| Sports |
New Year but same old
thing
Some things never
change for some people, writes JACK METTA
REX and Sux came down from the
mountain with bloodshot eyes, days after the New Year.
Sux in fact, was sporting a perfect shiner as if it was placed
there by an artist with an adept fist for a fine brush.
Family members and friends were told they were last seen making
their way up the mountain side two days earlier “to light up the
Coleman lamp”.
“Never learn,” a relative had muttered.
“They’ve been up that mountain side every New Year since …” he
tapered off, the silence an admittance of really not knowing the
date and the year.
For those not familiar with the term of lighting up the Coleman
lamp, it’s a sarcastic way of saying they’d gone up the mountain
to indulge in their favourite pastime of gulching down methylated
spirit, often referred to as ‘metho’ or ‘sipi’ (short for spirit).
In explanations such as these, they’re prone to add, “no doubt,
they’d burn a bit of kunai gras too’ – the latter phrase referring
to the consumption of marijuana.
It was common knowledge in the settlement that the duo were ‘rug
bodies’, often behaving inconspicuously in the settlement under
the influence of foreign substances, much to the ire of the
residents, most of whom show indifference to the carryings-on of
the duo.
The reference to the Coleman lamp is simply that the spirit that
they were in possession of was normally used to light up the
lamps.
For these no-hopers, it was a cheap form of alcohol easily
accessible in local shops and consumed basically to liven up their
own inner spirits. They had been at it for many years since their
teenage days.
Iariva who coined the phrase “never learn”, though his
pronunciation of “leva learn” persisted with the phrase every time
he encountered the no-hopers or when people talked about them and
others of their “ilk” in the neighbourhood.
Another year had started, another struggle had begun and the
no-hopers still had no iota of hope for their future, not even an
inkling to strive for better and greater things in the New Year.
Every year, most of the young people in the neighbourhood go on
the binge and faced the New Year with the same old disposition as
the year before and the year before that and the year before that.
“You know what is in that sipi you drink?” Iariva popped the
question one time the duo pressured him for a hand-out.
“You see only metho when you buy that little bottle in the shop at
Sabama but in it are legions of demon spirits that make people do
evil things,” he said in a fit of rage.
“Verily, you consume the bad spirits and you become possessed by
them. These spirits make you say bad things, do bad things and
they attempt to kill off the only things you that God keeps alive
so that you can make an effort to change – your heart and your
mind.”
Word was that the duo had stocked up on their supplies prior to
the New Year, thanks to aggressive begging and pleas of innocence
when the local Engan tuckerbox owner confronted them about the
disappearance of at least four empty cartons of beer behind his
shop on New Year’s Eve.
It wasn’t the first time, you know. Their story of biting off more
than they could chew still makes the rounds in the settlement
these days.
It had something to do with hunger, you know, those times when
you’re really starving and you devour your food without giving it
a second glance or knowing the difference on your taste buds.
Sux and Rex starred in the tale in which the pangs of hunger got
the better of them.
They managed to scrounge up 16 empty bottles from a neighbour’s
house when the latter was not around and needing another 32 to
make their pockets jingle invitingly and their tummies sigh, they
called on the local tuckershop owner and while Sux lured him into
a conversation, Rex nicked a crate and a half of empties piled up
behind the tuckerbox and disappeared down the road.
Sux followed him minutes later to the other tuckershop and they
sold the empties for K3.60. Satisfied with the day’s business, the
duo set off for the Sabama market and shops to buy groceries.
On the way, they bought one Spear for 50 toea at the roadside
market and shared it along the way. At another roadside market, it
was tacitly understood that Spear went hand in hand with buai so
they parted with another 50 toea.
They encountered a group playing cards on the roadside and Rex
convinced Sux that this was their lucky day.
He went five rounds at 50 toea each, saying it was his win next
but it never came after five rounds and the jingle was sounding
rather dull in his pockets.
Rex chanced side bets for 20 toea and immediately after three
rounds, they were back to square one.
It dawned on the duo that when they had the dough, their stomach
was not that demanding. Only when it disappeared did the stomach
turn on the volume and threw in the grumbles for good measure.
Rex was allowed one “look”, a term associated with playing a round
of cards on credit. Even that didn’t pay up, so miserably, they
strolled off, each in their own chain of thought.
“Tell you what,” Tex spoke up, eyeing Sux with a light in his
eyes. “At the shop, you grease the storekeeper and I’ll nick a
couple of lamp flap packets, okay?”
Sux nodded, seemingly uninterested because of the pangs of hunger,
but
willing to see it through.
At the shops, they had to hang around for a couple of hours
because the store wasn’t that busy for them to pull off their
heist.
The opportunity came late during the afternoon when the shop
picked up business with the after-work patronage.
It didn’t quite go as planned because when Rex walked out, the
security man pulled him aside to check his person for stolen goods
but the check never eventuated because Rex was in full flight out
the door and tearing a swathe through the afternoon human traffic
for the settlement.
Shouts and abuses followed him and chasers including the security
were soon in hot pursuit. To cut a long story short, they never
got him.
“Desperation and hunger lend wings to people’s feet, you know,”
Rex reminisced when he recalled the episode.
The duo rendezvoused at their “usual” place at the foot of the
hill as the sun was just settling beyond the ranges.
They made their way up the hills, stopping along the way to raid a
garden of its young tapioca tubers. They found a secluded spot,
lit a fire and began cooking the meat and the tapioca.
The tapioca, being young as they were, were ready in no time and
Sux scraped the burnt parts off them with a piece of broken bottle
and tossed them to the other side of the fire.
The meat, cooked or otherwise were sizzling in the cool evening
air and made their mouths water.
In fact, his hunger was so overpowering that Rex, without
hesitation retrieved a piece off the fire with one hand and
reached out with the other and grabbed a piece of tapioca beside
the fire and began devouring the food like a man possessed.
He was on his final bite when his tastebuds told him that the
tapioca tasted rather unusual.
“Blow the fire a bit more, will you?” he asked Sux. As the sparks
flickered into flames, some light was shed on the piece of tapioca
Rex was holding.
He looked it momentarily and swore. It was a piece of sun-baked
human excrement.
At Rex’s four-letter expletive, Sux promptly agreed: “Indeed, it
is,” and guffawed. “You might was well finish it seeing as you’re
holding the last bite ...” Sux teased and burst into a belly laugh
that reverberated on the side of the hills.
A feebly embarrassed Rex, appetite lost, pleaded with Sux not to
tell the
others at home about the incident; in fact, “not ever,
pleeeeeeease!”
For Sux, it was too good to hold back and after a bellyful of lamp
flaps, he was in the merry mood to spin a yarn and ... well, the
settlement still reels to the tale of the day Rex bit off more
than he could chew.
The latest story, by both men’s account, is that they were
attacked by unknown persons on the ridge while having their own
party but nobody believed them.
The consensus was that both of them got so high and drunk that
they’d probably fought themselves and knocked each out for the
last two days.
Iariva had a last laugh though, pointing to Rex’s shiner.
“At least somebody whacked you one. I’ve always wanted to sock it
to you. Accept it a memento in welcoming the New Year.”
And we are reminded of the Wise Counsellor’s words: “You only go
around once in life; after that, the judgment ...”
 
|
