Monday, June 8, 2015

     I was the only dude in the Mexican bar again. They would put Skynrd's "That Smell" on and that song really gets me going. Soon I am YEE-HAAA-ing and banging on the bar and singing YEAH YOU. There was one person there who I could communicate with. Several who would just nod at my terrible Spanish. Pantomiming works. The job gets done.
     This day was a day I stopped buying booze from the corner store guy who always had something to say about different foods that gave you a hard on. Or Huevos. He didn't mean eggs, but you just get thirsty sometimes. He was a block away from my house, the next closest was 6 blocks, and in this kind of heat?
I will take a bottle of Mezcal and yes I am aware, Maurice, that this liquid is reuted to have incredible libidinal powers. Yes, like rising from the dead, good one, zombies... hoo hoo hoo. No I am not interested in a side order of freash huevos grandes, thanks.
    So it is a handful of degrees over 100 and I had a more than one beer thirst. The fairy that sells booze had finally crossed the line when my friend roger came by for a couple cigarettes and the queen said something about "me esposa." He had an audience, a tender faced young boy whose company he enjoys. Nothing makes you feel more alive than a lover 30 years younger than you I guess. I had told him that he was never going to see a peso from me after that comment. Then I listed the other beer spots. Jorge sells cerveza too and he never talks about my balls. He is only a half block further. Axel and his wife and kid are always nice to me, never talk about foods that cause hard-ons andthey are only 2 blocks away. My money goes to polite people from now on.
   So my plan was to buy from Axel and walk back right by the aging queen, just to win, just because I am petty, just because I know the guy counts every peso. But it was too hot to walk all the way to Axel's. So I changed my mind and headed to a Cantina called Mala Santa.
     It was like a Clint Eastwood movie. Dusty street blowing sand, my straw bowboy hat pulled low so  it didn't blow off me. I felt the dudes eyes on me as I walked by his corner of booze. A sweaty old bandito, peaking through the blinds. Waiting for his alcoholic ambush. I kept walking and got to the bar and knew  I was staying until the sun went down. Heat stroke is no joke and my red face made me look like a boiled lobster. I was Harry Eastwood that afternoon. Clint's nephew. Yeah. I asked for  a pen and paper and they gave me a notebook and I figured I would leave them some kind of heiroglyphics. Something they could hang on the wall under a plaque that said Harry Eastwood drank here.
    I ordered another beer and was riffing in the bar book, chuckling to myself about how it was high noon in Mexico as the bandito hid from me in his Licoria. It was great stuff, He sold evil spirits and I was the Exorcist. He was preying on the community selling cheap cane liquor to the cheap pissy drunks who sleep on the streets all weekend. I was the cure. When my beer was delivered I asked the young kid behind the bar what the upside down crosses meant on their drink special board. He said his boss prays to the devil. That explains the name of the place I thought. Maybe I shouldn't have been dancing with his mom when she came out of the kitchen. I was doing "the fishing guy" casting my rod, reeling it in, jerking the line to fool the fish. The waitress was amused. The Dee jay loved it. Not the boss. It was one of many dance jawns I was doing, It's great to be out of the sun with a pocket full of cash and some fist pumping jams on the music machine.
   Anyway, I finally hooked his mom, she was at the other bar, and I jerked my imaginary pole like I had a whale on there and the waitress laughed again.
     A new kid comes over to talk to me. He had been reading the book, maybe knew some words and he's asking me weird questions. the he winks at me. I must be giving off some kind of vibe this weekend. Is the moon in an especially gay phase or something? The dude leaves when I deflect him by telling the new customer in the bar excitely that I buy the same toilet paper thats on tv right now. MAS EXCELLENTE PAPIER de la BANO....SI SI SI . I made an even bigger deal out of the next commercial in my fractured spanish. (I am a one man entertainment machine)
     I look over at the religious dude and he is demonstrating to his staff pantomiming pushing one of them in the chest with two hands, while telling showing another how to cut my legs from behind. Shit was getting real. But I played rugby, they are all half my size, and I started doing some math. Given one real man X, and four half men Y, what is the ratio of times that X is greater than or equal to 4Y (as a percent.) I was not liking the answers, but it was starting to feel like a rugby Saturday in there. I did my always hilarious Sumo movements. Planting both feet theatrically, one gigantic stomp after another. Hitting my thighs. (it could have been a dance move). I am a see what happens kind of drinker. I let the other guy figure out if I am being provocative and i can always say it was a bad joke, culturally misinterpreted.I told the kid one beer and my check and I am digging my legs into the floor in a strong wider base, dropping my hips and getting ready. The beer comes, I over tip as usual and I am out of there. There is pushing your luck and there is sheer stupidity. I try to stay on the right side of the line.Especailly when drinking in a country where people just disappear.

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