adminLenox Mhlanga
IF you mentioned the name ‘Jones’ at any bar, drinking hole or shebeen in Bulawayo, faces would light up in recognition. His colourful reputation as a socialite in the City of Kings and Queens has followed him to the grave.
And yet ‘Jones’ was not his name of birth!
Fungai ‘Jones’ Nyamapfeni passed away early this week. He was dogged by health issues for some time, mostly the result of his lifestyle. Many will be surprised he managed to live this long.
He has outlived most of the shebeen queens and kings who exploited his suave PR skills for decades. We will always remember the indefatigable character who was the life of the party. A nuisance depending on which side of the bar stool he fell.
When tributes began to flood social media on the knowledge, this writer got to know his real name for the first time. So why the moniker ‘Jones?’
Thabo Potshozwayo Dlamini relates how he got the name at Mzilikazi Youth Centre where they used to play a football game called izitulo. They used chairs as goalposts.
“We used a tennis ball and Fungai was not much of a good player. Yet he was rough and his tackles were vicious. For that, we named him after Vincent “Vinnie” Jones, the legendary Wimbledon FC defensive midfielder,” writes Dlamini.
Tributes flooded on social media when the news broke that ‘Jones’ had died. Practically everyone in Bulawayo’s social circuit knew him.
I first met Jones on the Mzilikazi/Thorngrove (Grove County) shebeen circuit in the 90s. Jones was the guy who picked up the empties after us and we would buy him beer. Those were the days of imidlalo — popular fundraising drinking parties that took the Western suburbs by storm. One would pay a cover charge to drink to our content. It was a popular concept and shebeen queens would fight to get a slot because they were guaranteed a killing.
The parties soon spilled into the week starting with amaWednesdays followed by amaFriday. Eventually there was no day of the week that was not covered. Never mind how the party crawlers afforded it. All one had to do was to raise the cover charge and the host would take care of the drinks and eats.
The rapid growth of imidlalo demanded some form of event-planning in order to avoid clashes. So Jones came into the picture with the task of announcing who would host the next umdlalo.
Equipped with a notebook/diary, Jones performed his task with aplomb. This somehow elevated his status. Everyone had to give him attention as he grabbed the opportunity to deliver a vote of thanks of sorts.
It seems Jones had a say as to who would host the next umdlalo. Because rumours flew around that shebeen queens (and kings) would offer Jones bribes for this privilege. When the economy went south, Jones hit the hard times. He would gravitate to the pubs in the city centre where he was no ordinary barfly.
Jones was that in-your-face character who immediately caught everyone’s attention through his hustling antics. I will use the word “begging” because he perfected this into an art. More often than not, people would give in to his persistence, if not just to get rid of him.
He would always ask for the lowest reasonable denomination. During the Zim dollar era he would ask for 5 cents working his way up to 20 cents or 50 cents. When the currency bottomed out, it became rather impractical to ask for money.
When the US dollar replaced the local dollar, Jones would ask for his trademark “i-dollar kuphela,” as he would say.
This did not imply that Jones came from a poor family, far from it. He moved from bar to bar trying to fit in and it did not come cheap. It was just that he had to sustain his expensive drinking habit.
It was Jone’s bubbly character that endeared him to some of us who understood him. He tried his best to fit in, budging into conversations with izidindi — blunt or stale jokes. We would laugh more at Jones than the jokes which invariably fell flat as he delivered with his trademark lisp.
Those of us who knew his background did not find him an irritation. I managed to strike a lot of sane conversations with him. Jones was intelligent even though indications were that he had some mild form of Downs syndrome.
Jones had famous friends and enemies and would not hesitate to boast about them. He had a curious love-hate relationship with the late wrestler Big Mike Tshuma. I vividly remember one incident where Tshuma had ordered Jones to leave for being a nuisance.
Jones, not being one to be intimidated, stood his ground and shouted at Big Mike saying: “lengalo zakho ezimpotshiweyo!” (muscles that look as if they’ve been filled up with air.) Big Mike laughed for days. From then onwards he became Mike’s sidekick.
To people like retired wrestler Allan “The Ripper” Mpofu (aka The Gentle Giant), Jones was a legend. He says that he never saw Jones angry.
Always the true Bosso (Highlanders) son, Allan says Jones was shattered when Amon Chimbalanga joined Amazulu Football Club.
“He told Amon he’d lost it and even cried begging me to convince the former Bosso goalminder to come back home,” Mpofu recalls.
Justice Nicholas Mathonsi, the late Dr Lawton Hikwa and entertainment guru Dave “Madamara” Ncube count among his “friends”.
My endearing memory of the Jones character was when I featured him on my On the lighter side column in the Sunday News. He came up to me and said, “Akulanto eyamahala, Lenox ngoba elami ibizo liyadula, khokha!” (Nothing comes for free. Using my name is expensive so pay up!) Pay up I did in beers, of course and kazange angehle after that.
Hamba kahle Jones, mntakaRuli. Bulawayo and Mzilikazi’s Q,S,P and R squares will not be the same without you. Imagine Jones standing outside the Pearly Gates, notebook in hand. In his trademark lisp he would be saying, “Umdlalo olandelayo . . . ”.
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