Passing Through Koln - 2011

Published Dec 25, 2011

Back in December 1982 a Paris-bound train approached the Rhine Bridge into Koln. A dark dawn sky shod the winter morning sky. Building lights rimmed the overflowing river. I sat on the left side of the DeutscheBahn passenger car. The six-seat compartment was all mine. Few people took the midnight milk train from Hamburg. It stopped at every station.

Two bags lay at my feet. They held everything that I hadn't wanted to leave in Hamburg. That northern city lived on even less light than Koln. The nightclub at which I had worked was in a slump. The pimps of the Reeperbahn had driven away our 'good' customers. The owner had said that they spent money, although he hadn't paid my commission for the last two months.

SS Tommy was the owner's muscle.

Two days earlier the blonde bodybuilder presented a bill for 10,000 Deutschmarks about $6000. The itemized bill listed my intimacy with a bikini model in detail. I was thinking free love. Hamburg wasn't that kind of city. I handed over SS Tommy the keys to my BMW 2002, which I had crashed orange sets car a week ago in a forest north of the city. It wasn't going anywhere without a tow.

The train crossed the bridge and the silhouette of the medieval cathedral loomed out of the murk. Thousands of workers and hundreds of skilled artisans had spent over a hundred years erecting the massive monument to Christianity. The US Eighth Air Force had conducted bombing raids on the city during World War II. The generals said they avoided targeting the cathedral, but aerial photos show that everything around the gothic structure had been leveled and the towers bore the scares of bombs, showing that those masons and workers knew how to build something to stand the passage of time good and bad. It had survived the bombing raids of World War II relatively unscratched and served as a beacon to the faithful. I was not one of them, but I respected the beauty of its grandeur.

The train stopped in the station. I pulled my hat over my face, fearing that SS Tommy had notified his Gestapo compatriots in Cologne about a fleeing American. The doors closed without a rush of Zuhalterei and the train pulled out of the station. Paris was eight hours away. I already had arrived to safety.

The color of the sky was gray.

All over Europe, but Paris was a city made for that color.

THE BOUQUET OF RUINS by Peter Nolan Smith

In the autumn of 1982 I was working at a nightclub in Hamburg. The sleek nightclub had been designed by the playboy front man to mimic CLOCKWORK ORANGE’s Milk Bar and Jurgen’s fashionable crowd loved it throughout the summer, however the club’s actual owner was Cali, the black leader of the GMbH, a ruthless gang of pimps. The season changed early this far north and every day the night conquered a few more minutes of light and our once-popular club on Eppendoffer Weg was deserted by the attractive youth, the esoteric intelligentsia, and the wicked rich, who sought comfort in their homes.

Pimps and off-duty prostitutes from the Reeperbahn replaced the high-class and they were lorded over by Cali's righthand man, SS Tommy, who resembled a pit bull on steroids. This enforcer was rumored to have buried several men alive for non-payment of debts. A bitter rival had been bathed in acid. SS Tommy had his own table in BSIRs. I smiled every night, as he ordered bottles of sekt. He never paid the bill.

“We’ll get the money one way or another.” Jurgen was a native to Hamburg. He knew how things were done.

“As you like.” My percentage of the profits was 5%. SS Tommy’s rechtung was over 20,000 DMs. I figured that he owed me 1000 DMs and joked about it with the girl I took home twice a week.

Astrid was a beautiful lingerie model. The blonde twenty year-old was studying fashion at the University. Her dramatic overbite and an aquiline nose stole any chance at being called beautiful. I lived by the harbor and the sea air mixed with the smell of oranges on her flesh.

She laughed at the idea of SS Tommy in my debt.

“But never say this to him.” She frowned stripping off her dress.

“Never.”

"Nie?" She wanted to make sure.

"What do I have to say to that animal?"

Nichts, if you know what's good for you."

I knew my place in the feeding chain and managed to keep my distance from the monster at the club.

As an early winter transformed to the city into a dark industrial wasteland, Henri, the DJ from Paris, and I were counting the days until we called it quits, only I wasn’t telling management about my departure in case I wanted to come back after the holidays. Good-paying jobs for foreigners without the proper papers were difficult to find in Europe.

Henri left for Paris. He had no intentions of coming back. The French don't belong in Germany and neither did I. I planned my departure.

Only one person deserved an ‘auf wiedersehen’.

“I may be leaving,” I told Astrid after a lengthy session nearing dawn.

“Are you going for good?” She dressed conservatively for school and stuffed her nightclothes in a large leather bag.

“Yes.” I lay in bed thinking that I’d miss her in Paris.

“And you are not coming back?”

“Not a chance.” I had had enough of Germany for this year.

“When?”

“Soon.”

Astrid kissed me on the lips and I returned to sleep.

That night SS Tommy showed up at the bar early. BSIR had few customers and all of them avoided the six-foot enforcer for the GMbH. Astrid stood at the door dressed in a fur with very little else underneath. She normally never showed until after midnight.

Tommy waved me over to the bar and slapped a bill on the bar.

It was written in German.

“What’s this?”

“Die Rechtung.” His scarred finger jabbed the top of the bill.

The total came to almost 10,000 DMs or $6500 US, which was $2000 more than my bank account.

“I can see that.” I had learned German in high school. The list consisted of charges for sex. “What’s it have to do with me?”

“This is what you owe for the nights with Astrid.” Tommy smiled, as if he had told the punchline of a long joke.

“Astrid? I didn’t know she worked for you.”

She smiled at me with a crooked grin.

“Not all our girls work the Eros Center.”

The GMbH ran a string of 200 women on the Reeperbahn. Each one was expected to have sex five times a night. 200 DMs times five times two hundred women came to $100,000 a night. The take wasn't all his, but SS Tommy owned three Ferraris.

“Is everything in order?”

"Alles is klar."

I looked over to Astrid. Her eyes said that she could do nothing.

“I didn’t know a 69 cost 200 DMs.”

“And that is cheap.” SS Tommy pointed out several more costly sexual feats. “I deducted 20% since you work for Nigger Cali.

“Thanks.” 20% extra was a bargain, if you had the money for the full amount.

“And the bill is not negotiable.” SS Tommy folded with muscled arms

“She never said anything about working for you,” I said in rough German.

“Everyone in Hamburg works for someone.” Zuhalters were well-known for their violence and SS Tommy had a well-earned reputation for a short fuse.

I had to offer him a gesture.... TO CONTINUE READING THE BOUQUET OF RUINS ON KINDLE FOR $0.99, PLEASE PURCHASE GERMANY AND OTHER PLACES ON KINDLE BY GOING TO THE FOLLOWING URL http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KDN63Y6