By  Sunmola Olowookere

Drink has been the doom of many, yet men have not learnt from the folly of those that alcohol has led astray. The wise king, Solomon wrote in the proverbs, it is not for king and the princes to take strong drink; this is because they would not lose focus of what is right and proper.
He however suggested that a strong drink be given to the person that is ready to perish.
A man is definitely on the path to destruction in our neighbourhood. As people look at him with pity, he seems oblivious of his pitiable state. The drink is sapping his strength, will and personality, but he seems not to care. Each time he staggers home, residents shake their heads with pity at such level of inebriation especially in such an old man.
In this recent debacle, it was the good lord and his neighbour, that saved him. His wife was a wayward woman that took strange men to her bosom and even sometimes to her marriage bed when her husband would be out drinking with his cronies.
One day, he would have caught her red-handed had he not been so drunk that his brains were addled. When he was still fiddling with the door, his wife’s lover had fled through the window. It was so glaring even to residents but the man was only one in the dark. The lover’s motorcycle was outside when he fled through the window. His wife had given the old man some flippant story about the motorcycle and he had staggered to t hei r backyard to r e l i e v e himself.
He is a retired driver from the civil service. It is a wonder how he did it without being sacked with such a record. He is an indiscriminate drunk who some times during the day would be as drunk as a skunk. Whenever he was drunk, he would be very loud and he would stagger on his feet. Residents however suspect that he took more to drinking when he was out of the constricting confines of the civil service.
Now retired, he has no stable job and he gets off on odd jobs. He had separated from his first wife and his children were all grownup and had flown the nest. He now lives with a woman the same age as his daughter. To feed for the two of them is difficult. However, getting booze takes the first priority with the old man. Maybe that was why the woman feels no qualms in cheating on her husband.
One day, yours truly met him at a kiosk where he wanted to get his supplies as usual. At first, he felt shy but he summoned courage and asked the vendor at the kiosk ”do you have regal gin?”
When asked how many he wanted, he was hesitant before he could say eight sachets. Then he began to make excuses for his indulgences as he spoke almost to himself : “this cold is too much. If not for this hot drink, maybe one would have frozen to death.” When n o o n e bothered to answer him, he gathered the eight regal gin sachets from the table and held the nylon bag containing it firmly like a p r i z e d possession.
Gin is cheaper and intoxicates easily. Residents had often wondered where he got the money to buy beet because his new wife has a baby girl for him and it was a struggle for the family to feed daily as the wonlan caune with two kids from her previous marriages. Now it was clear that it was dry gin that makes him high. It was also cheap; just twenty naira per sachet.
He had cohorts that he usually joins for a rousing time in the evening at his usual joints. Most times, it would be good Samaritans that would bring him home from the joints because he would be too inebriated to ride his motorcycle. Whenever he was drunk, he would no longer be conscious of his actions.
At a public place, he may begin to remove his trousers that he wanted to urinate. He would join discussions he was not invited to. He would pick quarrels with his neighbours over trivial issues. Whenever he is drunk, he becomes another personality entirely.
Oftentimes, he falls into gutter and it was helpful neighbours that would bring him home.
He would drink to stupor before going to the landlord’s association meeting in our neighbourhood. His breath would produce horrible smells, but that did not deter him. Of course, his contributions and comments would be way off the mark due to his inebriated state.
His wife was ashamed and tired of his attitude to drinking. Residents would turn their face aside to hide their derisive amusement as the old man makes a fool of himself. She had reported him to his older children severally and they too had spoken to him but all to no avail.
Like a chastised goat, he would shake off their words and still went to drink to stupor again. The wife seemed to be resigned to her fate and she had ‘daddies’ that make her happy when her husband was too drunk to care.
Though she sells petty things, but it was not enough to hold the home together.
Whenever he was coming home from hanging out with his cronies, riding his motorcycle is like a mad man’s dance. One day, baba was so drunk that he ran into the electric pole in front of his house.
That day, it was like a slow motion film as worst fears were almost confirmed. As he was riding his rickety motorcycle down the winding road haphazardly, people were careful not to get in his way because we all know him. Then he branched into his street and turned to his house.
At first, he slowed down as if he meant to get his bearings and to drive in carefully. As he rode in at the last moment, he swerved back and ran into the pole. His motorcycle sprang back and crashed to the ground.
In shock, he squealed as he hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. Some passers-by rushed to raise him up. He told them ”it is okay. Nothing is wrong with me”.
Yet he was bleeding by the forehead and the arms, he was forcibly helped in.