The Chicken Bone That Followed Me Into Adulthood

My mom wonders why, at my age, I still ‘steal’ meat in my own house. She lives with me now. When she’s cooking and I enter the kitchen, she knows I need something. So she would ask, “What do you want?” I would walk around, stare at the meat she is frying, and leave the kitchen. Once she leaves the kitchen for a little moment, I would sneak in, take a piece of meat, and use the back door out of the house.

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Recently she asked me, “You’re stealing your own meat in your own house? Something that you paid for? It’s yours, and I don’t have any problem if you take it, so why hide and take it?”

I haven’t forgotten what she did to me on Christmas Day in the nineties. She had fried chicken, and the aroma was blasting through the whole house. At night, she covered the meat nicely and placed it on a table so that the next day, she would cook jollof with it.

I waited until everyone had slept and stealthily entered the kitchen. I took a thigh and started eating in the kitchen. A few minutes later, I heard footsteps approaching. I quickly threw the bone behind the cupboard and cleaned my mouth. I picked up a cup, fetched water, and pretended I was drinking. When my mom entered and saw me, she asked, “What are you doing in the dark?” I responded with a voice that sounded like I was sleeping and had just woken up, “I came to drink water.”

I left the kitchen before she did and went to sleep.

The next day, I leaned my ears against the walls, trying to listen through the grapevine if I would hear that a piece of meat was missing. No one mentioned that. I smiled in my head for the victory I’d claimed.

Later in the afternoon, the jollof was ready. We were about six children in the house, so when your name was called, you would go to the kitchen and collect your food. One after the other, everyone entered and came out with a large piece of chicken on their jollof. I was seated waiting for my turn, but Mom came to where I was seated with a bowl of jollof and placed it in front of me and said, “Finish what you started last night.”

I looked on top of my food, and all I saw was the dry bone I threw behind the cupboard. She should have at least dipped the bone in stew, but she didn’t. She placed it on top, dry and miserable. I could even see marks of ant bites on the bone. My siblings looked at my food and didn’t understand what was going on, but I ate with grace, thinking I deserved the punishment. But that wasn’t the end of it.

At night, before I went to bed, Dad was waiting for me with his belt. “So you got the guts to steal the meat meant for the whole house?” he asked. “I can’t raise a thief under my roof.” The belt landed haphazardly behind my back and all over my body.

The next morning was Christmas Sunday. I wore my Christmas dress over broken skin and walked stiffly to church. I couldn’t even lean my back on the chair because of the body pain. I sat stiff until church closed and we came back home.

When my siblings went out to play and went to neighbors’ houses for parties, I couldn’t go because of body pains. They came back with bottles of Fanta and a lot of biscuits. They didn’t give me any. I swore I would never steal again.

Is There A Man Out There Who Doesn’t Cheat?

So even in my adult age, picking meat that’s not on top of my own food feels like stealing. So I wait until my wife or my mom leaves the kitchen before I take a piece. Yes, it’s mine, but I still take it when eyes are not watching. Just last night, I did the same thing. When my mom saw me, we both smiled and walked past each other. I don’t know what was going through her head, but in my head, I remembered the bone story from the nineties.
#OurChristmasStories

—Dave

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