Bookends

Sitting at the Mayahuel bar last night, one of the bartenders, who'd come to NYC from Mexico City for high school ten years ago, told me about the first time his father had busted him for smoking. He'd told his father he was fairly certain he'd picked up the habit from him, not with a relationship-shattering “I learned it from you dad!”, but his dad did smoke a lot, and it seemed natural that maybe he'd followed in those nearest, dearest footsteps. His father, an autopsy surgeon, explained that he smoked because his profession left him smelling like death, and the only ways he knew to combat the stench were cigarettes and drinking coffee 'til it oozed out his pores – cigarettes were cheaper. After this, the bartender kept smoking, all the way until a few months ago, when he learned his wife was pregnant. He's now thinking about studying forensics; hopefully after that, he'll be snatched up by an employer who provides free Folgers.

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Being Tuesday, the patrons were also mostly bartenders. One of them had a stroke of maybe-genius and convinced the other working barman (a Miami native) to make everyone blood-red 60-40 shots of Fernet Branca and Mezcal. The shot didn't receive universal praise, but the battle over what to call it was worth it: the inventor wanted “The Ginger Beard”, after another bartender's reddish scruff, which last night wasn't in evidence, as it's apparently an impediment to “ever getting laid again”. Then the formerly ginger-chinned 'tender suggested “Big Bag of Cocks”. Maybe because he's a self-described “great big homo”, maybe because it kind of fits (Mezcal has a worm in it; worm = penis; we'll leave the symbolism of the digestif to the imagination), or maybe because he'd just taken a 60-40 shot of Fernet and Mezcal.

Regardless, the great debate was interrupted when a party of three busted in: an all-eyes-on-me wasted woman wearing a mod red dress + mod red hat, a guy wearing Nile Rodgers' 1980s dreds-with-bangs, and...no recollection of #3, maybe he wasn't even there. Miami informed them that it was past last call, which didn't settle well: “Can we please have a drink?” the woman whined, more expectant than pleading. “My friend here was just nominated for an Oscar”. Miami held firm, and after a few minutes of lingering that made everyone uncomfortable, the trio left, with Nile Rodgers announcing “I guess I'll just have to take my Oscar somewhere else”.

With the only man ever to be nominated for and win an Oscar in the same night gone, everyone was free to talk about whatever we were talking about before, whatever that might have been. I asked Miami about his “In Vino, Veritas” tattoo. Beyond the attraction of the maxim's historical origin (expounded on with the clarification that “vino” once covered any alcohol, and therefore the truth would also come out in a tequila-heavy cocktail bar) he also had a personal motivation: he'd been in love with a woman back home for 11 years before getting drunk at a wedding and telling her how he felt. It worked. Proving that you don't always have to be gunning for an Academy Award – you just have to embrace your dependency issues, and speak the veritas.