When Daddy came home last night my big brother Evan stood up and said, “I’m hungry Baba. We are all hungry. We’ve been having one meal a day and today we didn’t eat at all.”
We stood next to him, heads tilted to the side so Daddy could see how hungry we were.
Our father very slowly shook his head from side to side and pulled a toothpick from his pocket. He proceeded to pick bits of meat out of his teeth while moving his gaze from Evan, then to each of us in turn.
When he was done picking bits of whatever he had eaten for supper and spitting them onto the floor around us, his arm suddenly lashed out and sent Evan flying into my other brother Partson. The two of them fell to the floor and the rest of us took a few steps back, totally startled.
“You ungrateful child!” Daddy was screaming at Evan. “Who told you that you were hungry? Who filled your head with that nonsense!? Heh? Was it that boy across the street, what’s his name? Americanos!? Is he sponsoring these lies!? Look around you Evan! We are a solid family unit. This is my family and no one is going to tell me how to run it! Handiti ka!?”
But Evan, that stubborn brother of mine, I don’t know what had gotten into him that night. He stood up and said again. “We are hungry Baba. Where is all the money you make from your businesses? Why…” Baba twisted Evan’s arm and dragged him to the toilet. “You stupid boy. You need to spend some time alone. That will set your head straight. Hunger what? Are you trying to destabilize my family? Hazviite izvozvo. Manje I will show you who is boss!”
He threw Evan into the toilet and locked the door. “Let him stay in there tonight. It will clear his head.”
I was wondering what we would do when we needed to go when Partson started singing a song. “Tinokudaidaishe, pfurai nepano! (We call out to you God, pass through here).” Daddy glared at him and said nothing.
“Ah, F*ck you Baba!” Acie screamed, making a dash for the door, “I have had enough of this. I am starting my own family! But be warned! If you hurt my brothers and sisters I will come back and hurt you too!” He lifted his t-shirt so we could see his six pack and then disappeared into the night, rendered pitch black by a ZESA black out.
Partson increased his volume and raised one hand, palm face out, high up in the air.
Evan screamed out from the toilet, “This is injustice! I am no longer afraid of you old man! I am tweeting about this! Hey, you guys the hashtag is #ThisFamily. Please retweet it!”
“Twitter chii chacho,” Daddy muttered and whipped out his phone. He dialed someone. “Hello. Iwe Joe, there’s a situation here.” It was uncle Johno. Even before Daddy had finished explaining the ‘situation’ to him my phone started buzzing. It was tweets from Evan and Uncle Johno had already started responding.
Evan’s first tweet was “Zvakapressa. Hunger at home. Kana roller chaiyo #ThisFamily.”
Uncle Johno’s response was, “It’s not your home. It’s your father’s #OurFamily.”
Evan: “He makes money but we never see the food. We want accountability #ThisFamily.”
Johno: “If you want accountability, study accounts. Leave my brother alone #OurFamily.”
The Twitter war went well into the night. We went, when we needed to go, out in the night. When you’re desperate, any place is a toilet.
Daddy woke us up early the next morning. Ever since our mother died in 1992, we have lived like this. Always in a worsening state of hunger even though our father was rich. Always begging for help, even though he owned some of the most fertile land in the country, gold mines, diamond claims, factories and farms.
“My children,” he addressed us, as we stood shivering in the cold. ”Your brother Evan has sought to destabilize our family. This is not acceptable. Why would he want to make you revolt against your own father? Shuwa shuwa here? A son calling for violence against his own father?”
“He just said he was hungry,” Partson chimed in. I closed my eyes and wished he hadn’t spoken, but Partson had been so stubborn and outspoken ever since Daddy sent our other brother, Itai, away for complaining about hunger also.
“Shut your trap Partson!” Daddy spat. “If Evan doesn’t want to live with us anymore, he can go! You guys shouldn’t trust him, that one! When he was a toddler he used to spit out his food. Now he’s complaining about hunger!? How dare he!?”
The phone rang and I went to answer it. It was our cousin Tafadzwa. “That young man Evan is being emotional!” he was screaming. “He has no solutions to this so-called hunger issue so he must just shut up.”
“But Taf, we are so hungry…”
“Nonsense! What hunger? Wicknelldo bought a new Mercedes yesterday. Why don’t you guys just be like him? Prosperous and grateful?” In the background I could hear Uncle Supa screaming , “I will remove him from Twitter that Evan!”
When Daddy opened the toilet to let Evan out, we found that he was no longer there. He had escaped.
“The traitor! He’s gone to get advice from Americanos!” was Daddy’s conclusion.
When next we were to see Evan he would be in South Africa, speaking about how hungry he was and about how hungry we all were.
An advert for Spar came onto the TV and I wondered why Daddy didn’t just go and buy us some fresh chicken pies on special for 99 cents each to end this wretched hunger.
