Being a man in his early fifties who has prematurely aged, Auld Archie isn’t actually that old. His moniker implies Scottish ancestry, but none of his grandparents, long since deceased, had even the slightest of connections to the nation of Celtic revivalists. The spelling of his name is quite simply an affectation, confected to excuse a personal history of brawling, boozing and philosophizing. Fists having flown in his pugilist youth, both in and out of the ring. And when his physical strength ebbed, the jibes became vocal. And he grew a Gandalf (white and flowing) beard.
Auld Archie is a man of multiple facets: a former boxer; a defrocked monk; a resolute drunk; a café habitué. Falstaffian in temper and build, clad in a rainbow striped kaftan. Original, challenging, provocative, erudite, drunk. Auld Archie opens sentences in the third person. ‘Auld Archie thinks….’. What he thinks is generally worth a listen. Articulate, argumentative among Wilders’ wealthy and downtrodden. Holds hold his own in arguments with just about anybody, giving Calculus and Ought’tu a run for their money. Making mincemeat of a certain teenager’s bombast. i admit. Full of scurrilities yet the gentlest of souls with a readiness to treat anyone who happens to be in his company. This munificence is no surface virtue. Any paper he may have on him is spent with a generous alacrity.
Auld Archie is wont to furnish me with cigars and effervescent drinks, including (S2Ls) sugar loaded liquids. Predictably Calculus and Martha disapprove. The cigars are fine, but it is better for me to drink wine, the natural sap of Sun and Earth, a liquid that sings in the throat. Alcohol, they contend, being much less harmful than sugar.
Auld Archie indulges me in other ways too, but never on the chessboard, whisking pawns off the board in a malicious prelude to nabbing my queen and toppling my king, ever magnanimous in victory, reminding me that ‘all defeats are but temporary.’
Auld Archie calls Calculus ‘a bit of a purist.’ Doesn’t make sense when you think about it, since being a purist precludes any half measures. You either are a purist – one hundred per cent – or you are not. In the way that you can’t be a bit pregnant. Certainly Auld Archie is no purist, with feet in many camps.