The Street Kid

Nigeria today as we see it.

My thoughts are not a happy place

I try not to be in them too often but sometimes they are all I have

My only companion

Growing up where I did made me what I am today. Its not an excuse. Its fact

My hood was the slums; places which make razz look like British royalty.

Places where survival is the watchword.

As a little boy, a part of me wanted to go to school and try to make something out of my life.

I wanted to get out of the slums.

Another part of me always asked why should I want to go to school? Everything around me was against schooling. The people around me didn’t give a toss about schools.

My mates were running around chasing rabbits, stealing fowls and rolling tires around in carefree bliss. Why be burdened with school and its nags?

It was always a losing battle. Conditions around me answered those questions.

No sandals (slippers), books, tuition fee –no matter how small it was-, how could I go to school?

It was that easy an answer. I joined my mates

Whenever I passed by your school to buy cigarettes n stuff for my ‘area bros’, I always felt a little pang of envy and regret, but I consoled myself with the knowledge that I’d seen and done things which would’ve sent you into shock. I was a man. You were a boy.

As a young man, I was too set in my ways to think of a future that didn’t involve violence and/or ‘lawlessness’. I certainly wasn’t wise enough to see the path I was headed.

I was my own man and loving every moment of it.

While you were sneaking the latest Playboy and hiding it like a sin, Going in ‘deep cover’ to watch the latest Jesse Jane movie I was busy filling up her breasts and pumping my shaft into her centre of excellence.

My formative years on the street was over,

I was who I am now already at 15

It was time to polish the edges.

Teenage cultism? Fuck that. It’s child’s play! I was helping my Don of my hood clean his ‘tools’. I was the lookout boy to warn them in case the police showed up to bust them.

Home? For all intents and purposes, I lived at the ‘cartel’ (igbo-house)

I was the errand boy and always in possession of the weedy stuff.

My head (mind) was almost always filled with it.

By 17, I’d raped my first victim. She was a sweet little wench. The remorse was there, but it passed away. The others I raped only gave me pleasure.

By 19, I’d taken my 1st life. The fear was there too, but that also passed away

By 22, I was a moderately successful armed robber. Had a Golf 4 and a litany of hood bitches to choose from. Life was good

Two weeks after my 24th birthday, I went for a job. Just another job. I killed. Just another victim. I was caught

Now I’m awaiting a trial that will almost never come. Rotting at the bottom of this Police Station.

I know my fate, Death. The system while it protects white collar murderers like our leaders has got no love, for US.

Do I deserve to die? Yes. I certainly do

If I relived my life under the same conditions, without knowing my end, will I be a better person? A different person? Probably not.

The stronger ME would have made it out of the street. Maybe become a carpenter, a mechanic, or on the one-off, a university graduate.

The ME who stands in the middle would be an Agbero or Truckpusher.

The ‘ME’ is a robber. A thug. A brutish assassin. I was weak.

The Society/environment conditioned me for failure. I failed

The only thing that might have changed this outcome? Parent(s) who cared.

Yeah, I wish I had that….

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Claim: Originally written by Nigerian Fiction Member 284 - leonmacedon ( Leon Enovwo )

Nigerian Fiction Title 124