Old Man Mac shakes his head, moves his white king to E2, then grabs a vaguely clean highball glass and pours the vodka. "It's a tidal wave."
Nathan and I exchange confused looks.
In goes the cranberry juice. "A giant, never-fucking-ending wave of first-world assholes assaulting our peaceful island, dredging it into a tourist trap recreated in our own image. God only knows where they all come from."
Mac splashes in the grenadine, then places the white pawn to E4. Rasputin sways on his barstool. Old Man Mac plops in a handful of ice cubes and trudges towards me. "It's enough to gag a maggot."
"You're in customer service?"
Intrigued, Nathan puts down his doodling pen.
Mac's impish grin. "You can point God's middle finger up your own ass. How's that for customer service? No offense."
"None taken."
A hearty guffaw. "Then you have the Herman Bierfahrters of the world, trying to find the fountain of middle age." Mac points his Cuban cigar over at the German polar bear-pig man arguing with Joy on the beach. "With the strong dollar and beautiful girls, these codgers think they've died and gone to stud heaven in the tropics. But that siren song will change its tune. After the divorce, she'll kick the old fart out of his own house and replace him with her family. Sexual aikido."
He pours three shots from the Jagermeister machine, then doles them out with a bowl of bar peanuts like a Catholic Bishop performing the Liturgy of the Eucharist. "There endeth today's lesson. Provost."
Blaring images eruct from the bar's big screen. The same North Korea news lede from my tortured plane ride, cut, pasted, and splayed without context. Countless villagers prostrate themselves in apoplectic fits. Sheer madness. "Anyone know what's going on over in Korea? North, not South."
"Rumor has it the King God bought the farm. Damn shame." Nathan ashes his Fortune International cigarette and snickers. "All that ruthless dictator crap aside, Kim Jon Il was an incredible talent. He birthed magical double rainbows,wrote 1,500 books and six full operas. First time he played golf he shot eleven holes-in-one. And to top it off, he never took a shit his entire life. Juries still out if he could paint trees better than Bob Ross."
Nathan shakes his head and finishes his White Russian, then lifts his hand in a V for victory sign. "Two fucking more, Mac."
Mac nods. "Fuck you, too," then leers past me. "An important factoid, Charity." He points his cigar hand over to the table where Hurl and his six-pack abs are seated next to Traci, up close and very personal. "Even if it is wasted, youth must be served."
She's sipping on one of the Hurl's gin and ginger beers, entranced in one of Hurl's tall tales of kangaroo boxing. And I'm here helpless, a social crash test dummy. Every nerve ending in my stomach explodes. "Fucking loser."
Mac squinches his face, betraying the deep marled lines on his aged, leathery skin. "Sounds like someone's jealous."
"Jealous? Jealous of him? That guy can't even put a fucking sentence together, are you kidding me? He's, uh, reaching for those grapes. He's, uh, trying to make his wine ..."
Nathan and Mac look at each other, befuddled.
" … Uh, and the wine's already sounding … like a violin … with that cheese and wine."
Nathan nods at the empty chair to his right. "Never mind that mumblecore poetry shit, it's time for breakfast."