Bottle

The French guys were friends of Mimi’s. She’d met them when she lived in Paris. Jean-Yves and Jean-Paul, I think. Nancy and I were giddy about having them as houseguests. They weren’t even handsome, but they were from France, and we were from the suburbs, and they were staying in our Haight Ashbury flat, and this made us sophisticated. We took them to the I-Beam or some other bar down the block. We ordered beers. I ordered a Heineken. Just like always, I told the bartender, “No glass.” When the Jeans got their beers, they slowly poured them into their pint glasses, waiting for the heads to shrink, patient. I took a big swig out of my bottle and probably even wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. The Jeans spoke pretty good English, but their accents were heavy. Jean-Claude or the other one leaned over and said loudly in my ear, “In Paris, only a voolgair hOOkhair drinks out of a bottle.” It took me a minute or two to figure out what he was saying. Oh, those Frenchies and their high-falutin' ways.