Mothers, Fathers and Sons

His father’s voice was rising. Ron knew the sequence of events so well. This was an early warning signal to the complete loss of control. Ron also knew that to prevent anything physical, this was the best time to stop arguing. As much as he wanted his father to see reason with him about his explanations, it was risky to persist. He drew a long breath, heaved a sigh, turned around and walked towards the door.

“Don’t you dare walk out on me, Ron,” his father threatened, his voice dropping a few decibels and sounding particularly ominous. It was made more dramatic by the low rumble of thunder in the distance.

Ron did not turn around. And just before he closed the door leading outside his father’s house, he said, “Goodnight dad.”

Outside, a cold draft wafted past. He could feel the rain coming in the chill of the air. He heard a door slam somewhere inside the house. He shrugged. Pocketing his palms, not so much from the cold but for thinking, he crossed the street of the house and began to make his way home.

Long after he was undressed and nestled in bed at home, he still mulled over the same thought that preoccupied his mind all the way home. He knew his father’s proclivity for overreaction but could not have thought that he was not going to be allowed to defend himself. It was the last thing on his mind when he got to his father’s house – a fight with his dad.

He was just beginning to break the news of his new job at the medical facility and what it entailed to his grand mum when his dad had come into the sitting room.

“Did you just say medical facility?” his father had interrupted. A call came in for his grandma and she left to answer it.

“Oh sure, dad. That new big hospital at the junction leading to the Church,” Ron excitedly answered, mistaking the urgency in his father’s voice for shared happiness. This was because of how difficult it had been to get a job for someone with a degree in Public Relations.

That was why his father’s frown and next question, “How come?” came as a shock. His trying to quickly recover from that was not fast enough because his father’s followed it with, “So, you’re not aware of the medical crisis in the country and how people are trying to avoid anything medical that you want to go and kill yourself working in the hospital?”

Not waiting for the words Ron was searching for to formulate a reply, he went on, “Or because the hospital is new, you think Ebola will excuse it and say, ‘Oya, lemme allow you to get old small before I will come back?’ eh?”

It was not a question meant to be answered because he only paused for the dramatic impact of his words. Then his voice lowered as he went in for the kill, “Look, let me tell you, we didn’t send you to school so that you will come and die at your first place of work. Lai lai, God forbid. I will not fold my hands and watch you make that kind of mistake. Not when I can stop it.”

Ron had never felt more dumbfounded. He was going to be at the administrative segment of the hospital, handling customer-hospital paperwork, liaising between patients and hospital via social media and phone calls. Even at that, the hospital had gone far to emphasise personal and environmental hygiene in and around his office and went to great lengths to provide all they needed to maintain a decent working condition. Therefore, he was in more danger from contacting Ebola outside the office than he ever was inside.

He searched for words to capture these thoughts and convey them to his father but like wispy phantoms, they eluded his grasp when he reached for them. Hard as he tried, he could only afford a moronic stare.

Somewhere in the house, he heard his grandmother’s voice, in spurts, meaning she was still on the phone. He surmised that it may be one of their relations abroad. He wished she were here to buy him time to conjure a fitting defence. If it really was an international call, then he would have no help from her anytime soon. He was in dire straits.

Believing the matter settled and wanting closure, his father coughed to get his attention and asked, “Have you heard?” It was Ron’s cue, if ever he was going to defend anything.
“Excuse me, sir,” he began. “But…”

“But?” his father blurted not allowing him go any farther. “But? But what?” Again, these were only rhetorical. “You want to say you didn’t hear anything I said?” He shook his head giving himself time to catch his breath. “If you want to kill yourself, are there no better ways?” he clicked his tongue to emphasise the sarcasm. “Just say Ebola is hungrying you and we’d understand. How can anyone with half a brain be going to get a hospital job at such a time. We send you go school go read medicine? What the meaning of all these, eh? Where’s your sense sef?”

Yes. The voice had gone up. Nothing could bring it down until he could return to calmer thoughts himself, usually after physically bringing about a restoration of the recalcitrant to sensible reasoning along the line of what he considered sensible. That was how he raised his children. It was the rod unspared to bring the child up as he or she should grow. And that was the point where Ron knew he had one move left. To leave. Quickly.

Another low thunder rumbled across, bringing Ron back to the four walls of his chamber. In his reverie, the power supply had been cut in anticipation of a heavy downpour. He welcomed the thought of rain. At least, It will drench the foul mood he was in. He still felt bad not being allowed to talk. How wrong he was believing that being all grown up, his father would begin to appreciate the fact that he was responsible enough to be treated maturedly. But old habits die hard. To his father, he was always “Ron, my boy.”

He could appreciate his father’s concern but would have loved for nothing more than to be appreciated in return. He believed his father cared and that is what drove him to vehemently demand that Ron left the job. But as usual, even from back in Ron’s secondary school days, Ron just wished his father listened and it pained him tonight that even at his age, nothing had changed.

He said his night prayers. The argument, if it was not too one-sided to be so referred, had occupied his mind for too long and he was not going to let it steal his sleep as well. Lightening streaked across his window, illuminating his room in a flash. Another one followed in quick succession, casting shadows across the adjacent wall from the stems of a giant tree in front of his room. He closed his eyes. But no matter how many sheep he counted or how many times he tossed about, sleep just was not budging. He gave up. He got up, dressed and left the house. He was going to go back and have that talk with his dad. Come what may.

Twice he turned to go back into his room and twice, he decided against it. Standing next to the tree, he steeled himself. He stung his right knuckles with a punch to the tree’s bark and made his way to his father’s.

There, the first thing he saw shocked him. He found his father alone at the front porch. Although Ron knew it was one of his favourite pastimes, he never recalled seeing him there any time later than 7pm when Ron knew he would get up, eat supper while watching the Network News before going in for the night. But it was now past 9pm. Indeed way past what he considered his old man’s bedtime. Quickly recovering from his shock, he was happy he was not going to ask that his dad be woken up as planned. Now, he quickly began his prepared speech.

“Please dad, allow me to explain to you the details…”

“Aren’t you going to even greet your father again?”

And for the second time that day, his father knocked out the air from his lungs. The tone was not bellicose. Amicable, almost. Another bout of moronic staring was beginning when he quickly checked himself with a stammered “Go--oood ev---eening, sir.” Ron could not even imagine why he had not greeted him at first as was his custom.

“Ehen, good evening Ron, my boy.”

Huh? Where did this come from? He shook his head to clear the cobwebs of confusion beginning to becloud his senses. Just then, the door to the front porch opened and his grandma walked out.

“Won’t you…,” she began before she noticed him and with an “Oh, Ron,” she folded him in a warm embrace but quickly recoiled in horror.

“How come you’re still in such wet clothes? Did you have to come in the rain? And shouldn’t you have got out of the clothes the moment you got here? Take them off immediately.”

Not pausing for a breath, she turned on Jon, Ron’s father. “Tell me you didn’t notice him come in the rain. You see what you’ve caused? Did you have to tell him to come tonight? I hope you’ve apologised?”

As Ron stood there in his briefs, he understood the turn of events. His father had not called him but his chastised façade meant he had gone through the sequence of his anger and was now sombre. Ron guessed his grandma’s influence was responsible. When she had gone in with his wet clothes after giving him warmer replacements from Jon’s wardrobe, she left them to discuss.

Later that night, when Ron laid down to sleep, he blessed the memory of his mother whom his father had admitted missing during their chat. And just before he closed his eyes, Ron recalled the look on his dad’s face and laughed at the fact that his dad remained a child to his grandmother as he to his father.

In the morning, with dad’s blessings and grandma’s love, he went to work in the “new big hospital at the junction leading to the Church.”