Proverbs 27:22 Though you grind a fool in a mortar, grinding them like grain with a pestle, you will not remove their folly from them.
Lazzo sat perched on his favourite stool and listened to the endless noisy debate at the watering hole.
He wondered of all people why  this typical patronage at variance with holy  matters would want to sound pious!
But it was all drunken talk complimented by very loud music which reminded Lazzo of the old ‘beer halls’.
In the dimly candlelight which had taken over illumination after an hour’s power cut in the hood life seemed to have taken a lull.
On his way to the watering hole, Lazzo had met an acquaintance who was heading home so early.
Lazzo brainstormed over what had hit the man because he was not the one to retreat so early in the evening.
Then he quickly realised the social pattern in the hood which was dictated by the  mid-month money-supply graph which which seemed to plummet to its lowest ebb midstream before suddenly rising to its peak as the month registered the last day…
As Lazzo shifted to take a long swig from a plastic mug inundated by cigarette smoke, his mentor reclined his head to his ear.
“That youth in the corner fidgeting with his phone in the corner is  a dangerous hoodlum who recently was involved in a crime.  I wonder how such characters manage to avoid the long arm of the law!,” he said whispering.
“Do not look at him directly, he might have a cue we are talking about him. But the best thing is to avoid him completely whenever you find him…” he concluded avoiding looking in the hoolum’s direction.
But before Lazzo’s mentor could fully effect his evasive act, the hoodlum walked over to where the two were sitting and asked for a cigarette.
Lazzo’s mentor had barely gone half-way through it when he surrendered the pollutant to the rather autocratic character.
He was more of a dictator than one persuading anyone to give him what he wanted.
“That’s the best way to deal with them, give them what they want and you will be home and dry!,” quipped Lazzo’s mentor.
Lazzo’s mentor continued that at his age, he has been involved in several criminal activities in the hood and the latest was when he deflowered  someone senile!
The western wall had now become a casino as the gambling machine craze that had swept through the hood in recent times.
All age groups seemed to have been overwhelmed by the coin spinning machines.
Lazzo’s mentor again drew attention to an elegant woman who had gone past her prime but still ranked high in terms of the acceptability rating chart.
She was also divorcee in the hood whose children have gone to their early marriages and now she behaved like a spinister.
It  was rumoured that she spent most of her time spinning the slot machines and managed to raise enough money to pay for rent.
Lazzo was amused by this turn of events because in his heydays, he had met such women at low-density hotels who even raised enough money to build some rickety structure in the hood!
Now, the gambling machines were a source of skirmishes as sometimes there deliberate acts intended to provoke  one another.
He witnessed an incident when one gambler slotted in a coin and almost instantly another one slotted in his bait.
When the machine flashed awin on the screen and the coins started rolling out, there was a scramble for them which momentarily turned into a scuffle.
The machine  minder  I ntervened to settle the score by ordering the winning gambler to surrender his rival’s single coin!
In contrast to Lazzo’s   heydays, the atmosphere at the hotel did not allow such mischief.
“I want the ‘boma’  to remove these things because they are asource of discontent,”  disclosed an elderly man to Lazzo.
He said that his friend’s  marriage was  now on the rocks because of  these wretched machines.
His wife had gambled away the home’s upkeep money and now it had led to a violent separation between the couple.
Lazzo sympathised with the man’s  wish to have the machines banished oblivious of  the operator’s  licence.
But such reasoning was rife in the hood on many facets of life that sometimes Lazzo chuckled to himself at how many issues were understood.
“Tell us, we hear the price of maize has gone up and now what next?,” asked a patron in his late thirties.
Lazzo had to labour to explain that the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) would be buying maize at the announced price.
“But don’t you think that is the beginning of higher prices still?,” asked another.
“What I know is that if you are selling maize, the government agency will buy it at the announced price,” Lazzo tried to calm down the intensity of the debate.
“Please, this man is not the government and so spare him the trouble of explaining this matter troubling you,” cut in Lazzo’s mentor handing him a plastic mug of opaque brew.
In the adjacent direction, another heated debate was raging as Lazzo realised this was a matter of immense magniture.
The best one could  do hear even if they had the best answer was to take a low-profile stance and then continue imbibing in peace!
Lazzo’s  mentor’s timely intervention had brought tranquility to the watering hole.
He had also learnt another lesson for the day which he would apply another day.
Lazzo recalled a lyrical line in one composition in which the musician asserted; “He who runs from a fight,  lives to fight another day!”
It  was getting late as the streets were getting sparsely populated as pedestrian traffic had dwindled to the barest minimum.
This was a pointer to calling it  quits  from the watering hole and already Lazzo felt well past his inebriation stage.
“After this mwana, we should be heading home,” declared Lazzo’s mentor who did dispute what sounded like an order owing to his past experiences in the hood…