Wanderlost 2

by Simon Williams

  Try this when you next go to a friend's parent's house to stay. Take a packet of condoms and wrap them in a sock. Then stash it in the very bottom of an obscure side pocket of your bag. Better yet inside the bottom of a rolled up sleeping bag. If the mother asks to do your washing I guarantee the first thing she will find will be the condoms. According to her account they were found lying out for anyone to see. This is the strange things about condoms. You leave them out in the open, everyone ignores them. You hide them away in your suitcase or fill them with heroin and stash them in your small intestine and they will be found in five minutes. Don't ask me why.

  With dinner over the younger sister challenges me to a competition. She is just dying to thrash the new blood. I can tell that the rest of the family has long ago given up tolerating playing any games with her. She wants to see who can drink a glass of water fastest at dinner. I am not afraid of losing my dignity. Heck I am stupid enough to wander into her house with rubbers in my back pocket. In my defense, they had probably been there for years. The sister allows me to choose the method of my demise at her hands. Snakes and Ladders, pushups, tennis on a frozen court? I choose ping pong. She squeals with unrestrained delight before confessing to be an avid player. Oh, woe is me. Let's go then.

  Legless - part 3

  I didn't disclose to the sister that I too am wise in the ways of the ancient Chinese art of ping pong. As a child at boarding school in Toowoomba the only diversion we had at night after the homework time expired was table tennis. Well that and flushing the heads of kids we didn't like down the toilet. The resident masters' job was to dissuade us from engaging in that type of activity. So, head flushing only occurred once or twice a week. For eighty boarders there was one ping pong table. If we searched hard enough, we could come up with two paddles and a ball. Then it was game on. The trick was obviously not to lose otherwise you had to wait donkey's years for your next opportunity. Over three years of this boarding school, I honed my game management and athleticism around the table to a tee. The makeshift game room became my domain. I might still retain the longest winning streak of the school. One week, four days, two hours.

  The sister approaches the table with the swagger of Serena Williams in her prime. The father had bought the table to enable her to play against herself. Endlessly hitting the ball against the raised side. This gave the family some measure of reprieve from her endless requests for an opponent. Now she had a live one. It had been quite a few years since I had held a small racket in my hand, so I start cautiously. In fact, that is how my style of play had evolved, super cautious. I never smash the ball, never go for big returns, just plonk it back on the other side of the net. I don't even switch my grip. It is only continuous, melodic backhand. It is an infuriating way to play someone. That is why my primary school record is considered unbeatable. It includes six days when every other boy in the boarding school refused to play me in protest to my monotonous game plan. The repetitive boredom wears down any player. When that happens, they start to make mistakes. Before the end of the first five-minute rally I can tell the sister is immensely frustrated with me. Then she misses her return. Point to me.

  'Scheisse,' she blurts out. The mother screams at her from the kitchen. Good German girls don't go around using those types of words. Five minutes, and one point to me later, she yells it out again, 'scheisse!' The mother screams again. I am a little worried the mother might get so upset that she will throw me out on the street. For not only corrupting her child to use this foul language but also that I have bought my evil, lothario type charisma into her home to possibly seduce her older daughter. I give away the next few points to keep the sister happy. Once the mother retires to bed, I immediately go back to my plodding backhand return shots and the explicative laden rants of my helpless opponent.

  The next day is Saturday, my 30th birthday. The mother decides to take the daughters shopping and so the father and I are left alone. They are an old school German family; the two children understand English well but neither of the parents speak a word. I can say thank you in German. And yesterday I learnt the word for shit. The father and I sit down facing each other in a nook in the kitchen. Before she departs, his wife gives him an absolute earful regarding the chores I assume he has forgotten to do. As she storms out of the house he frowns at me, then shrugs his shoulders and chuckles, 'frau.'

  Any married male understands the volumes of encyclopedic information this one word has just conveyed. It is an unspoken bond between men. I am sure women have it too regarding men, so no point in getting your knickers in a twist over this. I nod in agreement and smirk. We pass a moment in silence before he breaks into a wide grin. 'Bier?' He asks. Who wouldn't smile at that suggestion. We have connected another unspoken bond. I reply in my best German, danke! The pair of us spend the next two hours drinking beer and enjoying an entire conversation that consists only of two words, frau and bier. When his wife returns home and sees us she is even more furious than when she left. She gives him another earful for sitting around all afternoon getting drunk. Then she shoots me a look that suggests I won't need to carry condoms around in my jeans pocket any more after she is done with me. She will cut my dick off.

  We are two sullen men wearing long faces as she storms out of the kitchen area and up the stairs. After a minute of silence, we both slowly raise our eyes to stare at each other.

  'Scheisse,' he whispers.

  We continue to attempt to look sincerely concerned as we try our best to suppress out chuckles. 'Frau,' we say in unison before breaking into laughter.

  Saturday night myself, the two girls, and another friend of Suzanne's are going out to celebrate my birthday. We drive an hour to a slightly larger town than the sleepy Eschenbach. Only this one has a pumping nightclub. There are hypnotic light arrangements, a pulsating sound track, and men dressed as women rocking on swings suspended above the dance floor. I have never seen anything like it. Here I was in the heart of conservative mother Germany. That war propaganda had it all wrong. At some point I make my way outside for some fresh air, find a phone, and call my mate Dono in Australia using a Telstra Australia card.

  It is no easy feat to use an international calling card to dial home when you are drunk. They could make this an Olympic event, Winter or Summer games it would fit in well with either. If it was included in the Winter version, they could add in the elements of cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. For the Summer games include it with race walking. It would give that sport a much-needed shot in the arm and they already look like they are competing while drunk.

  'Where are you?' Dono asks.

  'I have no idea. At a nightclub somewhere in Bavaria.'

  'You've done it all, mate.'

  I go back inside as I really doubt I will ever witness anything like what I am seeing again in my life. While looking for Suzanne and her sister an attractive blonde and I start a conversation. She is a dead ringer for Pamela Anderson during the first season of Baywatch. She asks me where I am from. Why am I in Germany? How old am I? I ask her about herself and she tells me she is 18, employed as a hairdresser, and she must work the next day. She is young enough that she can still enjoy a night out and go to work on three hours sleep. I despise her for this, despite being deeply attracted. The strange thing is I understand everything she says to me and her the same, but we each speak in our native tongue. I am drunk, but sober enough to know she is talking to me in German and I understood German. I have no idea why or how but in that ten-minute interlude the magnetism between the two of us transcended language.

  I thought about asking German Pamela Anderson for her number, even considered inquiring if she was brave enough for an indecent interlude in a stairwell. It is at this moment I remember the condoms are no longer in my jeans back pocket. Bugger. The electricity from this young woman had made me forget the reason behind the furtive looks the mother had given me since washing my clothes. We couldn't even if we wanted to. It is a passion killer. The magic of the intersection of our liv
es is gone in that second and everything she then says to me afterwards is once again gibberish Germanic dialect. The cruel hand of fate delivers me slow backhand shots and I am the one being forced into making mistakes. The worst is yet to come.

  Legless - part 4

  The next morning, Suzanne and I go for a run in the Black Forrest. I pummel her sister in four games of table tennis while successfully avoiding the mother for the entire day. On Monday the evading of the mother continues, the sister goes to high school, while Suzanne gives me a tour of the town and surrounds. Eschenbach town has two entrances both through old watchtowers. It is one of the famed Germany walled towns located on the Romantischestrasse, or Romantic Road, which runs from Wurzburg to Fussen. Although when you hear the name pronounced with a Germanic accent it sounds more like preparation for a colonoscopy procedure, not an idealistic driving excursion to view Medieval architecture. Eschenbach no longer has a wall. There are only three German towns that still do. That doesn't stop people from pointing out where the wall 'used' to be. I am always amazed at people's level of interest in where things once were. A lot of tourism exists for this sole reason. Of the seven wonders of the ancient world only one still exists. But how many people still make the trek to Rhodes even though the Colossus is no longer there?

  Monday night the younger sister is going to a dance club and asks if I want to come along. She is going to a nightclub on a school night? The parents allow this? These Germans are more liberal than I could have possibly imagined. No wonder they are now being overrun by immigrants fleeing the war in the Middle East. It is true. The father is content for her to go and for me to accompany her. The mother is delighted my demonic presence will be out of the house. So off we go.

  The sister drives, as she only has the restriction at 17 to be supervised while behind the wheel. Young German boys are permitted to drive a tank when they reach 15. Which is an old law dating back to the war which they haven't cleaned off the books. So, the sister needs to another person in the car to drive. The invitation for me to go to the club is now abundantly clear. The only time she outplays me the entire time I am there. I just can't get over the fact that she will get home tonight and on three hours sleep trudge off to school tomorrow. Insanity.

  This nightclub is extremely low key compared to the one for my birthday. It barely passes the test to be considered a discothèque. I'd call it a tropical themed bar with a large dance floor. There is large tiki hut island bar in the center of the room. English language disco hits from the 80's are being pumped out by the DJ. Does Germany have no home grown disco talent? Whatever happened to Nena after 99 Luftballoons reached #1 like a rocket on the world music charts? Not that that is considered disco, but she is the only German music artist I know. As expected it is almost dead for a Monday night but the sister is happy to get out on the dance floor by herself and gyrate. I don't understand. She could have done this in her room and given herself an extra few hours of sleep? I put my confusion down to the fact I am now 30 and officially no longer have any idea how young people think.

  I sit at the bar and nurse a beer at the same pace that I try and hit a winner in table tennis. After a half hour the club livens up when a pack of ten adult men enter. They are all dressed in shiny suits displaying a variety of not off-the-rack colours. Magenta, copper, and one that had a hue of Smaragdine but on second look I decide the colour is straight up emerald green. Another wears a jacket with shoulder pads. Wow, shoulder pads. The boys have come out tonight to party. Who are they? The annual general meeting of the Flat Earth Society - Bavarian chapter? I had better warn them that the director of the movie The Night at the Roxbury called and wants his wardrobe back.

  The waitress brings a round of drinks to them without even being called over. These lads have some credibility in the bar, must be regulars. The cocktails are in keeping with the theme of the bar, tropical. Pina Coladas, Pineapple Margaritas, and my homie in the emerald green looks like he went with a passionfruit mojito. Nothing like making brave choices with your evening attire and your beverage selection. Every drink is adorned with straws, pieces of fruit, and here is the killer - tiny little cocktail umbrellas. Then the DJ fires up KC and the Sunshine Band, That's the way (I like it), and the dudes start dancing with themselves. White man dancing!

  Not one has an ounce of rhythm or style about them. I thought transvestites on swings was out of this world, but this is super freaky. It is like if the extras for a scene on Miami Vice, that involves members of a Columbian drug cartel, suddenly decided to drop acid on the set and party. I have seen some weird shit in my day, but this is by far the weirdest. Is this some bizarre Illuminati hazing ritual? Ten men dancing in a circle, sipping drinks through cocktail straws, while making the wild gyrations of Midnight Oil's lead singer Peter Garrett look as graceful as Fred Astaire. Being white and bereft of rhythm myself I thought I am mentally prepared for how bad their dancing will be. It is worse. I brace myself against the bar to assist with controlling my involuntary cringes. Stop it guys, stop. All I can think is, what a bunch of douchebags.

  Suzanne's sister joins me at the bar to refresh herself with some bottled water. She nods in the direction of Germany's answer to 80's pop group Spandau Ballet.

  'Be careful of them,' she whispers.

  'Who? Them? You're kidding me, right?'

  'That's the German mafia.'

  I gag with laughter. 'Please say that again. That is the funniest thing I think I've ever heard.'

  'They are the German Mafia,' she says again, without a drop of sarcasm.

  'They were just dancing to KC and the Sunshine Band. KC and the Sunshine Band! There is no way that is the mafia. Look at what they are drinking for Christ's sake.'

  By the anxious look on her face I can tell she is telling what she believes to be the truth. Maybe it is the truth, but it is a truth more bizarre than fiction. The German mafia wear 100% polyester. Quick somebody shimmy on down to the local Blockbuster and rent these guys a DVD of The Godfather. The sister gives me another stern look then goes back to dancing and leaves me to stare in stupefied awe at what passes for organized crime in Deutschland.

  The next song on the DJ's playlist starts. Amii Stewart's Knock on Wood. A classic in any language. This version has been on permanent rotation in every dance club since its Grammy nomination in 1979 for best female R and B vocal performance. 'Cause your love is better, than any love I've known. It's like thunder. Lightning. The way you love me is frightening…' The shit just hits the fan, these lads are totally down with this tune. They are moving and grinding out there as well as any white boys I've ever seen. One guy just sort of shuffles his weight from one foot to another foot completely out of time with the music, but I can't say I would be able to do any better. I can't help but think of the scene in The Godfather when the horse's head is found in the bed and we were all thinking this is what the badass mafia does. No, no it isn't. I am watching what the badass mafia does. They drink fruity cocktails with umbrellas. They dress like rejects from the production of Scarface. And they dance to disco hits. Poorly.

  I think to myself, what are the circumstances in my life that lead me to be here right now. Then it comes to me, that dancing Mexican fool at the Rose Bowl. A man who stood up and boogied for two hours and 30 minutes without a care in the world as to what was going on around him. I remember how I thought I wish I could be like that guy. Confident. Carefree. Untroubled. To have even five minutes of that feeling in my day just once, then I could rightfully claim that I have led a full and enjoyable life. Here I am laughing at the mafia but at least they are enjoying themselves. Even if it is in a slightly homoerotic fashion.

  Then it hits me. Get up. Get up and dance. Get up and dance now! Here I am in the backwaters of Germany. No one knows me. No one cares who I am. I am anonymous. If I can't dance here without a worry in the world then I will never be able to dance anywhere. So, I stand up and I start to dance. More than that, I start to sidle over to where the mafia are bopping together. Better
that my lame moves are hidden beside theirs. Amii Stewart is still crushing it with her vocals. You better knock, knock, knock on wood, baby… I am feeling it and letting loose. Head back, hips rotating. Lord of the dance - release me your humble servant. You know what, this isn’t bad at all. I feel free. I am free. Then I open one eye to see that the German mafia have stopped and are looking at me. The feeling of exultation I was experiencing is replaced by panic. Now they look like mafia. Vicious, calculating, brutal. Still poorly dressed.

  The DJ does a shocking job of smoothly transitioning into the next song so there is a momentary lull. That second feels like it takes forever. With true German efficiency the mafia can cram at least an hour's worth of intimidation into that brief tick of the clock. I hold my head up high. If I got up to dance then fuck it I will dance, German mafia be damned. I keep jiggling with a stupid grin on my face. I don’t know if the hand of fate miscalculates a backhand and sends one into the net, but my timing with continuing to dance coincides perfectly with the start of, I will survive, by Gloria Gaynor.