The Italians have a word for the stereotypical flash-sleasy-greasy-guys which they do so well. 'Tamaro'. The shine from their hair can be seen from space, they provide 95% of the steady income of Alfa-Romeo and they induce a healthy mixture of revulsion and envy among other men (let's be honest, they succeed with women more than they should). They, and only they, can pull off wearing sunglasses indoors as they have already accepted the fact that they are cocks. They have other priorities.
They are among my favourite people to observe in bars, drama always ensues. As it did recently, when one of them walked into the bar at 4am with his latest catch. The lucky lady in question was African-American, with dreadlocked hair and could be described as being (I will try to put this as nicely as possible)...ample. The MTV-Generation would describe her as being well equipped in 'boo-tay'.
The sight of the pair of them was immediately comical. Two more different looking people you could barely imagine, like a Russian doll on drugs. They pulled up a seat at the empty bar and ordered. "You-a most-a expen-sive-a Whiskey, what is-a"? "Bushmills", I replied. "Due, bitte". Wow, 3 languages in one order, B-M-T-N-S was clearly impressed. He had made a good start.
I, however, was curious, and therefore found a glass and decided to devote a considerable amount of time to polishing it, ensuring it would be the cleanest glass concievable come the end of my skillful evesdropping. The conversation started badly, as the language barrier began to cause severe communication difficulty, but the whiskey was going down a treat. I nearly broke the optic it was going so fast, always a sign among couples at a bar that the flirtation process isn't going that well. She was definately getting bored as she was now moving on to the doubles. "Can you make mine a large?", she asked, to which he replied (...) to which he replied..."You-a like-a large-a things-a"? ...whilst winking.
No joke, the glass I had chosen for over-polishification was a Hefe glass, which are fairly thin at the top. The urge to burst out laughing was so strong I snapped almost the entire top half of it off. A cleverly disguised cough got me off the leash as I retired to the sanctity of the cool-room to sprawl over a keg, choking. I have never seen anyone's head swivel at such speed, it created a draft. As she stared right through him, with what looked like steam coming out of her eyes, he knew, immediately, that he had made a grave error. Then came the noise...
"WHAT U SAY MUTHAFUCKA?" "WHAT, YOU SOMEKINDA CREEP O WHATEVA?" As I watched, through an almost fully closed door, having already provided myself an observation-beer, I remember wondering if it was possible to die from laughter. She flung and hurled and javelined abuse into his face. The force of her language created sufficient wind-power to slightly blow his shades off of the perch of his nose. Imagine a bear having an argument with a squirrel, the winner is apparent.
With superfluous use of the word "Scusi" he managed to calm her down to the point where his perfectly styled hair now seemed safe from the onslaught of Hurricane BMTNS and also to the point where he felt compelled to remove his glasses, look into her eyes and deliver a heart-felt apology. This was his second mistake. What he whispered into her ear I will never ever know, but it must have been biblical. From 15 feet away the whites of her eyes revealed themselves, bulging in disbelief. Without looking, without taking into consideration distance, trajectory or angle, her hand instinctively swept across the bar, taking her whiskey with it and delivered 10 years of Irish Whiskey distillation know-how straight into his now unprotected eyes.
As he clutched his beautiful and now triple-distilled face she took leave, knocking over 3 bar stools on her way to freedom and self-satisfaction. I now felt it safe to emerge (even know my face was now as red as his shirt) and, measuring the situation impartially, immediately decided to present him with the bill, just to get it out of the way, you see. Tamaro-whiskey is 4€ a pop in my bar, and 48€ is a wonderful multiple of this price for a prima classe prick.
"Quarantotto Euro", I said gleefully.
"Si", he replied, however not so gleefully.
"Si"... S+I, half way there, in the spelling of the word "Shit".
Seemed fitting.
