“Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.”
He also suggests that an artist invents things that life later wants to imitate, and that his followers—including me—eventually end up writing passages so similar to life that it becomes impossible to believe they are true.
I do not mean to suggest, much less claim, that these lines—briefly illustrating certain episodes from my life and the lives of my “partners in crime”—are works of art in themselves.
On the contrary, they are merely fragments of certain moments: harmless episodes from a life sprinkled with a pinch of madness, narrated with a touch of fantasy and lived within the context of an almost imaginary surrealism.
When I watched the film Wedding Crashers, it brought back memories of adventures whose objectives and outcomes strongly resembled those of the movie’s plot.
The resemblance was so striking that one might think the screenplay had been based on a spoken account describing the wanderings and exploits of a dangerous gang of young men during the early 1980s—a period I consider the age of lost innocence.
Part One: The Revelry
“There is no difference between art and life. Anyone who does not turn life into art is not alive.”
Alejandro Jodorowsky
They relied on the optical illusions of magical mirages to slip through the cracks of a party like rays of light and shadow.
Once inside, they invoked the psychology of miracles so that no one would discover them. They passed unnoticed, like brief traces of second-rate perfume.
They entered through all four corners of the room like weakened winds, almost floating like operetta ghosts in a state of near-invisible catharsis.
Silent as mimes so as not to arouse suspicion, they waited, blending into the crowd of guests until the formal toasts and occasional speeches were over.
Then they would officially join the celebration and unleash a whirlwind of passions and revelry worthy of the decadent Saturnalia of the Roman Empire.
Before a rooster had time to crow, they would take over the party. To the delight of the guests, they would become the entertainment and principal protagonists of the celebration.
Their only purpose was to fish in troubled waters.
Once inside and left to their own devices, they began roaming through the estates of revelry, stirring up the atmosphere with dances and leaps in the purest style of the February pepinos, leaving passersby frozen in amazement.
To break the ice, they would burst into an opening choreography consisting of acts and dances resembling those of Cirque du Soleil.
Their acrobatic movements left the audience dazzled and overflowing with emotion.
Taking advantage of that state of hallucination and confusion, they would scatter the couples and, as though organizing a military barracks, form three lines.
The single women went in the first line, the married women in the second, and those who claimed to belong to neither group in the third.
They separated the women in this way so they could classify them according to the universal laws of attraction: height, the curvature of their eyebrows, the length of their hair, the measurements of their waists, and similar characteristics.
There was no discrimination of any kind. The only mandatory condition was that the women be legally of age and one hundred percent willing and available for romance and matters of the heart.
They carried out this inventory despite the shouting and jeering of the less fortunate women, who complained bitterly about being excluded from the purge.
The supposedly democratic act of taking inventory almost always created such anxiety among the rejected women that they began to feel deprived and orphaned of love.
They were forced to declare emotional bankruptcy and, more confused than ever, ran off to drink the miraculous potions offered by healers specializing in unrequited love.
They drank mouthfuls of romantic consolation until they became intoxicated, resigned themselves to their fate, plucked the petals from daisies, or read verses from collections of poetry written with tenderness and compassion.
The fortunate women were dazzled by the gleam of the men’s lust-filled eyes. They were hypnotized by their elegance and charm, cloaked in mystery and fantasy.
The goal was to make the women lose their senses and, in a moment of madness, let down their hair, loosen their reins, and surrender indulgently to the men’s Don Juan-like advances.
They became true devotees of the congregation of debauchery, in the most anonymous corner of the street of perdition, challenging with impunity the freezing weather of the town.
That was how they intended to end the night: outdoors, indifferent to the torrential rains and storms, sheltered only by the moon’s conspiratorial silence and the mute surveillance of the stars.
They would lose themselves in a carnal and primitive act, tangled together like two silhouettes belonging to a furtive shadow—with the first willing participant.
And if fortune favored them, they would show no restraint. They would seize the forbidden fruit before the woman’s own fiancé had the chance to taste it on their wedding night.
The more I watched the film, the more I wanted to file a complaint and sue the screenwriters for intellectual plagiarism.
I wanted to demand compensation for unpaid royalties because, as I have already said, the film’s plot was nothing less than the story of our own youthful epics of mischief and sexual adventure.
In fact, I could even claim that the film’s entire premise might have been based, without removing a single detail, on these lines rescued from the flames of oblivion.
They are nothing more than the account of the wandering, roguish lives of a group of young men in the 1980s.
Although we were pioneers in the practice, I must clarify that sneaking into social events—or parachuting into them, or slipping through like contraband—was not something we invented.
We did not invent the practice of entering weddings, baptisms, graduation ceremonies, failed-exam celebrations, or even the wakes of complete strangers.
In fact, the art of sneaking in is older than our Declaration of Independence itself. It is so deeply rooted in our national culture and folklore that even the property and buildings belonging to Customs are contraband.
That said, I must acknowledge, without fear of contradiction or false modesty, that we truly perfected the art.
We refined it to such a degree that it functioned with the precision of a Swiss watch.
Only God knows whether our first objective in these despised adventures was to satisfy our thirst for alcohol. That need was usually taken care of quickly and efficiently.
The second objective—and perhaps the more critical and fundamental one, just as in the film—was to end the night with our trousers hanging at half-mast, copulating somewhere in town with an invited woman who had momentarily set aside her modesty and decorum.
Pressed by urgency and the smell of indecency, she would escape from the party for a few brief moments while her partner slept off his drunkenness somewhere between San Juan and Mendoza streets.
Covered by the mantle of the young stars and guided by the dusty light of a decrepit streetlamp, we searched for the least visible hollow in which to love without restraint or mercy.
There, we could savor—at the speed of a sudden revelation—the forbidden and clandestine pleasure of marital infidelity.
I remember as though it were yesterday the preparations we made, the difficulties we overcame, the hardships we endured, and the tricks we used to slip into weddings.
We did it with the terrifying determination of fish condemned to death, swimming against the current, navigating waterfalls and treacherous whirlpools, avoiding hooks and the songs of sirens so that we would not end up lifeless and rigid with fear, wrapped in blocks of ice on market stalls or petrified like fossils in the colonial salt marshes of San Ildefonso.
In those days, there was nothing more sensible or profitable to do with our weekends than avoid wasting them on homework, museums, lectures, or other such pointless activities.
We slipped into weddings every blessed Saturday.
We did so religiously, never missing a single opportunity, as though attending weddings were a penance imposed by the holy deacon of the Church of Debauchery.
Obviously, we entered these entanglements knowing that we might end up imprisoned in the freezing dungeons of the police, permanently entered into a criminal record for violating moral standards, or—worse still—accused of committing countless unnamed crimes and sins.
We could have been charged with trespassing, seduction, copulation, intrusion, intimidation, and every other offense ending in “-tion.”
We might even have been accused of corruption for attempting to corrupt the nurses, nuns, and devout women who were sometimes the guests of honor.
Even so, we did it anyway.
We proceeded with great caution and with the confidence gained through hundreds of successful parachute landings.
We followed the tracks and anonymous stealth of ghosts. We arrived without invitations and, naturally—noblesse oblige—with a wedding present in hand and our suits neatly pressed and starched, as though they were uniforms worn by badly behaved military officers.
The wedding present was usually very modest.
Most of the time, it consisted of a bundle of artificial flowers, half a dozen cheap glass tumblers bought hurriedly at the black market, or, in the worst cases, the three indispensable and highly prized objects of any new household:
A washbasin, accompanied by its pitcher and an enameled iron chamber pot.
All three were carefully wrapped in cellophane.
We would arrive promptly and dutifully at the threshold of the celebration, gifts in hand.
If there was security at the entrance, the guards would probably assume that we were legitimate guests as soon as they saw the presents and would let us pass without a problem.
After all, only complete lunatics would waste nonexistent money on gifts for an event to which they had not been invited.
These activities were neither automatic nor guaranteed.
Nor did anyone invite us because of our beautiful faces.
They were expensive operations requiring methodical planning, sound strategy, and a measure of good luck.
Most importantly, they required an extremely high degree of shamelessness as a sine qua non condition.
That was not difficult for us. Insolence and brazen audacity were our natural state and our calling cards.
Invitations and Connections
Our strategies depended on the occasion.
Most of the time, to be safe, we would stop by the printing shop owned by a friend’s father in the middle of the week.
We wanted to see whether the young rascal had any extra invitations.
He always made sure to print a few additional ones “for emergencies,” as he explained.
If that was the case, everything became much easier. Our entrance was practically guaranteed, without major headaches, stress, or complications.
In the town of those days, young people—and students in particular—were abandoned by God and poorer than Jesuit monks.
I am referring to the monks who followed a gourmet diet and lived the peaceful dolce vita in the city’s walled convents.
Yes, those same monks who had taken thousands of vows of poverty but not a single vow of chastity.
The countless times we walked along the cobblestones of the festive streets, following the trail of the crowds and the fraternities of lovers, we did so with immense faith and the contagious joy of a full-blown riot.
We possessed the military discipline of an ecstatic troop of Dionysus.
Well dressed and disguised in clothing that suggested financial respectability, we traveled the roads of pleasure with the elegance and measured composure of Don Juan Tenorio.
Despite walking around dressed like royal courtiers, our empty pockets—full only of wind—released sad melodies stripped of gold and riches.
They revealed the miserable condition of our circumstances.
That was always the way.
Because we had no cash, we were perpetually borrowing money from one person or another.
To this day, thousands of those debts remain unpaid.
We never settled the accounts because we were devoted followers of that eternal truth which says:
“To owe money is gentlemanly; to collect it is for peasants.”
That is why, to one degree or another, we resorted to those unusual methods of parachuting into all kinds of events.
We did it simply to satisfy our adrenaline and calm the restless energies of our wandering, troubadour-like spirits.
In the society of those days, it was not so important how much one knew. What mattered was whom one knew.
Consequently, cultivating strategic friendships was of incalculable value.
For example, it was wise to befriend the printer I mentioned earlier.
Apart from giving you fake invitations, he could print twenty thousand obituaries and official notices—enough to wallpaper your entire house and neighborhood.
It was also essential to be on good terms with the shoemaker on the corner.
That man could not only repair your shoes, but, in the blink of an eye, he could raise the heels of your dancing shoes for the celebration ahead.
As an added courtesy, he could compensate for your malnutrition and lack of height.
Needless to say, it was equally important to maintain a friendship with the shoe-shiner on the corner.
Between shoe polish and ink, with a brush in each hand and a little juggling on the side, he would tell you everything that had happened in the police world that day.
He would keep you informed about every rumor circulating through the city and, as a bonus, let you read the day’s newspaper for free.
And while chatting away, he would polish your shoes so thoroughly that you could see the reflection of your party-going self on their toes, as though they were convex and concave mirrors.
No less crucial was maintaining a friendship with the tailor at the fashionable atelier.
Naturally, he could do more than install a zipper in your disobedient trousers.
He could also mend the holes in your pants, sew leather patches onto the backs of your worn-out jeans, and, when things were truly desperate, turn your entire suit inside out.
In the blink of an eye, you would have a new outfit—a reversible suit, as it were.
Studying the Weddings
If we could not obtain invitations in advance, regardless of the method we had tried, we followed an established routine that almost always produced results.
The procedure went more or less like this:
First, we had to circle the cathedral, as engineers and law-enforcement officers would say, in order to carry out a direct, on-site evaluation of the weddings in question.
In those days, many couples—especially those of noble birth and good family—were married in the city cathedral.
For that purpose, they gathered near the main square with their invited guests and their endless retinue of bridesmaids.
The bridesmaids went ahead, sprinkling perfumed talcum powder over the paving stones and cobblestones. They scattered jasmine petals and multicolored streamers, transforming the streets into Persian carpets covered with nearly wilted flowers.
The official procession of authorities, godparents, and relatives of the bride and groom would then pass along that floral path.
The brides appeared on the sidewalk along Pulmonía Street after the ringing of the second bell.
They dragged the endless trains of their wedding dresses behind them. Embroidered in cross-stitch along those trains were the love poems and bitter letters written by all their former suitors.
They arrived amid the murmurs and admiration of friends, relatives, and strangers, wrapped in enormous silk veils like Milanese pastries.
Their bridal garments were decorated with bouquets of silver filigree embroidered into the lace.
After the ceremony, they emerged through the main doors like divine visions beneath a shower of rice.
They appeared as if from nowhere, waving a paper fan in one hand and holding a bouquet of roses in the other.
Then they turned their backs to the crowd on the first step and threw the rose petals toward their friends, cousins, rejected women, and hardened spinsters.
The women jumped over one another like steroid-enhanced harlequins, desperate to catch the bunch of flowers that might allow them to become desirable again.
They had not yet enjoyed the good fortune of being delivered into holy matrimony.
It was impossible to control the undeniable presence of curious onlookers, much less drive away the ever-present breed of professional party-crashers—people like us.
Everyone present, invited or not, who gathered in the sacred grounds of the main church melted into a confusion more chaotic than the Tower of Babel.
They waited anxiously for the priest to absolve the original sin and unite the couple as God intended.
Everyone was tired of listening to prayers and Hail Marys.
Worse still, they had been forced to kneel without moving, condemned to the torture of pins and needles in their feet.
They were desperate to dance, and it was getting late. The long ceremony seemed to be stealing time from the celebration.
Once they recovered from the terror and lethargy of the liturgy, a disturbance of biblical proportions immediately broke out.
Everyone wanted to escape into the street and be the first to claim sovereignty over the cathedral’s thirteen stone steps.
From there, they could witness the bride and groom’s triumphant exit and perhaps carry them on their shoulders while cheering the union they had just committed.
From the early afternoon onward, people began converging on the center of the celebration square.
The square could not contain them.
The human flood spilled eastward as far as San Benito Church, northward to La Merced Church, southward to the convent of Santa Teresa, and westward all the way to the enormous doors of the municipal cemetery chapel, located in the almost medieval district of San Roque.
Such were the tumultuous wedding processions of the time.
They resembled hunger marches or political demonstrations against dictatorships and “sociolism.”
No one knew why there was such a fever for marriage.
They were, as García Márquez might have put it, “loves in the time of cholera.”
What is certain is that these weddings represented an era of prosperity for public notaries.
There were so many marriages that the notaries occasionally ran out of ink from writing marriage certificates.
For the priests, they were an even greater blessing from heaven.
They charged according to the sinner, demanding a fortune for a full Mass. If a couple wanted prayers accompanied by verse and poetry, the priests charged them enough to pluck out their eyes.
Others speculated that so many marriages were taking place because lovers had no television.
The only way to entertain themselves during the town’s desolate, freezing nights was to practice the Kama Sutra.
That, they claimed, was why most marriages were consummated more for medical reasons than matters of the heart.
Or, as the legal clerks used to say, people married to avoid getting involved in bedsheet brawls or “pillow fights.”
In any case, regardless of the cause or reason, the truth was that there were so many couples willing to surrender their freedom that the benches of the cathedral could not accommodate the enormous gathering.
The priest on duty had no choice but to conduct a Mass for the masses and marry everyone at once, like a union of lovers.
With the aid of a thousand-watt megaphone, he made sure everyone could clearly hear the declarations and commandments.
He then delivered a single prayer in the plural, sprinkled three drops of holy water on each couple, and married them all without further ceremony or tears.
Taking Over the Celebration
Once the solemn ecumenical service was over, the newlyweds left the house of God on the shoulders of their godparents, guests, and other accomplices in a procession resembling that of the first Thursday of Lent.
Naturally, the gate-crashers headed for the door like a stampede of oxen.
They tripped over scapulars, smashed baptismal fonts, and scattered the broken wings of plaster saints across the floor.
They ran like madmen, extinguishing half-burned candles with the almost-moist air escaping from their lungs, which were on the verge of exploding.
In that state of furious hyperthermia, they rushed outside to throw confetti and colored paper over the newlyweds.
To make the occasion even more festive, they set off firecrackers and sticks of dynamite in the air, providing a counterpoint to the mournful ringing of the church bells.
It was there, amid the disorder created by the crowd and the commotion, that we carefully studied every couple.
We estimated the number of guests, measured the decibel level of the noise, and took the temperature of the pandemonium generated by the wedding party.
We also paid close attention to the bride and groom’s clothing because there was a direct relationship between the volume of the uproar and the couple’s attire.
The louder the celebration and the more colorful the newlyweds’ clothing, the greater the promise of mischief and disorder.
We followed this method blindly. Almost always, with mathematical certainty, it revealed the quality and potential of the wedding party that was about to begin.
Meanwhile, the newlyweds traveled through the cobblestoned streets of the town in ancient taxis from the age of the troubadours, rented under the pretense that they were wedding carriages.
To the backs of those vehicles, they tied bunches of evaporated-milk cans and sardine tins, making them rattle like nutcrackers and announcing the latest consequences of love.
As though on a wedding tour, they traveled through the twisting old streets that not long before had been the setting for their clandestine romances and premature couplings.
Through the curtains, they glanced sideways at friends and curious onlookers waving little flags and white handkerchiefs as if marriage were an act of patriotic liberation.
They traveled clinging to one another like ticks, unwilling to separate in the open-backed vehicle.
In full view of the crowd, they touched and explored one another’s private parts, increasing the growing delight of the passersby.
The driver, meanwhile, wore a bewildered expression, unable to decide whether he should keep driving or masturbate.
The newlyweds continued along the road of matrimony like alley cats in heat, on the verge of expiring.
They left the vehicle impregnated with the secretions and smells of interrupted intercourse—odors that could not be removed even with sandalwood smoke, anise fragrances, or eucalyptus incense.
They traveled around announcing to the four winds that they were ready to explore one another’s snow-white bodies.
This time, they would do so without the urgency of unmarried lovers, with the calm and pleasure of a legalized love.
They now had the blessing of the holy vicariate and the necessary paperwork from the notary.
While all this commotion was unfolding, we formed a procession whose mission was to locate the venue of the event.
This was a relatively simple task, given the compact geography of the capital.
The weddings were endless nights of celebration, sanctified by Bacchus himself—the god of wine and harvest, inspirer of ritual madness and total ecstasy.
They were nights of economic pleasure, warmed by alcoholic drinks served like torrential rain during a drought.
It should be mentioned that, regardless of the social standing or family background of the bride and groom, these social events generally served enormous quantities of alcohol.
Food was much rarer.
At most, the hosts would offer a couple of water biscuits spread with butter, with a miserable olive placed in the center as decoration.
They served these miniature delicacies to prevent the early symptoms of drunkenness.
If they did serve something more substantial, it happened only once in a blue moon.
They avoided serving food because they feared displays of bad manners, vomiting caused by indigestion, or outbreaks of contagious hives.
Once the celebration began, the waiters—who were, in fact, the most important figures at the entire event—would appear wearing white uniforms and tiny black ties.
They looked like conductors of low-class operas.
They appeared in shifts, zigzagging among the dancers while balancing round aluminum trays filled with the famous “railroad trains.”
The railroad trains were nothing more than twenty drinks of dubious manufacture and secondary colors, arranged one behind the other like a toy train.
They were served in tiny glasses so small that they resembled tailors’ thimbles.
To make matters worse, guests were required to drink them one after another, without pausing for breath and without mixing them with anything.
Within a few miserable minutes, the result was usually a collective vomiting session.
As midnight approached, the hired musicians began playing their trombones and clarinets.
The crowd then began singing in scattered, uneven voices, depending on the social class of the bride and groom.
Sometimes they sang Mozart’s “A Little Night Music.” At other times, they sang the traditional wedding hymn:
“Why are you getting married?
Why are you getting married?
To cuddle your babies, that’s why.”
By that point, half the party was already gone, the liquor was flowing like an endless spring, and the moment had arrived for us parachutists to take over the entire celebration.
We seized its contents, its supplies, its drinks, its food, and even the sounds of its harpsichords.
As a bonus, we took the night itself hostage, forcing it to submit to our wishes and stop complaining about the violation of its recommendations concerning good behavior and decorum.
As punishment, we tied it to a solitary chair at the far edge of the commotion and left it there to greet the dawn like a victim of Dracula, its throat opened by the mortal wound of morning light.
We made such a racket and created such disorder that we transformed the celebration into an event incompatible with any sanctuary of discretion.
It became a bacchanal—a cornucopia overflowing with passion and madness.
Even Bacchus himself blushed with embarrassment and escaped through the window with the last drop of modesty he had left.
We stripped the event of its banal morality and filled it with energy, gestures, compliments, and caresses directed at the female guests in anticipation of what might happen later.
When the Liquor Was Restricted
There were other occasions, however, when, as part of a conspiracy against us, the unrestricted consumption of liquor was forbidden.
The waiters were forced to serve only four drinks per person and keep a written tally, using marks and numbers like a scorecard in a game of dice.
This senseless prohibition contradicted our principles and was, in fact, an insult to the very constitution of the parachutists.
We could not tolerate any form of prohibition.
If the godparents and financial sponsors got their way, we had no choice but to “oil” those little men dressed in penguin suits so that they would not make us go without.
We bribed them to serve us doubles and even triples, thereby securing a respectable supply of liquor sufficient to last through the night.
Naturally, there were other events at which my friends and I had to revive the forgotten—but still honored—art of smuggling in cheap, fourth-rate liquor.
We concealed the little bottles in nylon bags, hiding them in the sleeves and lapels of our velvet jackets.
We used those tricks to give ourselves a boost, lose our inhibitions, and summon the courage to dance a few cumbias and mambos of the kind heard and seen only in the chicherías frequented by the poorer neighborhoods.
At other times, circumstances forced us to resort to the old trick of drinking heavily in advance at the town’s cheap bars.
We did so in the hope of reaching the coveted state of being “just right”—that dazed condition of drunken stupidity which, by magic, made us believe we were as handsome as Brad Pitt, danced like Michael Jackson, sang like Mercedes Sosa, or possessed the golden tongue of a substitute congressman.
Drunker than grapes, we would launch into foolish, incoherent speeches about the importance of flies’ immortality in a plurinational society and whatever other nonsense happened to spill from our mouths.
At the height of the chaos, we danced like spinning tops and drank like condemned men.
We took life lightly, as though our consciences were perfectly clean.
Then we waited for the slightest distraction so we could seize our prey, like foxes raiding an unguarded henhouse.
There was always, however, some fool who ruined the party.
In a moment of complete lack of judgment, holding a glass in his hand, he would decide to toast the happiness of the newlyweds.
So far, so good.
He would then sprinkle a few drops of liquor for Pachamama, as though he were participating in a religious ceremony or traditional offering.
The worst part was that this indiscreet drunk would publicly advise the husband:
“You have to kill the cat, brother!”
The wedding godparents would be so embarrassed that they would pull at their hair in despair.
Open-mouthed, they would watch as a merciless silence filled the room and threatened to bring the celebration to an end.
And as if that were not enough, the drunk would conclude his soliloquy with a spectacular blunder.
He would remind the brand-new husband that he still had time to regret his decision.
He should think twice before consummating the obligatory marital act.
“To kill the cat,” in the language of revelers, meant reminding the husband that his first infidelity should occur within the first three months of marriage.
Otherwise, they claimed, the marriage would not work.
Despite everything, the party continued.
We continued pledging our time and space, dancing with one woman or another.
Almost always, one of us would become dazzled by the girl sitting on a platform.
To the rhythm of the music, she opened and closed her legs with the swinging cadence of saloon doors.
That shameless little vixen allowed glimpses of the sinful apex of her sensuality.
The spectacle was like a gypsy spell that turned us into sleepwalkers—men with their eyes open but unable to see.
At the sight of it, our eyes bulged, our senses deserted us, and we wandered around like madmen.
We began daydreaming about the libertine woman who moved her hips like a belly dancer in an Arabian harem.
And so we spent the night soaked in other people’s sweat, suffering from a galloping erection, with the juices of lust dripping from us like saliva.
All night long, we kept drinking like marmots, dancing like spinning tops, and giving ourselves over to disorder.
Meanwhile, time continued passing—the number-one public enemy of counterfeit bohemians.
The hours moved inexorably forward, indifferent to how well we were enjoying ourselves.
And then, without our permission, the least welcome moment arrived:
The time to go home.
The End of the Night
The moment of departure was one of the most frightening and difficult moments to face.
It is no exaggeration to say that we hated and abhorred it with all our souls.
But there was nothing else to do.
The musicians had packed away their horns and cymbals. The waiters had already gathered the unfinished drinks and combined them in a medium-sized barrel for the next day’s hangovers.
And the progress we had made with the girl who had been dancing—the one in the lilac dress and clumsy shoes—was exposed as useless.
It had not worked.
It was obvious that we could not even afford our own drinks, so how could we possibly support her?
The night had disappeared.
As usual, it left us with our stomachs empty, our hearts broken, and our bodies afflicted with uncontrollable erections.
If those conditions were not properly attended to, they might have left us weakened and bedridden in some forgotten bed in the city hospital’s emergency ward.
The worst part was that, by those blessed hours, there was no way and nowhere left to continue the party.
The bars with even a modest reputation had already switched off their lights, unplugged their record players, closed their doors, and turned their mahogany chairs upside down on their worm-eaten Formica tables.
They had driven out with sticks the drunks who refused to let go of their bottles.
There was nothing to be done.
We had to leave—unless someone with a fat wallet and functioning kidneys, as a gesture of genuine camaraderie, volunteered to show us the quickest route to some bar in the neighborhood.
Despite the difficult circumstances, there were always a few nameless establishments that still admitted hardened night owls, bargain-bin bohemians, and hopeless drinkers into their domains.
Those were the places we knew how to find whenever the situation required it.
Part Two: The After-Party
To be continued…