Painful Past Perfect Present

By Hector Saye Jr

IN PAINFUL PAST PERFECT PRESENT, A VERY GIFTED CHILD GOES THROUGH LIFE SUFFERING FROM THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF SENSELESS DIVISION AND WAR AMONGST HIS OWN PEOPLE. THE MAIN CHARACTER PRYCE PAYE AND THE REST OF HIS PACK ARE VICTIMS OF THEIR PAST TOXIC ENVIRONMENTS. IT TAKES A JOURNEY BACK TO HIS PAINFUL PAST TO OPEN HIS MIND TO MORE FANTASTIC POINT OF VIEW THAT EVENTUALLY GIVES HIM HIS PERFECT PRESENT.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098346140

Book preview

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Chapter 1

A Gift And A Curse At JFK

It is written, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and everything else shall be added unto you. Throughout the cycle of life, darkness or light, at the end of the day, we ought to thank Him and pray for the next. With every addition, one must multiply and divide his dividend among the multitudes and this shall become a natural cycle in a society where a seed is embedded. What is love? Well, it depends, but love is everything that makes one happy. Love is the look on a mother’s face when the doctor says it’s a boy or a girl. Love is running toward flying bullets to defend your country. Love is when a man gets on his knee and she says yes. Love is making it to the top and not forgetting your past. What happens when love doesn’t love us? What happens when our perception of love turns out to be the complete opposite? What happens when love plays a trick on us? What happens when a mother doesn’t want her child or when a child doesn’t have a mother to love him? What happens when your reason for war is unjust? Who the hell justified war anyway? What happens when her reason for saying yes does not coincide with your reason for asking? We will never know; would we? But doesn’t it just feel good to give back? To go back to where it all started from, help improve the conditions and maybe correct a mistake or two?

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Pryce. Pryce Paye to be exact. I am truly blessed to be here on Monday, the 26th day of July 2004, for the 157th anniversary celebration of Liberia in Newark, New Jersey. Please take a moment of your precious time to accompany me on my journey to the past; my wondering years; my growing pains or better yet, my painful past. I was born on the 26th day of July, the year one thousand nine hundred and eighty two, on the way to JFK; a hospital named after President John F. Kennedy in Monrovia, Liberia. A born day I also share with mother Liberia herself. On the way to the hospital, a child is born, his mother dies and the father loses a leg due to a car accident. So much for a birthday isn’t it? Anyway, a week later, my father is walking around with an artificial leg. With such conditions, Isaac Paye had no choice but to send his only child to live with his older brother; a task Jeremiah Paye willingly accepted without any hesitation. The only problem is his wife’s attitude toward the idea. Physically, her body is like a work of Picasso; an artwork that attracts those who don’t know the least bit about art. Evelyn Bone is whom you may simply refer to as dev-angel. The devil stuck in the body of an angel. It is her physical appeal that has my uncle willing to give up his arms and legs for her. Not only were she selfish and inconsiderate but she is also a Kranh native that was never accepted by my uncles’ relatives. Coming from the Mano tribal natives, Jeremiah’s family never accepted Evelyn mainly because of those two reasons. In Liberia, especially among the indigenous, tribes normally marry within their own tribe and problems mostly occur in families when one does the opposite. It is sort of like the Capulets and the Montagues; the two feuding family that caused The Romeo and Juliet tragedy. Jeremiah’s family never liked Evelyn Bone from the moment they saw her with their golden child Isaac Paye. In life, it is great to have both beauty and good personality but to have one without the other, the wise would rather take great personality over beauty because the alternative usually turns out unpleasant. I guess Uncle was just out for some great pleasure or he simply wanted to make a statement. He is a very handsome man that stands about 6 feet tall, with dark-brown skin and brown eyes and would talk his way out of going to hell on his Judgement Day. He is also well known all over Liberia but for some reason, he chose the devil’s advocate to complement his style. Jeremiah Paye was huge within the Liberian diamond world. He met Evelyn on one of his business trips in Bong Mine, Liberia. I guess Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.

Chapter 2

It Takes A Village

Due to my uncle’s wife disagreement with my adoption, I was sent to live with my father’s oldest sister in the village section of Bong County, Liberia. Aunty Elena took me in as a one month old baby. About the same time, her youngest sister Alice who was also living with her at the time delivered a baby girl. Kou is a month older than me. She used to pull her mother’s nipple out of my mouth as she breastfed me. Growing up as an infant in the village of Liberia, natural milk was scarce so this obviously became my primary means of survival. At times, outsiders took Kou and I to be twins. My father occasionally stopped by with milk and other baby supplies for us. People said we both have the same sleepy eyes and giant head. Luckily for my father, he was granted a visiting visa to the United States in 1984. He was later given political asylum due to the 1985 former Liberian Army General Quinkpa failed coup attempt against President Samuel Doe. Mr. Quinkpa being a member and a crucial voice for the Mano and Gio ethnic tribe of Nimba County, which my father is a native of, now sends the angry Kranh native President Doe on a secret killing spree of the Mano and Gio elite individuals after the failed coup attempt against him.

As the year goes by, Aunty Elena becomes my only known mother. She never went to school nor did the man she married. She was part of a polygamy marriage and had six kids of her own. Her first child was a male that passed away at birth and this where my father came in. His mother gave him away to his older sister as a replacement for her lost child. As a matter of fact, she became the gateway for the rest of her siblings. Her husband, father Abraham had numerous assets and was well known around Bong County. Though he wasn’t educated, he very much knew the importance of educating his children. It is because of him that my father and the rest of Aunt Elena’s followers were able to learn their ABCs and everything else that came along. I also became blessed to become a part of the Dewkor family. Apart from my Aunty’s living two boys and three girls, father Abraham blessed his other wife with five boys and a girl. By the time I became six years of age, still blind of my true birth parents, I was the last of five brothers and sisters and those siblings from the other wife treated me no less. As a matter of fact, I became even closer to one of the sons from the other wife than those of my own blood. I was actually the youngest among the combined eleven total brothers and sisters even after the oldest son from the other wife had his share of boys. In other words, growing up and being the youngest among a group of boys, sometimes I wish my dearest Aunt Elena were always around. On the other hand, it is like a Chain of Command in African society so she couldn’t really stop some of the things that took place behind closed doors. Don’t get me wrong, I loved and still love all my cousins dearly and I have absolutely no regrets at all but at times, it just hurts being the youngest especially when our entire dish for the day was placed in a huge bowl to be eaten together among seven different boys. Not to mention their band of hungry friends that usually stopped by right about the same time a meal was ready to be served. Many times, I was even lucky to eat a spoon or two. Those days, our spoons were our five fingers. Due to the lack of eating utensils in the village, we, especially the youngest children had to eat with our hands and to tell you the truth, it benefited me on many occasions but that’s another story. At the start of our group consumption, I was usually told to wait until the oldest took at least two spoons each and by the time I waited for six persons two spoons, an empty bowl was left for me to wash. Eating a piece of meat from the dish was completely out of the question. At the end of the day, I had to run to my dearest Aunty to rescue me from those hungry hounds. She made sure she hid a plate away for me at times and for this, I sincerely thank her. What made the matter worse was my smarty mouth towards them and this frequently led me crying to Aunty. She battled them nearly every day for smacking me upside the head. Aunty did everything to protect me but she made sure I was punished for the things she hated the most. Stealing and cussing were the two worst things a child could ever do around her and I came to know this in the most painful way. Her beating was like cold water running down my back; it didn’t hurt but tingled and she realized this later and invented the ultimate punishment ever. She would sit next to me with a thumb size whip and make me eat ripe peppers and swallow without drinking the least bit of water. Yes indeed those punishments were crucial but at the end of the day, the love was there right when I needed it.

In 1988, at the age of six, Aunty Elena had me go to assist one of her closest friends who needed someone to help drive birds away so they wouldn’t destroy her rice plantation during harvest season. The lady herself never had a male child and both of her girls were still under the age of six plus her husband was killed by a black snake known as one of the deadliest snakes in Liberia. That day, the lady, Aunty Mary also asked another kid to help her on her farm. Jacob was ten years my senior at the time and had a mouth disease that gives him awful breath which everyone usually teased him about and he hates when people made fun of him. While Aunty Mary prepared a dish, Jacob and I stood on separate sections of the football size farm making noises and throwing rocks from a slingshot in efforts to keep the birds away from destroying the crops. I wasn’t yet skilled with the slingshot so Jacob was the only one operating it while I banged and shouted to deter those flying menaces. Jacob left his side of the farm and walked closer toward my direction, angry about how I wasn’t making enough noise. He was getting annoyed by the large amount of birds that wouldn’t stop coming and were now spreading too much to control. He stood about twenty yards from me and began yelling and calling me lazy and all kinds of names. I got fed up with it and began to retaliate. After calling him Jacob stink mouth, he started threatening me with the slingshot to keep my mouth shut. This went on for ten minutes or so then I forgot and turned by back on him. I remember falling down and hearing him call my name and fled the scene when I couldn’t answer. Luckily for me, it was dry mud instead of rock in the slingshot; the same weapon David the Shepherd used to kill the Philippines Giant according to the Bible. I fell down, got back up some minutes later and managed to walk straight home without even letting Aunty Mary know. I got home and met father Abraham at the house and that was the last thing I recorded the rest of that entire day. I opened my eyes surrounded by a group of country medicine town women standing on top of me, sprinkling water and rubbing my head with all kinds of herbs while Aunty Elena and others were drenched with tears. After explaining everything, father Abraham quickly had Jacob arrested and his parents were asked to see to it that nothing happens to me. Aunty later decided to forgive Jacob and his family after pleading for his forgiveness. During that time, all my other brothers and sisters ( cousins) were away in the city for school. Every morning, for about two weeks straight, Aunty would tow me on her back to the nearby clinic, nearly two hours walk away from Keytown. At certain point, I defecated on myself and she would stop to clean me up then resume the walk. I couldn’t eat so she smashed the cooked rice with water and fed it to me. The only thing that carried weight on me was my huge head and poking bones that could easily be counted. I vomited blood constantly with every meal and even defecated with parasites at times. I even had worms coming from my nose as well as my bloody vomits. After everything, I survived and indeed I owe Aunt Elena my life.

Chapter 3

A New Beginning

The day came in 1989 somewhere around January, about six months before my seventh birthday when uncle Jeremiah came with news that my father had applied for him and myself to join him in the United States. I had to now stay with him in Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia. We were playing football in the rain when the blue pick-up truck pulled up in front of our house in keytown. I knew it was a family member when I saw Aunty Elena walking towards the vehicle along with a couple of my cousins. The first person that came to mind was Auntie’s oldest son Jeff so I ran there hoping that he had more new clothes for me but the man that came out and hugged my Aunty was much taller and bigger than cousin Jeff. This was my first time ever to see uncle Jeremiah and from the beginning, I cried and begged Aunty not to let me go but after explaining to me that uncle was taking me to the nearest market to buy me new football boots, (soccer boots) I quickly took a bath and got ready to go to the market the following morning of that Friday. This is how I left Keytown. I left without knowing I was leaving for good. I guess they knew I would have never left under normal circumstances. The pick-up didn’t stop until we arrived at Red Light, Painesville, Monrovia. I cried throughout the entire ride to the city when uncle Jeremiah finally broke the news to me. My cousin Jeff had tried on numerous occasions to get me out of the village and each time he did, the news somehow got to me so I never got into a car with him to go anywhere. They figured using someone else and everybody keeping it a secret was the only chance of me leaving my Aunty Elena; the only mother I ever knew.

It was now approaching the seventh anniversary of my birthday and still couldn’t read and write but I knew my ABCs and my two to twelve times tables. Yes, I memorized the multiplication tables at the age of six and I owe it all to cousin Jeff. A year after I started school at the local public school in Keytown, built by father Abraham, my brother (cousin Jeff) gave me eleven days and eleven nights to know my two to twelve times table and true indeed I loved him for that. Anyway, after my first week with uncle Jeremiah and his wife, it became obvious that it was not the kind of house to raise a child. They fought physically nearly every day and on certain days, Aunty Evelyn would leave the house and go to her relatives and then show up some days later after settling their differences. It was indeed a fatal attraction for a couple that was not legally married. Due to their tribal differences, their families never really approved of the idea of an actual marriage. Up to now, uncle Jeremiah has not yet met her parents and neither did they want to meet him. Uncle told me her cousins had threatened to kill him after one of their fights when Aunty Evelyn went back home with bruises. It was her incredible physical beauty that had my uncle going crazy. She had one of the best looking bodies you would ever see on a woman. Her father was Kranh and her mother was half Lebanese but she was closer to her father’s side of the family. With her bright sparkling skin complexion and great bone structure that every typical man would die for, the reason she never left my uncle was simply because of his deep pocket.

Uncle Jeremiah was heavy within the diamond industry in Africa and well known and respected all over Liberia. Around the heavily Mano and Gio populated Saye Town, where we lived in Monrovia, the neighbors would tell uncle about seeing his wife with other men on Broad Street but being the quiet and overly lay back man that he was, he never gave ears nor mouth to gossip. He usually responded by saying, It is better to be with the devil you know than the angel you don’t know. He believed all women were the same so he figured its best he remain with the one he knows more about. I even walked in on her with another man after playing football in a neighbor’s backyard where I told her I would be when she told me she was going to visit a friend. She threatened to hurt me if I ever told uncle Jeremiah. He had traveled to Wayswa; the diamond capital of Liberia for business when I got the spare key he hid under the side of the big rock next to our dumpster. I opened the front door and entered the house thinking no one was there. I ran into my uncle’s room to look in the bag where he kept my clean clothes to keep me from dirtying them too quickly. When I entered the room, a huge man jumped up from on top of Aunty Evelyn and went reaching for his gun he had leaning on the dresser by the bed with his one hand as he pulled up his pants from the ankles with the other. Aunty Evelyn just yelled as she looked up to see who came in their room unannounced while she wrapped herself with the sheets. When she saw me, she chased me out of the house with the blanket around her and a shoe in her right hand. You will not enter this house today, was the last thing she said as I felt the shoe hit the back of my leg. It was around 7 pm, when I came back knocking at the door begging to be allowed back in the house. Rumors of kids and even adults being kidnapped were all around Liberia in 1989. Kids were going missing daily so my