The story i never told( currently working on this, a short story.. Try this fellas, )

The first day Mama slapped me was the day I lost a tooth. It didn’t grow back because I was sixteen and Papa said that a permanent tooth never grew back. In a way it was good because I had open teeth and at least I was better than Papa who had lost three of his tooth as a result of Mama’s wonder slap. Papa had told me that Mama’s hands were made of iron just like that of Mama Okey(the heavy weight champion in the compound), I remember him whispering it into my ears to avoid Mama’s fat ears from hearing it and uprooting the remaining teeth he had. Every morning I woke up with a different kind of illness usually as a result of the mosquitoes that bit me. It started about a year ago when Mama sent Papa and me into the small living room, saying that we would be sleeping there permanently. She boasted that she was the only one who was qualified to sleep in the bedroom. I kept wondering what made her qualified. Papa didn’t argue, he had stopped arguing with Mama since he lost his job as a banker. Now I helped Mama in selling beans and other food stuffs. I had told Papa to join us in selling food stuffs at Ariaria market but he smiled. Sometimes I pitied Papa just the way I pitied Aba, the nasty city we dwelled in. if Nigeria ever needed a perfect refugee camp, Aba would definitely serve better than any other place. Every morning, Mama yells at Papa, “jobless man, itiboribo! Go and make your life useful.” I would just stare at them both. I pity Papa the more because Mama had made him look like a nobody. Mama wasn’t like that few years ago when we lived at Okigwe road in an ancient-looking storey building that had cracks as though it would fall at any minute. Mama called Papa ‘sweetheart’ then but now she addressed him as Papa Ikenna. I remember the day I became scared of Mama, the day I started worshipping her like a god. That was the morning she threw Mama Okey on the floor and blinded her eyes. Mama Okey’s cheeks got swollen and looked like big balloons, and when the other neighbors helped her get on her feet, she then resembled Okonkwo, the blind mad man that lives on the street. It was just a little quarrel that started the fight or perhaps Mama Okey had long wanted to teach Mama a lesson. I could still remember everything vividly. I remember the way we stood in line that morning waiting for Mrs. Iyawo to come out of the bathroom, the terrible looking bathroom that I couldn’t spend more than a minute in. But Mrs. Iyawo spent hours; it was as though she was dead in there. Angry neighbors kept shouting, ”Iyawo are you giving birth, come out before we dismantle you in there!” Mama talked less, perhaps she was upset. She only talked when she was happy, but acts when she gets angry. I remember the way Mama Okey splashed a bucket of dirty water on Iyawo, the way our neighbors threw her on the ground almost stripping her naked as she finally came out of the bathroom. That was the first time I saw a woman’s breast in my entire life apart from the ones I had watched on TV. I remember Mama waking majestically into the bathroom as though she owned it, even though she was the fifteenth person standing in line. Nobody had stopped her except for Mama Okey and after defeating Mama Okey that day; she rubbed Mama Okey’s blood in her fingers and wrote on the wall close to the bathroom: 18th July 2005. That was to mark the day she won the title of the heavy weight champion in the compound.
Papa hardly talked at home; now he begs me even before he sends me on an errand. Things changed after he lost his job, everything changed. The first day Mama had beaten Papa up was on a Monday morning. Papa and I lay on the floor in the living room; he was talking about removing the pile of books and the twenty-year old table from the living room. He boasted a lot about the table in the past, telling me how he had used it since his secondary school till date. That was the same table Mama used on his head, shattering it to pieces. I thought I saw tears in Papa’s eyes that morning, perhaps Papa fought like a woman or maybe Mama was something else, definitely not a woman. I had asked Papa what the quarrel was all about and he said softly, “just because of five hundred naira I took.” I wanted to laugh, laugh madly like we do in school when a student wears the back of his shirt or when a teacher wears a ‘jump-up trouser.’ But I didn’t, maybe because I still respected him. Papa was fond of opening Mama’s purse lately. Of course he couldn’t ask her for money because he would regret ever doing so. It was poverty; poverty makes a man’s life a living hell.
I stopped attending living word academy about two years ago when Papa lost his job. Mama said I had to start selling sachet water in the street but Papa said a big NO! That was the day Papa lost a tooth. The slap had sent him to the ground after he staggered like a drunkard to the floor. I thought women were supposed to be the weaker sex? What happened in Mama’s case, I pondered. After much thought, Mama sent me to golf course secondary school to complete my o level. Years ago when things were better, Mama was different. She was even an usher in the Redeemed Christian church we worshipped. “You are welcome in Jesus name,” she would say with courtesy and take you to a vacant seat in front. Most people didn’t like staying in front, I never knew the reason why but nobody ever refused Mama. Mama would come to me in the night and cover me with a blanket. Sometimes she would ask, “Ike, are you hungry?” and I would nod my head smiling within myself. But now, she had written down days when we would observe fasting and prayer. Papa would be in charge and she would sit on a stool watching the both of us. My head would ache and my stomach kept murmuring.  Two days would pass without food and yet I would see her eating garri and egusi soup at Mama Dera’s place. I had seen her through the window, talking, laughing and eating. It didn’t take much time for me to find my own hiding spot, at Ikechukwu’s house, where I ate rice every day. I remember when Mama made it three days without food, I saw Papa at Ikechukwu’s place. I wasn’t shocked; I just walked quietly and sat on a sofa, waiting for my own meal.
Finally, Papa got a job or at least he told me that he had found a job. I was happy, and I danced a bit. After a few days, Papa came home with a bicycle and when I asked him, he said it was for the job. He disappeared the next day taking the bicycle along. I found out later that Papa’s new job was to sell ice creams, carrying it from schools to market places and then back to schools. I told Mama about it and she smiled. She did nothing about it nor did she utter a word. I thought she was going to search for Papa and then break the bicycle with her fat hands but she didn’t. After a week, Mama asked him about his new business.
“Dede, how is business going,” Mama spoke in igbo. Papa stared at her with a blank expression on his face. He acted like a frightened schoolboy asked to speak at a morning assembly.
“We thank God,” he replied and then left the house.
After some weeks, Papa drove into the compound with a bus. He came with a lanky young man who was dark skinned with an uncombed hair that tightened into kinky balls. I later found out that the young man was his conductor. Papa had begun a different kind of business. He always came back with two loaves of bread at night. We ate one at night and the other in the morning. Mama didn’t eat with us, maybe because Papa stopped eating her food. He was now able to fend for himself. I had told Papa that I wanted to join him in the transportation business but he refused and insisted that I finished school. The next day he took me to school with the bus. Everyone stared at me, an intense gaze that made me inspect my blue t-shirt to make sure I wasn’t wearing the back. I felt like a celebrity. One of my classmates had asked me if the bus was Papa’s own and I quickly said yes. That same day was the day I talked to Judith, one of my classmates in school. We always looked at each other but I never had the courage to approach her probably because my friends told me that my clothes were worn out and that it smelled like ice fish. They all nick-named me ice fish after that day. But the day Papa took me to school was different, perhaps because I was different. Papa bought me new clothes and an okirika sandal, the sandal he told me that my great grand children would also wear in future. That day, I mustered courage to approach Judith. She had pretty dark eyes set upon high cheek boned face with fat buttocks like that of Mama. We talked quietly and I found out that she was easy going. I invited her home after school on a Friday, perhaps that was the biggest mistake I had I ever made. Mama was at the shop and Papa was definitely busy with his new job. Judith followed me and we came into the house. We came in and she sat on the bed immediately. I wanted to tell her that the living room was my bedroom and that we were standing on a holy ground, a room that is out of bounds for Papa and me, but I let her stay. An old-looking white bra and black panties sat on the bed beside Judith. I removed them quickly, flinging them to no direction in particular.
“Your house is beautiful,” she said with a smile. My jaw clenched hard. Was she mocking me or was she even serious? I imagined how her house would look if she was actually serious considering how terrible my house was.
“Thanks,” I replied smiling.
“Am sweating o,” she said and then unbuttoned her black blouse revealing her ample breast clad in a black lacy bra. My lips became watery and I imagined how her nipples would look like, whether they were pointy like that of Mrs. Iyawo. Suddenly, Mama barged in. I felt like I had seen a ghost, my mouth flopped open, my eyes expanded. Mama starred at Judith and then looked at me with an expressionless face. My pulse throbbed in my temples; I wanted to explain to Mama, I wanted to tell her that nothing happened between Judith and me, but I stood speechless. Mama searched for something in her bag, something that had made her leave her shop. I gesticulated to Judith that she should leave and she stood up walking close to me.
“But why?” she asked.
“Just go, now!” I shouted and then she left. Mama turned and gazed at her under wears on the floor, shaking her head. She left few minutes later without saying a word.