No Such Thing as a Lasting Bond

content warning: physical abuse

On a mobile screen, I watch a pair of hands clutching an MP5 submachine gun inch through an underground maze, firing three shots at a masked gun-toting enemy. Three bullets. One. Two. Three. T., my brother, does not trust one bullet to take down a man. He believes in three. You shoot one to pierce his flesh, another to harm a vital organ, and a final projectile to make absolute his dying. My eleven-year-old brother, who has never killed a man before, speaks about firearms without stuttering.

T. plays Contr Terrorism 3D when we are back at home from school or on Saturdays after finishing chores. He owns a red-and-black Nokia XpressMusic. As he makes his way through the video game’s levels, saving hostages, he likes to share with me the merits of the Desert Eagle over the USP. I have seen both pistols bring down terrorists. They both seem practical to wield. I am too young to tell if he is right about the Desert Eagle’s raw stopping power. I enjoy my role as a spectator. 

He and I have struggled to find the things in which we both obtain pleasure. He prefers playing football, soaking his jersey with sweat, while I would rather sequester myself in the house, reading Treasure Island one more time. He despises dogs. I love feeding them. Once, while still young, our neighbor’s pregnant Doberman had nipped his arm, which he had stretched, encroaching into the dog’s corner to retrieve his slipper, which she lay beside. He told me he hated me for standing in his way, blocking him from booting the distressed canine. Like the other children in my neighborhood, he is acquainted with the register of grown-ups, particularly the weighty ones: hate, useless, fuck. 

I believe video games portray a bridge that lets me cross a river, unafraid of its moving ripples, to communicate with my brother. “Enemy,” I call out loudly, even though he sits beside me, eyes burrowed into the phone screen. He swerves his in-game character’s reticle to the left, toppling a gunman who had sprung from hiding. He does not say thanks. Instead, he pushes the pause button and moves a fist towards me. I bump his with mine. He asks if I would like a turn. 

⃟ 

Our cousin, eight years older than T., has just slammed a Famicon controller on the sea-green rug. The pad does not shatter, but the B and X buttons come off rather quickly. He turns to my brother and orders him to hand over the second controller. He wants to finish his playthrough of Super Mario World. 

A platforming title, considered one of the best in its category, can be quite unforgiving. If you pushed the jump button a few seconds late, Mario would take damage from the turtle-shaped soldiers called Koopa Troopas. Leap in the wrong direction, and there is no way to recalibrate the jump after initiating it. You die.

My cousin has failed many times at the same level. Giving in to his occasional fits of rage, one controller has become damaged. Now he wants the second. 

T. shakes his head, his face tightening into a scowl. Of the money we used to buy the Famicon console, he contributed the most. I invested all of my savings, cash mainly gotten from visiting relatives. My cousin gave nothing. So he should have no controlling interest. Angered, he flings the already vandalized controller at my brother. He whips out his belt to thrash him. T. does not cry. He tries not to anguish over the beating to save his pride. I wail, but nobody can save him. Our guardians are away at a family friend’s retirement party. When they return, we will beam plausible smiles and ask who danced the most. 

⃟ 

We take the longer route home. Oil palm trees line the path on both sides. We cut off palm fronds browned by ageing and tear away the wrinkled leaves. Stripped of their sickly appendages, the midribs of palm fronds make flexible broomsticks. We chase each other, broomstick in our hands. We take care not to touch each other with the sticks. A popular rumor is that using a broom to beat a boy can cause their dicks to shrink. Mine is not worth staring at while peeing, but I would prefer it stay the same rather than become the size of a cigarette butt. 

At home, our guardians likely await us. Aunt and Uncle each brandishing a cane, ready to thrash us till welts form across our bodies. Our offence is overstaying at the video game shop where we go to play Pro Evolution Soccer instead of listening to the sermon at church. They do not know that we have been skipping church and will punish us for fooling around. I am glad they never thought to probe us further. I have fewer scars because of their oversight. 

I blame the rain. It had started falling before 2 pm, the time we were supposed to start trekking home from church. When the downpour slowed to a drizzle, it was a quarter to 5 pm. 

I rejoice in my first soccer win over my brother. I prevailed 5-4 on penalties following a goalless draw in regular and extra time. T. laughs till tears stream down his oily face. He admits to letting me win, so I would stop accusing him of cheating. I do not believe that he is right, but I play along by teasing him. T. does not cry as he is beaten with a stick, a mop bucket, and, to my amazement, a fry pan. I do not have a matching pain threshold. 

⃟ 

It is 2013, and we have just moved out of our home in the barracks, opting to relocate to a nearby suburb of Lagos. It is quieter in Cele Nica than the barracks in Amuwo-Odofin. We have not had power in almost three months. I am used to the mechanical rumble of generators, mainly from houses with imposing gates. It has been like this since we arrived here; adjusting has not troubled us much.

Our guardians hardly turn on the generator, so we eat and sleep in a poorly lit house most of the time. To survive on my uncle’s pension, certain expenses had to be excised. Petrol was the first to go. Candles fare better than the fake flashlights my uncle kept buying. They also offer glimpses of the mosquitoes droning over our ears, keen on punishing us. 

We charge the household’s phones at a local soccer viewing center. It is a moderately sized space with steel walls sourced from shipping container parts. In other centers, the walls are made of the same material or sometimes cement blocks. It is no edifice, just a place for boys and men to catch the game and charge devices, including phones, flashlights, and power banks. I am no longer apathetic to soccer, but the noise that erupts following a goal still astounds me. As if on cue, dozens of voices yell in reaction to the ball being slotted past a keeper. Their celebrations nearly collapse the zinc roof. Only supporters of the team that had conceded the goal went silent. 

The center has three 42-inch LED televisions. I watch our phones and manage to glance at the screen in the middle now and then. My shortsightedness is still bearable in this memory, so I can make out jersey names. Suarez. Carzola. Gerrard. 

On the walk home, we can hear generators running, even at 9 pm. A few shops are still open, the gleam of their light bulbs an affront to the horde of darkness that encircles the community. Davido’s “Aye” blares from the local barbershop. We stop to buy the last batch of akara from the woman who peddles at the beginning of our street. We eat and rub grease-stained hands all over our shorts.

Our guardians do not mind if we stay out late anymore. Aside from having their fully charged phones in our care, T. has altered them. They no longer threaten us with a beating after he said he would strike them back if they did it again. He is almost as tall as them. I covet his audacity. 

Near the house, T. asks if we can play a multiplayer soccer match hosted via Bluetooth. I say yes but only if I get to play as CSKA Moscow. Vágner Love, the Brazilian forward, starts for the Russian Premier League club. Practically unstoppable by defenders, he has used Love to humiliate me many times. With a grunt, he agrees. 

⃟ 

It is a Friday night, one of many nights that I spend, covered up by blankets, head propped up against a pillow. I hold a Steam Deck, a 7-inch portable gaming PC that some like to call a console. Such fools. 

I play Alan Wake, a horror game that reminds me strongly of Capcom’s Resident Evil. I guide the protagonist, Alan, who battles supernatural entities known as the Taken while searching for his missing wife in a forested town called Bright Falls. Per the game’s lore, the Taken are the residue of humans possessed by The Dark Presence, a paranormal force, and the final boss. 

I sometimes struggle to kill a Taken, and I am made to pay. Agile variants of the Taken called Flankers ambush Alan, swinging knives with murderous intent. The variant I fear most is the one who wields a chainsaw. Brushing the powerful melee weapon against my character’s body results in me having to replay the scene. It takes many attempts, but I soon figure out a way to stop him. An experienced gamer would conclude that I have a skill issue. If my brother were here, he would say the same thing before clearing every enemy type, three bullets per foe. He would also ask if I had learned nothing from his Nokia days, looking on as he offed terrorists. If he were here, he would ask me to look over his shoulder, making sure that he was not ambushed at any point. 

If he were here, I would not harbor the discontent that rumbled inside my belly. It was not hunger. Neither was it an ulcerated sore. It was a grudge against distance. Today, I live in Illinois, miles apart from Abuja, where he has rented a studio apartment. We do not talk often, but it is not our fault. Time zone differences, along with a further shrunken scope of interests, have alienated us. 

Work is challenging, he once told me. I knew he was in the solar panel installation business and traveled long distances, impressing repeat customers and enticing new ones with his Facebook business page. He hardly stayed in his apartment but paid the rent when it was due. He liked having a place to sleep in even if he did so rarely. The Nigerian essayist Zenas Ubere writes that home is a place of sleep, “where one’s body winds down.” After the burdens of interstate travel, T. needed to recharge his body, and what better place to do so than the place where he feels most comfortable. On the days he was back in Abuja, he never called to talk for many hours as one would expect of siblings starved of physical contact. I always imagined him fast asleep, a light snore emanating from his nose.

After my relocation, we tried video game therapy to keep our relationship from crashing, experimenting with online multiplayer titles like Call of Duty: Mobile. Plagued by one of the worst internet connection speeds I had heard of, he often cussed out his provider. Transmitted through headphones, each angry word rang in my ears like a warning. I remember the fictional bridge I used to cross as a child to have a passable conversation with T. I can see myself now, desperate to swim away from the waves by which I have been dragged, far from where the bridge once stood. 

B!gSmōkè, his username which pays homage to a famous Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas character, has not logged in for ninety-seven days. I browse through his profile each time after launching the game. I picture T. as a cartoonized character carrying an AK-47, primed for battle. In my imagination, I style him by adding sunglasses. 

With him being notoriously aloof, I quit triple-checking to confirm that he was okay and if he still felt strongly about games. He began responding to messages one or two days later, favoring monosyllabic words: No. Fine. Tired. Busy. One time, he went a month without writing to me on WhatsApp. T. has never fancied calls. I respect that preference even as adults.