Indecent Exposures II

Blogsville...

So I was having a shower the other day and my 8 year old nephew strolled into the bathroom. Boy, was I furious, but I didnt really scold him for some reason cos his mother has a shower with the door WIDE open, so I thought, no biggie.

But I was still pissed cos I felt that I had just exposed myself to a little boy. Selfishly of me, I was only worried about myself and not what was going on in the poor boy's head.

This got me thinking about what went through my head when I was almost eight. I think I already knew seeing naked people was a bit of errr......a not so cool thing at that age and this took me back to another incident that occurred after the other indecent exposure. I think it was about a year after or there abouts. I lived in a house that had 4 flats in it and we lived in the bottom flat whilst another family lived in the other bottom flat. The family was quite small. An old man, say probably about 50/6o with his young wife who had a kid, not the old man's though.

I was hardly ever outside of our flat, but that afternoon, I think I was probably seated by the back door which went through the kitchen, engrossed in one of my dictionaries or a newspaper that I'd been forced to read and had to re-tell whatever it is I'd read in it to my mother. The kitchen door to the other flat was right next to ours too. The old man came in from wherever he'd been out to, I greeted him and he went into his flat. A few minutes later, he came up to me and said he wanted to send me some where.

Here I should tell you the story behind living in my mother's house. Basically, I only stepped out of my house when I had to go to school or follow an adult somewhere. Plus, my street in Surulere, at that time, didn't have any abokis that sold things in front of the houses that were there. So my street was bare. If you needed anything, it had to be bought from the supermarket that was on the next street or from another aboki that turned out to be on that street too, but across the road. Thinking about it now, it was as though all those abokis had planned not to deface the street with their little kiosks.

Unfortunately for him, I don't think he knew that going to either of those two places required that I either went with an adult or I had to cross the road (of which I could only do with an adult anyway).

So I said to him that I couldnt go. He asked me why and I said (erm duhh) I cannot go out on my own or cross the road, but I can get Kemi ( the help) to go for you. He said fine. I called on Kemi and told her that the old man wanted her to get something for him. She didnt find it funny, but I didnt ask why.

She got back, called him from the window of his living room to collect his robb and he told her to bring it in, that the door was open. She opened the kitchen door, placed the robb on the worktop and called out to him that she'd left it there, and that she needed to do something for my mum quickly. I wondered what rubbish she was talking, because my mother wasn't even home. Again, I let it slide.

A few minutes afterwards, he called my name and asked me to please come in and help him with something that he muttered under his breath. I went in through the kitchen, down to the living room. I said to him that I was there, then he told me to come into the bedroom. I opened the door, and what did I see. An ape looking figure lying on the bed. It was the old man. Ask me why he was ape looking?

Cos he was naked and HAIRY. Shet, I don't know if it was the nakedness that scared the shit out of me or the fact that the hair made him look so much like a monkey. I was lost for words as I ran out the way I'd come in from. I went into my house and locked the door. When I mean locked, I mean naija style lock, where theres the key lock, then the padlocks and then the bolts on the door too. I bumped into Kemi as I was running to my room, but didn't say a word to her.

When my mom got home, I remember she got into a shouting match with the old man, and I was scared because even though I didnt mention the whole thing to anyone, I thought my mother knew. But then it turned out that he was the reason we had to change helps every so often and Kemi had been the only one that had the courage to tell my mother he had tried to get with her. All these I learnt years after, when we had moved out of the flat.

Then, I thought O.M.G
Now I'm thinking, but W.T.F

Till this day, I never said a word to anyone and it makes me wonder that if this happened to a lot of children out there, parents would never know the things that happen to their child. Or, was it just me that turned out to be a mute child and not tell anyone?

Either way, I fear o!