SOME SLOB STEPPED ON MY TONGUE

Ah, I just survived another New Year’s Eve without swilling down so much as a thimbleful of alcohol. As a devout Irishman, I’ve had my moments with booze, believe me — or at least believe my criminal record. I simply got tired of waking up every New Year’s Day feeling like some slob had just stepped on my tongue.

My swan song to alcoholic swill had its genesis nearly 30 years ago (but didn’t take until 12 years later). Much of that toot remains a blur. I do recall “waking up” on that New Year’s Eve while staggering down an unfamiliar road in the midst of a blizzard. Had I lost my car again? Or had I sold the car

earlier that night for drinking money? My wife was going to kill me. Oh, wait, she’d just divorced me. Whew!

Then, what to my wandering eyes should appear within the treacherous whiteout-weather but a neon sign bearing the legend Tiger Tom’s Tavern. Though I’d never heard of the place, my frozen brain immediately surmised somehow that it must be a biker bar. 

And most assuredly not the kind of biker bar frequented by my fellow bicyclists who were all fervent Barbra Streisand fans. The dozen Harleys parked in the snowy lot outside the bar must have been the clue that Hell’s Angels could be on the site. Who would drive Harleys in a blizzard? Who else?

I knew for a fact I’d be safer in the blizzard, but, bless my little Funny Girl heart, I needed a drink. Desperately. The wind practically blew me into the bar. The atmosphere inside the joint confirmed the worst: Heavy metal (music?) blared through a fog of smoke blown from the mouths of rough, tough people all wearing prison tattoos. And their husbands looked even tougher.

Being a stereotypical super nerd, I half expected someone to shoot me on sight. Oddly, it turned out that I was perceived as an exotic enigma. Inexplicably, the tattooed toughs seemed downright intrigued by me. All eyes followed me as I placed a quarter on a pool table. 

Then, during a five-minute nap, I felt a cue stick tap my butt. One of the tough mamas twice my age, built like a roll of barbed wire and looking like she was strong enough to have birthed all her kids while standing up, pointed to the quarter I’d put on the pool table.

“Yur up, Pablo. I’m Gloria. They call me Big Bad Glo. Rack ‘em!”

Pablo? I decided I could blame my doom on the Spanish Armada. If those sailors had not landed in Ireland and mixed with my ancestors, I, a black Irishman named Steve, wouldn’t look so dead-on Hispanic among all of the scary white faces.

Then, an epiphany of sorts sprang into my cognac-soaked noggin. I turned to the tattooed roll of barbed wire with the cue stick and instinctually began babbling with a heavy Spanish accent. Thank God the drunk, 60-something Big Bad Glo was charmed by weak young men with accents. Who’d a thunk it?

I decided Pablo was as good a name as any. 

Truthfully, I was too drunk and too nerve-racked to remember any other Hispanic names. Was Julio a Spanish name? Was Juan? Was Wayne?

“How deeed chu know my name?” I asked Big Bad Glo.

“Call it a lucky guess, muchacho,” came Glo’s reply in her gravelly voice.

Essentially, I became her best buddy for the night. Scary — but apparently quite safe. She actually shot dirty looks to anyone who even looked like they wanted to give me a bad time. Was she my new old lady? Nah. It wasn’t a romantic attraction, thank God. She wanted to mother me. Ahhh!

We bought each other pitchers of beer until the New Year’s countdown. Then, Big Bad Glo told a huge guy named Big Tiny Little to give her woozy buddy Pablito a lift to wherever I wanted to go.

On a Harley? In a blizzard? Yup!

I had sobered up fast only to become unconscious most of the way home. Not from booze. From pure fright.

I came to just in time to show Big Tiny Little where to drop me off. I pushed my way inside my apartment door and passed out on the floor, hoping to dream of keeping company with a better class of people. Teetotalers.

And they say there’s no cure for alcoholism.

— Steve Eskew