Last Call in Boracay
Chapter 1 Pt. 4
I fall in line behind a frazzle-haired burnout in a rumpled White Zombie shirt.
The bartender’s tall and grizzled, sporting mirrored Ray-Bans, a horrible toupee, and a screaming eagle medallion nested in his chest hair. The torpedo-shaped cigar dangles from his bloated mouth as he jibes at his customers in a Southern drawl.
In between slinging drinks, the codger struts to the end of the bar and scans a chessboard set in front of a bearded, black-clad Rasputin doppleganger in the throes of a liquid coma.
A tap on my left shoulder. A sparkling pearl of a Filipina in cutoff shorts and a Ghost Fighter tee sits at the bar, talking casually to the waitress I tried flagging down some zeptoseconds ago. She’s way out of the social minor leagues I play in. Strange.
Time to lead off. “Chay’ qaS be’Hompu’?”
She barely raises an eyebrow. “What was that?”
“I think it’s How’s it going? in Klingon. I don’t know Tagalog.”
“We speak Visayan.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
She enjoys watching me squirm in my own social anxiety skin, then giggles. “It’s okay, we were just — ”
“Are you shtealing my Joy?” Thick Werner Herzog accent. A soused, towering Teuton with a throatee and bulging eyes places his hefty paw on my shoulder. “Vell?” Unnerving, like some Sixth Reich Doctor Stranglove hitched a U-boated to the tropics and spliced a sunburned farm-pig’s DNA with a polar bear, fed it qualuudes and Rumplemintz, then overstuffed it into some cheetah-print bungie smugglers and taught it to windsurf on Bulalog Beach.
The German clucks at Joy in Visayan. She tenses, but a few well-placed syllables calm her down. He chest-bumps me out of their way as they saunter towards the beach, not looking at each other.
Back at the bar, White Zombie is gone, but the surfing ab god has weaseled his way to the front. ‘Two gin and ginger beers, Mac.” Bemused, he lowers his cheap sunglasses to the bridge of his nose, cobalt blue eyes focusing on a drinking bird toy perched on the bar. He stares, wistfully, as if he’s studying some ancient mating dance of forever lost dreams, then whirls around with a barrage of Australianese. “Whew. Fizzing hot as, isn’t it? You in line, mate?”
Hot as what?
“Bap. Bap.” Before I can reply, he pumps a couple of fake boxing jabs, then vigorously shakes my hand. “Ha ha. No troubles, mate. Name’s Tony, but me friends call me Hurl.”
“I’m Doug, Hurl.”
“Back in Cans, I rassled ‘roos for the Youtube. Bap. Bap.” A few more jabs.
“A friend gave me a hotel job. The Manila Dahlia,” I reply.
“Another Manila Dahlia charity case, eh?” Bartender Big Mac nods at me. “What type a grog you drinkin’?”
I step up. “Two Vodka Sunrises. What do you mean by charity case?”
“Nothing.” Mac rolls his shoulders, then perks up after taking my credit card.
Hurl shrugs. “I’m tellin’ ya’ kangaroos cheat like bloody furry hellions, mate.” He pops out his pearly dentures, revealing an upper row of missing teeth. “One big steeroid buck bastard got me in a headlock and started filling the outback full of uppercuts. Almost popped me dome clean off …”
I lean over the bar towards Mac. “No really. What did you mean?”
Mac replies grimly, “Forget about it. Island talk.”
Hurl sucks in his falsies, then cracks his neck and grimaces. “Being a social media effluencer is bloody hell, mate. Now I teach surf. Sharks don’t cheat and the beach smells heaps better, too. No dirtier place on earth than a wild ‘roos stinking armpit.”
Mac the bartender delivers the gin and ginger beers and adjusts his Prince Valiant-styled toupee from a gust of wind. “There’s a squall coming. I can smell it.”
Hurl empties his pockets onto the bar and counts loose change. “No, no, mate, it’s a lovely day.”
Mac shakes his head, knocking his toupee askew. “Only the batshit crazy or truly gifted will be kiteboarding tomorrow.”
Hurl chimes in. “Well then count me in.”
A nasally “Bullshit.” Seated to our right, Nathan stops scribbling notes and pushes his rockabilly reading glasses down his aquiline nose to stare daggers at Hurl.
“What’s that, mate?”
“I said, Bull-shit … “ Nathan takes a long drag off his cigarette, trying to look cool. “Mate.”
The younger man flairs his chest out out and flips Nathen the bird, then fires off a fusillade of air jabs. “Go get fucked, champ. You’re munted. Bap. Bap.”
Hurl snatches his drinks, then tilts his head in disgust and mutters, “Fuckwit wanker. I’ll bury ya’, mate.” He thinks about it for a split second, then turns away, strutting off towards the hookah lounge with a chortle, “Part-ay time. Whooa!”
Gonzo, how do you come up with these characters? You are a hoot!