Jimmy the drunk shambled toward the bus shelter like one of the undead. He held his arm as if he had hurt his elbow. His eyes were vacant and didn’t register any recognition of me until he sat beside me on the bench. He just looked with a weary expression at some point across the busy street. The smell of stale sweat occasionally hitched hiked upon the cold winter breeze to impose on my senses.

“Rough night?”
“No. That’s the trouble. I’m off the drink. Listen I know I’m a drunk. That’s what I do. Cats catch mice. Fish swim in the sea, and drunks drink. But, I had my one-too-many. I spent the most miserable night last Sunday and it’s made me think that I need to change my ways.”
“What happened to you? Someone beat you up?” I asked noticing the black eye.
“A beating isn’t going to stop me. I’ve taken a fair share of beatings, and I’ve given them too. A good fight is a pleasure. No. It was just a night of one terrible incident after another. At the end of it I just thought to myself, ‘there has got to be a better way of living’. That was five days ago. I am going to try to stay away from the drink, but I don’t know if I can do it. Look.” He showed me the tremble in his hands. “I’ll tell you what happened. I had been drinking for a few days straight. Then this terrible pain and sound wakes me up. I try to ignore it, but it just gets worse. Finally, I get this zap! ohh. It hurt I tell you. I am seeing stars. It makes me jerk my head, but, get this, I am under the fucking bed. So, what happens? I bang it on the bottom of the bed, which makes me jerk my head down. At this point I am screaming, and I hit my jaw on the ground biting the shit out of my tongue in the process. The whole time I have this fucking sound in my ear. Then I figure out what it is. There’s a bug in my ear. I tell you. You wake up right quick when you figure out there’s some creature in your head laying eggs or eating at your brain or whatever. I scuttle out from under that bed in double time. I bouncing off walls like a pinball every time that damn thing shakes its wings. It was an awful sound. As a bonus, I’m bleeding all over myself like a stuck pig and screaming with my bit tongue. A fucking sight I was. I know I have to get to the hospital. One of the old ladies on the ground floor came out to see what the noise was and she got an eyeful of me. Ha! Her face looked like she’d seen her own death.” He cracked a smile and continued. “I get into my car and try to drive myself to casualty. Oh. Hell. That was fun. The damn bug is dancing around my skull and I’m still spitting blood out the window.”

“I get there all right. I am a little calmer, but this thing is killing me. The noise is horrible. The lady takes all my information and tells me to sit and wait. I tell her, ‘you don’t understand I have a bug in my ear.’ Remember I got this big swollen bitten tongue. So, I talk like one of those deaf people.
‘Yes. Sir.’ she says. ‘Just sit over there. It won’t be long.’ I give up and try to be cool. I go to take my seat. They call some woman. I think she’s got piles or something. She’s walking funny. I don’t know what, but she sure doesn’t have a bug eating her ear. So, I go tell the nurse. ‘I have a bug in my ear and it’s killing me.’ Fucking hell. It was like talking to a spastic. After a few more shouts of ‘I have a bug in my ear’ and furiously pointing at the side of my head, they get me in a room. You know what that fucking doctor asks me. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I’m covered in my own blood, and I have a bug in my ear. I could have killed the bastard. I tell him ‘I got a bug in my ear.’ He gets one of those things to look in my ear. He’s fishing around in there and he says to himself, ‘Jesus. You do have a bug in your ear.’ That man was asking to be killed.” He stopped, shook his head, and whispered a slow “filthy bastard” as if it was an amen.
After few seconds of silence anticipating the conclusion, I ask “Well, did they get it?”
“Yeah. Yeah. They got it. A wee thing.”
“But how’d you get the black eye?”
“I couldn’t tell you. That was there before all this.”

A prayer for forgotten blessings.

let me not forget the wonder of things like rain upon water.

let me not forget the beauty of things like sunset on city stones.

let me not forget the things like the fun of friends, nor their comfort.

let me not forget that we laugh so that we need not cry.

lo, life is suffering but it is also pleasure and beauty.

oh lord, let me not forget that this today.

---

*To the uninitiated, it is thanksgiving today.

"It takes a man to recognize a man." I probably the best compliment I have heard in a while.

One thing I hate more than anything else is SUVs or Yank Tanks as they call them here. For me they are the symbol of that nasty flagrant consumption and to hell with the rest of the world we are number one attitude that irritates me about America. One thing I make fun of more than anything else is fat people. Yeah. Yeah. I’m an uncaring mean person, but you can’t convince me that fatties ain’t funny.

Among my many theories I believe that given two otherwise equal situations the universe will tend toward the more ironic one. This was confirmed today when a big ole’ fatty fat fat ran a red light and almost squished me over with her equal wide and bulbous SUV. However if she had succeeded in offing me, I would have haunted her and smacked away every fish supper that she brought to her corpulent lips.

Because of my affinity with the crazies, I have developed skills similar to those who work with wild animals. I am not saying that crazies are animals. Far from it, insanity seems to put a touch more humanity into a person than the amount gifted to normal boring people that crowd this planet. I’d take a conversation of coffee with a crazy about `how the government is using our pets to spy on us’ over a discussion of which grocery store has the best price on sun dried tomatoes.

It’s just that, like the crocodile handler or lion tamer, there are signs you must be aware of. These wild beasts can turn on you, and it is in the interest of the human handler to recognize these signs so that he ends the day with the same number of limbs he started it with.

Talking with crazies has similar requirements. Normal people have been socialized successfully and as such avoid doing these that society may frown upon, like jumping onto restaurant counter tops, dropping their trousers, and slapping their bottoms like a bongo. Being able to identify these signals can help one anticipate when a crazy is about to earn their moniker.

For example, before a lion attacks its pupils dilate completely. Useful to know even if there is probably little can be done if you are close enough to see the dilation, but if god gives you enough time to curse him or your luck before you meet him, I say take it.

The consequences of crazy conversing are not near as dear. The worse is an hour dialogue about foot health. An uncomfortable but survivable experience. Each crazy is unique in his madness but there are some helpful generalizations. Eye dilation is indeed one. A more important one is `god talk’. When a crazy moves the subject to god, caution should be used. This is a potentially volatile situation. We are definitely getting closer to ‘bare ass cheek bongo’ territory, but a conversation might still proceed calmly. It is when a crazy uses nicknames for god and the devil that one should immediately review evacuation procedures including eyeing the nearest exits.
The correct response to hearing talk of `prince of light’ and ‘lord of flies’ is “very interesting. I agree whole hardily, but I must hurry away.” Another dangerous subject is numbers. If normal questions of “How far is that?” is answered with “Oh it’s about from here to that old man multiplied by four thousand six hundred and three. Maybe four thousand six hundred and five, depending on the gravity waves.”, it’s also a good time to bail. It’s only going to get weirder. Requests to touch you or have you touch them are a sign you have missed previous signs.

There are more, but I feel learning to crazy converse is best learned through error. Once you have been hugged and drooled on, I guarantee you’ll not make the errors the proceeded those events.

I really cannot be blamed. Clearly, no good mother would allow someone as irresponsible as myself around her larvae. Even cute children frighten me. I have a pathological fear of twins¹. Never mind that the child thrusted into my hands today was doubtfully a fully dues-paying genetic member of the humanity club. I always warn people visiting the house that I have a cat in case they don’t like the things. I think the same courtesy should be paid to those visiting new parents. I went along to a friend of a friend’s house unknowingly walking into an ugly baby booby trap. There it was on the kitchen table. The centre of the room. The centre of attention. We all had to stare at it and make our comments. I think I stared too long. Or maybe my mouth was agape an inch too wide. Truthfully my first reaction was to throw the rest of my drink at it, and chuck it out the window before it flew out of its container or pram or whatever you call it and eat someone’s face. Despite this, I remained calm and repeated to myself that indeed this was a human child and the object of adoration of these two sad and self-deluded couple. We sat and chatted and it was nearly two seconds before the conversation returned to the mongoloid that was now drooling on his mother’s shoulder (my guess was that it was trying to digest her like flies do). It was explained that the birth had been a difficult one. From what I understood of the explanation, apparently there was trouble with the shoulders and they had to use a toilet plunger to pull the child from the mother. They didn’t call it a toilet plunger, but trust me, by the description these people’s pride and joy was brought into this world by a doctor and a toilet plunger. The result was the child’s head was elongated like an egg. I had some more bad news for these people. I don’t think its head went back to the normal shape despite medical assurances to the contrary. I kept checking to see if the eyebrows were lined up. By some unseen signal, feeding time came. I was volunteered to do this task. I was handed the warmed bottle and the changeling that this family had been tricked into taking. It was sweaty and squirmed like a drowning earthworm. All my willpower was focused on keeping my expression blank. I made sure that my eyes did not betray fear or my lips did not curl as the smell of diaper filth hit me like a slap. When the ordeal was all over I excused myself to the bathroom. I stared in the mirror and pushed the trauma into my gut certain that the experience had made me sterile.

---

1) Obviously, one of them has to be evil.

I read a news article about a woman who walked into a psychic’s office and at the start of the reading took a bottle out of her hand bag, threw it at the psychic’s head, shouted, “Did you see that coming?” and left the office. Either that woman has a great, if not violent, sense of humour or she is deeply disturbed. Luckily, this took place somewhere in the US or I’m sure she would eventually find me and chat me up on my bus ride home.

The man sitting beside me was a crook. Among other occasional activities, he regularly fenced, and he sold cocaine to the university brats, but I imagine if he had to fill in a form that included a blank next to the question ‘occupation’ he would write ‘night club security’. Actually he’d write ‘bouncer’. There wasn’t much pretence about him. His bouncing work was just the place where he conducted the more profitable work. This I knew before I met him and bought him a pint.

He wasn’t particularly big, but there was an air of ‘don’t fuck with me’ about him. Standard issue shaved head and square jaw. What set him apart were his allergies. For all his toughness, his sensitivity to pollen betrayed him. He always had puffy red eyes and a steady line of tears falling from them. He bore this inconvenience with stoic resignation. He only rarely used the back of his hand to clear the tears from his cheeks. Usually, he could be seen in front of the club wearing his black button down shirt and trousers with his unintentional melancholic appearance.

I am feeling melancholic looking into his face as he talks about the local football teams' win last weekend. The empty blue feeling begins in my stomach as I look into those tear filled red eyes. Even though I know the reason for his sad countenance. I want to comfort him, if only to console myself. Later on, he interrupts my babbling about the upcoming fireworks night and the fourth of Julys of my childhood.
“You alright?”
“Just feeling a bit down I guess.”
“Well you shouldn’t be drinking. That won’t help.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right. I think I’ll head home. Nice meeting you.”
“No worries pal.”

The cowboy was making his rounds. His tiny toy pistols had been replaced with two spray nozzles, the kind that comes from household cleaning products. He still shouted ‘money for the whisky’ and pulled the red plastic triggers at the passing people without concern for the lack of verisimilitude of his weapons.

I watched him while waiting for the green man at the cross walk. I daydreamed that his carer, in the hopes of curtailing his peculiar habit, hid his six shooters. She would have taken his cowboy hat and vest but she knew he would have kicked up too much of a fuss. So, while he took a nap in front of a daytime rerun of ‘the Searchers’, she gingerly uncurled his fingers from the handles as he snored and muttered about whisky. Upon waking and realizing the theft, he immediately went to the kitchen and fashioned two new pistols from a bottle of window cleaner and a nearly full bottle of animal odour remover that he accidentally spilled on the floor when removing the nozzle. He went outside to make his rounds. While he was out, the carer attempted to divine the purpose of the two headless bottles on the counter and whether the puddle on the floor was cowboy urine or something more benign.

Autumn has definitely arrived. The clear dry nights carry a crisp breeze that stray tomcats turn their muzzles up to sniff at its scents. The first brown leaves try to muster a fierce tempest but only manage a clumsy waltz that scratched against the street. This afternoon the haar rushed into the city to cling greedily onto the tops of hills and the buildings. The thick grey screen flattens the castle and church steeples into black silhouettes.

Against the cold and dull day I headed to the park with a jar of Route 66 peanut butter and six or seven half smoked cigarettes. When the first dark days bring with it the inevitable low spirits, I like to cheer myself up. I am not a big fan of peanut butter despite my American heritage, but squirrels, even the Scottish ones, love the stuff.

I sit upon the bench and scoop a big dollop of peanut butter upon the butts of the cigarettes. There is no sadness in the world that cannot be melted away by the sight of three of four squirrels appearing to smoke as they excitedly nibble at the peanut butter some fool dabbed at the end of a cigarette butt. They sit on their haunches and hold the cigarette between their two front paws and happily lick away the peanut butter.

The best is when the old couples walk by in wonderment. Pointing at one of the squirrel I’ll say something like, “Look at that! It’s a crying shame. I think they learn it from teenagers.” Then I shake my head with a tsk-tsk as punctuation. The whole time I am bursting to laugh at their confusion at the smoking rodents and the weird American bemoaning their lost innocence.

“He’s my oldest’s first born. His name is Neil.”
“How do you like being a grandma?”
“Ahh. I’ve gone off him lately. Well. Look at him. He’s a right fatty, isn’t he? They’re all cute when their babbling and dribbling on themselves, a lot like my husband, but he’s two now, and the little porker has gotten willful. If I hear ‘no’ one more time he’s going into the cupboard until his mom comes to get him.”

I know every teenage boy of a certain inclination finds "on the road". Those boys with a wanderlust not yet understood. Boys with a sense for rhythm and beauty. I know "on the road" coffee mugs and mouse pads litter the desks of those same boys grown to be dull. Maybe that's why it's easy to dismiss it as adolescent fantasy or mass marketed rebellion. I have just listened to a recording of Kerouac reading his novel. I am reassured that first excitement wasn't just the novelty. He brought back for us a taste of the sublime that we all continually seek, whether conscious of it or not. The written word is a clumsy device but to hear them from his lips returned the novel to its sacrosanct state. It touched me to listen to the rhythm and cadence of his story.

The anniversary of his death is this Thursday. Give him a thought and a prayer that he found the Christ he sought.

Some wisdom, a conspiracy theory, and a plan from Jimmy the Drunk.

“Mark my words. There is more evil done by men wearing suits than men in balaclavas.”
…
“Don’t be pedantic. For one, it makes out to be a twunt. Don’t be a twunt. My grammar used to be corrected all the time. I know how to talk right. I just didn’t want to sound like those pedantic twunts. Remember that.” He added a nod to ensure that titbit of knowledge stayed with me.”
…
“It’s getting to be like gridlock.” He motioned towards the coughing and rumbling traffic.
“Maybe it’s the council blocking the traffic on purpose as propaganda for the new tram.” I replied as a feeble joke.
“Aye. I bet your right. Good for them. Pissing cars.” His empty beer clicked off the roof of a car on the opposite side of the road. The driver looked around confused. I hadn’t even seen him throw it, but I recognized the meaning in his grin.
…
“I know how I’m gonna make money.”
“How’s that?”
“I gonna to open up a dojo.”
“A karate dojo?”
“Aye. It’ll be brilliant. I am going to call it, ‘Murder Karate’. I’ll put it one of those closed down sandwich shops across from the estate.” He points at the sad yellow concrete building looking over the row of Georgian flats.
“Murder Karate?” I say with an unconvinced chuckle, and in response he leaps up and makes a series of awkward punches until drops his cigarette.
“Balls.” After a refreshing drag, he continues his explanation now excited as the plan formulates in his mind. “I’ll get some Portugesey guy to teach it. Tell people he’s a Brazilian. He’ll shout a lot. All those little tracksuits monkeys will be beating down the door to learn Murder Karate.” An immediate reply to the proposal of murder karate was not forthwith but luckily I was saved by the number 22 bus pulling to the stop.
“Good luck with that.” I smile. We shake hands good-bye. He gives me a thumbs up and a wink as the bus pulls away.

My great grandpa lived most of his life in a tiny village in Missouri. Village isn’t quite accurate. It was a collection of houses that rested along the access road of the freeway. It used to be Route 66. When it was Route 66, he and his wife ran a service station and a motel. I suppose it did well but then again it doesn’t exist anymore. By the time I came into existence they were both retired and Grandpa worked a small parcel of land. Down the road was a huge cavern famous for being the hide out of the bank robber Jesse James. That’s were the dynamite comes into this story. Great grandpa had an enormous horde of dynamite taken from the federal road program that ran through that part of the country just before the Second World War. Since then grandpa’s hobby was looking for new entrances to the largely unexplored caverns by blowing up dynamite on his property. The most impressive hole I saw was roughly a thirty-meter square hole taken away from a hillside.

As a child instead of going to summer camp I was shipped up to Great grandpa and grandma’s house. I spent my days exploring and wandering. Occasionally, I would make the long trek down the freeway to buy fireworks from a “buy one get eleven free” firework stands. Usually, I tried to help grandpa or grandma around the property. For grandpa I could hand him tools when he called for them from beneath a broken piece of farm equipment. There always seemed to be wood that needed to be piled. This was a better chore than you might think as any number of snakes, rodents, or insects could be found and investigated, as is the want of a young boy. Grandma was always in the kitchen. Even when she wasn’t cooking she could be found at the table in the kitchen reading a romance novel or the newspaper. My assistance to her was preparation of some food. Grating cheese, snapping peas, measuring flour. The whole time she would chatter tales of family history. Some of the history concerned my own father or grandfather. Other times it was about our ancestors. My favourite were always about the civil war.

Unbeknownst to me grandpa’s hobby had lain dormant for many years. The concerned family convinced him of the folly of fooling about with decades old dynamite. I was told it becomes unstable and a good knock will make it go off. One of my favourite things to do was go down to the watermelon patch with grandpa. He would grab the saltshaker from the kitchen. We would go down to the patch, pick out our melons, and sit on the nearby bench eating melon and spitting seeds at the many cats my grandma had adopted. This time we made a detour. A cleared spot in the forest surrounded a three-meter gash made in the earth.
“Hold it, son.” Without explanation grandpa carefully made is way to the bottom of the pit. Soon, he made his way back out just as deliberately and carefully. The only difference was the hiss and puffs of grey smoke that now emanated from the hole.
“C’mon. This ain’t one of your firecrackers. Get your head down over here. Your Pa thought they hid all my dynamite, but I forgot about some and found a whole mess of it in the shed.” The explosion was incredible. We have all seen dynamite being used in movies and we can imagine the destructive power as we see the fire and hear the explosion, but when you actually feel the explosion’s concussion rush through your body. In concert with the awe of the sound, it actually stuns you. Our human minds have not evolved to be able to process such an unnatural violence. My grandpa gave one of his low chuckles when he looked at my face. My eyes must have been the sizes of saucers, as I looked dumbfounded at him and the whole that still had a thin cloud of dust and smoke. “Your grandpa is going be in a mess a trouble with your grannie when we get back.” He chuckled again. “So let’s eat real slow.” and with that we walked down to the garden and he answered the thousand questions that rushed to my young mind after such a spectacle.

“Where are you from?” I get this a lot. I also get comments on how thick my American accent still is and if I am keeping it that way on purpose. Accents are a big deal here. My guess it comes from most people being the same shade of pale and they needed something by which to discriminate others. I am nowhere near as proficient at the accent game as the natives here, but it’s a fun game to play anyway. I am not doing too bad considering I came here with typical American ignorance assuming there was three major accents; Irish, Scottish, English. Cockney was just something they did for movies. And welsh… is that a country? In Britain adjacent neighbourhoods have different accents. Hell, sometimes they use different words all together. It is something I have really come to appreciate and enjoy. It is diversity not possible in the states. I grew up in the dark heart of the south (which unfortunately has risen again). Yet, I have a very standard of-the-shelf non-regional accent. Although, when I drink corn liquor I drop all the g’s from my present participles, and have a hankerin’ for sodomy. My mother and father where raised a thousand miles apart, but have the same accent¹. A thousand mile separation on this side of the Atlantic would mean the parents speak different languages if not use different alphabets.

There are accents here I really love to listen to. One of the department heads has a great accent and occasionally I drift off listening to the cadence and melody of his voice rather than the meaning of the commands he’s giving me. There are other accents that immediately grate the nerves. There is a particular west coast Scottish accent that is so nasal and harsh in tone that I see why they are perpetually stabbing one another. It is also not uncommon for people to hold several accents and switch between them when the occasion arises. Locals of Aberdeen and the islands have such an incomprehensible twang that they must use a more comprehensible one even for fellow Scots. The whole point of this accent business is to be able to pin point a person’s origins, and this question, “where are you from?” means just that. The problem is I am not “from” anywhere in that sense. My answer, as the question means to me, would be “Edinburgh”, but I know this is not the answer that is sought. I have tried “America” as a response. This too is never satisfactory, usually because the person asking has been to a city in America and wants to know if I know this guy “Gerry” they met on holiday in Orlando. Finally, I just give them a résumé of the places I have lived in America (just the states involved usually suffice). Though this answer satisfies the listener, I always feel disingenuous. I was born in New Mexico. I lived there for my first years of life. I am not ‘from’ there because I can’t remember a thing about the place and I have no urge to return. It means nothing to me. I grew up in Florida. This might be the best candidate for the ‘from’ location. Yet to me, it is an accident of fate that my formative years were spent there. It too holds no allure to return. My family is there, but they aren’t ‘from’ there either. They just happen to be there now. I have spent almost as much time in Texas, but again it was just another city I happen to be in.

So, to me, where I am from is where I am, but it only became an issue when where I am is certainly not where I am from. You dig?

---

1) Dad does occasionally say things like ‘warsh’ instead of ‘wash’.

Traveling by airplane is the last humiliation troubling Western man. It is a thoroughly unpleasant experience. To steal myself against the privations inflicted upon my person, I entertain myself by conversing with fellow passengers also strapped into this aluminum tube hurdling through the sky. The entertainment comes from the fanciful autobiography I concoct for myself. This last trip I was a pachydermist. I had been called to the Hungarian National Zoo to investigate a specimen who allegedly could hop an incredible 10 cm s. I know 10 cm s doesn't sound like much but for an elephant we are talking about a record breaking leap. You see most think elephants cannot jump because of their size. Not true. Not true at all. They haven't got the knees for it. Their knees are all wrong for jumping. Slap on the right kind of knee and elephants would be gamboling like fawns. This is why I traveled to Budapest to see 'Kersel' which is what they named the elephant. It means 'eagle' in Magyar.

I go on like this making small talk ensuring I insert as much erroneous information as possible. The hope being that at least one piece of information get corrected thus throwing doubt on all the incredible information I had been recounting. The best bit is if I see them on the return flight. I pretend I never met them before.

There was a lamp in the house of my childhood that had no bulb, exposing the naked wire. If you stuck your finger into the hole, the sensation could not be described as pleasant. Of course, the shock was not fatal, but the pain was such that the fillings in your mouth would hurt. Yet, there were times when I could not resist sticking my finger there. Usually I would be lying in bed by which side the lamp sat, restlessly waiting for sleep. I would softly call my brother’s name to ensure he was sleeping then hold the lamp at the top and dip my finger into the opening until the jolt forced me to recoil. I would repeat this behaviour half a dozen times trying to hold my hand in place but never being able to for more than a fraction of a second.

This masochistic tendency still remains with me but manifests itself in different ways. Reading livejournal, watching 24 hours news, or flipping through a women’s fashion magazine provide that awful stunning sensation similar to my broken lamp. It’s a redemptive agony I occasionally crave. As I make my steady course toward elderly eccentric curmudgeon, these stimuli provide me with the catalyst to rant and complain about the state of the world. I get worked up and upset by these things. Livejournal reminds me just how dull, uninteresting, and whiney the majority of people are. No wonder I prefer to talk to the drunken crazies on the bus, at least they surprise you from time to time. 24-hour news is great for pissing you off in so many ways. The fear vending, the bizarre vapid commercials, and the daily horrors of man and god displayed in shades of red and smoke are great for getting up the hackles of this sissy humanist. Women’s magazines are great when you think about all the women and little girls who have their ascetic dictated to them, the paedophilic displays of tarted up emaciated teenagers giving their best vacant look and best of all are the question and answer sections. The questions are only surpassed by the responses in shallowness and contempt for women as a sex. I am completely unbearable when I am in my venting rage decrying these examples of the ruination of civilization.

After I return to consciousness and calm myself down, I feel better but I know in a few days I’ll stick my finger in again and go pick up one of these things again.

Budapest is actually two cities. Buda is the large hill on the west side of the Danube. Pest is flat and stretches out far to the east from the river. Many of the inhabitants of Budapest men sport moustaches not seen since I watched a marathon of cowboy movies in a leather bar. We are talking serious ‘tash country. The inhabitants of Buda prefer what I call the Magyar special number one. Picture a bushy Fu Manchu that tapers to points just south of the corners of the wearer’s mouth. To distinguish themselves from their cousins on the other side of the bridge the Pestians go for the Magyar special number two. This is more of your standard baroque Germanic moustache. The whole continent is littered with statues of imperial assholes sporting one of these. So, it is the accident of one’s birth location that dictates the Budapestian’s facial accoutrement and not fashion.

The cuisine of the city is hearty. Lots of thick sauces and meat. I had cockerel in a red wine sauce with the ubiquitous dollop of cream. It was tasty but I have to admit my choice was dictated more out of a sense of justice. I have eaten a fair number of hens, and I thought it only correct that that smug rooster get his this time. For anyone who cares, cockerel tastes just like chicken but a little more gamey. This sense of justice is also why I never pass on any ‘exotic’ meats. Westerners are quite bigoted meat eaters. I see no reason why after having chosen to eat flesh should I only pick on cows, sheep, and chickens. So, I have digested a good number of god’s creatures. Dog, Donkey, Snake, etc. I have had the whole Chinese zodiac at the end of my fork at one time or another. This time cockerel got his.

My first impression of the city kept changing. As the airport bus drove me to the hotel, Budapest would remind me of New York, then Paris, and then even Florida. It was odd. The city is certainly in flux after having become one of the newest members of the European community. There is construction everywhere. Another layer of living being built upon the layer before. The strata of human history have never been so clearly displayed as it is in the streets of Budapest. Budapest unfortunately is in a perfect spot to be passed between larger empires since its birth. Anyone making there way across Europe in the name of Empire took time to grab Budapest or at the very least took time to raze it. One will see an imperial building built by Austrians that the communists left to rot which stands next to a statue of some Turkish vizier. At the top of Buda there stands a building covered with the pot marks of bullets. They could be from the Nazis, the Allies, the Communists, the revolt, or even earlier. When I was walking through Pest, I came across a huge police cordon that was so large I was having trouble getting around it. I asked a policeman for directions. He explained that a construction worker had found world war two bombs. Sixty years later, they still find these things. I wonder how that construction worker felt after he realized he had been knocking around a half-century-old bomb with a shovel? I would need a holiday.

Despite the occasional discovery of unspent ordinance, Budapest is a lovely city. I hope I get to go back and show off my version of the Magyar special number two.

A few snaps of my time in Budapest. I'll write a few words about my adventures soon right now I am busy growing a moustache.

It was with trepidation that I made my way through the narrow hallways in the bowels of our building as I looked for the office of the building manager. The hallways were poorly lit. It had an unfinished feel as the exposed pipes and wires raced along the hallways. Scuffs and scratches pointed the direction towards the door of the man I sought. The building manager could also be called the king of the porters. He’s the guy that orders around that threesome of mongrels that run amok through out the building. Maybe I was exaggerating. This man was in a position of responsibility. Surely, he could not be of the same ill-bred ilk that served him. Clearly, I was being bigoted against the custodial class.
I had volunteered for fire steward duty. Volunteer is not the word, but I don’t know the word to describe the process where some silly duty which includes wearing a bright yellow vest and following the office space cattle down the stairwell is given to someone who just happens to be at the coffee urn when the fire officer turns up. I think duped is close but I stuck with the verb he used, volunteer. The consequence was that I must retrieve my ‘fire steward’ vest from the building manager deep in the heart of darkness. Well, not really. It’s just the subbasement.
I reached the door, gave it a knock and walked in. Before me was a man not much over five foot, wearing nothing but Y-front tighty whiteys. He had one leg in his trousers. He looked at me in surprise, and I with equal surprise fumbled to shut the door trailing apologies. He gained his composure quicker than myself and as he put his other leg in the trousers shouted, “Don’t run away!” in such a way that made me think his tongue too wide for his mouth. I stuttered a few more mumbled apologies. “No worries pal. Just taking a nap.” Rather than pursue the questioning of why napping requires the removal of one’s trousers, I stated my purpose. “Hmm. Don’t think I have those. Want a biscuit?” He stuffed one whole in his mouth; the falling crumbs powdered those that remained in the bag. “No thanks.” He tossed the bag onto his desk, and proceeded to tear his claustrophobic office apart. The room was packed full of the detritus of papers, boxes, and mechanical parts. The stacks of boxes seemed to teeter inward threatening to crush the living occupants. In the flurry of papers that followed his search, I momentarily saw a couch, an enormous silver playground ball whose purpose could not even be guessed at, and a small bin full of dirty dishes. I must have been staring with mouth agape and eyes of disbelief, because he paused and looked at me. “You all right.”
“Huh. Yes. Sorry.” And I made a halfhearted explanation about being tired from lack of sleep.
“Hmm.” He responded and went back to shifting boxes, wiping grease onto himself and his surroundings from unknown mechanic objects. “Here we go.” He found the vest. He tugged at it but it was caught on something unseen. He gave it increasingly vigorous tugs until it snapped loose. “Here.” He tossed it overhand to me, and retrieved his bag of cookies. “Sure you don’t want one.” He said with his mouth full spraying the desk with moistened crumbs.
“No thanks. I should get back upstairs. Thanks for the vest.”
“No bother pal.” As I left one of the porters came through and before I shut the door heard his boss say, “All right you daft cunt. What now?”