Sides of a Coin

Marlon Clarke

Description

Black North American teen, Abimbola Prince, is disillusioned by his aforementioned African name. He grew to hate it from the moment he started school several years earlier. He goes from allowing all people to butcher and make fun of his name, to cutting it in half and cutting down his self-esteem with it.
Abimbola must now fight for his self-respect in more ways than one, before it's too late.

Sujets

• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 22 septembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669842910
• Langue: English

Extrait

Sides Of A Coin










Marlon Clarke



Copyright © 2022 by Marlon Clarke.
ISBN:
Softcover
978-1-6698-4292-7
eBook
978-1-6698-4291-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.




Rev. date: 08/18/2022





Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
845644



Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven

















For my two sons Omri & Eesah.
This one’s for you guys
Be your best.



Chapter One
My name is Abimbola Prince, that’s A-B-I-M-B-O-L-A Abimbola. And Prince like the singer. I liked my last name, hated Abimbola. My dad said he gave me that name although my mother urged him to name me Sean to avoid me being teased. Instead Sean became my second name. Dad said he called me Abimbola because he had a few African friends around the time I was born that suggested he name me Abimbola. Out of all the African names, why did he have to go with that one? Why not Akeem, or Koffee or even Kwame like my little brother? No, dad just had to go with Abimbola. And to top it off, it’s a girls’ name as well as a boys’. So whenever people heard my name, they automatically thought I might have been a girl just because it ended with an “A” and probably because it had the word “Bimbo” in it. But then once they met me, they thought I was Somalian, because of how I looked. I got teased all the time. My dad was from the Caribbean island of Trinidad and my mom was from Tobago, that little Island right next to it. But they didn’t meet until they moved to Toronto Canada in 1967, just before they had my sister. I was born two years later. They had to adapt to life in Canada. Took them 16 years to do that, Now here we were, in the summer of 1984 riding along in our 1979 caprice to our new home in America. Now we had to make yet another adjustment. Back to what I was saying earlier, everybody butchered my name. Hated it.
Kids would always say.
“What’s your name Abimo-what?”
“A-bimbo?”
“A-bimbo-a-dick.”
Dad says my name is a Nigerian Yoruba name meaning “Born Wealthy”. Now I wished somebody would wake me up when we became wealthy. I mean we weren’t poor or anything but far from wealthy.
As we continued driving along the road, I looked over at my dad as he spun that steering wheel like a pro. Prince is his name, well Calvin Prince to be exact. Now my grandparents gave him a name like that and he names me Abimbola. And my mom Tina was sitting right next to him looking beautiful as she was. She says when she met dad he told her his name was Prince. So she asked for his last name and he said, Prince and she asked “Your name is Prince Prince?” He told her “It’s Calvin, but just call me Prince.” Mom was 5 years younger than dad. They didn’t really have much in common except us. Not that the age difference had anything to do with it. They were just very distant and only got along on occasion or at our expense. She didn’t even know how old he was at first because he told her his age didn’t matter. Whenever she had to do some sort of business transaction and was asked dad’s age it would go like this.
“And how old is your husband ma’am?” And she would simply say.
“I don’t know.” This would always leave them looking at her strangely.
To my left was my older sister Christine. Yeah, Christine. I don’t know how she ended up with a normal name like that. But Christine was bossy and snarky. Thinks she’s Queen Shit. Calls herself the sleeping beauty. And she’s exactly that. A beauty who sleeps, leaving me stuck with her chores, almost every single day.
“Dad are we almost there yet? It’s 30 degrees, I mean 100 degrees. My face is melting into the door,” Christine whined. Dad looked up into the rear view mirror staring intently at Christine. “Why don’t you roll the window down like the rest of us?” he replied.
It’s funny how my parents have been in Canada so long and still sound like they just jumped off the banana boat.
Christine looked right back at dad through the rear view mirror. “If I do that, Abimbola’s gonna say there’s too much wind in his face,” she replied haughtily.
“No, I won’t,” I shouted. “Here we go again accusing me of complaining and starting shit. I don’t complain about anything.
“Watch your mouth,” mom ordered.
“That window could be open in the thick of winter, giving me frost bite and I still wouldn’t complain,” I went on.
“Yes you would,” Christine barked.
“Why don’t you two just shut your mouths,” dad intervened.

Mom widened her eyes, flared her nostrils and screamed,” Why don’t you just put on the air conditioner Prince? I think the battery can handle it.
“And what about the money to buy a new battery?”
“I think our bank accounts can handle that one too,” mom replied.
After a brief hesitation and a snarl dad said, “Alright everybody, roll up your windows. Air conditioner coming on.” He then turned it on.
Dad hated it whenever mom made implications of him being cheap. He knew it was true but he didn’t want her implying it, or straight out saying it, especially in front of us. And she knew it. This was her way of getting under his skin.
In the midst of all this, my little brother Kwame was doing what he did best. Stuffing his face with cream donuts.
We finally swung into our new street. A bunch of people came into view. Some were sitting on their stoops, sipping on cold drinks and staring. Kids were running around through sprinklers, while others horsed around in the nearby playground. Not too far from them, a small group of teenaged boys b-Boyed to the loud music booming out of the ghetto blaster. Passersby were on the sidewalk with paper bags in their hands, most likely returning home from the grocery store. Others were clad in business attire, or construction gear arriving home from a long day’s work.
Christine smiled zealously as she popped her head out the window. “Wow, I like this neighborhood,” she exclaimed.
“You better take your eyes off those street dancing boys, or I’ll have to padlock your bedroom door and window,” dad warned.
“Is the truck almost here?” I inquired.
“How are mom and dad supposed to know?” Christine grunted.
“They should be here soon,” dad assured.
We pulled into the driveway of a medium sized red brick house. The rumble of a truck is heard and as I looked, a red and white truck turned onto the street.
“I think that’s it,” I said. Christine looked at me with that condescending look on her face.
“Was our truck red and white?” she snarked.
“Oh Yeah right,” I nervously responded, feeling like an idiot.
I only smiled to appease her. I could never be myself around them or anyone for that matter. I used to just let people do what they want.
After unloading the car we entered the house through the front door which led to the kitchen. Christine looked around and the first thing she noticed was the dishwasher. She ran over and hugged it. “Hi dishwasher,” she exclaimed. “I’m so happy to finally meet you and have one of you.”
Ever since dad told Christine about this new house having a dishwasher she was so ecstatic. He always complained to mom that Christine was lazy and was always worming her way out of doing house work and getting me suckered into doing it.