people i have met, part the first
"Por Zapata!" he yelled, then downed another shot of tequila. The two Americans with him were able to keep pace with him. The rest of the world, maybe not.
He was from Argentina and claimed to be on the run from his government. He never said why. Everybody believed him.
"Por Zapata!" he yelled, then downed yet another shot of tequila. His two American friends kept pace.
This was in a small bar on a road running from roughly the middle of the Hunan University campus down to the bank of the Xiang River, about halfway down the road. The bar was little more than a room with a mezzanine that the landlord may or may not have been aware of. The bar itself ran along one wall from about the middle of the room down towards the back. There may have been some storage out the back. The room was wide enough to accommodate the bar down one side, a row of tables down the other, and have enough room in between for people to walk.
The bar seemed to sell plenty of tequila when these three guys were hanging out there. For some reason I remember a beer that I only saw at this one bar with a name like 活力/huólì, with the English name Vigor - a perfectly adequate translation, though we must excuse the American spelling.
It quickly became clear that spending too much time with the Argentine and his two American friends would quickly become disastrous.
A few weeks later, as we were all pondering what to do for the next academic year, a friend of mine had set up a meeting at another school in Changsha, facilitated by one of the Americans. Three of us went along. We met the Chinese staff in charge of recruiting foreign teachers at the school gate. The American was nowhere to be seen. The Chinese staff took us to the American's apartment. It was a fairly average-looking apartment, furnished with all the necessities. It was on the ground floor and had a back door leading into a small yard. We found this out when the American eventually opened the door, looking very much the worse for wear. He'd either forgotten he'd set up the meeting, or had been out consuming his customary amount of booze with the Argentine and the other American. He was wearing boxers and a t-shirt and sat down to smoke while we had a quick look around. The apartment was probably in a cleaner. less battered state when he'd moved in. Somehow somebody had decided to take the back door off its hinges. In the yard lay the skeletal remains of a motor scooter.
We were left with the impression that these three, the Argentine and his two American friends, had taken hedonism to such new depths that nobody would've been surprised to hear that they'd decided it would be fun to set themselves on fire.
To be clear: so far as I am aware, they did not ever actually set themselves on fire. Just, it would have been the least surprising news had they actually done that.
It was decided it'd be a better use of everybody's time for us to go and have a look around at the school, including the new teacher accommodation that was under construction.
Somehow I only remember seeing the Argentine only that one time. His two American friends I only saw twice at that bar, and one of them that one time when we went to check out his school. I think I can quite confidently say that one way or another they didn't last very long.