Mac's Pub on a Slow Night

My first impression of the man was a direct result of the horrifying scents accompanying him as he saddled up to the bar. The best thing I can do to describe that potpouri of smells is to ask you to imagine a shipfull of rotting chum, a truckstop washroom left uncleaned for a month, and the decaying carcass of a killer whale that's somehow ended up in your garage, and then combine this mighty trio of stenches. Now don't take me the wrong way: I love fish -- the taste of it, the thought of it, even the powerful smell of it -- but this piratelike old guy (he wore a patch, for God's sake!) established new standards for public indecency. His unkempt grey mass of hair and tattered old rags of an uncertain hue and origin didn't improve his presentation in the least, and when he finally uttered those simple but profound words, "Whiskey, please," I was just praying that Coco would frighten him away. "Coco," I chuckled to myself, "you're our only hope."

And yet, despite the smell and appearance of this man, who I'd soon learn to be a veteran sailor named Pete, and who, very much like me, had lived away from his native land -- Spain, in his case -- for twenty-five or so years, and despite my initial desire to hurl him headlong from my bar, I grew to enjoy old Pete's company in the next few hours. "You see, my friend, I believe in destiny and fate and all that other crap," he began...