AROUND the end of the month years back, one would know that people have gotten paid because bars and council taverns were filled to capacity.
You would also know that people were paid through the way they were buying the lagers or tins of apaque chibuku beer.
If they were four in the company, one would go to the counter and come back with eight bottles.
Just as he was sitting, another one would get up and come back with another eight bottles and the other two would simultaneously get up and get eight bottles each and their table would be filled with beer.
This, they used to call the ‘black table’.
One thing significant in those days was that many companies paid their employees at the same dates.
Pay days were common starting from 18, of each month and went on up to the last day of the month.
The most common pay days were 25 and 30 and so it was usual to hear housewives telling the people they owed saying ‘Mukese pa 25 or pa sate abalume bandi ngabafola’ (come on 25 or 30 when my husband gets paid).
However, today things are different some companies do not pay their employees on official dates. Even when people get paid, the scenario is different from those old good days when there were no Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) and the workers were getting their whole lump salaries at once.
With the ATMs in place nowadays, people get their money when it suits them.
So you don’t know whether one is paid or not.
That is why bars and taverns are never filled to capacity in recent times and there are no more black tables.
It is for this reason that I was recently surprised when I decided to have a beer at one of my favorite joints at a popular pub in Ndola’s town centre to find two pairs of ‘mixed doubles’ having a good time.
The pairs – two men and two women – had beers flowing like a tidal wave on their table.
I usually patronise this place and I know quite a number of people who drink from here.
But this group was strange. Where had these people come from with this fashion of buying so much beer at one time?
It was this kind of style they were using which reminded me of those old good days.
It was while I was thinking about these people when I heard someone behind me telling his friend that was the kind of life he used to lead in the late 1990s until up in the early 2000s, but would never want to get back to because of what happened to him.
The man narrated to his friend that his wife nearly deserted him because of that kind of life and he had made a fool of himself to his father who had come all the way from the village in Kasama to visit him because of such lifestyle.
As eavesdropper, I wanted to hear more.
What happened to this man? Why did his wife nearly desert him and why did he make a fool of himself to his father?
Well, the man who was being addressed to as Joe explained the full predicament to his friend:
It was in December 2005 when he got his salary, Christmas bonus and some other ex gratia.
When he knocked off from work, he decided to take a walk around and he met a good friend who was a general manager at a company in Ndola.
They greeted each other and had a chat together. As they were parting company, the manager friend pulled a wallet from his pockets and extracted some notes amounting to K500 which he gave him for his Christmas.
Salary, Christmas bonus, ex gratia and this K500 from a good friend!
He had the world in his pockets. Even if he went to the bar, he would only spend less than K300 on booze.
He would buy a lot of Christmas goodies for the family the following day.
Meanwhile, Joe’s father had come to visit him in August and it was agreed that he would go back to the village the following month, which would be September.
When September monthend came, Joe failed to dispatch his father because he had remained with very little money from his salary after paying all the people he owed and bills.
The story was the same in October and November.
And now, in December, he got his salary, Christmas bonus equivalent to his salary, the ex gratia which was half his salary and the K500 from a friend, he would solve all his financial problems once and for all because he had money burning holes in his pockets.
With this kind of money, he would do anything.
He would buy for his father a lot of salaula trousers and shirts and some blankets.
Apart from buying these, he would also give his father some money to use and buy seed for the approaching farming season when he got back to the village.
Joe was happy that his father would finally go back to the village because he was pestering him since September that he wanted to go back home.
He heaved a sigh of relief and decided to get to one of the popular bars in town to have one or two before he went home. After all, one beer never killed a man.
It was around 18:00 hours when Joe got into the bar.
He found two of his workmates who were already there settled at a corner with some two women. Their table was ‘black’ with some lagers and Joe joined them, but it was after he ordered eight castle lagers to put on the already filled table.
He was quickly welcomed and before he could know it, he was approached by a youngish damsel who greeted him as she pulled a chair to join him.
So it was now a company of three men and three women and life was at its best.
As the evening progressed into night, the stay in the bar had become so nice and the question of time did not matter now.
“My friends told me it was time we left, but I refused. I had found these guys here and they had drunk more than me. Why were they asking me to leave so soon?”’Joe was asking his friends.
So he remained with that dazzler as his friends left. After some time in this bar, the woman persuaded Joe that they change the venue because this place had become so overcrowded.
Joe agreed to this idea and instead of going to a night club or other bar, they went to a guest house.
The next thing Joe realised was that the sun was filtering through the window.
The bed he was sleeping on was not the one he had at home.
The arrangement of the bedroom was so neat it could not have been his.
Where was here and how did he come here?
Then he was coming back to his senses. He remembered very well the happenings of the previous night.
He remembered coming here with some beautiful woman, but where was she?
Joe noticed his shirt and trouser which were hanging on the hang wire on the wall.
He got up and fumbled for the pockets. He found a cellular phone and when he checked the time, it was 06:30 hours.
He fumbled in the pockets again to check for the money.
There was only a K50 note, probably deliberately left for his transport fare.
He explained that despite the head splitting hangover he had, he sobered up.
Everything had gone topsy-turvy. He did not know where to find that woman who undoubtedly stole his money.
He did not think he could even recognise her if he met her, but even if he did recognize her, chances of him recovering the money were zero.
The whole salary, Christmas bonus, ex gratia and K500 given to him by his friend gone! May be out of all the money he had he had only spent K300.
What was he going to say to his wife?
How was his father going to get back home to Kasama?
Where was he going to find money for school uniforms and books for his school going children when schools opened in January?
He had not even paid the people he owed ‘kaloba’, who was going to agree to lend money him again?
“I had never cried like a baby in my whole adult life, but this time I cried uncontrollably, especially when I thought of my father who was now stuck with me.
Surely he thought I was the biggest fool around.
This is not the kind of life I envy any more,” Joe explained as one of the men who were making their table black got up to make another round of 16 lagers.
Joe told his friend that he spent over one hour in the room hoping that the woman who stole his money would come back with the money but seeing that she would not, he made up his mind and went home and lied to his wife and father that he had been attacked by thieves and all his money had been stolen.
But with the kind of hung-over and beer reeking allover him, no one believed him.
His wife told him she had had enough of this and it was time she left. It was Joe’s father who pleaded with his daughter in-law to resist and stay because they had a lot of children together.
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