(no subject)

[saltdawg]

About a month or so ago I was sitting in my favorite bar in San Juan, one of my favorite bars in the world, El Batey.  I was sitting towards the end of the bar trying to find a reason not to go over and sit with my shipmates.  I had made the mistake of bubbling my enthusiasm for the place before we got to San Juan, they followed me there and quickly decided that it was their bar as well, which actually kind of ruined the place for me.  Anyway.  I was looking for a way out of sitting with them and their buttery nipples and red headed sluts and Jager-bombs.  

There were two girls sitting next to me and when I got Mario to give me another Vodka rocks, I bought them a couple of beers.  We got to talking, and eventually I introduced myself by my "Nom Du Bar."  We continued to talk and I was yammering about being a merchant seaman and this and that, which is a good crutch to avoid banal small talk at the bar.  Which is a good crutch for me to grandstand and tell sea-stories and talk about myself, as it were.  Yeah, so anyway, I must have stopped to take a pull on my vodka or something because one of them got a word in edge-wise.  She asked me a simple question:  So, why are you in San Juan?

So I launched into a patter about how I work on a research ship and we had been studying a stationary wave that exists in the Mona passage.  It was truly fascinating stuff really.  This "wave" is sits 60 meters below the surface and is 100 meters tall.  And nobody knows why it is there.  I think they said that the anomaly only exists there, or it's the largest example of the phenomenon or something.   Anyway, I'm telling these girls about all this and, again I made the mistake of taking a drink.  Another word, edge-wise: 

So, what kind of research ship are you on?  

I tell them that I work for the E.P.A. and start in about something else, but one of the girls leans across her friend and says:  

The E.P.A!  Do you know someone named Max Love? 

I blanched.   Using the simple equation of "EPA" plus "boat" she had somehow pulled my real name out of thin air. 

I finally looked at her for real.  I studied her face to see if there was something there that I recognized...  A million things were running through my head.  What had I done to this girl?  Why doesn't she remember my mug?  Where did I meet her?  Had we slept together? My throat went dry, and after more vodka, I decided not to lie.  Yeah, I know him pretty well actually...

There was a beat.  Actually more than a beat.  I'd say it was more of a moment. a moment when our eyes were locked and I think she may have recognized that alcoholic blackout terror that lives in my heart.  There was that moment and I didn't know what I did to her that she wouldn't recognize me, but still carry around my name to bars, tucked inside her purse. For conversation.

I didn't know what to say.  I wanted to know who she was, but I was terrified of finding something out about myself that I lost somewhere in the murk.

And then she asked me if I knew where to find him.

The strap of my pack was flipped up on top my boot.  Somehow my cigarettes were stuffed into my pocket.  Money was crumpled into my fist.  I sat there and regarded her expectant face and assessed the amount of vodka in my plastic cup versus the amount my twittering gut could handle in one gulp.  I regarded her, I regarded my cup.  And somehow, for once I think I made the right decision about what should happen next.