This weekend, I was in St. Louis for a friend's wedding. Tom, my roommate from our days in Madrid, was set to tie the knot with his longtime girlfriend, giving me a great chance to meet up with some old friends.
The two buddies who I was most excited to see were Neil and Vino. Admittedly, Neil and I are probably closer, but that's bound to happen after all the bonding we did in New Zealand. Unloading squid boats and shivering over countless pots of tea in our uninsulated shack will do that to men. And let's not forget the hundreds of cases of wine consumed, and millions of Scrabble tiles laid.
Neil now lives in Knoxville, TN where he's going to school for architecture. The distance between our respective homes is enough to keep our friendship relegated to the telephone most of the time, but Neil and I are built on the ability to sit for hours and just talk. Our lives seem to correlate, and our worries and experiences seem to exist, at least in part, as a mirror image of the others'. Sometimes, and especially with a friendship such as this one, face time is essential. We were both looking forward to a little tea over word games.
Kevin Barnes, the man the world calls Vino, resides in Dogtown, Missouri. Literally on the wrong side of the tracks, this St. Louis neighborhood can barely contain his destructive energy. Kevin and I started our international brotherhood of crime and mischief in Madrid, where my first memory of him was as he pranced across Gran Via, gladly playing the skulls of unfamiliar geriatrics as though they were bongos. On a trip to Portugal, fueled by the whining of Neil Young, Kevin ripped ornamental fish statues from their moorings in a public park, and gladly affixed them to the roof of a police cruiser. He denies the involvement. It may or may not be true that my father has referred to Mr. Young as a thin-lipped Canadian pinko fag, but I'll never disparage tunes that could inspire such madness. Old man, take a look at your life, I'm not quite you.
Back in St. Louis, and Vino shows his quality as a host. While Neil and I were looking for stuff to do around the city, our Dogtown denizen came through as the guide. Naturally, we ended up at the Budweiser brewery, taking the tour and salivating for the free suds. Midway through, we were in a gigantic, temperature controlled warehouse. Looming tanks, cold to the touch, were stacked four high and six across, each one said to contain enough beer to last a man over 100 years if he drank a case each and every day. Kevin saw a coiled hose hanging from one of the tanks, and asked if "anyone wanted a rip from the party hose?" His eyes sparkled as a memory apeared.
"Oh my god, that reminds me! I went to Del Taco the other day for a burrito. The guy said I couldn't have one, their meat hose was broken."
Meat Hose?
"I bet I could hang on for eight seconds."
I believe you can, Vino. I've never doubted ya. But I know that I was already dubious of Del Taco, in my mind a second rate substitute for Taco Bell, which in its own right is a second rate substitute for FOOD. Now I'm steering clear at all costs. Unless, of course, I've had one too many rips off the party hose. Then a burrito might be pretty good.
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