Rules or Some Such

Every place has its rules, whether you’re in America or elsewhere. Break the rules, and the penalties can vary. Fines. Judgmental stares from others. Maybe you don't even know you are living by a set of rules. “I live by my own rules,” you say. Wrong. You are a textbook nonconformist. Take a hike.

An Example:
I’m from The Crystal Coast, North Carolina, and we like our barbeque. It's got to be made with spicy vinegar. That's the rule. But see what happens when you go to South Carolina and try the barbecue. They like it with mustard. Maybe you don’t like it. Heaven forbid--maybe you do. What next? The rule says you move the family to South Carolina. Change your facebook status to “Barbecue Treason.” So long. Enjoy the fireworks. Don’t forget to send your mother a birthday card.

As you may know I am Caucasian. On time I asked an African-American woman how she was doing and she says “I’m blessed.” I made the mistake of interpreting this as a competition, and proceeded to seethe in anger."I'm blessed too, damnit!" Her answer had a strange affect on me. I'd never heard it before. Maybe this particular woman grew up saying this her whole life.Imagine that.
    My new rule is to think twice before jumping into a blind rage. Now I'm blessed, too.
 

• I live in Dusseldorf. I play by German rules, without full knowledge of societal rules. But I'm learning. Here are some mental notes:

When you go out to eat with a German, they tend to keep both hands above the table. Keep one hand below the table, and they will be suspicious as to what you are doing with that hand.

Don’t look around like a stargazer when you’re walking down the sidewalk. People have made a point of knocking me with their shoulder, as if to say “stay focused, pinhead. The answers are not in the stone garlands and naked nymphs peering down at you from the buildings.”

If you’re an old man, wear brown shoes and walk with your hands behind your back. If you’re an old lady, buy a dog that looks like you, then dye your hair to match.

• I used to live in China. I don’t know if I lived by their rules or not. As a white man, people stared at me. Basically my very existence was a spectacle. That's an exaggeration. Here is another.

Don't set the place on fire. Don't urinate on it to put it out. Fine. But who visited this scenic spot that made the sign necessary? Never mind. I know these people. Maybe this list started with 3, and gradually grew to 7. The problem, I believe, is that these restrictions are too specific. 

I'm going to put a sign on my bathroom door. These rules have not been violated. They are purely for my entertainment. Here's what it will say:

Three seems to be enough, although I could narrow this down to one:

Be respectful to the surroundings and try real hard to keep your pants on in public.

Notes From My Travel Diary: Going Topless

On a summer afternoon in Düsseldorf, I went to the park and sat beside a willow tree with a steak sandwich and bottle of beer. An emerald lawn, a crushed brick walkway, hedges like walls -- no ultimate Frisbee tournaments happening here. After finishing my sandwich, I wanted to get some sun but was concerned about taking my shirt off. If there’s one thing I’ve learned after two years, it’s that Germans take their park-going very seriously.

There were an awful lot of stuffy pant / jacket combos and stern expressions. I could understand it if we were in a cemetery or locked in a conference room together, but this was a park. Who were these people? One woman was wearing black polyester pants and a quilted Chinese jacket. It looked like the sort of outfit Lady Mao might have worn while she typed up “The Little Red Book.” Which was worse -- enduring the critical stares from (mostly senior) passers-by or the shame of living with a farmer’s tan?

   
Fortunately the man sitting on a bench by the fountain made this decision easier. He was tanning, shirtless, but his belly spilled over his shorts in a way that made him look both naked and pregnant. A kinky tableau. As with most unfair comparisons, he made me feel better, not just about taking off my shirt, but basically about my existence. The sun felt good, and after taking off my shirt I decided to hike up my pants legs to my knees. But why stop there? Rest the beer bottle on your stomach, I thought. It’ll feel good.
   
And it did. Throw in a kitty pool, and you’d have a scene straight out the trailer park.

**

Two if by Sea

It was a late, sunny morning in October, and I was heading back into Düsseldorf from a doctor visit. On the train home, while making a list of chores, I missed my stop and ended up at the altstadt, the old quarter, where I found myself in a kiosk buying two large bottles of beer. Funny how that happens.

I wandered for a bit and wound up at this inlet canal about 100 yards from the Rhine. There were oversized stairs for sitting and watching folks pass by the boardwalk. The water wasn’t much to look at: Dark green with floating trash. Perhaps as a distraction, the city marooned an old ship right out in the middle. With bulging sides and a tall, wooden mast, it didn’t float so much as it slowly disintegrated.

Despite the nice weather, there weren’t a lot of folks out. There was a guy sitting 30 feet away from me, wearing a black jacket and sunglasses, the big kind that wrap around your eyes like a windshield. To passersby, we were just two Germans. “Slackers,” they might have whispered, “Couldn’t even wait till noon to crack a beer.” Of course, I never had that sort of problem when I lived in China. During my two years there, I didn’t need a tattoo across my forehead saying “Outsider.” What for?

Germany was different, though. I had the same pea coat and pale complexion as everyone else. “You blend in,” my wife said. And folks naturally thought I was German. That is, until I opened my mouth. How frustrating it must be to speak to someone, to reach out to a stranger, only to have them reply with “Uh…was?” The German word for what is our word for was, so basically I was asking them to repeat themselves, only louder. To save my hearing, my next bright idea was to inform people mid-sentence.

“—Let me stop you right there,” I’d say. I honestly thought they’d thank me with the breath they saved. Of course they usually just said “sorry” and walked away.

Two men appeared from behind the ship, navigating the harbor in a tiny row boat. They were wearing orange suits with electric blue strips along the shoulder. The rower sat in back as another man crouched at the bow, scouring the water with a ten-foot net. Their vessel meandered along, scooping up bottles and potato chip bags as they went, leaving a small wake in their trail. 

Like many city workers, these men were large; not fat exactly, but big boned. I suppose a lifetime of beer and bratwurst lunches will do that, but, like the great manatee, there was a grace to their glide -- something almost…romantic.

I wanted to ask them if they signed up for this duty, or if the job was assigned on a rotating basis. Did they get to choose partners, and if so, how do they determine who rows and who scoops? Basically, what I wanted to know was: How do people wind up doing what they’re doing?

At the time these questions seemed relevant, but it was only because I couldn’t actually ask them. Even if I had spoken German, I probably would have talked myself out of it. Oh, don’t bother them. It’s basic psychology: We want what we can’t have. For most people, sunning by the water with a beer isn’t a bad way to spend a weekday. And, oh, I am one of those people. I was lucky to be out there; however, I’d be lying if I said that, in the back of my mind, there wasn’t a small part of me that wanted to trade in my beer for a pair of oars.

Carnival Beerdrinking in Germany

My latest published story, Carnival Beerdrinking in Germany, at Matador Network is now online...


Click here to read it.

The events in the story happened last year, but I wrote it this year while celebrating Carnival at home here in Dusseldorf. Immersing myself in the festivities rubbed off on the story in a good way. The story is broken up into scenes, which is, after all, how we remember particular events.

The story itself was written under duress, finished at 4am on the eve of leaving for Paris, after having gone out drinking for Carnival. To be honest, I'm sort of amazed this thing took off at all, and yet, somehow it did. Big ups to David Miller for doing another great editing job. Enjoy!

You Getting a Hair Cut

 Düsseldorf, Germany

 

 What color is it going to be this time? Orange? Red again, or perhaps green?

            No.

You walk into the UniSex hair salon and see purple-haired Kevin sitting on the bench smoking a cigarette. You walk inside, and the glass door slams against the saloon-style ash bin propping it open. Ignore it. The door doesn’t belong to you anyway.

Kevin’s purple hair is standing straight up, and you can’t look at it without thinking of a troll doll. He says “Hallo,” and you say the same thing, staring too long at his plastic, spray-tanned face. Don’t worry. Anyone that has Sponge Bob Square Pants tattooed on his forearm is used to it. Thank God for people like this. You check out his left arm and see all three Power Puff Girls surrounded by stars. The details are dazzling.

He stubs out his cigarette and says “please sit anywhere.” It’s 10AM and every seat is open. The salon is 10 feet across and goes back like a bowling alley. Techno music is blaring, and there are wall-mounted flat screens between each chair. You sit down in the back, close to the hair washing station.

Kevin comes over and asks “Would you like a drink? Coffee?”

His English is terrible. Your German is worse.

“Nein, danke,” you say. “Wasser, bitte.”

Kevin calls out to the blonde with the fat ass. She stashes the broom and walks behind a curtain. There is an awkward silence. Kevin urges you over to one of the flat screens. He shows you pictures of men’s heads and says “What you like?” Except for the Turkish heads, the faces all look like you and Kevin: Skinny white boys. There’s a head that looks like it hasn’t been cut. The caption says ‘Surfer.’ You point to it, even though you don’t like to surf. Forget it. The blonde’s back with your water. You look her in the eyes and say “danke.”

Kevin wears plastic gloves that crinkle as he washes your hair. You didn’t shower before leaving the house today. Never mind. You’re going to shower when you get home anyway. Occupy yourself by looking at Kevin’s facial piercings. The ring on his lip seems like it would be annoying. Again, you’re grateful that not everyone is as boring as you.

You sit there facing the mirror. Fangs of moisture drip onto the nylon cape. Kevin slips into his rhinestone-studded holster. It is packed with razors, shears, combs, and scissors. He seems taller, moves faster. Kevin removes the scissors and spins them around his index finger like a gunslinger. You feel your body tensing up beneath the cape. Relax. You look over to a flat screen. A corpse is getting her hair cut before a live audience. The assistants had already pulled some paper mache guts from her belly. After each snip, the mad scientist pulls the scissors back and twirls them like a gunslinger. The crowd is going wild.

You look to Kevin's hand. He holsters the scissors, pulls out a straight razor. Your head leans as he pulls your bangs forward. His other hand is spinning the razor blade like a sideways helicopter. Bits of your bangs fall on your lap. Take a chance. You open your eyes just a crack, enough to see the letters tattooed across the back of each finger...

Getting Even

So here I am, again, standing across from the mailman.  Actually, it’s a mailwoman.  The woman’s in her fifties, fair skinned with a curly, round head of hair.  She’s not looking at me, but I’m looking at her and thinking This is a broad who’s played life by the rules.  I’d never say that of course.   

Maybe it’s just the uniform rubbing off on me.  It’s one of those sky blue, Government Issue two-pocket oxfords.  What a mouthful, and for what?  The thing’s practically wearing her, and yet, I can’t stop staring.  There are four plastic pens in the left pocket; three blacks, one blue.  The blacks are crammed into a corner, but the blue one, the misfit, is hovering over Nipple Territory. 

The mailwoman lets out a sigh.  It’s for me.  Her colleagues look over, but they know the score.  Beads of sweat are rolling down my back.  After seven minutes, she’s still counting the three-pound-bag of change I tendered as payment.  There was some regular change on top, a few 10 and 20 cent pieces, but now it’s down to the nitty-gritty:  The 1 cent pieces.  Back home we call them pennies.  The European ones are even smaller.  You can’t spend them as fast as they come in unless you’ve got a motive.

I found a motive two hours earlier.  I rode my bike over to pick up the package my mother sent from the States.  She sent it two weeks before my birthday, and now, a month later, I get a memo in the mailbox.  It’s in German.  I don’t know what it says, but something about the layout seems to communicate:  It’s your lucky day.  I left my apartment and cut through the park, taking the cemetery trail to the 704 line.  The Deutsch Post is further up on the right. 

There were only two people in line.  When I reached the counter, I handed over the memo and the woman went back and found my package.  I asked her if she spoke English in German.  She said “yes,” in a way that reminded me of rainbows.  “Great!” I said.   

She asked for my ID.  I told her sorry, I didn’t bring it, and recited my mother’s address instead.  She looks carefully at the package, which she hadn’t handed over yet.  She raised an eyebrow.  It was good enough for her. 

She scanned the package and gave me another test.  I wouldn’t be able to charm my way out of this one.  To take home my package, my birthday present, I would have to pay 33 Euros and 56 cents.  The package, it seemed, contained items the German government wished to profit from.  It was a business tactic based upon the popular model of consumerism:  I desired the package more than the money. 

This tactic was also, coincidentally, based upon the model of ransom.  Ransom is the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money to secure their release.  Most cases of ransom involve kidnapped people, but not always. 

I am reminded of an incident where thieves broke into the tomb of Argentine president Juan Perón.  They weren’t looking for gold or jewels.  They wanted the president’s hands.  This was no arbitrary detail, however.  Perón's hands were viewed as a symbol of national power.  The thieves sawed them off.  Newspapers worldwide ran stories on the Hands of Perón, as the incident became known.  As the story unfolded, it was also made public that the thieves removed another type of symbol:  The president’s genitals.  They requested $8 million to return the hands.  It wasn’t made clear whether or not the genitals were included in this deal.  It didn’t matter.  The government refused to pay the ransom, and the items were never recovered. 

My situation was a matter of ransom disguised as customs charges.  Be that as it may, I wasn’t going to react as the Argentine Republic had.  I was willing to pay the Post’s ransom. 

But I was not able.  I had 20 Euros on me.  When I told the mailwoman this, she understood.  I had never incurred customs charges on a package before.  I made it quite clear that this charge was unexpected.  She whisked my present back into the bowels of the Deutsch Post.  I walked out to my bike empty handed, ruing my ill preparedness.  While peddling home, however, those feelings of self-pity turned to anger.  I would, amongst other things, plot revenge on the post office.  

The only question now was "how?"

Where do I fit in, exactly?

Germans have the damndest ideas of a good time.  Haul in a wiener wagon and a beer truck to any open area and folks will get dressed up in autumn-colored shirts and corduroys and drive their Audi’s or Mercedes station wagons as fast as they can to get there, honking horns and shouting to pedestrians along the way.  I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this, but much like accordions and lederhosen, the novelty wears off rather quickly.

What doesn’t wear off so quickly is the German’s sense of moral resilience.  You might, for example, find yourself standing with others at the crosswalk of a long, deserted street, waiting for the signal to turn green.  Crossing the street may look safe, but the people around you will literally hiss if you cross prematurely.  And folks are hesitant to speak to each other even at the park – that is, unless you toss a Frisbee too close, and then even an old woman will make a fist and curse your ever-loving soul.  Many people leave the house, I’ve decided, just to ensure that things are in order.  When they’ve finished inspecting the outside world, they come home and find still more things to correct.

**

            I moved to Düsseldorf in the summer of 2009.  Shortly after arriving, I met a Kiwi who was kind enough to give me a bike.  The thing was beat up, “Cursed” he called it, and showed me where he broke his wrist.  He wished me better luck with it.

There was a long bicycle rack in the parking garage under my apartment building.  Many of the bikes were sick with flat tires or rusted chains.  I found an open space and wedged my front tire between the brackets.  All was fine until a month later, at which point I found a note stuck to my handlebars.  Actually, note wasn’t a strong enough description.  This was an official document typed in perfect MLA format, folded into thirds, and sealed in an envelope.  No detail was overlooked. 

I couldn’t read German, but the implication was clear:  There were many spaces, but this one was his.  The whole thing was, I felt, a tad ridiculous.  I put the letter back into the envelope and, when I returned from the store, stuck it back onto my handlebars.  There didn’t appear to be assigned spaces on the rack, so I went home, hoping the situation would blow over.  The next afternoon, I found my bike propped up against a cement pillar near the end of the rack, the letter still attached. 

**

This glimpse into my neighbor’s psyche was interesting, but to think that everyone handled matters in such a passive aggressive manner – that was disturbing.  I tried to imagine things from my neighbor’s point of view.  To do that, I gave him legs which were as hairless and thin as sign posts.  His face was bony, but healthy, and it glowed before the pale blue screen of his computer.  I imagined a tall, slick brow that furrowed easily, and a tongue which poked out from the corner of his mouth when he typed.  The voice in his head, which sounded like my own, told his soft, pink fingers to type this:  “Re:  Bike Parking.”  Did he use spell check?  Certainly.  He would save this letter (for future reference) in a folder labeled “COMPLAINTS.”  

**

I brought the envelope upstairs to my own computer and attempted to translate it.  Still, I couldn’t stop wondering what kind of man would go to such lengths.  The more I dwelled upon it, my mind searched for more reasons to dislike him.  What was his private life like?  Was he married?  If so, what was it like to make love to this man?  From his letter, I didn’t get the impression that he was particularly tender.  No, with him it was all about control, so I imagined his wife lying under him like a wounded sparrow, twitching in cold, rhythmic sync with the clock on the nightstand.  That probably wasn’t fair of me, but aside from the letter, I didn’t have a whole lot to go on. 

It’s a funny thing, passive aggression.  I used to think myself above it, but when you have enough free time on your hands, the stuff spreads like the dickens!  For a minute there, it was almost like having a secret admirer, but instead of possible romance, there’s misdirected resentment.  When I went down two days later and saw his shiny new bicycle sitting in my old spot, I almost let the air out of his back tire.  That’s my idea of fun, but it would have been childish, and far too obvious.  Instead, I parked my bike a few spaces down the line.  That was nine months ago.  There haven’t been any new complaints yet, but the suspense is killing me. 

**

Moving Beyond Walls

I used to have this job.  When I was there, it felt like I should be doing something else.  What this ‘something’ was exactly, I did not know.  So, I just kept working, doing things better than the last time.  It’s not surprising that a lot of people feel this way.  However, it’s hard to change what you can‘t pinpoint. 

    Part of it was, I didn’t feel like my skills were being fully utilized at my job.  I could leave, but what would I do next?  I once read that nobody has ever been so far into the wrong business, that they couldn’t get into the right business.  Imagine that:  NOBODY. 

    Consider this:  Do all that you can where you are, but keep an eye out for opportunities, and jump when they present themselves.

    Flash forward a couple of years.  I don’t have that job anymore, and I’m doing something else.  According to my wife it’s called ‘nothing’ and based on her calculations, business is booming.  In my defense, I have an immense capacity for sustained focus, but I’m having trouble getting paid to stare at walls.

    The frustrating thing is, I fit the middle-America corporate profile:  White, polite, and makes a good impression over the phone.  The glitch is that I cannot speak German, which excludes me from most of the job market.  In my time overseas, strangely enough, I’ve found that I miss going to job interviews.  I just find something strangely romantic about them.  It’s like the prelude to an arranged marriage.

    “Tell me a little bit about yourself,” the interviewer would say. 

    This was my favorite question.  I’ve never wanted to be someone else, but I did enjoy pretending to be someone else.  Interviewers don’t want the truth.  I’ve been not hired by enough companies to know that. 

    What are you going to say, “well, I’m unemployed, this thirty-minute interview is the longest I’ve been sober in a week, and I dressed in the parking lot before walking in.” 

    “Gee, how quickly can you start?”

    My last interview was a seven hour drive away, but the company put me up in a room at the Courtyard Marriot.  It was a claims position at an insurance company and I was so nervous.  Shortly before the interview, I bent over wrong and strained something in my back.  Hot pain shot up my spine and into my neck.  I couldn’t bend down or turn my head.  All I could do was rotate my torso like Bigfoot.  When I arrived, it was nice to see that everyone else was as stiff and outwardly anal as me.   

Well, I thought.  As long as I’m in excruciating pain, I might fit in. 

    For the interview, my character was based on someone that watched their apartment burn to the ground.  Instead of cursing the world and everything in it, I would find strength in the claims adjuster that dealt with my claim.  “And now I want to do the same for others.”  That was going to be my closer.  I imagined shaking hands, and accepting an offer.  But before that, I had some issues to clear up.  I wasn’t exactly a swoop-in-and-save-the-day kind of guy.  I was the type of guy that drove the getaway car while friends siphoned gas out of untended lawn mowers.  Or, to put it another way, an asshole. 

    But this insurance interview was something different.  A ticket out, if you will.  Not that I didn't love North Carolina, but I saw something different in my head.  I visualized this 'victim turned victor' story until it became true.  I didn’t have to recall prepared answers when the questions came; In my mind, I was already a claims adjuster.  My answers sounded believable.

    Of course, my apartment really did burn down, but when the smoke cleared the reality wasn’t all that compelling:  The claims adjuster asks you to make a list of everything you own--Including, but not limited to jock straps, candelabrums, Halloween masks, boxes of Honey Smacks--with a dollar value.  I sat in a quiet room and filled page after page with these vaporized possessions.  As it turned out, there were things I didn’t even know I had.  And damned if they weren’t more expensive than I remembered. 

    It was my final semester of college, and I was sharing an apartment with two friends.  The fire started in the bathroom of all places, from a faulty air handler.  It was 4a.m.  I smelled smoke on my way to the upstairs bathroom and walked down to investigate.  The flames illuminated the outline of the closet door.  It wasn’t so much “oh no” that was going through my head as “isn’t that funny.”  Of course, a fire ball shot out when I opened the door.  I ran into the kitchen, grabbed a pot of water and threw it at the flames.  Camp fires are one thing, but electrical fires are another.  Water pisses them off.  I had never seen a fire spit lightening bolts before, but it was awesome.  Frantically, I threw the pot at the fire and ran upstairs to evacuate the house. 

    We all made it out safely and were warmed by the flames that consumed the building.  It’s a strange feeling, watching your home go up in flames, but it’s stranger still to see yourself on TV the next day with the subheading describing you as “Local Hero.”  My ego wouldn’t let me divulge how uncomfortable I was with the exposure.  It’s almost like you’re waiting, hoping in fact, for someone to come along and call you out.  “Come on.  Hero?  Really.“  When they never appeared, I stepped into the position.  Perhaps a little too well.  But I was young and a lot was happening in my life. 

    I take that hero title with a grain of salt now, but I haven’t written off the good that came about because of it.  Without that fire, I probably never would have sought out a career in insurance.  The greatest twist of all was meeting my wife, whom I never would have met otherwise if I hadn‘t taken that job seven hours away.  It never ceases to amaze me how these serendipitous things happen, while failing to connect one event to the other. 

    So, what can I do now, sitting here staring at my wall and basil plant?  All the world is out there, waiting.  I’ve cornered the market on ‘nothing,‘ and I'm ready for more.  If I can look back and see the chess moves, what’s to stop me from looking a few moves ahead? 

Call of the Wild, Carnival

We were standing on the platform amongst the crowd when the doors swung open.  Everyone charged the damned thing like a herd of spooked cattle.  Fran, my bartender friend visiting from New Jersey, doesn’t like enclosed spaces.  He may be scarred for life.  Takayo was perched at the top of the stairs on the top level.  We’d lost sight of Michael, Fran’s coworker, somewhere in the crush.  How do you tell a mother, “Your son’s been trampled to death by clowns?”  We were packed in with the bastards shoulder-to-shoulder, along with pirates, aliens, captains, etc.  Everyone had a painted face and wig on.  You couldn’t even raise an arm.  The smart ones were intoxicated, holding their beer overhead.  This included nearly everyone but us. 

    Cologne, or Köln as the Germans spell it, is usually 30 minutes by train from Düsseldorf.  However, during Carnival, the drunken celebration prior to Lent, it felt longer than a wet week.  The air was vaporous with booze breath.  I had been baby groped several times.  Silly looking heads blocked by view of the window, and it was too loud to hear the stop calls over the loudspeaker.  I asked King Drunk, who was squashed against the door, what stop we were at.  We would soon have to transfer at the Mülheim station, and there was still no sight of Michael.  Fran, Takayo, and I squeezed out the train at our stop.  Just before the doors slammed shut, Michael popped out like a zit. 

    “I don‘t know,” said Fran, shaking his head.  “Being packed in a train like that…in Germany.” 

    At least it had been warm on the train.  It was below freezing outside.  We checked into the hotel and ditched our bags.  This was crucial for Fran and Michael, whose grossly overstuffed packs could have clothed an entire gypsy clan.  I made an inventory list between the two:  20 pairs of socks, 18 pairs of jeans, 18 pairs of underwear, 10 button-up shirts, 6 hooded sweatshirts, 1 suit, 1 pair dress shoes, 2 windbreakers, 2 toiletry bags, 2 iPhones, 1 iPod Nano, 2 speakers, 3 one-liter bottles of liquor, 3 bottles of cologne.  Early on, the theme of this trip was “Consume like an American.” 

    And consume we did. 

    When we arrived to the Cologne main station it was positively trashed.  The only people occupying it were bands of brightly dressed youths beating bucket drums.  We gravitated outside, admiring the nightmarish spires of the Dom cathedral.  We found a beer tent with a massive flaming spit dripping with steaks and wieners.  Roving mobs chanted drinking songs that spiked loudly and ended abruptly.  The sound of braying horns echoed through the cobblestone streets, giving the impression of elk in heat.  “Oh, I need that,” said Fran.  I found a pair of aviator sunglasses on the ground by the wiener stand, fashioned them back into shape and stuck them on my face.  It began to snow when Fran bought this red and white plastic horn.  The thing looked like a peppermint tornado.  It took him a couple of tries before getting it to blow right.

    We were in the downtown shopping area.  Large men in industrial overalls boarded up storefront windows with slabs of plywood.  This would protect the shops from the parade of drunks scheduled for Monday.  I led everyone to the Altstadt, or old town, to a bar renown for having rude servers.  There was another wiener stand set up outside the bar, attracting all types of night creatures.  A band of latex-gloved surgeons handed each of us a bottle of beer.  To thank them, Fran blew the horn.  The surgeons and drunks within earshot went wild.  A man with a handlebar mustache began speaking to us in German.  He was wearing short pants and looked like the Goodwill Ambassador of Bavarian Fruitcakes.  For all we knew, he might have offered to lop off our ears for us.  We just said “Ja! Ja!” to everything and he handed us a post card that had a picture of him and a similarly dressed man standing together at a cabin. 

    My night vision was pitiful on account of the shades.  We found a narrow bar to thaw out.  The mood was a cross between Halloween without the spooky, and Mardi Gras without the graphic nudity.  Like so many bars in Germany, there was 80’s rock blaring over the speakers.  One group of girls all carried whistles.  For the girl in a ladybug costume, the whistle replaced all verbal communications.  She made a warbling bird call to order a beer, and a shrill squawk when she told Fran “go away.”  Unfazed, Fran leveled his horn within inches of her face and blew.  The girl answered back with a bitchy shriek.  The bartenders stopped pouring to frown at them both. 

    Takayo and I slid into a booth behind a table.  In a mindless act to give the crowd more room, a bartender came over and slid the table into our guts.  A conga line had formed.  Lizards and bugs -- even a cross walk sign -- slithered through the bar, sending glasses crashing to the ground.  A drunk construction worker in a white tee shirt and suspenders took off his hardhat and handed it to Takayo.  He gurgled something before walking out the door, never to return.  Michael stuck the hardhat on his head, and I overheard Fran teaching a German girl to say “suck your mother dry.”  When she said it, Fran lifted the horn to celebrate, but the bartender pointed at him.  It was time to go.

    By the time we hit the door, Fran was about to burst.  He blew the horn till he was red in the face.  This caught the attention of someone up the street, who reciprocated with a call of their own.  This strengthened my association of elks in heat.  We continued walking toward the call, each of them blowing in six second intervals, until a group of excited German youths stood before us.  They couldn’t believe that their horn calls had seduced a group of Americans. 

    “Fuck zie Bush!” one of them shouted.
Steam rose up from their horns.
    “Suck your mother dry!”
Again the horns echoed through the alleyways.
    “Socks your moder droy!”

    It had begun to snow again when we found an underground bar that looked like the inside of a cave.  For some odd reason, I’ve never had good luck with cave bars.  There weren’t a lot of people there, and if I had to guess, it was because of the Spanish techno blaring over the speakers.  Takayo and I pressed our butts against the radiator.  She took off her hat and put it on the table with the beers.  We danced for a bit and came back to find that someone had lifted her hat.  I ran upstairs to the sidewalk but didn’t see anyone wearing it.  I cursed the cave, collected our crew, and then left.

    We went into a convenience store for cans of beer.  There was a short dark man dressed like a Mexican next to the beer cooler.  He tilted back his sombrero and told us he was Iraqi, had traveled to the States, but now lived in Cologne.  Fran could hardly believe it.  “This guy’s from Iraq!”  The beer prices were inflated on account of the festivities, so we each got one and said “adios” to the Iraqi.  Outside we walked past a large man in a rainbow jester hat.  The rest of his outfit was black leather. 

    “I’m going to talk to this guy,” Fran said.  “I think he’s Russian.”

A few days earlier, Fran tried to convince me that he spoke Russian.  He lived in a house full of Russian exchange students a few years back, when we had fallen out of contact.  I had my doubts, but he seemed hell-bent on speaking Russian.  He walked up to the man and uttered a phrase.  It was like watching a kid ride a bike.  As it turned out, Fran knew some Russian.  He reported a piecemeal translation of border crossings and the man’s life as a widower.  Everyone just stood around for a moment, pondering the most appropriate way to shake Boris Buzz-Kill.  Eventually, he gave us a dismal-looking business card and we parted ways.  Fran and Mike spoke with nearly two dozen people before reaching a consensus:  Everybody in town was crazy. 
    “Oh, man.  I could live here.” 

    People’s costumes were all but falling apart by this point.  There was a collar here and hats in the gutter, as if a costume form of leprosy had fallen over the town.  From seemingly out of nowhere, we stumbled upon an open street dance.  Folks were stomping and dosey-doing to a hyperactive remix of “Cotton-Eyed Joe.”  Empty kegs were piled up next to the beer tent like a tribute to the Pyramids.  When the song was over, they played this sappy love song and everyone disbanded.

    With the streets clearing out, we worked our way back to the train station.  Mike snapped an eerie photo of the Dom cathedral.  We stared up at its spires from the shadows and talked about how gothic it looked, trying to give ourselves the heebie-jeebies.  It wasn’t too hard since we were already half-buzzed and shivering to the bone.  We entered the train station, which seemed to be hanging on by a thread.  Glass crunched under our every step.  We passed street people collecting returnable bottles for, what must have been, the jackpot of the season.  When the train pulled up on schedule, I could hardly believe it.  Fran blew the horn one last time and I think somewhere in the distance, I heard the sound of an elk answering softly.

A Possible Future for US Health Care

The health care debate is going to rage on for a while it seems. This raises an interesting question. Is it possible to puke blood from hearing too much bad news? Lucky for me, I’ve got universal health care. But I’m not saying this to put salt in a wound. Here in Germany, roughly 37 percent of your paycheck is taken out, most of it covering health care expenses. Ouch. As painful as 37 percent sounds, the only people I hear complaining are expatriates. But then again, I am one, and I can’t speak German.

Let’s switch gears from Germany and talk about China’s health care system. I had the pleasure of experiencing this first hand -- on multiple occasions. Food poisoning, like fireworks and smoking, is a way of life in China. Their health insurance companies are similar to ones in the States, but cost about the same as a moped. Make an appointment, show the doctor your card (if you have the strength) and you are on your way. There’s no co-pay, and basic medications are included. Sounds simple enough, but to become a resident of China, you must first pass the government mandated health exam. This is when, as the old timers say, you get what you pay for.

Make Sure They Use a New Needle

The school hired a man to drive us to the health facility, a 70 year old man named Zia and our Chinese translator, Rebecca (This was her English name. My friend Todd taught a girl who named herself Purple Micro Number Forty-Eight. She had a thing for Gobstoppers.). We drove through an area of Suzhou where sustenance gardens sprung up next to sidewalks. Dusty cinderblock buildings with brown-tiled roofs lined the crowded street. A river of bicyclists peddled alongside our van as we passed countless stalls of grilled innards and durian fruit.
I asked Zia where he was from.
“I spent some time in Italy,” he said. “But I had health problems.”
He looked like a lanky Fidel Castro and spoke with a mysterious accent one could expect from a Czech diplomat.

We arrived to an unremarkable white building blocked by a chrome gate. Rebecca handed over our passports at the front desk just before a group of Chinese migrant works stormed in. There were signs posted on the wall:

Be Silent. Wait Patiently. No Smoking. No Spitting. No Pets. No Photography.

Like most medical facilities, there was an underlying sense of sterility. This place, however, made Frankenstein’s lab look like a disco. We were led down a dark hallway. Smoked glass windows lined both sides, which projected the twisted shadows of neo-medical procedures.
The hall opened up to a ward surrounded by more smoked glass rooms. It was cold, and all of the medics wore face masks except for the woman drawing blood. I saw her working a needle into a man. A tube stuck out of his arm. There is no privacy. It is, after all, the People’s Republic. When the man came out I replaced him. A plastic pitcher of used needles sat on the desk between us. My wife had warned me, “make sure they use a clean needle. I mean actually watch her pull it out of the package.” I did just that, and then black blood loop-de-looped through the little hose. She pulled it out and dropped the needle in the jug. It was almost full.

A Picture For the Wallet

Then came the ultrasound of my stomach. I don’t know what they expect to find, but they squeezed that gooey gel onto me like a pregnant woman. The nurse dug the wand around my belly and pointed to the black and green TV screen. When it was over, I wiped off the gunk and she handed me a picture of my partially digested lunch.

An eye exam followed. The eye guy handed me a metal spoon, asked me to cover one eye with it, and call out the letters. They were all E. E’s to the right. E’s to the left. E up. E down. I figured he wanted directions.

“Um, E, E, E pointing left, E pointing down, E…”

He asked me to call out the next line and I just gave up. “E, E, E, E.” I passed, but couldn’t understand why a spoon worked better than my hand.

For the cardio gram, I took off my shirt and laid on a table while three Chinese girls stuck electrodes to my face, head, and chest. They asked me to lay still and then they disappeared. I closed my eyes and thought of someplace warm. Before long, a nurse snuck up and whispered into my ear from behind a mask. “Yor hart beat very slow.” “Thank you?“ I said. The girl handed me a post card sized readout of my leisurely vitals.

There’s not much waiting between the exams. It’s a free for all. Patients scurry in to get their forms stamped, and bolt out as if in a scavenger hunt. And then I walked into the X-ray room and all the radiologist were wearing boiler suits. I took off my shirt again, but had trouble removing the jade necklace my wife gave me.
“Put it in your mouth,” the boy said.
“You mean…” I said, and opened wide. He nodded. “You better not be screwing with me.”
“I’m sorry?”
I stuck it in, and the taste of Burberry cologne filled my mouth.

The last station was the dentist. A girl led me to a chair and reclined it until a light shone down into my eyes. When the dentist arrived, he quickly picked at my teeth and said that I had too much plaque and a broken front tooth.

I checked back with Rebecca and found her standing in the ultrasound room. Zia was laying down, surrounded by a group of about seven nurses. All of them were talking, looking to the ultrasound screen, and then back to each other. “What’s going on.” I shouldn’t have asked. It wasn’t any of my business, but I just got caught up in the excitement. Before Rebecca could respond, I heard one nurse say to another, “But he has no stomach.” They printed it out anyway. I waited on a cold steel chair until the fiasco was over.

It’s hard to say that a health care system in one country is better that another. Each country is just too different. If it came down to a solid universal health care plan, would Americans be willing to fork over 37 percent of their earnings for it? Or will cut-rate medical facilities have to serve the growing needs of the masses? Either way, you get what you pay for. The debate will surely rage on, but sooner or later, they’ve got to rip the Band-Aid off. Might as well do it quickly.