The boy and the old man were on their way back home. A sheaf of medicinal herbs the boy gathered was bound in twine, dangling from the old man's walking staff. The main road was strewn with fallen branches and uprooted trees and a dogpile of fallen trees that had to be skirted around.
The clear note of the town crier's gong being struck periodically carried over to them from a distant place, piercing the languid heat of the evening. The town crier was too far away for his voice to be heard but the old man could guess what the announcement was. The boy however wondered aloud.
The market square was less than a mile away when they heard the message, without laying eyes on the crier.
The crier's voice was powerful and the village was silent. A fast leg, a powerful voice, and oratory eloquence were the talents needed to carry messages for the headman. The gong was beaten at the end of every sentence.
'I greet the ancestral spirits of the land, the sky, and the road that brings them together. I pay homage to the living and I pay homage to all our dead. The headman of this our village is the one who sent me to you all. Let the youths listen, let the elderly listen, let the suckling babes hear, let the animals note. We are to gather at the square come the break of the day tomorrow, none who is strong, hale, and hearty is to be absent. The summon is for all age groups and may we not be too ill to answer the summon of our . . . '
The gong sounded three times.
The boy and the old man had stopped their walk to listen to the announcement, they now started moving again.
They reached the marketplace and saw the ruin of all the stalls and shops. They neared the place where the town crier had passed his message. A small crowd was gathered around a few burning oil lamps. The haloes of warm light could be seen from far off through the ruined stalls.
'The wine tapper must have set his table,' the boy said.
'It cannot be any good wine,' the old man said.
'Baba I think we should stop and see for ourselves.'
'At your age, you already have a tongue for tapped wine,' the old man said.
The boy's attention was entirely on the gathering of people around the lamps, a little laughter and much banter rose in strong counterpoint against the distant reverberations of the town crier's faraway gong. The old man coughed wetly and deeply from down in his lungs many times. The old man drank water from a gourd that the boy gave him.
'You were right in saying we should see just how good that wine is for ourselves,' the old man said.
The boy took and corked the gourd and then hung it over his shoulder. He was interested in seeing more people after spending all that time out on the farm. He now listened more attentively to the sounds of merry coming from the crowd gathered around the oil lamps.
'It sounds like it is Yahad who has set up.'
'Who is that one?'
'He is the old wine tapper's son'
'Toff's son then?' The old man asked.
'He manages to tap good wine but has a head only full of gossip.'
They reached the gathering and exchanged pleasantries with those who were drinking. An extra large gourd of wine had been set on the table, flanked by two oil lamps, behind which Toff, the old tapper's son, stood and welcomed the boy and the old man.
There were a few people who were drinking the wine out of old calabashes, there were women too. They all sat on improvised benches made from smooth wooden planks placed on fat stumps of knotted wood.
'Welcome to my humble wine shop,' Yahad said.
The patrons who had gone silent and for the moment were observing the boy and the old man burst into drunk wine-laden chuckles at the joke. Yahad made spaces for them to sit by bringing a plank from somewhere, dropping it on the stumps.
The atmosphere relaxed after they sat down before Yahad came over with a lamp.
'My boy tells me you are Toff's son,' the old man said.
Yahad was setting an oil lamp down on the floor, on the sand, when he answered and nodded.
'Your boy would be correct. That's my old man alright. What can I get you?'
'If it is as well tapped as your father's you cannot get me enough of it.'
Yahad laughed.
'Bring two bowls.'
While the old man was ordering, the boy looked around at the people in the gathering. He recognized only a few of them. He placed the sheaf of herbs down on the bench and swatted at a mosquito that came too close to him.
Night was gathering its energies and day was receding, now only the oil lamps provided illumination around the humble wine shop. The light from the burning wicks was a wavering illumination that did little against the cold but filled the night with the sweet smell of burnt oil.
When Yahad brought the wine in calabashes, he also brought a little gossip along. The calabashes were placed in the palm of both hands and they took them from him and set the bowls down on the same kind of stump everyone was using as a table.
'The town crier came around this evening, I don't know if you heard the gong.'
'We heard it when we were out on the roads,' the boy answered.
'He came and announced there is to be a meeting tomorrow at the cockcrow.'
'It is nothing but a cleanup.' Another man said.
'It is much more than just that because, as I have been telling you people, that rain was not normal.' A woman said.
'You are right on that one.'
'There is also the matter of those postbills from the morning two days ago,' the old man said, skimming the foam off the top of his calabash with his fingers. He tasted the foam and judged that the wine was not too bad. Yahad was lingering just to watch that.
'How is the wine, elder?' Yahad said.
'You learned a thing or two from your father. Bring us two more bowls.'
Yahad brought two more calabashes filled with palm wine that had scum floating on the surface of the liquid. The old man looked up at Yahad and smiled.
'Now this is palm wine!'
'This is what's left from my best gourd.'
'Very good!'
The old man was yet to taste it but he could see clearly that the wine was good just from the scum on it. It did not take time for the tapper to bring his own stool over to the front of the bench where the old man and the boy were nursing their wine.
'I heard you mention something about postbills not too long ago,' Yahad said.
'Oh yes, there was that.'
'We have not heard anything.'
'That is surprising.' The old man said that before he tipped the first bowl, he had been served it to his mouth and drank the wine. He made sounds of satisfaction and nodded approvingly.
'So elder, what about the posters?'
'We'll find out when the day turns I guess. It must be nothing more than more taxation. That is all those people ever want.'
The crowd who had subtly been paying attention to the gossip made noises that meant the old man had spoken their mind too.
The boy however had been too entranced by the intimacy that the women displayed publicly. Most of their skin, adorned with curlicues of ink that stretched across their limbs and legs, was exposed. Their clothing only covered their breasts, and their short wrappers exposed all of their thighs.
He came to the conclusion that they were loose women who according to the customs and traditions should be shamed but he couldn't avert his gaze. One of them caught him staring after she pressed her body against the man who she was attending to.
The boy looked away, now ashamed.
He downed the first bowl of palm wine and felt something that made him forget about his shame but it did not last and not long after he was as clear-eyed as ever.
It was a normal experience whenever he happened to drink. He could drink anyone unconscious while he remained dead sober.
It was his thing and with it, he was able to maintain a respectable status amongst his peers in his age group. There were even talks of challenging older age groups to a drinking competition to improve the standing of their age group in the village.
He downed the second bowl of palm wine and this one hit harder than the first one. He drank it greedily and felt a wave of bliss embrace him. He wanted to cry. He wanted to laugh. He started composing an apology for the old man's bad leg and wanted to tell the woman he was sorry to have stared at her, but the blissful sensation wore off before he could make up his mind.
He started thinking about the blue tongue snake.
'Baba?'
'My boy, what is it?'
'Why is it we have to bury the poisonteeth?'
The old man contemplated and shook his head. 'That is how it has always been done. I guess it is just our tradition when dealing with deadly snakes.'
'What happens otherwise?'
'I don't know.'
The old man finished the second bowl too and they partook in the conversation for some time before paying the wine tapper and then continuing their journey home.