Arthur and I stopped to talk with Vito on the way out the door. We had been a private gathering and since good Scotch was being poured we were among the last to leave. Art and I are professional endurance drinkers and had settled into a comfortable stride. Vito on the other hand had been hitting it fairly hard and was now in rare form. "Do you want to get some food?” he asked. I hesitated, it was getting late in the evening, and I had places to be. "Get in the car" he urged, as a small sedan pulled up to the curb. Out jumped a tall, heavily built man in a plaid skirt. He had been playing the bagpipes earlier so we nicknamed him Tim. He was a serious looking fellow and claimed to be a local cop. I didn't ask to see the badge; where would he keep it? A late night invitation by a man holding a grocery bag full of very expensive Scotch. A huge cop in a skirt. Can all six of us fit in that car? The weirdness factor was off the scale; there was no choice but to dive down the rabbit hole.

We somehow squeezed into the sedan and it sped off into the night. We soon arrived at a well known bar and Tim backed into a spot across the street. There was a loud scraping noise; I think he backed onto some construction debris. A group of revelers were crossing the street and stopped to see what had happened. Tim unfolded himself from the car and proceeded to inquire loudly about the virtue of the onlookers parents. The group approached tentatively, confused by the unwarranted belligerence. Outstanding I thought, a bar fight before we even get in the door. Vito hopped out of the front seat to strongly and elaborately suggest that they continue on their way. The locals were not prepared for the sight of a large man in a skirt, bellowing at them. Nor for the more slightly built Vito, with his dark pin stripe suit, slicked back hair, and equally colorful words. The group was having an evening of laughter with friends and was taken aback by this onslaught. Their uncertain looks confirmed that they were not the more serious breed of locals and they wisely moved off. Too bad, they missed the clown car act as the rest of us piled out of the back seat.

I had planned to be home early, so I stopped in front of the bar to make a call. Vito rummaged through his bag and handed me a bottle of Scotch almost older than me and certainly more expensive than most of the cars I’ve owned. "Happy Birthday" he proclaimed as I took a healthy swig. My birthday wasn’t until later that week, but why argue? He was not satisfied so I gladly followed with another quaff. Impatient with my call, Vito took the phone and explained the situation to my wife. Vito has a way with people. By the time he was done, not only did my wife not mind me staying out drinking, but Vito was apparently invited over for dinner that weekend as well. The big man in a kilt burst out of the bar and demanded to know what was holding us up. The expression on his face could not be taken lightly. I explained that Vito was handling a situation for me. Quite displeased, he went back inside, yelling for us to follow. Moments later he returned, demanding to know why we were still outside. To be honest, the wonderful bottle in my hand left me with little reason to go anywhere else. Not a man to be trifled with, we gave him the bag of Scotch and he retreated to the bar with a grunt.

Bored with drinking on the street, we joined our party in the bar. They appeared to be drinking Guinness; a real mans beer in my book. Art handed me a twenty to order some drinks. To stay on the same track I ordered two brandy snifters of dark, heavy Dalmore 12 year old Scotch. I don’t know what he had been drinking, but Tim was getting fairly aggressive and felt the need to start shoving people around the bar. When a nightmare like this is in your face the mind whirls at an accelerated pace, trying to decide whether confronting or ignoring the horror will make it go away faster. Provocation may be the more interesting option, but it cuts seriously into your drinking time. We managed to divert Tim’s attention to some poor bastards at the other end of the bar and got back to the subject at hand.

Vito approached and asked what the hell we were drinking. He grabbed Art's glass and flung the contents on the floor. He then pulled a bottle from his bag, poured some into the glass, swirled it around for a moment to rinse, and flung it out on the floor again before filling the glass from his bottle. He reached for my glass, but no one dumps my booze on the floor, I don’t care what you’re replacing it with. I took a moment and finished off my Highlander. Vito swished the last few drops onto the floor and refilled from his bag. The bar staff had been trying their best to block out the transgressions occurring right before them. Our behavior could not be allowed, but they were not prepared to deal with this strange group. The bartender finally spoke up and Vito moved in to have a quick talk with him. He handed him his card, and explained to the bewildered barkeep that we should be allowed to drink from our own bottle if it sat on a shelf behind the bar between pours. The bartender quickly decided that he wanted no part of this arrangement either. He handed back the bottle and promised to leave us alone if we would be more discreet.

Having drunk quite a bit since arriving, I felt it was high time to track down some food. I asked the bartender for a menu and was told that the kitchen had already closed. Somebody please tell me why most bars stop serving food early and don’t stock bags of snack food. If you sell me food I will keep buying drinks and am somewhat less likely to throw up all over your floor. Everybody wins.

Sometime later we noticed that the big man had left, and with him our transportation. Our aura was disrupted and it was time to move on. The bouncers hassled us about taking our drinks out the door, but this was eventually resolved. After all, we had brought them in with us as well. We hailed a cab, but the driver refused to take all five of us together. We tried to preempt the next driver’s objections by piling into his cab before he could count. But the problem was avoided when the cabbie recognized Vito and agreed to take us all to an after hours Chinese restaurant.

It was very late and the restaurant was deserted except for the wait staff who were lounging at empty tables, waiting to go home. They looked exhausted, the poor unsuspecting bastards. The manager knew Vito and scurried off to the kitchen to prepare us a feast. Vito broke out the magic bag and poured drinks all around. He repeatedly offered drinks to the wait staff as well, but they kept nervously refusing. I’m not sure if they didn’t understand him, or understood the scene all to well. The food kept coming, the drinks kept flowing, and the table was transformed into a war zone. Finally satisfied, we paid the manager well for his hospitality and tolerance and made our exit. But not before Vito forced a very nice bottle of Scotch, which I don’t think is even legally available in this country, on a poor confused waitress.

It was more than very late; it was quite early to be honest. Having already pushed our luck earlier with drinking out in the street, it was time to wrap up the evening. The trains had stopped running hours earlier, but Vito promised he would get “his cabbie” to drive us home. He stumbled off to the side and had a long confused discussion on his cell phone. I thought I heard him mutter, “who’s my bitch?” more than once. A few moments later the cab arrived and we all piled in. Vito was dropped off first, and once again we were whisked off into the night by a strange man we did not know…