AFTER a relentless search for a winning formula that never was, an infuriated gambler stunned the clientele in the hood when he expressed his disgust!
For an hour, he had been trying to hit the jackpot which reputedly sometimes shot over the K100 mark.
A row of five machines overcrowded with onlookers saw him get nowhere to reclaiming his initial stake of K10.
Fights had broken out here over anyone’s win when those on whom providence had smiled failed to share their win.
Lazzo had noticed over time that the culture of obtaining free money had moved from the street to the casinos in the hood!
The Mafia-like tactic of holding mini-bus crews to ransom on various routes entailed that each crew surrendered a token to the hoodlums.
When a bus stopped over to load passengers, one of the hangers-on at the station would step out and demand a sum from the bus crew through the conductor.
It is a vice that had hardly been noticed by those charged with law-enforcement and subsequently, everyone seems to have turned a blind eye to the scam.
This attitude seems to have spread to the gambling casinos which seem to have taken an upper hand in entertainment circles at the watering hole.
It has turned out to be a make-believe world for imbibing patrons to make lucrative walks between the counter and the machines.
As Lazzo sat with his mentor sipping the local opaque brew, they heard one patron say: “I do not like these machines because they encourage notorious behaviour that spoils the mood of the watering hole,” he said as he took a swig at his disposable cup.
“Yes, you are right because most of these youths you see do not go for work and they regard this as employment,” he said with a sense of disapproval.
As he said this, a youth in his early twenties entered the watering hole and looked straight at Lazzo. “I am always surprised that you pretend you do not know me but I know you and where you live,” he said seemingly soliciting for company.
In the hood, one had to have tact to mix with the fraternity or they would go very sober home!
At all costs, the young man had to elicit some response signalling the beginning of dialogue.
Soon, he was asked to collect a disposable cup from the bartender and he did as told. For him, the imbibing process had began…!
Meanwhile, a man in his early twenties who had unplugged the gambling machine off its power-supply socket and hoisted onto his shoulders had arrived at his dingy structure in the older section of the hood.
Here, he put it down and examined the points from where he would unscrew it to get to the chamber that stored the coins.
In fact, he was asked by onlookers why he was carrying away the machine and he replied that he needed to retrieve his K10 that the machine had ‘swallowed’ without giving him the chance to win!
Most onlookers were reluctant to intervene and from Lazzo’s point of view, he seemed to be one of those ‘notorious sons of the hood’ who made sure that anyone interfering with their business got hurt!
He understood the politics at play as all and sundry watched him make a bend towards his home.
In his mind, he had all the time in the world to unscrew the machine and extract his initial stake in form of coins.
But as matters stood, he would extricate more than his original stake and at this point, the matter became unscrupulous!
The matter was reported to the proprietor who did not have trouble identifying the whereabouts of the fugitive’s habitat.
As soon as he was about to unscrew the second fixation, he heard a knock on the door.
It was the proprietor accompanied by a uniformed lawman who stood astride the complainant.
“You are under arrest for taking away the machine to your home and meanwhile you can accompany us,” said the lawman emphatically.
This was the end of the drama mooted out of the desire to reclaim the initial deposit in a gambling machine.
The hood was replete with drama as the man was made to carry the gambling machine away from his house the way he had carried it from the watering hole!
Someone posted a statement in the air: “These people think that there are millions of Kwacha in those machines and they can do anything to even steal the machine!,” he said excitedly.
But Lazzo also noticed that the machines circulating in the hood were a far cry from the ones that he once patronised in the low density area.
The difference was stark in the design as the ones in the hood appeared portable whereas the ones he had risked a K10 as bait were not easily moved as they were larger and could be fixed to a wall!
Another misnomer was that some school-going children found pleasure in trying their luck at the portable machines!
The grapevine had it that these pupils who played truant would carry books and pretend they were going to attend classes yet were out gambling in the neighbourhood casinos which were increasing by the day.
But the psychology surrounding the machines had not changed since the days Lazzo won K1,000 from one of the gambling devices!
He vividly recalls one poignant episode when the coins rattled down to the basin that this raised eye-brows and he saw bystanders drawing near.
Their intention was obvious: To share the earning!  At first, Lazzo hesitated but his mentor whispered to him. “This is how they do it here, when you win, you give away some of it!”
Since that realisation, Lazzo had found it hard to reconcile the notion of generosity when one wins and what right bystanders had to anyone’s win on the premise that they were near when the gambler had millions tumbling down like a tonne of bricks…