The bar at the Golden Fish was an large affair with an elaborate fisherman theme. From the brass portholes on the wall to the nets and buoys draped from the pillars, it was clearly supposed to be a fisherman’s bar. However, to Alex’s Maritimer eyes, it lacked the key ingredients for a real fisherman’s bar, namely row tables and fully tiled walls and floors. He knew, deep in his Nova Scotian soul that a real fishermen’s bar would have regulars, and regular friendly barfights. The row tables ensured that there was enough scope for the kind of friendly ribbing needed to set them off, and the tiling made cleanup so much easier.
For China, it wasn’t so bad, and Alex wandered in, looking for Walrus and the crew. Before he could find them, his attention was attracted by the Filipino band, which had just given the microphone to a fat, sweaty, balding American in a plaid shirt, who signaled to the band and began to belt out Sweet Home Alabama to an adoring crowd of locals. Pushing past the fat man’s audience, he saw a little clot of foreigners sitting around the a table at the back, with Walrus presiding magnanimously from the head. Seeing Alex, he waved him over, and gestured for him to grab a beer.
“Welcome to the team!” At closer inspection, Walrus was very obviously drunk. His nose and cheeks were beginning to glow, his hair hung lank and sweaty, and his eyes were a bit glassy and defocused. “Just did a round of baijiu shots with the local management team. You just missed them. Want me to order you one?”
Baijiu, or literally white wine, is a Chinese spirit distilled from millet mash. With an alcohol percentage pushing 60%, and a nose redolent with notes of decaying bananas and industrial solvents, Alex had always felt that it smelled like the cheap nail polish remover sold in Dollarama back home. In more speculative moments, or after being forced to drink it, he would suspect that the resemblance was because the margin on dollar nailpolish remover was better than for using it for drinking purposes. It certainly worked as a solvent. One time, when he had no other options, Alex used it to remove sharpie from a painted wall. It worked, but didn’t remove the marker ink. Instead, it dissolved the underlying paint.
So that explained the sudden-onset drunkenness. Foreigners only drank it when they had to, when they had no other choices, or when they were tired of living. Chinese businessmen often required it from their partners, with Alex suspecting that that it was a form of passive-aggressive cultural warfare. Walrus would have an unpleasantly spectacular hangover in the morning, and sweat the scent of baijiu for days.
“No thanks, I’m not a fan.” Alex grabbed a bottle from the table and raised it to the assembly. “Cheers. I’m Alex Grimm.”
#
It was a hodgepodge of faces around the table. A striking Chinese woman sat next to Walrus, frowning into her cola. To her left, two hispanic-looking men, one with long, curly hair tied at the nape of his neck, the other with a shaggy Keanu Reeves circa Bill & Ted’s mop. Next to them sat a smiling white guy with weatherbeaten skin and a massive hawk nose. Alex sat down between him and the swarthy man with the pencil moustache, and the introductions began.
Ellie, the Chinese woman, was in fact a Hong Kong New Zealander with a flat, nasal accent. She was assistant producer, videographer, and from all symptoms feeling generally miserable. When the next round came by, it became apparent she didn’t drink- which probably accounted for her state of mind. Karaoke isn’t for the sober. The Hispanic-looking guys were Miguel and Luis, a pair of extreme sports videographers from Mexico who’d been persuaded to take a break from their Asian tour to document the progress of the show.
The one with the big nose, shook hands formally and introduced himself as “Antonio Valdevera. I paint, I do concepts, and I can turn any line you draw into a pussy with just three strokes of my pen!”
“He can, too. Don’t bet against it.” This came from the Max the Greek, who was seated to Alex’s left. “Max. Max the Greek. I am a line manager, but I am really a magician of uncanny skill. For example, I can make things disappear without smoke or mirrors. See? Look over there, I show you.”
Max gestured grandiosely toward the stage, where the Sweet Home Alabama was entering its fourth encore and the fat man (who later turned out to be the lighting expert from Vegas, as well as not knowing any other songs) was looking like he was about to have a heart attack. As Alex looked over, Max scooped up his beer and skulled it, sweeping the glass elegantly back into place and belching thunderously.
“You drank my beer.” The rest of the table was grinning at Alex’s discomfiture.
“No. I made it disappear, without smoke or mirrors.” Max looked smug. “I could make it reappear again, but I think you’d not appreciate it. Besides, it’s your round. I’ll have a gin and tonic.”
Alex shrugged, grinned, and went to the bar.
#
Things were getting messy in the bar. Antonio, Max, Ellie and Alex had left the table and started to play pool. Somehow, over the course of the evening, they had decided to play penalty doubles with tequila shots. Every uncalled shot that was pocketed required a shot, and Alex was feeling woozy.
His current state was mostly a result of lack of practice, compounded by noticing Ellie’s love of V-necks and total disregard for undergarments. Although quite flat for a Chinese, he still had trouble focusing on the game whenever she bent over. Max had got her to take a shot near the beginning of the game, and that seemed to have washed away her inhibitions. She was drinking like a fish, had reached the point redfaced inebriation, and her constant bending and standing to adjust her shots had seriously affected his game.
As he woozed up to the table, he realized that much more and he’d have trouble comfortably leaning over the table. Thin summer shorts weren’t helping, either. Not a terribly successful womanizer, he’d found it hard to get comfortable with local women. Although he found them very physically attractive, he had found they were generally too clingy and lacking in independence – he wasn’t a fan of having to text every 30 min to avoid a punishment pout. Somewhere, deep in his booze-addled brain, the idea that maybe Ellie could be a possibility filtered in.
“Your shot mate”
Max thrust the cue into his face, breaking his reverie.
He stepped up to the table, called “Six, corner pocket” and chalked his cue with confidence before he bent over to shoot. The six went wild, tipping the eightball into the side pocket, losing him the game and requiring a double penalty shot.
As he looked despairingly around the increasingly blurry room, two superimposed Maxes gestured for him to come to the bar.
“Your shout mate. Then we break”