How To Fall In Love With An Apple

I'm quite proud how I spent almost my entire life without ever touching any sort of narcotic substance. I say almost because there was that one time when I found myself unwittingly tripping on a joint. Just the once mind, that was enough to make me realise how well advised I was to avoid the stuff.

Looking back, it all came about when I had a very abusive customer in a piano bar I owned in the south of Spain. This guy was a local gypsy and from the moment he set foot in the place I could smell the trouble heading my way.

I stood behind my bar and asked the dude what he wanted to drink. Realising that I was English, and sensing there were other English people present, he decided to show off his command of English. It amounted to one word, and he couldn't even say that properly.

As I slid the glass of beer he asked for across the bar, and asked him for the money, he put just the right amount of cash on the bar top and began to utter....

" Fucky,fucky, fucky..." I told him to stop and if he continued I would have to ask him to leave. He seemed to get the message and started to mutter some sort of nonsense in Spanish. I'm fluent in Spanish and even I had no idea what he was trying to say.

The gypsy idiot then moved to start verbally molesting one of my best friends, Andrew. "Fucky,fucky,fucky..." he said again. He was clearly somebody who had learned the fine art of social interaction and conversation.

I decided to throw him out and came from behind the bar to do so. Of course, he objected and refused to leave. Then he started to become quite aggressive, pushing and shoving my other customers. Still he refused to leave. At this point I set off the alarm system and it sounded like all hell let loose, what a bloody racket of noise. Yet still the swine refused to leave.

Eventually, I had to resort to cunning. I told him that there was a free street party further along the street. Then I offered to transfer his beer from the glass to a paper cup so he could go outside for a cigarette with his beer. At that time, the Spanish Government had introduced a new law making it illegal to smoke inside a bar. Anyway, out he went and drunkenly sauntered off up the street.

As soon as he was out, fearful he might return when he discovered I had lied and sold him a pup, I quickly locked the front door. At that point I had only about half a dozen friends in the bar. And since it was a Tuesday night, and we were highly unlikely to see any more clientel, I decided to keep the door locked for the night and treat is a bit of a boys night in.

I was feeling really quite stressed out with the unpleasant dude and so treated myself to a very nice brandy with water. Then I sat on the customer side of the bar with my friends. One of the guys, Leon, handed me what looked like a roll up cigarette and I took it. I had no idea what it really was, until it was too late.

With a joint, it's normal to take one or two puffs and then pass it on. I drew on the thing all the way down to the butt end. At first nothing happened. Then, all of a sudden I started to uncontrollably laugh out loud at some stupidity which entered my stoned head. Then all the other guys started to laugh too. So that was cool, I thought. Ha!

The room started to spin at what seemed like a thousand miles an hour. In fact, it span so much I felt like Iwas going to fall off my bar stool. So I went to sit back on a lounge sofa.

Fortunately, I had a really great American friend who was a qualified doctor present. Aman, which was the only name I ever knew him by, came over to sit with me to make sure I was alright. He took hold of my wrist to check my pulse rate, then gently let it go. By now I felt like I was in one of those centrifuge things that the space agency use for training astronauts for the G forces they would experience.

About five minutes later my friends needed fresh drinks and offered to serve themselves and put the money in the cash register. I was cool with that, they were all highly trusted friends.

Then Aman suggested I have something to eat and offered to go back to his nearby apartment to get me some pasta he had left over from his evening meal. I said no, I had some fruit behind the bar for me to snack on during the night whilst working the bar. I asked one of the guys to pass me an apple, which he duly did.

Suddenly I felt a desperate need to go to the bathroom for a number two. I asked Aman if he would go with me, in case I fell. Then, just as suddenly I didn't need the bathroom. This feeling to evacuate my guts came and went a few times, but I remained sat on the sofa.

Then I picked up the apple and for some strange reason I was obsessed with it. It was a beautiful bright red apple and I found myself falling in love with it. I mean, shit man, who in their right mind wants to have sex with an apple. A banana, maybe. But an apple?

Then Leon came over to help me come out of it, even though he was even more stoned than me. "Focus Ralph, focus..." Leon said. And I started to extol the virtues of the apple I had fallen hopelessly in love with. Leon actually encouraged this love affair in the making.

After about half an hour, I got up and started to pace up and down the lounge area. That helped a lot. Slowly the spinning started to slow down. Towards the end of the evening I suggested it was time to go home. Luckily I was walking, not driving.

At home, as soon as my head hit the pillow, I went out like a light. The next day I woke none the worse for the stoning and in fact, I don't know if this is normal, I suddenly saw the outside world with a brilliant intensity of colour and linea clarity. Seems like I'd had a soft landing.

The apple? I don't know if I ever got around to consumating that love affair, except my friend Aman said I had eaten it with great gusto. Later on, enroute to open up my bar, I bumped into Leon. "Hey Leon," I said, "I don't know what the hell that shit was you gave me last night, just do not ever pass me anything like that again, man." And at that, we both crossed the road to unlock the doors to the bar, pissing ourselves laughing.