'I guess my entire life has been long dead. I must have just held onto the darkness of my closet and the skeletons just to survive – funny enough. I don't take pride in these things I have said to all of you but I really had to let things off my chest. I have really had a hard life and I wished I had people really knowing all these. I wouldn't have continued engaging such up until this time. Because it is not as if they have brought me joy. Sex with the other woman? The bottle? All of that? They may have made me momentarily okay and made me believe that I probably had someone who appreciated or loved me more than my wife did. Well, that could be true because sincerely, Gifty is really in love with herself and her ambitions and nothing is going to change that. But the dearth of joy and peace of mind and the kind of instability such darkness has brought me is just tortuous,' Lancelot rubbed his face again to clean the fresh tears that had streamed down his face. 'And I don't really think I can continue living and even to live like this.' His eyes were bloodshot from the amount of crying he had done just in the space of five minutes. When he started crying, Gerald wanted him to stop but Gyasi and Nurudeen signalled him leave him. They sat there and watched him cry and confess some utterly ugly parts of his life to them. What struck Nurudeen was how much Lancelot's silence had killed him inside and driven him to the edge of a physical cliff where he could have jumped off.
'So, I guess I probably need to just go away after this trip, go away and find my own space and start again or something… I don't even know where to start because my life has really been over since that deal was discovered and since that fateful day when I knew I was going to be dismissed. Everything is lost guys. I cannot no longer provide for that woman because her ambitions cannot stomach her husband being home. I just need to go away,' Lancelot said.
'You cannot also say you will go away like that, brother,' Gyasi said, almost in a whisper. He reached out and rested his hand on Lancelot's thigh. 'Go away? Where? Without an explanation?'
'I should explain to who? Gifty? My father? My mother? You seem not to understand that they have been a major force in driving me to this critical point of my life. Although I admit responsibility, I will not deny the reality that I found myself amidst a group of people who have not helped my state of mind and my entire state of being and growth.'
'Lance, what about the children? What about them? Are you going to just run away and give up? How then can you correct the very cycle of lack of guidance, help, support that you missed out on? Yes, I get it that you are broken… One way or the other we are all broken by something as men but I always tell myself that if I ever marry again and I have children, I should not cower. Unfortunately, the challenges and impacts of all of our negatives may make us develop a certain level of passiveness and cowardice that makes us avoid taking the bull by the horn. It will even make us excuse the big decisions and choices that we have to make for ourselves and for our family. You have two growing boys at home. First of all, how disappointed will they be of their father when they knew all these? They would be disappointed even more if you just vanished. And if you vanished, you would have taught them cowardice, that men should run when it all comes crushing down. You would have also deprived them of the truth of your story and someday, they will also grow without the lesson of not speaking up. They will not have a role model, a mentor, someone they can look up to, a pillar they can lean on. This is what you missed and you want your children to miss it too? You want your children to look up to who? Their friends?' Nurudeen spoke passionately, with the intention not to allow Lancelot give up on himself or his family. After what he had personally been through, he was zealous about rectifying mistakes by way of making the right and appropriate choices for himself, for his friends and for his family. Lancelot needed to make the right choice and he saw that decision as one that really depended on the squad that was present at that little gathering.
'So, I should stay in this mess? I should go back to her? To that same home? To those same people?' Lancelot asked.
'That is what I wanted to ask as well because you do not seem to get the point of a woman hurting you, disappointing you, letting you down,' Gerald interjected. 'Gyasi knows what I mean… Essie decided to sleep with her boss and lied to me that it was rape. I only end up finding out when I go all the way to serve the man and he blows it in my face that my wife, my anchor and support did that. You are trying to tell me I don't need to excuse issues but rather stay and fix things? What should I sit with her to fix after she broke every bond we have built with that singularly stupid choice? And she blames who for it? Everything but herself! How? And I should fix that how? If it were you, would you not run from the mess? It is not an issue of being a coward at all. We all express pain differently and we need to acknoweledge that reality. I may coil but I have the prerogative to decide what happens next…'
'She cheated? With her boss? Like how?' Nurudeen was surprised hearing the issue for the first time.
'She did. Imagine how that feels. Every time it is as though men should be the ones to swallow every kind of nonsense… Every time, men should be the ones who have some mind-blowing tensile resistance to all kind of emotional and mental attacks from those around us and situations that happen around us. If Essie had received some of the slaps that I gave that boss of hers, I would be behind bars by now because a man is supposed to be the one to have that kind of resistance? A man is not a human being anymore or what? Do not get me wrong – I am not for abuse of women. I am a lawyer – surely, I know better and extra. But it is as though men are placed in this very box of being the ones to withstand all kinds of what?'
'Gerald, look, this conversation is not heading to that point anymore because if it was, we would have stopped this grown big man here from weeping like a baby. We would have told him to continue cheating because that is usually the most immediate solution that is general to many men our age – if your wife is a bother, find some small girl somewhere. It is not as if it is a lie because all over the offices and business boardrooms, it is happening live and in infamous colour and disgusting notoriety. You and I know this. In fact, we all know. If we were inching toward that kind of toxicity, like we would simply advice or boy to get even cozier with that other woman. But that is not this situation. That is not what we want to encourage here. We are not even asking anyone to bottle up and fake superhuman strength like the way society had acclaimed that brand for us. The social definition of who a man is what we are trying to demysitify. That label is the one that is producing a lot of cowardice in men and we don't realise. That social label gives very material and morally weak solutions to masculine issues that are so baseless and weak! So, for instance, your wife cheated? Your most immediate response will be to also cheat? Instead of addressing the matter head on and deciding what exactly a mutually beneficial solution is?' Gyasi asked finally.
'I was not and I will not cheat like she did. I have just gone silent on her. I don't want to talk about it because she isn't worth my audience.' Gerald said.
'Ha! That is exactly the issue of running away. That is your chosen reaction, and it makes you feel manly because of the power you kinda express in doing so. But that isn't the solution. So you will live in that cold steel zone for how long? Why not address the issue at hand and clear it off the table? We have been raised in that way where we think best masculine practice is being some kind of diplomatic about addressing issues such that it limits the fullness of truth, and the proper solutions where emotions are involved. And that is why we are telling him to see the scope of the matter and choose the more uncomfortable path which is the real solution to the matter.' Nurudeen replied. 'Your wife is your wife, regardless of what she did. She deserves your audience. That is your proper role as a man and that is a better way to exert power and to earn respect. Because I don't see anything smart and powerful about nonchalance…' Nurudeen added.
Gerald was quiet for a moment. He was in denial about how right and how appropriately sound their advice was. He just grunted a few times.
'Lance,' Gyasi started, turning to Lancelot. 'We are not saying go back and live in a mess. Nobody is saying go back to the place or people that have affected your life so negatively. While you even blame them, I do not think that you should herald that right now. What we are saying is that you needn't run but you need to fix things and create a better space for yourself and for your two boys who need you and need you to break that cycle of boys not having enough guidance and protection. I get it that your wife's choices and behaviour have thrown you out of love. Maybe you may want to choose a divorce because probably that would work for you. Maybe you would want to take a little time off and come back. Maybe you would want to talk to your wife in a very open sit-down. Maybe you would want to confront your father. What we are saying to you is that you must confront the situation in a head-on collision. It looks like death but it is your only way out. For the sake of those two boys to whom you can do better for than what their grandfather did for their father, you are the one who needs to clean up, to restore yourself, to solve the problems of your home, to make sure that you are not running and hiding but being truly a man, someone who ensures that he and all who matter to him are alright.'
Lancelot sighed. He was thinking about what they had all said. He definitely knew that it would not be an easy task to manage but he had to, especially for his boys. He suddenly found himself asking himself who would be there for them if he left? Who would they look up to? Who would help them? He started imagining a life without screams of daddy this, daddy that. Nurudeen was right. Gyasi was right. But how was he going to face his wife and his family boldly to bring the curtain down on his struggles?
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