by Cathal Kelly
The umbrella was blue and huge. Not any normal umbrella, but one several sizes larger than a golf umbrella. More of a beach umbrella, really—at least six feet across.
The umbrella was directly in front of us, entirely obscuring the stage for dozens, possibly hundreds, of people. I couldn’t see who was holding it, but knew to a certainty that it was a man. Only a guy could be this stupid.
The crowd on hand was largely Dutch—which meant tall, attractive, buck-toothed and unusually tolerant. What might have caused a short-order riot in many other parts of the world elicited no response for a very long time here. People stood there hoping the umbrella would go away on its own. It did not.
After a minute or so, the grumbling started. That went on for a while. The umbrella remained.
A few people shouted. No effect.
Someone tried yelling in English, just in case. Nothing.
Erik was beside me. Having finished his cigarette, he dropped it dejectedly to the ground, sighed so loudly I turned, looked at me like a man going over the top and said, “Allez.”
He sprung through the crowd with alarming violence. Someone would surely have fallen to the ground were we all not so tightly packed together. He split the crowd so that I could now see Umbrella Man about half a dozen yards ahead.
Erik grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him round. He was young and nondescript. He held the shaft of the umbrella primly against his body. I remember very specifically that his mouth was spread in a cartoonish “O” of surprise.
Erik held Umbrella Man there for a moment. Then he reached out and yanked the umbrella away from him. People were pushing away from the commotion, anticipating a brawl. That gave Erik the room he needed to drop the umbrella to horizontal and close it. I was impressed by the fluidity of the motion. I’ve never closed an umbrella without a fight.
Once it was closed, Erik handed the umbrella back to Umbrella Man—a rough gesture that in movies would have involved a sword and some sort of surrender. Umbrella Man genteelly received his umbrella. Erik returned to where I was standing, gave me a little wink and lit another cigarette.
Radiohead’s set was still going on, but you couldn’t hear it for the cheering. People reached out to slap Erik on the back and shoulders, so hard and so often that he was swaying in place. It was, I thought, a real moment.
Everything quieted and we returned to the show. Then someone said something loudly in Flemish and many people laughed.
As you may have gathered, Erik was not an effusive person. Aside from good looks, that was his primary attraction. But upon hearing whatever had just been said, he began nodding fiercely. His eyes widened. He looked at me and said, “Ja, ja. That is true.”
“Why? What did he say?”
“He says that now that the umbrella is gone, we all miss the umbrella.”
I could feel my brain throb inside my head. It was the most important thing anyone has ever said to me.
The day got loopier from there. In order to get out of the venue, you had to walk a good ways to your car, which was parked with thousands of others in fallow fields.
It was late. We decided to stop for one last beer. The vendor told us that he had to pack up his kegs in a half-hour and that that operation could not be performed until they were empty. So we could drink all we liked for free until then. You can imagine.
When we got back to the car, the lot was almost empty. We sat there awhile to sober up a little. Erik drove a Daihatsu—a car so small that I could get down on my knees and grab hold of both bumpers simultaneously.
It was very dark out there in the middle of nowhere. Erik asked which direction the exit was in. Having no idea, I pointed to the front. Taking me at my word, Erik drove the Daihatsu directly into a ditch.
The car was so small that neither set of wheels was touching ground, but it was still too heavy to lift. That didn’t stop us trying for the better part of an hour.
By then, Erik had decided that we were sleeping there. Perhaps even living there for the foreseeable future. He lay down in the damp grass and gave up.
I could see one light in the distance and I headed that way. It was—and this is what life is like on those rare occasions when things go entirely wrong and you stop caring—a camper van full of Canadian stoners.
I have never known anyone so enthusiastic to do anything as they were to pull that car out of the ditch. Apparently, they’d brought a rope along to Europe for this very purpose. I felt sure they would snap the axle in half or somehow find a way to blow the car up, but it all went off without incident. Then they left.
Eric and I were left standing alone in the field, unimpeded in our journey, the morning sun now becoming a suggestion on the horizon.
That ride home was possibly the closest I will ever come to real peace. I felt that things had been explained to me and that now I understood.
The umbrella and missing it was my life up to that point. I had solved one part of my own mystery. And so, on to the next.
