The Haripiyets.

The Pub is just warming up, the lights are dim, the live band at one end is playing soft country music. The boys are busy attending to the orders for the pre-booked tables and I’m organizing my den for the hot and happening night to come. Ambience, Music, Drinks all set to the T.

‘The most sought-after bartender’ my pals say, and why not, I’m good at what I do. But that’s not all that they are jealous of, my Tom Cruz look and knack of gelling in drives them crazy, they hate it when the girls crowd around as I roll up my sleeves and show off my dragon tattoos making the hot night even hotter.

I love my mind-blowing hectic 5 to 3 a.m job, it’s a party every night, where I meet up with all kinds of people, some regular and some new faces that drop in to check out its fame. but most of all I love attending to two very special customers over the weekend, Their inseparable relationship makes me want to get married each time I see them.

Saturday eve 7:30 P.M Oct 2017

The night is fresh and so are my besties at the bar with an all-new topic to juggle about.

“bewildered, bewitched, bouldered, bounded, bloated, boomerang, bloody, bummer life of yours, you old crow.”

“It’s better than your aristocratic framboise under the cats gut kind of lifestyle darling Mac”

“Oh go on Zelda, denial daunted demanding woman. As if Willy wouldn’t want a wacky. But you keep killing the kettle.”

“Of course, He wouldn’t, what makes you think he would in this old age? Mac Crack. Gone are the days when he stood to attention. It’s a wild goose’s chase now,” laughing, she flashed her stainless perfect dentures while he watched her over his golden frames with a strange sheepish grin.

What the hell!!! I laughed. Alliteration at its best along with sarcasm and humour. They appear to be the oldest and cutest couple in town who come to a pub every weekend and relive their old days.

“Hey Mac, what should I get you,” I edge him on by showing him a glittering bottle of Jack Daniels.

“Just some sexy country stuff would do.”

He leans over the counter, hides his mischievous flushed face from Zelda with his typical cowboy hat and gives me a wink over his spectacles.

“Oh YEAH!!! I heard that….. Wickedness is not the word for you,” she smirked while grabbing a glossy playboy magazine away from his wrinkled hands.

Now sit here put till I return. she thrust him on a bar stool pointing two fingers to her eyes and then to him, and giving me a look of caution.

“Sign language Eh!!” he laughed.

“And yes, don’t you dare touch those tools of sin behind my back Mac,” she brushed the tub of magazines aside with an air of disgust.

“Not at all Zelda, you know how holy a person I am, don’t you?.”

“Oh yeah boy, I know what a Wholly person you are!!!”

“Watch him, Paul, I’ll be back from the green room in a while.”

Don’t worry Zelda he’s in safe hands, I assured her as she walked off making her way through the busy room.

“She is quite a turkey, Eh!” he giggled.

“And you enjoy every bit of it, don’t you? I see the way you tease her all the time.”

“Damn, I love it!!! Been life sentenced in this very place, some forty-five years ago and still counting. I wouldn’t change a thing about her.”

Referring to a display board on the wall which portrayed the best customers of our Wanger’s Pub, he said “See there, ma boy. What do you read?”

Right on top were the names Mac and Zelda Haripiyet engraved with copper wire into the wood with five stars against it.

“Those were the days we rocked this bloody place,” he boasted and sipped on a mug of chilled beer.

Zelda and Mac have no kids, neither do they care for the loss of it, at least that’s what I collected from the fragments of their conversations. He loves teasing her and she doesn’t half-play into it. The phrase ‘made for each other’ stands true for them.

Sunday morning 3:00 A.M Dec 2017
I’m at the back of the Bar resting with one leg up against a stack of wooden barrels, smoking in idleness, my job is taking its toll on me, I don’t feel the same enthusiasm anymore.

It’s been eight weekends since I last saw Zelda and Mac. I wonder what’s with them! I’m beginning to get a little worried now, didn’t know when a casual friendship changed into an attachment of some kind.

Watching me blowing spirals and rings of smoke, my boss called out to me from his Audi, “Hey Paul, come here Son-a-boy.”

My boss is a short stout Mexican man with a jet black moustache and shoulder-length hair, he always wears a classy tuxedo and shades to match, much like the eighty’s villains but he’s a gem of a man and treats his employees like his own.

I flung the half-smoked cigarette on the floor and rubbed it out with the point of my shoe as I ran up to the car.

“Yes, Sir!” I just about grasped these two words holding my hand above my forehead to shield my face from the slight drizzle.

“Your shift is over right?” he inquired.

I nodded my head in response, praying he wouldn’t set me on to do something else, I wasn’t in the mood to do anything apart from visiting Zelda and Mac.

Drawing down the window screen he asked, “Can you do me a favour Son?”

Without hearing what he was about to say, I agreed to disagree and refuse whatever it was, “Not today sir, I have something important I need to take care of.” was a quick line that oozed up within a fraction.

“Oh Ok,” He switched on the light of his car and continued, “Can you call Sam for me, I found this guy in the middle of the road he is one of our old customers I nearly ran into him, he seems to have lost parts of his memory and can’t remember his way home.”

To my greatest shock, it was Mac sitting drenched on the rear seat, looking extremely drunk.

The moment he saw me he looked over his frames once again and winked at me with the same naughty smile.

What was he up to now? I thought, laughing under my breath, after all, it was Mac we were talking about.

“I have a flight to catch in about an hour or two, I was wondering if anyone of you could….” Cutting my boss short I volunteered to reach Mac home.

To be continued….