The Adventures of Chandler And Frasier

By Ernest Bazanye

The old woman continued to smile broadly, all teeth and good nature. Her eyes were so squinted up with pleasant spirit that only bits of the black parts were visible. “Well done,” she said.

“What?”

“Well done,” she repeated, confident that the young man could understand her.

The young man could not. Chandler was not a very good schoolboy so he was not used to hearing those words, together, in that order. He met the repetition of her statement with the repetition of his own. “What?”

This is when his elder brother Frasier joined in the conversation, brusquely nudging in and scowling. “She means 'Mugyebale', you doofus.”

Well done was, after all, the exact transliteration of the common Luganda greeting Mugyebale and, this was Kampala, the city where most people spoke first and worried only later, if ever, whether their speech had made any sense.

Chandler was still a boy. Only fourteen. The sum of his life experiences was still a little figure and he was yet to have seen it all. In fact, he was barely past the opening credits. His brother, who was sixteen, was much more world-weary, evidently, because Frasier had been greeted thus before. It is a thing to be thankful for when you have someone who has walked before you down the confusing pathways of adolescence to guide you on your way.

They were standing on a different pathway now: a narrow, windy-and-twisty backstreet of Muyenga, one of Kampala's wealthier residential areas. All Kampala's residential areas, no matter how gentrified, have windy-twisty secrets like this. Behind the shiny white mansionette where their mother lived and out of which she had just graciously kicked them with the very un-maternal words “Either be less irritating or be elsewhere. The choice is yours,” and after they had taken what seemed to them to be the far easier option, they found themselves surrounded by low mud-and-wattle domiciles, barefoot children, and in a corner, a short yellow stand upon which a telephone stood.

It was ten thirty in the morning. The sun had just began to get hot. Frasier's baseball cap was turned to face backwards, but he was already thinking of, for once, making it face the right direction. Chandler had thought of wearing sunglasses, but even he knew that such a deed would be even uncooler than wearing your cap facing the front. Who wears sunglasses in the morning?

The old woman who completed the trio in this little tableau was bent slightly and draped all over in a fraying brown gomesi which may have had a discernible pattern on it at some moment lost in the mists of time but which now looked more as if it had been stained in its entirety. She just stood there and grinned at the boys.

Chandler still wondered if she was sane. This was Kampala. Round those parts, sanity doesn't grow on trees.

Meanwhile, Frasier was getting impatient. He describes his attention span as being “as short as... forget it.” So when the old lady opened her rubbery mouth to repeat the words a third time, Frasier's impatience cut her off.

“What can we do for you this morning, grandmother?” he asked in Luganda. Better not risk any further transliterations. His Luganda was, technically, polite, and his question was worded with the requisite respect for elders, but his tone was full of everything that is the opposite of respect. However, the woman hadn't been savvy enough to pick on the fact that the confusion that blazed off the boy's face when she first said the words “well done” would not dissipate if she repeated it, so she did not pick up on the fact that the other boy was sneering and snarling with impatience underneath his breath.

“Good morning and how was your night?” she beamed, because she was of a generation which does not stop greeting until at least a half hour has elapsed. This is one of the greatest obstacles to bridging the gap between the young and the old in Africa. The young are always in a hurry. The old have spent their whole lives wasting time and are not ready to break the habit yet.

“I don't really know. I was asleep for most of it,” Frasier replied. The impatience was beginning to show.

The woman responded by humming one key. This is the traditional way of letting your correspondent know that you are ready for them to ask you, in turn, how your own night was.

“How can we help you this morning, grandmother?” Frasier asked, his teeth now gritted.

“My night was fine,” the old lady said, and hummed again as she warmed up for the next stage of the greetings. Chandler, meanwhile, had moved on from being so bewildered by her first words and was now in awe. She seemed impervious to sarcasm, even though Frasier was all but beating her over the head with it.

“This woman is bulletproof!” he exclaimed.

Hearing English is what shifted her gears and saved the boys. She did not know how to drag a greeting on to infinity in English, but she did know some quantity of that language and would not mind showing off. So she turned to Chandler and said, “Here I have a chapat. And a pan. And a lindas. Do you love it?”

“Fraze?” Chandler said.

“Yes?” Frasier replied.

“I am back in the Twilight Zone.”

After they had bought some chapati, some mandaazi and passed on the sweet banana pancakes because it irritated Frasier that everyone called Kabalagala “pan” yet it wasn't freaking pan, they finally got past the old lady and moved on to what it was that had them out of bed at this ungodly hour: The telephone which sat on a little stool painted in cracked yellow, with the logos of a different mobile telecom companies inexpertly plagiarized along its length and underneath the words “Pay4hon. One Unnit 40 sexs”. A very bored woman barely looked up from her stupor to take their money and poke at the keys on her phone as Frasier recited his father’s number to her.

When the connection was made and the catatonic “Pay4hon” woman had lapsed back into inertia, Frasier spoke into the receiver. He said, ebulliently: “Pappa dawg!”

“Who is this?” growled the other end.

“Who else would call you Pappa Dawg? Man, how many kids do you have?”

“I assumed I had two boys who knew better than to call me silly names like 'Pappa Dawg'.”

“I'm too old to call you ‘daddy’. I'm sixteen.”

“At sixteen you are barely old enough to wear your baseball cap facing the right direction.”

“Can I call you Taata? Is that acceptable?” “I will accept Taata. It is the term I use to greet my own father. Taata is fine. We can proceed with it.”

“Taata. We need dime. Cheddar. Dough. Falanga. Brokeness has hit your offspring. Save the youth.”

“You are asking for money?”

“You are getting better at deciphering our slang, Taata.”

“No, I didn't understand the words you just said. I just assumed you were either calling to ask how my health was or you wanted money, and I decided not to kid myself.”

“So, can you hook a young brother up?”

“But Frasier, if you want money, why don't you ask your mother? She's rich.”

“We asked her on Monday.”

“I'm sure she didn't give you all of it. She must have some left.”

“When we ask her for money the second time in a week she always tells us to call and ask you. So we decided to skip the formalities and just come straight to you.”

In life there are choices, and then there are things that just look like choices but are actually forgone conclusions. Like any argument between Frasier and his father. They can go on for as long as the phone battery lets them but in the end there will be only one victor. And it has never been Pappa Dawg. The two boys took after their mother in this way. The last time he had ever had his way during any dispute between himself and her was when they were beomg christened as infants. As a fan of the hit television sitcoms of the time, he had been dying to name his sons after their star characters. Solome, their mother, was not keen on the names Chandler and Frasier, but claiming that their father insisted on naming them and there was nothing she could do was the only excuse she could use against her clan elders who would want the boys named after her grandparents. Solome did not want children named Jechonia and Zerubabel.

So a few hours later, there was a knock at Taata’s door and a bad word being spat out of his mouth.

He kicked his slippers on, heaved himself up from his sofa and waddled up to the door to open it.

“Before you even think of it let me remind you that I will answer only to Taata. Nothing else.” “Not even The Dad-Man?”

“Taata or squat. Well, if you would prefer to call me 'sir'...”

“Taata, how are you?”

“I'm decent. Jack Bauer was just about to torture someone when you arrived.”

“You are still watching 24 DVDs? Didn't that show end like years ago?”

“A classic never goes out of style, my boy. I will watch 24 until, if ever, I die. How come there is only one of you? Where's Chandler?” he asked, looking out of the doorway and up the drive to see if the other boy was approaching.

Frasier let himself into the house and walked straight to the DVD player. “Truth be told, I have no idea. I was with him when we got to the bus stage. I was with him when we stopped the bus. I was with him when I asked the bus conductor if he will ever make enough money to afford a bath and that is the last I remember seeing him.” That was when Taata’s mobile phone bleeped.

“Hello?” he answered. “Chandler? Where are you? What? I swear. They really ought to amend that rule about not cursing in front of children. Well, turn around and get here. Frasier has already arrived. Okay.” He hung up. “That's your bro. He got onto the wrong bus and is on his way to Mukono.”

“I often think that mum lied to both of us, Dad. That is not your son and that is definitely not my brother. I can't be related to him.”

“He's definitely your mother's son. She has weirdness in her family. Have you ever heard of your uncle Roger? If you haven't it's because they prefer not to talk about him...”

The older man’s voice trailed away to silence as he watched the boy and realized that his speeches were being lost on the air. Frasier was standing in front of the television. He poked at the DVD player. The tray slid open. He picked out the disc on it, sneered at it and all but flung it away. He scanned the pile of DVDs on the cabinet. His father gave up and turned back to the phone to dial for help.

“Solome? Hello, Solome? Your son is here. He is looking through my prized collection of almost 50 DVDs and preparing to sneer, in spite of all the evidence, that there is nothing to watch. No, only Frasier. Chandler? He's on the way to Mukono. No, don't ask. They want money, what else? I don't understand, either. In my days we were taught to be self-sufficient, not to keep running to our parents every day begging for money. Me? Solome, I started working and earning money when I was seven – Seven years old! That's the truth! What do you mean how come I'm always broke? Broke is relative. You, can we stick to the point? I don't know, but I suggest some sort of income-generating activity. Yeah. Let them earn some money. Get them some sort of work... DUDE! YOU CAN'T WATCH THAT, IT'S AN ICE CUBE MOVIE FROM BACK WHEN HE STILL MADE GOOD MOVIES, SO EVERY THIRD WORD BEGINS WITH AN M OR AN F! YOU ARE TOO YOUNG FOR SUCH MOVIES. DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT. I KNOW YOU’RE SIXTEEN, BUT SO IS FREAKING MILEY CYRUS. What? No, Solome, I was talking to Frasier. No, I said 'freaking'. 'Freaking' is allowed. Okay. Let me try to raise this boy right in as far as DVDs are concerned, but let’s think about this. We should get them jobs. Okay.”

When Chandler and his brother were reunited, it was to share bad news. Frasier's face was dour and his tone was morose. The flap of his baseball cap drooped behind his head. He usually walked with that off-axis waddle boys of his age affect after watching rap videos starring people named “Lil” Something and tugging their trousers downwards, but even now, a casual observer could tell that this was no ordinary waddle. There was misery and woe in every unbalanced step as he made his way to the mall bench where his brother sat waiting.

“How was Mukono?” he asked.

Chandler ignored the jibe.

“So? How much did you get?” Chandler asked.

“We have bigger problems.”

“There is no bigger problem facing Africa's youth than endemic poverty. True story. Kofi Anan said that.”

“Who's Kofi Anan?”

“I don't know. Probably a football player.”

“Well, These Africa's youth might prefer poverty to what is in store. They called each other on the phone and you know nothing good ever comes from Dad and Mom communicating.”

Chandler nodded melancholically to acknowledge the sadness of this fact of their family life. It was not easy being from a broken family. Then Frasier continued. “They are getting us jobs for the holiday.” The following process then played out across Chandler's face. First he stared at his brother mutely, as if waiting for him to add something to that statement. Then he burst into laughter. Then that laughter turned nervous and ceased. Then he noted. “You're serious?”

Frasier met the question with a stoic look.

Chandler could not accept this. “Have those two lost their minds?”

“Evidently,” Frasier replied.

Then Frasier proceeded. “You haven't heard the worst part yet.”

“There's a worse part?”

“Two. The first is what the job actually is.”

Chandler lifted his sagging jeans a bit so that he could take the bad news in comfort. “What is the job?” he asked when he was ready.

“We are going to be waiters, you man!” said Frasier.

“Noooooooo!”

Everyone else on that floor of the mall turned to look at them, expecting to see a doctor standing before them telling them something they had was inoperable.

“We are going to be waiters...” Frasier repeated.

“Nooooooooo!” Chandler repeated as well.

“...at Auntie Rosebert’s restaurant!”

This was supposed to be an upper-middle class haunt, this mall. It was meant to attract a clientèle from a certain social stratum. You know. Snobs. So when Chandler exploded again with “Noooooooooo!!!” many of them prepared to call the police.

At this point in the narration of a novel, even one as small and cheap as this one, you would expect the words, “Everyone has an Auntie Rosebert.” Those words cannot be used here because there is only one Auntie Rosebert and very few people have her. Not everyone called her Auntie Rosebert, of course. Some called her Boss. Some just called her Rosebert. A lot of people called her the most audacious poke in the eye of harmonious colour schemes since the Good Lord declared that light may be there.

She was a small, round, bouncy woman who, perhaps thinking that this made up for what she lacked in stature, always wore loud colours and large hats. It is hard to explain without the word “horror” what chromatic connections emerged from her closet. If you met Aunty Rosebert today, you would, most likely, think to yourself that no one has ever put that shade of pink onto that shade of green without having to first herd victims into a jungle and then hurl grenades at them. Little cartoon men danced over her bitenge patterns with crazed expressions on their faces, as if they were desperate to find a way to escape.

Aunty Rosebert was one of those people who believed that a good performance is only worth doing once, so she never had the same material on her kitenge as she did on her head wrap. Being a fan, admirer, and in her heart of hearts, apostle of the Late British princess Diana, she often wore large hats with veils about to fall off their rims. Today's hat had given a passing beekeeper an idea. As if that wasn't enough, she had the most startling spectacles every seen or seen through. They were huge and thick and rimmed in gold and blue and people swore that they emitted sparks of lightning when she got very excited.

And she was excited almost perpetually. She never sat still or silent long enough for anyone to register the sentence “Oh my gosh, Aunty Rosebert is quie... Oops. There she goes again.”

She spoke forcefully and loudly and with that conviction some people have that every declaration they make shares weight with Nelson Mandela’s Ideal I Am Prepared To Die For speech.

When the boys arrived at her restaurant this Monday morning, she fixed the spectacles upon them with intent. “Good morning, Flasier. Good morning Chandrer,” she hooted in her loud, abrasive voice.

“Good morning, Aunty,” said Frasier. Chandler growled under his breath, prompting Frasier to speak for him, “Chandler says Good morning.”

Chandler was angry. At many things. First of all he despised the fact that he had to wake up before ten. Secondly, he abhorred the fact that Auntie Rosebert made her waiters wear uniforms. He had scowled all the way from his home to the restaurant, muttering bitterly about wearing uniform during school holidays. “You ah my new lecloots!” honked Auntie Rosebert. “You ah the new tloops to join my battarion! You ah the coplols!”

The spasm Frasier's synapses had commenced when the word lecloots was uttered subsided, as he finally got the metaphor.

“This is not a prayglound! I consider this a miritarry opelation!”

Fraiser, glad at finally having got it, stamped to attention.

“You have gone to lestaulants before. You have seen waiters and doing their work. Is it easy? It is very easy. Only da foorish cannot to do it properly. Are you foorish?”

“No, I'm not, Auntie,” said Frasier.

She looked at Chandler who, for a moment, seemed to be wondering what the answer to that question was, given the evidence of his last report card. When he got a sharp nudge from his brother, he mumbled a half-hearted “No, I'm not, Auntie,” and let his eyes droop back down to his uniform.

“The senior emproyees are in charge so you have to obey them. What they tell you you do! Don't be stubborn! And when they tell you to do something you do what?”

Because he was still reeling from the way he handled the last question, Chandler felt the need to redeem himself. So he leapt up to answer this one. “Something!” he chirruped.

Fortunately, Auntie Rosebert didn't want to break her stride, so she continued her lecture as if he had not just spilt egg all over himself.

“You must have good customer service. It is a must! I don't want people compraining that they came to Losebert's lestaulant and found bad customer service. The customer service must be very good. You hear?”

Chandler had learnt his lesson. He let Frasier field this one. “Yes, Aunty. No bad customer service.”

“Good. Now Don't forget one thing. They pay you and you take the money to the cashier. I don't want you counting anything! That is lule number one!”

Even Chandler, despite the report card's statement on his mathematical prowess, knew that that wasn't right. There had been like half a dozen rules she had given before that, but once again, he felt it would be better to keep silent. “Maaaaaria!” Aunty Rosebert's vuvuzela honked even louder because she assumed that people in the kitchen would need a louder volume to receive her words. Even though people across the road could assure her that this wasn't necessary.

And here came Maria, the chief waitress of the restaurant.

Maria was a university student who worked here to get some extra money. That's the short version. If you asked Frasier and Chandler, they would give you a lot more. Their definitions of Maria would stretch for hours and the words, “Wow” “Hottest”, “Ever”, “Gorgeous”, “Flyest” and “Legs” would occur with high frequency. She was one of those women who just fit so well into their jeans. Add to that the fact that when it was hot she loosened up her top button and you would conclude that there was little reason for Aunty Rosebert to think the boys would not obey her.

Aunty Rosebert honked and hooted a bit more in the way of introducing the two new employees and then finally handed them over to Maria and, with a swish of the garish pink and green skirts she was wearing, left to find other silences to disturb in the city.

After she disappeared outside the door, Maria turned to the boys, winked and flashed a smile that shot holes into their smitten hearts.

“So, you guys ready to have some fun?” she asked. From somewhere Chandler's confidence in answering questions had returned and he piped up, louder and more eagerly than he intended, “Yes!”

Now, in Kampala city, there are restaurants and there are restaurants. There are dingy hovels that sit squalid and nondescript under tin roofs, places where dour staff serve “lice, matooke, beans, fis” with a different plate for the rice and a different plate for the beans and they look at you as if you are a cretin from the planet Idiotriton if you ask about a knife to accompany the fork they supplied. These are sometimes called “Wotelis”.

Then there are take-aways. Here they serve fast foods, which in Kampala are generally referred to as “snakks”. In Kampala we have ways of pronouncing double k's. In take-aways the staff is even more dour because they hate the customers even more.

Then you have the sort of restaurant people take young, attractive lawyers to for dinner so that they can impress them. Places which may even have a real piano standing in a corner as an idle threat that at any time your dinner may be interrupted by Raindrops and Roses And Whiskers On Kittens.

Then there are burger cafes, places which are somewhere between the posh exotic eateries and the take-aways. Yuppies and visiting white people who are not really as rich as we usually expect visiting white people to be are big fans of this category of restaurant. Rosebert's restaurant, now Chandler and Frasier's place of work, was a burger cafe of this sort.

It was situated in a corner right opposite the mall they had been kindly asked to leave over the weekend when Chandler's wails had started to disturb little children, and because its ambience was calm and elegant enough, and its prices were not tremendously difficult, and it was just right for people who liked How I Met Your Mother, it did a pleasant amount of business. It was called Avalon.

Frasier walked up, straight this time, because his uniform trousers fit, to the customer who had sat himself fatly down at his table. “Good morning, sir. Welcome to Cafe Avalon. I'm your waiter, Brian. How may I serve you?” he asked. There hadn't been enough time to make a badge with the name Frasier on it, and since Brian had quit last week, a hasty solution had been arranged.

“Hello, Brian,” harrumphed the customer, receiving the menu Frasier handed him. “What would you recommend from this menu for a man who just wants a light lunch?”

This is how you know that a boy like Frasier will either grow up to be a supervillain or a lawyer. Or a politician, which is a combination of both vocations. He had spent the morning's training session concocting fantasies featuring him and Maria, some of which were so impossible even the most ambitious telenovella would turn them down. There is no way he had learnt an iota of what was on the menu, but he didn't hesitate one second.

“Well, sir, that would depend. Let's take a look and find something that would suit you.”

The man opened the menu and began to peruse. “The Shaka Zulu burger? What is that?”

Frasier, who had no idea, beamed with pride and, as if he was the mother who gave birth to the Shaka Zulu burger, said, “Excellent choice. It would be perfect for a light lunch. It's filling, but won't bog you down for the afternoon. And very tasty, too. When I serve you that burger, sir, I will serve it with an extra garnish of my envy.”

“Hah hah!” laughed the man. “In that case, a Shaka Zulu burger is what I will eat.”

“Will you have that with chi--” he began. Then he remembered the politically correct term. “With fries, sir?”

“Yes,” said the man who was getting quite impressed by Brian's professionalism. “A Shaka Zulu burger with fries. Brilliant.”

“Will you have something to drink with that? A soda, sir? A milkshake?” The corner of Brian's eye had noticed that there were milkshakes on the menu. “No, no, no. I must watch my weight. No milkshakes.” He patted a paunch. He looked like one of those people who work in banks. He had a blue shirt on, one of those shirts with the mean little stripes and the tie and cuff links that denoted a man whose craft was counting other people's money so that he could keep a hefty slice of it for himself. They are usually in their mid-thirties, a silly age at which to decide to watch your weight, but this was Frasier's opinion. Brian was all in agreement.

“A coca cola will go well with your order then, sir. I will be back with the drink first, and will return with the Shaka Zulu burger and fries shortly after.” With a quick grin, he turned heel and walked back to the kitchen.

“Nice debut,” smiled Maria, when he walked up to the counter. “You were poised, professional, quick and charming. And you never let on for a minute that you had no idea in the world what you were talking about. Well done.”

“It's a gift, I have, Maria. I am blessed with talent in bullshitting,” Frasier grinned.

“I'm hope the girls know that, otherwise they are in trouble,” she said in that way that winked without winking, because Maria had a talent for knowing exactly how to encourage the crushes boys had on her.

By then, Chandler was bristling with jealousy. He had no idea what went into a Shaka Zulu burger, but he would, if he could, at that moment have served up his brother's grilled pancreas in a bun. The thing that lightened his brow was a shadow at the door. Another customer, two actually, for they arrived in a pair. Now it was his turn to show charm and professionalism and bullshit.

The customers were two of Kampala's OMG Girls: Fashionable and flamboyant and flashy and flighty. They had the designer hairdos and the large earrings and the lip gloss and, generally, the accoutrements that would have inspired plenty of fire in Chandler had his attention not already been imprisoned in the kitchen. Now they were just two Barbie dolls here to help him make a good impression on Maria.

“Hello, I'm Chandler, and I'll be your waiter this afternoon...” he began, smiling vigorously at them as they sat and arranged their shopping bags around them.

“Your badge says you are ... (she peered closer) … John.”

“Ah yes. John Chandler. You've never heard of me.” Realising what a stupid thing he had just said, Chandler, after cursing his father for naming him while Friends was still a hit, internally slapped his forehead and then scrambled to save the situation with a light laugh. “Hah hah hah!” he said. The women were not buying it. The other one just flopped her hand out, palm upwards.

Chandler did not know what to do with it, so he followed his instincts. He took the hand and shook it. Firm grip, the way the careers counselor in school had told them.

“I wasn't asking to shake your hand, you loser!” the woman virtually screamed in repulsion.

“Eeugh!” her friend offered as punctuation.

“I want, like, the menu?” She was one of those women who believed that speaking like a caricature of Paris Hilton didn't make her sound stupid.

In any case, at this moment, the territory of sounding stupid was cornered. “Ah, yes. The menus, of course. I was just, um... checking your hands to... um... make sure. Yes. Sure. ANYWAY, speaking of menus, I have TWO of those right here. Would you like this one, or this one? I assure you that they are completely identical in every single sense!”

When Chandler was nervous he spoke too much.

It didn't help that he could feel Frasier's eyes burning into the back of his head.

“Well, it doesn't matter which one you give me, then, does it? Idiot.” the Bratz doll sing-songed, wobbling her head.

Now, the thing most people don't expect about Chandler is his temper. The kid can be calm and quiet and can end up on a taxi to Mukono for no discernible reason, which would make you think he can be pushed around. But he can't. He has a fuse and it's not a long one.

“Candi?” said one girl. You could see that she pronounced it with an I.

“Yes, Iryn?” replied her friend, the Y audible.

“What should we have to eat? I'm not even hungry.”

“Oba wat? I'm also not hungry,” said Candi, who was evidently the sidekick in that dynamic.

“I could offer a recommendation,” Chandler offered to recommend.

Iryn sneered. “We don't want a recommendation...” and she waved the rings on her fingers as if she was shooing away an annoying fly.

Now, that was enough for Chandler. “I could give you one anyway. I recommend that you don't go to restaurants, which are places known far and wide for their service offered to people who want to eat when you don't want to eat. I mean, here we buy chairs and arrange them nicely so that those who want to eat can come and sit their butts down and prepare to eat. We pay people like me, reluctant as they are, to come and find out what people who want to eat want to eat. Said people like me then go and fetch what other said people want to eat and then bring it to people who want to eat so that they can eat it. The point I am trying to make is IF YOU DON”T WANT TO EAT WHY ARE YOU WASTING EVERONE'S TIME? DID I WAKE UP AT SIX IN THE MORNING FOR THIS #$&%#??!”

This is when we introduce Frank, the chef, who dived in just in time to whisk Chandler away before he could demand that Iryn and Candi either order some sh** or f*** off.

In the evenings all over the world, and not only in dusty Kampala City, members of the international labour force sit down with their brows knit and take stock of the fruits of their toil. Chandler and Frasier, this evening, did as the rest do. They counted their wages.

“So, are you a mogul now?” asked Chandler, looking from his little wad of notes to his brother's.

“Nope. Still trapped in poverty. And you?”

“When you ask it it sounds like an even stupider question,” Chandler replied with a hint of outrage. “After all that back-breaking work we did!” he lamented. Then, “Wait. I swear, how come you have more than me?”

Frasier quickly tried to hide his money, but it was too late. Deciding that he didn't have to apologise, he went combative. “It's called tips, okay? Don't hate the player, hate the game.”

“How come I didn't get tips?”

“I don't know. Maybe I'm just better than you.”

“Hmm. No. I can't bring myself to be jealous. Can't be jealous of a person for being a better waiter. I have bigger dreams,” he sighed. Besides, it was luck. You just got better customers.”

“Probably true,” conceded Frasier. “And if Candi and Iryn come back, you handle them. Me if I see those cows again, I'm slitting their throats with a table knife.”

There followed a lull, a hot, steaming silence, writhing with unspoken cogitations, thoughts that spiralled on and upwards. The boys were just about to start making conclusions about whether school and education were even worth it if, at the end of the day, this was what professional labour amounted to. That was when Frank walked up smiling in a warm avuncular way.

“So, how does it feel? Your first pay check?”

“I feel abused and under-appreciated and I want to join a socialist party,” said Frasier. “But that's just speaking for myself.”

“I want to join Fight Club,” said Chandler.

“Sssh. Remember rule number one,” Fraiser chastised.

“How does one go about getting fired?” asked Chandler.

Frank sighed and his tone changed from uncle to veteran soldier. “You are lucky you can still contemplate getting fired. You don't have demanding mouths to feed.”

“Yes we do. Ours,” said Chandler, but he figured this isn't want Frank meant.

“I have to pay school fees and feed my two kids. If I get fired how will I do that?”

The world is an unjust and cruel place, the boys concluded. It will reduce a good man to cinders. Frank was a good man, a gentleman of honour and virtue, and yet to survive, he had to go around saving people like Iryn and Candi from jugular stabbings they completely deserved.

“If it's any consolation, it gets easier with time. You get used to it eventually,” Frank said.

“How long is 'eventually'?” Frasier asked.

“A few years and...”

“YEARS?” they chorused and while doing so sprayed spittle all over Frank's uniform.

The conclusions were settling in their heads. Working life was dark and wretched and full of woes. Just as the darkness was about to completely engulf their souls, a clomping sound emerged from the kitchen. Out of the door beamed a vision of light so bright that it banished the shadows. If a second before they were thinking of whether the fake fever act that got them out of school preps could work in the corporate world, and whether they could skip work tomorrow and for the rest of the holidays. That was instantly forgotten.

Maria had changed out of her uniform and was now dressed up for her real life. She had done up her hair and put on some make up and put away the jeans and the branded Avalon t-shirt, replacing them with something so fashionable your author doesn't even know what it is called. I just have to conclude that the fiery infatuations Frasier and Chandler had nursed all day suddenly became even more fiery and intense. I, your author, wish books had musical scores so that I could put in some violins and saxophones at this moment to accompany her entrance into the scene.

“See you guys tomorrow?” she smiled out of the cloud of gorgeousness that engulfed her.

And the two boys replied with conviction and assurance that they would most definitely do whatever was possible to ensure that they saw her very much again tomorrow.

Young men love in different ways from normal men. This applies to all forms of love. For example, even though their father hated giving away money, he was quite fond of his two sons. They reminded him, he often mused, of himself when he was that age. And that is why he wondered when caning would come back into fashion. But even though he thought it, he knew, deep in his heart, that he didn't have it in him to inflict pain on the little bastards. He would probably do what he did in all cases of advanced parenting and pass the responsibility on to their mother.

He loved their mother too. He just couldn't stand her.

Especially when she did things like this: convinced him that it would not kill him if he let the boys stay at his place for the holidays. “Dude, it was your idea to get them jobs, okay?” she had insisted.

“So?” he had argued, and it was a valid question.

“So, the alternative is to just let them get there late, get fired and then you cough up the pocket money for their extra large jeans and whatever else the hell they waste their cash on.”

“Solome, tell me, do these boys have girlfriends? Cos girlfriends would explain why they always need money and yet never have anything to show for it. Are there any teenage girls in your neighbourhood who suddenly acquire expensive new Hannah Montana-branded merchandise right after you have given the boys some money?”

“Hah hah! No, no. Girlfriends? The day those losers get girlfriends is the day they meet women who are old enough to drink heavily. They get their game from you.”

“Hah! You say that thinking you are mocking me, but don't forget that my weak game landed you and made you pregnant TWICE!”

“And for that you owe me. Keep the kids for a week, Baz. Wake them up at six and get them to work. If you do this, I'll stop resenting you for what you did to my figure.”

And the poor man would never know how exactly he ended up losing that argument.

Young men love differently. They loved their father, we shall assume, but either one of them would have shot a bullethole into his head when he woke them up that morning.

He staggered into the bedroom they were sleeping in carrying a raucously blaring alarm clock, which he then flung at them. After it hit one, bounced off him and landed on the head of the other son, he staggered back out heading back to his own bed and cursing under his own breath.

Young men love differently. Even though they both swore to their smitten hearts that they would cross every ocean available to see their beloved Maria, they were, at this moment, ready to let her drown for a few more minutes of sleep.

Unfortunately, their dad had a good alarm clock, one that does not take any nonsense. It had no snooze button and did not do that silly thing of ringing, pausing and then ringing again. No. It rang non-stop. And only got louder and more irritating. And if you continued to ignore it, it would insert nightmares into your dreams just to make a point of who was boss at six am.

Soon the boys were up and growling at each other, at the dawn and at their uniforms. Their conversation was unprintable until the bodaboda showed up to pick them up and take them to work.

“What? One bodaboda?” grumbled Frasier.

“I don't share bodabodas,” grumbled Chandler. “Even if you did, who would you share it with? I wouldn't sit on that thing with you.”

“What are you saying? What is wrong with me?”

“You fart,” Frasier replied, in the tone of one stating obvious universally known truths.

They thought of going back in and demanding that their dad wake up and drive them to work, but then as the sun rose, so did the level of intellect that would remind them that he was even more irritable in the mornings than the two of them combined and that the “it was your idea” thing would only work when coming from their mother.

So, remembering that they had earned some money the previous day, they hired a second bodaboda and sped on off to the mall, Frasier shouting to his brother as the bike zipped away, “Don't end up in Mukono?”

Work was going well that day. Especially since Frasier, Maria and Frank had agreed that they needed to help Chandler earn more tips, if for no other reason than that his performance otherwise didn't just deter tippers, it made them all look bad.

“Look the customer in the eye and smile,” Maria had offered.

“No. That will creep them out. They will think you're planning to serve them poison so you can drag them into the back and chop their limbs up to make burgers.”

“What the hell?”

“Seriously, when he tries to feign sincerity it can be very disturbing. He looks at you like Slingblade.”

“Who is Slingblade?”

“You've never watched Slingblade? Billy Bob Thornton was a serial killer who...”

“AAAARRGHHH!!”

“Wha... AARH!! Whoa! You see? Look at him! THAT'S the look I was talking about. It just shows up out of nowhere.”

“I swear Chandler, if I didn't know better I would swear you were secretly plotting to eat my children.”

“I'm not so sure he isn't...” “FRANK!”

“What? I barely know the guy. For all I know he actually does want to... okay, stop looking at me like that. I will stop talking now.”

In the end it was decided that an obsequious bow and no eye contact at all were the best forms of approach.

They also advised against any physical compliments after Chandler ventured to tell one customer that her bosoms were very “healthy, especially the left one”. He was given a set of small-talk cues to chose from and as long as he kept to them, he seemed to be doing alright.

“Welcome to Avalon. My name is John and I will be your waiter. I look forward to serving you.”

“Thank you John. What have you got to eat?”

“We have an extensive selection of snacks as well as several delicious burgers and pasta meals. Would you like to look at our menu?”

“Yeah. Let's see your menu.”

“We have been having very interesting weather, lately.”

“I know. One minute it's hot and the next it is raining cats and dogs.”

“I have heard that this is a sure sign that the day of judgement is nigh. Repent or be destroyed in the coming Armageddon...”

Then Chandler would say “ouch” as he was hit by a flying spoon. Looking in the direction from which it came he would see the other three staff members signalling urgently in gestures that translated to “Don't ad lib. Stick to the script.”

Apart from a few spills now and then, everything seemed to be going well, and the tips were in fact coming in. Chandler was getting to like being a successful professional. Of course there was that moment when he entered a hot streak and was close to being better than Frasier. Have you ever heard of a thing called sibling rivalry? It's when your brother sabotages every chance you have of upstaging him through the use of clever psychological tricks, like saying, “Aw. I'm proud of you, baby brother. You are not sucking!”

People as naïve as Maria think he is being sweet and supportive, but the double insult has registered and is enough to make him stumble. When the next customer asked if the food would take long, Chandler casually replied, “Nope, this is not Nakapiripirit. Here cooking technology means more than just tap water.”

But that was not the greatest trial he was to face. Fate had an even direr and more sinister surprise for him. And it arrived, as if sent in the charge of a bad courier company, late after lunch.

There is a man in Uganda who is known as Thaddeus. Their father had warned them about him several times before. He had said to them, “My sons, beware Thaddeus. He is mean and evil and full of hate.”

“But Poppa-dawg, isn’t he one of your best friends?” one of them had protested. Probably Frasier.

“Yes. He’s like a brother to me. That doesn’t change the fact that he’s a jerk.”

Their father had narrated how Thaddeus was so skilled in the process of hating things that he could walk into a room, any room, and say the words, “I can’t stand...” then look around that room, just cast a simple, quick, cursory glance around the room, and never fail to find at least seventeen ways to end that sentence.

Their father had told them this in the hopes that they would be forewarned and hence forearmed, but alas, not this time. This day no one expected that the gentleman with the afro who sat with his back to them at one of the distant tables would turn out, when approached, to be none other than the evil one.

“Good afternoon sir. My name is John and I am your waiter. Can I get you a menu?” Chandler chanted after approaching the table.

The man turned round, looked him up and down and sneered.

“Your name is not John. It is Chandler Bazanye. I know this because I was in the bar with your father the day you were born,” he snarled.

“Uncle Thaddeus!” Chandler was taken aback.

“Why are you lying to me, and how many lies do you intend to tell me today in this restaurant? Are you going to bring me a fish and swear it is a milkshake?”

“Uncle Thaddeus. What a pleasant surprise!” Chandler stuttered.

“In pursuit of an answer to my question, I have counted that as the second lie. I told your father this the day he gave me the grave news that you two had been employed at a restaurant. I told him that the general standards of service in Uganda’s public catering industry had just taken a steep dive. I see now that I was wrong. This is not a steep dive. This is more than that. You are virtually moving upside down now.”

Even Chandler knew that the best way to react to Thaddeus was not to try to defend yourself from whatever accusations he thrust at you, but to run away from them as fast as you can by changing the subject.

“Uncle, we have a tempting variety of snacks, confectionery or even lunchtime meals available here at Avalon. Would you like to make a selection? Let me return with a menu.”

“I said to the man, ‘Baz, have you no shame? How do you inflict those two upon the innocent public? And don’t tell me they mean no harm, Baz. Those two boys are stupid and stupidity doesn’t need to mean harm to do plenty of it...’”

As he continued to rant, Chandler virtually sprinted back to the kitchen.

“You will not believe...” he panted upon arrival.

“I heard. I know that voice anywhere. It is the voice that traumatised me in my youth. I still remember when I was a toddler how he used to pat my head. At first I thought it was a friendly gesture, until he explained quite loudly that he was checking me for horns.”

“You know the customer?” asked Frank. The two boys looked at him with doleful eyes mixed with that withering you give to people who ask about things which have just been made obvious.

“That’s our uncle Thaddeus,” said Fraisier.

“Possibly the nastiest man in Uganda,” elaborated Chandler.

“Doesn’t management here reserve the right of admission?” Frasier asked, hopefully.

The same question was coincidentally repeated loudly from the restaurant, and when the staff of Avalon peered through the doorway from the kitchen it was to see Thaddeus yell them at the banker from the day before. While he had the same general appearance as he did yesterday, nice suit, rolling paunch, perfect hair cut, he looked much less confident. In fact, he looked as if he was in need of hair that he could get to stand on end.

Thaddeus was yelling at him, “No, no! You must leave. I am sure I don't want to eat in the same restaurant as you, and since I got here first, you must leave. Go, take your jowls elsewhere!” “What is your problem?” the banker was challenging. Chandler, Frasier, Frank and Maria looked on.

“Jowls! Jowls!” shouted Thaddeus. “I can tell from the shape and size of them that you are one of those people who eats noisily and I refuse to sit in the restaurant with people like you. I have suffered the trauma that comes from dining in the vicinity of such cheeks before and I shall not endure it again. Leave right now, sir! Out!”

“You ridiculous bastard, I will not budge!” the banker bellowed, hiking his belt up.

“There is no other way. Do you think you will promise to eat silently and then convince me that this promise is worth a thing? Look at the flab and the volume of those cheeks. It's going to be like being caught in a natural disaster. No, no no. Take your big fat face and get the hell out of this restaurant!”

“I will not stand here and be insulted like this, least of all by a...”

“You will stand there and be insulted until you turn round and leave. The massive cheeks that consume your face tell tales of your eating habits. I am sure you are one of those people who tries to stuff the whole chicken drumstick down in one bite. No wonder it sounds so loud and disgusting!”

“You are asking for a beating, you man!”

“Moron! I am asking you to leave. I am asking for a leaving! There is a big difference, unless your jowls are too large to allow you to process English vocabulary!”

“That's it. I am giving you up to the count of three to apologise or I will...”

“Or you will stomp away? Please, don't delay. Stomp away now!”

To Frasier and Chandler this sort of spectacle was not unique, though it was spellbinding. They had seen their Uncle Thaddeus ask for many beatings before and had always been unable to turn away from the sight. But to Frank and Maria this was a novel event and neither could decide what to do.

“Go out there and do something!” hissed Maria to Frank.

“What? I'm the chef. My job is to sort out problems in the kitchen. That's the main restaurant. That's your responsibility.”

“What? Be a man also you!” she sneered. “Aren't you the one who is always saying that anything a man can do a woman can do better? Well, go do better.”

Maria looked out at the two men squaring up against each other amidst the chairs. Well, it wasn't exactly squaring up. The banker was rolling his sleeves up and growling and snarling viciously. Thaddeus was staring at him as if he had not registered that what the man was preparing to do was fight, as if he really thought the man was rolling his sleeves up to turn around and depart. And so when he swung his large fist...

Everyone expected Thaddeus to fall, scream or both. Instead there was a whistling of air and Thaddeus springing back from his swift duck completely untouched.

The banker swung again. Again Thaddeus casually slipped sideways and no impact was made. The banker threw a third punch. Thaddeus ducked again.

“Are you going to keep fanning the air around me, sir? Or are you going to use that energy on something more constructive, like visiting another restaurant and learning to eat without slurping noises?”

The man's eyes were raging with fury. He looked rapidly around the room as it occurred to him that he might have better luck in his attack if he used a weapon. His eyes had alighted on a flower pot in the corner. He was just reaching out to grab it to throw when Maria realised that any moment after that would be too late and she would have to explain to Rosebert why the flowerpot was all over the floor in pieces instead of whole in the corner.

“Gentleman, what is the problem?” she shrieked, bursting into the room.

“Does management reserve the right of admission in this restaurant?” Thaddeus asked her pointedly. “If so then evict this man. He is a loud and messy eater. I can tell from the shape of his mouth and cheeks.”

“This rude character just upped out of nowhere and started insulting me!” the banker retorted.

They both stared at Maria, who just stared back. She had no answer. “Let's just calm down,” she said eventually. Thaddeus looked at her. He could see that the only people who needed to calm down were the furious banker and Maria, who was almost shivering in fear. Thaddeus was calm as a cucumber.

“Take a deep breath if you like,” he suggested.

It is not easy to figure out what to do in situations like this. How does one respond? What does one do? How does one decide? Do you think of the business? The banker was a regular customer and it would be best for the restaurant to keep him happy by evicting Thaddeus, but then again, it would be much easier to evict the banker than it would be to get Thaddeus to leave, since he was convinced that he was fully in the right. Plus, the banker is the one who had been trying to throw the restaurant's furniture around and it was he who had attacked Thaddeus. And Thaddeus would insist that he got there first.

Maria stood there trying to decide what to do.

Behind her in the kitchen Frasier and Chandler exchanged glances. “Execute Code Delta Blue?” asked Chandler.

“I think Code Delta Blue is best,” his brother replied.

“Engage!” said Frasier and they disappeared from the doorway.

In a few moments Frasier was strolling in through the entrance of the restaurant. “Eh, oba who is the owner of that Land Rover in the parking lot that used to have such good headlights?”

On cue there was a loud clang and crash that rang out from the building's exterior.

“What do you mean 'used to have?'” asked the banker.

“Well, you hear that sound?” Frasier spoke blandly as if bored. Another clang and another crash-- it sounded like a hard object striking soft metal. “Someone's trying to steal your headlights.”

The banker bellowed and sped out of the restaurant right to the parking lot, where Chandler was waiting standing next to the Land Rover which had a gaping jagged-edged hole in the transparent plastic that was supposed to cover the headlights.

“He went that way! Run! You'll catch him!”

The flabbergasted banker gaped at the ruined front of his vehicle. Then at the gate where Chandler was pointing.

“Or better yet, use the car. Drive after him. Hurry!” Cursing and growling and hollering the names of ancient demigods long forgotten, the banker dived into what was left of his automobile and sped off, leaving Chandler, Frasier and Maria watching from the doorway to the restaurant.

Chandler and Frasier exchanged a triumphant high five and Maria looked at them as one would look at a cute house puppy that was standing over the carcass of an animal it had killed—suddenly aware of what these little creatures were capable of.

“Hey, we’ve got a customer,” Frasier said, leading her back into the restaurant.

Inside the restaurant, Thaddeus was sitting calmly at his table, tapping his fingers absently on the wood and gazing idly at the orange walls as if no one in the world had just threatened his very life and as if no teenagers had just had to vandalise an expensive four-wheel drive to save him. Said teenagers ambled in with the still-shivering Maria in tow, and Thaddeus looked up to meet their arrival. “Hello,” was all he said. “Now, you said you could bring me a menu…”

Frasier and Chandler shrugged. They gently lead Maria into the kitchen where Frasier supplied her with a drink of water while Chandler picked up a menu and returned to the restaurant.

“Your menu, Uncle Thaddeus,” Chandler said, handing it over.

“Thank you, Chandler. I mean, Thank you, John. Har har har!” Thaddeus laughed very badly. It was probably a good thing that he rarely did so and instead scowled all the time.

His eyes rapidly lost their mirth as they scanned the menu, and soon were labouring under a frown. “You call this a menu? How come there is nothing edible on it?”

“Uncle Thaddeus, that’s a list of food items available at this restaurant.”

“I see a few varieties of swill listed here under beverages. Strawberry 'smoothie'. I had a strawberry 'smoothie' once. It tasted like insides. Don’t ask me ‘insides of what?’ Insides of just about anything you care to imagine. And what is this? Hot chocolate? The only Hot Chocolate I have ever known was a woman who worked nights at Club Zero in Kyebando. She had a stiff hourly rate. If you were older I would explain what that means.”

“They are very tasty drinks, Uncle. The other customers love them.”

“What about this here? Moroccan cheese-burger? You have got to be attempting to kid me. There are so many suspicious things about that I don’t know where to begin…” Chandler guessed rightly that this was not true and that the customer knew exactly where to begin. He was proved right when Thaddeus begun: “Morocco is a place in the desert where the only livestock is camels. This is, therefore, obviously a burger of disgusting camel meat.”

“Uncle…”

“And camel cheese. Please take this menu away. Tell your cook to make some proper food for me. I will have posho, matooke and binyebwa.”

“Uncle Thaddeus, I don’t think that will be possible. He tends to stick to the menu.”

“That would be ridiculous. Is he a cook?”

“Yes, he is that,”

“There is no such thing as a cook in Uganda who cannot grind up some peanuts and mash down some bananas. Say he may not want to but don’t say he is unable to. I will sit here and wait until he stops being a snob. For shame. How do you expect me to eat camel cheese? Go, Chandler. Tell the cook!”

There is a popular theory to be heard among intellectual circles, especially philosophical academies and those that explore psychological questions. This theory claims that in every person, no matter who it is, there is a gem of talent. Too bad for you if you live in Moroto and your talent is snowboarding, but you are fortunate if you are in a place where your unique skill, whatever it is, can actually be used and manifest.

Chandler’s gift was not that he was able to come up with great ideas. But he had the uncanny ability to say things that gave other people great ideas. He would just blurt out something and the person next to him would immediately slap his own head and say, “That’s IT!”

At this point in the day, while the staff of Avalon huddled in a corner wondering what to do next, now that Frank had firmly ejected the option of him actually cooking matooke, posho and binyebwa on the grounds that he was a chef, not a cook, everyone seemed at a loss. Everyone seemed fuddled and bereft.

Then Chandler said, “Kale why couldn’t he just go to that tin shack down the road, through the alley, round the bend, the place where the blue-collar workers eat? They have lots of posho and matooke there.” Maria beamed. “Exactly!”

Chandler, who was used to hearing this, waited patiently for her to explain what great idea they had just had.

“You guys just need to grab a couple of pans, run down to the woteli, buy the food, bring it back here, and we’ll charge him for it!”

“I like this plan,” said Frasier. “Especially the part about overcharging him and us keeping the money because we are the ones who did all the running.”

Maria looked at the boy again. Once more he looked like a puppy with blood on its mouth. What had once been a sweet little boy was revealing itself to be a shrewd and cunning Ugandan with ways of squeezing money out of things you didn’t think had any money in them.

Surrendering herself to the idea that, well, it was no loss to her or the restaurant, and besides, it was their idea, she handed over a pair of pans and sent them off.

Thaddeus enjoyed the meal very much and did not seem to taste the little present Frank had added. When Frank didn’t like a customer, he usually added a secret ingredient to their food. Don’t act surprised. You know very well that they do this sort of thing in restaurants all the time. You want to know what it was? He dropped a gob of his mucus into the gravy, okay? There. That's what you get for asking questions. You get answers you can't unread.

But that didn’t stop Thaddeus from slurping it all up and virtually inhaling away the posho and matooke. Once his plate was empty he looked around at the other patrons and smiled smugly as if to say, “What losers you are with your pathetic burgers and sandwiches. Unlike you, I have dined like the chief of a great land!”

Frasier and Chandler trotted between the tables, catering to one customer after another and wincing occasionally because every time Thaddeus felt that a particular mouthful was very tasty, he would feel the need to say so. Unfortunately, he would not feel the corresponding need to swallow first.

When Candi and Iryn returned to the restaurant, Frasier would have thought this would be his chance to be charming. But while he tried to smarm and smile and toss in little soupçons of waiter-ly wit as he handed them their menu, it was all ruined by Thaddeus. Candi had just begun to giggle and say, “But Brian, you are as if so silly. Hee hee hee!” when Thaddeus, who was overhearing, spat through a mouthful of matooke. “His name is not Brian. His name is Frasier. Can you imagine? Where do you find a Ugandan with a name like Frasier? His father must have a condition as yet undiagnosed!”

A sweet old lady came in with a bible in her hand, sat down, and began to read it while she waited for one of the boys to approach. “Hello, madam. Welcome to Avalon. I shall be your waiter,” said Chandler, careful not to introduce himself as John in Thaddeus' hearing.

But what he said was enough. “Sister, if that is your waiter, don't wait for the food to arrive before you say your grace. He is a prolific sinner, that boy. I know him. He has so many impure thoughts in his head, that when you try to give him good advice, antibodies in his blood attack it.”

“Do you know that man, my son?” the old lady asked, fiddling with her rosary.

“No. What man? Never met him before,” Chandler gave the only natural answer one can give in such a situation.

“Stupid! I'm your uncle, you faithless liar! Sister, you know that verse in the New Testament where they say God declared that no food was unclean? Well, whatever this lying rat brings you, trust me, it is unclean.”

It was agonising how long he was taking to finish his meal. He had been there for an hour and a half, aggravating the staff, aggravating customers, spitting little flecks of binyebwa as he spoke and driving everyone up the wall. Once again the question of management and rights of admission was at the fore.

That is when Management herself showed up.

Auntie Rosebert marched into Avalon in a shiny flurry of purple and orange fabric. Her hat-and-hairpiece combo was large and was perched on her head like a colourful pet at roost. For yes, it was colourful. There were strands of the sorts of colours normal people don't know-- vermillion, crimson and mauve woven into it. Her shoulder-pads reached for the furthest extents they could and her jewellery was so shiny it didn't reflect light. It hurled light at you with vicious force.

It was her wont to check on the business once in a while. And this was once in that while.

Thaddeus was stricken by the sight of this magnificent creature. He found himself admiring the courage of a person who can let herself look like that. The clashing colours, the gaudiness, the whole massacre-- for this wasn't fashion overkill, this was surely genocide. He was very impressed to see someone who could offend everyone who saw her even without saying a single word.

Seeing her seats occupied by customers put her in a good mood and she could not resist a smile at the sight of each of them as she walked past. She did not not realise that it makes some customers uncomfortable when the manager walks up and asks if they are enjoying their meal because sometimes they are not and they don't want to be forced to be impolite. I know I hate it when it happens to me. It happened to me quite recently in fact. I never eat alone at restaurants, not unless I have gone there with my laptop to write novelettes such as this one. This was the case when what I am about to narrate transpired. I was in this coffee shop with my Acer Aspire One Netbook trying to get as much typing done before the coffee in my veins diffused. Without coffee I can write nothing but poetry, and no one wants to read that crap. So I was furiously click-clacking away at the keyboard when the waitress arrived with my second cup of coffee.

A sip revealed that it was evidently brewed from dishwater.

I would have complained on the spot, but for the fear that if I did that, she would decide to take it back and I needed that caffeine right there and then. Things were not for joking. So I just piled in spoonful after spoonful of sugar, hoping that I would thusly eradicate the taste of soap and grease. There I was, suffering through this, the rotting corpse of a dead cup of coffee, when the manager of the restaurant walked in to greet the customers. “Are you enjoying your coffee?” she asked me.

The problem was that she looked just like one of my old Sunday School teachers from from when I was growing up, so I couldn't bring myself to tell her to stop serving liquidated insults at customers whose only crime was to ask for coffee. She had such a sweet, kindly, warm and gentle look that I couldn't bring myself to say it.

So all I could say was, “Bug off, I'm busy,” and I proceeded with the story. As I am going to do now. Let us go on.

Auntie Rosebert walked through the tables with the pomp and pride of a bride on her wedding day and found her way into the kitchen.

After the greetings, all of them, had been interminably uttered on and on and finally exhausted, she beamed her glasses at the boys and asked, “So? How are you finding it?” This question was directed at both of them but, as we have already seen, Frasier is better at deciphering the unique acrobatics of Luganda phrases transliterated into English. Chandler just stared at Auntie Rosebert the way you would stare at a door that had hinges on both sides and no handle, but Frasier was able to understand that she meant to ask how they were fitting in.

“It is very rewarding and fulfilling, Aunty, and we really appreciate you giving us the opportunity to work here,” he said. Being a waiter had given him plenty of practice and he had perfected his skill at talking through his bum.

“That is very good, Flasier. You have lemembered my advices that I gave you? Customer service is velle velle important. You must arrays lemember dat!”

“Of course. It is a thing I never forget for a second,” the brown-nosing rat slimily replied. In his mind he quickly counted the tips in his pocket. Yes. Customer service was very important.

“How about you Chandra? Do you lemember that the customer is king?”

“Except in the situations when the customer is female, Aunty, in which case, Queen,” Chandler replied.

An uncomfortable pause followed as the joke dropped flat onto the empty ground beneath them and died.

“Yes, Auntie. I never forget,” he ammended.

Auntie Rosebert was thoroughly pleased by this, and smiled that smile of hers that squinches up her cheeks so much that her glasses actually rise up to her eyebrows.

As Auntie spoke to her Maria about issues such as money made and the like, issues in the running of a restaurant that took place behind the scenes, the frontline soldiers, who dealt with the issues that took place right on top of the scene's head, gathered to convene.

“The customer situation right now is not the best, Chan.”

“I know, Fraze. I am not as dumb as I look.”

“You should never ever say that to anyone ever. And I'm telling you that as a person offering good advice. Never introduce how dumb you look into a conversation.”

“I realised two nanoseconds after I had said it that I shouldn't have, but let's not dwell on that. Focus on the customer situation.” “Yes, you know we have tried to make them feel like kings, haven't we?”

“And queens, as the case may have been.”

“But then there is one customer who is not a king.”

“Or a queen. Neither.”

“He is like that element of discord in the kingdom that frustrates its development and progress. Every nation, state, or realm has such an element. Uganda has corruption, for example. America has country music. Avalon has Thaddeus.”

“But Fraze, what are we going to do to get rid of him? He's been here for almost two hours now. He's harder to eradicate than poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.”

“And yet now, more than ever, we need him out of here. I have a feeling that he has not done the worst he can possibly do to our fledgling careers...”

And as if to prove Frasier's premonition correct, Thaddeus's afro'ed head poked through the door. From there it surveyed the kitchen, searching eagerly for something.

“Uncle, you can't come in here. Staff only!” said Frasier hastily, all but diving at him to push him back out of view.

“Where is she?” Thaddeus asked. Very loudly.

“Please, customers are not allowed in here, let me lead you back to your table...” Chandler tried to make it sound as if he was being polite when he was actually dragging at his uncle's sleeve the way his uncle used to drag at the tethers of goats when he was a teenager in Bushenyi District.

“Ah, there she is,” he said, shaking the boys off with embarrassing ease. “Hello. You must be the entertainment. I saw you walk in and said to myself, 'I wonder what sort of act she is going to perform?'. I am hoping for some music. In fact, I came in here to see if I can make any requests.”

Auntie Rosebert looked at him quizzically. “Beg your paladon?”

“You are here to provide some entertainment for the customers aren't you?” he asked.

“Sir, I don't know what you mean!I am the ploplietor of this lestaulant!”

“Then why do you walk in dressed like a dikuula?”

I don't know how to explain what a dikuula is to those of you who may be reading this in places outside Uganda where such phenomena do not occur. It's a clown that is very low-rent. I hope that gives you the picture. If it doesn't, suffice it to say that Auntie Rosebert was as far from flattered as one can go without falling off the flat earth of flattery. Women who wear too much make-up, psychologists teach us, typically do so because they take pride in the belief that the result is a work of magnificence. They expect everyone who views it to be awed and impressed and like to think that all the hard work they put into splotching those spadefuls of goo and paint and powder onto their faces will be appreciated. They don't take kindly to being mistaken for low-rent village clowns.

“Who is this gentroman!” Auntie Rosebert huffed, the exclamation mark indicating that it wasn’t a question, it was a declaration of affront.

Falsehood is often betrayed by inconsistency and what happened next is a perfect example of how this happened. Speaking both at the same time, Frasier said, “It’s an mentally ill person who wandered in,” and Chandler said, “No idea. Never seen him before.”

“I was a the National Theatre once, where I saw a troupe of French mimes who reminded me very much of you. They also had their whole faces completely lost under paint and the stark black lines they painted around their eyes made them look as if the whole time they were staring at horrifying images from the supernatural world that the rest of us mortals could not see. They didn’t entertain me very much, so my friend Baz and I relocated to Club Zero for a strip show. Can I ask if stripping is part of your act? I notice that you have about… hmmm… I estimate about a hundred square metres of cloth on your person. A strip tease will take ages with you.”

“What? I do not appleciate the tone of your queshons!” Aunty bellowed. “I do not rike the dilection in which your intellogation is going! You had better have a good expranation!”

“I hope I have not misunderstood the situation,” Thaddeus said, looking around him and noting that the four members of Avalon’s staff had each buried their faces deep in their palms and that the chef, in particular, was perceptibly murmuring a string of Hail Marys. “Tell, me this. Are you a clown, singer or pole dancer here to entertain us customers?”

“A porro dancer? A Porro dancer!” Aunty Rosebert had never been so… well, to be honest, she probably had been so insulted many many times in her life. You don’t spend your days dressed and made up like she is and survive, but it had never been done right to her face. “How dare you inshinuate that I am a porro dancer!” Thaddeus could see that he had made a mistake. “Actually, with a woman your age, that would just be an insult to the poles. And to the laws of gravity. So, do you sing comical bawdy songs?”

And this time there was no plan Code Delta, Alpha, Kappa. Mount Rosebert erupted in full force and with such vigour and such a spectacular display of ire that it finally answered the question that had been plaguing the boys for the whole day: How to get rid of Thaddeus. For it only ended when he walked out having given up the futile process of trying to get a word in edgewise.

All over the world at the end of days, men and woman trudge into their homesteads, feet shuffling, shoulders drooped, eyes heavy and dull and then kick their shoes off, prying each one off with that cunning manoeuvre where the toe meets the heel.

Then they sigh as if the whole world has been sitting on their heads and has only now finally risen.

Then they find a chair. And they fall onto this chair with an echoing sound. I have seen women who cannot weigh more than fifty kilogrammes do it. My friend Joanna, for example, was a tiny woman who worked as the personal assistant of a demanding businessman. She would find a way of plopping into her chair and it would issue a massive echoing plooooffff! sound as if a half-ton sack of meat had been dropped onto it, yet Joanna is so small and light, she would lose a boxing match to a feather that had bits of newspaper for arms.

This is the attitude of the poor working man or woman at the end of a long day at the office. It applies even when the office is merely a metaphorical one. If you are a doctor after a long day at the hospital, or a carpenter after a long day at the workshop, or a hawker after a long day at the streets, or a policeman after a long day of avoiding bribery (and, let’s not kid ourselves, accepting it), or a taxi driver after a long day convening with the devil, you will come home with the same shadow over your soul.

Whenever Chandler and Frasier were at their father’s house when he returned from his very important and demanding job, they would observe him with puzzled looks. It was strange, they thought, how he would amble in like a robot, unseeing and not hearing and sometimes bumping into the walls as he moved. He would mutter incoherently to the mosquitoes that flit around him as he progressed from door to sitting room and only when he finally had his glass of evening whiskey in his hand – well, when half of his glass of whiskey was all that was remaining in his hand-- would he become a lucid human being again. The same thing happened with their mother. When Solome would return home from work she would always find the house empty. Because the boys had learnt very early that they do not want to be there when her after-a-bad-day mood decides to manifest.

They had always wondered why this was so. What caused this sort of thing to happen? But on this day Chandler and Frasier crawled into the house like zombies. And when they looked at their father and met the look in his eyes, they knew exactly what it meant. A bad day at the office.

“How was work?” they both refrained from asking each other, because they both new the answer would be the same. “Don’t ask.”

Frasier and Chandler also refrained from requesting for some of his whiskey because they knew the same answer would apply.

The End.