Alcohol at the Dance

Once at the dance, Veronika was having some trouble with her knee. She never ceased to surprise me. On a trip snowboarding she once bruised her bottom beyond belief and on this last trip she had injured her knee to the point she could barely walk. At the door, I was told “This is a village, you must speak Czech.” This was clear and delivered almost with a foreboding timber in her voice.    

We wiggled through the adult crowd and then down to the lower level. Passing delighted polka dancers and the couples in the hallway. We finally sat down. I think that the first thing out of her mouth was that she was thirsty. “Vodka s džusem” , this was not such an exotic thing I thought. A dance like this for sure could manage a screwdriver.

Trundling up to the line at the bar led me only to another line. Standing in line gave me some time to plan my Czech. Raising my fingers I said “Please, give me two vodkas with juice.” in my best Czech. I am pretty sure that after all of this time, I could say what I needed to say. Maybe even be understood and mostly be correct.

The nice lady behind the bar said, “We don’t have any.”

“Crap!”, I thought to myself. I said that I would have to ask, upon returning to the table. In a short response, Verča said to get something with alcohol. I returned to the bar and ask “Do you have Litovel?” For those who do not know, Litovel is Olomouc’s famous beer and it is at the top of my list when I am in Moravia.

The same woman responds, “We do not have any Litovel.”

I ask “Do you have any slivka?” She shook her head simply, no. I responded to this confounding response, “You do not have Vodka, nor do you have Litovel and now you do not have slivka, where am I? I should call the police.” I quipped. I am not sure how much was understandable but it got a lot of laughs from the ladies and the people sitting around the bar.

I finally asked, “Do you have anything with alcohol in it?” They laughed and gave me three choices, Fernet, Wisky or Tequila. Well that is like being stuck between “fuj” and a cactus. So I returned to the table none the worse for wear with two jiggers of Fernet and a large bottle of mattoni mineral water. Let me say, there were some thank you’s, but mostly it was not received so well.

A few minutes later I was sent to find something again. I quote, “Even white wine will be fine.” knowing full well that wine was not high on her list of bottled fun. In Moravia, drinking something that is so far from the preferred list only a step or two above contempt and I knew it. Most of all I knew that if I had to resort to wine, it had better not be red but had better be Czech.

Usually, getting a Czech girl drunk is not so hard. They do not even ask, “Are you trying to get me drunk?” Maybe they understand that it is some sort of forgone conclusion. Normally, you can just look for a high school and you will find at least three or four stores that will sell cigarettes and alcohol. Life in the villages is different. I apologize for making her drink wine, since when do they not have vodka? Next time, we will bring our own.

Diseases

Sometimes Czech people say the funniest things. I am sure it was just a combination of spoken English in a village, drunken stumbling and a terrible knee injury. When we went to claim our jackets at the coat check, the lady there asked me something that I really did not understand.

When she repeated it and Veronika said something matter-of-factly, I was not sure what to think. Outside we joked all the way home. The woman asked us which disease we had. It is an awfully personal question for a village dance, to which we replied to each other “Horny pussy and horny cock disease!” Czech girls have a special way of putting things. At least, we were sure how to cure that, like an old married couple we went to sleep.

Talk Dirty to Me

In the villages, “You should try to speak Czech”, is all that I can think of when we arrive in Slatinice. That is because people will probably never have heard English spoken, and will have long forgotten their school lessons. Stumbling down the hill on our way home in the middle of the Slatinice night, Verča and I found ourselves randy and a bit tipsy. Now that we can count something of a history together, it is pretty much seems par for the course.

We were singing and talking dirty and as you might imagine, speaking in English and Czech at the same time. On one such evening, we were returning home from somewhere. I am really not sure anymore, but that is the alcohol remembering. Slatinice observes the Czech tradition of crypt-like silence after dark and even by Spanish Harlem standards we were being pretty obnoxious on our way home.

At least when I think of decorum, screaming expletives at the top of your lungs is probably not the first thought that comes to mind. So when I looked up and remarked “wouldn’t it be funny if those are your parents.” I should eat more carrots, because I really could not see who it was in the dark standing out front of their building.

”But I still want to fuck.” she replied, in Czech. It is remarkable, that the rest of the conversation had been in English. So even if her parents were within earshot, like the rest of the village, would not have understood. It is only rude, if you understand it. It was interesting when we arrived to see that in fact the two black blobs were her parents. How proud they must have been to hear us coming home.

At least, they were on their way out to visit some of their friends. Maybe their initial reaction would have been louder if we had a conversation with them immediately. I am not sure what their real reaction was. The next morning, on my way back from the shower her dad messed up my hair as he said “Good morning.” I really dislike people messing with my hair, much to the dismay of my mom and several girlfriends. This time it was alright, kind of a “you are alright in my book”. I get the impression that her folks thought I was a bit “funny” as men go, until they saw I understood a Czech girl talking dirty to me.