But wait shouldn´t there be open windows, flickering candles, a crappy, battery-powered radio? The growl and fumes of a generator? Shouldn´t the walls be lined with canned goods and first-aid supplies? Pasqual Ranich, former manager of the nearby Boston´s on the Beach, opened the Hurricane last August, but he apparently has a pre-Wilma/Katrina philosophy: Stock up on smokes, snacks, and booze and hope for the best.
Waiting for my coworker Kim, I decided to relax at the outdoor bar in the smoker´s ¨lounge.¨ I could not only sit but also be heard out there, so I was willing to be bathed in tobacco-saturated humidity. A buxom blond in a plunging, red polka-dot top blossomed among the tropical décor and foliage: Jen, the bartender.
A guy in a ball cap approached. Claiming a corner of the bar, he leaned forward, took Jen´s hand, and kissed it. ¨Have you met my future ex-wife?¨ he asked me.
¨Here,¨ said the guy next to him, taking off his wedding ring. ¨It hasn´t done me any good.¨
It looked like hurricane season had kicked up some marital squalls, but that didn´t deter Jen´s suitor.
¨When he´s drunk, he proposes,¨ she explained.
¨And do you accept?¨
She shrugged. ¨Sometimes. But then he comes in and asks what he did the night before.¨
¨He´s missing an embarrassment gene,¨ said the buddy, who had slipped his ring back on.
I introduced myself and asked his name, but he hesitated. ¨Technically, I´m not here,¨ he said. Then he suggested that I call him Billy. At this point, I was beginning to wonder whether his visor and plaid shirt, which I took as a sign of tropical depression, were actually part of a disguise.
His friend Rob, who´d just arrived, was a standout. The tall drink of water began boasting that he was proportionally well-endowed, with ten full inches. On the Saffir-Simpson scale, though, I´d say he was a Category 1: a blowhard who wouldn´t cause much damage.
Flirting shamelessly, I´d completely forgotten about Kim. I mean, what was the strike probability here? The outlook changed when I noticed Rob´s wedding ring, which was quickly followed by the arrival of his tiny wife, Karen, more a better quarter than a half. A firm believer that honesty is the best policy, I brought her up to speed on our conversation thus far. Was her husband´s report accurate?
¨I don´t know about the veracity,¨ Billy interrupted, ¨but it´s true about the velocity.¨
Kim returned. ¨I met the hottest guy,¨ she told me. ¨We bonded because we were both chewing gum.¨
¨Can I show you something?¨ Jen asked as she poured a beer into a plastic cup and passed it to a kid in a striped polo shirt. ¨You´ll be amazed.¨
El Niño sucked the thing down in a single, gigantic swallow. He told us that he was Matt, a 22-year-old who´d majored in civil engineering and was working as an estimator for a construction company.
¨Estimate something for us,¨ Kim said, pulling a scientific calculator out of her purse.
¨I estimate I can drink this beer in .63 seconds,¨ he said.
He swallowed it in a single gulp.
I forecast that if he continued on this course, Matt would have a horrendous hangover and a hefty bar tab, but there was a variable I hadn´t foreseen: Stephanie. The vixen had her hair swept to one side, and a mutual friend was making what was evidently a reintroduction.
¨I think I left you a nasty message once,¨ Stephanie said.
Matt, who had told us he had a girlfriend back home, said, ¨Yeah, I think I got a message like that from this area code once.¨
By midnight, a surge in clientele packed the place, making it feel a little more like a storm shelter, except people looked and smelled a lot better. As they converged and collided, Kim and her former boyfriend, another Matt, created their own quiet place as they caught up. The most turbulent systems revolve around moments of lovely calm.
¨I´ve got lots of stories,¨ a guy at the bar told me while he waited for a beer, ¨but none about this place; it´s pretty mellow... Got bit by a shark once,¨ he said, showing me a scar on his wrist. Then his drink arrived and he was gone.
¨You don´t look happy,¨ a tattooed kid observed as he paid his tab.
¨Not my scene,¨ I said.
I wanted some real entertainment or at least some interesting conversation. I decided to circulate on the dance floor. I swayed, drink in hand, along with the others to a Dave Matthews song and a couple by U2. Then the James song ¨Laid¨ that catchy tune about the kooky chick who ¨only comes when she´s on top¨ brought a sudden burst of enthusiasm from the ladies.
I spotted a pretty woman in a wedding dress breezing through the crowd, and I wondered: Is it a coincidence that the most popular wedding month also ushers in storm season?
As a table full of folks congratulated the groom, I wished the bride my best and asked how she knew he was The One.
¨It´s my third,¨ she said. And then, ¨You just know.¨
Forecasting blue skies by intuition is probably just as accurate as meteorology.
When I returned to the outdoor bar, two guys were harassing a carved-wood mermaid. One held the statue by the tail at crotch level, giving himself three-foot wood surely a small craft advisory. And when his buddy grabbed the mermaid by the hair, pushing his crotch into her face, I knew that, rain or not, it was time to bail.
