HAVOC NIGHTSPOT, DAR, 2020
The clock on his wrist read 0001 hrs. Leo was twitchy. His mind focused on a man sitting alone around the table, few meters from them. The electric beats and cool music from the club’s DJs didn’t catch his attention. The half-naked females dancing crazily deep in the club’s lights didn’t catch his eye. In these places this generation, a condom is just a glass slipper. You slip it on when you meet a stranger. You dance all night, and then you throw it away. He thought.
“You said that’s the man who can help us get in the post office, what are we waiting for?” Leo said.
“I’ve arranged a flight for your mother. She’ll be here by tomorrow.” SJ said.
“Thanks, ma’am. It’s getting late, we should talk to the man and see if he can help.”
“You should be there when they pick her at the airport.”
“We’ve been here for two hours. We should ask him if he can help us sneak in.”
“That man is the architect who designed the post office building. He might know a way for us to break in unnoticed.” SJ said.
“Let’s go talk to him.”
“I haven’t met with him for more than thirty years. I’m not sure if I can still trust him.”
“If you don’t try, you will never know.”
“He knows the real me. He may report me to the police.”
“Then what do we do?”
“I’m still thinking.”
“We’re wasting time.” Leo said as he stood up.
“Hey, hey… Leo, what on earth are you doing?” He heard SJ and Patrice mumbling as he walked towards the man’s table.
The man was in a black T-shirt and black jeans. He was no longer in the age of attending nightclubs. People of his age were supposed to be at their homes with their wives, kids, and grandchildren. He was surrounded by Dompos and other high alcoholic wines on his table. Though there were many empty wine bottles, it was like the man was just beginning to drink.
Leo knocked on the table. “While I and my friends there are drinking to remember, it seems like you are drinking to forget.”
The man looked at Leo and turned back to his glass of wine. He took a deep sip.
“What are you trying to forget?” Leo said.
The man poured his wine into the glass and drank it.
“The brain is a very strange creature. The things you want it to remember it forgets, but all those things you want it to forget, it remembers.” Leo said.
The man stopped a glass a few inches from his mouth. “Whatever you are selling kid, I don’t have money. I’m not buying.”
Leo chuckled. “I’m here to sell you happiness.”
The man chuckled. “If you want a drink, join me. I’ve lots of stress, don’t add me more.”
Leo held the man’s arm, stopping a glass touching his lips. “When it is too much, it becomes poisonous. Be it love, stress, or alcohol.”
The man chuckled, tears dropping from his eyes. He returned the glass to the table. “What do you want kid?”
Leo closed his eyes. “To reunite you with your family.”
The man breathed out deeply, his hands tightly gripping the wine bottle.
Leo’s heart started racing. He just made bet and he wasn’t sure if it would work out. In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. Mr. Patrick told him that.
“Who are you? How did you know about my family?”
Leo’s heart relaxed. “That doesn’t matter, what matters is they miss you very much.”
The man gasped, staring at the colored lights on the ceiling.
“I’m the reason they left.” The man wiped the tears with his palm. “I was a negligent father and husband. Long after they left is when I realized that my life was missing something. It took me a long time to realize how imperative my family is. But it was too late, they were long gone.”
“I know how that feels.”
The man chuckled. “How can you know how that feels, kid?”
“I was five when my father left my mother. My mother couldn’t take care of me too, so I had to enter the street. A five years old kid alone in the street. Surviving alone in the street all these years, how can I not know how that feels?”
The man gasped. “I’m sorry.”
Leo smiled. “We can’t let your kid end up like me.”
“I tried talking to her family. My wife is refusing to come back.”
“I can help you bring her back.”
“Why are you helping me? What is it that you want from me?”
Leo exhaled. “You designed the blueprint of Tanganyika post office. I want the blueprint and the safe way to break into box 103 unnoticed.”
“You want me to help you break in into a post office?”
“In that box, there is only secret that can reunite me with my long-lost family. The keys to that box are in our enemy’s hands. If I’m to reunite with my long-lost family, I have to access that box before the enemy does.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“Look straight in my eyes and see if I’m lying. Help me get my family while I help you get yours.”
“It will take weeks to prepare that blueprint.”
“We’ve this night only.”
“That will—”
“Tomorrow morning at 1000hrs, come to Triple Seven Bar and Restaurant. Come with my blueprint, I’ll be there with your family.”
The man nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
Leo shook hands with the man, exchanged numbers, and walked to SJ and Patrice.
“What happened?” Patrice said.
“Tomorrow at 1000hrs at Triple Seven Bar and Restaurant, the man will come with a blueprint.”
“Serious?” Patrice said.
Leo nodded.
SJ smiled. “For free?”
“In this life, there is nothing known as something for nothing.”
Patrice sighed. “What’s the price?”
Leo chuckled. “A very tough price.”
“What?” Patrice said.
“We have to reunite him with his family. A wife and children...”
SJ squinted, “what family?”
“I have no idea.” Leo sipped a glass of water. “We have the whole night to figure that out.”