Old Possums and Armadillos

"You should have come to the party," my mother said.  She was speaking of the party Sunday night at her neighbor's house after they all went caroling.  

"How many people were there?" I asked.  

She thought for a minute.  "Maybe ten.  There were several pretty women there," she said.  

This surprised me.  I know the neighbors and the neighborhood, and the only pretty women there are a couple who are married.

"Who were they?"

"There were two who used to live in the house next to Marlene that moved, and there was a woman who lives a couple of streets away."

"How old were they?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"In their thirties, maybe."

Whenever I go to anything in my mother's neighborhood, it is all old people.

"Well. . . shoot."

My mother wants me to have someone.  Sweet.  

I went to lunch with C.C. yesterday.  I've gotten a 7 day free trial on Apple TV so that I can watch "Bad Monkey" which has my friend who I keep getting confused for as narrator and character in the series.  The first episode, opening scene, there is a bottle of Barbancourt Rhum.  I used to spend a lot of time in Key West and had good local friends.  This was before the cruise ships and condos came to town, even before Captain Tony was elected mayor with the promise, "I'm going to run this town like I run my bar.  If I don't like you, you're outta here."  I spent some nights sitting next to Tony at his bar as he regaled me with his tales.  His had been a life of adventure.  When they made the movie about him, it was shot right there in Key West.  Tony told me he'd get me a role in the movie, but I didn't live there, of course, and wouldn't be there for the shooting, so. . . fantasies and dreams.  

The movie turned out to be a dog, anyway.  

I was there the day Key West residents blocked U.S. Highway 1 and seceded from the rest of the U.S.  Oh, that was grand.  A stage was erected and people gave speeches.  It seemed then that the island would remain a haven for oddballs, writers, artists, and misfits forever.  

Nothing lasts forever, and eventually, as it always does, money won and the condos were built and the cruise ships came.  I haven't been back very much since then.  

But seeing that Barbancourt in the opening scene took me back.  That was what people used to drink on the island.  Barbancourt Pina Coladas sprinkled with coconut and topped with a shot of the dark rum was a daytime staple at the two bars on opposite ends of the island where the locals would go, the Atlantic side in the morning and the Gulf side after noon.  Days were consumed by gambling and nude sunbathers before the new guard came and ruined the island.  In those days, though, no one had air conditioning, and there was no cable television. Once those infected the island. . . well. . . much changed.  

I decided to stop at the liquor store on my way to lunch and buy C.C. a bottle of Barbancourt for Christmas.  Tragically, the shelf was empty.  The store was out.  Maybe it was because of the t.v. show, I thought.  I settled for a bottle of Pusser's Rum instead, the official rum of the British Navy.  It is one of the purest rums in the world and another of my favorites.

I got to the restaurant before C.C.  When I walked in just at noon, there was only one couple sitting at the bar, but they had taken "my" seats at the corner of the bar facing the giant windows looking out over the highway.  Disappointed, I took the corner facing inward.  

"Hey stranger," hailed the bartender.  "I haven't seen you for awhile."

Indeed, I don't think I had been here since last Christmastime.  I used to go more often, but I haven't been eating lunch out this year.  

"They took my usual seat, " I said.  

"It's their's, too.  They beat you here."

She remembered what I usually drank with lunch. 

"How do you do that?  It is a super power, I think.  Bartenders must have some genetic ability that others don't."  

She smiled.  

"Do you have a can opener?" I asked holding out a can of Creamed Possum with Groundhog gravy in a bright orange can.  "My buddy gave me this last Christmas and I thought we could open it today."

"I'm not opening that," she laughed.  "I don't have a can opener."

"This is a restaurant.  Of course you have a can opener."

"They might have one in the kitchen, but I'm no asking for it," she said, wide-eyed.

When C.C. showed up, he insisted there was nothing in the can.

"It's a joke," he said.  

"Bullshit.  Shake it."  There was definitely something in it. 

C.C. ordered a Negroni and we began to catch up.  After awhile, the bartender asked if we wanted to eat.  

"Sure," I said, looking at her to see if she would remember what I usually got.  Fucking amazing.  She nailed it.  I know I'm like the Rain Man about things, but still, this was crazy.  

C.C. and I caught up for the next three hours.  When we stood up to leave, my legs were stiff and didn't like feeling my weight on them.  I grabbed the can of Possum off the bar and C.C. grabbed his rum and we slowly crossed the parking lot to the garage where we each had parked.  

"Shit," I said, "we forgot to take a photo of our meals to send to Christine."  Christine is our onetime colleague who moved to the midwest.  It is a tradition that when C.C. and I get together, we send her a photo as a reminder of when she would join us, too.  But that is the way things seem to go, isn't it, old habits and rituals and friends seem to fall from our daily and weekly then monthly routines until we only remember the thing or things after the fact.  

"Further." 

I have forgotten to tell you about the Giant Armadillo that has taken up residence under my house again.  I've tried to dissuade it by various means which I won't tell you about, but I finally went to the Home Depot the other day and bought some granite rock to fill in the hole it has dug under my deck that it has made its entrance to what I assume is another deep hole that allows it to get under my house.  I have heard it recently in the early morning when it comes "home" from its nightly foraging.  It sounds like the beast is tearing the walls apart.  So I put down the rock before I went to bed a couple nights ago hoping it had already gone out.  When I looked the next day, it had moved the rocks and had tunneled back in.  I put in more rock and packed it tight.  This morning it looks like it may have tried to dig it out.  There was a slight gap, and I think that armadillos are like rats in their ability to flatten their bodies and get through small openings.  I've refilled the hole with more rock.

I will keep you informed.  

Hey. . . I have an idea.  How about some music?  Let's keep the holiday jazz thing going.  A little Miles.  Hip sophistication.