Around 1995 or 1996, I finally decided to try to see a doctor about the twist in my body, including my left foot, leg and waist. I complained to him that it had left me somewhat compromised physically and walking with a slight limp. He took X-rays of my foot, leg and hip. When the X-rays were ready on my follow up visit, he told me everything was fine, and pointed at my hip X-ray, saying "see it is all in alignment". I was very angry, and knew he was lying because I knew there was obviously a problem. At the time I was thinking there may be some kind of conspiracy, and he was part of it. Later on, I then went to a foot specialist. I told him of the severe sharp pain in the bottom of my left foot that caused me to walk on the edge of the foot, taking my leg out of alignment. He diagnosed me with "Plantar Fasciitis", and said there were two options. One is go for surgery, which is very risky and may not even solve it, or two, get a customized insert for my left shoe, that will move the pressure points from the arch of my foot, making it bearable to walk normally. I decided not to try the surgery, and also did not get the shoe insert. I felt I could keep on going without it, and things would turn out fine. Sometimes I look back and wish I had tried the shoe insert, maybe it would have prevented the twist from getting worse, which it did, but at the same time, I now believe the condition is spiritual, and neither physical nor logical, and can only be fixed when my war with satan is 100% complete.
One day at an AT&T department outing, I was getting some of the food spread on a long table outside, and, one of my work colleagues said to me "Hi, newbie". There was another colleague close by, who then said something like "Newbie cannot run, jump or play basketball anymore". I pretended I did not hear him ( his name is Jim Hansen ), but I knew he was referring to the twist in my ankle and leg that had compromised my ability to do such activities. Because he was a white man, I started to think it may be a racial conspiracy, but the jury was not in on that belief, so I just let it go.
Around 1996, a new guy suddenly appeared at AT&T where I worked, in my department. We had converted to IBM employees by then, due to the outsourcing of Lucent Technologies (AT&T part after they were forced to break into three separate companies). They introduced him to me in a sneak attack way. I was the UNIX team lead for our project, and one day I went to a meeting, and there was this new person I had never seen before. A black guy, and he had some documents with him, like plans for our UNIX project. He was just talking in the meeting like he was in control of the whole thing. I kept quiet as it seemed as I said, like sneak attack. Why was he not introduced to me in proper natural common sense way? I couldn’t figure it out, so left it alone. As time went on though, he started trying to dominate me, and I kept resisting in a passive-aggressive kind of way, meaning fighting him without obvious signs I was fighting him. I did every thing very tactfully and twarted all attempts at domination easily. I already knew from some signs I had seen, he was no match for me, but I had no interest at all in trying to dominate him. His behaviour was very abrasive, not only to me, but to everyone else, including the overall project team leader Nelson Fernandez. Eventually he started asking our IBM Unix team manager for a significant raise. He threatened to leave if they refused. Our manager confirmed with me that I could handle the Unix project fine without him, I assured him it would be even better without him. They refused his raise and he left the company, saying he had got a very high paying gig in Singapore. Because I never really felt threatened, and did have some compassion for him, I remained his friend. Everybody still has at least a few good qualities, no matter how bad. We kept in comunications, and he lived in Allentown, and one day even invited me over to his place, and showed me the movie “Toy Story”. I enjoyed the movie very much. He had a dog called Bugsy. Very cute and friendly golden retriever type breed. Because he was going to Singapore, he asked if he could leave his car and dog with me. I was happy to help. He left and I was taking care of Bugsy. I was so young then, and carefree, I did not really know how to take care of a dog, especially in America. We had a dog in Nigeria, but never needed to walk him. He stayed in the house most of the time, no collar, no leash, and went outside whenever he needed to do his business, we never even noticed. It was a very natural situation. I did not walk Bugsy, and he did his business in the house, on an area carpet in one of the rooms. Thats when I knew I had to start walking him. I did, but was not very regular or punctual. Just a side note about Bugsy, for some reason whenever it rained, he would freak out. Also, when I would be singing in my music room on the microphone, each time I sing something, he would howl, and that was quite endearing. Anyway, one day, I was just playing around in the house with him, and at some point he growled at me very agressively ( I think, I’m not so sure now ). Whatever the case, I had a play rifle, that just shoots nothing, and don’t know why, but I pointed it at him. He stopped where he was, but there was still tension between us. Some anger came up in me, like how dare this dog confront me?, so it overcame my self control, and I pulled the trigger, just to scare him more. The gun shoots nothing but makes a “Klack!” sound when you pull the trigger. The standoff continued, and I pulled the trigger one more time. He moved a little confused, putting one of his front paws forward, as if not sure if to go forward or backward. It was trembling a bit, and I felt a surge of compassion for him, so I put the rifle away. I felt bad, and even to this day, wonder what overcame me to do that (satan). After a while, I think it rained, and he ran away from the house. Once I realized he was gone, I was very worried, and also felt it must have been because of what I did. I went looking for him everywhere, and also had the pressure of knowing his real owner is a bit of an asshole, and would have this excuse to come down on me. I searched everywhere and could not find him. I did not sleep well that night, and went searching again the next morning. Suddenly, while passing a street electric pole very near my house, I noticed a white paper flyer pasted on it. I stopped to read it, and it said “Found, golden retriever dog. For more information call <a phone number>”. I was so elated, and took the flyer and ran joyfully home. I called the number and found it was my neigbour Cindy and Jim Godovin, who lived 2 houses away. I went over and met them, and we had a wonderful discussion and reunion with Bugsy, who had become friends with their own dog. I took Bugsy home, and the next day, Cindy’s daughter who was about 8 years old at the time, came over to my house and asked if she could walk Bugsy. I felt a little guilty, but she convinced me it was OK, and that she wanted to start walking Bugsy every day. She started doing that, without asking for pay or anything. WOW! Some months or a year later, Don Smith (thats the name of Bugsys real owner) came back from Singapore. I told him the story, and we went to Cindy and Jims house to let them meet Bugsy’s owner. It was a very pleasant time. Don was very charming in social situations, and a very smart guy. Just some really bad qualities were holding him back from being a more complete human.
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.
One day enitan visited me in Bethlehem, he was lying on the sofa, I think we were watching TV. Nothing important was on, so he started to talk. Initially when I came to USA, he was a social worker in NYC. I spent 3 years in NYC and got the job at AT&T in computers. I think enitan felt they were left behind in social work, so he went to Devry and got a certificate in Microsoft (Windows I guess). I was kindoff happy he was trying to move to more lucrative work. He bagan to talk about the technologies like ISO OSI networking model, and the things he was saying were somewhat indepth, like things I did not know or care about. Part of the reason is that we only used TCP/IP at work and almost everywhere and because OSI came too late, very few converted to it. But still I was thinking it was out of character for him to be talking of such indepth computer theories, and had the feeling he was trying to show, maybe he is not all I had figured him to be. I said nothing because there was an air of sneak attack, which I did not like. If you always had such knowledge or whatever, why would you be hiding it and then just sneak it in or ambush like no one should notice or what exactly is the point of that. I did not go indepth with him cos first I never found such theories interesting, and was really doing computers as a way to make money till I could get to where I really want to be ( I wasn’t sure where then but never thought my whole life I would be working computers ). Who knows, maybe he was giving a clue that I should think more carefully about what I think of him. This to me is the spirit of someone who just wants respect and is not happy at all with just love. Does he think I will respect him more if I thought he knew more? I just don’t understand that kind of thinking and instaed it brought his image down in my mind. Sneaky like that is a snake. Who cares how brilliant you are?
The movie “The Matrix” came out. In those days, Aristos seemed to have an air like he knew things I don’t know. He would make comments here and there to that effect, but I just ignored them. With some things that were going on with me, at one time he suggested I try to go outside the Matrix. I said “what do you mean Matrix, thats just some fantasy thing”. He said something like “Neo did not know there was a Matrix initially also”. I thought it was ridiculous. First of all, wherever I am now is not so bad, and I have not finished exploring it, what am I going to do outside it? I need to keep going where it seems I’m going here.
In 1997 my father came to visit from Nigeria. He stayed at my house and my siblings also came to see him. One day we were walking on the road in front of my house and just talking generally. My dad was way ahead and out of ear shot of us. It was me Kole and enitan, and the conversation was all normal until enitan, complaining about something we were trying to accomplish said words like “that is if Kabiesi here would do as he’s supposed to.. “ I’m paraphrasing, but Kabiesi in Yoruba (our native Nigerian language) is King. It was another sneak attack I thought. When had I ever behaved like I think I’m superior to any of them? where is this coming from? It was the kind of statement I could only reply with silence.
After I discovered MIDI to link my electronic synthesizer to my compuuter, I introduced enitans then girlfriend, Amede to it. She loved it a lot too, and was very interested in music. She used to come over to visit me in Bethlehem, to do her music. She was trying to make some demos, in order to submit to a music producer, who could bring her on board in the music industry. Nothing strange happened between me and her, as we were just friends, since before we came to America. One day, however, when she was visiting alone, she complained at night that she was afraid to sleep alone. I agreed that she could sleep in my bed, but we are still keeping things platonic, until in the middle of the night, she made a move, while looking like she was not aware. She kind of rolled over and put her arm around me. I politely removed it, just to be sure there is nothing going on between us, than just good friendship. We both played it off like nothing happened. The next day, she even made a comment like "sex can destroy a good friendship". Some years later, my sister Oruene, mentioned something while we were all gathered, like they had all arranged that incident (including enitan), sending Amede there to tempt me.
Concerning my singing voice, one day while Amede was working on a song, she did not want to sing to it herself, because she felt her voice would not do it justice. Remembering how she had heard me singing long ago in Nigeria, how good my voice was then, she decided to ask me to sing it. Knowing that my voice was no longer good, I declined. She kept persisting though, and eventually I thought, maybe if I just sing, it will come out alright, and so I sang to it a little. It sounded horrible. She commented "it sounds like a burst clarinet". I felt terrible, but inside, I knew my voice would return someday, so I did not sweat it.
In 1997, my father came to visit us in PA, and at some point in his visit, he began describing a new play he wanted to write, and hoped it would be on broadway. It was generally about a man who would be in the center somewhere, and people all around him raining curses on him, while his body keeps twisting to the power of the curses. I thought it sounded really crazy and way off the path from anything he has written before, but today, I believe he was talking about the end to satans reign on earth, how the whole world will be cursing satan.
Niyi came to visit me in Bethlehem on day, because of the other places he visited along the way, he took the bus to Bethlehem. While on the bus he met a very beautiful black girl. She was from some west African country, I forget which one now. When he called me from the bus stop, he mentioned he had a beautiful girl he wanted to introduce to me. Apparently while on the bus with her he had been telling her about me, how I was a very handsome eligible bachelor. In those days, black girls used to complain a lot that there are no good eligible black men. I was very happy when I got there and saw her, she was really really beautiful. I was very hopeful, maybe my drought has ended. We started driving in the car. She sat in the front seat and Niyi sat in the back. That way we could talk and get to know each other. We were taking her to the area she stayed in one of the towns close to Bethlehem. After about ten minutes chatting with me, she turned round and said to Niyi (clearly to my hearing), “you are a salesman”. She said it a couple times each time with more emphasis “you are a real salesman”. The meaning I thought obviosly is that what Niyi had described on the bus, the actual product does not meet up to that at all. In other words, I was either not attractive to her, or my personality was just not good enough. It did not penetrate my atmosphere at all and I continued talking to them. When we dropped her off, I asked her for her number. She gave me a number, I wasn’t sure but I was hopeful. On our way to my place I was telling Niyi how I found her really beautiful, and I also mentioned the comment about “you are a salesman”, for some reason I found it kind of funny. With a laugh I said “that means the product is bad now..”. We laughed. The next day or so, I tried the number, it was fake. I was a bit dissapointed but got over it quickly. Looking back now, it was obviously a set up. Trying to bring down my confidence about looks or personality. How many girls in their right mind would call me a bad product? Didn’t make any sense to me then. Niyi stayed at my place a week or so. I had just replaced my toilet and the new one was working ok, but for some reason, when Niyi used it some time, it got blocked and the water overflowed with all his shit in it. He didn’t know what to do and he came out and told me, I came to look and there was his shit all over the floor, with the toilet water. He was exclaiming “why me?… why me?”. I thought it was just a natural occurance but looking back again, spirits must have been trying to tell me something.
About 1998, the stock market began to go crazy. Everybody was trading stocks to make as much money as they can. I kind of got the fever and tried trading too. I was imagining in my head that with the kind of luck I have, I would make a killing. Every stock I bought suddenly tanked. (today I know satan was controlling all that, but had no clue then ). I lost so much money, but like a typical gambler, kept believing it would come back and then the real winning begins. At a certain point, enitan, who was then engaged to a woman who worked in the market business, told me and my brother Kole, that Lindsey (his fiancee) had a very good tip on a stock that would soon IPO and was guaranteed to skyrocket. She had an inside track where she could put our money on the stock even before IPO. I did not have any free money, but because it sounded like a guarantee, I decided to borrow from my credit card. At this point, enitan had never done anything to betray me or anyone in the family, so he was completely trusted. I gave him $5k, Kole gave him $10k. Time went by and there was no news. It must have been a couple years then Kole researched the information about the company enitan had claimed he invested in. There was no such company. Everything looked like a fraud from what Kole could find. He told all of us his findings. He confronted enitan and enitan said oh the stock just went down, but it’s guaranteed to come back up and skyrocket. Kole did not believe him. As enitan had never done such a thing in his life, the jury was still out for me. My sister Oruene was making fun of both me and Kole, saying I was only half as stupid as Kole. Then the years continued to roll until I was in San Diego (2001), and still no news of the stock or money. I knew then Kole was telling the truth, but I was going to say nothing. $5k is such a little thing, the real important thing is that I have now identified enitan as a snake. (little one at this time). Maybe he sensed this and wanted to try and rectify, so he gave me the $5k back. Kole had really protested earlier, and I heard enitan and Lindsey did all they could to humiliate him for example giving him the $10k in very small bills.
Around 1999, Niyi came to visit me in Bethlehem, and had some friends with him. He wanted to make a short movie in my house, about a man who has a sexual encounter with a bad girl who ends up harvesting his kidneys. The only thing I bring up this story for is to mention that the lead girl in the movie was a mulato like me, who was OK looking, but had her tounge pierced. I thought that was just too horrible, and a definite deal breaker. Niyi started asking me why I was not interested, and I mentiond the ring in her tongue. He played it off like that was nothing to break the deal, but I humbly disagreed. When the girl was leaving after they finished the movie, at the train station she was very cold to me. I thought, ok why is she not happy just to be friends for now? Anyway, I really didn’t care so I let it go. They had painted the whole inside of my house because the camera guy ( a russian called Sergey ) said the white color I had was not good for the movie picture.
During the stock trading days, in 2000, My dad passed away in Nigeria, on August 18. Aug 18 is also my dads sisters birthday. The thought occurred to me that some wicked people may be behind my fathers death, and the date was a warning/threat to his sister, but that is just speculation at this time. Incidentally, my mother had passed away earlier that same year, in April. A little story behind, earlier in the 90s, one day my mom was talking to me and she said “you are the only one with hope”, I think meaning in our family. I was a little upset about the statement because it seemed she was burrying my siblings without giving them a real chance. At one point I told my siblings and they didn’t really react, but some years later, she was diagnosed with cancer (1998) and died 2 years later. I’m pretty sure there is no connection, but just saying - you never know. I did not understand what she was trying to tell me at the time, but today I know and its very true. I really wish I hadn’t shared it with my siblings, but I only had good intentions. In the year before she died, she had mentioned some things she would like to do within the US before she dies. My younger brother Kole ( who I was always closest with in our family ) made the plans, rented the RV and we were on our way. We drove from her place in Glaucester Massachusetts all the way to the south. I remember my cousin Niyi suddenly became very interested and kept pestering us, he wants to meet us while we are on this trip. Eventually he settled with Kole where to meet us, and when he did, I couldn’t help but get the feeling he was gloating, but I may be wrong. Later at my mothers funeral, she had requested that we scatter her ashes on the ocean so we went to the Glaucester shore right outside her sisters house, to do that. After scattering the ashes, we were all on the rocks close to the water, quite a few family and friends. Niyi gave a moderately long (not too long ) speech about my mother and her life. I thought it was a good speech but I know he noticed I was not willing to speak myself, so he went ahead and said to everyones hearing “I’m sure Biodun has some things to say too”. I politely declined and stayed in my silence. If anyone wants to accuse “why has he nothing to say about his own mother?” let them. The last thing I would ever do is begin to speak, when I really have nothing to say. God knows peoples hearts, not their words.
In the 2 years between when my mom was diagnosed with stomach cancer and when she died, (1998 - 200), we went up to Glaucester, MA to visit her a lot. On one of those journeys we got into a traffic jam. enitan was driving and did not want to wait in line, so he cut to the side of the road and started going past all the cars that were in front of us. I did’nt like he was doing that but kept quiet. One woman still in line with her car complained loudly toward us, and enitan said to her in a mocking voice “follow me”. I was so embarrassed to be in the car with him.
Around the time just after my mom died, something strange began to happen. Back in Bethlehem, I would go to sleep and then suddenly wake up, and the clock would be exactly 4:40. This happened so many times, I decided it was time to think deeply what it could mean. When we were little in Nigeria, there was a popular expression we had - “run 440”. not sure what 440 meant, but I assumed it was how fast you are to run. I thought maybe the good spirits are trying to tell me its time to move or run or do something. I connected it with the fact I was now 32 and diddnt have a wife or children. The idea that it was Allentown/Bethlehem that was killing me came and I thought maybe I should move to a city where there is greater chance of meeting a beautiful good woman. I had always figured I was beautiful on the outside and inside so there should be women like that also. I decided to move to Washington DC where two of my cousins live. It would also be more fun being so close to them.
While in DC, suddenly one day we got news that my dad had died in Nigeria. We all went for my dads funeral in Ife (Osun state, Nigeria). Each person made his own plans to fly from wherever they were in America to Lagos. Before I left USA, I met with enitan in NYC outside the UNICEF offices, where he worked at the time. I wanted to give him a photo of our dad he could use pertaining to the funeral. When he saw me and there was obvious sign of how the twist was affecting my motion, there was a small smile of glee on his face. I did not know how to interprete that so I ignored it. While in NYC, I stayed at my sisters place along with my cousin Wole. I remember I think he (Wole) wanted to go someplace and did not have a car at the time. I told him he can use mine if he wants, but he declined. I had been sensing a lot of antagonism from him that evening and I had no idea why. The next morning is when I was going to the airport for my flight and when I got to my car in the morning, the drivers side window was completely shattered, leaving the car wide open with pieces of glass everywhere. I managed to find a piece of transparent plastic to cover it. Wole continued to act completely annoyed with me but not saying anything, so I put up my own shield of indignation, at what seemed like very unfair judgement and something I did not even know I did. We stayed in Lagos a couple days and Woles attitude continued. I wanted nothing to do with him. Mysteriously my glasses disappeared in the morning and I couldn’t find it anywhere. Luckily I had an older one that was good enough for me to use. One of those days went out unto town to a place they sell suya ( a beef on a stick product popular in Nigeria ). While we were hanging out and eating suya, I saw a very little girl, maybe 5 or 6 years old. She was really pretty, but wearing rags and begging for money. Her mother was close by. I was moved and started going to give her as much money as I could. Suddenly, my cousin Olumide stopped me and slapped the hand I was holding out the money to her with and shouted “DON’T GIVE HER ANYTHING”. I was really confused as nothing like this ever happened before. Also I was unaware of many things in the world so a small part of me said “maybe he knows something I don’t”. I backed away from my own will. I was somewhat angry with myself, but kept my peace. So we proceeded to Ife the next day or so. Something strange/annoying at the funeral, is while people lined up to go by my dads casket, one young man in particular had a big smile on his face, like he was there only for fun. He looked in the coffin and his smile got even wider almost laughing. No one else seemed to notice or look like this is not normal. I kept it inside. During the funeral days, one day we were in my dads house, and my dad had put up different religious symbols, like a cross made of some kind of leaves, and another one that looked like native yoruba (orisha) symbol. Enitan immidiately turned to me and mocked “if one doesn’t work, the other will”. I was horrified at this, mocking the signs that my father was obviously fighting something evil and spiritual with any means that may help. We went to the Theatre department and were taking photos with some of my dads students. While we were posing to take the photo, Wole put his hand behind my head and was making a “peace” sign. I felt he was somehow mocking me, but kept quiet. Among the people we took photos with were papas students. One of them was a girl who told me papa used to call her “Blockhead”. I couldn’t really tell if she was ok with it, or resentful of papa for calling her that. In a way it seemed like a kind of revenge for her, but I may have been reading the situation wrong. What I think it is now is that it was satan within her, who felt triumphant over papas death. I know now that my father was one of satans great enemies. This is substantiated by the fact someone (possessed of satan) wrote an entry in the funeral log book which I discovered much later ( I will tell that story a little further ahead ) “A tyrant in the heat of battle. Finally you have succumbed and lost your war in the end”. Maybe not the exact words but paraphrasing. I’m pretty sure the first sentence is accurate though.
I always used to have a lot of extra money to play with, but around the time of my dads funeral, I had very little money. In fact just enough to buy my ticket there and back. As such I did not contribute to the "pot" of money used for the funeral. I thought my siblings would understand, being that I was always the one who came through with money whenever anyone needed anything. My sister and Kole seemed to understand, as after everything was paid for, the remaining money, they said I should take, so I will have enough while traveling around Nigeria and going back to the USA. I was very reluctant at first, but they finally talked me into it, so I took the money. Because Nigerian money is so devalued, it filled a backpack. Not too long after that, enitan arrived at the house, very angry. He confronted Kole about money he had put in the "pot" that had not been returned to him. They argued a bit, and then Kole and enitan went in my dads room to settle the matter. While counting the money to give back to enitan, enitans hands started shaking visibly. I was so ashamed of the whole situation. Here we were fighting about little money, after our father had just died. Enitan also turned to me to collect what money was now with me that belonged to him. I gave him the whole bag, saying I did not need it anyway. He refused the whole bag and insisted he wanted only what belonged to him. I said "whatever". He took the bag, and counted some money from it, then gave me the rest. I was really furious at him. He never behaved this way to me before, especially concerning money, which in the past I was always the one giving him freely. After the funeral was over, I went to portharcourt where I had mostly grown up, and one day went to the city with a good friend. We went to some kind of entertainment establishment, and hung out there for quite a while, just eating and drinking and enjoying the atmosphere. After a while, I noticed there were a lot of beautiful ladies in the area, and instead of the men approaching them, they were approaching the guys. Quite a few were white men, expertraits from European countries working in the oil industry which is really big in Portharcourt. I said to my friend, “these girls are prostitutes!”. He immediately replied “just pick one and lets be on our way”. I totally dismissed that and said “lets go now”. I wanted no part of that. Later when we got back to America, my cousin Niyi gave me a copy of the log book of what people wrote about my dad at the funeral. One day I decided to go through it, and most entries seemed normal, except one that said “A tyrant in the heat of battle. Finally you have succumbed and lost your war in the end”. Maybe not the exact words but paraphrasing. I’m pretty sure the first sentence is accurate though. I could hardly believe someone would write such a thing. How brazen. I did not discuss it with anyone. We had kept all my moms things we wanted to keep in my basement, and one day I was going through her things too. I found a letter - officially typed letter, from my cousin Niyi to my mother. The first thing I thought is, why the heck would Niyi be writing a formal official letter to his aunty? I read it and it was devastating. He was talking to her like she was some “neer do well” who wasn’t doing enough to help herself, while he had been trying to help her ( I guess to get a job in a university ). He sounded very judgemental and demeaning to her, I could not believe it. His aunty who is same generation as his mother, talking to her like this. For some reason, I made the mistake of putting the letter back in the envelope and right back where I had found it, thinking I can always get it later. Later in the story after satan attacked me ( around 2006 ), I started to piece some things together and decided to start a folder I called “War crimes”. In it, I wanted 2 documents to start with. First was a hand written letter from my older brother Enitan, where he was full of praise and thanks for me for how I had supported him whenever he needed money and even gave him more than he asked for. This one I still have till this day. The other was the letter Niyi wrote to my mom. I went back to the basement and looked everywhere for it, it had disappeared. Around that time, I had experienced certain things dissapearing, like table tennis balls, once they roll behind some object I cannot see the ball, then when I look behind, it is not there or anywhere else. I had formed the idea that from the spirit world, they can make anything disappear, especially if you are not looking directly at it. I just figured they had made the evidence disappear from the spirit world, so I let it go.
When I returned back to my job in Washington DC, America after my dads funeral. The company was called Osage Systems. It was an IT consulting company and I travelled quite a bit to do mostly Sun Microsystems and Solaris work (hardware and software) at different client sites across the country. One time in very early 2001, I ended up in Las Vegas. The atmosphere was euphoric. I was driving around there was very good music on the radio. I remember in particuler the song “One night in Bangkok”, and it got me really excited. After getting a hotel room I was walking around close to the strip, and I saw so many flyers all over the ground. I picked a few of them up and one in particular caught my eye. The girl was soooo beautiful, and had very large sized natural breasts. This time I could not resist. I thought to myself, I am 33 years old now, never really had good sex in my life, maybe its time to try something before my whole life goes by. I got back to the hotel with the flyer and called the number. The lady appeared not too long after. She was exactly like in the flyer, which I did not expect because they usually show one thing but when the real thing comes, its not up to par. I was half confused with lust. Not thinking straight anymore. I asked the price and it was more than I had on hand ( I think I had maybe one to two hundred, and she was asking about a thousand ). I said I did not expect such a high price. She said “don’t you know this is Las Vegas, there are a lot of very rich men here, and a thousand is really nothing to them”. By this time she was half way sitting/lying at the top of the bed and I saw how sexy especially her bottom area as it connected to her legs which were spread just enough with her knees up enough to raise my lust temperature above anything. I knew this must happen tonight, so I went to the lobby to get more money, while she waited in my room. I got the money and came back to the room. She was not there and I was worried that she had gone, but then a knock at the door, and it was her. I gave her the money. She went into the bathroom for a while and came out ready. She had done something to make her body warm. I did not know then but this is what they call KY warming lotion. It felt sooo good to me. We went ahead and engaged on the bed. I enjoyed myself immensely and took so much time. It must have taken 45 minutes to an hour before I climaxed. She was not happy with that and I asked her “I thought women like when a man lasts long?” I forget her answer but now I know prostitutes in particular just want to get it over as quickly as possible so they can engage the next client. More money. A funny thing I remember while we were having sex I heared a man in another room laughing real hard and loud and I was thinking “sombody laughing at my father, maybe the devil”. When we were finished, I was so enemeard with her, I asked her to come with me and I will take care of every financial need she may have. I was really hoping to marry her, but didn’t mention that because it was too early. She declined and advised me to get a girlfriend. Somehow I knew that was hopeless, because I had been trying for more than a decade. Why else would I resort to a prostitute. How happy I would have been if she agreed. How happy I would have been - in heaven, and I believed very strongly she would be too.
That was the only encounter in Las Vegas.
One time Niyi came to visit us in DC, we were out some place, quite a few of us, on the second floor of some big building. It was designed as kind of circuler area with escalator or stairs going down from one section of the circumfrence of the circle. I was standing not far from the stairs/escalator or in front of the window, and Niyi snuck up behind me and with all the force he could muster he grabbed my shorts and tried to pull them down in public. Given the amount of force he used, I was sure my shorts would go all the way down, but they did not budge even one milimeter. I was not aware of spiritual forces then but given my knowledge now, it was definitely God that protected me from his serious attempt at embarrassment, in form of a joke.
Another day while at work, Niyi called on the phone and we were talking, then out of the blue, he said something like “all I know is they have given you and you have eaten. King Biodun soon you will no longer be on the throne”. I had no clue what it meant so I just laughed and continued talking about other things.
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