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Die Hard Cooler: Travelling Companions, Part 1

Yesterday my friend Charlie jingled me and asked if I wanted to go to the beach. Most people would welcome such an invitation, but the mere suggestion sent my pulse rocketing like someone had stuck a live wire in my heart. But then I remembered we weren't in Central America, which meant there would be none of the events associated with our most recent beach trips. There would be no shooting. There would be no judo matches in the pool. None of my friends would steal a horse. We would not snort salt up our noses and squeeze limes in our eyes. We were going to a sane beach, populated by sane people, and we would follow their example and behave in sane fashion.

Once my Central America flashback passed, I dug around in the darkest and most cobwebby recesses of my kitchen cupboard and found my treasured portable cooler. I brought the cooler to the beach and, as Charlie, Diana and I sat there together on the sand and sipped cold white wine, I realized this was possibly the most worldly tote in history. Comparing notes, we realized the cooler had traveled to many countries, nearly died three times, and had facilitated more than its share of debaucherous events. In a sense it is a totem, and an analogue of both Charlie and me.

The cooler originally came from Costa Rica, where Charlie purchased it in a hole-in-the-wall tienda during a road trip. For some reason he and another friend, Peter, made a bet that between them they had to finish a bottle of liquor every night. If this sounds a bit excessive, all I can say is these are the kinds of bets you make when trekking through the third world. Anyway, the cooler was the medium of choice for transporting the booze. Its role as a facilitator of debauchery was thus established. Later in the trip Charlie's truck, below, sank in a swamp, and the cooler went down with it. In the photo Peter is sitting on the hood, navigating so that Charlie won't drive into a sinkhole. Obviously, Peter failed at this task not long after the photo was taken. Eventually the truck was rescued, but the waterlogged cooler was quickly beset by mold. Charlie put it aside and forgot about it.


Two years later, one idle afternoon in Guatemala, Charlie and I, along with our friend Breigh, found ourselves shooting stick in an extremely dodgy pool hall. By dodgy I mean that it was a filthy and sweltering cinderblock bunker frequented by shirtless and shifty-eyed gangbangers. There were no windows and the bathrooms were festering black bogs. I think the locals were pretty surprised we dared to show our faces in there, three gringos—one of us black and another female. I said to Charlie, “These dudes think they’re going to bad vibe us out of here, but fuck that—I’m staying. They aren't going to bother us.”

Somehow this declaration evolved into a bet over pool, which I lost. But because we traded bets like stock shares, I took a wager our friend Abbie had lost to me the week before and traded it for my loss on the current bet. So Abbie ended up having to pay my bet. Strange, I know, but that’s how we do things. Anyway, the stakes of the bet were that for an entire night the loser would serve as the winner’s liquor caddie—essentially a personal valet loaded down with a night’s supply of booze. You can see why I traded out of this bet. Like a lot of black men, I just don't cotton to serving people. It's an ancestral thing. Perhaps you don't understand.

Do undertstand this, though—I adhered to the established rules within our group. So I didn't weasel out of paying—it was a legal and fair swap, even though Abbie was nowhere in the vicinity when it happened. She agreed to fulfill her duty, which was commendable, since within our group quite a few people lost bets they simply refused to pay off (usually involving full or partial public nudity). I once lost a bet of this variety—thumbwrestling, of all things—and was supposed to give a sort of public performance in a Speedo. For a week I cursed my own stupidity, but eventually the winner of the bet decided I could perform in a regular swimsuit. Thank the Lord.

Anyway, we knew we’d need quite a bit of liquor if someone was to caddy for Charlie. He'd decided the caddy had to serve anyone he designated, so Abbie was looking at supplying five or six people for the night, including me. Yes, that means I lost the bet, and somehow won it too, but Charlie was making the rules. I was just along for the ride. We pondered what to carry all this booze in. That’s when Charlie remembered the cooler, last seen sporting splotches of mold and smelling of swamp water, presumably one with the Earth by now. But Charlie found it a day or two later, and when I took a look at it, I decided we could clean the old girl up and use her.

It was a few weeks before we found a convenient night to settle our bet. By then the circus was in town, and since there is nothing quite as weird and unpredictable as a Central American circus, we just had to go. The night was also a going away party, because Charlie had decided to visit the U.S. for six months. We decided on our favorite cocktail—cuba libres—as the libation of choice, which meant the cooler needed to be stocked with rum, Coke, ice, and limes. Quite a load. We also wanted to bring a bottle of mezcal a friend had purchased in Mexico. To make Abbie’s job easier we bought a second tote.

Charlie’s going away party was epic—expat send-offs usually are. The next day I was treated to a hilarious story about some dope eating a mezcal worm off the ground. Turns out the dope was me. The circus was a blast—I do remember that. But since I’m planning a post on Central American circuses, I won’t get into the details just yet. About the cooler all I can say is that it served nobly that night, like the good soldier it is. Since Charlie was leaving, he gave me the cooler as a gift and I’ve owned it ever since. I hadn’t used it since Guatemala, so when I pulled it out yesterday quite a few good memories came with it. The cooler has been a companion, a witness, and a good luck charm. It’s survived swamp, ocean, volcano, rain forest, and two near-fatal bouts with Central American mold. And after all it has been through, it’s still in prime condition—just like me.

Labels: beach, circus, gambling, guatemala

posted by Egan Ehlers @ 5:37 PM