Years of bliss had rolled on until the crunch came for Lazzo’s mentor.
Later, he joined the ranks of the divorcees and widowers, a fraternity he found far removed from youthful radicalism and contention.
Like many pestered by various social distractions that sent them to the bottle, Lazzo’s mentor was no exception.
At the watering hole Lazzo had ran into the talk of the days with slantforehead man taking centrestage.
A sordid homicide case had erupted in the hood when a man was found lifeless in his house.
A curious passeby noticed a swarm of flies emblazoned on the wooden door signalling something fishy inside.
Soon, a crowd gathered in anticipation of the grisly find which turned out as anticipated.
The man had been living as a caretaker of a family estate and it took a bit of time for relatives to be discovered from far flung localities  away from the hood.
When on site, one of them  gave the greenlight to have the door bungled.
The man was fast decomposing and a revolting odour was in the interior of the dwelling.
The beleaguered family was advised to organise an instant post-mortem by hiring a doctor.
Owing to limited resources at the time of the mishap, it was decided to only deal with the formality..
In the aftermath, even acquaintances at the watering hole did not attend any funeral.
The watering hole was replete with the macabre find had provided considerable leeway for speculation and gossip.
Lazzo had another round of introspection.  If he were investigating this, he would be a perennial patrons at the watering and at the end of the day, he would tie two knots of the issue together!
The slantforehead man raised alarm at increasing lawlessness in the hood owing to a legion of unemployed and dormant youth.
“But today, there is no place free of these bad people and sometimes we tend to think that they are not being policed but it is just time for this growing problem,” said the round-faced patron.
His face was more of a businessman than a retiree that he was sipping away at his favourite lager at the watering hole.
“I refuse to accept the fact that these people are not working because I have personally come in contact with them at night when I thought they were not watching,” he continued after a somewhat long swig at the lager bottle.
For the love of leisure, he had ‘gate-crashed’ at a social function held in the confines of a home in a middleclass locality.
His deliberate acts of a drunken nature like placing a bottle of lager on someone’s laptop forced the organisers to flush him out through the gates.
When at the height of a typical drunken stupor, he would often lapse into queer and unpredictable behaviour.
As he sauntered home in a drunken stupor into  the night, he saw some car headlights flash into his face.
He stopped but in his drunken mind was trying to figure out what was happening around him.
In no time, he was surrounded by what he could only remember as  ‘people in black coats’ one of whom asked him three questions
“Who are you, where are you coming from and where do you live?.”
Some seconds ticked away before he replied that he was Lazzo’s  mentor going into the hood.
One of them ordered him into the car which had been parked off the road adjacent a block of shops.
He then explained that he had to cross the famous railwayline to find his way to the hood!
When  he got inside the car, it zoomed off first at a lower speed then accelerate and the car found itself on the highway towards the hood.
On the fringes of the hood, the car stopped and he was ordered to get out and find his way home in the precincts.
“Now on the double and get home fast because if our colleagues find you, you will be in a fix,” sternly warned one of them.
The driving contingent then made a sharp up round turn and sped off into the night.
Barely had he taken three steps was he again stopped dead in hi tracks by another patrol team.
When asked where he was coming from, he pointed at the speeding off car saying he had been brought by them.
One of them deduced that perhaps, he was coming from work as a security guard.
They then again ordered him to proceed fast and not be found loitering…
Since he had been dropped in the deeper section of the hood, he had to think fast because he had an acquaintance who was a regular patron at the watering hole and lived near there.
He approached a rickety structure with a chain strapped through the door adjoining the wooden frame.
Fortunately, it was not fastened tightly and his mates inside had had a merry evening at the watering hole and were sleeping soundly without evening noticing his homecoming.
It was only the early morning after the callboys hollering for passengers by the roadside that  the  review of  what transpired the previous night began in earnest.
There was a brief lull in the flow of the conversation at the watering hole as Lazzo’s mentor took another swig from his dwindling bottle.
There was another power interruption which many had began to take as a signal to depart and find sanctuary home in candlelight.
Lazzo was to follow-suit because the contents of his bottle were reaching the rock bottom of the glassy container.
But the overriding lament was that many would miss the Premier League soccer match billed to have been beamed that  evening.
However, ardent finds were soon scouting for alternative venues to continue their leisurely pastime which was heavily dependent on hydro-electric power.
Lazzo observed that the rigmarole had  lately become a routine preoccupation of patrons at the watering hole.
Many could be seen trooping out of the premises like a fraternity abandoning a village which would later be called a deserted homestead!