My Friends

My friends are an interesting bunch, and few as interesting as Rico.

Rico Suave

Rico Suave is a nickname I have given him for this blog because his real nickname is too close to his real name. And we with Common Sense try to preserve the anonymity of the drunk and idiotic.

Rico is not a pretender. He is not trying to be Rico Suave. He really is a good looking, smooth talking, fun guy who is almost as good at finding a party in a convent as Shaft. This is probably where the difference between Rico and Shaft becomes evident. Rico even though quite capable of getting a nun to shed her clothes, he wouldn’t do it. Despite most of his actions, I believe he truly is afraid of hell. Shaft on the other hand would come home the next morning dancing and wearing a habit.

Shaft is fun to be with. Rico is fun to watch. Rico realizes most of the time that he is a caricature and enjoys it, the rest of the time he too drunk and just does. He gets himself into the craziest situations, and is well known for inviting more than one woman to the same place at the same time. And still going home with one of them, or sometimes with someone else all together. If he could remember half these adventures his memoirs would be amazing.

A distinct feature of Rico is that he always has a signature line. And he is smart enough to change it up once in a while. His favorite line when I met him was “Why you bringing up old shit” He would be hitting on someone we knew. “Rico, where’s your girlfriend?” she would say. “Why you bring up old shit” “She isn’t old shit.” “We broke up” “I saw you with her two days ago” “We broke up. Stop bringin’ up old shit.”
Anything you would mention that he didn’t want to talk about he would say “Why you bringin’ up old shit.”
Then we had to put up with “BAM” for a while. Cute girl walks by “BAM!” You say something funny or inappropriate “BAM!” It was a while before I found out that he stole it from Emeril. Rico was out of work at the time, and apparently spending too much time watching the Food Network.
For a while he only answered the phone "What’s up Bitch". Once I called and he said Hello and I thought I had the wrong number. He was with his daughter.
Another favorite of mine was “imaginate” (pronounced ee-ma-he-na-tay)which is Spanish for imagine that. “Shaft and I went out last night and got Whacked” Imaginate. He would always find the funniest moment to slip that in.
I could go on for hours with anecdotes about Rico and his drunken adventures. But I will give you just one more.
I used to throw a party every year around my birthday. Two days before one of these party’s Rico came over to help me move furniture and clean up. The problem with this was that I already purchased all the alcohol for the party. He came over because in addition to wanting to help he was broke and wanted to keep the night low key. I agreed. A 12 pack of corona, for him, and a ½ a bottle of Habana Club, for me, later the house was clean and we were hammered. The empty stomach drunk will get you every time. So at this point we wanted to do what most people want to do when they are hammered. Go drinking. We knew that shaft was at the restaurant he bartended at so we could drink there cheap or he would pick up the tab or both. Rico drove because he had his sister’s car and it was smaller and parking sucked where we were going. We arrived fifteen minutes after Shaft and CDG left. So we went next door to a bar that was open late and had a pool table. We arrived and within 10 minutes we were playing pool with two women we had never met. I of course got the fat friend. To her credit she wasn’t really fat, just not as good looking as her friend and for what ever reason I was being picky and anti-social and did not flirt as much as I could have. Within 45 minutes the girls were leaving Rico Suave in tow. Imaginate. He gave me his sister’s car keys, we bid each other Buena Suerte, and he left. I stuck around another 15-20 minutes and played another game of pool flirting with someone who was probably much more aware of how drunk I was, than I was. I started to realize this and cut bait when some guy bought me a drink for winning the game. I have no idea how I did that. You know it is time to go when someone hands you a drink and you can’t possibly imagine taking even one sip. It has happened to me maybe only three or four times but when it happens, it is time to GO. So I went. Outside. To realize that I didn’t see my car. And that I hadn’t brought my car. And that I wasn’t real sure what kind of car Rico’s sister drove. If it wasn’t for the fact that his sister was in an accident the day before and he showed me the huge dent in the passenger side of the car I would have never been able to identify it. I made it home in one piece. Please no lectures. I know. The next morning I was wakened by my cell phone ringing. It stopped ringing. I closed my eyes. It rang. I did not even open my eyes. My house phone rang. The answering machine did what I was not willing to do. It picked up. “It’s Rico call me back.” The cell rings. I pick it up, and this greets me from the other end “Where the fuck are you” “Jackass, I am at home. Where the Fuck are you. I wasn’t the one who took off with strange women.” “Dude, I am at their house alone. And I’m Puerto Rican. Are they Stupid? If it was Shaft he would have a truck pulled up back by now. This is a nice house.” I like to think that Shaft wouldn’t do that but we are never quite sure. Hustler by nature, Criminal by law.
I went and picked his drunk ass up. The story went something like this. He went home with them and got into the hot tub with cute short haired girl and things went on from there. He woke up to the other girl saying that she had to leave for a while for a meeting but he could stay and she would be back. So he asked “Where’s um, um……..(pointing to the other side of the bed)” “Barbara?” “Yeah Barbara” “She flew back to San Francisco this morning, remember?” “Yeah, Yeah.” That’s when the phone calls to me started.

I hate telling stories about Rico because they make him sound like a womanizing drunk, but they are so entertaining. The good news is that he is no longer a drunk. He sobered up in April. He fell off the wagon for about a month but has been clean again for about three weeks now and seems much more committed now. He wants to go to 90 meetings in 90 days and be celibate for 90 days. Buena Suerte.

I knew Rico for a year and a half before I ever saw him sober. The transformation was amazing. He is a very cool very intelligent loyal friend when he is sober. I hope he stays that way for a long time.

Everybody wish Rico a happy birthday.

This is what a message from Rico usually sounds like.

This is a rare longer message from Rico