YOU WILL BE MY BANE

THE TRAGIC TALE OF UNCLE BRUTUS PART 1.

A.

Brutus? I have heard that name before but where?

"Oh, yeah, he is" Berry says.

"I know that he loved Brutus as a child but that doesn't give him the right to insult his memory. He was my brother and however disgusting his life choices were, I still love him" Your mother weeps.

"It's okay ma, I'm sorry he made you feel that way" Berry says.

"What a stupid boy, making me cry on my birthday. As if missing my brother was not enough, he had to remind me of the disgusting choices he made whilst alive. While I still have guests in the house? Who does he think he is? Adeyemi!!!" Your mother screams in anger and runs after You.

Berry rolls her eyes and throws a blackberry into her mouth. She looks at me as she crushes the fruit with her teeth, dark fluids overflow from her red luscious lips and trickle down her jaw.

What is she doing? How do I get out of this quagmire? She moves closer to me and sits on the seat next to me. She extends her left hand and rubs my thighs.

"This is s****l assault Berry" I tell her.

"Oh really? Perhaps I should confess to Yemi. I should tell him what we've been up to these past weeks. I wonder if he will punish me. I hope he does punish me. I've been a bad girl" she teases, stressing the word bad.

"Oh my God! Who provoked Yemi?" A black young girl who looks to be no more than eighteen says as she enters the dinning room.

She is dressed as a female hunter, her pink rubber bow is strapped to her back. A golden ring winds around her head like a tiny rope. Her fancy pink sandals are strapped around her legs up to her ankles, making her to look like a fashionable Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt.

"Hey Berry, you came" she says to Berry, then she turns towards me "Who are you?" She asks as her chubby cheeks draw back in a smile.

"Hey Diana, how are you doing?" Berry asks, pulling her hand away from my laps. Sweet reprieve.

"I'm fine but who is this fine specimen?" Diana asks and draws closer to me. She sits opposite me.

"This is Nate, Yemi's colleague and friend" Berry says and touches my arm. I pull away.

"Hello Diana" I say.

"Well Hello to you too" she says and adjusts her blue tunic. "So are you here with anyone?" Diana asks, adjusting her hair and her bow. There is nothing wrong with both things.

"Diana is Yemi's sister" Berry says.

"Sister? I thought...."

"I'm adopted, Yemi is my adoptive brother" Diana says and clears her throat.

"So are you here with anyone?" Diana asks looking at me thirstily.

"I came with Berry and your brother" I say to her with confusion written all over my face.

"No silly, I meant, did you come here with any girl?" Diana asks and twists in her seat.

"Come on Diana, you are sixteen years old, stop hitting on your brother's coworker" Berry says amidst laughs.

"I'm almost seventeen and he doesn't seem bothered by age!" Diana cries.

Precious Cole's dead white eyes stare at me and I shake with fear immediately.

"Oh I mind, I mind age!" I blurt out immediately.

"Fine, p***y" Diana says and frowns. Silence hangs in the air. Berry brings her hand towards my laps again. I clear my throat.

"So who is uncle Brutus?" I ask Diana and Berry retracts her hand briefly.

"What? We don't say that name here" Diana gasps. Berry resumes fondling my laps.

"Why?" I ask incredulously.

"Anytime Brother Yemi is here, we don't say anything about uncle Brutus" Diana whispers, Berry's finger nails dig into my left thigh and I let out a Yelp.

"You alright?" Diana asks looking at me suspiciously.

I stand up quickly and rush to the seat closer to Diana; "Tell me more, tell me why you can't talk about Uncle Brutus, what did he do?" I ask.

"Brutus? who dares mention that name here? There's a reason we don't say that name here when Yemi is around" a tall black woman says as she enters the dinning room.

"Hey Aunty Tutu" Berry beams with smiles.

"Hey Berry, hey boy, how are you doing" Aunty Tutu asks as we return her warm handshake. She is dressed in a sea-green body fitted gown with a flower wreath around her head. She looks like she is in her late fourties.

"We are fine Aunty" I and Berry reply.

"Of course you are fine" Diana says to me and winks at me. I look away immediately.

"I'm Tutu, Yemi's aunt. By the way, does any of you know who annoyed mother and son?" Aunty Tutu asks.

"No one, they both riled each other up as usual" Berry says.

"I suspected" Aunty Tutu says and sits on a glass seat. She takes a cup, pours herself a drink and begins to sip.

"Um, Aunty Tutu, why don't you talk about Uncle Brutus? What did he do?" I ask.

"Yeah, me too. I'd like to know. Yemi hates to hear his name. Although your sister said Yemi once loved him more than anything else in the world" Berry says.

Aunty Tutu laughs.

"I think the correct question is; what didn't Brutus do?" Aunty Tutu asks and Diana smirks mischievously.

B.

"You have to promise to not tell Yemi that we told you" Diana says and we nod eagerly like dogs who were promised treats if only they can nod their heads off.

Aunty Tutu clears her throat, pours herself another drink and relaxes.

"I was very close to Brutus when we were little. Although he was Cecelia's twin brother, he was my best friend. He protected me from bullies and we'd both go fishing whenever our father wasn't around. We were living in a little village in Ogun state then.

"Brutus was the Sweetest big brother anyone could ever ask for. He was kind, protective and very intelligent too. He was one of the first people from our kindred that attended a university.

"But just like every great person out there, Brutus was fatally flawed. I used to see him with both men and women in compromising situations then but my little brain was too young to process what I saw and now that I think of it, it all makes sense.

"Brutus's problems began in 1979 when our cousin Enoch came back from America flaunting money around and talking about his s****l conquest.

"He was just twenty three then and I was thirteen. He had just graduated from the University of Ibadan. He was always competing with Cousin Enoch in everything. They were the same age, both handsome and intelligent but Enoch was now richer, more exposed and had women begging to be with him and men praying to be like him.

Brutus was mortally jealous, he was more handsome and smarter than cousin Enoch, he should be the one telling such tales. By the end of 1979, Brutus was in Brooklyn, New York city"

Aunty Tutu clears her throat again and pours herself another drink.

"Have you guys eaten?" She asks us and we shake our heads.

"Diana, go and check what's keeping those caterers from bringing food here" Aunty Tutu tells Diana.

"But the story is getting juicy, I want to hear the part where he took a dark turn in America" Diana says and bobs her head petulantly.

"Girl, go and check what's keeping the caterers and get food for your brother's guests" Aunty Tutu scolds Diana. Diana stands up, muttering angrily, she leaves.

"Oh, children of nowadays, so insolent. I'm glad my son is with my first husband. I don't have the strength to shout" Aunty Tutu says and takes a sip from her drink.

"Aunty Tutu, what happened when Brutus got to America?" Berry asks, showing even more interest in the story than I do.

"Well, I begged him not to go but he refused. After Cecelia's wedding, Brutus left for America. He was finally in America, the country where everyone who was nothing dreamed of being everything.

"Brutus was to learn that money doesn't grow in the streets of America. He had thought that he would just go there, pluck money from trees and then come back home. Things are never what they seem, he was in for a rude awakening. Those were things that Cousin Enoch didn't tell people when he was flaunting his money and house. He didn't tell them the sufferings and the sacrifices he had to make to get what he had.

"The first eight months in America were the cruelest months in Brutus's life, although compared to later, he longed for those months. He had met with a Nigerian Girl who was schooling in NYU then. She boarded his taxi and he just couldn't help but ask her out. she agreed and they started to date.

"She loved him and he loved her too. You should see the words he used to describe her in the letters he sent to me, oh Brutus, what a lovely man you were.

"Things weren't working really well for Brutus, he wrote about the police men then always arresting and profiling him. It really affected his taxi business. Many taxi companies sacked him when he came to work days later after spending unnecessary time in jail for crimes he knew nothing about. The only things that kept him sane was his love for Jane and Reverend Zeke's words of encouragement every Sunday at the local Evangelical church.

"His beautiful Nigerian girlfriend, Jane, told him to have patience, she would always help him to find another taxi company to work with each time he got arrested and was in jail. She convinced him that with good faith and hardwork, things would work out. Brutus believed her until I wrote to him and told him that cousin Enoch had just built another house in the village.

"When Brutus told me his entire life story the night before he died, I really blamed myself for telling him more about cousin Enoch. I mean if I hadn't told him about Enoch's recent accomplishments, perhaps Brutus wouldn't have taken the next dark step that led him down the winding road to self destruction"

Aunty Tutu clears her throat again and opened another bottle of champagne.

"Don't mind me" she says. "Brutus's story is not something you tell sober" she adds and pours herself another drink.

Diana walks into the room with a frown on her face.

"The caterers are coming. Now I've missed good chunks of the story" she mumbles and sits.

"You know this story, quit acting like a baby" Aunty Tutu says and resumes her gory tale. Diana rolls her eyes and sits, munching on meat pie that she took from the snack pile in front of me.

"Brutus was tired of trying to make it in America. He wrote to me that he would return home by the end of 1981. He said that he was tired of hustling night and day with little to show for it. Jane had finished schooling then and was working with a media company. Their love was bubbling and nothing could come between them.

"One night Brutus dropped off a client in front of the famous underground queer club, in the darkest part of Brooklyn; Club Dark Ecstasy. It didn't take long for Brutus to understand that it was a club were men can be prostitutes and were paid handsomely, and you didn't even have to be handsome.

"The following month, Brutus signed up and expressly told himself that he would do this for just six months and then save up enough money to open a legitimate business in Nigeria.

"He said that he already enjoyed having s*x with both male and female, why not get paid for it?

"And so it was, Brutus dove into the dungeon of dark pleasures where the only conscience that remains are the client's scents after they have left. Day after day, night after night, Brutus traded off his body to men, women and anything else that indicated interest. The money was coming and it was coming so much. Six months passed and Brutus decided to extend it to a year.

"At least by the end of a year, he wouldn't work again in his life, he would have saved enough money. He was now the favorite of so many clients. Everyone wanted a taste of the untamed wild black fox from Africa. He changed his name to Outkast, a testament to the battles going on in his mind"

"I didn't know that male p**********n paid that well!" Berry says.

"It doesn't dear, it doesn't. Brutus was just deceiving himself. Sure he made a few bucks but it wasn't Dangote level of wealth or anything.

"It was the summer of 1983 that Jane found out about his 'lucrative business' and left him. He was hurt, he wanted to stop, he decided to talk to Reverend Zeke next Sunday but his next client entered the room and it was Reverend Zeke.

"At first Brutus thought that Reverend Zeke was there to preach but when he began to remove his draws, Brutus realized that he was there for a different kind of anointing. The darker kind"

Aunty Tutu pours herself another drink and looks at Diana.

"Diana, if I go out there and the caterers tell me that you didn't tell them to bring food, I will punish you badly" Aunty Tutu threatens Diana.

"Fine, tell the story without me" Diana grunts and runs out of the dining room.

Yemi, do you hate gays because your uncle was a hooker? How is that plausible? So he was a hooker, whose fault was that? He was perfectly capable of making his own decisions as an adult, no one forced him to w***e himself away.

He was greedy and although I haven't heard the end of his story, I suspect that whatever killed him was as a result of his greed, Yemi, not because he was gay.

"What an annoying girl" Aunty Tutu says and takes a sip from her glass.

"Aunty Tutu don't mind Diana, go on" Berry says with all her attention on Aunty Tutu's face.

C

"By 1985 Outkast was so popular in the underground clubs of Brooklyn that everyone knew and had tasted him one way or another.

"He was the sin that everyone wanted to commit and those who couldn't, wished they would. Outkast continued with his career, he would occasionally host orgies or engage in porno movies. Things were moving well until the two homosexuals living in the house next to him got unbelievably thin in a space of two months and died. Three more wasted away and died in three months. Five more died the next four months and before the year ended, twenty gay men were either dead, wasting away or were coughing chronically. Brutus was healthy, in fact he was blooming like a red rose under the moon in an autumn night.

"By 1987, Freddie Mercury was diagnosed with AIDS, Brutus wasn't bothered, If he had not fallen sick by now, he would never fall sick. He felt bad about Freddie Mercury and decided that by the end of the year, he would retire and move back to Nigeria. He was now richer than cousin Enoch. He was now more respected, nobody knew what he did in America but they knew he was involved in a trade. A deadly trade. A devilish trade.

"The thing was, the end of the year came and Brutus didn't return home. He was in too deep to leave. He continued with his business. Although he was no longer involved actively in the trade like he was in the past.

"He told me that he did things that he didn't know he could and the funny thing about all this was that he was having fun. He said he enjoyed himself and that he wouldn't go back to change anything about his past.

"Trouble began for outkast in 1992 when he had a strange bout of diarrhea. It wasn't the smell and the force in which the diarrhea came, it was the length of time it stayed that bothered him. For three months he was always in and out of the toilet. As if on cue, a gut wrenching incessant cough came and black raised rashes resembling bruises filled his body.

Before the December of 1993, Outkast was now shaped like a strand of hair about to be blown away by the wind. All his muscles ran away and his once beautiful eyes raced back into his head, resembling sockets. But these symptoms lasted for a few months and disappeared.

"He wrote to me and I begged him to come back home but he refused, he said that he was fine. Everyone begged him to come back home and marry. My mother got a wife for him in the village and asked him to come back and take the wife but Brutus refused.

"Cecelia was mad, she was angry, she told Brutus that if he wasn't back by the December of 1994, then he was no longer her twin brother. But Brutus cared less.

"By the summer of 1995, Brutus's diarrhoea and rashes came back, this time they were stronger than the last time. He looked like a tooth pick. In the pictures he sent me, he looked like nightmarish figures from those horror movies my son loves to watch.

"Stupid boy, of all the movie genres out there, it had to be horror that he loves. well I digress. Back to Brutus.

"Oh Berry honey, you should have seen Brutus in the pictures he sent me in December of that year. I didn't need to be told that my brother had contracted the gay disease"

Aunty Tutu says with sadness washing over her face. She pours herself more drinks and heaves a sigh.

"Aunty Tutu, there is nothing like gay disease. If you mean HIV then I must tell you, heterosexual people also suffer from it.

"Oh Berry, you don't have to say that to make me feel good, I already dealt with the sadness in the past" Aunty Tutu says.

"Aunty, that's not what I meant, I mean that anyone can have the disease" Berry says.

Aunty Tutu laughs, "Berry, everyone knows that AIDS is a gay disease. Sure, some normal people suffer it from time to time but it is a gay disease. Why are you trying to gaslight me? When Brutus wrote to me in 1988, he called it GRID- gay related Immunodeficiency Disease or something like that" Aunty Tutu cries.

"No, it has been changed since. No one calls it that anymore since it can happen to anyone" Berry says.

"So what if you are a doctor? What do you know? Gays brought the disease, just accept that" Aunty Tutu says and Berry nods.

"Aunty Tutu, you are right. Please continue with the story" I say and Aunty Tutu smiles.

"Good boy, you should be more open minded Berry. Being a Doctor doesn't mean that you know everything" Aunty Tutu says with a smile.

She pours herself another drink, clears her throat and resumes her tale.