No sooner had Jose cleared his glass of juice than a familiar taxi cab, driven by a high cheeked bespectacled middle-aged man, who wore a chain made of pure gold around his neck, high heeled and sharp-pointed well-polished shoes and a leather jacket, executed a buttonhole turn. His high waist, buggy woolen trouser was buckled a few centimeters above his navel and just as long below his rib cage. When he came out of the cab, he went straight to the lounge room without bothering to close the door. Somebody else would do that. Hadn't he already done him a great favor by driving himself here? That person was the taxi driver.
This man Dladla, also known as Armadillo, was here to meet a longtime friend. He found it beneath his status to be encumbered by such tasks as closing the car door behind him. It was not hard to locate Jose. And when their eyes met, Jose gave a broad smile as Armadillo let out a riotous raucous laughter. He stretched out a burly hand to receive Jose's diminished feather-light hand in a vice-like grip. Jose howled as Armadillo worked for his hand up and down in a finger-shattering handshake.
Jose asked, "What's that for?"
Armadillo answered, "For a friendship through eternity."
Jose continued, "If you carry on like this, you will soon crush my fingers."
Armadillo answered, "You need to be a man. And a strong man as well."
Jose answered, "A strong man demonstrates his strength through his mind, not through his muscles alone."
Armadillo said, "I will use my muscle as you use your brain, and let's see who wins."
Jose answered, "I accept your challenge." He added, "This is going to be a brain against brawn contest. Whoever loses is on the bind for today's refreshment."
Armadillo confidently looked in Jose's eye and said, "That person is going to be you."
So, Jose took from his pouch a red washable marker pen and made two lines intersecting at a right angle on the table they were sitting at. He said the game is called Arm Wrestling. Having set the arena, the wrestling match began. They determined the loser to be the one whose arm made contact with the left-hand side of the box they had drawn on the table. They then clasped their arms and at a hand signal, the arm wrestling began.
The Replete Voyager clientele paused their drinking and turned around to watch in disbelief as Jose tussled Armadillo in a gruel some show of brain versus brawn match.
He looked into Armadillo's eyes, but Armadillo looked at Jose's bulging muscles and saw the muscles tighten but never imagined that both the angle of projection and elevation worked against him. Jose saw the twitching of muscles around Armadillo's eyes and the desperation on the forehead of a losing man. He could see himself lifting Armadillo off his seat with one arm. The cheering crowd made Armadillo's impending loss more certain.
With a surge of energy, Armadillo jerked from this losing position almost toppling over his opponent.
But Jose, having seen this in his eyes, counter charged with a steady stream of energy, thus straying even further from the center line and drove Armadillo into the left-hand half of the play arena. Armadillo was shocked that the back of his palm was flat on the top of the table. He ceded defeat to the amusement of the onlookers.
Jose asked, "Who is the winner?"
Armadillo answered, "You have won." He added, "But cowards live to fight another day. So, watch out."
Jose answered, "Well, have your say. With or without brain or brawn we are friends for life. No loser is not a winner."
Armadillo responded by saying that he knew Jose had bamboozled him but could not lay his finger where and how.
Since Jose had eaten lunch with Ellaisaire and did not think so deeply about the arm-wrestling match and that Armadillo was still smarting from his lost arm-wrestling match, none felt the need to eat. And now that as it were, his friend Armadillo was so full and running over with rage.
Jose took notice of this and wishing to moderate the situation, said, "Dilo, you seem not to have been spared the trappings of life."
Armadillo asked, "What do you mean?"
Jose replied, "You know what I mean."
Armadillo said, "Please don't play mind games with me. Speak in plain language or don't speak at all."
Jose noticed anger by the intonation. He tried to change the subject but Dladla insisted that he must finish what he had started. So, Jose informed him that his dress code today was suggestive of class and trend of which Dladla was visibly flattered.
He said, "Well, in my kind of business, image is everything" adding, "you are either up or upmost."
Jose checked out his friend Armadillo from head to toe. Armadillo, Jose's friend, took a handkerchief and wiped his sunglasses. He asked Jose to look at the food menu and pick his choice.
Jose declined to say he had already had lunch and only came here to seek his advice.
Armadillo leaned forward and whispered into Jose's ear, "What advice do you need?"
Jose narrated his lunch date with his wife patiently giving all the details.
He finally said, "Had I known it would turn out like this, I wouldn't have bothered to fix the date."
Armadillo asked, "Are you telling me that you regret eating out with the one and the only person you love?"
Jose answered, "Yes and no."
"How comes?" Armadillo inquired.
"Yes, because I love my wife dearly and no, because she is not cut for such things" answered Jose.
Armadillo asked, "Would you consider taking somebody else out for a date?"
Jose answered "No"
"Why?" asked Armadillo.
Jose said, "Why should I? There would be nothing to talk about."
"Suppose there was something to talk about, would you?" Armadillo asked.
Jose answered, "I am not sure about that. But let me say that, I am a family man and play no part in clandestine activities."
He, out of curiosity, asked his friend, "Do you have a family?"
Dladla answered, "I have both my parents, brothers, and sisters."
Jose went further, "Do you have a wife and children?"
Armadillo answered, "I support a child from a marriage that did not work" He added, "My ex-wife stays with the boy in another town."
Jose inquired, "Do you get to meet?"
Armadillo answered, "I can only meet my son in the presence of a government official. I find these meetings to be undesirable."
Jose asked, "If there was no government official, what things would you be doing with your child?"
Armadillo answered, "I would teach him not to follow in my footsteps."
"What do you mean?" asked Dladla.
"You see Jose, for me only three things are important. One is fame, the others are profit and status."
Jose said, "All these are important to all of us."
Armadillo answered, "I know but you can never have enough of any of them."
Jose asked, "So?"
Armadillo said, "Those, who go after these things, soon find out that there is no happiness."
Jose said, "There has to be a higher purpose then; a bigger, better, brighter goal to achieve; a dream to live out."
Armadillo answered, "Some people say, you are what you eat; you are what you wear and you are what you dream."
Jose asked, "Do you dream about money?"
Armadillo asked, "What would you do without money?"
Jose asked, "Is money some kind of god then?"
Armadillo answered, "It depends on how you look at it."
Jose asked, "Would you like to tell me about your ex-wife?"
Armadillo answered, "That is a story for another day" adding quickly "for now I don't think you need to be encumbered, strapped, and stifled in a straitjacket called marriage."
Jose was taken back. He excused himself to visit the washroom. When he returned, two women and a man walked in and sat at a table very close to them.
Upcountry buses were now arriving one after the other. Not before long, the place came to life. The sea of humanity, the cacophony of hawkers, and the mixing and mingling of people intensified. This is what the proprietor of Replete Voyager had foreseen and by that, they counted profits in hundreds of thousands of shillings every day.