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This involved me and the pope. From here on in he'll be referred to as 'John' and I'll relate to myself in the third person due to the uncomfortable nature of this anecdote.
It was the high wet season of '82. John had just finished the North American leg of a world tour and wanted to squeeze in a couple of days down here before heading back. Daniel arranged to meet him at the airport. A dinner was planned in John's honour at the presidential residence. Normally it would've been called a palace - but not now - after the rise of the proletariat.
No-one much showed.
John had shooed off his hangers-on for the night and the ministerial cabinet had been working their arses off just trynna get the books to balance. Plus the weather was shocking.
So it was John and Daniel sitting there playing with their food for what seemed like an appropriate amount of time. Neither felt like eating on account of the humidity.
John said that he was tired and that he was getting too old for these gruelling eight month world tours.
Daniel said, 'I hear ya'. John said, 'I feel like getting totally plastered'.
Daniel smiled - he never thought he'd hear John say something as to the point as that. Daniel cracked open a bottle of Cuban white rum and the talked excitedly about the international soccer situation.
Then baseball, which was national sport in Nicaragua at the time. Even though John didn't follow it, he had played his fair share of stickball with the rascals who hung around the parish, back in Poland a long time ago.
Drink and no food made for enlivened minds and loosened muscles. Daniel's memory of the evening is sketchy - but here is one scene.
Standing side-on down one end of the hall (near the picture of Che) was John. He was slinking from side to side with his scepter held out in front of him.
'Strike one, ball one!' he hollered. Daniel was at the other end of the hall with a big bowl of oranges - which were plentiful in Nicaragua at the time. Daniel piffed one toward John - and - SPLAT. Masses of pulpy orange sprayed everywhere.
'Whooah, he really gotta hold of that one!'. John was doing his own commentary.
The next morning John's minders found Daniel sprawled across a large armchair. They woke him and he looked up at them. Each with his hands clasped into a pensive cup of fingers, saying nothing, but with facial expressions that said, 'where is he?'
Daniel stood up, scratched his aching head and absentmindedly shuffled from one room to the next. The entourage silently followed. The banquet hall was a mess.
They found John snoring in a bath tub. His white robes were covered in dried orange pulp - but also mashed potato, squashed peas and several other types of vegetable. The minders' eyeballing of Daniel grew more intense, as if to say, 'you were supposed to look after him'.
'Must've been a food fight', said Daniel, shrugging.
When Daniel thinks back to that time he thinks, 'It wasn't really embarrassing. Maybe a little uncomfortable having to deal with those accusing eyes and the 'dt-dt-dt'. But I don't know that the word embarrassing even applies to me. Sure there are lots of uncomfortable situations - but not embarrassing'.
But Daniel did get embarrassed. Something would happen like tripping over while climbing steps and his cheeks would color a bit and he'd make some excuse. He gets embarrassed except he calls it feeling a bit uncomfortable.
Team Sunny Breaks, 2000