A stab at the narrative style…

I think, but I am not sure, that the first time I asked the question, “What is a kiss?” The housemaid did not tell me, she showed me. She stuck her tongue in my mouth and wiggled it around a bit. It was disgusting, it was much like dry gagging, but it was a lesson I could not forget. I am not entirely sure this actually happened. Perhaps time and shame have played tricks on my memory. I would much prefer for her to have demonstrated by kissing the other housemaid. Whatever the truth is, it is certain that some kissing occurred and I was there, rapt witness.
I remember that young spindle-legged uncle of mine. He lived with us because my father had taken on the responsibility of putting all his brothers and sisters (and their kids) through school. Never mind that he had us, the legitimate children. I have always wondered what my childhood would have been like if he had lavished that money on just us. Sure, we had all the cartoons that the kids in the neighborhood wanted to watch on videotape: every Disney favorite, every Tom and Jerry classic, Mickey Mouse, Goofey, Daffy Duck. Our compound was huge, so was the house. But where was the proof I could show off? The fancy new clothes and shoes only came at Christmas.
Daddy worked for Uganda Development Bank (UDB), he had a bright red car. Our first car. UPD024. There were times when he would come from work and there would be bundles of new money just under the steering wheel where he placed his feet while he was driving. Like he was a king whose wealth rested at his feet. Even then, I loved the smell of new cash. I would sneak some just to sniff it. It was with awe that I would watch him remove the thick piles from the car. I especially loved the blue one-hundred shilling note, the one I got when Mr. Rat took my teeth away and I could buy sweet pepsi, and éclairs and toffees from David’s shop down the road or Bosco’s which was just around the corner. All that money should have been for us the kids, and not the endless cousins that we had come live with us.
That uncle with the hairy, thin spindle-legs. The one who was extra thin, and had a huge hooked nose on a gaunt face. I hated him instinctively. Even before he stole and sold the clothes that daddy brought us from outside countries. Before he told me that always being number one in the class was so boring, and that double digits always beat single digits. Before he began to lay subtle insults on our small heads. There was an evil that lurked in his permanent sneer, and those eyes of his were shifty. I grimace every time I remember his face.
I liked his brother though. I admired him. He had big, bulging muscles. He could do ‘presshups’ and 180’s. He could play the piano, and sometimes he would dance in his tights on the verandah outside with the gate thrown wide open and the music blaring loud, so that the children and some adults from the neighborhood could watch and cheer, and be jealous about his talent, and go gossip about him some more. We went to watch him dancing several times at the National Theatre, whenever Namasagali put on a play. Eh, mama! He could dance!
The two brothers would bring home strange movies, and slot the tapes in the video deck to watch. They didn’t care whether we sat in the sitting room with them or not. The images on the screen would be grainy. There would be people lying on the floor doing things that I could barely make out. There would be grunting sounds. Sometimes I would see a naked woman’s breasts. Sometimes the man would squirt white stuff that looked like milk over the woman’s chest. Or in her mouth, and she would swallow it. I never saw where the milk came from.
The two of them always had magazines lying around too. I remember a story where a man in the bush sucked sugar from a girl’s private parts. I did not understand it. Later, I would tell myself that that was why the magazine was called Candy. Then I would shrug and shake it off.
Or I would tell myself that I had shaken it off.
Little kids love to play Mummy and Daddy. Sometimes we would stray from the conventional white tantatala and stuffy little suit the boy groom would have to wear for the solemn, “I do,” ceremony. We would try and play the games that the white people played in uncle’s movies. We experimented in hiding, under the blankets when we knew the adults were not around. There was a thrill to it, perhaps because we knew that it was bad manners.