It couldn’t last.
Col’s search for Corn beer soon put paid to any sense of normality.
We had an address for a bar that served the stuff but it was just off the edge of the map that Grandma gave us. Picking up incomprehensible directions at every corner, we were soon lost. A friendly accountant put us right and we wandered into the Mundial Bar, three doors down from Grandma’s House, after an hour and a half in the blazing, mountain sun.
The corn beer was purple and sweet and not altogether unpleasant. Col and I sipped a glass or two as the car crash unfolded next to us.
I say car crash when I actually mean people in their eighties getting riotously drunk at 3pm on a Thursday afternoon. I have seen it happen before and I am sure that the methodology is the same. Pension day is the green light for old folk to go nuts.
Some do it with strong painkillers mixed with gin.
Others smoke crack – seriously, they do!
Most just over indulge on the hard stuff over a nice lunch and get a bit carried away. Youngsters do it too but when old folk get hammered it upsets our sense of the natural order of things. They should wear brown and constantly be looking for their glasses.
Grandparents should not bump and grind in a quiet bar on a weekday afternoon – or any day for that matter.
Augusto was the sober one and politely attempted to restrain Lenny as he pulled Col bodily from his seat and forced him to gyrate his hips like a pole dancer a third – no, make that a quarter of his age. Col gamely tried to keep up but Lenny was on fire. He roared instructions laced with alcohol fumes straight into Col’s face, inches from his own.
The only other group in the bar was a business lunch and they didn’t exactly help, as they knocked back glasses of something potent and black whilst yelling encouragement to Lenny to take off his trousers.
Augusto was wise enough to realise that Lenny was going to keep going until he burnt himself out so he sat down next to me and we had a nice chat about politics and economics and Lenny’s sexual predations at the local Tango hall.
Pepe was the female contingent of this octogenarian afternoon drinking club. She was clearly a pint sized stunner in her time and a live wire to boot. She waved a hand at the young waitress and a shot glass of firewater appeared.
“Fuente!” she said with urgency. “FUENTE!” It was the only word she could muster but her hand gestures said so much more as she ran them up and down her figure and then clasped my head in her hands and pressed it firmly to her ample bosom.
I am a red-head and so I am used to older ladies ruffling my locks and hugging me in a way that says ‘sweet boy – my husband had hair like yours’. This was different - Pepe clearly had urges and the alcohol hadn’t just set Lenny on fire.
“You com to Casa Pepe” she said again and again as she stroked my hair.
A full sixty seconds later she released me from her embrace and as my eyes readjusted to the light, all I could see was Lenny forcing Col to simulate something unspeakable with a beer bottle whilst Augusto roared with laughter.
Eventually, after an hour and a half or boozing with the old-timers, Lenny succumbed to the afternoon session and headed to the door with an arm around the shoulders of his drinking companions.
Col and I followed a respectable distance behind, for fear of rekindling the fire in Lenny’s groin.
We got back to Casa De Mi Abuela as the sun was setting.
I thank the Dear Lord that we didn’t end up at the wrong Grandma’s House.
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