So yesterday was a serious holiday here in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. Lots of stores and restaurants were closed all day. We went to the zocalo, the big, main square, and malingered in the shade. The stores and the park were filled with children, because school’s out, yo. We had to cancel a dinner excursion with new friends because the restaurant would be closed to observe the day, properly, like we used to celebrate things like Washington’s Birthday. You know, before we lumped him in with Franklin Pierce and all the rest of the guys who held the office, and who you couldn’t identify in a police lineup. President’s Day. Admit it, you wouldn’t know William Henry Harrison if he coughed on you, which was about all he’d have time to do anyway. It’s just an excuse to sell cars on a random Monday now.

But March 17th is a big deal in Merida. A real holiday. What’s that? Saint Patrick’s Day? Never heard of it. It’s Benito Juarez’ birthday (observed).

Benito is kind of a big deal here in Mexico. If you read Graham Greene novels, you could be forgiven for being at best ambivalent about him. I’m not exactly a whisky priest, but I’d be willing to learn. At any  rate, Benito plowed through a secularization of Mexico that curbstomped the Catholic Church a bit. I was trying to come up with an equivalent American counterpart to Bennie, but came a cropper. Not old Muttonhead. Maybe more like Lincoln. Nah, bad fit. The only close comparison I could come up with was Henry the Eighth, busting up the monasteries. Benito had a great deal fewer wives, so on balance he was the luckier of the two.

Of course St. Patrick’s Day isn’t a holiday in the city of my peeps, Boston, Massachusetts, either. But the entire city government was infested with Irishmen, so they needed some cover for a day off, and Benito Juarez’ birthday wasn’t going to cut any ice in The Hub. So they came up with Evacuation Day. It’s an official holiday only at the county level. That county, Suffolk, just happens to cover the city of Boston, plus Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop. That also just happens to cover all the office buildings full of government workers who want the day off, with pay, because no matter how much we wish it, the Charles River ain’t beer, and a day off with pay is necessary to fill the glasses. It’s supposed to commemorate the British evacuation of Boston during the Revolutionary War, but everyone knows it’s really to commemorate the evacuation of every government building in Boston. Their denizens flee to a Hibernian Hall to tell bad jokes and drink, in no particular order.

So we walked down the delightful Paseo de Montejo under false colors, as it were, to find succor and Succat at Hennessey’s Irish Bar. It was a cool evening, in the 70s, and the street was thronging with pedestrians out promenading and eating repulsive marquesitas as they strolled.

Hennessey’s is indoors and out, with tables arrayed along the sidewalk, and all sorts of interior corrals for human cattle. It was there, right on the dividing line between the inner sanctum and  the outer darkness, that we were brought up short by a terrible gorgon. A single headed, single-minded Cerberus guarding the gates of, if not the underworld, at least the inner world. A Medusa I dared not defy, or look directly in the eye.

Actually, it was a cute little woman, barely old enough to drink, and not able to turn me to stone with a look from her eyes. I simply can’t get down low enough to look most Meridians in the eye without kneeling down. But she told me the inside was full, demasiado, and we couldn’t go in.

There is no way to pull rank in these situations. I could mention, casually, that I’m likely the only even vaguely Irish person in this city at the moment, except the owners of Hennessey’s. I could reel off an Irish blessing, or sing Black Velvet Band if the money’s right. These would seem dubious credentials to the tiny enemy at the gate. The PA system was playing U2 and the Cranberries instead of the Chieftains, so I’d just seem old and in the way, instead of simply in the way. We retreated to a table outside, and plotted.

I studied the problem briefly. My Irish credentials would do no good, so I had to rely on my Irish capabilities. I could be devious with the best of them. The Gaels had Englishman pushing them around for 700 years, and when it was over, they looked ’em in the eye and said, “You never laid a glove on me, Tommy.” Mexicans are not devious. They have no natural antibodies that would protect them from an Irishman.

We approached her again, and she saw us coming, and gestured rather forcefully for us to retreat to our streetside lair, and make the best of it. But my Spanish siege engines were in place before I started my assault: Mi esposa necesita el baño, por favor. I instructed Mrs. Sippican to hop back and forth to complete the lie.

The gates of Guinness opened for us like a charm. We walked five feet inside the door, and a dozen people at the bar roared my name over the din. For one, brief, shining moment, I was the the Mexican-Irish Norm Peterson.

It was only modestly difficult to explain why we had to hide in the bathrooms for a few minutes before joining everybody. I’m afraid of the little girl.