hard-bitten loner

[edit. 1.0201]

Benny's been obsessed lately with Tennis. Specifically Ricardo González, aka "Pancho". He goes around these days carrying an old wood racquet and he's beening wearing the same white tennis shorts, wrist bands and stan smiths for two straight weeks. Still, his obsesssion with the game hasn't affected his drinking any.

I walk into the bar after work and Benny's sitting in his usual spot and he's in the middle of one of his great "In Defense Of..." routines. The place is otherwise empty and the bartender is a new girl that doesn't know how to get out of the line of fire.

I pull up next to him and order a beer. Benny's got two modes of talking to women: lecture and complaint. Neither works particularly well but then you'd have to be a special kind of girl to really get him. There aren't many of those in the world.

Benny's in full stride:

-- Sure, Federer's amazing. I mean, he's AMAZING. but we're talking about a guy here who Sports Illustrated declared that if the world was in peril and humankind's very existence depended on the outcome of a tennis match, the man you want on the baseline would be Ricardo Alonso González.

I smile a little about this. Benny loves this line. LOVES it. He mixes up the quote as well; adding his little personal touches each time.

[TK]