THE DARKEST SECRET

THE DARKEST SECRET

CHAPTER ONE

Dextor stood up from the table where he was sitting, a rush of sweat running down his forehead. He had been thinking about what Nafi told him. Occasionally, Nafi is not frank, but when she calls you into her room and tells you something you don’t want to hear, one does not often play around that. “Could it be that Nafi wasn’t being truthful or….”

“Dextor… Dextor… Come and get your class paper, would you?” Verlan said from the rear. He realized he had been standing up looking at nothing for quite a while. Everybody in the class was looking at him, but did he care? Obviously not. He snatched the paper from Vee, as she was affectionately called and moved unto Mr. Kapowski’s desk.

“Are we good today, Dex?” Kapowski asked. “Depends on your definition of good. And please don’t call me the colonizer’s name.” He replied.

“Colonizer?... Safe, alive and kicking with a sound mental state, if you ask me”

“Oh, then I’ll pass.”

“Did you finish my assignment”

“No. You know more than anyone that I don’t finish your assignment”

“You know who’s not gonna be happy when you don’t finish on time”

“You don’t have to remind me that I’m on scholarship. It says I’m on a trust fund all over my face.”

“You got a mouth kid…”

“And some brains remember?”

‘Hmm’ Mr. Kapowski smirked as Dex stood up and walked lavishly from the table, caring less about the world around him – a harsh and noisy world full of darkness.

The next morning, Dex woke up, followed his daily routine and made ready for school. He went to the bus station to take the bus to school. As a scholarship student at the University of Chicago, he knew he was in any way on probation, a fact which nearly everyone around him never forgot to remind him. To all of them, he was the brilliant boy who has been given an opportunity he was playing with. All but Nafi.

Nafi saw him differently. To Nafi, Dex was not Dex the Trust Fund baby. He was Bosomuru, as he preferred to be called. For Dex himself has said that after getting a degree, if he ever would, based on his current situation, he’d remove the Poindexter from his name permanently. When Nafi of all people had argued that it didn’t matter what name he had but rather what he holds in store in his heart that defines him, he countered by arguing that the name is a colonizer’s name. By colonizer, he meant the British. However, Nafi would get offended claiming that Dex didn’t want to be identified as white, which hurt her dearly. But why would any Ghanaian born man, bred in the tropics touched by the earth and kissed by the sun, identify as white?

Unlike most days, today was unfortunate for Dex. First, he had missed the bus, and second… he had missed the bus. He had to walk. As he passed through Ellis Avenue through to the main streets of the school and then to Hyde Park, he thought of What Nafi told him, as a Ghanaian, he held his values high above all things and would not let anyone or anything make him demean his values. He had been presented an opportunity, one that bears the mark of the devil, and him thinking about it even meant he was already considering it and giving in to the devil.

At school, he hurried quickly to submit his assignment to Mr. Kapowski.

“Doing good kid,” Mr. Kapowski praised him “Keep it up.” “I’m just doing God’s work,” Dex replied playfully. Right before he started his paperwork for the day, the PA system called all BA Public Relations Management minors to the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. Since he minored Public Relations in addition to his Actuarial Science major, that, he believed, was his call.

He went to the Chapel early, already to see some elite professors and some Directors from the Center on Halsted. The Center on Halsted was an LGBTQ+ advocacy group based in Chicago. He knew that their presence meant no harm to anyone, but to him a shaking reality to deal with. But the presence of the Center for Halsted directors wasn’t what shook his spine. Next to them on the stage he saw the American Advocacy Scholarship Authority flag next on the table. To him that meant only one thing -more trouble. When the Chapel crowded a little, Mr. Bumbleebee, who was the speaker began to speak.

“For many years, this University has done things beyond incredible. Yet today, we witness something that has not been done before. About three months ago, we set out on a mission with the Center for Halsted to break the barrier that excluded other people in the third – world country who feel the need to express themselves freely in whatever gender, social life and affiliation but cannot because of the environment they find themselves in and the ‘values they have’” he said with a smirk. From below the stage, Bosomuru listened with rage as he heard fire spit from the self-righteous man on stage. “We sent some of you…” he continued “… to certain countries to advocate for the freedom and expansion of LGBTQ+ in these countries. And we have seen the impact. Because of you, countries like Zamunda have refrained from passing the Anti-LGBTQ+ bill! Isn’t that something? Now there’s someone among you who did a far more important job in Zamunda….” Bosomuru began to shake “… and today the leaders are here to personally award this person…”

He didn’t know what happened. Things were moving so fast. One moment he was on the stage receiving medals and the next he was seated before a panel who in recognition for his outstanding feat in convincing the Zamundan leadership to lay down passing the bill, was on the verge of brokering another deal with these white supremacists, as Nafi put it. This time, he would be going to his motherland, and the thought of that made his stomach churn. As he held the paper, torn between two worlds, and pondering whether to sign this life making or life unmaking but anyways life changing deal, he remembered what Nafi told her. He had become the child his parents warned him about.