Charlie and Me. The Saga Continues

Charlie and Me. Chapter 20

The final part of the Charlie and Treeza standoff. Dedicated to all of you who have ever overdone things a bit.

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Charlie and Me. Chapter 20

As I had predicted, we were in trouble. It’s the stuff of legend, Aussie drinking, and the legend is true. Sylvester and I drunkenly sat back and watched the fight while Treeza and Charlie went at it, and believe me they did go at it, as the rather impressive restaurant bill shows. The food in Hang Seng’s is really good, but it ain’t cheap. Yet when I blearily looked at the receipt the next morning, over 90% of the cost had been for stoking Charlie and Treeza’s hardcore drinking competition.

Still in the restaurant. I could tell I was pissed, and I was pissed, so that insight was quite remarkable. Most pissed people don’t realise how pissed they are.

‘Svester, that Indiana Jonesh film with the drinking contesht, in the wossit called? Bar, thassit. Thass the word. In Tibet. Wash it in Tibet?’ I slurred. ‘Wish one wash it? C’mon Svester, help me out.’

‘Can’t member. F’you hadn’t reminded me I probabably couldn’t have membered my own name. Did I just say probabably?’.’ He was in bad shape. So was I. The girlies were still sticking it away, but even in my state I could see they were both drunk as sacks. They just weren’t for turning. This was a bonding session. Charlie doesn’t bond very often, so I was drunkenly pleased.

‘Sh’like that Temple of Doom, thash the one. Ish it? Ish that the one?

We returned our attention to the girls. This was like a cagefight with alcohol instead of fists. I knew Charlie would be the winner, but she only made it on points; it was a very close contest.

I think we teleported back to our house, because I don’t remember the walk. Restaurant. House. No in-between. Scandinavians have a saying: God looks after children and drunks. That may well be true but it doesn’t explain how we got home that night. Charlie and I are active atheists over the age of 18, and the average A&E on a Saturday night gives the lie to the second half of the premise, yet we did all get home. Somehow.

To provide some privacy for our guests in the unlikely event of any nocturnal shenanigans, I prepared the bedroom furthest from mine and Charlie’s. I say I prepared the room. What I did was I rummaged in the airing cupboard and then slung a clean duvet, some pillows, and a stack of clean towels on the bed. That was the sum total of my preparation. Even that was a big result given the state I was in. I was banging off the walls.

Below I could hear faint crashing noises as Charlie and Sylvester made sandwiches that I later discovered, after I got Treeza settled, involved a whole loaf of uncut bread and some canned squid. We’d bought this on an impulse, not knowing quite what we’d find in the can, hence Charlie’s muffled yell of ‘Bad news guys. It’s tentacles!’ Unaware as I was of what was going on, that line confused me somewhat, particularly as I misheard it as, ‘Bad news guys! It’s testicles.’

The sandwiches also contained leftover potato salad, feta cheese, pesto, and Tabasco. You know how it is. You have a Chinese, ten minutes later you’re hungry again, and we also all had terrible post-slivovitz munchies. The big spliff when we got in hadn’t done us much of a favour either. Nor had the bottle of wine.

Treeza suddenly teleported into the room. She must have. There was surely no way she could have tackled the stairs. She stood very close to me, then enfolded me in her arms and put her head on my shoulder.

‘Rick, shport, you an Charlie?’

Uh oh. What was coming up here?

‘Yesh?’