HoneyCrisp 9. Arkansas Black

I don't like animals. I have nothing against them. They don't pay tax. We humans do. At times councils demand tax on these furry creatures which we humans pay. These furry creatures can demand their rights violently. Try pulling the tail of a cat or a panthers leo!

9. Arkansas Black

They discussed for some time on the changes he wanted. She had her own ideas that just sprung up like heated popcorn in an oily pan. Thanks be to the art classes she had taken from junior to senior high school. She didn’t sketch canvases. She could make sketches of what she saw in her mind turning an apartment into an entirely different thing altogether. Where did the ideas germinate from? She wondered who was the manager of her mind's inexhaustible supply bank.

Did they come from the deep recesses of her sub-conscious mind? That and reading from other established designers helped her creative juices to keep flowing. The flat was basically unfurnished. The other artistes had been through with cleaning and making it presentable. Electrical fittings had been replaced in some places. The paint job was looking smart after a clean-up. It was like a blank canvas to an artist. She checked the quality of the brick work, tiles, ceiling poking her light into nooks and crevices. Pussy In Boots was the cat of the children's colouring books. He had frightened a little mouse under the queen's chair when he had visited London. Her lights frightened a few cockroaches and creeping crawlies. There were no spiders, no mice or house trained rats. With spiders, she would have done the hop, skip and jump onto the nearest thing above the ground. With mice/rats, she would have jumped towards the ceiling shrieking like an express train going past a small stop over.

“I will need to know the colour of your lounge suite. It should match or contrast with the curtain arrangements. How was it made? The type too. There are many types there days including the old wood frames ones in different materials. Is it leather?”

“That is why I wanted to stick to sitting on two or three standard bricks. You don’t worry about colour or fabrics to cover them. You only worry about ants climbing up your ankles. It’s leather, black in colour. Any colour fits in obviously. It's a two by two seater then two singles to make six people sitting at the same time.”

“Black is a neutral colour,” she had agreed. “You do have great tastes for a man. Most will just worry about where the television set sits, their shoe rack and their beer bottles. As a man living alone you will may not appreciate flowers. Real flowers will add life to any room. They don't cost much to maintain.

“Artificial flowers on the other hand can still give colour though real ones breathe life if they are maintained. Maintenance of real flowers includes using a wet cloth to dust their leaves, watering/spraying etc.”

“I am a radio disc jockey. At the same time because of that part-time profession I do work as a master or director of ceremonies at events mainly weddings and birthday parties. Besides which mid-week I am a comedian on two joints even on radio. I wouldn't find time to go through flowers dusting or checking their state of health. Flowers I last maintained at my parental home in Macheke had roots in the ground not vases! They ordered me several times at Macheke Primary school to weed and water flowers against my wish. I tended to have either talked too much in class or been caught pranking the girls!”

“I haven’t heard your shows, yet! If I have, it was the radio playing low volume while I did some chores. I haven’t heard your shows I am sure. I would have recognized the voice. You have wise cracks no wonder you were made to pick the stones with your fingers.”

“And they blamed me when the same stones landed in the butts of a few students. Do tune in. You call me when you and the folks are ready to do the makeover.”

“Do you like wall hangings like tapestry, paintings and murals or wood carvings that tell a story? They are a beautiful way to adorn the passage, your bedroom and the lounge. They can be made to tell a story like family portraits. They are way better than a display of beer, spirit, whiskey, rum and wine bottles I saw somewhere.”

"I like anything that doesn’t require maintenance. I have never seen a beer bottle requiring maintenance. It doesn’t need to be fed or groomed like a cat. Anything unlike embroidery that needs elaborate washing, drying out and rearranging. When we grew up our home had starched knits, creations and dolls that required re-starching when washed. It made them look like new. Before they dried, our ball practice was suspended. Timing was needed to prop them up when the starch was drying. I don't want that! We took guard duty turns. Forgetting to pop them up resulted in a shin job or a hiding on the rump steak side.”

“Okay. Family portraits would do being of the same size arranged in certain patterns. Then there can be commercial wall paintings available from most shops like Meikles, OK Bazaars or Greaterman's or even here at Fife Avenue shopping centre. They make a tremendous impact to a room. They breathe life like good paint. That is why you have never seen four walls of a room painted in black.”

“That would require a three walled room to be painted black. Even with the lights on, you wouldn’t see a bag on the wall. And do minimize the budget.”

“Do you drink or were you born drunk. Maybe drink is a virus that keep mutating inside your bloodstream keeping you under the influence?”

“I drink like a fish sending water through its gills in search of oxygen. I take in volumes of drink in order to separate starch and sugar found in beer and like-minded beverages. I believe there are vats in my stomach with compartments which further ferment alcoholic beverages. If tea or coffee go down they irritate the mixtures therein. I think my stomach has filtering mechanism for alcoholic beverages which is beneficial to global warning. When they say drink, I abide! I am very loyal and obedient when you place a frothy glass in front of me. You don't need a judge to sentence me to binge drinking. I compete with myself.

"I like tasting wine too. They should have made me an alcoholic beverage tester or sampler. I actually applied. I was interviewed. The team looked at my big brown eyes and said Nada. I taste the whole bottle. If it is good, I start dragging my tongue and my head snaps in/out and back into joint. The medical marvel still beats me how we who drink do it. Going up a road at times we go in reverse when the force of gravity is too much. When spectators laugh at us walking in zigzag patterns, I feel sorry for the spectators. To drown their misery, I drink more.

"I do not keep a journal of my drinking escapades. There is so much to drink. When my father was young it was opaque home or scientifically industrial brewed beer, clear beer, wine and a few spirits like Bols brandy. Now it’s a variety with the traditional packaged opaque beer, wine, spirits, vodka, brandy and whiskey to name a few. I take as many samples as possible. Today it's Johnny Walker, tomorrow it's Bols brandy, the next day it's Heineken. When I sing or sneeze I know which is to blame.

"The state president knows not to trust me with secrets when I am imbued with alcohol. I now know why they don’t serve alcohol in prison. The noise would be picked up by enemy satellites orbiting the earth. They only ration cigarettes. That is why I didn't make it into the intelligence services. I would drink during a stake out and start laughing at convulsing faces. Can I have one Jack Daniels and water, with lemon please bar lady? I keep a crate for empty beer bottles. With some wine bottles, I go down to the trash can. Beer bottles are great for several reasons. If you are holding one empty one in the hand, it can help you bargain with thieves if you meet them in the night. They show up like mice or ghosts within alleys or behind stationery objects. A crate of empties can buy you a few beers.”

"So you can go up four flights of steps while drunk in the dead of the night with or without passage lights?" She asked. "Somehow with bat like radar guidance you know how to avoid stairs and passage pitfalls at night. Someone said set a thief to catch a thief. It should be set a drunkard to lead you to the den of thieves not lions! Panthera Leo and drinking don’t miss. Those cheeky bastards have no sense of humour."

"You missed out on the singing including playing instruments using my mouth for Mexican Whistler, Hey Joe, Candle In The Wind, If You Love A Woman, Don’t Worry Be Happy, Old Telegraph Pole, Born in the USA and Thriller to name but a few songs. The advantage of home territory is you end up knowing where you are going even without lights. I bet I can walk home eyes closed. I tried singing during the Ian Smith regime. We got canned for singing No Woman No Cry and Beast Of England. The drama club landed in water for doing recitations of Animal Farm by George Orwell. That is life."

"Do not force your opinion on beer on other people. I think they should make you advertise alcohol. Do they ever do alcohol road shows? I guess not, everyone would be walking in a stupor in broad day light. You make it as though you get paid to drink when it is the vice versa. I enjoy the dry seasons of my life. If alcoholic beverage manufacturers concentrated on the downside of drinking, they could show the scum of the parties."

"No I wasn't forcing my opinions down your thought chutes. I just wanted you to see where morality and decency goes when drinkers congregate around frothing ice cold bottles. You look at that bottle and you wish it were the queen of England. You curtsy towards it expecting the queen to knight you for bravery. Any man that drinks liquid that has fermented for several months needs a plaque on the corner of their street to remember them by.

“Drinking unifies a nation. They even tax beer by volume. It shows that we contribute to state coffers. The opposition and ruling parties agree on the composition of beer ingredients. The communists, socialists, the Greens, the Reds, capitalists, the terrorists, the far left, the near right, free market economists, even the National Party in Suid Afrika, ANC, Inkatha Freedom Party, PAC, the Democrats, the Loyalists, the Irish Republicans or US Republicans all drink! Maybe not together but their supporters drink."

"Do you sing when drunk to frighten thieves or cheer yourself up? You get into a tub with cold water, you try to swim. The beer goes out when the cold bites. Try looking direct at a street light you end up face looking at heaven on your back. Walk the straight line with a traffic police man and you zigzag. You get a drinking and driving ticket you argue your innocence. You then try your car keys at the police vehicle door."

She had not had such a talkative customer who kept her spirits high in ages.

"I also cheer the neighbours up. I up the ante by cheering bystanders, the trees, shrubs and strangers. People speak to their flowers. I do that to my beer/wine bottle when I am coming home. Then I do that to the jacaranda trees and climbers on residences. There is so much noise pollution from sirens, vehicles and radios that singing in the night soothes torn ear ligaments. People are starved of loud music. All they hear this section of high rise apartments are ambulance sirens or once in a fortnight the Christmas jingles of the presidential motorcade going somewhere for someone’s fingernail checkup. People are stressed every day. Thieves we perceive and tell them what we do including having black belts in kung fu. Singing is emotional so is laughing and crying at times at the same time. Dead drunk I even forget why I laughed. Being drunk is a spectacle. I should get an award for being a good drunkard. That is why tourists come to the bars for a frothy glass. They walk out laughing."

“Sadly I don’t drink. I do not like walking late enough to meet prowling thieves,” she had replied. "I was thinking of stowage of your beer, wine, fizz and others. Get rid of these plastic bottles with the refuse, properly. The bottles need not be visible like a conspicuous bodyguard of a politician. Bottles should not be thrown all over like popcorn in a cinema where people were watching a scary movie like Next Turn. A wooden rack would hide them away from view."

“Good for you. If you break the bottom and hold the bottle by the neck, no thief will come near you. Word of advice, don't put a bottle in your back pocket if you are going to sit down.”

“Thanks for the advice. I only use beer, wine and spirit bottles as decorative material. The different textures, feel, shape and colours of some bottles make good decorations. I am surprised that artistes with great skill design these apparatus. If sawed off and sand papered, they look like multi coloured wine, beer and spirit glasses. I don't trust drinking in these."

"At times I try to stop drinking. I have tried substitutes like water, and tea. Tea burnt my upper cleft badly. I ended up without a cleavage!”

“Philip!”

“The beer companies pay handsome wages/salaries. They have excellent training facilities including apprenticeships. They do wonderful sports, social support and sponsorship. They offer scholarships and bursary for tertiary education. Their employees hardly go on strike. I would have reduced my intake to maintain stocks plus to support the striking workers. Then nada, they hardly strike. Maybe they are afraid of losing their free beer allowances or club privileges. If I stop drinking, what will happen to the sorghum, yeast, sugar cane and hop farmers?"

He had her laughing.

"They will survive. Their produce will be used elsewhere. They can even produce other cash crops that don't dent your pockets too much. Like sugared popcorn you take down with real apple, lemon, mango or orange juice. They can even try cultivating wild flowers for our perfume scents. Who knows they may get contracts from Christian Dior. Who knows?"

"Think of the chain store liquor employees, the truck drivers delivering product, the tasters, sales representatives, refrigeration technicians, the laboratory technicians, managers and the government taxes too. Civil servants, teachers and nurses would strike! If the whole country goes dry, obesity will reign and ruin us. You see when we drink, we cry remembering those silly mistakes when we were going to school, failing to find the square root of 400. Drinking brings back memories of all, except it makes solved grudges resurface. It restarts old fights. It’s not drinking which causes fights. Those are spasmodic reactions by tensed muscles."

"As for me, just being home earlier will suffice. I will do what I can through consultation. Some colours brighten the room while others make it dark. You will need to repaint the lounge and main bedroom. The paint there is peeling. The same paint will do, light pink, orange or other light shades,” she had said.

"The bedrooms are definitely equal like two matchboxes made by the same company. Whichever can be the main one? They are boxes which are empty until filled in with bedding material. These flats were built way back before the AK 47 assault rifle had become popular with socialist communist leaning nationalists. After we took power, we couldn’t build the same flats so we continue buying and selling these old ones. Eish, how can we build new apartments when we export prime beef, cheese and tobacco to Moscow to pay for antiquated T-something war tanks rusting in our armouries? Take them to battle in Angola for instance, they self-implode on firing the first salvos before the SADF blast them out of their foxholes."

"Okkido."

"You know, a bishop, prophet, pope, arch bishop or president is asked for their opinion by their titles. It’s like President George Bush jnr, what is your take on the fact that US war machinery found no weapons of mass destruction in Baghdad? Others are asked, Prime Minister Tony Blair what do you think of the Falkland Islands which Argentine is claiming as their own? Me I respond in the pub when someone says to me, hey, drunkard wearing the Blackburn Rovers jersey, what's your opinion? Outside the drinking den I always give my opinion even if not asked for. Believe you me, when drunk I take my social responsibilities seriously. Nobody should start a mock fight when I am staggering along. I will make quick judgement and go in with a round house hook to the preferred ‘assailant’. Normally, people say I miss. If I do, I pick out grass, dirt and shrubbery from my clothes afterwards.”

“Philip please!”

They went down the steps together. It was easier going down than the reverse. Her compound use of energy going down was less. She didn’t need replace calories or make out sweat. He saw her as far as her Opel Astra hatchback in the residents' car park. The parking space was elaborate. There was one outlet manned by private security detail. Trees were spaced in and out of the car park. They livened the atmosphere of living in the city.

“Lady driven vehicles are always smart and good looking. They are not made to ride the kerbs and potholes like ours do. I always buy vehicles from ladies. Men will try to climb a tree in a VW Beetle. I don’t know why. When police attend a head-on collision where two men were driving, they almost need NASA scientists. It looks like debris from a space shuttle spaced all over the horizon like graffiti.”

“Thanks Philip.”

“Are you heading towards Fife Avenue shops by any chance?”

“I can drop you there,” she had said. “Do you need replenish the beer, wine or cigarettes?”

He laughed.

“No, I wanted to use the internet for research. Drunkenness for you who are teetotalers or non-drinkers, is a state of mind where you finish talking then you wonder what you were babbling about. I don’t even know why I want to challenge every opinion at the top of my voice. When drunk I am a very good philosopher. I also give free lectures though my head ends up hurting from swinging left and right. My neck, if it had been made in a fake goods factory in Asia would have needed ligament replacement by now. You feel you need to talk about every subject presented like a politician addressing a banker’s convention. They just open their mouth. An hour later, they are horribly off topic talking about the Crimean War. You forget whom your enemy is the moment you finish sipping alcoholic beverages. Alcoholics don't poison one another. Only the Russians do, to "extremists" opposing them. We love each other be it the opposition or the ruling elite. That is why they send their intelligence operatives in amongst us to gather information. The information bank will be wide open, no need to break the locks.

"Alcohol sharpens both the tongue and memory. Sorry for any secrets you might have told a drinking person. Opaque beer on the other hand or what they call traditional brews made in the modern scientific preservative way is the best way out of a thin body. If a man has a lady like voice, they should try opaque beer. It brings out the bass in the body. Why? Don’t ask me. If a man wants a pouch for a stomach, if they want to look like they are a third of the way pregnant, drink opaque beer. The problem is scientists haven’t yet solved the puzzle of why it only enlarges the stomach. It is a good product to change a voice to a rasp! If North Korean intelligence is after you, use it to change your voice though you may not fit through steel bars like before.

"The best way to a drinker's heart is through his trusted bar persons and their circle of imbuing chums. When drunk especially in these upmarket beer havens, I play all sports, snooker, billiards, cards and darts. I believe everyone wants to upset the defending champion, me. I believe everyone wants to hear my story or my side of the story. I just don’t do WWF wrestling in the drinking dens. That sports will take out your hip joints like Jacob fighting an angel. I laugh three times before I tell the story. I laugh twice while telling the story. I laugh twice after telling the story. Instead of the riot squad launching tear gas at protesters, thieves, politicians, demonstrators and children with beards, they should try free beer! Do you happen to know where the john is?"

"Philip!"

"Just remember the scintillating bits of advice though. Next time some drunkard comes to your church, think twice about condemning them. I don't condemn teetotalers or non-drinkers for life, I pity them. While you may need pray for drinkers at church, when church members come back to drink, we buy them one for the road. What do they drink? No wonder there is a shortage of water!"

"Philip please!"

"Hey, what did I say? I am a liberal soul full of laughter and life."

"I will try and remember that," she had said. "You do have some very wise cracks. Beer companies never talk about the problems drinking brings. Nobody wants to talk about the broken marriages, shattered dreams, alcoholism and broken families or lives. No one wants to talk of the broken careers of students who took their grants into the calabash and stopped their intelligence train. How many a professional stopped their career prospects because of drinking? How many people regret taking that glass to their mouths?"

"Neither do I!"

He invited her for breakfast.

© Copyright tmagorimbo July 2017