The Meticulous Drunkard

 At exactly two in the night, Onjivo swaggered into Club Datura. For those who have been to Datura, one thing is certain – it exclusively for people who do not give a damn about aesthetics. For one, there are concrete pillars that someone stopped halfway, as an afterthought, while in the process of destroying it. It leaks when it rains. It is not a place where you would gladly have fun destroying your liver or lungs or even libido. Onjivo did not care about having fun, neither the aesthetics. He was in for business.

Even with the absence of aesthetics, Onjivo still manages to be meticulous. Despite the cold that seeped straight to the bones, Onjivo wore only a basketball vest, and a Chicago Bulls cap. He sat on a Guinness branded plastic chair, and near a socket. Nobody knows that a socket is there, for it looks as though you could be risking electric shock what with the wires all naked and hanging. Once seated, he dives his hands into an orange reusable bag and retrieves a tissue paper. It is weird for a man but Onjivo is a man who is meticulous about everything. With a gloomy yet serious face, he gingerly wipes the table, but only the area he projects to use.

Once done with the cleaning, Onjivo dives again into his orange bag and retrieves three smart phones from the entrails. He also removes a charge, plugs it into the dangerously dangling socket and turns it on. A blue light emitted by the socket bathes a few centimetres of his table. Then he plugs USB cables into the various orifices that came with the charger. Meticulously, he charges each of his three phones. All this while, cigarette is dangling on the corner of his mouth. He stops, takes a deep puff, and places it on the table.

A recently hired waiter walks to him and greets him jovially. She knows him which means that Onjivo is regular at the club, which is not typically a club. The first moving drinks here are the cheap third generation liquor and keg popular with boda boda guys and casual laborers. For the latter, however, you would be hard pressed to understand what casual thing they do at night. Onjivo is not a casual laborer, neither is he a boda boda guy. He orders two Guinness bottles and settles on his chair like a boss.

With the cigarette dangling at the corner of his mouth, he again dives into the orange bag and takes out a jelly. He scoops a huge chunk of it and proceeds to oil himself. It is for mosquitoes; he says to an inquisitive patron who has just come to sit next him.

The plump waiter brings him his beers. At this point, he is checking his merchandise, jaba. The waiter marvels at how much they are. She is intrigued by him, or by his money. Before long, customers go to him, one by one. Onjivo measures them and puts them in a tiny plastic bag. They part with their money and take their leaves, perhaps to chew cud.