My wire man

When I was little, say around the ages of 7 to 9, I went from watching any cartoon children would generally watch to watching only actions cartoons. Born in the northern part of Nigeria, we had a few channels that were allowed to air programs freely, pro-western programs specifically as the region was predominantly Muslim and at the top of the list of that group of channels was mbc an Arabic based network which also aired Western movies, but then I was more into cartoons, so every morning by 7, before school, I would tune in to mbc3 to catch the morning episode of batman the dark knight, my favorite show on tv. and although everything they spoke in the cartoon was Arabic with no subtitles, I was totally captivated by the program. Watching how batman took out the bad guys from the streets of Gotham and rescued innocent night walkers, who for reasons I couldn’t tell would leave their homes at late hours of the night and sleep walk till they found themselves at dead ends of alleys about to be robbed by hoodlums. How he would appear on the scene of a crime, the bad guys totally confident of having secured the area, leaving no access for batman to intrude or disrupt their sinister plan. He would simply swoop in from rooftops picking them off one after the other, leaving those on the ground scared and frantic about who would be the next to be picked and disappear, they never saw him coming. I was totally infatuated with batman, not much with supes.

 So when I saw the adverts of action figures like batman on tv, I wanted them so much that I told my mum to get them for me and when she said she know where to get them, I told her ‘Saudi Arabia’ and she asked how she would get there, I responded ‘by bus! She said it wasn’t that close to go by a car, so I said use a plane. She said she it would be too expensive and she didn’t have that kind of money. I was distraught. I couldn’t go ask my dad cos he would have none of it. I didn’t eat a couple of times in a few days of my tantrum. I couldn’t go on a complete hunger strike, I wasn’t old enough. My mum would promise a few times to get them for me, but I knew she was just saying it to get me to eat, my dad didn’t give a damn, he was a strict Nigerian father. When I finally got exhausted of going hungry, I gave up the notion of having an action figure and had to make do with the brick toys my mum got me as consolation.

On a particular day, I got playing with copper wires and found I could bend them to any shape I wished, so I got the idea of shaping it into a man’s figure. It looked nice when I was done and that became my new toy, a while later, I decided to create my man a horse he would ride like that of the legend of Zorro, it panned out fine. I went on to create a headgear for my wire man like that of batman with tow pointed edges. I got a piece of cloth that would serve as his cape, tore it to a good size and attached it to him and I had my own hand made batman action figure. He became my favorite toy and when it got lost, I made more. As time went by other kids some my age, some younger, others a little bit older came to the knowledge of my wire man and they liked it. They would come to play with me just to get to play with my man, it attracted a lot of friends to me. Some stole them, others would ask me to make one for them promising to pay me by cash, candies or the rendering of a service. Those closest to me got theirs for free. Some boys decided to rival me by making their own themselves, but it was never as good as mine. By the age of 12, I had myself a young apprentice by the name Gaius, who was 7 at that time and was as interested in wiremen as I was, he showed the same passion as me when I first began and was quite eager to learn, so I thought him and he was the only one I knew who came closest to rivalling my work.

By the time I was 14, I had lost most part of my interest in playing with my wire man, adolescence had set in and I wanted a phone instead, kids my age were getting social, chatting and making friends online, nobody was coming to me anymore to make action figures of copper wire for them, at least no one my age and I felt I needed to be part of the trend, so I shed most part of my childhood leaving it to my young apprentice and his generation of action figure enthusiast. By age 17, I would occasionally fashion a wire man or two for any kid who wanted something to play with, I was still pretty good at it. Now I am 20, adulthood had come beckoning at my front yard, I had more serious things to do, I had been admitted into the University, my future dependent on the decisions I make, these I had in mind while trying to make the best of my stay in the university, to have fun as much as I could, make friends, go into relationships and date as many girls as possible and at the end of it all make my parents proud by coming out with the best grades, my wire man making days were surely over.

These days when I walk around in my neighborhood and I see young kids playing with the wire man, I smile knowing that feeling, how much fun I had when I was their age and the knowledge of my action figure had been passed down. I look back and realize ‘damn’ it was easier to be an influence as a kid I use to think when I grow up, I would have my own money, buy whatever I wanted, go wherever I wished, do whatever. I used to dream about becoming an adult, but things don’t always turn out as you wish. These days I have few friend in the general sense of it, fewer I could really call such and less fun, adulthood is a sham.