The Merry Drunk

Over the next few blurbs I will look at some situations and incidents from my image making in Europe. As almost everyone is a photographer today, the blurbs have no deeper meaning and are they are easy understandable.

We are driving through the wine area east of Bordeaux. Suddenly the girls yell — “Brocante-Brocante !!!!” We stop and they run out giggling. Lanky, Dan and myself just sit in the car looking at the rain.  We have been friends for 40 years. When we do speak to each other we often do so in parables, syno and antonyms.

I take out my Canon & photograph the raindrops on the windscreen. Dan says,” You are a workaholic”.  “ …….. And a binge-alcoholic when the wine is bad”, I add. “Which is never”, Lanky adds. “No never”— we all agree. Lanky is the driver and so tall that he has to slide down his seat to see out of the windscreen. When he is driving his knees are next to the steering wheel. This turns out to be a very safe way of driving, as you can steer with you hands and your knees. He now slides up straight and his head touches the inside of the roof.

I have to sit in the front because I smell like a wine cellar. Dan (who has a slightly Rogue nose and Burgundy coloured teeth) has to sit at the back because he has this irritating habit of gurgling like a wine connoisseur every time we drive past a famous wine estate. His right hand has Swirlheimers. This comes from swirling to much wine in a glass to explore the bouquet.

Through my viewfinder and the drops of rain on the driver’s window I see a man leave the bar across the road. He is swaying heavily and is nearly flattened by a passing truck. He stumbles towards us. I have on this zoom lens, which under normal situations I never use. I zoom in on him and realize that he’s not only joyfully drunk but also slightly touched in the head. Dan asks, “ What did you oke’s (dude or bro or mate, in our dialect) think of the 1996 Saint Emillion Shiraz that we had last night. “Shit”, Lanky says. “Real shit”, I add.

The Merry Drunk finally reaches Lanky’s window. He has to stoop forward to see Lanky’s head squashed beneath the roof. He repeatedly knocks on the window. I am hiding behind my camera and the other two okes are looking straight ahead at the rain on the parking lot as if it’s a beautiful French country landscape. The happy Winehead merrily slurs, gurgles and chats away in French. This happy time continues for quite awhile, even though our windows are closed. “ Pitter-patter-pitter-patter” the rain falls all around us. “Wa-ra-wa-ra-wa-ra”, the merrily drunk oke babbles. “What is the dude saying?”, my friends want to know. “He’s asking why we are sitting here in the car like fools watching the rain fall on the parking lot”. I say, with French courage. Awhile later the giggling girls come out of the Brocante just to find that the car has gone and a man, stooped half forward, merrily chatting to an empty parking lot.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *