I read https://www.nairaland.com/6384692/love-man and the story awakened memories of times past when I was around that same kind of diabolic energy that young gay men like me used to entrap older rich men.

I was in Enugu State University (ESUT) in the early 2000s. In school back then, there was a certain guy who I’ll call Dash for the purpose of this story. Dash was a “big girl” in campus. He drove a Bora to school and lived in a hotel.

A HOTEL!

Gay – as well as straight and down-low – men flocked around him like paparazzi around an A-list celebrity on Hollywood boulevard, because he was the “It girl”.

Dash was dating a white man who supplied all of Dash’s riches in glory, and the news flying about in our circle and the gay community was that he used juju to kolobi (hook) the Angolo (Port Harcourt slang for white man). For the purpose of this story, let’s call this Angolo Dickson.

I eventually got to meet Dickson when he visited Enugu and hung out with those of us who were in Dash’s circle of friends. During that hangout, something not quite right quickly became clear to us. I noticed that anytime Dash stepped away, Dickson seemed to become a different person – more alive and aware. He would complain to us, in Dash’s absence, about how Dash was extremely greedy and never satisfied. He asked us how much our parents gave us for monthly upkeep, and when we told him, his shock was very evident. He said that Dash collects from him close to a hundred thousand naira every week. Sometimes, he’d even demand for the 100 grand twice in a week.

A HUNDRED GRAND EVERY WEEK!

I’m talking about the 2002 – 2004 period; so of course, you know this wasn’t chicken money. We were astonished and yet unsurprised. This explained Dash’s lavish lifestyle in school.

Then, right before our eyes, as Dash returned to our table, the oyibo blanked instantly. It was like magic. The animation went out of his expression and his countenance shuttered. Dash asked him for 90 grand in front of us, and without even asking him what he wanted the money for, Dickson handed him a small bag, from which Dash counted out 90 grand before handing the bag back to him.

This was the same man who’d just been complaining about Dash’s greed!!!

We returned to our hostels now convinced that we’d seen proof of Dash’s diabolic hold on his oyibo lover.

A few months later, while visiting family in Port Harcourt, Dash (who lived in Port Harcourt and was also around) invited me over to Shell residential area. He was having a small get-together in Dickson’s house.

I accepted the invitation, and when I got there that evening, I saw that it was indeed a sedate affair, just like he’d said. Very few people – all guys of course – were in attendance and I was surprised to see that most of them were my circle of friends from school. They had traveled all the way from Enugu for the get-together.

We had lots to eat and drink, and because we partied well into the night, Dickson asked us all to sleep over.

That night, the lovers had a falling out. It was WAR!!! At some point, I knew that every guest was thinking what I was thinking: that the relationship was over. As though to emphasize what we were thinking, Dash stormed out, clearly not intending to spend the night with us.

The next morning, Dickson looked very much like he’d had enough of Dash, even though he was polite and nice to us all. He made us breakfast and urged us to relax and not be in a hurry to leave, all the while repeatedly apologising for the previous night’s altercation that we witnessed.

Well, guess what!

Dash came back that morning as we were all lounging in the living room, watching TV with Dickson. He (Dash) did not say a single word to anyone. He simply went over to Dickson, pecked him on the cheek, touched his head affectionately and went inside.

Dickson didn’t say a word. He didn’t rebuff Dash’s show of affection, even though he looked irritated when Dash came in.

And then, a few minutes after Dash went inside, Dickson jolted slightly in his seat, as though he’d experienced a mild electrocution. Then he stood up, paused for a few seconds, and then turned on us. It was incredible. Our formerly-cordial host suddenly became hostile, ordering us all to leave his house in the next five minutes, otherwise he would send for the estate security to kick us out.

This was the very same man who earlier had pleaded with us stay on for awhile!!!

We were all exchanging looks, utterly gobsmacked, as we pulled on our clothes and shoes to leave.

I attended another party in Port Harcourt, a lavish gay party – and here, I met a clique that dimmed Dash’s star. This group was the Beyoncé to Dash’s Kelly. These were the “big girls” of Port Harcourt and they were boldly fabulous. I kid you not: these guys showed up in a convoy of five hummer jeeps, dressed in high heels and sparkling clothes. Each of them had a topless, hunky man holding their handbags for them. Dash told me they were the top shots in Port Harcourt, and he introduced one of them to me as IB. The moment Dash said his name to me during the introduction, the guy said loudly, “Yes o! I am the famous IB Juju!” As he said this, his friends as well as Dash hailed him loudly while exchanging high fives with each other.

IB was clearly feeling himself that night, as he went on to brag about how he operates. He talked about how, when he visits a guy, he can see smoke coming out from wherever money has been stashed in the house. He would then command the guy to leave the house and then proceed to go take the money. As he spoke proudly of his feats, his cohorts praised him loudly.

And I just sat there like a village house girl as I listened.

***

Dash and I shared a mutual friend (let’s call him Presley). Presley was a very attractive guy. The problem with him though was his covetousness. Presley was the kind of guy who simply had to have the glory that you have.

After Dickson visited with us in Enugu, Presley could not shake off his growing obsession with the fact that he didn’t have the access to wealth that Dash had. He began to talk about Dash and Dickson all the time. On several occasions, he would be lost in thought while in our company, and then he would suddenly burst out saying to himself, “Presley! No be your mate e be?!” – clearly referring to Dash.

Around that period, he made the acquaintance of a guy named Fukre, a very unsavory character who everyone gossiped was diabolical. I remember back then how his phone was always kept busy by phone calls from men everywhere wanting to meet him. While we struggled to recharge our phones with N200, Fukre would have airtime of up to 5, 6 grand. This was a very big deal back then.

When I noticed Presley hanging around Fukre as much more than a mere acquaintance, I worried for him. Knowing full well how his mind worked, I tried to dissuade Presley from competing with Dash. I told him that he doesn’t know what sort of background Dash comes from; I mean, it was very possible Dash comes from a family where diabolism was as normal as a Christian family holding morning devotion. I reminded him of the night we spent at Dash’s grandmother’s house a long time ago. She lived in the creeks of Port Harcourt, and very early in the morning, around 6 AM, we woke up to see her dressed in white, doing some incantations in front of the river.

But Presley wouldn’t listen to me. He was fixated on having what Dash had, and somehow, we began to grow apart. He became scarce around me because he was now hanging out with Fukre and his people.

We graduated from school, and in 2006, I moved to Abuja. One day, Presley called to inform me that he would be coming to my place from Calabar. In my mind, I figured he was coming to Abuja for runs. A few days later, he showed up with Fukre. I of course didn’t like Fukre, but I didn’t object to him staying over, as I didn’t want to create any more friction between me and Presley than we already had.

That night, we were catching up on each other’s businesses in life when there was a power failure. It was a hot night, and we had to move outside for fresh air. Some other guys, mutual friends from school, who’d learned that Fukre was in town dropped by, and it quickly became quite the gathering as we gisted and reminisced.

As we were chatting away, I realized that Presley was no longer in our midst. I never saw him leave the compound, so I figured he was back inside. While idly wondering what he was doing inside in the dark, I went in to find him.

And lo and behold, there Presley was, seated completely naked on the floor of my bedroom in front of two red candles and surrounded by a circle of some white substance sprinkled on the ground. He was reading something from a rumpled piece of paper, and there were other fetish-looking items on the floor and one in his other hand.

I could not believe my eyes.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” I shouted in disbelief.

Presley looked up at me, and in his eyes, even in the flickering light of the candles, I could see the desperation and self-deprecation. He knew what he was doing was wrong. It was as though he’d been surrounded by the likes of Fukre for so long, that upon confronting my shock, he could see how far he had wandered and didn’t like what he was seeing.

Till today, what happened next has stayed with me, refusing to be forgotten.

As I was trying to talk Presley out of whatever it was he was doing by reminding him how much his mother – who I’d come to know as I got close to him and his family – prays daily for him, how his future was bright, how much God has in store for him, Fukre walked into the room and began talking loudly over my voice to Presley.

“No mind am… Na you go reign… You go tuff… You go hammer… No mind am, no mind them… Them go hear your name!” he went on and on, trying to drown out my voice.

It began to feel like those God-and-Satan scenarios you see in horror movies, where two forces of good and evil are trying to win a soul over to either side. And the flickering light of the candles, which gave the room a ghostly feel, didn’t help matters.

“Don’t you want to hear my name?” Presley asked me quietly as he looked into my eyes.

In my heart, I knew he was asking if I was for or against him. The look in his eyes spoke volumes; it was the expression of a child who was lost and needed help. But he wasn’t a child. However much he wavered, his mind stayed resolute as Fukre shouted the things he wanted to hear.

Eventually recognizing my defeat, I left the room. I couldn’t sleep in the bedroom that night, knowing what my friend had done there. The next day, much to my relief, Presley, and Fukre left.

Weeks later, Presley showed up at my place looking fabulous and brand-new. His clothes were flashy and he was exuding so much confidence. He’d come to invite me to a party he was throwing in Port Harcourt. At the time, he was doing some sort of internship in PH. He also bragged about how Dash likes to think he was a babe and how he (Presley) had “shown” him. He boasted about how it was Dash’s oyibo (Dickson) who was sponsoring the party.

Okay!!! In spite of myself, I was intrigued. And a day before the party, I traveled to Port Harcourt.

The party was a big deal. It was lavish. There were food and drinks and everything else in excess. The music was loud, and Presley was the coveted center of attention. Dash also came to the party, but he only stayed briefly. Even he could not steal the spotlight from Presley.

A few days later, people – and I mean gay guys in our circles – began to talk. Apparently, Dash was threatening Presley to return the money he collected from Dickson for the party… Or else.

At this point, my friendship with Presley had become all but nonexistent, so apart had we become that we barely even spoke. This time, I was deliberately distancing myself from him because I didn’t want to be attached in any way to all the nastiness and drama that had started surrounding him with Dash and everything else.

However, one day a few months later, out of the blue, Presley called me and begged me to pray for him. He said he didn’t know what was wrong with him. He was crying on the phone and I did my best to calm him down.

About a week later, a strong urge to call Presley suddenly hit me and without knowing why, I began to panic. When he called me, he’d used a different number from the one I had for him. He’d told me this was the number he could now be reached with, and I wrote it down on a small piece of paper, intending to save it later in my phone. But I forgot, and now, I was frantically looking for the paper. I basically turned my room upside down looking for the paper, as each passing minute filled me with the inexplicably-pressing and frantic need to call my friend.

I didn’t find the paper.

But soon, it wouldn’t matter. About an hour later, the friend who I was flatmates with came home. He came straight to me and hugged me. Then he pulled back and looking at me with great sadness, he said, “Presley is dead.”

My heart broke. I screamed. I wept. I was shattered.

I pulled away from my friend to go into my room to grieve by myself. As I entered my room, I walked past my open wardrobe and something caught my eye. Sitting neatly on one of the shelves was the piece of paper I had ransacked the entire house in search for. It was IMPOSSIBLE for it to just sit there without me seeing it.

I called the number immediately and I could hear people wailing in the background. It was Presley’s younger brother, Chike, who answered the call. He told me that Presley was calling my name before he died. (During Presley’s funeral, his mother kept telling relatives, “This is the friend my son was calling as he was dying.” And they all kept hugging me.) Chike also told me that in his final moments, Presley had begged his mother to call Dash and beg him to forgive him. When Dash was called and told what Presley had so desperately asked of him, he had mockingly said, “Shebi hospital dey there. Make una carry am go there.” Then he hung up on Presley’s mother.

And then, a few hours later, in the hospital, Presley died.

Chike also told me that something unusual had happened when Presley was hospitalized. The hospital staff would leave Presley for a moment and then return to find him covered in dust as if he’d gone out to play or something. And yet, he couldn’t have because he was bedridden.

During his burial, I didn’t have the stomach to look upon Presley’s corpse in the casket. That was the last thing I wanted as a memory of him. He died at 22 years of age.

A few years ago, in 2014, I learned that Dash was selling recharge cards and was a shadow of himself. I couldn’t believe it. I had left Nigeria at this time and the person telling me this was a friend in my living room. Somehow, the news had to be wrong if it was coming from someone outside Nigeria. So, I called home and asked someone who knew Dash and he confirmed that it was true. I couldn’t understand how someone who had all that money and luxury could end up sitting under an umbrella, selling recharge cards to make ends meet.

The next year, Dash passed away. I was too far away to know what the cause of death was.

I also learned that IB Juju is dead as well. Remember the Queen Bee from the party in Port Harcourt who boasted about his diabolical conquests? Yeah, his death was another senseless tragedy that rocked the Port Harcourt gay scene.

As for Fukre, for whatever reason, for the longest time, no one I know ever seemed to know his whereabouts. It’s as though he up and vanished into thin air.

Reading https://www.nairaland.com/6384692/love-man reminded me of the past. It also filled me with sadness over the meaningless tragedies that were a waste of these lives, these young men who had so much promise and could have lived full lives if they weren’t so filled with such avarice in their youth.

SOURCE: https://kitodiaries.com/red-candles-in-the-dark/

Omo I never knew this shii was real o, especially in the queer community. Wonders shall never end. This reminds me of my ex and I am glad we have finally parted ways.