A Dutch Life

Started with My First Time
Continued from My First Time Part II
Continued further from My First Time Part III

I asked again, the silence was repeated. The barmen’s face was blank, still, was waiting. Getting anxious my eyes slowly focused more carefully on the fridges, I began to turn the colour into letters and then words. With a sudden and now instinctive reflex, I said “Make that a Coopers”, I paused, then followed it with “…a Coopers Pale”. From my left I heard the loudest of whispers, it was the old bloke. I remember the sentence like it was the first I ever spoke, “Mate, there’s nothing like a Coopers, it’s the taste of an angel pissing on your tongue.” The now coolly excited barmen burst into animation. His eyes turned to a look of respect, emphasized by his body language, he nodded ever so slightly then turned and gathered four beers from the fridge.

When I caught sight of the bottle that would be my first, it was upside down. I was puzzled and curious as I watched the barmen skillfully and tenderly right the bottle, spinning it as he did. I had never seen this before but I liked it. He asked if I wanted a glass, testing me, by his tone I knew I was not going to get one and that “yes” would have been responded to with “no”. Upon my decline, he slid the bottles over to me and took the cash, I grabbed the beers and headed back to the table, I did not even wait for the change. As I did this, I glanced down at the fridge trying to determine exactly where the barmen had retrieved my beer, but there was no sign deceiving him, not a gap in the united front of Coopers bottles.

To be continued…..