AFTER a gruelling argument over the roadside station, there was a free-for-all punch up between rival gangs.
Lazzo drew near the watering hole in a bid to get to grips with the crux of the matter.
A woman who sympathised with one of the protagonists was a recipient of a vicious slap that ‘made her see stars’!
She narrated to a pensive Lazzo that she had previously ran away from the premises heading inward.
The fleeing victim found a stranger’s house with the door ajar and proceeded to seek refuge as she was being pursued by rival male
gangsters.
While in there, she picked up an unloaded brazier and unleashed it in the face of the pursuer!
“I think my brother is badly beaten by now wherever he ran to while the other man must be bleeding by now,” she said while gasping for breath.
She was clearly beyond the inebriation stage and was plainly high on alcohol.
Someone in the crowd whispered to a bystander colleague that the woman was well known for picking fights in the hood.
Maria was briskly handed a bottle of lager by one of the patrons who appreciated her beauty despite her cantankerous behaviour.
She is usually known by her loud voice in the hood calling out to one of her neighbours as a morning greeting addressing them by the names of their siblings!
Once, a patron at the watering hole, her advised her to ensure that her children appeared clean in public because in one instance, they had flocked to  her favourite entertainment spot complaining of hunger at the house.
The slant forehead man is on record as having advised her to make sure children were clean because they projected the conditions at home.
“I don’t like that man because one day he shouted at me over the appearance of my children,” said Maria to a patron next to the
slant forehead man.
To Maria like most women in the hood, ‘shouting’ to them is not really raising one’s voice but means defamation or derogatory language.
In fact, factual advice turns out to be dreaded as ‘shouting’ to them.
So in this context, the slantforehead man according to the hood diction, had ‘shouted’ at Maria.
Lazzo’s mentor had once asked Maria to help her find a customer for an old television set which he was selling to improve his liquidity at home.
His mentor laughed his head off when most of her kind who expressed interest in the electronic device said they all wanted a ‘21’ inch screen!
They determined the size of the screen by merely looking were erroneously lumping together all smaller screen sizes as ‘14’ inch!
This development amused Lazzo who asked his mentor not to waste his time dealing with a cluster of women that did not know the difference between speaking loudly and counseling!
Again, they were referring to the rising dollar and insisted the price be kept to the barest minimum.
This shrewd bargaining episode had reached the confines of the watering hole.
“Do you know why they are deliberately keeping the price down?,” asked the slant forehead man.
Lazzo nodded sideways the common way of denoting ‘no’ and the man bluntly stated like an excited detective: “This is because between
them, they would like to resell the TV set at a higher price and bring the proceeds to the watering hole!,” he declared to the empty-headed looking mentor by his side.
Now, it was beginning to dawn on Lazzo on what sort of female Maria was.
She had spent her formative years in the hood and dropped out of primary school in lower grades.
Since then, she had been noted as the ‘prima donna’ of the hood who had a ‘clever-clever’ personality but barely literate enough to write her name.
There was no issue involving any member of the watering hole she did not know about including an attempted rape when she was saved by her pair of trousers.
She confided to Lazzo that once, she was walking in the dark when from a house nearing completion round the bend, one son of the hood grabbed her towards the gaping dungeon.
She screamed and then passersby in the hood came to her rescue as her tormentor fled into the night!
Next morning as usual in the hood, her parents confronted the son of the hood who lived with his parents.
The ‘offending family’ tendered their unreserved apology and the matter was buried …
Deep down inside, Lazzo observed that various crimes had been ‘nipped in the bud’ or glossed over this way in the hood.
At the far end of the counter, there was an argument about the gambling machine.
A punter claimed his rival had pressed the button twice meaning that his playtime had been robbed!
There was another punch-up and one young man fell with a thud and bleeding from the mouth …
Apparently, one gambler had been known to be a bully and pounced on anyone winning large sums of money!
Again, Lazzo entered his usual realm of introspection revising the past.
He saw too much despair in the hood that led some citizens to act desperately as compared to his heydays.
The last 50 had been but a bulky dossier of human experience that needed reflection on the lines he had seen inscribed on the watering hole wall.
This piece of philosophy was unique in the hood because it was written in English.
The customary way of reaching out to the patronage was usually in the local language such as “Dziko ni bantu” (The country means people) or “Namwela zanga” (I have spent my own money on beer”.
But this typical assertion read: “We use the past to project the future as we live in the present”.
Indeed times were changing in the hood as evidenced by neat structures dotted amid some dilapidated dwellings whose height would make one deduce the little means of yesteryears.
Maria was at it again, right at the entrance of the watering hole shaking her bossoms to a local tune simply titled” Johana” to the amusement of the patronage.
She bent over and touched the floor while her legs were helping to steady the mesmerising wriggling of the waist!