I woke up at 10 with a bit of a hangover. I packed up the last of my stuff and took it down to the truck. Bob called and said he'd meet me in the lobby at 11:30. I checked out of my room and went to the hotel restaurant for some brunch.
Brunch was chicken breast in a cream sauce with a big pile of crispy fried plantains. I told the waitress some dumb jokes and gave her a few polite compliments. I made her smile and laugh without mentioning her legs or her ass just to prove that it could be done. Bob called me in the middle of my meal and said he was waiting in the lobby. I waited until I was finished, met him outside, and helped him load his stuff into my truck.
I didn't feel like starting an argument with him. There wasn't any chance of changing his mind, and besides, I still had to drive home with him for four hours. I just kept my mouth shut and let him shout, “Hola, mami!” at the girls we drove past. Around three o'clock, I dropped him off at his home in Comayagua and then drove back to La Paz.
When I got home, my cats were livid. They were both shedding their summer coats, and I went into a sneezing fit while they rubbed against my legs. There was a note from my maid saying that she had cleaned the house and fed the fish and she wished me a happy New Year. I brought my new clothes in from the truck and laid them on the bed.
I looked in the fridge for something to eat. I found three old bottles of Imperial Beer left over from a party. I decided to skip lunch. I put two of the bottles in a backpack along with a lemon, a knife, a bottle opener, and a notebook. I went outside, climbed up the platform that held my water tank, and stepped onto the roof.
It was four o'clock, late afternoon. It was warmer than it had been recently. There were only a few clouds in the sky, and the sun was very bright. My steel roof was hot to the touch. I sat down on the top of the roof and pulled out a bottle of beer.
Halfway through the first beer, I laid back on the roof and put my hand on the hot steel and looked over the mountains. “It's January,” I said out loud. “And it's eighty degrees. I'm gonna get a sunburn in fuckin' January.”
And then I didn't feel so bad about the weekend. Yeah, Bob's an arrogant bastard, but arrogant bastards are popular. He does get laid more than I do. And people remember him, even if their memories aren't good. No point in trying to change him. He is what he is.
I probably wouldn't have gone to the clubs even if he wasn't there. I like going to discos with friends, but I never liked meeting people there. The girls you meet at dance clubs are the biggest bimbos you'll meet anywhere. Some of them are really smart in regular life, but they turn into idiots when the DJ starts the music. And don't think I'm just singling out the women. Guys who can quote Chaucer at a dinner party shout Blink 182 lyrics at girls in a bar. Five years ago, I thought that was fun. Now it just seems dull.
I sat on my roof, and I thought about my cats and my fish and my house and my truck. And I thought that maybe I'm starting to settle down. Maybe I've grown out of the clubs the way I grew out of my old clothes. Maybe I'm ready to move on with my life and find something else to keep my happy. Maybe one day I'll even get marr-
No, I'm not going to say that dirty word. I won't even write it down.
But I'll ponder it, just for a second.
It got pretty hot up on that roof. I added the empty beer bottles to my rooftop booze collection and climbed down. Yesterday was nothing. A good year came to a bad end. No big deal. This year would be even better, and it was starting off great.
The last swig in a beer bottle is mostly spit. It's best to let it go, but it's all I have left for a toast. So here's a double toast for the New Year: To all the people hwo left comments on my blog, and to my upcoming trip to Copan. May your year be blessed, and may this one trip finally go right. Happy New Year.
Happy New Year to you as well!
Posted by: Orion | January 03, 2006 at 04:46 PM