A happy reunion

Rachel had taken Ethan to visit his great-grandparents in New York, and thus presented me with the occasion to renew relations with my old friend Booze. It will come as a shock to many of you, no doubt, to learn that our relationship of late has been a little strained, often limited to a somewhat perfunctory tryst by the liquor shelf after the young Master has retired, or an obligatory and often moribund assignation besides the TiVo… long gone the days of sundowners, stiffners, pre-cenial cocktails, two bottles of wine over dinner, several glasses of port to accompany the sherry trifle and a digestif or three. Financial matters had also contrived to lend a sour taste to our earlier rapport, with Booze, who once took such care to present himself garbed in understated Gallic finery, now sort fit to arrive dishevelled, in louche Californian fashion and, more often than not, overcoated in crumpled brown paper. In short, much of the magic which had infused the first twenty years of our association had fizzled, leaving our codependency exposed at its most base and functional nadir, stripped of all pretension and much of its former zest, wanton and naked in its joyless seriality.

It's at a time like this when a man's mettle is evidenced; clearly swift remedial action was called for if the spice was to return to our wayward liaison, and though fatigued from my diurnal shift at Fraggle Rock, I took great pains to engineer a string of social engagements to which Booze could be invited and at which I might fully expect him to make an appearance; further I was particularly selective with fellow invitees, ensuring at all times that at least one Irishman, pretend Irishman from Boston, or, at very least, a fellow Northern European would be present, knowing full-well that such parties would be on good terms with Booze and would be likely to draw him out of his shell and restore him, if not to his former majesty, then at least to some semblance of the Dionysian zeal which had formed the basis of our initial attraction.

And what fun ensued! How little we cared in the eventide glow as the Portland Beavers were roundly trounced by the Las Vegas whatevers (Whores suggested Bunszel, as it's clearly the Orange County Whatevers) and how easily we were lead aside by our hand-picked Emerald Isle émigré Finn, from the din of inequity to a den of iniquity, stumbling through the doors of the Virginia Café – not a café at all, but an old Portland bar replete with bijou boothettes, walnut trim and a special on top-shelf cocktails! And this but the second night of our joyful reunion…

Little now can be recalled with clarity from the days which followed; such was the ease with which the flame of our desire had been rekindled that all of time appeared to melt and lose its structure, giddy and blithe; and though occasionally I might wake with a certain numbness, a certain verdiginous quality about my gills, I found Booze there waiting, often at little more than arm's length, to restore me to my earlier vigour.

Our parting was therefore not without its melancholy; but as the young Master boarded his flight from the Big Apple, I bid Booze a fond adieu rather than farewell and resumed my quotidian existence with a skip, if not to say a stumble, restored to my gait.


A Manhattan at Jakes. Number one in a series of five.