David Agyei-Yeboah
Translucent Patches
TRANSLUCENT PATCHES
You have always been dumb. You were never good at school.
Your classmates would always laugh at you when you gave presentations, sweat swirling around your face and forming rivulets across your cheeks as you ambled to the front to present your findings.
No, it was not that you were dumb. You’re just not bright at the sciences. And just didn’t get taught things in the way you wanted them taught. Everything just seemed robotic and you felt you couldn’t assimilate this rigid academic system that riddled your world. Besides, you were a visual learner and just didn’t fit into Ghana’s academic system.
It’s Tuesday morning and another presentation looms. You were a Materials Science and Engineering student and in your third year but what you really just wanted to be was a businessman. Business just did things to you. You had discovered your love for it at 13 and had begun selling your mother’s homemade biscuits to your classmates in junior high. It was a hit with the market and every Monday morning, whenever teachers arrived in class, it seemed like there was a birthday celebration as lips closed round and munched on the crunchy yet moist confectionaries.
In senior high, you sold Indomie. The packs, not actually cooked Indomie. You were the reason a lot of girls swarmed behind Gbedemah house every Saturday night after entertainment. You were that plug that made boarding school bearable for them, at least in the food department. Sometimes you went extra rogue and actually jumped walls to buy fast food and sold it to them for a 70% profit. The boys in your house particularly loved this joint so bought in droves. It didn’t matter the cost. Their tongues were begging for a faux slice of home. Over time, it became a full-fledged business. You employed some of your juniors and they would transport the food to the various houses on Saturday. Those days, you made so much money, you knew the future was bright.
Although you had never thought of pursuing business as a career path as you studied General Science at Dad’s insistent prodding, you just knew you loved to sell. And that it reaped huge dividends. It never mattered to you that even in senior high, your grades were abysmal. It pissed Dad off though. Dad had wanted you to do Science because he had said it was only the brightest students that did Science and his only beloved son was definitely the brightest of them all. He had studied General Arts in high school although he had desired Science like crazy but didn’t make the cut. He was about retiring from a career in PR but always wished he had become an engineer. Whenever you heard Dad relate his experiences, a deep mound of sorrow gnawed at your insides, you know, the way his voice would break and it would seem like he was sobbing as he spoke. You knew you had to do Science to make him happy in senior high. So, you applied yourself even though you barely made the pass mark. Yet this was not enough due to the stiff competition that year. Your father had to pull some strings behind the scenes. Call a childhood friend who was on the board of the school and you were able to get in. You asked him why his dad couldn’t pull strings too for him to do Science and he vengefully retorted that his father was a good-for-nothing bozo who couldn’t even take care of his own family because of his poverty. How in the hell was he going to even have the dignity to ask for favors? You shuddered that night, beneath the plantain trees, where you were washing his SUV as he reclined a few metres ahead on the raffia chair in the porch, reading the day’s newspaper. At how he would talk about his own father with such disdain, with no iota of respect whatsoever, even though he had just passed on 6 months earlier from prostate cancer.
Senior high was not like junior high. General Science was more rigorous, theoretical, mundane and rote-oriented. You struggled like hell although business boomed like heaven. At the end of your three years, you made 2 As, in Social Studies and English, and 6 C4s on the other science related courses on your WASSCE certificate. Your dad had insulted you silly, said you were a bloody failure but were still definitely going to become an engineer so he called up one of his faithful clients who happened to be a lecturer at the University of Ghana, Legon. Yet again, strings were pulled to get you into your Materials Science and Engineering Program.
You were bereft of agency so went along with Dad’s plan. You had decided early on in childhood to please Dad and give him the Science certificate and Engineering degree he had never gotten in his teens and adulthood, then ditch and pursue your own dream. You firmly decided that a time would come when you would sink into your own skin and walk with your own swagger in life. However, that time wasn’t now. And although you never saw business as a career path in your teens though you excelled at it, you had begun considering it in your third year at college.
Where was Mum in all this?
In this life, it was just you and Dad after you turned 15. Mum had passed after a car accident on her way home in her saloon car so Dad became both Dad and Mum. In her lifetime, Mum doubled as a beautician and caterer so supplied make-up and food for events, especially weddings. Weddings were her specialty. She would supply make-up to the bridal team and together with her associates, would doll them up. Before then, she would have prepared sumptuous meals with another team at dawn in readiness for the event. On the day she died, she was returning with her make-up team from Kasoa when unfortunately, there was a head-on collision with an SUV at a bend at Roman Ridge. Everyone died on the spot.
You don’t have many memories of your mother as she was mostly so busy with work and had little time for you. So much so, you didn’t even weep at her funeral. To be fair, before Mum died, Dad had still been both father and mother. It was Dad that always looked out for you and communicated with you after school when the driver dropped you off at his office. Dad always wanted you to ride with him when he closed work so didn’t let the driver take you straight home. Besides, nobody would be around anyway. Mum had a beauty salon far out at Spintex though you lived at Kanda so was always the last to make it home. Dad always engaged you when you walked to his office after the driver dropped you off. He would oftentimes stop whatever he was doing, sit with you and you’d do crossword puzzles together. That was your early evening ritual. He would beam with pride when you would overflow with answers and hug you so tight you would feel like he was crushing your ribs. Then he would call for his colleagues in the adjoining office and brag about how brilliant you were. That did they know how quickly you finished the puzzle? How quick you thought on your feet? His colleagues, Mr. Jefferson and Aunty Janet would each give you high fives and re-iterate that smart boys like you must be thinking of a career in the sciences. Na w’aben forken!* Then Dad would rub your back and respond that of course, his only son would be the best engineer in the world. After his colleagues left, he would crack jokes relentlessly. And whenever he walked past you to deliver papers to his boss, he would say,
“I’m so proud of you, Zuu. You are my treasure.”
Sometimes he would be swamped with work and you would have to wait past 7 pm. But he’d always make it up to you. He would take you to Papaye and you would both enjoy charcoal grilled chicken, potato chips, coleslaw, chili and pineapple juice. But you would hear Mum and him arguing certain nights when Mum arrived super late from work, snippets of him saying, “You’re never there for Zuu but always have time for strangers’ children.”
You would hear back, “It’s the naming ceremonies, Kwasi. It's my job to cater to these families. What else do you want me to do?”
“Be there for your only son, damn it!”
Even though the arguing morphed into screams, you always smiled. Dad always had your back. Which is why you had to please him and do Science in high school. Why you had to please him by doing Engineering too. You just had to. Dad was your everything.
It’s Tuesday morning, you’re still in your third year in college and there is a mist of students filling up the auditorium. You can feel Dr. Buabeng, your lecturer’s eyes burning at the back of your head. But you’re frozen on a spot. You had prepared for your presentation for ‘Introduction to Materials Processing’ to the best of your ability but the questions he’s firing back at you throw you off balance. You have no clue how to answer. You don’t know the answer.
As you shuffle your papers to mitigate your empty-headedness and fear, Adomaa, the class clown clears her throat loudly. Everyone’s eyes are locked onto you. Prying, searching for secrets, winding. Then there is an outbreak of laughter. Even Dr. Buabeng is smirking, his gaze teasing, mocking you.
You’re the class bimbo. Became that ever since your 1.34 GPA hit the department notice board at the end of the first year, first semester exams. It was the first time that grades had been posted publicly in the faculty. The new HOD had wanted to shake things up, spur on brilliant students and shame the low-performing ones. Of all the grades displayed there, out of around 30 students, yours had been the lowest.
But you don’t know how to scream it to everyone: IT’S NOT THAT YOU ARE DUMB. ENGINEERING IS NOT FOR YOU SO YOU SEEM DUMB TO EVERYONE.
After college, you struggled to get a job as employers gave you a side eye after noticing your 1.55 Final GPA. Yes, you had managed to up it up a notch. But you had put business on hold to scurry for jobs. Back in college, you hadn’t pursued business because Engineering was tough. Engineering does that to you. It takes away all your time and concentration. But you had begun business again after final exams in your fourth year, when it seemed your GPA would never bump up. Then and there, you knew it was over for you in the grades department. You had decided to start selling suits. It didn’t boom because your circle didn’t particularly need suits in their sphere and station of life at the moment but you had a decent clientele off of their friends and associates.
When you graduated, the look of disappointment on your father’s face was so gutting, you extended your plans of placating him by still seeking out engineering jobs for two more years. You know, get a job in Accra while doing business at the side and when the business flourished like you envisioned, you would ditch engineering like the bitch it was. This time he did not pull any strings to get you a job. He could not. His only contact in your field was the lecturer that got you into University of Ghana that was his client, and following your horrid performance, their relationship had become strained. You were on your own.
“I hope you see now that there’s only so much protocol can do. Even power has its limits,” Dad had said one late afternoon as he returned from harvesting pepper and tomatoes from the backyard garden that kept him company a year after pension.
You were on your phone in the hall, monitoring your Instagram ad for your latest brand of suits. The fan whirred overhead, air moist and cold but you were so dry and beaten on the insides.
“I gave you everything, Zuu. Kept hoping that someway, somehow your grades will pick up, you will make it as an engineer. What a waste of my time, energy and money. The one person that could have helped you regrets even helping you get into your college program. And this is Ghana! With bad grades like yours, and no connections, how do you expect to ever make it as an engineer? Hmm.”
That night your failure stared you longer than usual in the face and your pillowcase got soaked with tears and groans.
Your dad was right. Your failure to get a job because of your bad grades persisted. Everyone made you feel too dumb for the job. No, they didn’t say it with their lips, but with their eyes, poring over you with pity like you had nerve seeking them out with your third-class degree. They usually always seemed eager to engage you till they found out your GPA was below 1.6.
You were definitely not a risk they were willing to take.
Your suits business during these times also began to fail. First of all, you had envisioned a luxury brand but you just didn’t seem to have access to the rich men you needed for the luxury purchases that would yield the profit you wanted. Instagram ads were not helping a ton as well. The kind of suits you needed sold for a large profit were just not getting picked up. And Dad would never connect you to his contacts in the corporate world as your disappointment just broke him to a pulp such that nowadays, you hardly even spoke. He would pass you by in the hall after working on his backyard farm without as much as a greeting and you would wonder what happened to that lovely man that doted on his son in his teens. And then it scared you that your dad loved his dream for you more than he loved the real you that didn’t seem to fit into it. You shuddered when you fought unsuccessfully to ignore the fact that perhaps your father would only care about you if you ticked a box: successful student, engineer.
Those were the days you would suddenly miss Mum so bad. Which was strange because after she died, you didn’t really miss her. You missed having a mother, just not her. But then, since Dad started acting up after your failure in college, feelings for her creeped in. Of course, she never made time for you but her love for you was never conditional.
Then something in you broke and you moved out of the house and settled in with your roomie from college at his flat in Adenta - Aboagye. Aboagye, your lanky roomie from C29 at Mensah Sarbah Hall who always made it a ritual to sleep with first year girls in his inner room whenever he found some lingering around campus in confusion. He would befriend them and lure them to his inner room. He always said their confusion was part of their allure and that fresh meat must always be initiated and consumed. Aboagye was definitely a beast on heat but he was always terribly kind to you when you moved in in your second year and he was about readying to complete his Psychology degree. He understood your daddy issues as he also had a dad that felt he should have pursued Law instead of Psychology.
When you moved in with Aboagye, you’d had it trying to please your dad and decided to throw yourself fully into business. Your first love. You researched hard this time and realized you had to sell electronics, to be specific phones, tablets, laptops, that kind of stuff. Your first priority was Apple products. You realized that in high school, people bought Indomie and fast food no matter the cost because it was a desperate need. In similar logic, IT was a desperate need in this world. And the returns were huge. Selling suits earned you money but not the kind you desired. So, you jumped ship. And guess what? It freaking worked. It was rocky for a few months but things picked up. You would tirelessly advertise your services on social media as you went about seeking out wholesalers in the inner crevices of Circle and Accra. You built sturdy relationships with the Indians and Chinese in these shops and were a regular purchaser of their products. You would buy in bulk so they were cheaper. Then you would inflate your prices and sell to the same colleagues that laughed at you in college. Even to Dr. Buabeng who smirked at you during your presentation, as well as his wife and teenage kids who were always dropping their gadgets. Turns out they became your most faithful clients and made you lots of money.
Who’s the joker now?
Although you inflated your prices for profit, they were less than what was offered by retailers in mainstream shops in the city so your contacts exploded as your business grew by word of mouth. Those that found you on social media did the work for you as well, singing your praises online, which drew in more customers. You levelled up three years later and actually began buying products directly from suppliers in China. You even diversified your skillset and now learnt how to repair products and this helped you get quicker cash on tougher days. Business was booming. You had become the flourishing businessman in your teens again. Yet on a larger scale. The world was your oyster and you scooped as much gold from its depths.
Now, it's been 8 years since you moved out of your dad’s house but you got so stupidly rich that you even moved out of your roomie Aboagye’s flat in Adenta two years after you left your father’s. You now live in your own two story-building at Ofankor. You parted ways with Aboagye on such good terms that you bought him a brand-new saloon car as a reward. For looking out for you when no one else would, for giving you a home away from what home used to be.
You are about to build your second house. You have three cars and three shops, one in Accra, one in Circle and one in Madina. Dad still doesn’t talk to you. You want to buy him a better house as you drove past your childhood house and realized the paint had peeled off the bottom layer of the building. Living in a much flashier house at Ofankor made you realize how shrunken your childhood house at Kanda had become after all these years.
You know he’s aware of your success. You’ve been profiled in the national paper for your contributions as a rising star in Business and IT. And he always read that paper. The Daily Guide. The day you moved out, his eyes were affixed to it as you walked away with your suitcase to the Uber that was to transport you to Aboagye’s place.
“Dad, I’m sorry the dream to become an engineer didn’t work out. I gave it my all. Believe me, I tried. I worked so hard on campus, there were days I felt I would pass out from all the learning and fasting. That’s why I lost so much weight in my third year. But I need to start again elsewhere, I need to figure my life out on my own. I – I can’t live like this, chasing a dream that was never meant for me. I hope you can forgive me.” You had paused and waited for a reaction. Nothing.
“Love you so much, Dad.”
That was your last interaction with him. So, you know he would never accept anything from you – not a new house, car or even your love. Ashanti men are very proud when adamant.
He’s proved that till date. You’ve called his number every Christmas and New Year’s Eve for the last four years to re-establish relationship but there is no response. It goes through but he doesn’t pick up. You even tried using Aboagye’s phone to call him on New Year’s Eve two years ago when Aboagye dropped by for drinks and his drooping baritone responded so quickly you knew that he was still ignoring you after all these years. You didn’t utter a word when he spoke. You were so stunned, you cut the call. Stunned that indeed, he was ignoring you after all these years, like you’d sensed. And then those messed up feelings you harbored right after college when you lived with him and he seemed to have washed his hands off of you, roared to life. They were so intense, you asked Aboagye to stay the night. You couldn’t bear to be alone.
So, you knew. If he couldn’t accept your phone call, he definitely would not want to see you at his house. And you were not going to barge into his house to force a relationship. Amidst the inner wounds you still nursed to this day from his distancing, you respected him too much to fight his decision.
Heartbreaking, that after close to a decade, he still values his dream for you more than you. You’re just a translucent patch in his world.
A ghost of unfulfilled expectations.
* “You’re super brilliant!”
David Agyei-Yeboah is a poet, writer and musician from Accra, Ghana. He holds an MA in Communication Studies from the University of Ghana and graduated with first-class honors in English and Theatre Arts for his BA. His work has been published in many print and online journals and magazines across Africa, North America, Australia, Europe and Asia. His hybrid/experimental novel manuscript, OUR SPIRITS YEARN FOR HOME, won the 2023 Kofi Awoonor Literary Prize. It was also nominated for the Totally Free Best of the Bottom Drawer Global Writing Prize from the Black Spring Press Group, UK and is currently on submissions to publishers.