Thursday, 10 July 2008

Siempre es 26

J.K Rowling's boy wizard wasn't the sum total of our conversation in the Gunsmith Arms; in fact much more time was spent discussing Dogtooth's attire. After being kept waiting, Hamilton and I had expected him to eventually turn up in his familiar donnish guise, instead we were confronted by quite a spectacle: in strode Dogtooth with a Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned to his midriff, with a prominent medallion nestling amongst his chest carpet. Upon being questioned about his appearance; he retorted rather stiffly that his medallion was in fact a family heirloom handed down to him by his Cuban grandfather and that tradition necessitated him to wear it. Unconvinced by his reasoning, our train of thought was nevertheless disrupted by the revelation regarding his eclectic heritage, which we had been hitherto unaware of. Hamilton took the lead, aggressively testing him on his 'Cuban' background, Dogtooth clearly irritated by this turn of events, stood up in the midst of Hamilton's latest verbal offensive, walked to the bar and demanded a Cuba Libre. Giving no explanation he returned to our table with his cocktail and proceeded to drink the entire concoction in one gulp. Once downed he eyed us with a rather manic grin, as if urging us to continue our cross-examination. Figuring that the act he had just performed was some sort of primitive method of affirming his Cuban roots and that provoking him any further might seriously imperil our well-being, I quickly changed the subject of the conversation to something less contentious; never to mention Cuba or medallions again.

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