Perched on a stool strapped with animal skin and facing the wide open large door, Lazzo is treated to loud music as usual.
A stone’s throw away, is a young man ferrying bricks on a wheelbarrow to the bricklayer’s home for safekeeping at dusk. Nay, they cannot be safe in the incomplete adobe brick wall structure at night when prowlers would have a field day hauling the bricks away for sale to another builder!
The hood harbours a myriad of characters that go by many names depending on their speciality.
Common descriptions surface and amongst these are pickpockets, burglars, fraudsters and a legion of other tags …
As Lazzo listens to the blaring local hit, within earshot is a conversation about bereavement in the hood which coincides with the lyrics that discusses mankind’s hypocrisy.
The singer propagates the view that his dirge should be blunt about who is whether a prostitute, a thief or some deranged man …!
“You see, this man had been on the run for some time now, while his accomplices were still at large …,” said the man tilting his bottle towards his mouth and seemingly enjoying the trickle-down effect of the alcoholic drink’s flow down his throat.
This act is complemented by the sentimental tune that has enjoyed the populist airwaves acclaim including Lazzo’s mentor who was engrossed in a long swig at his plastic disposable cup. He too was enjoying his favourite mix of brandy and coke and was lost in his own world and appeared insulated from the sound pollution!
“It was rumoured that the late man was involved in all sorts of mischief including the clandestine sale of precious stones.
This man was a mercurial all-rounder and he was involved in about anything you can imagine,” continued the storyteller.
He continued to disclose that one time the man as a fraudster stole a blank cheque leaf and wrote a figure for withdrawal on it.
The fraudster befriended a bank account holder and persuaded her to have her account deposit the cheque.
Sooner or later, the person whose cheque book was tampered with reported the matter to the lawmen who quizzed the account owner who was also used to round up the fraudster(s).
The hapless account holder later recounted how she was promised a token of appreciation for having her account used for which she spent several days under lock and key as an accomplice.
As for the stone dealing, the man was hired to sweep a stone cutting room at some residence in the low density area in the eastern side of the city.
When he noticed a vast array of stones in a jar placed on a table, he began to have ideas!
After some aimless loitering in the house to steer clear of the master, he soon found a chance to pick one of the stones from the jar.
At this point, the owner noticed what had happened as he was too familiar with the contents of vase. As the outlaw went outside in the dark, he discovered that the stone in his pocket emitted some light!
His employer deliberately made him knock off slightly late and meanwhile, he arranged with a plain clothes man to nab him outside a popular bakery. He deliberately drove the man to the bakery and asked to buy bread for the following day.
But as he walked out of the bakery, he was accosted by a man he did not know who whisked him off to the owner’s residence.
By this time, the employer had driven back home alone …
He was ushered into the living room where the owner was waiting with some members of his family.
The plain clothes man asked him to empty his pockets and at this request, his heart beat faster with fright!
“We do not want to search you but you can save us the trouble by searching yourself and emptying the contents before us!,” said the plain clothes man.
The beleaguered man saw that he was cornered and knew that he was cornered but he was still confused because he did not expect to be found out as he thought he had been meticulous in his pinching of the precious stone!
At first, he merely indicated the presence of the stone in his pocket unashamedly with the cunning of an unrepentant rebel.
“Please get the stone out of your pocket and stop wasting time!” warned the plain clothes man.
The pilferer of the stone reluctantly fished out the stone from his trouser pocket and neatly placed it on the coffee table.
He was later cautioned that he had stolen the stone for which he was answerable. The man was whisked away as the plain clothes man escorted him to the car …
The hood was replete with stories of the late outlaw who was also very well-known at the local watering hole the citadel of gossip and drool.
“The man had the fastest sleek fingers in the hood and what was known at the time of his death was but a tip of an iceberg,” said Lazzo’s mentor who was now past the inebriation stage.
It was ironic that at this level, he became quiete fluent and subscribed to the notion that some people needed an above average dose of alcohol to stop their shivering whenever they held even a glass of water!
To overcome this, they needed to get more of the alcohol they were accustomed to as a means to remedy the instability in their movements.
But Lazzo had also known the fact that society had propagated the evils of alcohol for decades and centuries to no avail.
When he tried to advise an imbiber not to take brandy without a mixture, the man he was imparting some wisdom to later turned out to be another home-bred gin guzzler.
“You haven’t seen a doctor smoke?,” he chided back as Lazzo gave up the fight leaving it to posterity to determine.
Like every other event in the hood, the outlaw’s demise was no exception to undertones of gossip and sometimes loud censure …