Night 2

I finally get to the club. It seems like such a long train ride.

Why am I doing this? Bored I guess?

But when I'm waiting in line for the coat check, I see him. I wave. He waves back and comes to greet me. The line is long, and he had two beers. He tells me that he has to find his friend and he'll be right back. Ok..

So it's another night of dancing. This time its German 'Schlager' music. So, I guess since the theme is 80's. (I guess Schlager is 80's, I don't know..), on the wall there are projections of Princess Di, Nancy Reagan and Hannelore Kohl. I feel bad that I didn't immediately recognize Hannelore Kohl.

As we're talking, we transition to German. Is my German really getting that good? His best friend is from the former East, so he doesn't speak any English at all. That makes the decision easier.

As the night progresses, I'm not getting a good feeling. But eventually we progress to make out mode, and everything seems back to normal.

Around 6 or so, it's time to go. He's very tired. We're both a little tipsy. I can't decide that I understand or not whether or not he wants me to go back with him. I don't have anything else to do, so I just follow. I get in the cab with him and we go back.

So, I guess he was very tired because neither then, or several hours later in the morning can he climax. As rearing to go as he seemed, he gave up. I think it's best not to press people to do anything they don't want, so I let him go.

I can't sleep either. Much better than last time, his drag artist roommate is not coming back so we have the place to ourselves. Be that as it may, I can't sleep. I tell him that I'm just going to go. When I leave, I don't feel any romance or anything. But I can't help but feeling "I like you just the same. How fun?"..... We kiss goodbye. I can tell he's off to bed again. And I start my walk of shame down the grandiose Karl-Mark Alle. I really don't think there could be any better walk of shame than Karl-Marx Alle.... have I mentioned that?

We'll see what happens.

Some days.

I've noticed a lot of people say "some days"... for "a few days"when they're speaking English here in Germany. No big deal, but I think it's cute.

So I decide to wait around for my watch for two and half weeks. I could go out, I could leave another watch somewhere else, but I decide just to take it easy and wait. I spend a weekend doing not much of anything. And the next week at the new school.

I get an invitation to go out to dinner to say goodbye to a friend from my language school. She's going back to Spain for good.

We go to this Middle Eastern restaurant. When sixteen of us are all seated at about 9:30 at night, we notice that they don't serve any alcoholic beverages. In Berlin. Along with the stunted conversations in German all of us from the language school are having, it looks to be a long night.

Meanwhile, I'm waiting for a phone call from a friend of my cousin/roommate. I was told this morning that a Russian couple he knows would be staying in his room tonight while he is out of town. Really? I ask. Well, you see - he tells me, that they're about to be deported from Hamburg and they're flying out of Berlin tomorrow, just to leave Germany for a few days.

Wow. That should be fun for me, I tell him. And he assures me that they couldn't be nicer people. But would I meet them and give them the spare key?

Fine.

I'm staring out the window, sitting at this restaurant, not much involved in any conversation. I'm bored and I want a beer. My pocket vibrates and I see that I have a message. I assume the Russians are coming. However, much to my surprise, it's a message from Franz. "Hallo Alex! I am back early to Berlin and will be at SO36 tonight at 1:00. YOU ARE WELCOME - FRANZ".... I don't know what that means, but... at the same time it's enough to make me snap out of my bored stare, and wonder how I'm going to leave these nice people at the table. Wow, I think - that's like a half a week earlier than I expected. Thank God. Gott Sei Dank. We/they decide that afterward we would be going to a club nearby. The club I want to go to is far away. Perfect. I can go, have a drink, and be on my way.

Meanwhile, the Russians come - and I give them the key. They ask me what I will be doing tonight and I tell them I have no idea. See you later, I guess.... And they were very nice.

I write back that I will be at SO36 later.

With the language gang, we head to another a club after finally finishing this marathon Middle Eastern meal - drinking water. I need to brush my teeth. And as we walk, I notice that my clothes smell like I was working at that restaurant. Fried Food. I absolutely reeked. I had to go home. I told the gang that I needed to go get some money at home. I'll be right there. I take off on my bike and race home. Maybe I was nervous or something but I had to go to the bathroom big time too. TMI, I know. But I rebathe - change my clothes, re-perfume and head back out the door. I look around and notice that the Russians hadn't been here yet. I guess they're going out first. Who knows.

The gang is at a club with a youngish crowd. Very packed, very packed, and somehow very smoky. The smoking laws in Berlin are as follows: It is forbidden unless you decide to smoke and the proprietor lets you. Make perfect sense. Making my way through the dense sea of people I see the smiling gang, and feel a little guilty about having to take off as soon I finish my beer. But I look at the bar and see the crowd and realize it's going to be a long time before I even get that beer. Damn it! Fortunately I make eye contact with someone I know, next in line at the bar - I mouth 'beer'! and they shake their head ok. Dank Sei Gott.

I manage to speak to everyone before I finish the drink and say I have to take off. One friend joins me. He has to get his coat first though - and the line is long. I'm already late, but... Oh well. We talk. We walk out into the freezing cold night air. We talk at my bike for a little while. He's in Berlin living with a girlfriend. They're both scientists. I bid farewell, and take off on my bike for the S-bahn station.

The next some dayse

The next some dayse are spent learning German at this new school. I learn a new phrase: Großer Spaß. Big Fun.

It's not of course. But I keep busy doing that and working on a novel. (This isn't one, btw.:))

Good times.

I keep thinking that I could go out and, see what else is out there. For some reason, however, I decide to wait for two and a half weeks to see what happens when I get my watch back. I wonder I've lost it.

He has my watch

Riding my bike to the school on Tuesday, my pocket buzzes, and I see that I'm going to miss a phone call. I'm sure it's my cousin, because who else would it be a 9 on Tuesday?

I'm surprised when I see, so surprised when I see that it was Franz. I call and listen to the message. In stilted English it went something like, "Hallo Alex. It's me Franz. How are you? We had zpent zis very nice time togezzer lazt weekend und I zink dat we had exchanges our watches! Do you have mine? Pleazz coll me und we can try to exchange ze Hour! I leave today for some dayse so hopefully I see you today. I hope you have a nize day!"

I called him back and he answered right away. Hallo?

He had thought that somehow we had exchanged watches, and that I had his and he had mine? I don't know where he got that idea from, but it was funny.

But he was leaving at two o'clock for two weeks, he said. We cannot meet today?

No, I said. I have school til three? You have to go though?

Yes.

That's quite a long time.

I know, but I have to do a lot zsingsz und see my pahrunts. You know.

Well. Call me when you get back.

I will! And we can have a vewwy nice kaffee or zomezing.

Yes.

I was thinking about it when I got off the phone, and I was thinking of how long a time two weeks was. I'm starting this stupid new school with people that I don't know either.....This isn't going to be fun. Oh well. Til then, I'll keep busy with work. I guess.

the neighbours

As I sat at my desk, I could hear the neighbors going at it. In both ways. They fought. And then they started screwing.

She was loud.

That may be because he fucked her like a jackhammer. I have fifteen foot ceilings and thick walls, and normally never hear anything. But this was like I was in the Hotel 8 or something with a piece of drywall separating us.

Anyhow. Good for them.

The next day.

I understood he was going to be at a party at a certain club. Not close to where I live at all. Anyhow, I decided to go.

It's very odd for me to like someone. I'm usually trying to avoid people. I don't know how I feel about having the roles reversed. I hate calling people. I hate having to....share my feelings. Ugh.

Anyhow. My dilemma for the day was whether or not to call my friend. Let me call him Fritz. I had to call him because I'd left my watch there.

I was actually waiting for a call from him, to tell me that I'd left my watch there. I was waiting to hear the question, when can we meet, and I can't wait to see you, etc. etc. etc. Or as they write here, usw. usw. usw.

That call never came. I, however, swallowed my pride and got dolled up to go to this party at this club in this neighborhood far away. No bikes tonight.

When I got there... I don't know what the use of talking about it. It was so crowded. If there was a fire there that night, or any kind of scare whatsoever - almost every person in that place would've been dead. I couldn't believe it was legal. The ceilings were so low, and one could not move, let alone get a drink. Of course, I managed to get a drink. I actually got two. One advantage: It makes it look like you're with someone else. And the other, I could drink the first one really fast and still have one so I don't have to wait in line again.

I looked over heads. I made my way through the throngs of people. I pushed my way through the smoking lounge where you almost couldn't see through the smoke. Not that I'm judging. I even bought a pack of cigs out of boredom. I smoked two I think. And I did this circle, or figure eight over and over again. And I saw no one. I actually saw two people that I'd met before and talked to them. They asked me if I was alone and I said no. They excitedly asked me if I was on a date. I said sort of. They told me that I better go find my date. I kept on trying.

When I left finally. Outside in the open air. I looked at my phone. Should I send a text message? I know how late it is. But there's no way that Fritz is sleeping or sitting at home. I sent a message. Are you here at this place? I didn't get a response.

I went home. Because it was so late, I had to wait a while for the trains.

At home, I fortunately had one beer left, and I made an egg sandwich.

The next morning I looked at my phone. There wasn't anything. I looked at the sent messages and couldn't find my message. Could I be that lucky that It never went through? Let it be true.

I get no kick from cocaine...

Last night, when I was politely offered cocaine by a nice looking guy I had just made out with, I just shrugged. I guess I was more fascinated by the way it was offered: "Then would you like to have some cocaine with me?", as it was said in a very thickly accented English. I had no problem saying, that "No. I don't think I would like it". And much in the way that some people take pride in all the drugs they've done, I'm a square in the fact that I like to say that I've never done drugs. Except pot, and hash, and the one time somebody gave me roofies.

However, he had a cute smile, so I said, "Well I guess I could try it"..

And P.S. there I was in a bathroom stall of a Berlin nightclub making out with a new friend and sniffing coke off a credit card. Whatever. We also took part in somewhat more acceptable behaviors such as dancing. But I guess you really couldn't call it that. I can't believe how long were there. Making out until the peripheries of our mouths were red.

I thought that we were ready to get out of there, but maybe 1.5 litres of beer later (that's 3 bottles here), we finally were.

"I think that we should maybe have another beer."

"Shall we have some more cocaine?"

"Perhaps we could go behind this curtain"

But what a cute face. And what a cute smile. He was almost ten years older than me. Which is the youngest I've had in a while. And I don't know why that is. I swear that it's just a coincidence. I don't know when the last time I've actually even met someone my age. Anywhere. I want to say Paris 2006, Hernan Lopez from Colombia. I might have even verbalized that he was cute, this guy. Which is something I try not to do, as I feel desperate doing so. It's ok if someone says it to me, but me saying it just sounds wrong.

Finally we were outside waiting on this New Man's Friend before we could get a taxi. I had no money left, and there seems to be a scarcity of ATMs as well as places that take credit cards. I don't really get it. My friend will pay, he told me. I grimaced. I hate that.

When we got back to the place, which was an old communist block near Karl Marx Allee (formerly Stalin Allee), it was almost nine in the morning and it was time for dinner apparently. We had some roast and some potato dumplings, and it was all pretty heavy. And almost nauseating. And this coming from someone who, in their drinking and driving days would wait a half hour for a sack of White Castles at three or four in the morning.

I don't know if it was before or after, but the new gang brought out the coke once again. And I said, "You know, I don't think I really know how to do it very well." Come on!.. "Alright, just to be sociable". I don't know what I was doing, but I guess I wasn't snorting hard enough, and I just kind of messed up the line. I swear that if they weren't looking I would've just wiped the whole thing off the mirror and made a sniffing sound. Can't people just be happy getting shitface drunk?

Alright then. After all that then it's time to go have sex. But before that it's time to go to to bathroom and fart as inconspicuously as possible. All that beer, meat and potatoes and I really don't feel half as sexy as when I walked out the door, ten hours earlier.

Thankfully, the place was large enough where this roommate was very far away. But I could've sworn My New Friend said he lived alone. Maybe he just meant his bedroom. That he didn't have bunkbeds or something. But that couldn't be.

We fooled around. We did this and that. Yadayadayada and then finally I could fall asleep. It was 3:30 in the afternoon when we got up to have breakfast, which, I felt bad about, but could barely eat. A couple of advil and a diet Pepsi would've been better. A BIG fountain drink with tons of crushed ice like they have back home in the U.S.A.....

Before I left, I gave him my number. And I'm glad I did, because I actually left my watch there.

And I looked horrible when I left I know. God.

But stepping out on to the expansive Karl Marx Allee on a grey grey day like today, I had to think...Or rather, I thought. I stood there on the corner, not crossing the street to go down to the U-Bahn station, just thinking. I thought about My New Friend. I wondered how awful I looked. I wondered what I was doing. I thought about old East German times. I thought how Karl Marx Allee must look it's best on a steel grey day like today rather than a sunny one.

Finally I crossed the street and descended down the stairs to U-Bahn line 8.