The Great American Saloon Series/Papagayo
Shiflett, Dave
THE GREAT AMERICAN SALOON SERIES PAPAGAYO by Dave Shiflett I nhospitable planet! Winter blasts up the pantlegs. Falling icicles through the feet. Split lips and lungs full of furnace fumes. The...
...It is for nights like these that we suffer winter...
...Though strictly amateur, they provide memorable moments...
...occasionally momma gives the 13-year-old a sip of tequila that sends the girl's eyes Dave Shiflett is a writer living in Virginia...
...Most of the time, at least in the early evening, the deck is quiet and conducive to wandering thoughts like these...
...Last August, for example, a young woman in a bikini leaped into the sky: the sun reflected off her glistening flesh while the salt breeze filled with the aroma of her coconut oil and aloe...
...The wife sits across our small round table in the full glare of the sun: in repose she favors Cleopatra, or so it seems to me...
...The dear woman orders a frozen rum drink for herself and a beer for me...
...If the sunlight traveled its 93 million miles to find only her, it was worth the trip...
...On top of that, local hotels are not known to reimburse customers for time spent in the drunk tank...
...During one visit, however, a guitarist-singer performed for a crowd of thirty or so guests...
...The children have soft drinks with plenty of cherries...
...ERN THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR APRIL 1989 37...
...The rest of him was hung at the entrance to Hampton Roads as a warning to pirates...
...More pleasing are the volleyball games in the sandy yard between the deck and the dunes...
...When his headless body was dumped into Ocracoke Inlet on November 22, 1718, it reportedly swam around the ship several times...
...Infinity, an abstract idea in the study, stretches out before you: giant clouds, giant ocean, endless sky...
...The rest of the clientele, scattered at twelve or fifteen other tables, includes many young women...
...His skull, the legend continues, was crafted into the base of a punchbowl used for many years at Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg...
...There's not a worry in your head...
...Because it is easy to spend so many hours drinking in such pleasant surroundings, visitors should remember that the Banks have a presumptive drunk level of .1 on the alco-sensor...
...And so the bill: two daiquiris, one Heineken, two Superiors: $14.70...
...Father sips beer while momma laps up a margarita...
...Blackbeard the pirate lived nearby, and was himself quite a drinker, handling rum "as could no other man of his day," according to his biographer, Robert E. Lee of Winston-Salem...
...And with a slight shift of the chair, there's even more to see...
...His gut rests atop his thighs, and momma's rump, a magnificent thing, provides an ample cushion in her adirondack chair...
...As you rise to leave, you also notice that past, present, andfuture have been defanged...
...To an inquisitive, hungry blond in the corner is dispatched a note: "In everlasting homage...
...Free chips and salsa are heartily devoured...
...Drinks are silently left on our table, with thick napkins to catch the large amount of bottle sweat...
...How they stare...
...Lucky man...
...spinning...
...Moderate drinking is therefore encouraged...
...My wife once took a splinter from her chair, but the distractions at Papagayo are usually much more pleasant...
...Plus this: "I'm broke...
...The sea is full of shipwrecks...
...The road back to the cottage is a straight one, and unless there's a stop at a fishing pier you and your loved one are in bed by nine: the wind blows through the window, the children are in their bunks, and it seems especially sad that life must one day end...
...Such memories cause geezers to rise from their deathbeds and shout, "Nice shot, sweetheart...
...All in all, it's not a bad deal...
...More specifically, near mile-post 7 stands the Croatan Inn, and on the second storey (go through the front door and up the stairs to the left) is the deck of Papagayo...
...The bill is also diminutive, with a huge seafood dinner for two, including wine and another Superior, going for $31, gratuity included...
...Accommodations at the local jail are said to rate two stars: firm bunks but the scrambled eggs tend to be runny...
...Generally, records or tapes provide the music...
...I tell her so...
...I usually drop by in the late afternoon and sit in the northeast corner in the shade of an overhanging roof...
...In early evening the line, if there is one, is short...
...Well, for one thing, come summer we can return to North Carolina's Outer Banks (a remote stretch of sand directly opposite the globe from Kalgoolrie, Australia...
...When she touched down in the sand, the gentle vibration went deep into the brain of an observer...
...His act was mediocre, and when he asked for requests another note was forwarded: "Tune your instrument," it read...
...The view is sublime: she, the sand dunes, the great Atlantic beyond...
...At a table in the center of the deck a family feeds and drinks...
...That done, I shift my chair close to the wife's, gently take her hand, and gaze back out upon the ocean...
...The question is: Why bother...
...o goes the afternoon...
...Then downstairs for dinner, where Mexican-style seafood is served in air-conditioned comfort...
Vol. 22 • April 1989 • No. 4
