FRAILTY

“What is ganja? We know it’s a plant created by God to fulfill men’s want. The powers that be, say man should not use. They use it in secret, yet show its abuse.

There is no comparison between ganja and rum. The former keeps you “cool” the latter makes you glum. Rum as we know is an agent of death with the using of   ganja you draw new breath.

The taking of rum has eaten out our head. They who continue to take it will wind up dead. Remember, one is created, the other manufactured. On the evils of men we have always lectured,

So cast not your verdict before making a test. True conscience in you will show you the best. For rum, as we know will pronounce your doom. All hail to great ganja, the solvent of gloom.”

                                                                                    Sam Brown

                                                                                    Rastafarian Poet.

Skinny and intense, Tayo walks down the street of the estate were he’s lived all his life. People stare at him from around. He could just bet they were thinking “crazy kid”. He knows they’d all been talking about him these past weeks. He didn’t blame them.

 He stops at the fast food joint and orders a shawarma. He stands back to wait after exchanging pleasantries with the “shawarma guy” who has known him for most of his seventeen years. Tayo slowly looks round the eatery. Mostly familiars faces. People he’d grown up with, people who’d moved in later and a few strange faces. People were actually starting at him, unveiled curiosity on some faces and some, sneaked peeks.

Only the strangers ignored him. Who wouldn’t, he is quite a nondescript young man. He’d given the estate and environs food for gossip three weeks ago though, when he’d “bent”.

“Bending” is not a rare case according to many in Nigeria, but American researcher’s claim that “bending (Psychosis) is indeed rare.                                                                                                                                         In these rare cases of full blown psychotic episodes precipitated by marijuana, the individuals generally had previous mental disorders or had poorly developed personalities and were marginally adjusted to their life situation. Often the episodes occur at times of excessive stress and are characteristically temporary.”

One then wonders how Funmi’s cousins’ nephew and Ada’s brother or Aminu’s brother-in-law and several other hundreds of Nigerians just always seem to “bend” and all blame is laid on Marijuana.

Do Nigerians, smoke more weed than Americans, or do we just have way too many issues or is Marijuana the convenient “Fall guy”?

Tayo is a very sensitive young man. He’d grown up shy and affectionate. One day his parents started fighting and they never stopped. His father would beat his mother blue black and she is in turn would curse him to his ancestry. Tayo and his sisters, Timi and Oyinda came to expect the fights..

Tayo could barely remember the young bubbly mummy he used to know. Now she was withdrawn and edgy.

He took over the roles of mummy and daddy to eight year old Timi and five year old Oyinda. Mummy was too self involved and daddy was too busy sharing his time between the clinic and more than half the skirts in Lagos. Tayo was ten years old. He held them when they cried, nursed them through illness did home work, gave advice and was always attentive to the needs of his sisters. They clung selfishly to him and demanded the attention of both parents from him. He gave selflessly. When Timi started menstruating, he bought sanitary towels and gave her a talk. He became a shadow of his mother. Always a worry on his mind, he would walk absent mindedly on the street, his round wire glasses, slipping down his nose, and almost get run over by an on coming vehicle. He fed off Timi and Oyinda’s emotional needs. His were totally ignored. He was miserable but did his best for his sisters. They were all he lived for.

Tayo had never been popular at school but now he was truly the outsider. He paid attention to his studies and with his natural scholastic aptitude, he aced all his subjects. One day just before the senior secondary certificate examination (SSCE) he met Taofeek. Taofeek was seventeen to Tayo’s sixteen. He was also a dullard and a recluse. It was break time and Tayo strolled towards the back of the school, to the school farm which was a long way from the school’s buildings. It was also out of bounds to students except at agric period. He didn’t expect to meet or see anyone there. He’d sit for his thirty minute break period and feed on his packed lunch while he read books on his current interest. Rastafarianism. He found their non-conformist life and culture intriguing. His latest book was “The Rastafarians” by Leonard E. Barrett, Sr.  

His father marveled at his choice of literature but was proud of his brilliant boy anyway. Tayo lived mostly in his mind and as he fed full on an eclectic selection of literature. His mind traveled and lived the lives of the characters he read about, fictitious and real.

As he walked towards the farm, he anticipated slipping back to Jamaica, to mingle more with the dreaded ones. Learning their steadfast beliefs, that “Haile Selassie is the living god, a god who is beyond death; that Marijuana is sacred; their dedication to nature and mystical approach to the universe along with their strong opposition to oppression of any kind. He liked that they were distinguished as a revolutionary cult.

He was especially interested in “the wisdom weed” (Marijuana) it is said that the weed was first grown on the grave of King Solomon, the wisest man on the earth. When used in ritual contexts, the name became known as the “holy herb” as various scriptures are given as proof of its sanctity.

The Rastafarians say, God who created all things made the herb for human use and would cite Genesis 1:12 as their proof text:

And the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after it’s kind: and God saw that it was good. And

(1)…….thou shalt eat the herb of the field (Genesis 3:18)

(2)…….eat every herb of the land (Exodus 10:-12)

(3) Better is a dinner of herb where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred there within (Proverbs15:17)

(4)…..He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man……. (Psalm 104:14)

Tayo soaked in all the information and his intrigue grew.

 Jostled back from his reprieve by a subtle pungent smell of smoke, he looked up to encounter a surreal sight.

A subject from his imagination had materialized to reality in front of his eyes. He felt the light headedness of those who claimed to have encountered spirits in palpable forms.

Reality fought the hybrid of memory and imagination as the white and blue colors of the schools uniform registered. Taofeek remained perched in his position by the mango tree, nonchalantly watching Tayo. He suddenly raised the smoke to Tayo. Despite his extensive theoretical knowledge, this was Tayo’s first encounter with ganja.

He watched in fascination, the angry amber glow of the joint as Taofeek dragged on it.  The rizla shriveled in acknowledgement of the strength of the amber heat. It consumed both rizla (rolling paper) and shake (dried and chopped up leaves of Marijuana) in its haste for mission accomplished. And they hung wasted after its passage. Taofeeks eyes mirrored the fiery amber, hooded and blood stained red. Taofeek was a big burly boy with mean looks. He was an art student while Tayo was a science student: Tayo had seen him around but didn’t know him. Taofeek was still offering the grass to him. Tayo quickly shook his head and walked hurriedly away.  

“That boy is smoking Igbó in school” Tayo’s mind raced. “A boy is SS3”. He was aware that not only Rastafarians smoked the weed, but he also associated non Rastafarian smokers with bad eggs. “Should he tell? Should he mind his business? That boy was committing a crime. He was probably a thief too.” In the end, Tayo decided to mind his business.

Out of curiosity the next day, Tayo took the same route on his break time walk. There he was again crouched by the mango tree smoking weed. He waved at Tayo who quickly walked away. Tayo noticed the labor prefect approaching Taofeek and hid behind a shrub to watch the ensuing drama. Emeka was as big and fierce looking as Taofeek and the school authority was on his side. He was a prefect. He saw Emeka glance at Taofeek and quickly increased the distance between Taofeek and himself. “Taofeek was certainly a law unto himself.” Tayo thought as he straightened up to resume his walk, slightly put out by the dampening of his anticipation. He decided to stay away from that route.

A few days later, going through his notes by the school’s dispensary, he saw Taofeek walking purposefully towards him. His heart lurched them took off in a gallop “is he coming this way?” Head bent he pretended to study while he peeked at Taofeek from the corners of his eyes. His heart stopped as Taofeek stood before him. Head still bent, he waited for the punch or slap or whatever it was Taofeek had planned for him.“Hi” growled Taofeek. “You can’t smoke here, the nurses are in there” blurted Tayo as he pointed to the dispensary with shaky hands. “I didn’t come here to smoke; I came to speak with you”.  Tayo’s head shot up and he looked Taofeek in the eye for the first time. “I didn’t tell Emeka anything, he just happened to be walking by…….” “I know”. Taofeek cut in, breaking Tayo’s nervous flow. ”I was thinking that you’re a loner like me……..and it wouldn’t be a bad idea if we would be……….could be………. could be………”

“Could be what?” Tayo asked, his voice strengthening with confidence as he noted Taofeek’s nervousness. Taofeek stood silently for a second, then twirled around and started to walk off. Tayo jumped up and ran after him, forgetting his books. “Hey did you mean be friends?” Taofeek stopped and turned to him. “yes but I think we should forget it”. Taofeek replied looking woe begun. “I don’t think so” replied Tayo confidently. That was the beginning of their friendship. They became firm friends to the shock and surprise of the whole school. Two outcasts finding solace in each other. The school bullies who had hitherto found Tayo an enjoyable subject suddenly stayed clear of him.

A week later, two weeks before final exams, Tayo took his first “Toke” (drag) of marijuana. Watching Taofeek these past days, he’d become more and more drawn to Cannabis. As he dragged on the joint, smoke sailed smoothly down his throat. He exhaled and waited a few seconds before looking up questioningly at Taofeek. Taofeek smiled and urged him to keep smoking. Puff after puff, Tayo, would pause for a mental check. He felt just fine. Really, really fine. Suddenly he saw a dung beetle rolling its ball of treasure along on the grass. Laughter bubbled from his stomach to his chest from whence it spilled out helplessly. Taofeek joined him and they laughed and laughed until it rolled out of sight. The laughter subsided and they slipped into companionable silence. Tayo suddenly realized he was famished. Taofeek was an old hand and came prepared. They fed on buns and water from a flask slung around Taofeeks’ neck. As he drank of the cold water, he felt light and floaty as the cold water trickled down his throat. He floated gently within physical and spiritual consciousness. No wonder the Rasta sees’ ganja as part of his religious observance; ganja the smoothener of mental unbalance and mediatory influence. Ras Sam Brown in an interview said “Ganja is really used to bring forth a peaceful and complacent aspect within man……..we do not find ganja as a mental depressor, ganja sharpens your wit, and keeps you intellectually balanced…….” Tayo agreed, he was having a real pleasurable first time ride. He rationalized his mother, his father; his siblings, himself, and his bitter world didn’t seem so gloomy. The feeling buttressed Ras Sam Brown’s statement in the same interview that “if ganja was not available as a sedative to keep poor people calm, the Island (Jamaica) would have experienced anarchy already”.

Finally at six thirty, four hours after school, the effect of the cannabis had gradually worn off and Tayo was finally able to move. He looked at his wristwatch and surmised that by now, JSS 3 Timi and JSS 1 Oyinda would have left with the driver.

A taxi was waiting for Taofeek. His lace merchant mother just paid a taxi driver to drop off and pick him up from school. He gave Tayo a ride home. Tayo got into the house to pained looks from his sister’s. He searched for his usual burden, guilt but it was nowhere near. He sat them down and rationally talked them out of their nightmare notion that one day, he’d abandon them. He trusted Timi, she was a natural mother. She’d seen to herself and her sister. He went into the kitchen and took out his lunch from the microwave.  He peeked under the cover to discover noodles and boiled eggs. He cursed silently as he remembered that he’d forgotten to get money from his mother this morning to send the driver to the market. He’d been preoccupied with his decision to partake in this daring deed Taofeek had been trying to convince him was good for him. A wide smile spread across his face as a thought crossed his mind, “right now I’d eat anything”.  He left his sister‘s downstairs watching a soppy animated love story.

In those five hour’s he’d spoken more words to Taofeek than he’d ever done to anyone outside of his family in a long time. And so their friendship grew and Tayo became an active “blow man”. Life became easier to bear for Tayo, when he doped, all his worries made themselves scarce. Exams came and went, Tayo made it as usual and Taofeek barely made it as usual. He did well though, in his scholastic aptitude test (SAT) with Tayo’s help.

 Just after Tayo’s sixteenth birthday, Taofeek went off to the prestigious American University in Dubai (AUD). His mother needed him there to learn the ropes of her business.

Tayo also gained admission into the University of Lagos to study medicine. He missed Taofeek and the feeling was mutual. They kept in close touch though. They would both smoke a joint as they chatted on the phone. The ethereal feel of the psychoactive drug cut the transatlantic distance and placed them side by side as before. Tayo had learned to “seed” and “mold” his own joint perfectly. He could package them for sale as the molding was precise. A machine couldn’t do better.

Things were worse on the home front, if that was possible. Now his mother was having an affair with a man who could, buy his father out of life. The beatings were less frequent but the atmosphere between them was as cold as the artic. Things were not so rosy with his sisters either, he spent a lot of time away form them now. With school and his habit, he couldn’t really afford the time. They remained tight but now it seemed the two girls were closer. They clung emotionally, to one another. Their parents were not really there. Each too involved in their avaricious self involvement. Tayo smoked a lot of weed. At school, he remained a loner. He excelled in his studies impressing his parents immensely. His sisters weren’t doing as well but they trudged on.

In the meantime his obsession with the Rastafarian culture increased and he deftly handled his academics and his hobby. One rare day when Tayo was home, he stepped into the kitchen to fix a snack, leaving his latest study on the sofa. He returned to the living room holding a saucer with crackers and eagerly chewing on one. He sighted his father. Tall, handsome and distinguished, Dr Omotayo had a narrow patch of grey hair running across the centre of his head and stopping in the middle. Both his parents were good looking; Tayo often wondered where he got his wiry looks. Looking at his father, Tayo wondered how so much selfishness could be packaged so handsomely.   

Dr. Omotayo turned and smiled at Tayo, he was very proud of his brilliant son. He took off his grey suit, hung it across the arm of a sofa and sat comfortably as he exchanged pleasantries with his son. Tayo stood uncertainly, his father appeared to be settling down for an even rarer father, son chat. Tayo was stoned and could bet his father would realize it sooner or later, if he sat to talk. He looked up at his father who asked him to sit and began quizzing him about his choice of reading materials. Tayo sat initially uneasy and paranoid about his high state. But as his father agreed with him on the fascination of the Rastafarians, Tayo relaxed and the high took over (marijuana has the effect of slightly increasing alpha wave activity. Alpha waves are associated with meditative and relaxed states, which are in turn often associated with human creativity) the conversation came to rest on the subject of Marijuana and they got into a highly intellectual conversation, when Dr. Omotayo realized that his son was of the opinion that Marijuana should be decriminalized. Opining his full understanding of Cannabis, Dr. Omotayo joined his son in dismissing the popular Marijuana myths. Such myths as causing brain cancer, damaging the reproductive system etc he dismissed as scary statistics. He further explained to Tayo, that most of them were prepared as scare tactics for the U.S government by Dr. G. Nahas, and were so biased and unscientific that Nahas was fired from the American National Institute of Health and finally renounced his studies as meaningless. He cited that for one experiment, Nahas suffocated the monkeys for five minutes at a time, using proportionately more smoke than an average user inhales in an entire lifetime. They also laughed at the myth of marijuana making people violent Tayo used this to buttress his point about decriminalizing Marijuana. He cited Harry Ansling the director of the American Federal Bureau of Narcotics, impressing his father immenlsy. Harry had told congress that “Marijuana leads to non-violence pacifism”. If this were true Tayo stated, then it makes sense that legalizing Marijuana could be one way of curbing violence in our society. Dr. Omotayo laughed at the joke and reiterated that he was well aware of the fact that Marijuana does not change a person’s personality. For Dr. Omotayo, his fear of Marijuana as a parent lay in the “gateway   syndrome”; leading to hard drugs use. Tayo argued that the point was a more persistent myth but was not actually true. He gave a real world example of what happens when marijuana is readily available like in Holland In the 1970’s, the Dutch partially legalized Marijuana and since then, hard drug use (heroin, cocaine) have declined substantially. In the USA in 1993 a Rand corporation study compared drug use in states that had decriminalize Marijuana versus those that had not and they found out that where Marijuana was more available (states that had decriminalized) hard drug abuse as measured by emergency room episodes decreased. Tayo was enjoying their father to son debate when he saw his father glance at his watch. That signaled the end of their conversation but as Dr. Omotayo stood to leave he threw a parting shot at his son. “As much as you think you know about Marijuana, I’d like to remind you that any psychoactive drug is potentially harmful to you”. “Had he figured he was high?”

 

 On his first session holiday, Tayo set off on an all expenses paid trip by Taofeek to Ethiopia. Taofeek wanted to give him a treat by taking him to Rastafarian Zion, and then on to Dubai. Disembarking from the Ethiopian airline plane, Tayo’s heart beat in anticipation; it’d been about a year since he’d seen his friend. Shivering through the halls of the airport, he sighted his friend and the chill of Addis Ababa faded away. They grabbed each other in fierce embrace, genuine joy radiating around them. People hugging is not an uncommon sight at airports but that hug between two men, so totally asexual, brought a smile to travelers, visitor’s and airport personnel alike. He looked at his friend as he stowed his little suitcase in the boot of the rented M class Mercedes that was theirs for their stay. Taofeek was still an ugly boy but he’d added weight and his features had softened. He smiled at Taofeek as he started the ignition.  They talked about everything as they drove from the airport through, a busy district of Addis Ababa.

 

He stared at Ethiopian women as they drove past. Ethiopian women are very beautiful Tayo felt a stirring in his groin. He’d never mustered the courage to “step up to” girls. He’d remained obsessed about sex though and masturbated regularly. Taofeek laughed and assured Tayo that his virgin days would be history in a few hours. He drove into their lodgings, the Addis Ababa Hilton at the corner of Menelik Ii Avenue, as he ran a joint under Tayo’s nose. Tayo’s wiry face lit up in a smile of anticipation. They blazed up as soon as the door to their suite shut behind them. Soon they were squinting through the haze of smoke as they coughed and cracked up at the antics of Hanna and Babera’s, Tom and Jerry on TV.

 

Hours later, the two boys dressed up and drove to the Imperial where they were meeting Laky (Taofeeks’ girlfriend) and her friend Zauditu (Tayo’s date). At the imperial they wolfed down injera (Ethiopian bread) and iab (cottage cheese and Dorowat (chicken stew with hard boiled eggs) and the traditional Ethiopia honey wine(Teg)  while they waited for the girls. Zauditu was a total contrast to her friend Laky. While Laky was skinny and pretty in a very boyish way, Zauditu was full and ripe. Not fat, just voluptuous. Her flesh was distributed appropriately, a lot in the right places and a little in the right places. Tayo drooled mentally as he took in her playboy curves encased in jeans and a tank top. She carried herself like a queen for indeed she was one; she’d been named after Empress Zauditu, the beloved aunt of Emperor Haile Selassie. While Laky’s hair was cropped tight, Zauditu’s fell below her waist, it stopped just on top of her ample video girl backside.  Her eyes were large and full of promise. Her lips would compete fearlessly with Angelina Jolie’s. Tayo’s heart sank. Girls like this didn’t talk to guys like him. He took in the milky coffee complexion, creamy and satiny. His hand, slid down her exposed arm. It felt like silk. The sound of laughter broke his trance. That broke the ice. They all laughed and walked out of the Imperial to their waiting car. Tayo had apparently muttered “exquisite” as his hands ran down, her arm in a weed induced bold caress.

 

They chatted as they drove to the “Singet”; a little pseudo Rastafarian temple, off Haile Melekot Street, a tourist trap. They were let in by Ras Azeez a crazy half British, half Jamaican Rastafarian. Tayo took a picture of his spectacular dreads on his phone. The “temple”, is a small bamboo shack with an assortment of African inspired furniture. The Rasta colors were heavily utilized to endorse Hollywood’s idea of the rasta culture. It was cozy and hazy from smoke. Tree trunks of various sizes had been varnished and used as chairs, little cushions seats made of kente and aso oke rested on them. The tables were covered with the same materials and a patch of transparent vinyl protector. The place was full of touristy types. European, American, Asian, African. The world was represented in the little bunch of tourists.  As reggae music played in the background, the waiters ........TO BE CONTINUED