SOC #25: Black Tequila

I was having a conversation with one of my current co-workers the other night and this memory popped into my head from my Santa Barbara days. It was a Sunday, my roommate and I went to a barbecue at his cousin's apartment. As soon as we walked into the place, and speaking in Spanish, he introduced me to his cousin's family. His aunt shook my hand and immediately handed me a beer from a nearly empty 24 pack box. On the kitchen counter behind her there were two more full boxes. My roommate said, "She said if you want another, don't be shy." I noticed his aunt had a black tear tattoo on her left cheek, indication of a rough childhood, but these days I could tell she was in high spirits and enjoying life the best she could. We made our way to the porch where my roommate began grilling a steak for the both of us. As he was heating up the meat we both smoked a joint, having a good time, the beer tasting better the more I toked. The family inside were chattering in Spanish and having a good time. Not even 20 minutes of sitting, smoking, barbecuing, and drinking on the porch did we begin to hear women crying from inside the apartment. I asked, "The fuck they crying about?" My roommate simply replied, "Memories." I said, "Good ones, I hope." My roommate said, "All memories are good because they are in the past." I said, "Good point. Never thought of it that way. Most of the time for me the past is a thorn in my brain, a persistent migraine that not even drugs can numb." My roommate suggested, "You should just change the way you think by changing the way you do things. You seem to be stuck in a routine. Maybe you should change things up." I said, "It was worse when I was back home. Pissing in the bathroom even had a fucking schedule. Same exact time every fucking day." My roommate inquired, "How about shitting?" I chuckled and was about to say something when an empty bottle of expensive tequila shot out of the open sliding-glass door, shattering to pieces against the porch fence. A woman inside wailed from the kitchen, spouting words in Spanish faster than a machine gun as she cried. From what I could discern from my extremely limited Spanish vocabulary, the woman was saying things like: "Why?!" and "Why, God, you Bastard?!" There was the sound of the kitchen table being pushed around while the other women tried to hold her still and calm her down. The struggling made it's way outside to the porch. It was my roommates aunt trying to push other female members of her family off her. The ladies tried to pull her back inside when my roommates aunt suddenly unveiled a switchblade from her jacket pocket, waving it at her siblings, then putting it up to her throat. I asked aloud, "Is this really happening?" I turned my attention to my roommate standing at the grill, flipping the steak, his back to the drama. Without looking at me, he said, "Memories. Just memories. Someone died, someone else was raped, blah, blah." By the time I looked back over to the ladies they had somehow got the knife away from his aunt, and took her back inside. I said to my roommate, "Did that just happen, man?" My roommate replied, "She gets like that when she drinks tequila." I wondered, "How many shots of tequila does it take to put a knife to your own throat? 'Tis the question." My roommate said, "She wasn't doing shots. They all were drinking full cups of it." Astonished, I said, "Fucking memories."