JIDE HAD CRIED FOR four straight nights about his affection for another person, a much older woman. It was about Regina Askia, brought home by his mother in a black VCR cassette, invading his life and pitching a haunting presence. From an earlier time in his childhood, his mother had introduced a line of actresses into his life, in the same way the doctor who managed his asthma introduced a new medication after every attack. They were pretty women he had come to admire: Hilda Dokubo, a demure princess, and Shan George, who was a charmer, but just a charmer. None was like Regina whose corrosive beauty played a role alongside Segun Arinze’s obtrusive ugliness, as if it was an intentional move by the director to heighten whatever effect her beauty would have ordinarily had. And over a ten-year-old boy who knew feelings, not by their terms, but by their characters – the ferocious ones dashing about his heart, ramming into corners, dominating the tickling, calm ones – Regina had an absolute sway. He had once spoken to Okwadike about crying for things because they made him feel like water. —On a scale of one to ten, how bad do you feel? —What does that mean? —Just pick a number if I am to help you. —One. Jide had said ‘one’ because Okwadike had mentioned ‘how bad,’ and he knew it was not a bad feeling. It was, rather, like the onset of an attack, a tightening in his chest, Addis girls which did not result in panic and spasms, because what made his chest tighten was lithe and heart-warming. Okwadike did not help Jide, but he’d made his experience more personal, something Jide knew, understood deeply, but could hardly express. Each night, when Jide sat behind the centre table, his chin resting on his arms folded on the table, his eyes latched onto the TV, it was to feed his desire which only needed a clue, an 70 exposed thigh or the outline of a clavicle, addis ababa escort to make his heart sink. On those nights, he was first a child feeding a bitter-sweet feeling, because he knew of no other way to deal with it, before he became a crumpling ten-year-old, crying and crying because he madly wanted something locked within the screen of his coloured TV.
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