Growing Up (Second Installment)

No. 42. I have always known that number. It is permanently etched somewhere in my mind like the pockmarks I have always had on my anthill coloured skin from childhood. My skin is burnt black now, I remember one of my distant aunts hardly recognising me. No. 42. That is where I grew up. Growing up started at No. 42. Like being literally tied to my mothers apron string, nursery and primary education was brought to me just a few meters across the street from No. 42. And off to Victoria Children School and Quarnic school. After all I was born Adeyemi Kazeem Adeleke. I remember...what is that her name?...yes, Seun Agugua. I always thought she was pretty but I have never gotten over the fact that she always helped me cross the road even when we were age-mates. The memory is a bit hazy but that fact sort of sticks out. I still remember peeing in my knickers while seated in class. I was always afraid to let the teacher know that I wanted to urinate. My first surgeon out of my seat was to read the numbers 1,2,3,4,5...19 to the class. I do not seem to remember clearly how it went. Peeing was not my only problem though, I also had a serious case of sweaty-palms. Once I placed my hands on my exercise books, the white pages turns brown from my sweaty-palms. Teachers after teachers made me wash my clammy hands in a bowl of water which always sat on a wooden carrier at one corner of the classroom. Especially, Aunty Rita, the demagogue from my Primary 1 class. I did not fancy her much.  I do not find that a particularly gay part of my childhood memory. But it is way better than the mistaken identity that occurred in primary 4. That memory I have almost interred in my subconscious with varying degrees of success. It simply bobbed up from no where now as I write this piece and I wonder why... I was barely two feet from the earth. Nusery 2. And it was Nike Adeyeri and the fondlings under the desk. She was my first prank-mate. I remember sneaking a peek at Nike's armpit thinking it was her private part. I equated it to her vagina (which, I must say, I never saw). Now in hindsight, I think I have always been in love with the feminine form. My parents had this picture album; at a very tender age, I was enthralled, not by the pictures in the album, but by the album's cover picture of a half-naked white lady laying down by a beach side under the loving glare of the sun. Strangely, I felt aroused by the picture even then. It was never a wonder that I lost my virginity before my fourteenth birthday. I had access to pronographic movies before I reached the tender age of 10. Before my eighteenth birthday, I had gone through over more than half a dozen girls. By my eighteenth birthday, I felt as though I had seen it all and done that (as the saying goes) and it was time to retire. I recall break-time in primary school. It always came with the toll of the bell by the bell-prefect and Iya Olounje bringing our plates of food in a huge aluminium tray. Lunch was always served by 12 noon. The menu was always limited to beans, rice, yam porridge or puff puff...Then Wonder Year and Kevin and Winnie brought me fumbling closer to adolescence in my mind.  I had almost forgotten the importance of the Wonder Years until I saw part of the show on YouTube.