Oktoberfest Ch. 02

The whole day had been on barrage on my nerves and senses, so I was ready to drink a few. The hard part proved to be finding a seat. I had to lap the building a couple of times till I found one. All empty seats were either reserved for later guest, taken, or just not for someone like me. It was a group of young Italians that I conned into letting me sit with them. They were as dazzled as I was to the point of not having the stomach to refuse me. I sucked in my gut and squeezed into the bench. The seat was so narrow I had no room to maneuver my arms save lifting a beer or smoking a cigarette. If I needed to leave I would have to muscle my way back in. How the larger revelers managed was a mystery. I hypothesized they promptly gave themselves an enema once they woke up, taped a 5 gallon catheter bag to their leg, and remained in that one spot for the whole day.

Once I got comfortable I introduced myself and smiled. We sniffed butts, but I don't think they liked what they smelled. They seemed ill at ease. It might have been their lack of comprehension for English. Whenever I talked they merely flashed me a lewd toothy smile. The best medicine to cure such awkwardness is alcohol, so I flagged down a bar maid and got "ein mass," or a liter stein of beer if you prefer. The beer was good. It was free too, so it tasted better than normal. Somehow the barmaid forgot to strong arm me for the tab. In a European bar you always pay your tab when you leave. I got use to this custom but observed at Oktoberfest she was asking the Italians to cough up the euros as soon as the beer hit the table. Despite what the people in high school said about the utterly uselessness of learning German, I managed to get myself a free beer. Actually free beers, food, women, and information. Because I ordered in my haphazard German, which in a beer tent with a nice steady roar deafening everyone sounds like the Führer's German, I got a "pay later beer" which I of course didn't.

I scanned around me once the conversation switched to Italian. All around me people were having the time of their lives. From fifteen to seventy everyone was happy. They were toasting each other with a backlash of a beer shower after every clank. I learned this bad habit of spilling a little beer after a toast that my friends back home don't seem to appreciate as multicultural.

Unfortunately the alcohol didn't do its job. Things became more unintelligible and awkward between me and the Italians. The only memorable thing I got out of them was the worst Italian phrase one could say: Bocca Dio. It means god is a pig. I tried it out a few weeks later and it's potency was not exaggerated. Their grins were getting more weary. I was sitting next to one of the guy's girlfriend and he appreciated it none. It was my cue. I was about to brave the crowd and grab another table when some girl approached me and said I looked familiar. We solved the mystery, she was one of the brigade of backpackers I accompanied the previous night to the Augustiner beer hall in Salzburg, ala the mornings debilitating hangover. She invited me to join her group of other people who had stayed at the YoHo. When I asked where she pointed to a group standing up amidst the vortex of people

I gulped my beer and went to empty myself. My bladder had become like a boiler from hell. I rushed to the bathroom to get relief but was disappointed by a line. Everyone slowly shuffled, although I was dancing, and waited for a section to open up. The urinal was one big trough that wrapped around the room. Relief at last, the kind of piss that a horse or a cow takes. Pure ecstasy filled my creeping grin. After the initial pleasure I took in the disorder of the bathroom. People were playfully shouting at each other from opposite sides of the room as sighs and loud streams echoed off the stainless steel urinal. Shameless. It left a vivid impression on my mind.

After zipping up a lumbered over at my table, ordered a fresh beer and did the "nod" to the Italians. I thought it was going to be easy finding the YoHo guys but I make miscalculation an art. The center was big and I was drunk. It was where's Waldo all over again. When I did find them they were merrily partying away. There was about eight of them or so, but I only recognized half distinctly. I remembered labeling some of the guys twats the night before. Meh, I was up for some change of scenery. It was good that I found them when I did since the alcohol was hitting me harder than before. My vision fogged up, my nerves felt coated in cotton, and time was being manipulated like hot taffy. After no time at all things got uglier between them and me. I was being my usual arrogant yet oblivious drunk self. The guy's hostel hookups were fair game for me to slobber all over. I managed to spill beer all over everyone too. Whenever the band played a song called "ein prosit," everyone lifts up their steins and sways them back and forth. When the song ends steins are clanked and beer is swallowed. Every time this song played, which was every fifteen minutes or so, I tested the strength of my stein by hitting it as hard as I could against all the others. Beer splashed out copiously on peoples shirts and shoes. Not to mention the amount of beer I swallowed each time. When I lifted that stein up to my lips there was a hopeless animalistic abandon that consumed me. I would become euphoric from this self-destruction. It's an exhilarating experience but its hard to turn off.

I slipped on my sunglasses that fully hide my eyes. The glasses help me feel at ease when I'm aware I am making a fool of myself, however dimly I perceive it. I never like standing out, and I felt I had made a quite the name for myself in less than an hour. Three beers, four beers, things were snowballing into the obscene. I was practically frothing in the mouth. I understood, but they didn't. As time started speeding up I found myself less conscious of my actions. So I made a thoughtful decision and ducked out. No goodbyes, just a beer chug and I walked casually away. It was the goodbye I am suited for the best.

It was after I left that I was throttled in the balls by a feeling of aloneness. I was in maelstrom three sheets to the wind, no bed, nobody that knows my name within a few thousand miles. The contrast of hanging with a group of people, no matter how ugly the scene, and then leaving with the snap of a finger has a quieting and disheartening effect. My solitude was rubbed in my face by the joviality of everyone. Everyone was merry, hugging and kissing each other, some dancing with grins from cheek to cheek. It made me meditatively sober. Not that I was sober, but a clear appraisal of my situation was under the microscope with precise clarity.

I stumbled outside the tent and emerged into the world of lights and screams. With startling abruptness I was in another tent. The Spaten tent if I recall correctly. Things were not kind for me there. I must of not been speaking coherently because of everyone's confused head shaking when I solicited them for a seat. Sneers were all I got. They must of smelled me as the incoherent spewing drunk that I was. But all I wanted was a friend! Well I found a seat but not a friend. It was by some icy cold bitch. Friendly banter in either German or English was not welcome. What was welcome was the flirting with some douche across the table. He wasn't friendly either. How I got stuck with the most antisocial people in Oktoberfest I do not know. So I resigned drinking my stein by myself with my head running around my neck.

My brain wasn't processing everything that was happening to me at this time, but it had decided the night had spoiled. My antisocial condition was starting to kick in the afterburners. People were getting uglier and uglier and I was getting more and more cynical. I should of abandoned my beer and caught the next train out. I finished that damn beer though, and with that my stomach started churning it around for me. My eyelids flickered, my eyes glassed over, my pores oozed stinky beer sweat, and my face was as red as a tomato. The pressure beating down on my was becoming unbearable. My vision was foggy with slippery roads at best. I could feel the vibrations of the night gaining momentum to a bitter end.

After two false calls I crawled outside and toppled over unto the gravel. Vomit rained upon the ground and formed a coagulated lake of bile. It took twenty minutes to empty my stomach and taxed the remainder of my energy from me. Beady strings of puke clung to my mouth and reverberated while I whispered curses. I shielded myself from the cruel craziness of the night by curling up in the fetal position. There my consciousness drifted. If I wouldn't of been sick I would have been amazed. With another snap of the finger if awoke, as if a minute had passed. Two hours had I lain there. Just like a dream.

I was groggy and sore as hell, but a lot more aware of myself and my surroundings. All I could remember was drowning in vomit and self-pity, and a group of merry revelers joking with me while I moaned for them to have mercy and leave me be. Whew, no puke made had made it on my clothes. Undoubtedly I reeked of sweat, cigarettes, and beer with a hint of human waste. The blur of earlier that night revisited me when I took my first step towards the train station. Consciousness asserted itself when I was sitting next to a train with a greasy Döner Kebab in my hands. With every bite my Kebab shed lettuce and globs of sauce all over the platform. I lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. For the first time in the eternity of one day I felt relaxed and confident. The ordeal was over for one, and I knew I had a whole day ahead of me to compose my nerves. I fell asleep that night on the train to Berlin as a serene landscape of sleeping villages rambled past me.