Thursday, January 24, 2008

The Algerian

My friends (Daniel, Nick and Katy) and I went to this bar called De Giraffe in Leuven, pretty chill bar they play a lot of jazz and slower paced music and they have my favorite beer Maes on tap.

So anyway we're on the second round when this little Algerian man comes over and starts talking to one of my friends, Daniel. At the time I couldn't hear what he was saying but later I found he was telling my friend "Don't you look at me like that, you don't look at people like that" So my friend kind of shrugged the guy off as he would any guy who was fucked up and said he was sorry for looking at him. Anyway the guy hands Daniel a clove of garlic and then starts to walk away. As he turns away something like 200 Euro falls out of his pocket, he then takes two steps farther at which point he is right in front of me and 300 more Euro fall out.

At this point you have to know me, I'm a nice guy to a fault, I'm nice in situations where it would have been in my best interest if I had simply just been an asshole and this was one of those situations.

So anyway I tapped the guy on the shoulder and told him he had just dropped half a grand in euro on the floor. He proceeds to bend over in front of me and "try" to pick it up. I say try because he was waaaay to fucked up to organize that money. So I bent over and helped him pick it up and then handed it to his buddy, big mistake. After about 20 more seconds and all his money is picked up the little Algerian man stands up looks at me and sticks his hand out demanding that I give him his money. I say in English that I gave his friend the money. Needless to say the man doesn't believe me and continues to stare with his hand out, while I continue to say in every way possible that I do not have his money.

Well at this point his friends make themselves known and hustle him out of the bar. At this point Daniel tells me about his conversation and we decide to order another round (which I basically inhaled because I was nervous) so in order to give the Algerian and his buddies some time to move along.

Next thing I know here is the Algerian man in my face again but this time his little Arab buddy in English says "Did you take his money" and again I say in every way possible including dumping out my pockets that I do not have this guys fucking money. At this point the Algerian cuts in front of the Arab man and starts stammering at me in an unknown language, I say that because between the four of us we know enough Italian, Arabic, French and Spanish to know that it wasn't like any of those and it certainly was not Dutch. So anyway I am again turning out my pockets telling this man that I did not steal his money and that I would never steal his money. He then looks at me like I had just spoken English for the first time and tells me in slow broken and at the same time drunken english "That is drug money, you don't want drug money" Well lets just say that made a lot of things and not just the clientèle of the bar make a whole bunch of sense.

Now the Algerians white buddies came up to him and started talking about how they had to leave and it was either the money or the "Marijuana" (No one I know calls it by its full name just sounds weird that way) all the time glaring over at me.

This is the point where my friends Nick and Daniel were dead set on brawling and were planning there form of attack if the Algerian or the Arab put a finger on me. Which makes me happy that if any shit went down they had my back no matter what these guys would have done.

As they are scheming over in the corner and I'm trying to procure a large some of drug money from any orifice of my body I happen to glance over to the little Arab man who gives me the international signal for "My friend is really fucked up right now so don't worry we don't want to rumble" which made me feel only a little better because this guy had the Michael Corleone "Don't worry Fredo no matter what you do to me you are family" look on his face and we all know what happened to Fredo.

As I am turning back towards the Algerain to tell him for the 4987534875 time that I did not take his money, he grabs for my hand and man that small moment held so much tension I felt like the Commander of the Dallas in the Hunt for Red October just waiting for Sean Connery to open his torpedo tube doors, but it never happened. He told me that I shouldn't worry about it and that he had respect for me, he proceeded to shake my hand then kiss my friend Katy's hand and then they left.

I proceed to gulp down the rest of Katy's beer now deciding that I was going to get drunk tonight if only to calm myself down and then we left to get frittes.

Anyway that was last night.

2 comments:

Lindsey said...

aw i didnt know you were playing the travel blog game too! good job getting in the middle of a drug deal.. way to be safe.

Rachel said...

damn it, I want your post about Carnivale!!!!!!