Parables of Souls # 2: My Anchor

The Priest blared through his homily on that hot October Morning with about as much oratory skill as an eight year old kid. In my twenty-two years in the Catholic Church I had learned to expect as much.

To keep from dosing I would usually daydream. However, that morning, because of a terrible headache from a brutal hangover I was trying to get rid of courtesy of the night before, I decided against it. It would be too much work, I just blacked out into the realm of thoughtlessness.

Before I knew it the Father was done and it was time for the profession of faith (creed). We all stood up and on cue began to profess. I knew the thing so well the words rolled off my tongue without any thought or any conviction either.

We sat down and the Father did things I paid little attention to. Then, shortly after, the most interesting part of the service began—Offertory.

Why? Simple, it was the time when many of those congregated in the chapel walked to the altar with their offering. Each passed by me, and when they did I could check out the curvature of their buttocks…the women that is.

I know, it is classical pervert behavior, but I knew for sure I wasn’t alone. Besides, the women were asking for it, dressing lasciviously in church.

The mass went on the way it always did and I jumped from and to absentmindedness. Soon the service was over and we left the Chapel.

Outside, as customary, I shook the hands of the Priest, thanked him for a lovely Homily that I hadn’t heard a word off, greeted many people I seldom knew with a blistering smile and a hearty hallo then walked to my Dad’s car parked in the church grounds.

My thoughts were occupied with things I was supposed to do that Sunday. However, there was little to do in my tiny town of Chingola. I finally decided I would check into the studio for a few hours after lunch.

My old man walked up to me wearing a grey three piece suite that smelled of money.

“Hey, Andrew, enjoyed the service?” A smile brighter than the sun shone on his face.

“Yes, Dad, very much.” It was a habitual thing we did every Sunday, he asked me if I enjoyed it and I agreed.

“Mr. Sitali, how are you?” a balding man with a large nose and hawk-like eyes spoke.

“Fine, thank you, and how are you?”

“Brilliant, powerful message in there, wasn’t it?”

“Absolutely.”

Yeah, right, I would have loved to hear just what they got from it. My dad and his colleague talked for ten more minutes, before they embraced in a hug and said goodbye with so much politeness it gave off an air of awkwardness.

We soon got in the car, where Dad gave me the keys to drive. Since I turned eighteen, I can’t remember a time when he was the one behind the wheel when we were together.

“I saw you looking all lost in that damn church boy, what’s wrong with you? Do you want to embarrass me, huh?” My dad said in his customary bullish voice.

“No, Dad, I just had a terrible headache,” I said lazily and noncommittally.

“Well, if you didn’t drink you ass off the night before church maybe you wouldn’t have one.”

“Yes, dad.” I always tried not to argue with him.

“And next time greet more damn people would you, am the bloody chairperson for the largest Chitente dammit, my son needs to act the part.”

A Chitente is the Bemba name for a small Christian community in the Catholic Church.

“Yes dad I will.”

That was the end of our conversation, my dad was occupied with a newspaper and I with the road and my thoughts. We were almost like strangers. It wasn’t always like that, we were best of buddies when I was younger but somehow the older I grew the less we talked. Now, our conversations were reduced to lectures on the wrong I did.

Our home was house number 44 8^th Street, a well-furnished, well stocked, well designed household that boasted arguably the best surroundings.

A gravel road that was surrounded by a beautiful assortment of roses and other pleasantly looking flowers lead to the front of the household. As I drove on the gravel road, I stole a glance at the well-manicured lawn, courtesy of the laborious efforts of Ba Stingolo, our outside help.

I stopped the car and we all got out. Dad tossed me the house keys and after fiddling with the lock for a minute or so I unlocked it and opened the door. No sooner had we gone through the front door than we went separate directions, to our rooms, which were located on opposite sides of the house.

The house had an eerie silence due to the fact that the girls were not yet home. My mom and four sisters (two older and the two younger) attended a Pentecostal church, whose name I rarely remembered.

I opened the door to my room and threw myself on the bed. It was the way I left it earlier…unmade, with magazines, a dirty plate and two empty glasses. The floor wasn’t any better with my shoes scattered all over and a two pairs of jeans laying on it. I needed to clean up before my mom came back otherwise I was in for another lecture about cleanliness—it would be eighth in two weeks.

I was about to commence the deed when I heard my phone ring. I fished out my Blackberry from my pocket. The caller ID made me smile.

“Hey, love.”

“Hey, sweets.” I wondered why the heck she liked to call me “sweets”, made me feel like a mint or lollipop. But, hey, I wasn’t complaining either.

“I’ve missed you,” I said.

She giggled. “Have you?”

“Yeah, the tenderness of your lips, the warmth of you embrace, the ease of you presence and the plump of your ass.”

I heard her exhale intensely. Though I couldn’t see her I knew for a fact the next thing she did was bite her lip in the most sensual way then pull on the back of her hair, slowly and rhythmically. 

“Bula pwisha amaka sometimes.”

I laughed. “That’s just one of the ways I use up your energy, remember when…”

“Okay, Andrew, that’s enough, it’s a Sunday for crying out loud.”

“So?”

“So, it’s a venerated day, no need for mischief,” she said in an authoritative voice. “I hope you did go to church.”

“Yeah I did,” I said impassively.

“Am guessing the Father sucked and your Dad gave you some talking to because of how you embarrassed him in some way.”

“Yo kwena mwalingishiba.’

“Yeah, I know you like the back of my hand, baby.”

I smiled big.

“Anyway, there’s this braai at my cousin’s place in Kitwe. I thought maybe will could go.”

I thought for a second. “Yeah, sure thing, what time is it?”

“Around three in the afternoon.”

“Okay, I’ll pick you up at the usual spot at 14: 00.”

“Thanks sweets, love you to death.”

“Love you too babes.”

We sang a chorus of goodbyes, then she hang up.

I cleaned up as thoroughly as I could and by the time I was done I heard the unmistakable voices of females discussing outfits they saw at the church. I shook my head and quickly made a mental note to tell them to reduce on watching “Fashion Police” on the Style channel.

“No, mwachilamo, napa Sunday,” I said as I bumped into them in the kitchen.

“Iye, Drew you should have seen how appalling this woman dressed…” My sister went on to talk about things she thought were fashionably criminal…it sounded like advanced calculus to me.

“Is your father in?” My mom asked. She looked pristine in a bright yellow dress and low heels. She was the half of my parents that had the looks, lucky for me, and my sisters, we took after her—strong genes on her part of maybe just plain luck on ours.

“Yes, he should be in the study by now.” My dad was a workaholic. That strong work ethic had led him to amass lots of wealth, albeit at the expense of spending time with his family.

Mother nodded and started giving out instructions on the preparation of lunch. “Lucy you do the chicken, marinade then grill it, Melissa you the vegetables, Linda the rice and potatoes. And Mary you do the dishes, Drew will help you.”

“Sorry, I can’t do that mother.”

“Why, Drew, you never help around this place why not start today.”

“I would love to mom but I have to go to Kitwe to pick up a school assignment.”

My mother looked hard at me with her big brown eyes.  “You better not be lying to me boy.”

My insides melted but my face was sober. “I swear it’s true.”

“What did I tell you about swearing?” Her voice whipped through the air. “Anyway, tell your dad before you go, you know how he feels about you disappearing on Sundays.”

I was hoping she wouldn’t say that. “Mom can’t you…”

“No,” she said and left.

I stood in the kitchen for a while as my sister hurried along with their tasks, thinking about what words I could use to make the encounter with my dad less confrontational.

After twenty minutes of vainly trying to conjure up a resolve I walked to the study. I knocked lightly on the door. I waited until I heard the regular disgruntled grant that signaled me to enter.

When I did enter, I found him engrossed in piles and piles of documents. He had changed into his beach short, vest and wore specks.

“Dad, I wanted to talk to you.”

After a minute or so he responded. “Yes, what about?” He didn’t look up.

“I need to pick up a school assignment from a friend in Kitwe, so I won’t be around in the next hour or so.”

He unexpectedly stopped what he was doing and looked at me.

“Please take a seat.”

I did as I was told.

“Tell me son, what haven’t I done for you, huh?”

I looked at him confused. “I don’t follow.”

He exhaled and took off his specks. “Haven’t I spared no expense for you to have a strong foothold in life. I sent you to the best primary and secondary schools in Zambia and now the one of the best tertiary education institutes in Zambia, and mind you, you would have gone abroad if it wasn’t for those lousy grade 12 results. It was a wonder you got a place at BIZ (Business Institute of Zambia) but then we can thank my persuasive powers for that.”

“Haven’t we had this discussion before,” I said cautiously, battling with a rebellious demon within.

He went on like he hadn’t heard me. “There is always food on the table, clothes on your body and I adorn you with the latest gadgets, and this is how you repay me.”

My eyes bulged up as dad threw an envelope at me. Adrenalin shot through my veins and I had trouble breathing. I could tell that damn envelope anywhere.

“You flanked four of your six courses and have to re-seat, yet again, for another four courses. What the hell is wrong with you boy.”

“I told you I never liked business school dad, it was your dream not mine.”

“Oh, so you think music is more credible than business. Get your head out of the clouds and into the real world.”

“It’s my passion dad; to me it is the real world.”

My dad had always had a stringent face that had been worsened as he got older, with every frown from life’s woos engraved into his forehead. Nevertheless, at that moment I had never seen so many frown lines on my father before…never seen them on anyone for that matter.

“Boy the only thing a music career is going to do for you in this country is get you in debt and leave you with a lot of bastard children. God gave you a good voice; you should have never quit the choir. That was the only good that can come from your voice.”

“Church people are a bunch of hypocrites…” I held my tongue a second too late.

Dad jumped from his seat and whilst pointing a murderous finger at me, said. “You’re calling me a hypocrite boy. You’re calling your own father a hypocrite.”

I just looked at him, too bemused to speak.

“Answer me, you little ass.”

“I didn’t say you…”

“Well, you said church people, I didn’t hear you say, minus you dad.”

“Minus, you Dad, I said it, minus you.” My voice was unsteady. The sight of my father was disconcerting. I had never seen him like this.

My words didn’t have the pacifying effect I had hoped for, ironically, they made things worse. He walked from across his desk to where I was seated on a couch. Then, in the most dastardly of ways, grabbed me by the collar and flung me to my feet.

“Dad, what are you doing?”

Our foreheads were touching and I could feel the force of his heavy breathing.

“It seems I’ve been too easy on you boy, you’ve embarrassed me for the last time. Am taking your car, am taking the television and every damn electronic in your room. Then am going to organize for that damn studio I built for you on your eighteenth birthday to be demolished…”

I didn’t hear anything after that, my mind was permanently stuck on the threat to demolish my studio and like a bad record, it kept playing over and over in my head—with each repetition a demonic anger stirred up from within until it begged…no correction—commanded to come out.

“Never!” I shouted as I pushed my father away. He hit the table then fell to the ground.

“You pathetic old man, I will never be like you. My soul is music and not stupid money. Screw you! I hate you!Screw you! You won’t take the studio away from me.”

What happened after that was largely a blur, I remember looking at the disbelief in my father’s eyes as he lay on the ground then dashing out of the room after that everything went blank.

I found myself somewhere in riverside, dialing my girlfriend’s number.

“Hey, baby.”

“Sarah, I need you, come quick.”

 “Okay, where are you?” I could feel the concern in her voice.

I hesitated, emotions surged through my body like high voltage electricity.

“Drew, where are you?”

I looked around to pinpoint where I was. To my surprise, it wasn’t at some random place. It was the street Sarah and I had our first kiss. I was about two streets from her home. I told her this.

“Okay, am on my way,” she said and hung up.

I had waited for close two twenty minutes when I saw her coming from the bend of the road. She had on a blouse and a pair of tight-fitting jeans. Sarah was very light-skinned, short, curvaceous and had a face plucked from a beauty magazine. However, her most appealing trait was her lovely personality, everyone loved Sarah.

I suddenly felt a wave of elation as she came closer. I got out of the care and waited. I wanted to run after her and embrace like it was my last day to live, but my masculine instinct didn’t comply…I should have never listened to it, for what happened next would torment me for as long as I lived.

Sarah hadn’t walked one step passed the junction of two roads, one in which I stood in, when a car carrying crazed teenagers with about as much driving experience as a toddler, lost control. A sixth sense warned me of the impending doom, and I knew I had to do something.

I broke out into a bolt. I ran as fast as my legs would take me, commanding my body to increase its efficiency.

I was ten, maybe eight meters, away from her when my world came crushing down. The most agonizing thing about it was how slowly my mind registered it. In actuality it couldn’t have taken over a few seconds but in my head it felt like an hour. I saw clearly as the driver vainly tried to dodge Sarah but ended up hitting her cross the waist with the front of the car. I saw it vividly as Sarah’s body was dragged with the car a few meters before the car stopped and she was sent flying through the air. I saw in painstaking High Definition clarity the expressions of hopelessness, vulnerability and fear on her face.

In a way unpalatable to the thinking brain, I was connected to her, I felt what she felt. The most terrorizing thought of all was that she was the one injured and I perfectly normal…her boyfriend…the one chosen by love and the laws of human nature to be her protector.

I rushed to her side with about as much sense as psychotic individual. I screamed, I cussed, I cried, I barked…and I held her in my arms. She lay with her eyes closed, her body limp and unresponsive.

“Sarah! Wake up! Sarah! Wake up!

I blacked out again, for next thing I remember we were in Nchanga South Hospital. I sat in the waiting room, battling with the demons that were tempting to dissociate me from reality. Sarah was in the intensive care unit. I never prayed much, but at that moment I prayed unceasingly.

After saying the Lord’s Prayer and Hail Mary three times I heard a familiar voice.

“Drew you’re here, thank God you got my message.”

I got up from my chair in surprise. “Mother, what message?”

“The text message, I kept trying to get through to your cell but there was no answer.”

It didn’t take me long to notice two of my sisters that were standing next to my mother. They all had tears in their eyes…same as my mother, she looked a wreck.

Did they know about Sarah? No, how could they possibly know.

“Why are you crying,” I asked the girls.

“It’s all your fault!” Lucy, the eldest spoke. “You did this to Dad.”

Apprehension took over completely, I daren’t spoke.

“Your father had a heart attack immediately you stormed out of the house.”

I felt a gargantuan blow to heart and my insides felt like they were on fire. My face contorted like that of a stroke victim and my breath became severely labored. My thoughts were bordering on the unthinkable.

“No, he’s not dead.” Melissa read my thoughts. “But his hanging on for dear life.”

What I did next was unexpected to everyone including myself. I ran. In what can be deemed as a moment of extreme irrationality, I thought maybe if I ran fast enough or farther enough that I could get away from all the Hell. I only managed to reach the outside of the Hospital, the parking lot to be exact. There I fell flat to the ground, drained both emotionally and physically, not know which of the two was more substantial.

I started to sob, not wail, the hot tears eased their way down my cheek and I lay on the ground powerless and yearning for peace.

Another blackout.

Yes, I don’t know when the tears stopped pouring down my cheeks or when I picked myself up and sat on a stone slab. My eyes were red and hurt from all the crying.

I must have been seated there for hours thinking about everything and yet nothing at all.

Was all this my fault? My father’s heart attack and Sarah’s accident. My heart concurred but my mind objected.—a fierce battle in which the winner would either save me or push me into a psychotic break.

“Hallo young man,” an elderly gentleman spoke.

It took me longer than usually to respond to the audio stimuli. When I did I simply nodded.

“Would you mind if I sat next to you, I always sit there when am here I can never stomach the inside of these places.”

“No, screw off.”

He smiled and sat anyway.

After thirty minutes of silence between us he finally mouthed something.

“You look like hell.”

“I know.”

“Want to talk about whatever is eating at you?”

“No!”

“Hmm,” he spoke whilst shaking his head. “Shame, cause strangers make the best listeners.”

I looked directly at him for the first time with the goal of giving him the coldest stare imaginable. However, his joyful demeanor and hobo-like appearance took me by surprise. He was probably in his late fifties, had small, beading eyes, a large round nose and lips so thin I had to strain my eyes to view them under the cover of a heavy moustache and beard. The texture of his skin was calloused and his frame was wiry. Other than a hobo, he had a striking resemblance to most bus conductors I had met…well except for the fact that his English was impeccable.

“Didn’t you hear me the first time? I don’t want to talk old man.”

“Old man, no, am a young man just like you.”

I looked at him slightly confused. “What you mean as young as me?You can’t be a year younger that fifty.”

“You’re right. However, it’s not by the number of years you judge the spirit of someone. I have an aged body but my spirit is still young,” he said with much vigor.

I shook my head and managed a strained smile.

“There, now it’s your turn.”

“Turn for what?”

“And you say nebo amu kote.” He smiled. “It’s the Ethics code of theyoung at heart. When someone makes you smile or laugh he is entitled to at least one thing in return. It’s a code of honor, sir.”

I smiled again, this time it came easier than before. I was about to dispute his claim, I couldn’t share personal matters of this magnitude to a stranger but there was an easy about him that disarmed all hostility. Before I knew it I was spilling my guts (coupled with tears) to the man.

He looked reflective as I spoke, carefully digesting the information like a CEO of a major company during a board-meeting.

When I was done, there was silence between us for a few minutes before he spoke.

“I both agree and disagree with you,” he spoke. “You’re right when you say church-folk are hypocrites, you are also right when you say your father had no right to dictate what career path you should choose. However, you were wrong in losing your anger like that…”

“But—”

“Ah, let me finish. You were also wrong in thinking that what happened to your girlfriend was your fault.”

“Apart from the part where you were talking about my father having no right to dictate my career path I don’t understand any of what you just said.”

“Okay,” he said as he glanced quickly at an approaching vehicle that was trying to find a place to park in the parking lot. “I’ll start from the top, Church folk are hypocrites.”

“Most people your age would disagree with that.”

“There you go with the age thing again.”

“Sorry.”

“Ok, you see church people place their trust in a Building or a church and not in Christ”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“No not at all. Building you foundation in church has you locked up in tradition as your salvation when it is Christ you’re supposed to be looking at as your cornerstone. You see in Christ there is a freedom and a grace to do exceedingly and beyond. This brings with it a peace and joy that eludes sense. However, with tradition you play a game of who can give out the façade of being the most righteous, which is self-righteousness and ultimately self-defeating.”

My mind was hard at work trying to fathom what this tramp looking of a man was trying to tell me when his phone rang.

He answered it and after listening attentively for a minute or so he said, ‘okay’, hang up and put it away. He then looked at me comfortingly.

“Rain falls on the believers and the non-believers but one group has Christ as their anchor and never drowns. Is Christ your anchor?”

Is Christ your anchor?

The question scourged through my body like a virus in my bloodstream. The more I thought about it the less comfortable it made me feel and the more confused I got, yet in the discomfort and muddled state of affairs in my head a light of clarity burnt through my soul.

I had been so consumed in thought that I hadn’t seen the elderly man leave. I stood up out of instinct and conviction. The first step was the hardest but with its passing I walked with the maximum possible ease expected of a man in such situations.

I found the girls in the waiting room where I had left them. They all looked at me when I came through.

“You were right; it’s my fault Dad is in this mess. If he…” My breath was labored and I was fighting back tears. “If he…”

Why couldn’t I say the damn word?

My mother jumped to her feet and embraced me in warm hug. “He’s okay.He’s not going to die. We talked to him a few minutes ago. The doctor said he just needs some rest. You can see him immediately he wakes up.” She was crying by the time she was done talking, so were the rest of my sisters. They had all joined my mother and I in our embrace. We stood together as a family that had experienced a scare so terrifying it united as. We all cried for a while when something came to my mind.

Sarah.

“I have to go.”

“Where?” my mother asked.

“I’ll explain later.” I untangled myself from the chains of embrace that we had created and broke out into a run. I prayed she was okay…I prayed hard.

I walked into the room and found nothing. Where was she? Where was my Sarah?

I looked around for a nurse or doctor when I saw someone familiar at the corner of my eye, sobbing softly.

“Katingo,” I said in disbelief. “What are you doing here?”

He straightened himself out when he saw me. “Hey, am…”

“And why are you crying.”

“I heard about the accident from the guys that saw it and came here as quickly as I could…”

Again it happened, I saw two familiar faces. They were Sarah’s parents.They too seemed to be looking for her as well. I soon forgot about my best friend and looked attentively at them.

They found what seemed to be a doctor and after conversing with him for a few minutes, Sarah’s mother broke down into tears, her husband held her tightly and they both cried.

I knew. I knew why they were crying, it didn’t take much intelligence to deduce it but I hoped against hope that I was wrong. My mind rejected logic. I started to walk towards them but my feet failed me after a few steps. I dropped to my knees, emotional pain rendering me invalid. I felt like there was an inferno in my arteries, my head was spinning and I had to use all my energy to keep myself from throwing up.

I had thought that if I ever lost someone I loved so dearly that I would wail like a lunatic but on that hot late Sunday afternoon, I just sobbed quietly.

“There he is, the fucker that killed my daughter,” I heard Sarah’s father speak as he pointed at me. In a moment of intense rage, he rushed towards me, fists raised.

In no time I felt the hard, calloused knuckles of a former boxer and went flat to the ground. I didn’t fight him or the pain, I let them both have me, they both deserved to do what they were doing.

I had received three damaging blows to my head, one to my chest and several to my abdominal area when he said something that suddenly brought me back to the realm of conscious awareness.

“…And you had the right to get her pregnant you filthy swine.”

That one statement rejuvenated me and gave me a conviction that had been long lost.

Using whatever fragments of energy I had left, I pushed the man off me and staggered to my feet and I watched him get chained up by the hands of several people that had finally decided to intervene.

“I didn’t get your daughter pregnant, we did some fooling around but we never got around to having sex. We were waiting for the right time,” I said through a busted lip and gushing blood.

“Ubufi, you did it you swine. The Doctor just told me that she was pregnant.”

“No, I…”

Then I saw him again, the person I had completely forgotten about. Katingo looked sheepishly at me, everything about his face betrayed him…Katingo knew, he knew about Sarah’s infidelity.

Unfathomably, I managed to stand up and using adrenaline as a performance drug I grabbed Katingo by the collar and banged him against the hospital wall. By now, many patients, nurses, visitors and even doctors had gathered to watch the fiasco in the sanitary halls of the hospital.

“You better start talking now.”

“Look, Sarah was…”

“Who the hell impregnated my girl?”

“It was an accident.”

I gave him a ghastly blow to his midsection and he heaved slightly.

“I don’t want any excuses, tell me.”

“It was me, it was me, okay. I impregnated her.”

I felt my head ready to explode. I let him go and sat on the ground, trying to make sense of a senseless situation.

When I finally did speak all I could say was ‘what?’

“It happened like a month ago when you went for that one week trip to South Africa with your dad. The gang and I took Sarah out for a few drinks. Things escalated and before we knew it we were drank as hell dancing on the dance floor like maniacs. That was when, only jokingly, I ask her if she would like to have sex. She agreed. It must have been the booze talking because that girl loved you—it was definitely the booze on my part. We left the others in the club and we went into the car. That was where we did it. Five minutes at the back of a car, it meant nothing Drew, nothing at all. We never talked about it until this past Friday when she came to me in a panic saying that she was pregnant. I wanted to refuse all responsibility but I knew it was mine.

She wanted to come clean, tell you all about it, but I quickly persuaded her against it. I convinced her that the best thing was to get an abortion. She agreed and we scheduled one in Kitwe at underground clinic. She was supposed to pay the fee to a representative at that Braai you were supposed to have gone for today. That was the way the clinic works, you pay one day in advance so that it could get the equipment.”

I thought about how there had been no trace of guilt or compunction in Sarah’s voice when we had talked earlier. Was that the behavior of somebody who was in love? There should have been a noticeable inflection in her voice when she talked about the Braai, but there was none.

Who was Sarah Hangooba?

I stood up in pain and looked at Sarah’s father. He too was in disbelief. He looked at me a little bit more understanding this time…it would be the closest he would ever get to apologizing. In his book I was as guilty as Katingo. I looked at my bestfriend for a second and shook my head.

I spat on his shirt and said. “You disgust me.”

I walked and walked until once again, I found myself outside, craving for air, air that promised me relief from the claustrophobic pain but never quite delivering.

I saw the place where I had sat earlier on and was hit by the words that hobo-like man had said before his departure.

Is Christ your anchor?

I looked at the sky as the sun was setting.

“Christ, please be my anchor.”

THE END.