A series of events in the hood told Lazzo that the community had reached the bridge of reckoning…crossing into the new year after Christmas!
At the watering hole and elsewhere, talk was about what was on for the day and night which sends the whole world into a festive frenzy annually.
Lazzo’s mentor had disclosed that he had briefly abandoned his usual preoccupation to sell fire works!
He disclosed that this made him and family very happy in anticipation of Christmas.
Despite the unpainted walls and dilapidated interior and exterior of some dwellings, inhabitants were determined to light up their hearts by having their traditional cuisine of chicken and rice.
Lazzo had seen many Christmas eves to the extent he had lost count of which one was better than the other and he thought it was like most people’s birthdays.
But one thing was clear to him, these two important days were like man’s genetic structure.
The latter was like fingerprints and none is like any other so goes with the day some people still dispute as the birth of Christ.
If one however one was caught in the semantics of who was right or not over the ‘Day of the Saviour’ they would spend their whole time arguing and miss the melodrama or fanfare that goes with Christmas.
However, the initial days that signal the arrival of the ‘main day’ highly anticipated by many, these bring discomfort and loss.
In broad daylight, Lazzo had just seen a van loaded with electronic goods being loaded.
Someone in the crowd said:”You see, there is lot of stealing by some people so that they can celebrate Christimas.
This is why I think this is a dangerous time for anyone to leave the watering hole late!,” he concluded as he walked away from the curious crowd.
Lazzo recognised him as one of the reverent members of the fraternal hide out.
But little did he know that he would be the next victim of ‘Christmas Hunters’ in the name of hoodlums.
Disregarding the warning that people should put their eggs in one basket, Lazzo learnt the hard way.
He had developed this penchant to deposit his money in one of the jackets that hung in his room on the wall and occasionally would make a periodical withdrawal from there.
One day however, when he came home sloshed and could not differentiate the wood for the trees, someone had entered his room.
The front and only entry to his habitat had a poorly secured grill door on which he loosely hung a lock.
Someone in the hood had been noting his movements and knew when he was not at home.
When this person wanted to steal, he would pay a casual visit to the watering hole and notice that Lazzo was in the thick of sipping business.
After this, he would then go back undisturbed unsecuring the loose lock and then pull the grill back and push the door inwards!
Then he would head straight to the second room where the jackets hung and briskly frisk through their pockets picking any money he found.
Four days before Christmas day, Lazzo cried foul because the little cash he had ‘banked’ suspending all payments in readiness for Christmas was gone.
Six K50 notes, one K100 note had been fished out of their enclave by some night prowlers.
For some reason, Lazzo wanted to check on what was finally left in his kitty and to his horror, there was a single K50 note left for him.
He took the issue to the watering hole where consensus rested on the fact that someone familiar with surroundings and well known to the occupier must have created the mess.
In his usual manner of investigation, Lazzo sent one suspect to buy some pieces of pork from the roadside vendor.
After one hour, this person did not show up but opted to go to Lazzo’s place where he undid the loose locking system.
As usual, he gained entry and placed the pieces of pork on a wooden cabinet by the door.
By now, Lazzo had decided to buy eggs as an option and then went home.
When he arrived, he found the steel grill door including the wooden door both slightly open.
This scenario puzzled Lazzo who asked an adolescent neighbour what had happened and was told that some well known youth in the hood had been home…..
Lazzo then rushed back to the watering hole and summoned the pork buyer for a confirmation with the teenage witness.
The young lad testified that when the pork buyer entered the room he was not there and then the accused started rambling about his ‘statement’ which he called ‘Stutment’.
At this point, Lazzo was incensed and corrected him but like Isaac Newton’s law, the salvo had the pork buyer’s temper flaring in the wrong direction.
“I can’t steal from you, I am trying to explain this. Okay, if I have stolen it is like that, it is your own fault!,” he ranted as he walked away in fury leaving Lazzo and the teenage witness wondering.
It was the following day that confirmed that Lazzo was on the receiving end of the ‘Christmas hunters’ spree because this was like the last straw that broke the camel’s back.
The last sole K50 he had changed and the K30 change had all vanished into thin air.
Then he began to think about the flurry of activity that engulfed the hood during the festive period and what it meant to several people.
It must have been calamity amid euphoria.