Regardless, there was very little real threat...

There's something about booze that makes me, well, fucking stupid.  So here I am a week and some ago, walking home alone from the tragos gratis circuit around Cusco's Plaza de Armas.  It's 2am and I'm walking the deserted stretch back to my hostel, approaching two not-particularly-hoodlum-looking Peruvian youths traipsing my direction afoot.  Really, I'm just thinking about sandwiches.  A juicy thank you hamburger to offer the belly demons I'm happy have quieted themselves for the night, allowing me to drink and grind without anal-clenching.

I'm meandering through daydream, the sizzling grease hopping and dancing upon the pan, a sexy Cusqueña behind the grill ready to flip my burger, her short apron pegged midchest upon cold-activated -- when I'm startled from food porn by a two-handed thrust to the chest.  I stagger back, the alcohol advising me I can easily conquer these two normal-sized Peruvians, which is to say half-sized humans: "¿Cómo?"

"Dános dos soles."

I shrug my shoulders and try to walk through the human roadblock again, again detained by a push.  Well, I can just walk around the block, I think, though while the brain is occupied by thinking, the mouth begins to spout. "Ay, hijueputa, chúpame la verga, huevón."

The feet begin retracing their path down the block, I turn my back to the kids and my elevated blood alcohol content succeeds in raising a middle finger over each shoulder, while my mouth continues to spout obscenities.  The strange intoxication of adrenaline mixed with pleasure, pleasure that my Spanish is sufficiently proficient to fluently insult.

I end up at the corner and the two punks walk by.  We're still jawing at each other, my stares and stabs stalking them up the block.  Someone says something about go back to your country.  I invent something offensive generalization about Peruvians.  The more eager of the two stops and faces me, raising both arms wide and putting palms to heaven.  I do the same and continue practicing Tourette's, never one to let things die when my heart's beating booze.  Everything's a competition with me.

He begins to walk toward me, his friend lingering on the far corner, arms akimbo.  We're face to face, sharing breaths between strings of abuse, unblinking.  Then I'm laughing at him. Then he's slapping me, but gently.  Not enough to trigger my violence.  I don't see the friend approach, not that his presence changes my tune.  But I respond to the screwdriver he reveals tucked into his waistline, raising both hands, palms forward, "Ya no hay problema.  No tengo ningún problema con Uds."

"Andate, huevón."

I walk home quickly, hand jammed into my pocket, fingers caressing cold metal casing, the pen that, until now, has only been considered an implement to scribble notes.

Like they say, traveling teaches you to adapt.