Monday, December 29, 2025
Column 704
Caracas, Venezuela
I staggered out of undergrad with a diploma, a vague sense of optimism, and an unearned confidence that the world was basically a pub with different accents. Then a good friend – caraqueño, born and raised in Venezuela – suggested I come visit for a while. A month. Un mes, maybe. See the country. Drink a little. Fish a little. Chase whatever trouble presented itself.
Naturally, I said yes.
This was the same friend I’d met years earlier in a college dorm. We became roommates, which meant shared space, shared bad decisions, and eventually shared girlfriends – specifically two girls who were friends themselves. That arrangement ended abruptly when we discovered one of them had gone shopping for a wedding dress. The geometry of the situation collapsed instantly.
This all happened nearly fifty years ago, long before darts entered my bloodstream and rewired my brain – before leagues, before tournaments, before I started measuring life in triples and missed doubles. Back then, I didn’t yet know who I was going to be. I just knew I was done with college. It was my first trip outside the country. Caracas wasn’t part of a plan – because there wasn’t a plan.
My friend was a character from the start.
One of my earliest memories was watching him quietly pour out bottles of Bacardi 90-proof and replace them with 151 before inviting girls over. Same bottle. Same label. Very different reality. It was devious, but purely from an anthropological standpoint – impressive. Muy peligroso, in hindsight, but undeniably effective at the time.
We shared an Asian Political Systems class, which we skipped with remarkable consistency. Not some classes. Every class. Eventually it dawned on us that we were in serious academic peril. So, about a week apart – ostensibly to look suspicious – we each went to see the professor with heartfelt, entirely fictional stories. Whatever seemed plausible. At the time, we never considered how easy it would have been for him to discover we were roommates.
Miraculously, he gave us a chance. The deal was simple and impossible: write three term papers in two weeks, plus pass the final exam. Somehow – through caffeine, panic, and whatever youthful resilience still existed – we did it. At semester’s end, he gave us each a “D.” Not a punishment. Just mercy. A clear message that we were alive, but only just.
So, I got on a plane…
Caracas hit me fast. Noise first. Heat second. Then color. Then motion. The city didn’t ease you in – it grabbed you by the collar and said ¿Qué tal? before you could answer. Ruido, calor, and movement everywhere. The city didn’t care who you were. It just said Aquí estás. ¿Y ahora qué? Now what?
We drank irresponsibly. Not college-level “a lot” irresponsible, but internationally “a lot” irresponsible. Rum flowed early and often. Conversations were long, loud, and circular. Everybody seemed to know everybody or at least pretended convincingly. Bolivars came out in thick stacks, bills folded and refolded until they were more fabric than paper.
We chased girls with enthusiasm – me, with a limited understanding of local customs. I had my eye on one named María (I think they were ALL named María) but was informed that even if she agreed to go out with me, her entire family would attend as chaperones. La familia es todo. I retreated.
We ate like kings. The food alone was worth the trip. Fresh, simple, perfect. And the black beans – las caraotas – were the best I’ve ever had. Still are. I’ve spent decades chasing that flavor and failing. Some things are not meant to be replicated.
We went shark fishing. Or rather, they did. Shark fishing involved wetsuits, spears, and getting in the water with actual sharks. I stayed on the beach, confident I wouldn’t sunburn. I was told politely, El sol es diferente aquí.
I nodded with the confidence of youth, ignorance, and Midwestern genetics.
“I don’t sunburn.”
This proved incorrect.
I lay there for hours, convinced I was absorbing “healthy color.” What I was actually doing was cooking. By the time the wetsuits and spears returned, I was no longer a person but a cautionary tale – lobster-red, radiating heat, and deeply offended by shirts.
We drank more. Obviously. Caracas did not believe in recovery days.
Then I got the mumps. And not in the salivary glands. That leaves just one other location. (So, I’d have been no good to Maria in any case.)
There is nothing quite like being laid low in a foreign country by a disease civilization had handled decades earlier. Feverish, swollen, miserable, I lay in a dark room at my friend’s house until a doctor handed me a bottle of pills.
Printed clearly on each pill was: Upjohn.
We had gone to college in Kalamazoo, Michigan – home of the Upjohn Corporation. In that moment, doped up and unable to walk, the world seemed to shrink. Same pills. Same company. Same planet. No estás tan lejos de casa, it seemed to say. El mundo es pequeño. The world is small. Sometimes it really is.
Here’s the thing that surprises me all these years later: I never picked up a dart in Caracas. No board. No bar. No casual throw. And that’s rare for me. Caracas remains one of the very few places I’ve been where darts never entered the picture.
Which is strange, because the trip taught me so much about who I’d become.
My friend went on to be my best man. He swore he’d never marry an American woman. He did. He became a brand manager for Oscar Mayer. I became a guy who writes about darts and keeps trying to explain how life got here from there.
These days, when Venezuela shows up in the news, it’s usually wrapped in warnings – collapse, crisis, intervention – as if the country exists mainly as a future problem waiting for outside solutions.
Which is a shame.
Because what I remember is a wonderful place. Laughter echoing off concrete walls. Salt spray in the air. Bolivars stuffed into my pocket. Rum. Pretty girls. Spanish half-understood but fully felt. And a medicine bottle from Michigan telling me I wasn’t as far from home as I thought.
I should probably go back. Antes de que sea demasiado tarde – before some pig in Washington decides the preferred course to diplomacy (and a Nobel Prize) is to fire exploding darts at innocent people.
And next time I’ll damn well find a dartboard!
Stay thirsty, my friends,
Dartoid
