Comrades in Naughtiness

Posted by Lola on Sunday, May 10, 2015 in Series&Stories | 26 comments

Idris walked towards the carefully turfed front yard where people were standing about in clusters; some looking heavenwards, some speaking quietly in muffled voices...all of them looking everywhere but at him. None would meet his scrutinizing, questioning gaze. No one would even say a word! He took further steps into the salmon-pink painted house, closer to the side door that would lead him to the foyer before the rooms then he stopped suddenly for a moment to catch his raging breath and calm his roving mind, assuring himself that nothing could be possibly wrong or could there be? "Why would there be so many solemn looking folks at my front door?" he asked aloud.

Forty minutes earlier...
 
Sitting tensely in the Nissan Juke SL, Idris wondered what he would tell her after he had been gone for so long. Trying hard in his head to concoct a sorry ass tale; mechanical breakdown wouldn't fly he was so sure knowing mama is very assiduous when it comes to her material possession-they function at a full hundred percent. He could say he met with a young girl, lost track of time while fondling right? She loves to hear those kind of juicy tales but wouldn't that make him sound irresponsible? He was meant to be out for a quick prescription refill for her knee osteoarthritis pain and minutes turned into hours! Should he say he was ambushed, held at gun point?
 
"Arrrrrrrrrgh! I'm tired of rehearsing lines, she may not even be irked I was gone for twenty-four hours. It was just a day!" After all he's been the only constant one in her life, his younger and only brother had moved on to greener pastures four years before without as much as a backward glance-they weren't doing badly financially as a 3-throng family but the young lad just wanted at-the-twinkle-of-an-eye world fame at all cost. Idris' friends however consider him as odd. They understood his diligence as a dutiful son but for real what sort of 25-year old guy befriended his own mum; cracked risque jokes with and was unafraid of spilling all the naughty, dark secrets too?
 
He remembered at age 15 when he was becoming somewhat distant and locked-off from everyone, his mom had come into his room one random evening...
 
"I noticed you smell differently these days Id, all into yourself and cagey about where you've been," Mrs F said as a way of announcing her presence in his room, arms folded behind her back.

Idris turned around from the computer screen he had been glued to all day, conjuring the right retort. "Ermm...by different you mean what exactly mom?"
"Now don't take that innocent, unknowing look with me young man! I see your eyes all red and looking dilated almost every other day when you walk in through my door. I see the rolled up papers under your bed. I see th.."
 
"Oh c'mon mom!" he cut her off, "rolled up papers where? You mean you've been snooping around in my room?" Idris stood abruptly throwing his arms in thin air in unbelief. "I thought we agreed you'd respect my privacy and let me live like a man without you double checking my every move? Going through my stuff especially when I'm not there and peeing under my bb..bed?" he dragged.

"When you decide to act like a silly boy, I will break the rules and act as I deem fit!"
 
"But mom, it's not even like you set any standard rules about whether I can take up smoking or not. Nothing fazes you really about we do, you are practically uninvolved in our lives particularly in my life so I'm kinda shocked about this sudden confrontation".
 
Mrs F feeling deeply chagrined at her son's words said in response, "My point exactly. I haven't come to lord anything over you," she interjected her voice taking a sombre tone "but If you are going to take up any activity in this house, I must be aware and be a part of it".

"A part?" Idris looked completely nonplussed, his eyes darting from his mother's face to what seemed to appear out of nowhere in her small hands, "are those what I think they really are?" She took a step closer to him, opening her palms wider for him to see..."yes they are. I made the effort to get some off Kosmas after work. The janitor is quite resourceful and he assured me no one would ever know. We can learn all the tricks together. You and I, like best friends. Man to man, girl to girl. Trade all the gory, growing up tales," she continued with a slight smile in her eyes...

And so it started, on and on it went for a few more years. His mom would come to his room after her daily 9 to 5 with marijuana and pipe screen. If it wasn't hashish then it was mama giving him a couple of magazines with luscious girls on the covers. They would explore together, him listening sometimes with her giving tips. Some days they would talk about his girl crushes, laugh at his initial gropings in the dark during his first make out. They will sit in the park for hours watching girls as they walked by and pass one lewd comment or the other.


On one of those teaching occasions, his mom had told him men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed but women somehow deteriorate during the night so he had started to take pictures of the girls he laid before and the morning after. Mama and him would share via Facebook Messenger during the day and would have a private joke over. Life was on a roller coaster. School was in the forgotten corner. Nothing else seemed to matter except the drugs and the girls and the bond between a mama and his boy until the knees started to weaken...



********************************************  
Dear Son,

We knew this day would come right? It's been one heck of a crazy year with the intense pains and your stay. Your mates are in college now, you should go too. Pick up a new interest. Maybe I've not been such a great mother, I let you slide on your studies for so long as I let the bitterness of your father's separation from us haunt us for so long. Maybe I shouldn't have encouraged all the things we did together but I do hope you will remember the sound lessons I taught you too. You know truly that a woman is the one who worries about the future until she gets a husband and a man never worries about the future until he gets a wife but I want you to begin to worry even without a wife now. I see you've become so complacent about life and it shouldn't be so. Your brother is doing extremely well for himself so I hear...There is so much good to do in the world, there are so many ways to be useful to the world. Please find a need, find a purpose and fulfill that need. Let me take a bow out this way. I really didn't need the pills because I already made up my mind to leave. Forgive my cowardice, and for ever leaving you this way without a proper goodbye.

All the rehearsed lines flew out the window, no one would be needing to hear them now. At a loss for words and things to think, Idris sat by her bed and shed his first tear in his 25 years. He never even cried when his father left all three for a younger, sexier model thirteen years ago. Idris wailed. 





Writer's note - At the time of writing this story, I honestly didn't know where it would end. I only had a post title which was inspired by another writer friend {thanks Oma for letting me build a story around this ;-) }. When I started to write, I racked my brain for all the naughty scenari that could be applicable to a young man and I settled for this flow. A lot of issues were raised in this piece, however little I touched on them. The lingering question is how should we train our children/ward? What sort of role as parents do we want to play in their lives. Do we want to be disciplinarians? Authoritarians? I'm not going to be judging if this was the best way or not remember, it's all fiction.
One thing I do remember about my growing up though, as much as a lot of rules were also not spelt not by my parents it was just common sense to know that some things were a NO-NO. In this part of the world, children are smart enough to understand sign languages or maybe I should say "were" as everything seems to be changing now. 

What is the best way to train a child? 

I read a couple of articles which built up my knowledge base for this piece and one particular piece that stood out for me is this article on parenting styles. You can read up some more by clicking on that highlighted link.

Many thanks to Google as always for the image. Please don't leave this page without dropping a comment :-)