A WORK CHRISTMAS PARTY THAT GOES AWRY

WORK CHRISTMAS PARTY GOES AWRY

That afternoon Mackay was driving to Ellensmere School to celebrate a Christmas party thrown for teachers. The dark blue  Corolla ate the distance greedily along the main gravel road until when he stopped at Doricma, a huge shop painted brick red next to the market where the marketers were busy selling tomatoes, grape etc. The December winds were howling as he cut the engine barely a meter from the main road. His hands swiftly flew from the steering wheel to engulf the girl seated next to him, pulling her closer in a touching act less vulgar than what the eyes were doing.

Mackay’s eyes were not just looking at the face of Kapwi the girl, but they were twinkling like pearls loaded with easy-to-define mischief. The girl’s eyes equally lacked decency as they paraded a Cleopatra treatment straight from the text book; turning the eyeballs and squeezing them into elongated stars glittering on a moonless night. They danced about with a suggestive glitter, a face invasion that maybe reserved only for sex kittens. Not to be outdone, MacKay’s eyes sprang up to match the mood as they now glowed with pent up emotions almost bursting out from their eyeballs. But again what the eyes were doing was Christmas compared to the lips. MacKay’s tight lips were grinding Kapwi’s big sexy lips in a deep searching kiss; in fact they were attacking each other as if desperate to fuse into one. 

And what a silly thing to say, MacKay licked his mouth like a cow after regurgitation saying his lips kept drying up every ten minutes and Kapwi’s saliva was the doctor’s recommended moistener. That aside the kissing progressed both in tempo and duration resisting even protests from the squeaking seats. However, the sight of so many marketers cheering weakened kapwi’s resolve; she aborted the kissing and pulled back from this very public scrutiny into her affections. She quickly checked her watch.

   Taking the cue Mackay started the car and drove to the venue for the party, yes the Christmas party for Ellensmere teachers. Kapwi’s stolid face helped a lot to keep his attention on driving. And barely ten minutes later they had reached the school where he parked the car in the car park and helped his girl to come out. They immediately headed towards the big hall the venue of the party strutting hand in hand. Kapwi walked like a diva on the catwalk swinging her huge bust side to side as if the swings were controlled by automatic springs. Her mouth stood out like a chicken’s beak and her breasts shot forward like ears of corn. Presently, onlookers broke the silence into animated whistling and finger pointing revealing the pent up lusts extravagant beauty can unveil in others. They reached the entrance.

The entrance to the venue was an imposing grill gate six meters wide and four meters high. It was painted blue, yes the same blue for lovers. And just there, right at the entrance to the hall, Mackay again pulled his girl Kapwi and ground her lips in a deep searching kiss. She kissed him back with the violence you only see in a sex kitten on rampage. The act though, as common as water that day, drew a sustained burst of cheers from the other couples until the girl broke it up again;  pulling away from the kiss while dragging the boyfriend to follow her towards a row of chairs two paces away from the podium. They were not the only couple.

      Mackay was a man of medium height, dark in complexion and his age was scrapping the late twenties. The alert scheming eyes and dark eye brows decorated the oval face which also spotted a thick black moustache and a clean shaven chin. He was with his girl friend Kapwi a slim brown girl with a buxom body characterized by a big bust of a hip like a wasp. She was a woman with a demure pair of eyes and a sensual mouth with big lips. At one point five meters of height she would hardly qualify to be short. They were both teachers of English who were drawn to each other because of working together in the same department.

     Now, having all the preliminaries dispensed with, it was time for dancing to release the tension as someone had said; dancing is a perpendicular expression of the internal confusion raging in a person. Presently, Mackay pulled his girl to the stage to express some pent up lusts. At the dance floor in the full glare of floodlights their two bodies fused coming so close that a person ten yards away would feel the heat as their temperatures started climbing to phenomenal heights. They looked into each other’s eyes that radiated mutual gratification luxuriating on the green pasture of faith in each other. When twisting their bodies, they danced so deliciously that other couples were evicted from the stage by hecklings of disapproval from the clapping audience. When the song ended Kapwi and her man bowed their heads down like heads of sunflower to appreciate the standing ovation from the audience.

    An hour passed. The celebrations were accelerating towards the climax and then it happened, something stranger than fiction happened, maybe that was the climax everyone was waiting for. The mathematics teacher Solo, tall and brown with a baby face and extremely white teeth, rose from his chair and went straight to the master of ceremony Flexon Kabwenda. With a sly smile playing on his lips and the jingoistic step of John Cena, Solo stooped down to whisper something into the big ear of the Master of Ceremony who in turn nodded his pencil shaped head vigorously while shoving a pile of leaves into a pocket.

       To everyone’s surprise the Master of Ceremony swept up out of his chair like a hurricane and went to the stage where he grabbed the microphone from a slim lady singer on the floor. Without apologies. With the eyes of a well fed porcupine, he requested everyone to pause a bit because his friend Solo, who was also everyone’s friend, had something important to announce.

With hands shaking like guitar strings, Solo got the microphone, shuffled his feet a bit and to everyone’s shock, he just said three words. “Sorry, evening folks,” and then went back to his chair to sit down.

      There was total commotion as each one screamed in hysteria for a chance to tear the man to pieces for wasting their time. Order was only restored when Kabwenda intervened, grabbed the microphone and offered apologies on behalf of Solo whom he said found solving algebra easier than presenting speeches. But still others were so angry that they were not willing to listen anymore. The cause of confusion, Solo, kept his sly smile playing on his lips as he watched the events, they were actually moving according to his plan, as perfectly as solving a simultaneous equation.

      “Ladies and gentlemen, you know that the budget for this party was four hundred and twenty thousand kwacha?” Kabwenda asked. His right hand pulled out a handkerchief to wipe out the sweat; he was sweating in a cool evening whose average temperatures at eighteen degrees Celsius could hardly be described as hot. Some issue was causing him internal combustion.

“So what?” everyone shouted. “Is that what we paid that fool to be the MC for, to talk like that?”

“It is not enough, right?”Kabwenda persisted. “The stuff on the tables is hardly adequate considering your status.”

This time no one listened, they were worried that he was going to ask for more donations. Each one went back to their activities and closed their ears but hearts were still anxious to hear the rest.

“Get lost you are wasting our time,” one man was kind enough to shout him down. “Can someone get the microphone from that fool?”

     “Solo is donating half a million kwacha for this party, here it is, can’t you see it?”Flexon Kabwenda announced testily while flipping the leaves. For ten seconds the hall went quiet as the brain computers went berserk digesting the information; good information coming from a disgraced source. And then like clockwork everyone became born again and exploded;

       “Ya! Ya! Solo is the man! Solo is the man! Vote for Solo.”

      When the ululations and chants gave way to drones of low chats loaded with innuendos, again Kabwenda came back, this time looking like a lion about to tear flesh from an impala.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Solo has another announcement, this time it is a simple request,” Kabwenda paused for response. He almost failed to announce the request because everyone was now chanting excitedly;

“Give him! Give him whatever he wants, he is the man, Give him!” A vote was cast unanimously.

This time Solo griped the microphone with a firm hand and curled his mouth into a line attempting a crooked smile, he looked at Kapwi but quickly threw his glance back to the Master of Ceremony.

    Kapwi panicked and squirmed in her seat like an impala that had been shot before she threw her arms around the boyfriend for support. MacKay saw her discomfort, he tried to reassure her that all was well; ‘Guys normally look at beautiful girls all the time, you are the most beautiful in here,’ he whispered. This was not all the time, he was dead wrong.

Solo maintained his gaze on the Master of Ceremony and said;

“I put ten thousand into the plate if you allow me a dancing-date with the girl I choose.”

      Quickly the uncoupled lady teachers flew to the stage in a desperate scramble to be selected for a special dancing-date with a man throwing away millions. The Master of Ceremony lined them up like showroom cars to allow Solo the privilege of selecting one while a song by Havwaala Mutenge was playing. The song lyrics were saying choose the best only the best, a slow hit song, it was playing on tape. Solo moved slowly in tune with the song from one end of the line to the other selecting his dancing-date while the girls moved their bodies slowly, also in tune with the song. But finally he shook his head like a doctor assessing an advanced cancer problem.

   “I don’t think all the girls I saw are here,” he said with a dead tone raising a sigh of extreme disgust from the girls who had hoped to scoop something from the stampede. However, another sigh, a controlled one this time, escaped from mouths; the males were now worried that maybe their female partners were Solo’s real target. A shuffle of feet and chairs scrapping the floor indicated that the discomfort had increased significantly in the Hall; it was dead quiet though, you could hear a pin drop.

   “Why worry about people who are not here, choose from us?”the girls protested shattering the silence. But Solo was already a chess move ahead of everyone, he was shaking his head in complete disagreement. To cool the girls, however, he shouted;

   “Let these eight beauties share a fifty thousand kwacha as we continue the selection.” The girls would each pocket slightly above six thousand kwacha almost three months salary. Peace was restored, but only just.

     Next Solo came a bit more clearly in his plans; he had caused enough tension already. He took out a pile of leaves from a pocket again, still in pins and placed it on the high table before grabbing the black microphone to announce loudly;

“This is ten thousand kwacha, I want a tight dancing -date with …aaa..eeeee..Ahaa….Kapwi,” the Hall went wooooo chests rising up, eyes dilated and mouths drawing eggs until he said the name.

 Flexon Kabwenda immediately cleared the stage, his face somber like a murder judge. He left Solo alone on the stage dancing slowly, his eyes partially closed, arms stretching out; to receive Kapwi.

The Hall went dead quiet, as quiet as a tomb, waiting for Mackay’s response. He had to stake slightly more than ten thousand to save the girl from what was called a vulture coup. Everyone waited for a response but after five minutes Kabwenda asked Mackay if he could allow the party to move on, his silence was killing the festive mood. Looking stupid, MacKay did not have the ten thousand kwacha and now his girl Kapwi was also getting increasingly embarrassed. She kept on looking to him for some kind of reaction. He could promise a post dated check or anything, just anything but not silence. He delayed too much for her. She quickly made an irreversible decision. A catastrophic one.

    After ten minutes of dead silence Solo slammed down the Mike and in a brutal display of Machiavellian effrontery, he walked over to MacKay’s table extending a hand to Kapwi.

 “Come Mama, leave the company of losers and move into the future with the winners,” he said.

      To pay for the party Mackay had to get an advance of five thousand kwacha from a shylock, Solo’s friend. The challenge to stake a ten thousand was like asking a fish to climb a tree; cruel and unreasonable. MacKay looked at his girl Kapwi with a beggar’s eyes; she could save him by pointing at another couple which could invalidate Solo’s cruel vulture assault. However, the way her pupils were dancing on a face that was glittering brighter than the sun clearly indicated what was going on in her head; his reaction had come too late. He panicked like a pregnant porcupine facing a roaring bush fire and tried to touch her arm to reassure himself that he was still in her thoughts, but alas, she violently shook off his hand in a slapping movement. He remained wondering when the love had evaporated from that hand.

   “A battered corolla breeds a battered mind,” she said it with the cold calmness of a mother cutting the head of a chicken. “I don’t want my life battered by the dreadful curse pursuing you.” the words were less shocking than the sight of the girl standing up going into the extended arms of a vulture. To Mackay, but not to others who could breathe a sigh of relief that for the night their couples were safe from the vulture.

      The hall exploded in celebrations as Kapwi stood up, pulled the hem of her short skirt and threw her head up as she was immediately swallowed up by Solo’s big arms in a tight  embrace. His lips immediately claimed hers grinding them in a merciless welcome while pulling her body into his to enjoy the inevitable rise in temperature. Her sharp breasts stabbed his bare chest and her eyes blazed real joy or was it real fear. While MacKay watched the performance with a face darker than the Egyptian darkness, his eyes not crying but becoming hot burning tears themselves. He stood up and walked like a scarecrow in an abandoned maize field. He groaned like a dying cow as he walked out of the hall, a devastated man dragging a tail of hands, and a lonely one too. It was like the whole planet had rejected him, no disowned him completely.

         Predictably, as he walked under poor visibility due to a mist of tears clouding his eyes, a vehicle narrowly missed killing him because he was not concentrating on where he was going. The driver, a kind man, quickly stopped the vehicle and tried to find out why a well dressed teacher was walking like a mad man. Mackay explained his story and by a strange coincidence Solo had done the same thing to the sympathetic driver as well at a birth day party a month before, only to dump the girl after embarrassing the boyfriend. He told Mackay that someone needed to teach the vulture a lesson. The driver worked on Mackay’s mind tuning it to a frequency for violence to end Solo’s embarrassing games of wrecking vulnerable girls with piles of blood money, probably stolen from somewhere.

        First they organized boys to gate-crash into the party and burn Solo’s vehicle, a hummer latest model black in colour. The vehicle exploded almost instantly but by then Mackay had already entered the hall where he found Solo dancing slowly holding Kapwi very close, tight as he had said. MacKay went up to the stage, tapped the enemy on the shoulder before slamming a hard punch on the jaw. Solo reeled from the punch like a drunken man and tried to retaliate but Mackay’s new friends had already rushed in and they attacked him with sticks. He fell down pleading for mercy and disowning Kapwi completely.

Kapwi stood watching the circus, crying internally that her hope of gaining wealthy was just a game for Solo. But that was just for starters, she had to flee for dear life. A group of girls blamed her for disturbing the party with her prostitution as some called it. They came for her with insults and clenched fists.

        When the other people saw the party sponsor being beaten up, they stood up and tried to fight back, what with all the money he had pumped in. The forces were evenly matched and the battle would become an intense affair. Many injuries were recorded.

Stone throwing vandals broke all window panes and pulled down  low lying roofs in what one man called destruction-for- funny. To worsen matters several passersby also decided to join in the fracas; some rushing to eat the abandoned food, others just to feel the joy of beating up teachers for one reason or another. Having failed to control the situation all door bouncers fled for their lives or joined the looting. Before long the whole place degenerated into thundering chaos, angrily spinning out of control to became a roaring cyclone of confusion with bottles and chairs flying about dangerously. Girls were screaming in agony as the fighting raged.

 The Master of Ceremony Flexon Kabwenda was hit with an iron bar on the head as he tried desperately to flee from the chaos; eager hands reached his pockets and cleaned them thoroughly. Meanwhile, MacKay would call himself luck; he was able to sweep into his own pockets quiet a pile of leaves abandoned on the table, enough to clear his debt and emerge as a man again.

The school infrastructure built at a great cost, was destroyed to a remarkable degree. Order was only restored when the police came to pour oil on troubled waters, but by then the mood for any party had died out irretrievably. Everyone was anxious to go home, away from the tear gas.