Quam came to my school sometime in mid-secondary school. I cannot remember his surname now but he’s very etched in my memory, not so much 4 what he looked like but for the metamorphosis that occurred in his life btwn when he arrived and when we left secondary school in the early 90s. Something was noticeably off about Quam even on first contact. His tongue seemed too big for his mouth and his voice didn’t fully make it out frm his throat. His voice came across as if someone or something was forcing his words back into his throat, such that all you heard when he spoke was a coarse whisper. Evn his screams were at best loud whispers. There was a whiff of a body odour; not harsh enough to hit you in the face like a slap from calloused hands, but present enough to make you stand a few feet away. In today’s reality, Quam would have been diagnosed with Autism or Down’s Syndrome or the likes. In the reality of those days, Quam’s parents had approached an Imam for a cure for their son’s condition. The Imam had done his thing and decided that St. Louis sugar was the best mode of transportation for his ‘medicine’ into Quam’s system. Quam was to, periodically, take a cube of sugar and lick it. As the sugar mixes with his saliva and travels down his throat, his voice will open up.That’s what the Imam promised. What the Imam did not put into consideration was the evil-mindedness of boarding house students of Luba Comprehensive School, Ijebu-Ode . Curiosity may kill the cat but it emboldens restless children. When we discovered that Quam was willing to share everything in his locker except his St. Louis sugar, we were not going to let off until we found out why. One day, after repeated harassments, Quam was forced to tell us why. In tears, with mucus running down his nostrils, he confessed. We laughed in unison. The more he cried and begged, the more we laughed. We eventually took the pack from him, emptied it into a bucket, added garri and water and had a feast. Quam wailed uncontrollably. We never saw him with a pack of sugar again. What we saw him with next was a bell, the type that white-garment preachers rang on the streets. I suppose he reported the sugar incident to his parents who informed the Imam. Since we couldn’t munch iron, the Imam reasoned, the ‘medicine’ is best put in a bell, especially as a bell is a sound instrument and Quam’s voice needed to be heard, like a bell. Quam would simply go to the tap with the bell, use it as a cup to fetch water and drink directly from the bell. The bell was then returned to his locker and no one was allowed to touch it. That was until Mebude, a ‘Celestial Church’ member with mad drumming skills reminded us of Quam’s bell one night when we needed to gyrate. Gyration had never been so sweet, with Quam’s bell supplying melodious chimes. Again, Quam wailed in a corner after all his begging had fallen on deaf ears. The more he cried, the more we laughed and danced And then the incident involving Quam’s pubic hair happened. Quam woke up one morning and as he pulled his shorts to have his bath, his pubic hair went along with the shorts and pant. Alarmed and in tears, Quam ran to the girls’ hostel to show his sister and the whole female dormitory his penis without pubic hair. Commotion ensued. What happened to Quam’s pubescent genital hair growth, the girls wondered? Had some of the gnomes and demons that resided in the forest that surrounded our school come, razor in hand, during the night to shave Quam’s pubic hair for a major ritual in spirit-land? Or had someone shaved his pubic hair for juju purposes, like money-doubling or Ogun Isoye? The reality was of course far less dramatic. While Quam was sleeping, someone (it wasn’t me, I swear!) poured shaving powder on his genital area. It was the latest madness that had evolved in our school, pouring shaving powder on heads and genital areas of sleeping students. It had actually started with tying rubber ropes to peoples’ penises while they slept. A burning sensation, giving the feeling that one needed to pee urgently, woke you up only for you to discover as you rush from sleep that your penis had been tied to a rope that was now tied to a bunk or window. The whole dormitory was of course waiting to laugh at you. When we all learnt to wear multiple knickers to bed, in a back-to-front-and-front to back formation, someone moved the game on to shaving powder. Always the last to catch up, Quam still went to bed in his shorts only, which is how his pubic hair got the shaving powder treatment. When he returned from his misadventure to the girls’ hostel, all of us with pubic hair, even if just an inch of it, gave Quam the beating of his life for daring to show a penis to girls who were just growing breasts and had barely passed the Agbalumo size stage. By the time we graduated from secondary school, Quam was stepping to top babes like everyone else. St. Louis sugar and bell drenched in prayers had nothing to do with it.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Jun 2013 17:48:49 +0000
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