The German came into the Buffalo Bar every night. His unnaturally orange hair bore the signs of a bad dye job, however also that if the effort wasn't made, then his scalp would be a snowy white or dirty grey, revealing his age like a snitch to the OEA or Old-Age Enforcement Agency.
Guys think that old matters to the girls in the Buffalo.
They have it so wrong. Girls here don't care about age. In fact they prefer old guys, because old guys are easier to manage than young bucks and don't tend to break a girl's heart.
He nodded hello and bent over to scratch my dog's head.
We had never exchanged words. This time he asked where I was from. I told him America and demanded the same, although in German.
"You can speak German?" He was amazed at this feat by an American same as the Thais were gobstruck by my caveman Thai.
"Naturlich. Ich hatte Deutsche in hoch schule gelernt." Brother Karl had spent three years trying to get German into my brain and some of it actually stuck there. My teacher told me, "Du sprechst wie einer schiesskopf."
I wasn't a shithead, only a terrible student. Failed German 3 times. Brother Karl didn't hold a grudge. He sent a Christmas card to my parents' house for several years after my graduation from high school.
"But your accent is not so bad." We exchanged names.
"Viele danke. I lived in Hamburg." The name conjures up the Beatles at the Star Club and the brothels of the Reeperbahn. I had worked for Nigger Kali. He was the city's biggest pimp. My job was to manage a nightclub. It was all a front.
"I come from Munich." That name brought one thing to mind. "I was a policeman there."
"Polizei." I judged the Bavarian to be about 55. "How old are you?"
"62." Zef whispered and Champoo lifted his ears in disbelief.
"You're looking good, but that means that you must have been on the force during the Munich Olympics."
"I was with the rifle team. We later became anti-terrorist squad. I was in the village and at the airport."
"What happened?" I had seen the news report at the time and the movie MUNICH. Neither fully explained the final showdown on the tarmac. "At the airport, why did it go so bad. The Palestinians had the hostages, the planes were ready to go. Everyone died. Why?"
"We were so trained for a situation like that." Zef was obviously uncomfortable with this topic. "My gun was for target shooting, not an assault on terrorists. They had machine guns and grenades. We should have done things differently, but orders are orders."
Zef signaled for a Tiger Beer and looked at my San Miguel with distaste. "I don't know how you can drink that. The water is not clean. Not like Tiger."
He might not have been an expert swat member in 1972, but if the Germans excel at one field of knowledge, it's beer and I joined him with a Tiger. Gai came over to sit with us. She nuzzled 'Zef'. She was friendly that way. I had never seen her leave with him, but she hadn't any problem with old guys either. Not as long as they were good-looking.
<
No comments:
Post a Comment