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SCOTT SOLUTIONS and OLD RIP VAN WINKLE Dylan led us down the street, passing tourists enjoying live music and rum concoctions. A full moon had broken the horizon and was peering down on us like a mother over a crib. We came to a stop near a dilapidated playground. Dylan’s large frame squeezed through a breach in the surrounding fence and stopped at the edge of the light being cast from a flickering street lamp. He turned back to us, “you mates coming?” I looked over each shoulder, down the block in each direction. “Fuck it.” I said to Kody, and the two of us slipped through the fence and followed Dylan into the shadows. On the other side of the playground, we came to another fence and another ripped opening. We passed through the gap and were immediately greeted by a skinny Panamanian with tattered clothes and a bucket hat. Dylan fist bumped the guy and began chatting him up. It was a bit jarring to listen to a 7 foot man speak fluent Panamanian Spanish with a slight British accent. The Panamanian guy looked over at me and Kody and smiled with what little teeth he had left. “You boys hang tight. I’ll be right back,” said Dylan as he disappeared into an adjacent shack, apparently patched together with an assortment of wood from deconstructed ships and forgotten construction sites. A warm glow emanated from a doorless corridor and cracks in the facade. “Como estas?” said Kody to our Panamanian watchdog. “Bien. Bien. De donde eres?” he mumbled back. “Los Angeles.” “Ahhh, Los Angeles? Super fancy,” he said in his best English. We laughed uncomfortably for a moment, then Dylan, thankfully, reappeared. “Okay, you boys can come inside,” he said, and the three of us entered the shack. The walls were streaked with aimless paint of all colors. There were shelves holding red, toy buses with yellow flames painted down their sides, bookcases filled with dusty trinkets and books with frayed bindings, and the scent of marajuana drifting in the air. At a large, round table, sat a dark-skinned man, wearing a bright yellow shirt and black baseball cap. Dylan introduced us as his new friends from Los Angeles. “Ahhh, Los Angeles? Super fancy,” he said. “Soy Scott.” He stood up and gave us each a hug. “Bienvenidos, amigos. Siéntate, por favor.” We each took a seat on crippled chairs, and Scott passed around a lit joint. Scott didn’t speak any English, so Dylan and he spoke most of the time, while Kody and I whispered back and forth about how strange this had become. Then Scott pulled out a large, plastic bag of white powder. He spooned a couple lumps into a smaller baggie and slid it over to Dylan. I suddenly knew what “gear” meant. Dylan pulled out his house key and dipped it into the baggie, withdrawing a blade of cocaine. He put it up to his face and sniffed it gone, then passed the baggie and keys to Kody, who didn’t hesitate to take a bump. Next was my turn. Here I was in Panama, 36 years old, about to take cocaine for the first time in my life with a drug lord and a 7 foot, British basketball player. I was terrified, but before I gave myself time to think, I dipped the key into the powder and shoved it up my nose with a big whiff. The slight burning sensation stung for a brief moment and then subsided, followed by an instantaneous rush of what I can only describe as extreme alertness. It seemed as though my senses were on steroids. I could hear better, see more clearly, and felt a greater sense of presence. I suddenly got an idea and stood up, apparently too fast, as I startled everyone. “I’ll be right back,” I said. “I brought a special something that I think we should have,” and I scampered off to our Airbnb, which was only three short blocks away. When I returned, I revealed my surprise, a bottle of Old Rip Van Winkle 10 year Bourbon, which retails for somewhere in the thousand dollar range, if you can find any - mine had been gifted to me for outstanding sales from one of my distributors. I had stowed it away in my luggage, along with two other nice whiskeys. I had Dylan translate to Scott about Van Winkle and how expensive and hard to procure the bottle was and that I wanted him to have it. Scott was so thankful and elated that he insisted we crack it open and enjoy it together. There was just one problem, he didn’t have any glassware, so we ended up sipping $1,000 bourbon out of clear, plastic dixie cups, sharing stories and laughing. What seemed like hours later, we finally stumbled our way back to the apartment, stopping briefly to take note of the powder blue daylight spilling over the entrance of the Panama Canal, where cargo ships awaited their passage to another ocean.