The Mozo (Or the author’s 62nd Birthday Party)

Written: 10/9/2009

(October 7, 2009) It was the last of the Navarro Correa Wine (Merlot, aged in a wood vat, very strong, very expensive). I drank my second glass of wine, perhaps no more than an ounce, the prior glass was three-quarters filled, perhaps three ounces and the waiter filled the other glasses of the five persons at the birthday party, and he held it so as to pour it as the guests held their glasses, he was a young man, the Mozo (waiter) well mannered, thin in the face, and looked at the bottle steadily as he poured. We watched him disappear beyond the archway of the room, into the adjacent room—perhaps to get another white cloth to wrap around the bottle, as if to guard against a spill, a drop or two of wine, thus, it would catch it.
Apolinario took a mouthful, then the mozo poured nearly the rest of the wine out into Alex’s glass, sitting on the side of Apolinario. The last ounce was poured into my glass; it splattered on the tablecloth, fading into it.
“Salud,” I said, returning the glass to my mouth (I thought at the moment I’d have to have someone carry me out of the private guest room, on my sixty-second birthday, I hadn’t drank anything in twenty-five years, had I had anymore of that in my system, I’d would have gotten sick on the spot, and had to be bed rested immediately, I do believe.)
“Don’t drink too much,” my wife Rosa said. (But I felt somehow I just had to drink the second drink, that ounce of wine; Marissa, the other female in our little birthday party, had only drank an ounce out of the first of two pouring, she was still in everyone’s shadow as far as drinking went.)
The air was fresh, the sun shinning though the windows, which had an eminence of pure light and heat, and inside this antique room, one could glance, from a distance away, the impeding public.
(I told myself, I can’t drink, and I can’t throw the wine away, it cost an arm and a leg, per near; God knows I’ll be sick by evening.)
Apolinario’s back was to the windows, the sun on it, as was the sun to Alex’s back, it was a sun-filled room, the blue and the sunny outside was inside. Apolinario was looking to the quiet mark of my profile (the side view of my face), I smiled at him, not sure why he was staring, I assumed the wine had hit him.
“Señor, Dennis,” said Marissa (still after seven-years of knowing her, still calling her Melissa, not realizing the ‘e’ and the ‘l’ doesn’t belong in her name, until my wife pointed it out during the writing of this story…)
“Yes, Señorita,” I acknowledged; she looked at me, she had deep brown eyes with softened irises, as if they had been soaked in warm water, for the moment, and she explained how she appreciated our friendship.
“Señor, Dennis,” said Alex, a wee fatigued from the wine, the sun slanted upon his shoulder, upon this serene moment, and he gave his appreciation for our many years of friendship, also.
Near motionless, with a rigid quality of unacquainted idleness, Apolinario had rested his eyes—quite spent, almost dead upon me. He looked for a moment, a tad intoxicated, like an artificial statue, attached to a chair, as if he had put on a new face (façade). The man looked at me. “Are you alright?” I asked him, he said in his soft un-rhythmic voice, “Si.” Then the man turned his head in a slight deprecatory gesture (or so it seemed); as Marissa received her desert, a large portion of a rounded pancake, with the trimmings.
“It’s delicious,” the woman said, to those at the table; as her fork rippled briefly through its layers.
Papa Augusto was at the other end of the table (my father-in-law), he was starting to get into religion, carefully between thumb and fingers, and I had to ask him to please refrain from talking on both politics and religion (knowing this could get into a debate).
“Whoosh (or go-ahead), let him speak his mind…” said Apolinario, but I insisted, and Papa Augusto looked at us quietly, and gave his happiness for his friendship with me.


And when I had gotten home, trying to rest, lying upon my bed, to take a nap, the jerking of my heart (unbelievable rapidity) took place, along with numbness in my face, a sour stomach—in consequence, I was sick for three days, because of drinking three and a half ounces of wine—evidently not my forte. The wine was sharp and potent, harsh; it was as if a mule kicked me in the head, stomach, and chest.

And so, this is the story of my 62nd Birthday, and what I left out was that the steak and the food in general, was great, as was the two waiters, and especially the wine pourer, just the aftereffects of the wine, and thus, if the good Lord is willing, it will be another twenty-five years before I drink another glass of wine!

No: 489 (10-9-2009)