Dave had always known life to be a bitter struggle, his father and his mother, fondly called Papa and Mama respectively were just too lackadaisical towards their children. Their main job in life was to give birth to children, it was the children's job to learn how to take care of themselves from childhood. It was a bitter struggle to find enough food to eat without them stealing from their neighbors.
They were a family of six: Papa, Mama, Dave, the twins (both males) Taiye and Kehinde, and of course his belligerent youngest sibling, Idowu who was also a boy. The little girl that could have been their sister died of starvation when she wouldn't join her family to steal food from their neighbors, she was the only saint they had in that family.
His parents were self-acclaimed Christians, but Dave could swear that they were as good as the worst set of pagans. He knew some people who never worshipped the God he worshipped who had better characters and values compared to his parents. What with his parents' incessant fights and squabbles that they were usually witnesses to. Their many quarrels happened both in the day and at night.
His father was a good-for-nothing and confirmed drunkard while his mother had been busy with putting up a front for her children to believe everything was alright when they all knew there was much to be desired. It was home that shouldn't have been a home to any, his parents hadn't had a clear direction they were going before joining their carts together.
Dave had been talking to Pastor Tony for a while and it was a great moment to unburden himself to someone who understood his deepest heartfelt struggles and as usual with the man of God's easy ways, he was having a conversation with whoever he was speaking with ready to talk and share experiences because he had already laid his past life bare for them to see.
Dave's session with the man of God started one bright and sunny day. The Pastor's constant presence in the facility had spoken of someone that cared about them enough. He was well-known in the country, so a man of his caliber taking the time to come speak with inmates about their past lives and how they could begin to make better life choices gave them the freedom to share thoughts and mindsets which had held them captives for years.
My name is David Omobukola but my childhood friends call me Dave, BB, Bad Buqui, and other derivatives of same. From my second name, Bukola, you may have wrongly guessed I am a female if you hadn't seen me. I am a male with six-packs, I once drove the best cars in town, painted the town red on a typical Friday night, and of course, I had access to any badass babe of my choice.
I was a bad nigga but I hadn't always been like that, I was once like your compassionate next-door neighbor, your most cherished BFF, the man of so many girls' dreams, that's if they are good girls, but at a point in my life, I was cruising with these baddest, big arsed, big boobs, sizzling hot babes and I was enjoying my grooves.
I got that girlish name, Omobukola, because my parents wanted a girl as their first child and had chosen the name before I was born. My father insisted on giving me the name despite all entreaties by my mom for a more masculine name, so I was named and still am David Omobukola.
Everything always seemed to be on the verge of a total collapse, my father's health especially. Papa had this bad habit of stomping out of the house after their habitual exchange of words or blows, as the case may be. Rumors had it that he had a mistress out there in town, maybe that was the reason they argued a lot, but then what did I know then?
Once upon a time, as I was told by my grandfather before he died, my mum and dad were so much in love that they fought against any intrusion, be it from their parents, friends, or acquaintances, into the world they had carefully planned out for themselves.
I don't know what went wrong or what could have turned a love so strong into a bitter pill they now had to endure before swallowing. And as little as I was then, I made a vow to myself never to allow myself to undergo any of what my parents were going through. Anyway, let's just say I grew up knowing my parents to be the world's best heavyweight champions in wrestling, and I wanted none of that, I wanted my life free of the hassles of tying the knots with a woman I would end up hating anyway despite our starting in love. Full Stop.
