Waiting for a quickie

The lack of creativity in the booze business is ridiculously sobering. Club owners could have escaped scorning eyes only if they did not repeat themselves like scratched CDs.

Apart from bedding the beauties who entertain the Chimimbas in cash and kind, some of them rush to name their joints after flashpoints of news such as Baghdad, White House, Benghazi, Khalifonia, Casablanca and Mpumulo wa Bata.

“Nearly all pub-owners are sexually restless,” says Chimutu, who tells tales for a living.

 “That’s their business until it starts affecting me,” argues Chimimba, my potbellied neighbour who mixes soft drinks and sex workers.

Welcome to another “Mpumulo wa Bata”, a pub whose bearded proprietor has just disappeared with the stunning bartender. Meanwhile, we nurse our hiccups—these airlocks— and discuss the things they do at our expense.

“What happened to customer care?” asks Chimimba as the lady returns.

“A quick round, please,” I tell the sweating bartender who is adjusting her skirt.

 “How much is a round, sweetie?” asks Chimutu, whose stories will not foot the bill.

Whatever round he means, the bartender rudely tells us she isn’t for sale. Of course, she is already taken by her boss. But all I want are cold ones. The rest of the rounds she knows or shares are vanity to my thirsty throat.

 “Beer, please,” I remind her majesty the bartender.

Quietly, she takes three bottles from a humming freezer, places them on the counter and stabs us with an eye that says: If a monkey wants the mountain, it will go there.

“Send the young man to come and collect it,” she says while pointing at Chimutu.

I am shocked. Surely, no mountain follows a monkey, but a bartender is not above drunkards. We disagree.

 “Booze and bill, madam!”

 “Come and get it!”

 “Bring it over here or find somebody to do so!”

“That’s not my job!”

 “But you can still help?”

“Who are you for me to kneel down and serve you?”

As the rap continues, Chimutu leaves his stool and goes to the counter to get it. The beer-begging storyteller has no choice.

Fortunately, the bottles are as cold as they can be at a pub that disappoints customers. I open one, but my soul wants away.

How can I leave when Chimutu  is already sipping his? Equally busy is Chimimba. He approaches the counter and staggers back with a crate for us.

If all liquor buyers were like him, pubs would not be forested with storytellers. I thank him generously, as Chimutu jokes: “May all virgins be yours tonight.”

Strangely, the bartender, whom Chimimba wants to impress, looks offended. But he is not potbellied for nothing. He has unfinished business.

Actually, he keeps calling the stinging queen “honey” until the club owner reappears.

 “Are you safe, dear?” asks the boss.

“Sure, she is in safe hands,” replied flirting Chimimba.

 “When men gather to guzzle, I fear for you,” asserts the boss as he goes to hug her at the counter.

Just when we expect him to be lecturing her on customer care, he is kissing her as if she has won an Olympic medal.

Anger and suspense overtake us. Chimimba says the problem with dating bartenders is that they keep him waiting until they knock off without any guarantee that they will keep the promise.

He sips his sugary drinks bitterly as his focal point dances to her boss’ tune seductively. Around midnight, the pub proprietor comes down to show our friend the urinals.  He has already been there.

Typical of fun-seekers scrambling for stunning pub servants, one of them feigns sleep, but the other refuses to leave. In fact, Chimimba refills the crate as if the cocktail of new kwacha notes has value. Whenever the girl and the man go out, he trails them in body or spirit. For every cider she receives from her boss, Chimimba buys her a six-pack.

The cold war continues until we parted at dawn. With a lose-lose situation, Chimutu scoffs at how the shameless conduct of the possessive businesspeople affects their clients.

Being Zikatha, I ask myself why respectable people leave their stable partners alone and spend cold nights jostling for lovers without borders.

Is that how people who claim to be God-fearing spend  June in a country that depends on donation to reduce HIV and Aids?