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If my car is down, I’ll jump into a kombi. No sweat!
A dark guy, so huge he could not button his shirt properly, exposing unwaxed black and white chest hairs, reached for a young lad’s hand and pulled him out while the vehicle was in motion.

He dragged the hapless fellow by the same limb and floored him on a grassy area near the bus stop and used his body for a punching bag. Before the victim could react, the lumbering giant had placed his huge leg firmly on the young lad’s throat and moving it sideways to induce pain. Were it not for some men who swept to the young man’s rescue by pushing the irate giant aside, he could have died. The young man’s large round eyes had become red and teary while his mouth was wide open as he gasped for air.

His crime: “Why were you riding in my wife’s car? How did it all start? For how long have you known each other? Unondiziva mushe mushe here?”
The giant’s wife explained that she had just offered the young man a lift, but all that fell on deaf ears.
In the husband’s mental eye, the two were an item and something fishy was going on.
“I’ll teach this boy a good lesson. What were you doing with him? Do you think I am fool,” bellowed the behemoth as he charged towards his wife.

Oh, how embarrassing it can be for a supposedly learned fellow to adjudge someone guilty until proven innocent. The young man had been assaulted both physically and emotionally for a crime he hadn’t committed.
“I wish I had used public transport at least I would not have fallen into this trap. Please help me explain my situation to this old man, he wants to kill me,” the battered and bruised young bloke could be heard saying while making good his escape.

In a flash, his dignity had been soiled. The giant had spoiled his day. While suspicion is the first reaction whenever someone feels his territory is being invaded, the colossus in this case went a bit too far. He confronted a situation with itchy hands and a shut mind resulting in a hapless young boy suffering under the weight of his blows. But the giant is not alone in that predicament.
Jealous has made people part with large sums of money hiring lawyers and repairing vehicles of people they would have damaged on suspicion someone was dating their wife.
“Frank is in trouble. His financial boat is capsizing.

He beat up someone after he met him talking to his wife and has been asked by the court to foot the medical bills. He has also been ordered to pay the bloke US$3 000 he claims he lost during the fracas,” yours truly heard people saying at a bar in Glen Norah last weekend.
“If you do not control your temper, you’ll work for some people for the rest of your life. If you hit everyone you see talking to your wife, it means you do not trust her.
“In fact, beating someone for talking to your wife suggests she is of very loose morals,” the drunkards continued.

As I commit pen to paper gentle reader, there are scores of men out there who are nursing injuries inflicted upon them by untrusting souls suspecting they were up to no good with their spouse.
Jealous people make part of the communities in which we live. To these characters, it’s taboo to ask for directions from their daughter, let alone the wife.
“Why should someone talk to my daughter or wife. I have the right to watch over them and no one can ask me anything about that,” you hear people bragging in bars. If you work with a woman, visiting her at home outside working can be disaster.

“If you work with my wife, let it end there. Your office does not extend to my house. It is actually an insult to come to my house looking for her because it would mean there is more business you intend to engage in which is not conducive for the office.
“Mind you, I have authority over who visits this home and workmates are not the best of visitors to come,” a gentleman called Fani Mutopo told this writer.

Churches are not exempt from such characters.
Jealous people in church do not take kindly to males sitting next to the queen. Sharing the hymn book can spell disaster. During choir practice sessions, you are lucky to escape with a reprimand for drawing close to the wife while learning the pitch, tones and duration of musical sounds.

Even the way you greet a married woman and language should be calculated never to imply any other relationship than being members of the same choral group. Pastors too are not spared.
Some members of their churches take offence when these men of the cloth pay regular visits to their homes outside prayer times. While some men openly register their disapproval, some wait until the pastor is gone then all hell breaks loose.

Jealous trails men even to funerals and weddings.
If you perform suggestive dance routines near someone’s wife you will be surprised to get a punch in the stomach or be asked to behave yourself.
“Iwe zvibate,” you are told straight in the eye.

No matter how stranded she is, lending a married woman some money is not the best of options.
When payback time comes, you may be unlucky to find the honourable of the house present and be subjected to serious interrogation.
“Why did you give her the money, where, why and how? In return what did you offer and why?” some men will ask you in the hope of beating the lights out of you should you fail to provide satisfactory answers.

Kombis have of late been converted into theatres where skits of jealous are exhibited in their best of colours. Boarding a kombi with a man and his wife can be an enjoyable experience provided you are not at the end of the husband’s hand where a blow or slap can reach you. It can turn nasty if a man blind to the relationship starts proposing love to the wife in the husband’s presence.
“So how do I get in touch with you ambuya? Makabatana nekuumbana sebhora amai,” a young man once said in a kombi before being slapped straight in the face. Jealous also manifests in restaurant and supermarket queues.

Some men can ask a lot of questions and vice-versa to ascertain whether or not you were indeed together with their spouse at school. Naughty men will ask you who their wife’s boyfriend was at the time.
If he feels you are drawing too close to his wife, a jealous man can accuse you of being a pickpocket or a nuisance.
There are scores of people who have traded blows at filling stations because of jealous. Out of the blue, someone can start accusing you of looking at his wife lustfully or being too caring in your conduct.

It can be real murder if you spend time talking to someone’s wife and the husband demands to know how the conversation started and tries to prove that he is a better man the physical way.
Ask mechanics, technicians and plumbers who go door-to-door during the course of their duties.

Most of these men have been assaulted or denied payment after being found lifting heavy objects with the help of wives of people who would have hired them.
Gentle reader, jealous is part of everyday life, but let it not lead you into trouble and avoid confronting challenges with a shut mind.