DIARY OF A MAD BLACK MAN
When betrayal turns love into bitterness and pain into cruelty
Content note: This personal account contains themes of infidelity, emotional distress, disability, neglect, and abuse.
If Tyler Perry ever reversed the roles, this could be the script for one of his darkest dramas. Gladys and I were not childhood sweethearts. We met when she was in her first year at university, struggling financially, while I was in my final year, approaching graduation.
I came from a privileged family. A university degree was almost an added advantage because my future had already been mapped out. I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth.
Gladys's innocence swept me off my feet. Helping her through university and supporting her family was never a problem. I even put her four siblings through school. I was the ultimate black card.
It did not matter to me because I was doing it to build a life with the woman I loved. I gave her everything money could buy, I showed her the ropes, I taught this innocent village girl from Guruve how to use cutlery, how to use sanitary pads, how to switch on a television, the littlest things she did not know, I exposed her to and all her family bills were on my tab. I did not mind, I was rich, and I still am filthy rich.
I opened her first restaurant, and I got my own brother to help her manage it. The first few months were okay, until she fell pregnant.
As a first-time dad, I was elated. During her pregnancy, she was offish and blamed it on the hormones. She was a spitfire, and the only person she loved around was my brother, whom, before the pregnancy, she never liked. I endured the abuse and torture because they said it was hormones.
She was so brutal that there were times I thought of ending my life. I had brought her from the gutter, and now she felt too clean for me.
I only got to know it after two years that the babies were my brother’s, how I found out is still beyond me, I never suspected the two of them and when I found out I was broken, my wife had the nerve to say, “How much do I owe you for putting me in school, I will pay it back, our levels are now different, I can manage myself now, I have a man who truly loves me, who knows how to please me, 4x your size, you ain’t man enough, Ticha wakapusa!” and those words shattered me.
While all Tafara, my very own brother, could say was, “Haaa pakabhaizika, but Gulez vatove Ninez,” with no shame or remorse whatsoever. My whole world crumbled, I was so livid I wanted to take them all out. The words kept playing in my head, I lost myself and said I was okay.
“Men don't cry” is only on paper. I cried and screamed my heart out, the pain, the agony, Gladys had ripped my heart out. I had no one to talk to, this triangle had taken a toll on me, I smiled, yet deep within the core of my heart lay inexplicable pain. GLADYS!!! TAFARA!!!!
The Gods of justice heard my cry, and Tafara was severely punished, succumbing to injuries sustained from an accident, while the mighty Gladys survived but got paralysed, and her fate was left in my hands.
I loathed her, every time I looked at her, I would cry, not because of pity but pain. She needed help with everything, bathing, well, I was not doing that. I would just drag her outside and put her on the lawn and open the hose on her. This I religiously did every morning before the brink of dawn, she would mumble in shivers, and I would just spray on her and leave her there.
I did not want to touch her, at times I would not return. Wherever I left her was where I would find her, her spot on the lawn had turned yellow, the weather did as it pleased with her.
The food I gave her was one meant for the dogs, whatever the dogs left, she would sometimes struggle to reach it, all I did was watch, I did not care, on a good day I would crush her food in the blender, but never fed her, she had to use a straw, most of her time was spent outside watching me live in luxury.
I could see her cry, but my heart had turned to stone. She could have cheated on me with anybody else, not my own brother. Every day I watched her get worse, her pain was my pleasure, from ecstasy to agony.
There were moments when I heard her struggling to breathe and felt an urge to end her life. I did not act on that urge, but the fact that I could entertain such thoughts frightened me.
I told myself I was rebuilding my life. In reality, I was allowing pain and hatred to turn me into someone I barely recognised.
I cried. I broke down. I lost myself.
I had been betrayed, humiliated, and emotionally devastated. But in my desire to make someone else feel my pain, I became responsible for another person's suffering. I survived the betrayal, but I cannot pretend that everything I did afterwards was justified.
Sometimes the greatest damage caused by betrayal is not what happens to us, but what it turns us into. I was hurting. I needed help. I needed somewhere to take my anger, grief, and humiliation.
Instead, I let them consume me.
Diary of a Mad Black Man
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