I had no sooner set foot on the threshold of that last bar than I knew it was not a good idea to go inside. In tow with my friends on yet another evening of wine and good times, I found myself standing before a doorway hung with dark, heavy curtains: The Cavern, it was called - although whether the name was more tireless Fab Four homage by yet another tragic Beatles fan, or simply an excuse for the expense undoubtedly spared on the decor, I remain unenlightened. At any rate, with my senses dulled by the abundant quantities of alcohol consumed during the evening and my confidence bolstered by the presence of my friends, I decided I could manage to keep my fears walled off in some remote part of my brain. Besides, I told myself, The Cavern's undoubtedly hokey interior would most likely prove to be a source of ridicule rather than terror.
So I screwed up my courage and, incoherently proclaiming myself leader of that merry, motley band of bar-flies, I drew aside the curtains with a theatrical flourish and went stumbling inside the tunnel. My momentum carried some three or four steps into the long, dark and stony interior before I fell to my knees and began to scream in terror, covering my face with my hands while the old nightmare throbbed again inside my head like some obscene and blackened heart. Far from giving me courage, the alcohol in my veins made me even more exposed and defenceless, amplifying my panic until I was left lying paralysed on the floor. I screamed all the more when I felt the hands grab hold of my arms and begin to pull me along the ground, until the rough caress of the curtains in the doorway made me realise that someone was dragging me bodily outside. While they sat me on a nearby bench and tried to calm me down I could still hear the drunken giggling coming from behind the door, as my friends in their ignorance continued to celebrate my latest practical joke.
When I finally regained my composure, I took my hands away from my eyes and found myself face to face with Rafa, good old reliable Raphael. Most responsible and wisest of friends, my sudden access of panic had dragged him rudely away from the arms of Bacchus and his train, obliging him to join me in a short and most unpleasant journey back to sobriety. He was looking hard into my eyes, his face set in that mask of perplexity and concern I knew so well - perhaps because I was the person who most often made him wear it.
- Hey, you alright now kiddo? You know maybe it's time you gave up on your solo attempt to drain the Rioja. Want me to call a taxi?
Little by little I managed to steady my shakes and trembles until I was able to return Rafa's gaze. We went back a long way, Rafa and I, to the days when our backsides had warmed the same seat in school, and our friendship had remained intact over the intervening twenty years. We still saw each other regularly, and I had often stopped to wonder just what it was that kept our friendship going. Somehow the two of us were like the core of an onion around which, like layers, the rest of our group just kept peeling away - the kind who later on would try and slink off if they saw you in the street, or at the most would mutter an embarrassed hello in their confusion at a meeting as unwanted as it was unexpected. But Rafa and I still kept up. I suppose that on my part I had an unconscious yearning for a little of the stability that ruled my friend's life - a guy so happy, centred and focused that there've been times when I've felt like mercilessly beating the secret of his disgusting contentment out of him - while I suspect that Rafa could still see the same irresponsibility and immaturity he'd had at sixteen preserved intact in me at age thirty-four. If now and then he liked to indulge himself by tying one on with his old mate Tony, retracing our steps around the old dens of iniquity and houses of ill repute that still formed the centre of my existence, I'm convinced that those ostensibly fun evenings really served to reassure him of the pathetic nature of my existence and my condition as willing and (un)conscious loser. Satisfied, he could dump me off the next morning at my place, leaving me half paralytic and talking incoherent drivel to the already fading photographs of the last decent girl who'd had the momentary misfortune to cross my path - and whom I'd failed dismally for her trouble - while he waltzed off home to his wife with enough partying on board to last him another couple of months.
