Let's Go Mad

by Rob Binkley

  Once I regained my strength, my innate “urge to purge” came back with a vengeance. Maybe I was rebelling against all the spiritual lessons Brian and I learned in Cambodia, India, Nepal, and Tibet just to spite the spiteful bald one who told me I was a “lost spiritual cause.” Or maybe I just wanted to “rage against the dying of the light” of my lost dream of finding Utopia or having a personal renaissance. But once I got my weight back, I began going out every night so I could start destroying my body, mind, and soul again.

  Eating like a pig led to me wallowing in the nightlife like a hedonistic swine. I was forgetting about my search for nirvana all over again. I can only blame myself, but Giancarlo was a bad influence on me. He was a great host, but he brought out all my demons to come and play in his dirty sandbox of vice and sin.

  I fell in with his gang of Italian troublemakers like some wayward orphan from juvenile hall. I thought I partied hard, but these maniacs blew me away.

  Giancarlo and I spent our days touring Bavaria, running around to all their restaurants to flirt with gals and eat and drink like pigs. All his Italian friends, Paulo, Orrelio, Franco, Diesel, Tesso—their names started to blur together—were wealthy, entrepreneurial lunatics who were girl-crazy all the time, which was great because I was chomping at the bit to have fun with a beautiful Western woman who hopefully spoke some English. I was in the right crowd; the amount of flirting that went on at their restaurants after hours was at a hundred thousand percent all the time. The only time I successfully used my broken German were the times when I approached a group of cute girls to ask if they were single and wanted to “have a date with us.”

  I knew I was in trouble with these guys when Franco and I brought the girls we just met back to his restaurant and he immediately challenged me (the new kid in town) to a prosecco (a dry Italian sparkling wine) drinking contest, which I do not recommend. No one wins a prosecco drinking contest with an Italian. Fully loaded, we all went out to the Bavarian bars and I partied my sadness away. I lost my mind and my voice, since I was constantly shouting over the loud music and practicing my German with the beautiful blonde Bavarian girls. After hours we went back to Franco’s ice cream parlor and drank prosecco and ate gelato until we fell over.

  One night, when the party died down, I left Heidi, my German girlfriend, passed out in one of the circle booths, and went to find a pay phone. I wasn’t interested in calling Mom. This time I called Elena who, shockingly, picked up.

  “Hello … ?”

  I was so stunned to hear her voice; I couldn’t really speak.

  She said angrily, “Is this who I think this is?” I gave the phone to Giancarlo so he could yell at her in an Italian version of Spanish to move out of my house. “This is a message from Rob de Godfather. Turn off the samba music, you spider woman, and move out of his casa!” he yelled into the receiver. At least that’s what he told me he said.

  She hung up on us.

  All the Italians roared when I told them I was mad because Elena was squatting in my house with her lover, boning to samba music on my king-sized bed.

  They all thought that was totally normal.

  The next morning I called Jody, who reminded me I still hadn’t wired her the six months’ back pay that I owed her. As soon as I heard the word “money,” I pretended the line was bad and quickly hung up.

  I was not a good man … not anymore.

  The next night we went to one of Tesso’s ice cream shops. I wanted to drink milkshakes with bourbon, but these guys had no idea what I was talking about. “Milkshakes and bourbon??” Tesso asked, “What are you, like the John Travolta in the Pulp Fiction?” Then he laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

  “They’re delicious, gentlemen, let me school you on an American delight.” I jumped behind the ice cream bar and started to blend up milkshakes for everyone. Turns out, milkshakes were invented in America by some guy who worked at a Walgreens soda counter back in the 1920s. Nobody in Europe had ever seen such a thing, except in movies.

  Once Tesso and the gang got their first taste of my spiked bourbon (a very American liquor, by the way) and vanilla milkshakes, they were hooked. “This is the ambrosia of the Americas—we love it, you beautiful fool! Make us a hundred more!”

  “Let us all become drunk on cow juice together!” I yelled and they cheered. The next day, I smiled through my milk and whiskey hangover when I walked into the ice cream shop and noticed CRAZY AMERICAN MILKSHAKE was written on the chalkboard menu. I was leaving my mark on the European cocktail world. Was that a good thing?

  At this point, I felt no shame for all my hedonism, for all my depravity, and for my lifestyle of so-called sin and debauchery. Brian was the one who believed in God, not me. The second I opened the door to having a state of grace, I got slammed into a gong headfirst and cast out of heaven with the rest of the heathens. In my anger and in my sadness, I was turning to the dark side for comfort. Misery loves company—yeah, yeah I know.

  Introducing spiked milkshakes to Bavaria was the tame beginning of my downward spiral into a full-on deep six into depravity—it was an innocent gateway drug to the hardcore shenanigans I would get into, tomcatting around town until all hours of the night with these guys.

  Every Tuesday night we drove out to the Black Forest to get weird in the woods. “You are going to the dark side now, my friend,” Giancarlo said. “This place really goes off.” It was Revolution, a techno club in an old farmhouse in the forest, where people showed up from all over the region. It was four discos in one, underground and dark. Drinks were only two dollars all night. I stalked through the innards of the club in a blunted haze. The place was a madhouse of sweat and skin; we danced and drank. Sexy women in tight mini-skirts were everywhere, gyrating under the black lights.

  “See, us sinners do have more fun!” Giancarlo shouted to me from inside a dancing girl sandwich.

  Maybe it was the twenty-eight whiskey and Cokes I consumed, but in my state of alcohol-fueled imperfection I perfected my best possible dance move there. Traveling to discos all over the world, I realized it’s impossible to dance appropriately in every culture. So with my “studies” I found if you just gyrate your hips in a crazy-eight motion and wave your hands back and forth, you kind of look like you know what you’re doing whether sober or drunk, no matter what country you’re in.

  “Are you okay, my friend? You are dancing like an epileptic!” Giancarlo yelled at me while I danced my ass off.

  After about the fourth hour on the dance floor, it finally occurred to me, “Why do I feel so good? Why am I perfecting dance moves? Why am I dancing so much? I don’t even like to dance.” Then Giancarlo told me someone had dosed our drinks with ecstasy (or MDMA), which I’d never done before.

  The results of the drugging were after twelve hours of dancing I ended up in some corner booth gently caressing the face of some Polish girl like she was the most awesome thing in the world. “This is how the Tibetan gypsies say hello,” I said, then we made out in slow motion for what seemed like an eternity.

  Two days later, I woke from a coma back at Giancarlo’s. We went into Straubing to do something in the daylight and shake off our Revolution hangover. Located on the Danube River, Straubing was a cool town full of gothic architecture. The Romans conquered it centuries ago, which left a dramatic mark on the region. You could see traces of the four-hundred-year Roman occupation all over the place. We spent the day hanging out in the historical town center and flirting with all the girls in the outdoor cafés in my horrible broken German.

  Some American guy actually told me I spoke terrible English. I hadn’t been home in almost a year, so I had gotten used to speaking broken English that made more sense to people in third world countries.

  Now I wasn’t fluent in any language.

  When I got tired of not understanding anything being said around me, I decided to hire a guy who was literally an old Nazi to teach me the German language. Dieter was terrifying; he looked and talked just like
Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man. Every time I screwed up, I expected him to say, “Is it safe??” while sticking a dagger into my side that was hidden under that old musty sleeve of his … But instead he hit me on the head with a ruler.

  Other than the sadism, the private lessons with Deiter were fun. I was having so much fun he kept warning me, “You must take zeez seriously.” He was a self-professed mean old man.

  After about two weeks of daily lessons I was able to understand most of the common phrases as long as people spoke slowly and were looking at me. I know I looked really weird trying to hold a conversation. I was concentrating so hard while people were speaking so simply. The alcohol didn’t help or the fact I was in loud bars, restaurants, and nightclubs most of the time. But I was getting better.

  My Italian gang and I were starting to get noticed by the local police for our late night tomfoolery. One night we got ticketed by the local police for disturbing the peace and disrupting the citizens of Viechtach and the tiny nearby towns of Sankt Englmar and Deggendorf—all quaint quiet little villages before we stumbled in the back door with lampshades on our heads.

  “If we keep this up, we’re all going to be deported,” I whispered to Giancarlo after a police officer uncuffed our hands from the telephone pole outside the Casa Blanca club. “You boys go back to your home!” the officer said, then he cut us a ticket for public intoxication.

  Walking away, Giancarlo laughed, “Forget this nuisance, my friend. Let’s go to the House and wet our beaks!”

  “Whose house?” I asked.

  “The House!” Giancarlo shouted.

  A few of us rambled over to the infamous “House,” which was the “singles’ house” Giancarlo had been raving about. He said it had all the free drinks you could drink and an indoor pool and sauna. They charged fifty dollars entry per couple and single women obviously got in for free. Problem was they charged single men a hundred dollars for entry.

  Giancarlo spent a few minutes trying to talk our way in for free, but the doorman wasn’t buying it. We didn’t want to spend a hundred dollars so we walked back to his car.

  “Where can we find dates at this hour?” I asked. “C’mon man, this is your ‘hood.”

  Giancarlo slapped me in the chest. “I know the perfect spot!”

  We jumped into his car and made a quick trip across the Czech border where we, amazingly, found three girls who agreed to come “party” with us in Bavaria. Since they didn’t have their passports, we snuck them into Germany in the trunk of Giancarlo’s car.

  Going through the border crossing, I looked at Giancarlo and asked, “Dude, isn’t this sex trafficking, technically?”

  He smiled, “You think too much, my friend. These girls are coming on their own free will.”

  I could hear the girls banging from inside the trunk. Giancarlo turned up the music.

  “You Euros are freaking crazy.”

  “Yes we are!”

  I held my breath and the guards luckily let us through without searching the trunk. This would be the second time I participated in transporting undocumented immigrants across a border in a trunk. This is an accomplishment I’m not exactly proud of.

  With our dates on our arms, we all got into the House for half price. The Czech girls seemed to be into the scene, so I didn’t feel so bad about dragging them to a “singles club” in a foreign country. I was actually more nervous than they were going in. This was a new thing for me, but my nerves quickly turned to amazement. Inside everyone was just swinging away.

  I saw my friends Anke and Wolfgang there making out with a girl on the pool table. They were a typical young German couple that liked to have a good time, so when they saw us they came over to give us all kisses. I kissed Anke and gave Wolfgang a manly hug. I didn’t want to give anyone any ideas; I was tired of Giancarlo telling everyone I was gay, so no more joking around.

  I wandered around the place and took in all the strange acts that were going on—things were getting very crazy in all the different rooms, with many people enjoying themselves all over, on every surface, all at once. I had never seen anything like it in the world.

  All I can say about the House was it was a bizarre cornucopia of perverted fun. I won’t go into details, but when I woke the next day—still in the House—I was in some strange person’s underwear, covered in glitter with a hellacious hangover. I gathered my things and walked out into the sunlight past many passed-out swingers.

  “What have I become?” I mumbled to myself. I seemed to be living that question now.

  When I found my way home, Giancarlo was in the kitchen eating breakfast; he took one look at me and laughed, “Last night proves you like the women better.”

  “Last night got a little blurry. What happened to those Czech girls?”

  “I drove them home this morning. They got to ride in front this time!”

  The fallout from the evening was the “Rob is gay game” Giancarlo had been playing on me finally ended after my exploits at the House, most of which I do not remember. But I did notice my hormonal urges had subsided so I must have enjoyed myself.

  I went back into my room and slept for twelve hours.

  There I was again, stuck in my Bavarian rut.

  Every night there was something else going on; it was becoming one big blur of inequity. I was on another epic bender and I couldn’t get off the ride. What the hell was wrong with me? Revolution on Tuesdays, Napoleons on Wednesdays, Trim on Sundays, blah, blah, blah … Saturday nights we went to Casa Blanca in Viechtach, the center of our Bavarian universe, where I started to develop the reputation as the guy who was enjoying himself a bit too much.

  One Saturday at Casa Blanca I finally met a Czech girl who spoke English named Hanna. I was really into her, so we talked for half an hour. Things were going well until she mentioned how amazed she was at my drinking ability. She pointed out I had pounded four beers in the time we were talking. Hanna wasn’t drinking and said I was “bad” in her Czech accent.

  She stopped talking to me after that.

  I resigned myself to partying with some Polish guys. I ended the night in supreme wastoid fashion, grabbing two mannequins inside the bar and dancing with them the rest of the night. All the patrons were giving me the European side-eye, in which they look down their noses at you without ever turning their head. Giancarlo, of course, mocked me: “You need a real lady, my friend—not the plastic kind!” He was right.

  I was drunk and alone. Not a good combination for any living organism.

  I was beyond burnt out but I kept doing it again and again and again. I felt I had to partake as a ritual of the young, while I was still young. I kept telling myself when you’re old you’re not going to remember all the nights you stayed home and watched TV—the moments you’ll remember are the blurry ones when you’re out with new friends, doing new things … Still, my brain was scrambled, my liver was in rebellion, my soul was in a tailspin, and my resources were running low.

  I tried to clean up by going to a wholesome festival by myself in one of the farmer’s fields. It didn’t work. They had rides, and bier gardens of course … I ended up drinking lemon beer all day, and riding on all the rides alone like a lost child. It was pathetic.

  The good news was my German was coming around with my Nazi tutor; it had been almost a month and I could understand a lot but could only speak a little—just enough to get me in trouble.

  I was dying a slow death. Death by alcohol … Death by amusement park … Death by milkshake …

  One night, Petra, an old girlfriend who I’d met on my first trip to Europe, had a party at her place. Afterwards, we went out and drank rum after rum at Casa Blanca with some Polish girls. At the end of the night, one of the Polish girls and I ended up in the bushes throwing up together—so naturally, I brought her back to our apartment, and we ended up “sleeping” in Giancarlo’s bunk bed, which he kept in the corner of the living room … Very public.

  A week later, now there were two Polish girls
staying with us in Giancarlo’s apartment; the four of us were very cozy there. When we were hungry, we’d walk over to Giancarlo’s pizzeria and eat all his restaurant food for free since the girls had no money. I’d let them in the back door and make weird pizza combinations for them that we all tried over beers. After a week, they got mad at me because I was not taking them out to the clubs since it was too expensive to pay for them and myself.

  They would be leaving soon.

  After they left, I was sick of Bavaria and looking for an out. One day, I heard Simona and Petra, two Czech waitresses at Giancarlo’s pizzeria, saying they wanted to go to Italy so I decided to tag along to get out of town and clear my head. They weren’t big partiers; they were nice and had transportation.

  The first night we stopped in Salzburg, a beautiful little Austrian village that was beyond picturesque. We were so cheap we didn’t even get a room. Instead we slept in the car sitting up in our seats, which was not pleasant, but doable. The next day, we wandered around Salzburg having coffee and wieners.

  Then we drove down to Venice and spent the day in and around San Marco Place. That night we drove further south to Rimini on the eastern coast off the Adriatic Sea. We didn’t get a room there, either. In fact, we didn’t sleep at all. We stayed up for two nights straight partying at the Embassy Bar with all the gorgeous bartenders. So much for cleaning up and getting my shit together … Maybe it’s the curse of the young, but “the party” just has a way of finding me, or me finding it.

  I needed to break my compass and start over. But I didn’t know which way to turn.

  On day three, the “recherché Rimini life” on the Italian Riviera was becoming more and more intoxicating. We were mixing with the wealthier class at these great clubs. After two days of sleeping in the car outside the “palace gates,” we didn’t want to go back to our little car and sit-sleep, so I splurged and checked us in at the King Hotel—money be damned.