One of them in particular was just extremely mean. when they were done he took my ball and they all began to leave. He was still talking very aggressively and one of his friends bagan to plead with him to give the ball back to me. Eventually, when they were quite far away, he threw it in my direction. It was a rude awakening to the reality of black people behaviour in USA. I know many are good, but I had no idea many are this bad.

Maybe a week or two later, I went to the same place, hoping those guys will not show again. This time a group of latino guys came, and started playing with me, and the energy was totally different. They were complimenting me every time I took a shot, even if I missed. Always kept me in the loop and game, I was so happy playing with them. I learned that your best friends may not be of your race or family, but rather people of similar spirit.

In those days, I used to love to take long walks like I did in Nigeria, just to get out of the house.

When I first arrived in America, after a couple months, before I started applying to colleges for my masters degree, I tried very hard looking for work. I went to places like McDonalds and KFC thinking it will be easy to get such jobs, Filling out the applications, I put all my education thinking they will be impressed and I will surely be hired. Nothing. Eventually I was able to get a good response, but it turned out to be telemarketing. I went to the location and saw a very big room with lots of people sitting at desks each with a big phone book. The supervisor lady explained what was expected, that I should go through the phone book, calling abitrary numbers and trying to sell some product to them ( I cant remember what the product was now ). Already I knew I would not be so good. She assigned me to a desk and I just sat there, looking around, how others were doing the job, maybe I’d get an idea how to approach it. One guy in front of me was so hyper and zealous in doing it. Like he was born for it, he would call someone he doesnt know and immediately start overwhelming them with his sales pitch. Exaggerating, lying a bit and very much hyping the product. I said to myself, I can never do this. I made an effort to call one or two people and the conversation didn’t last 8 seconds each time. Once they gave any hint they are not interested, I would say goodbye. The supervisor lady noticed this and came over and dismissed me. I was relieved.

The next job I got was as a security guard at a security company called RAV. They assigned me to the Jacob Javits convention center after a short training. The first thing that hit me hard was that I had to remain standing all through the 8 hour shift. I had never done such before and it was torture. I remember one Jamaican guy who was much older than me then, looked happy. I complained to him about the standing for so many hours and he replied back with a big smile “I can stand all day mon” bouncing on his feet as he said it. One time they had an art convention. Artist from all over displaying their works. I had to stand much longer than usual and not even in normal working hours, I had the overnight shift, which extended until the participants for the convention arrived in the morning. I was assigned to one big showroom on the ground floor and was standing in the middle of the exibits. I was so tired and sleepy, I remembered standing up straight and then nothing at all and suddenly I was concious again but very close to hitting the floor. I had fallen asleep while standing and woke up just as I was about to hit the floor. I quickly saved my fall and stood up again. Looked around and no one even noticed.

Soon after I got laid off from RAV and joined Wells Fargo security company. During the training period was when I applied to City College of New York for my masters in Computer Science. When training was complete, they assigned me to a homeless shelter in Styvescent Brooklyn, called Sumner House. They gave us work assignment papers and instructed us to go to the Sumner House location by ourselves the next day to relieve the security guards currently working there, as they are now being replaced by us. I thought this was known to those security guards, but found out when I arrived the next day they were really being fired. They were very angry with us. The guy I was supposed to replace was a big hispanic guy. At least 6 feet 2, and very strong looking with one small braid of hair at the back of his head. He shouted very loud and angry “My name is Jose Contreas and I don’t go home for nobody” ( I can’t remember his real name now ). On hearing this, I realized this guy needs this job a lot more than I do, so I quietlly left and went home. I decided I would not go back to that job anymore. They called me the next day begging me to come back but I refused. Shortly after that I recieved my acceptance letter to City College.

Just after I had started my comp sci degree at City College, enitan had moved to a new apartment in Bradely Ave (Staten Island). I loved the apartment, and stayed a while with him there. Because I loved so much to play table tennis, I bought a table tennis table, which we kept on the patio. I went for a while to stay with my sister in Brooklyn, and by the time I came back, enitan had moved to yet another apartment in Styvesent, close to the SI ferry. I asked about the table tennis table, and he said he threw it away when he moved. I’m not sure but it was a folding one that did not need that much space and there was enough space in the new apartment if we wanted to play indoors (unfolded). I then stayed with him there while still attending CCNY. One day, I came home from school and the apartment was locked. I could not get in, and I knocked and knocked but there was no answer. I was desparate, so I went to the next door neighbors place. A lovely Korean lady I had become good friends with lived there. She played the piano very well and I always loved to listen at the wall of our apartment to her playing. I told her our apartment was locked and I could not get in, maybe I could wait in her place till my brother comes home. She suggested I go out the fire escape and check if our apartment window was open. I did so, and it was open, so I climbed through the window, and immediately I entered the apartment, there was enitan, lying on his bed wide awake with his then girlfriend Amede next to him. They were not having sex or anything, just laying there and it was obvious to me they could have easily let me in. They said nothing at all, and I kept quiet too, like nothing had just happened. In those days, my total focus was on my Comp Sci degree. All the while in Nigeria, I knew my eyesight was not too good, but I never bothered to get glasses, but now I was determined to take my schooling very seriously, so I found an optometrist and got a pair of glasses. I was amazed at the difference. I had been going through life without really seeing anything around me, but now it was all so clear I was really amazed that first day I started wearing them. I cared about nothing but my school, so even though my trousers were quite lose and needed a belt, I did not care to buy one, but used a piece of cellophane from a shopping bag to tie one belt strap to another, closing the gap so my trousers will stay up, performing the function of a belt. It worked perfectly and I did not want a real belt at all. enitan one day expressed how he felt sorry for me doing that, I could not understand it at all. We were both nowhere at all in life. What does a belt mean at that point? Shortly after that my cousin Niji came to Staten Island too and stayed with us, and then one day suggested to me we go together to Jackson Heights in Queens as he had landed a new job there and had an apartment we could stay in. As he said it I detected clearly and atmosphere like he did not like the way enitan was acting toward us and wanted to save me from that situation.

So now to the next significant thing satan did in my life, to this point, while in Jackson Heights Queens, I had never watched porn videos, but one day alone in the apartment I shared with my cousin Niji, I just happened to be exploring and found a porn video, called “hot pink and black”. Out of curiosity, I popped it into the VCR and started watching. Within one or two minutes, I was jacking off to it. Wow, I enjoyed it so much I began watching almost every day. I felt a new kind of feeling in my body from that time on, but ignored it. I felt it mostly in my left foot, and after a while, there was a sharp pain in the bottom of my left foot sheath. It was so painful, I could not walk normally on my left foot, but had to turn it a little to avoid the pain. Somehow, I knew porn was bad for me, but whatever the danger was, it was not high enough to overcome the pleasure I felt from it.

One day in the Jackson Heights Queens apartment, my other cousins (Niyi) adopted daughter (Kay) was visiting, She was maybe 6 years old.  We were playing about in the apartment, and Niji had gone to work. At one point I was lying on the bed and she came up to me and was at first just play fighting. Next thing she began to make some provocative moves on top of me. I was confused. She still looked very innocent like she had no idea what she was doing, but I thought to myself, if she continues this, I may start to get aroused, so I quickly took her off me and got off the bed, and from then on only normal play. So today I realize that was the third significant thing satan tried with me.

After completing my Masters program in 1992, I started looking for work all over. Eventually I got an internship position at AT&T. I was never happier in my life. I started the position in April of 1993. After the internship was over in about three months, they offered me a permanent position. I was even happier than when I got the internship. I started to work full time at $45k per year. This was a *lot* of money to me back then. All this while, my left foot and ankle had started twisting, and I was getting more and more into porn. I found an adult store where I bought many porn videos. I was like a kid in a candy shop in there. Because the twist had gone up my ankle and to my waist, I found it hard to indulge in sporting activities like I used to, and so put on a little more weight. I remember one time I visited my brothers and sister in New York and we were driving in the car, and the topic of my foot came up, and I told them “my whole leg restructured to accomodate the misallignment in my foot”. There was a very akward silence after I said that, nobody said a word. As the twist continued to get worse, one day I was walking in a cubicle area in the offices at AT&T and as I was about to turn a corner, I heard some people (3 or 4) discussing something around the corner. I could hear one man say to the others “he’ll never get over it. his foot is locked…”. Just as he said that I turned the corner and saw them, and they looked a little surprised. I thought to myself “could they be talking about me?” but then dismissed it. If it was me, then how is it possible I cannot get over it? Any way as the years went by it was there but didn’t affect me too badly. I was still able to do back flips ( I loved gymnastics and used to be able to do front summersaults, back flips and back summersaults.). I could also still do the break dance move they call “windmill”. I even recorded myself around 1998 doing it in my basement. So it did not slow me down too much.

In 1994, I discovered MIDI music keyboards and how to connect them to a computer and using music software you can easily create songs with different instruments on separate tracks. I was soooo thrilled, and started playing with it night and day. My songs were terrible, but I was inspired by the demos that came with the keyboard or software, how nice they sounded. Not long after, I had a very vivid dream, very beautiful music playing in my dream, people dancing to it. Something told me when I woke up, that was my music ( in the future ). And so I was inspired even more.

I remember one incident while I was at AT&T, which had now trivested into Lucent Technologies, NCR and AT&T, which was now only services without hardware. I stayed with the hardware branch called Lucent Technologies. I was discussing with my very good friend then, Aristos ( A Ghanian ) and my 401k with Lucent was about $60k. I mentioned that I wanted to sell it off and pay off my house, which I had bought for $100k, but now I had less than $60k left on the mortgage. I figured the amount I would save in interest payments will be well worth it. He immediately said “No no no, don’t ever do that. Dont ever sell your 401k”, and proceeded to give arguments. I took his advice. This was in the days of the .com bubble, and within 6 months, my 401k was now worth about $3k. I felt terrible and wished I had followed my intuition. I learned a very important lesson from this. Don’t ever let anyone or anything override your free will and intuition. If you do, then you have lost your free will to that thing. I mean not even the Bible or a so called “man of God” should tell you something you don’t believe in your heart. Even if God appears before you, but is telling you something you think is not right, do not follow (satan is the master of disguise so he can look exactly like anyone, including God, save for where he is trying to lead you). Take your shot, and even if you turn out to be wrong, at least you made the call. Satan will definitely change the outcome of some of your calls, to prove you wrong sometimes, so dont sweat it. I call this “illusion of failure”.

All the time I had been in America, I still had not had any sex at all, except one time I met my younger brothers room mate at the university of Amherst Massachusetts. She was really beautiful and we hit it off. I ended up in her bedroom and we kind of did it, but because I did not have a condom, she never let me insert. So I did it externally. Immediately after that, she draged me out of her bed kind of like someone leading a goat and took me to the hallway, where I spent the rest of the night. I had a even more raging "hard on" while I was outside there and really wished I was still with her. We later went to NYC and spent a good deal of time together with Kole and his Then girlfriend Kamela. I kept trying to convince her (the roommate girl) that we should start dating but she completely shut me down and I knew it was time to stop. There was another incident during some interviews with IBM I had at the ending of my Masters program. Another really beautiful girl who was studying Computer Engineering and her dad worked there at IBM (Poughkeepsie NY). We really hit it off and made out a bit, but she said she would never have sex before she was married, so we left it at that. She had to go off to her school at Syracuse NY and I started working at AT&T, so we just kind of fell out of touch.

In my first year at AT&T, I visited NYC and met up with my good friend from City College. His name is Boris Iriarte, and we were very close in school. We played chess a lot ( he was so much more advanced than I was ) and did a lot of things as friends in college. When I visited him one day from Pennsylvania, we went out in my car and then it was getting dark. He guided me to a certain area of NYC, around 42nd street, and I began to see lots of really beautiful women walking on the sidewalks. They were dressed in lingerie and you could see their very sexy bottoms and the rest of them. I began to get turned on just from seeing this. He called one of them and negotiated a price. I was kind of in a trance and just watching all this, when he requested that I should leave them (because I was still sitting in the drivers sit, a bit confused). I got up and walked 2 or three blocks down. Waited some time, and then came back when I assumed they must be done. He may have asked me if I wanted to try one myself, but at that time I was totally averse to the idea of sex with a prostitute. For one thing I considered myself not so desperate to resort to that.

I had several more trips to NYC and saw more of the prostitutes but never indulged. In fact one day, while I was heading back for Pennsylvania, while still in NYC one prostitute just opened the passenger door of my car and jumped in. I had to gently tell her to leave as I was not interested.

One day, while I was in NYC with my older brother Enitan and one or two other family, we decided to go to my cousin Nijis place. We were in Brooklyn and he lived on Patchen avenue, which was a ways away. I knew Brooklyn well enough and the way to his apartment on Patchen ave. As we were on the way, out of nowhere, my elder brother said, “ok let me tell you how to get to Nijis place”. I was surprised, but told him right away, “I know the way to Nijis place”, and we continued on. When we got to the general area of Nijis place I started to go the way I usually do to get there, but Patchen ave was not where it used to be. I thought I must have taken a wrong turn, so I started to drive around a bit to get my bearings. The tension in the air could not be cut by a knife. I could feel him in his silence waiting for me to admit I don’t know the way. I refused to do that but continued trying and then in a strange way I just saw his eyes yield and suddenly there was Patchen ave. I had no clue in those days, but now I do, that satan can totally rearrange any landscape and what you are looking for will not be where it was. I was just glad I had proved I knew the way. I made nothing of it really because my brother never really tried to dominate in this kind of way before, and he did not do so after that (for some years). I say “dominate” because he was not speaking to me in a friendly or brotherly tone of voice. It was rather the tone of somebody wanting to take command, not two people trying to figure something out of mutual interest between them. Thats why there was such an air of antagonism when it looked like I really did not know the way.

Once I was driving around I think in NYC and I came to a stop sign, and right under the big STOP, were the words “eating animals”. It shook my conscience again, but I still did nothing about it.

I bought a house in Bethlehem PA, just 10 minutes drive to work. An older lady was living there and her husband had passed on a few years earlier, so she decided it was too much house for her alone. She decided to move to DC to I guess a condo. As soon as the sale was complete, the realtor lady started to rush the former owner, and gave her a couple days or so to be out of the house. I was shocked at such treatment of an old lady. I spoke directly to the old lady that she can take as much time as she wants, I’m in no hurry to move in. It was an introduction to the cold way people just act in a business manner instead of being human in such matters. The house was fully carpeted, and I like hard wood floors. I pulled up the carpet and saw the wood beneath was in pretty bad condition, so I decided to replace it. I bought some really nice hard wood from home depot and replaced all the old wood myself. I was really happy with the result. It really was beautiful, so I decided to go further. The bathroom also had carpet and I did not like the kind of flooring beneath, so I bought some beautiful white ceramic tiles and replaced that too. At some point while remodeling the bathroom, I was lifting something quite heavy. I still had the condition created by my left foot twist, which went as far as my lower back, but I felt very confident to lift heavy things. While lifting, out of nowhere, in a flash like at the speed of lightning, it felt like my back broke, but at the same time the whole structure of my lower back and waist completely realigned in a scary way. I quickly went to my bed and lay down. I thought I may have damaged my back, but within an hour, I was up again and fine. Even after that incident, I was still able to lift relatively heavy things.

I loved my house so much. It was not big at all, but perfect for one person ( maybe even too big ). One day, Kole and enitan came to visit, and Kole had seen the house before, and LOVED it. He was very happy showing enitan around it, and enitan was looking very unimpressed. At the end of Kole’s tour, enitan remarked “we will manage it”. I kept quiet, because through the years he had made quite a few very jealous remarks that I was now used to. I did not hate him at all because of that but felt somewhat sorry that he was in such a place mentally ( in a way I also thought he deserved it. It made no sense to me ). My sister Oruene was not too far behind him too, as one day in the yard, she said “Biodun has a trailer park home”. No effect or surprise on me again. I knew her well enough. Many years later, enitan bought a big house in New Jersey. I saw it but sincerely liked my small house much better. Even more years later, Oruene bought a $1Million house in New Jersey too, on a teachers salary. I never saw it nor cared.

One day our very good family friends from Nigeria came visiting America, and were staying in Rhode Island. We all went to visit them as we were really close to them. While visiting, our aunt Mercy mentioned that it would be a good idea if we sent some money to our dad in Nigeria, since they would be going back soon they could easily give the money to him. We decided to put some money together, so I figured $1000 was a good sum for me to put. I figured my brother and sister would do something similar, but they could only contribute about $100 each. When they saw I was giving $1000, enitan got upset and said “he who gives more loves more”. On hearing this, I explained that it was just that I could afford more, as I had a job that payed more. I told them we would put all the money together and no one would know who contributed what, and so they were happier and agreed to that.

My very first car was a Toyota Tercel, which I took over the payments from my brother Kole at the time I started working at AT&T (1993) when he moved on to another car. I loved it so much but around 1998 I decided to upgrade to a Nissan Maxima. I loved it even more, and decided to give the Toyota Tercel to my sister who was still in NYC. She was happy but within a couple months or so, it was totalled. I had no sense of loss or sadness, unless that she no longer had avail of the free car.

Another time I visited enitan and Amede in NYC. While hanging out with them, I found an old pair of platform shoes we used to have. Playfully, I wore them and started to walk around. I told them “look at me”. enitan said “wow, you look so good and tall”. After a while I removed them and enitan remarked, “now you look like ordinary Biodun”. I thought “look at this fool, maybe he now expects me to go around wearing high heels.” My shortness is something I always loved, and because I had reverence for my dad, who was even shorter, I liked it more.

Still working at AT&T, one time we took a trip to California, to visit the offices of Sun Michrosystems, who was the primary unix (Solaris) hardware vendor for our site. One of the days of our visit, we were all sitting in a room of sorts. I was sitted on a kind of stool, and suddenly we had a surprise visitor. It was Scott McNeally, the founder ( he founded it with some Indian guy who had taken his cut and left the company ). He stepped into the room and I thought. ok, no big deal, but every one else got up on their feet and started clapping. I thought thats nice, but I did not feel the need to get up and applaud myself. I hardly knew anything about him, so I remained sitting, hoping no one would notice me, and it appeared no one did.  

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