Winos

i am to make contact with Auld Archie. Super important, says Calculus.

Auld Archie hangs out with the town’s winos, addicted as much to their street easy conversations as the alcohol fueling such friendships.

The winos congregate at the supermarket’s drone dropping point. Where customers await their pre-paid groceries. It is a potentially ‘fruitful’ zone when it come to their begging for food and, of course, the odd bottle of booze. Loitering there, however, isn’t a given since the supermarket employs bouncers ‘to have the winos moved along.’ They do not take kindly to being ordered off what is, in theory, a public place. Aggressive security guards, with growling mastiffs, dissuade them from making a proper stand. The winos, banned from dog ownership, have no choice but to leave, clutching their precious bottles and cans of alcohol, and a miscellaneous array of donated provisions.

i see a tartan kaftan clad figure dancing a jig with someone as inebriated as he. My desire to fulfill my errand dissolves immediately.

– COME OVER!

i’d like to do anything but.

– COME OVER!

Can’t ignore their second call. Archie’s dancing partner, i now see, has an ugly face crisscrossed with scars. He holds aloft a bottle whose pale yellow contents have no appeal (for me). i decline to swig from bottle, causing no little offense.

– You should try everything once. Even if it’s the last thing you’ll get to try!

Dark humour in keeping with the man’s dark demeanour. Auld Archie then pipes up.

– i am of the opinion that the wine is too good to be wasted on boys, especially country boys. Catch you later at the château.

It is a timely intervention, enabling me to scarper to safety. The laughter of Archie’s drunken cohorts reverberating in my ears.