Roy and the Brazilians

My old treeplanting buddy, Roy, stopped by for a visit last week. Sadly, I didn't take any pictures to commemorate the event. It's probably a good thing, actually. Not that Roy isn't a good looking lad, but he's got an identical twin brother and so the photo really would have meant nothing in terms of proof. You'd look at the photo and say to yourself, "yeah, sure, it looks like Roy, but it could easily be Steve" and we'd be no better off than we are right now. You'll just have to trust me. Roy did come to visit. Honest.

It was a whirlwind tour for Roy. He was in England to pick up a Master's degree from the University of Leicester. We didn't get to spend much time together which is unfortunate because I think our minds are tuned to the same wavelength, or at least the same rough spectrum. On Friday night he met me at work and we grabbed a quick bite to eat, then joined some friends at a combined leaving do and birthday party at the Old Bank of England on Fleet street. I like Roy. He's a slow drinker, a good listener and has lived through some of my best stories. We spent a good part of the night boring people with treeplanting stories.

"...the first time I saw Russ, he was butt naked, changing the oil on a quad," Roy was saying as I returned from the bar with a round of drinks.

"Wasn't that a great wedding!" I said.

"Wedding?" asked John.

"Fantastic wedding!" said Roy. "Only no nakedness -- that I saw, anyway." He turned to me. "Hey do you remember the chainsaw breakfast?"

"Sadly, no. I wasn't there. It's a great story though."

"What's a chainsaw breakfast?" asked John.

"A chainsaw breakfast is baked grapefruit and grilled cheese sandwiches." I said. "But you have to cut them in half with a chainsaw."

"It doesn't really work very well," said Roy. "The chainsaw pretty much just mangles them up and spews them into the crowd."

"You tried to cut grilled cheese sandwiches in half with a chainsaw?" asked John.

"No, not me," said Roy. "That was Blair."

"Blair was a bit of a madman," I explained.

"Remember that truck he had..."

...and so it continued until they kicked us out at closing time.

It was too good a night to end it there so seven of us headed towards Soho with the intention of getting some Chinese food. Unfortunately, these noble intentions were thwarted by a trio of gorgeous Brazilian women being kicked out of a cocktail lounge we were passing. One of them grabbed my glasses. Another grabbed Roy by the arm and demanded he lead them to the nearest Salsa bar. The third took this as her cue to begin dancing up and down the pavement with another member of our party, Brendan.

I pleaded with the one Brazilian to give me my glasses back. Roy explained to the other that he was from Canada and didn't know the location of any salsa bars in London. And Brendan, who was the only single one in our group, shouted, "There's a salsa bar on Charing Cross Road!" and immediately flagged down a taxi.

Everyone except Roy, John, and myself got into a couple of cabs. The three of us shouted insincere assurances to the taxi people that we would see them there. We had no intention of doing so, but this is the decade of the mobile phone, and the salsa bar was between us and the Chinese restaurant, and so, after a couple of nagging phone calls, we bowed to peer pressure and found ourselves in a crowded sweaty nightclub dancing like crazed wildebeest with strange women from the other side of the world.

This didn't last long for Roy and I. We are both elderly and settled compared with most of the others in our group. Our wild time has past. As soon as we were certain everyone was mesmerised by the writhings of the Brazilians, we fled for the streets and the always entertaining night bus home.

The next morning my Karma was levelled out by a brutal hour and a half yoga class which served to remind me just how un-Brazilian I was on the lithe-omemeter.

Roy abandoned me to this fate and travelled back across the city to visit his relatives. We met up again for dinner that night and then he was gone. I'm glad we had a good night while he was here. I feel I've been a bit of a disappointment for some of my more recent visitors. My mother was here just a week before Roy, for instance, and we didn't run into a single Brazilian.