Bonfire sessions

This was a long time coming. He was one of the very first people I wanted to interview. Walking at night in town, I remember him telling me a bit of his story and me eagerly asking him for a proper interview. To be honest, I probably won't do this justice, because it should be a trilogy, this story.

Sitting and staring at a fire, at its light dancing and sparks flying in the cool night air up towards the cloudless night sky, he tells me of his past.

His mum died when he was four. He remembers her kind eyes and beautiful smile. She had the best, most nicest heart. Not to mention the patience with him. Despite how naughty he was, she never beat him even once. When she died, it's like his father shut off. That was the last time he saw his father cry.

One morning, when he and his twin brother were playing in the house, they found a gun their father left on the table. This wasn't unusual, his father was a solider and a gun collector, or enthusiast let's say. So assuming it wasn't loaded, like the other guns in the house, Austine's twin took the gun, pointed it to his head and fired. Screaming, Austine watched his brother die. He was seven.

Listening, I look up and see a plane go past and disappear. I wonder if his father blames himself.

His father, was constantly deployed and left Austine and his siblings with women who only wanted to look after themselves.They practically had to raise themselves. After many occasions of being mistreated, one time Austine goes to school and comes back to find that the woman who was left to care for them had locked his small brother in a cabinet all day, hadn't fed him, or let him out to use the loo or anything. In his anger, he took a gun, one of the many in the house and shot her in the butt.

"Why the butt?" I ask, picking out that question out of many in my mind.

"Because I remembered my father saying a gun shot to the backside never heals" he tells me with a glint in his eye,

 "I wanted her to feel pain and I wanted her to remember. I think I was 9 at the time."
I wonder where that woman is now.

I'm not sure how we get to the topic but he tells me how he tried to commit suicide many times.

"How many?" I ask.

"Too many to count,  maybe 20 times." He says it like a question. "since I was ten"

"Ten till how old?"

"21"

When I ask how, he tells me he tried hanging himself, but his father stopped him. He beat him up and told him,

"You don't do that here, not in my house"

Then he tried swallowing pills. And every time he, by some miracle, didn't die.
Then he started cutting.

"I don't think I actually wanted to kill myself. I just wanted the pain to stop. "

I ask him how it all started. The suicidal thoughts and he tells me,
"I felt like I was a burden, like I was worthless. When I would go home with a 70 or 80 in math, my father would tell me "I wish it was you that died that day and not your brother."

I think of 11 years of struggle with suicidal thoughts and what all that must have felt like. I wonder where his big sister was all this time and he tells me that once she got out, she didn't look back.

He didn't look back either. He moved out after high school. The house he grew up in, beautiful as it is, holds too many memories he's trying to forget. He can't go back.

I ask him what he would change about how he grew up.

"I just wish my dad was around more when we were kids. Like actually around and active, I wish he was home more." This is the first trace of wistfulness I hear in his tone and I'm afraid if I look him in the eye I might just see the boy inside him aching to be loved by a father who was distant. So I stare at the fire.

I ask him how he can reconcile serving a God that allows all those things to happen. He tells me of how he struggled with it, he 'broke up' with God for about 9 months. Then he realized how much he was complaining.

"God has given me so much. Even when I was suicidal, he's given me so much. I have so many gifts. I've been looking for a purpose and I don't think I've felt as closer to that than I am now." He's serving at church.

He also has a small sister from another mother, and he raised her mostly by himself. You can tell how much he loves her by the look on his eyes when he talks about her.

"Has she asked why she's light skinned (she's a pointee) when everyone else is dark?"

"I told her one of us has to be the pretty one on the family and it's her." He says.

I was about to ask him if there were other girls in his life. Until he told me about his last girlfriend (there's always a girl). He met her and they dated for two years. She used to cut and when he showed her his scars, she rolled up her sleeves to show him hers saying

"I draw too"

He was in love, well, until she cheated on him. And got pregnant by another guy. Now, he's not in a rush, (I think) although he gets pressure from his aunt to bring home a girl.

 Looking at him dressed in a sweatshirt with a cartoon batman drawn on, I'm extremely glad, he's alive and that things are looking up for him. I want to give him a big hug, but I feel like such things are followed up with a word or two and I don't know what to say.







Photo by Mugoya Mokua