The Greatest

"Burgers and beer." Tim said in his oh-so-thick Southern accent. I echoed his sentiment. Burgers and beer. Should be fun. After work, Rachel and I walked to her place talking about work and the staff meeting we had just had where Mary (the head of school) had announced the arrival of 10 interns from Roanoke College who would be working with us in May. There was some controversy about their coming here, but what mattered now was burgers and beer. We walked by the fallow fields behind the school with the faint outline of the Alps in the background. We passed the ash tray of the high school kids whom I see sneak off during my lunch duty to smoke. We got to her apartment and I made a pot of tea and we listened to Ryan Adams and talked about music and Munich. Two common, but not exhausted topics.
We agreed it was time to head out. She decided to drive her 300 Euro car to Tims which my tired legs agreed with. We drove to the Tenglemann, forgetting everything we were supposed to get from her apartment. Including the frying pan she was going to use to make eggs in order to make her traditional Aussie burger. Beeh-root, iggs, etc. As we pulled into the parking lot, we saw Luke, Caleb and Heather and decided not to offer them a lift. We got beers, bread and beeh-root and were on our way. We talked about work, life in Munich, Leah showed up after having to ask a German lady for directions and braving an impending thunderstorm. We sat out in his garden and smoked and drank and watched the disposable grills burn.
Colleen came later. She started talking about this drug addict who was in a van accident and damaged his frontal lobe.
"No one wanted to deal with him. He was already a little crazy and now had lost all of his self-restraint. People were getting injured trying to talk to him. Not to mention the 'fuck you! fuck shit cunt bitch!!'s that came with it. We couldn't transfer him out because no one else wanted him." (I pictured him looking like Charles Manson). "His father finally gained custody of him and brought him home with the understanding that if he ever became and danger to himself or others, he would have to be committed again. The last I heard of him was that his father had died of heart problems. I don't know where he ended up after that. Who knows. But there was just nothing of a man left of him. All he could do his swear and fight people."
As usual, Leah, Tim and I switched over to our Southern accents, entertaining the Australians in the room immensely. We had to add in "suga" "honey" "darlin" at the end of pretty much any sentence. It got even funnier when we tried to add our German in. For example: You gonna schlafen mit mir, darlin? Genau Sweetie Pie! Was machst DU heute abend, hot stuf? Everyone else had left except for Leah, Colleen, Chai (Caleb's brother) Caleb, Luke and I. Time finally kicked us out. We walked down the mountain from Tim's, stopping at Chai's car, parked haphazardly (German style with half the car on the sidewalk and half on the road). We made it to Starnburg Nord Bahnhof and realized that we had 93 minutes until the next train. 243 until the next one. "Come play some pool with us and drink some beers, you can get the next train." said Chai.
Chai is one of those people who people just love to be around for his sheer energy and complete desire to be alive and refuses to just sit back and let life happen to him. He works construction in Germany and is the self-proclaimed "salt of the earth." His long hair in a pony tail shoved under and trucker hat, wearing a dirty white undershirt and a pair of Carhart work pants and, after a stop by his car, completed the outfit with a Carhart jacket. Pants and jacket of the same color, making him look like he was wearing a jumpsuit. We walked into the pool hall or "Spielothek" in German. We ordered beers and argued with the bartender as to whether we could smoke in the bar area. We took our beers over to the small table where one could drink but not smoke, and going over to the pool table area where one could smoke but not drink.
We started playing pool and Chai started talk with the locals. Starnberg girls. Born and raised. The conversation that I caught was.
"So do you have a boyfriend"
"Yeah, he's right there" (pointing at the boy standing beside him). Good times.
After a few games of pool and beer, I admitted to myself that I was having fun. So much fun that after a time, I asked Leah what time it was. Of course, we had missed our train and the great debate over what to do started all over again. We could always stay at Chai and Caleb's, but we were a bit apprehensive considering that their mom is the Head of School. Not that we wouldn't love to wake up our boss stumbling in drunk with her two sons at some ungodly hour of the morning, but we just wanted to make sure there were no other options. So four o'clock rolled around and there were no other options. About this time, Caleb had discovered the slot machines in the casino area. He had won about 26 euro and was acting a bit manic about it. We tried to convince him to stop, but he continued to shove the euro coins into the slot and pushing the button. Chai was talking with Leah in a manner that reminded me of a drunk Tyler Durden. Short, choppy sentences but actually quite brilliant in content. He talked about the war in Iraq/Iran and how everyone should refuse flat-out to fight. Leah talked about how her brother was getting shipped out. We asked Caleb for four euros to buy a pack of cigarettes. "Fuck off! Your making me lose, get the hell out!" We eventually got the cigarette money and the conversation continued over the beers that were left on the table from the Starnbergers that had left them there almost untouched.
We pulled Caleb away from the slot machine and Leah and I played one more game of pool and we were on our way out. It was around 4:30 at this point. Exhausted and a little frustrated, we tried to make our way out the door. But, of course, after one more beer. We learned that the Spielothek closes at 5. They had to ask us to leave. We walked out into the streets of Starnberg with our bags from work and started walking towards the Haus der Sepella.
The Sepellas live on the third floor of an apartment building with a huge garden terrace and two floors of living space. Caleb started talking about how Bright Eyes started this big movement of young people taking drugs and drinking to make themselves better poets.
"Jack Kerouac did the same thing. Kids started Tuning in and Dropping Out and all that stuff." muttered Chai. "But Jesus did the exact same thing." I said. "You're absolutely fucking right." Caleb said and reached into the freezer and pulled out a bottle of champagne. "Don't even get me, fucking, started. It's fucking..." He opened the champagne and walked out onto the terrace. Somebody put on Cat Power and we sat and let the sky turn from black to gray listening to The Greatest and smoking more cigarettes. Caleb eventually went inside to sleep. We talked about whatever and looked at the smashed TV that their mom had thrown from her room above.
The sun was up and we were under blankets trying to stay warm. The champagne was gone. I tried to convince Leah that we should go and try to catch the early train before Mary woke up. I had my sweater on and my bag on my shoulder when I heard the bright "Good morning!" from upstairs. Well, I thought, fuck it. I heard she makes good coffee. We smiled and said good morning and had a good chat over coffee about our crazy night. Luke started talking about work and Chai continued to say how nervous Leah and I were about staying over at her house and we continued to deny it. Chai was trying to say that we needed to go to work or something and his mom finally laid down the law in a "this-is-what's-going-to-happen" sort of way. These people are going to catch the S-Bahn home and go to sleep and you Luke are going to sleep here. No one's going to go back out and drink anymore." Chai kept calling us sweethearts and told her that we shouldn't be fired. We were ready to go. We each gave Mary a hug and thanked her for the coffee and were finally free. On our way back to Munich almost 24 hours since we had first left it. We stopped at the bakery for Apfeltaschen and Kaffee and waited for the train. Amazed that the night was soon going to be over. We got on the train and sipped our coffee and stared out the window. It was strange heading back to the city so early in the morning. I got about 6 stops into the ride and fell asleep with my coffee still in my hand. I sat it down on the trash bin and was out for the rest of the trip.
We walked through the gray city morning passing people on their way shopping or hiking or whatever it is Germans do at 8:30 on a Saturday morning. We passed Leah's room mate Donny walking briskly with a cup of coffee in hand on his way to catch the train to work. "We actually just got back from a hike, it was beautiful" we joked and continued walking. We were finally home. We got in bed and passed out. We rolled out of bed around 2:30 feeling slightly, but not really, refreshed. I hung around for a while and headed home for real. I walked through the busy Sendlingerstraße wondering what the hell had happened last night. Did I really finish a bottle of champagne listening to Cat Power on the terrace of my bosses house watched the sunrise? How did we get from Burgers and Beer to an all-night bender?
I walked into the apartment and went to open my door only to be stopped by Luke telling me that Chai was passed out in my bed. They had apparently gotten beers from a Kebap place by Starberger See. I was amazed that anyone would sell two drunk men beer and 9 in the morning. But this is Bavaria. This is how we do it. This is our playland, our fantasy. This is us drinking to escape from our own fantasy land where it sometimes feels like I don't exist that I'm trapped on an island inside of an apartment floating above the city. Sound-proof and unknown to any of the people below, shopping, buying, driving, walking around the city that will never have any idea that I'm here watching them from above. It feels good to know you exist when you make conversation or even order food from someone in their native language and you're understood. But this is life abroad. This is Bavaria and I love every minute of it.