Chapter 4 - ADE | When Love Is A Silent Song

He never found himself to like stilettos or understood why they had to be worn. He thought of them as a pair of torturing devices each time he wore them. He was more of a platform-heels kind of boy.

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Content Warning: This chapter contains depictions of bullying, struggles with gender identity, and emotional distress, which some readers may find triggering.

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Growing up, Ade felt he was different. But not in a way that is draped in surety, like death being the end of everyone’s story. Or that during Christmas, your parents will buy you that new pair of shoes you've been asking for. That you would get bullied in school if you were anything but the same as other kids. In some way, that was how Ade knew—when the bullying started. And also how he never showed any interest in football like other boys. How the other boys called him names when he refused to play with them. He always chose to hang out with the girls in class. How his father looked at him with disapproving eyes, disappointment latching itself on his face, a joy-sucking parasite. (Ade had seen how other fathers were with their sons.) Or how, sometimes, he found himself drawn to the clothes in his mother’s dresser, drawn to those colourful Boubous and how they came together with a well-tied matching head scarf each time he tried them on. He never found himself to like stilettos or understood why they had to be worn. He thought of them as a pair of torturing devices each time he wore them. He was more of a platform-heels kind of boy.

The day Ade became that way, some would argue, was in his mother’s womb. When Papa Ade’s sperm swam its way, fought its way, found its way to Mama Sade’s ovaries, something might have swum with it. Something that altered the chromosomes of the baby and made him a bit of both sexes. Something that made him not quite like other boys. Something that would make him hate himself for years.

Or was it the way Mama Sade kept Ade to her side, close to her breasts, always carrying him around like a mother kangaroo would her Joeys; always cradled in a pouch? Papa Ade had complained about it. He had told her to let the boy be a boy, to let him do things for himself and be by himself. But Mama Sade never did. Perhaps she knew. Perhaps, her mothering senses, sharp, cutting and grating, knew Ade was not like other boys.

Once, after school, on a muddy Friday noon, when the school gong had sung and the school children ran out of their classrooms, cheering and jeering, ushering the weekend in, the boys from his class had invited him to play. They had arranged a football match with a similar class from a different school. They had each contributed money as a winning prize. The winning class would keep the money from both classes to share. Ade’s classmates wanted to win that match so badly. And so needed all the boys they could get. Yet they were short of one player. Ade had chosen to walk home with the girls that afternoon.

Ade didn't see it coming. None of the girls did. It was the loud thud, the splash of mud and Ade’s colourful screech which got their attention. Ozeba, the leader of the boys and the oldest in class, had decided Ade needed to be punished for daring to be anything else but what they wanted him to be. A boy. A boy who loves football. A player. A very good player. A beast on the field who dribbles, tackles, controls with absolute agility, passes balls with accuracy and scores in ways many would think were sorcery. The girls gasped when Ade hit the mud puddle in front of the school gate, his blue shirt and brown pants soaked.

“What was that for?” One girl asked. But that was all she, or any of them, could manage. They knew best not to be cross with Ozeba.

Ozeba was about four years older than all of them and had been in the same class for as long as any of them could remember. He never got promoted. He was as daft as a dead driftwood. Some would argue he didn't learn or pass his exams on purpose. He enjoyed the power he had over those young children who found him in the class each academic year. He enjoyed bullying the weak ones. He enjoyed it when they laughed so hard—the book-scattering, high-pitched laughter—each time he messed with a teacher.

Ade sat in the puddle, shaken, unsure how to react. Unsure what Ozeba’s next move would be. In some way, he felt he deserved it. Sitting in that puddle, soiled and dirtied, he realised that was how he felt inside. Unclean. Ozeba lowered himself to Ade’s level, yet managed to mimic a towering monument, his shadow blanketing a terrified Ade. He held Ade’s head and shoved his face into the mud.

“Boy-girl!” He spat, kicked and walked away, leaving in his wake a branded Ade. Marked by spectating eyes, scarred by the snickers. Bolanle, one of the girls, helped him up.

That was before Ekong joined the school.

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Ade turns off the light in his living room, walks across to the kitchen to get a glass of water and makes his way into the bedroom. His phone’s screen lights up, and a ding follows right after. He pauses for a second, takes a swift look at the phone and then continues walking. Ade has been avoiding his phone since he got back from the beach.

After his impromptu swim at the beach, still tugging his clothes back on, Ade checked Facebook. His message to Ekong had been left on read. A wave of regret crashed into him. How could he have been so stupid? Evidently, Ekong meant it when he said ‘goodbye’. He genuinely didn’t want anything to do with him again. Why did he have to ruffle the fur of a sleeping dog? Now, he had to live with the consequences: a message seen an hour ago with no reply, and the heavier punishment of beating himself up for days to come.

All through his walk back from the beach, Ade gave his phone the wide berth you'd give a snake in the grass. His phone stayed buried deep in his pocket. Not even when he stopped to buy kenkey did he bring out his phone. He didn’t either when the middle-aged woman stopped him to ask him for directions—a request he replied with ‘Sorry, I am new here’. When he got home, Ade tossed the phone on the sofa and headed straight to the shower.

Ade didn’t touch it even as he sat on the sofa, eating his dinner—swallowing balls of kenkey with the shitɔ and fried fish. Kenkey was slowly becoming his favourite dish since he moved to Ghana, probably edging out eba and Egusi— all while an episode of Friends played in the background.

And now, as he walks into his bedroom, he tosses the idea around in his head. Maybe Ekong has replied. Maybe he just needed time. Or maybe he was busy at work. What’s the time in the UK now, anyway?

Perched at the edge of his bed, Ade unlocks his phone and opens Facebook.

Nothing.

Still no reply.

He concludes that Ekong is never going to respond. Three hours is enough time to give someone the benefit of the doubt.

Panic rising, he quickly hits Unsend for everyone. Puff! The message vanishes, leaving behind something even more cryptic: You unsent a message.

‘Shit!’ he mutters.

He opens Google and types:

Can someone see when you unsend a message on Facebook Messenger?

The result pops up,

Yes, when you unsend a message on Facebook Messenger, the recipient will be notified that you removed it. They will see a notification indicating that the message was unsent, but they won't see the content of the unsent message.

‘Well, that is done,’ he says, tossing the phone onto the bed and lying back. He stares at the ceiling, feeling the weight of his own stupidity sinking in. What was he thinking? Then, an unsettling thought creeps in. Had he just made things worse?

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