Cookoff

The jewish tico (Costa Rican) and the Spanish/Croatian Colombian were in a bit of a cookoff. Tico had a mass of chicken hindquarters while Hotto, the furtive beer snatcher from yesterday was going to cook a roast. The tico family was gathered, the refrigerator technician, Hotto, Ivonne and I gathered under the rancho.

While the chicken was marinading in a mustard based sauce the tico kept bringing drinks to Hotto alternating between 5 ounces of vodka neat and beer, each served 10 minutes apart. We toasted, I with a large glass of water and they with their respective drinks. After a toast the glasses were emptied, excepting mine. The tico spoke no English, his wife some, his 25 year old daughter, who looks 16 teaches it. Hotto speaks Spanish and is intermediate in English.

The kids were cavorting noisily in the pool and conversations were amicable and covered a large variety of topics.

Hotto told me about a guest that had left two weeks earlier with whom had become good friends. It seems some guy from Denver was in town and somehow in his drug dealings ran afoul of the Colombians and woke to find a guy pointing a gun at his head while he lay in bed got into a scuffle. It was a long tale but in the end the target of the Colombians was staying here and somehow got on TV. Hotto suggested it would be in everybody's best interests if he left.

Upon inquiry hotto told me that he was in the crocodile shoe business from end to end, buying untanned hides from Indians in the Darien, tanning them in Panama City to shoe manufacturing.

More drinks and Hotto started telling me about his proficiency with guns but he couldn't name the calibers of a long list of popular guns. More drinks. I told the tico he had to stop bringing Hotto drinks, he was going to kill him. The chicken was put on the grill, more bullshitting. More drinking.

Finally we sat down to eat. The chicken was the best chicken I've ever had. The tico had been drinking at the same rate as Hotto. The tico merrily served everybody chicken and drinks while Hotto sat in the chair with a glazed look in his eye.

"Jim, yer all smilz tnite but sher you were in Texas and I guy touch his balls you smash him in face? Am I right? Am I right? You don't take the shit. Am I right?"

He put his fork in the chicken, manipulated the chicken with his knife, lifted an empty fork to his face and missed his mouth. This happened up to half a dozen times consecutively before he would get a piece into his mouth. He talked incessantly in a language no person on earth could comprehend. The 25 year and I kept glancing at each other in extreme amusement, her mother was just astonished.

Later it came time to throw people in the pool. Everybody was thrown in but me. That was considerate. I went to bed at 10. The Tico hit the hay at 1 slept until 2:30 and decided this was an appropriate time to drive half the length of Panama.