HER voice was getting croaky and somewhat bass-like and making many a listener seem to think that her vocal chords may have dilated to make her sound like a man!

Owing to  her incessant imbibing of the celebrated local gin called by many names among them ‘Kachasu’.  Apart from her lustful attachment to the drink, she also smokes and would also make one conclude she could do anything for a smoke!

In her relentless flirting, she had become pregnant and she identified one of the men in Lazzo’s neighbourhood.  Apparently, the man told her point-blank that he was not interested to be named father of her child.

Having known she was pregnant, she did not want to be a laughing stock in the neighbourhood among her peers and so she hatched a plan of self-annihilation by drinking a popular insecticide.

This fateful day, she lay groaning on the ground in her dingy room with froth forming on the mouth when one of her relatives stumbled on her.  She alerted the neighbourhood and someone suggested they administer milk to resuscitate her.

Despite forcing the nutrient down her throat she appeared somehow ‘above the horizon of survival’ and in the process was rushed to a compound clinic.  

As the poison circulated, she messed up and out came a developing foetus.  She blinked and there was a sigh of relief from her anxious relations.

Lazzo was walking towards the watering hole when he met Maria’s confidante Dondo a household name in the locality for her liberal lifestyle.  

There was a man by the roadside wanting to send a teenage boy to call her when she was greeting Lazzo.

In these parts, one did not have to go straight into the yard and start talking to a woman as if it were in the white man’s land where one could call their parent by their first name and they could not raise an eyebrow.

This was Africa where one could be considered rude and without respect for elders for even talking to their daughter in their prescence albeit at a distance.  

One had to be discreet.  Lazzo noticed the other man eager to meet Dondo and he cut short his greeting.

Still, while at the watering hole, Lazzo wa a celebrity for instituting what was widely acclaimed as a ‘black table’  In essence, the latter term referred to a table laden with countless bottles of lager in a maze of overindulgence.

There were men known for exhibiting flair for ‘blacktables’ and they in the long run acquired a tag of being ‘big buyers’ another euphemism for philanthropy or charity.

In fact calling someone a ‘big buyer’ according to Lazzo’s thinking was a syntactical error because a generous person should be described as considerate and not referring to his stature.  

It was also like the commonplace cliché of ‘topping up’ which he had heard in neighbourhood.

There was no such thing as ‘topping up’ but ‘adding to a balance’ if one had to start thinking like an accountant.

As Lazzo was embroiled in his deep-rooted thinking which someone described as ‘pensive reflection’ a man who sat next to him recounted the recent episode in the hood involving Dondo.

“In fact, the man who made her pregnant goes about selling stones and he is a polygamist. How do you as a young woman settle down in a relationship with such as man?,” the man with a rotund face with his eyes popping out with excitement beamed.

He had just downed his bottle of lager and was contemplating buying another one and momentarily stopped as another equally interested contributor cut in: “I hear that the man as we are talking is in trouble because there was car that stopped and after an argument, he was forced to get in and he h as not been back in the neighbourhood,” said the other man who seemed to have gathered some extra facts about Dondo’s boyfriend.

The watering hole was replete with information about anyone residing in its precincts and it was like some surveillance device hovering over everyone including Lazzo.  

In fact, it is a dangerous proposition to flirt with a married woman in the hood because the camera-like network focussed far and wide.

Someone introduced a talk about possible reconciliation between a couple that had gone on separation as another interjector cautioned against the habit of going back to where one hails from as risky.

“One would go faster than they came on earth if they dare entertain thoughts of the ‘schoolboy romance cliché of ‘baby- come back.  Like our own friend in the hood, he has been away from that woman for a long time.  I even know her current boyfriend.  It is not safe!,” he emphantically registered his point as he took a swig at the bottle which was now becoming lukewarm as it had defrosted considerably.

There was commotion outside because a passerby had intercepted a woman embracing another man he considered to be close to her female relative.  

After some heated monologue, the woman sauntered away satisfied she had vanquished her erring adversary.

In Lazzo’s estimation, the woman who did not have much to say except to say she was sorry for embracing her acquaintance appeared ‘civilised’ and had no penchant for roguish behaviour so common in the hood.

It was getting dark and Lazzo saw streams of outgoing members of the opposite sex heading towards a popular night club in the hood.  

Their life was just gaining momentum and would be at its peak towards midnight.

A friend once reminded Lazzo that when a woman of average looks begins to get very beautiful in the glare of electric light, that was a sure time to call it quits from the watering hole because that perception was a pointer to one getting tipsy.

Lazzo felt he was on the dizzying heights of issues at the watering hole and this signalled his imminent exit from the social roundtable whose deliberations never seem to end.