Women Who Drink to Forget

photo: Marc Calumpang





story by Paul Brinkley-Rogers


I asked the young woman from Venezuela if I could buy her a drink.
She told me it was her 21st Birthday.

I am a woman, not a girl, she said with a flutter of her eyelashes…..Can you imagine what that means?

I only drink Amaretto with a mix of Grenadine and lime over ice, she told me. And it has to have two cherries on the top.

Oh, I said. That is your own special drink?

No, she said. It is the drink of my family in Caracas.

The women in my family started drinking when Hugo Chavez became President, and they haven’t stopped.

Dios mio, I said. He has been President for 8 years. The women in your family have been doing a lot of drinking.

Yes, she said, as she studied the Amaretto being poured into a glass by the bartender. It had a copper tone to it, exactly like her skin.

And now it is my turn to drink, she said. I am a woman, I can do that.

You mean you had to wait until you were 21, I asked.

Oh yes, she said. Those are the rules. You have to be old enough to know why you are drinking this particular drink. We call it the “Alo Presidente” (Hello Mr. President). It is a very strong drink. You drink to forget. My mother told me that.

You mean you and your family do not like Hugo Chavez, I asked.

Ambar gulped and upended the glass. She slammed it down on the bar and waved her hands over her head. She looked as if she was about to deliver a speech, maybe a long one, like Mr. President.

No. I do not like him, she said indignantly. He is a dictator. My family has horses. We play polo. Hugo Chavez is trying to take our land. I can’t wait to get back to Caracas so I can be with the women in my family. They gather in the sala (living room): my mother, my two grandmothers, my seven aunts, my great aunts, my cousins and my three sisters. And then they drink.

I had a vision of Ambar (that is Spanish for Amber – I was named for the stone, she explained) and all the other women in the Monroy family upending their Alo Presidentes in unison, as if the act of drinking was an act of exorcism.

A gathering of witches, I thought….No. No. If they looked like Ambar they were much too good looking to be witches. Although, on the other hand, some women I have known have been bewitching.

She ordered another Alo Presidente. The bartender, who had just checked her ID to be sure about her age, looked concerned. Are you going to be ok, he asked her.

Look, she said, forcefully. This is the drink of the women in my family. It is traditional. We know what we are doing. We drink to forget.

I wondered what the men in her family were doing while their women were drinking. I asked Ambar about that.

They know better than to hang around, she said. We don’t even have to tell them to get lost.

What's wrong with Venezuela, she demanded. What's wrong with our men? Why don't they do something....about Hugo Chavez?

I thought about asking if the women drink because they are disappointed in their men. Or if they drink to rob Hugo Chavez of the opportunity to bombard them with his rhetoric. Or both.

But I did not.

I was relieved when Ambar’s friends materialized to join her birthday celebration. They were all from Venezuela. They were talking very very fast. They were very very loud. They did not caution her about drinking.

You were privileged, her friend Adriana whispered to me. You were there when she became a woman. Don't forget that.