LAZZO’s lifestyle had rapidly degenerated from his long penchant for the favourite J.C. Les Roux drink  to the opaque sachet!
The transient route had seen the usually eager acquaintances at the watering hole vanish into oblivion…
It had been quiete an exasperating  avenue to nowhere but he was here to still face occasional censure!
One critic accused him of having wads of cash that made him very excited because when he moved from one watering hole to the next, he usually hired cabs.
In one cab was his jacket while the next carried a cluster of women out to have fun with him.
But over time, Lazzo had laboured to explain that in fact, this was a figment of imagination wrought by critics envious of his fortune!
However, over the years he attested to the fact that propaganda had longer arms than the truth.
Again, in a metaphorical sense, this  would be plausible if one assumed that  propaganda and the truth were mobile beings!
“Now, you should have been an unquestionable millionaire with that sum of money that most of us never had!,” quipped one  patron with intent to strike response.
Deep down inside, Lazzo began to delve into some instant introspection.
“What is the source of this perception or am I not doing enough to survive like the rest of these people?,” he thought to himself.
The man who had asked the key question was wiping the opaque brew dregs from the corners of his mouth as his eyes popped out in elation and later reverted to their normal configuration.
Seemingly, he was just past the inebriation stage and was headed for intoxication in a couple of hours!
That’s when wheelbarrows were brought to the doorstep of the watering hole for delivery to home sweet home for one or two revellers!
With the coming of various improvised brands in the hood, the average imbiber appeared inclined to make concoctions!
“They can never wipe out this drink because even in America the whites there failed to ban it!  What happened when they tried was that they merely made the drink expensive and was drank from places called shebeens!”  retorted a young man at being advised against  the spirit.
His mate had advised him and said from his experience, with the passage of time, this brand of drink was lethal.
Efforts to restrain the imbiber were fruitless as he went ahead to mix his concoction in full view of the patronage.
This patron with an occasional stammer when he spoke hailed from a family where being a security guard was the epitome of success!
The legacy of this occupation was being handed down to family generations at a gradual pace.
As the tempo of talk reached fever-pitch in line with the alcoholic pick-me-up effect, the slant forehead man leaned to Lazzo as he slightly shifted position on his stool by the counter.
“Your neighbour has gone rounds in the hood for clobbering missus for unexplained reasons, “have you heard anything about  the indaba?”
“Not exactly, but I heard a bit from the man three houses away whose missus usually engages in the usual early morning gossip at the communal tap,” Lazzo said hoping to get more insight into the issue.
“You se,e as black Africans, we have not changed our ways despite modernisation because punishing a wife for wrongdoing dates back to our ancestral days,” he said as he adjusted his position with his bossoms.
He took a long hard sip from his plastic cup and almost blinking at its mirth.
There was a kind of ‘thirst-quenching’ reprieve when the liquid sank down the throat, gullet or aesophagus!
It felt like the elation of a smoker taking a long puff at his cigarette and getting some satisfaction or contentment only they can explain or define.
The cigarette issue also veered his concern to a lyrical line he had listened to recently.
The composer was analysing their life which they likened to the existence of a cigarette!
“Even those without teeth and have a foul smell in the mouths all smoke me!,”  ran the lyrics.
Lazzo interpreted this to mean that the cigarette was unleashing its lament as a consumer product that provides pleasure to many!
The slant forehead man was now at peak and was delivering what sounded like a lecture to the patronage rather than a two-way rapport or dialogue…
“In the village, bedroom issues were not for public discussion but now we have something unthinkable which has come our way because your spouse can bring a man in your house and you are not expected to react!”
He narrated how his previous spouse would drink her head off and come home staggering in the dead of night…
“What? I can’t allow that to happen in my home because it would mean that instead of marrying someone, I Lazzo would be married!,” Lazzo declared as entry into the fray!
“Then you should be prepared to go behind bars for any physical reaction on your spouse,” said a contradictory lone voice from the extreme end of the counter.
“In the past, we used to see many households holding puberty dances for our teenage girls but now, this seems to be a thing of the past!,”  intoned another imbiber.
He further charged that it was now difficult to determine by looking whether  a girl was a mature virgin at above sixteen years or not!
“There is no teaching of morality to these girls anymore while they seem eager to mix with adults fit to be their parents,”  said another patron who took a quick glance at a dimunitive girl seated on his right side taking a swig from a lager bottle.
She carried on her preoccupation rather absentmindedly like one cut off the moral grilling near her.
“Please just make sure that any girl you entertain has a national registration card to ascertain her age or you are in for a fix!” chided another partaker who was seemingly enjoying the discourse.
Lazzo was bracing for a blackout soon.  He had read a media timetable that listed the facing one in the next ten minutes!