Short fiction
At a public bath in Budapest, Isaac has drifted into a conversation with an Irishman — a warm but brooding traveler, named Oliver. He must be in his late fifties. Oliver’s been all over the world, always moving, working whatever temporary jobs he can find. He’s biding a few days in Budapest before heading to a port town in Slovenia, where he’ll try to get a spot on a sea freighter crew. Isaac has been traveling since graduation — over four months — but here, in this quietly steaming open-air courtyard, the end is bearing down on him. The next and final stop is Munich, to visit Teddy — just for three days; then a date with a return flight to Orlando. But to what? He’d break that date if he had the money. He listens to Oliver’s story and can’t help but hold his own journey up next to it. There is a dwarfing, deflating effect. Feeling young and unproven, he floats in the warm, uterine water and tries not to think of going home.
The bath is grand in a way that feels out of a different era. The edifice surrounding the outdoor pools is palatial — all columns and arched porticos, balustraded balconies, and dark bronze domes with spear tips, like helmets from an ancient army. Roman gods in white marble pose in the pools and on the cobblestone deck, their pedestals spouting water onto the backs of bathers. The air is cool; shadowy heads float through the vapor, silent or speaking only in low tones. Afternoon is giving way to evening and warmer colors are seeping up into the blue of the sky. Double lampposts, like two curved arms holding out their lanterns, have just been lit. Isaac and Oliver, submerged up to their shoulders, lean against the curved wall of the semi-circular pool, each positioned before mild underwater jets that massage their lower backs.
“What kind of work do you do on a sea freighter?” Isaac asks.
Oliver cups water in two hands and lowers his face into it, splashing and rinsing. He wipes some of his moppish red-blonde hair away from his forehead. His large features are etched with deep lines, but Isaac can still imagine what he might’ve looked like as a little boy. His voice is a little high, and forlorn — like a French horn. The lilt of his accent feels like something to envy.
“Oh, you know. Whatever they need. Maintenance kind of things. Paintin’ and cleanin’; stuff like that. They call it a deck boy. Dirty work sometimes, but at least your out there on the water. Sometimes they stop in a port for a few days, so you can get off and poke around a bit.”
“That sounds alright. I could do that, I think.”
“Sure, any man can do the labor. I tell you though, I don’t see too many Americans on those ships.”
“No,” Isaac says, “probably we’re all on land, reading our guidebooks and taking hundreds of pictures.”
“Yeah, that’s not just Americans though, that’s all people on vacation. You can’t blame ’em. They just want to make the most of it. If you don’t know where to go, you look in a book.”
“Right. And if you want to make sure you’ll remember something, you take a photo.”
“That’s a bit different, I think. Photos aren’t just for you. They’re also to show off to other people, so you can say, ‘see, I went here.’ Maybe even to say, ‘see, I went here, and you didn’t. I’ve been somewhere you’ve never been and I brought back these photos to share the experience with you.’ Except, really it’s not sharin’ is it?” He starts to chuckle. “It’s more like rubbin’ it in everyone’s face.”
Isaac laughs along. He’s taken twelve rolls of pictures, proud that at least he still shoots film. Proud too, that he makes a point of avoiding the guidebooks whenever he can; tries to stray from the beaten path. There’s no way to tell Oliver this that won’t smack of vanity. And the truth is that Isaac’s strayed less than he promised himself he would. Turns out, he’s not as adventurous as he’d hoped. And this he isn’t telling anyone.
“So you don’t take pictures anymore?”
Oliver shakes his head. “Don’t have anyone to show ’em to.” This arrives like something both of them already knew.
“Can I ask you a maybe-personal question?”
“Sure.”
“What keeps you going?”
Oliver draws a deep, tired breath.
Isaac follows up: “I mean, do you feel like you’re looking for something?”
He knits his brow and seems to think hard for a few moments. Then his face slackens. “It’s just like keepin’ a ball in the air, I suppose. Otherwise I fall back down to the ground, and to tell you the truth, I don’t even know where that is.” He lowers his head partway into the water, submerging his mouth. Maybe because that’s all he has to say, maybe to keep himself from saying more.
On the train to Munich, Isaac is attempts to read — his eyes pass through the letters on the page, his brain chants the words at subconscious volumes but comprehends nothing; follows no narrative. Repeatedly he arrives at the bottom of the same page, to the snapping realization that he’s not ready to turn to the next. Like a stylus hitting a bad groove, he skips back up to some arbitrary word and plays through it all again. But what he’s really hearing is the voice of his mother (she would be pleased to know): “Don’t think for a second you can come back from your soul-searching journey with no money and expect us to be giving you an allowance, like it’s high school all over again.” He’d never expect that. Even the possibility of moving back into that house turns his insides to worms. His childhood bedroom. Plastic trophies from junior golf tournaments still lining the shelf. A caricature of him with a bowl-cut and buckteeth still hanging on the wall. A twin bed. Sheets changed by Mom. Mom in the kitchen making macaroni casserole, Dad in front of the TV with a cigar, wanting to talk about horse races.
He claps the book shut. The door at the end of the train car clicks open and slides away with a hiss, revealing a black-clad man with a humorless face and a green felt beret. Customs agent. Always a jump of the pulse; a flash of what’s-in-my-bag? Isaac pulls his passport from the backpack at his feet. He leafs through it, checking out stamps and visas in no particular order — France — Turkey — Belgium — Croatia — Hungary — Spain — Czech Republic — Italy — Bulgaria. These are no longer just shapes on maps, but now real, buzzing places with distinct auras. He’s been amongst their people, walked through the crumbles of their ancient structures, tasted their peculiar flavors and tangs. To think that they continue on without him brings a swell of something like nostalgia, but closer still to heartache. Other tourists fill the rooms and beds he slept in, the tables he ate at, the beaches he lay on — strangers, all of them.
The customs agent is arriving now.
“Documents, please.”
Isaac offers up his supple-backed navy blue booklet, tarnished gold glinting on the cover. The agent takes it onto a clipboard and opens to the first page, looking at the photo, then lifting his eyes. Isaac tries to look as much like himself as he can — the photo is old, and he’s been letting his hair grow.
“What is zeh reason for your visit to Germany?”
“I’m visiting a friend who lives near Munich.”
“Where, exactly, is your fhrend living?”
“Starnberg.”
The agent nods, flipping through the passport. “And how long do you stay in Shtahnbag?”
“Three days.”
“You will be attending zeh Oktobahfest?”
The goal of these customs interrogations always seems to be to make you admit something you didn’t even know you weren’t supposed to admit.
“Uh, yes, I think we probably will.”
The agent stops on a page and turns the passport sideways, examining something closer.
“You travel alone?”
“Yes.”
“Hm.” He flips a few more pages then stops again, and in a quick, fluid maneuver that makes Isaac flinch, he reaches down to a belt-mounted holster, draws out his metal stamper, sets it on the open page, and — ka-chunk.
“Vilkommen in Doytchlahnd.” He hands Isaac the passport. “Maybe you will meet a nice German girl at zeh Oktobahfest.” A trace of smile at the corners of his mouth.
Isaac’s face goes a bit warm — feeling vaguely teased, and faintly hopeful.
The agent walks on and Isaac turns to his window: a Bavarian village. Low, white stucco houses with wooden shutters and red-tile roofs congregated on a green hillside, onion-shaped bell towers as punctuation, farms and barns around the outskirts. No one could say it’s not idyllic, not from this vantage — you’d have to have your head up your own ass. Or have grown up there, maybe. Wild to think that Teddy lives in a place like this now. Five months ago they were living in a funky on-campus duplex in upstate New York, with three other dudes, all close friends, getting high and watching arty films, arguing over undone dishes, raving about girls, and trying like hell to make each other laugh. It made sense then — was great even; vital — but it wouldn’t ever make sense again.
Isaac spots Teddy first, so for a few moments he gets to watch the anticipation on his friend’s face; the furtive scanning of the crowd as it streams toward and around him. Something about the sincerity Isaac sees there bends his heart a bit. He’s surprised by how comforting it is to see Teddy again — his squarish head, his eager eyes, his slouchy posture that makes him seem shorter than he is. Isaac realizes it’s been months since he’s seen a familiar face. Then Teddy’s eyes find him, and both of them break into barely-contained smiles; laughing as they walk toward each other.
“Hey hey hey!” Teddy says as Isaac drops his backpacks and they greet with a strong hug, heartily clapping each other’s backs. “Welcome welcome.” This is something Teddy does — this doubling and tripling of words — most-so when he’s excited, or nervous, as if some of the nerves might be trafficked out, strapped to the undersides of these unassuming words that travel in packs. “Welcome to Germany, man. Welcome.”
“Thank you thank you,” Isaac replies, catching the rhythm already. This is a relationship with its own dialect; a mirroring effect produces a fusion of vernacular, gestures, and cadence. It won’t be long before they swing all the way back into it and probably start to sound indistinguishable, especially to non-American ears.
“Look at you, with your long hair — the world traveler.” Teddy says.
“I know. I haven’t cut it since graduation.”
Teddy grins. “Crazy, man, crazy. Crazy to see you here. My first visitor!” He squeezes Isaac’s shoulder. Teddy, too, looks slightly changed, but it is nothing so obvious as his hair (which is always close-cropped). No, it’s something unplaceable — a tiny margin of deviation as the remembered image is overlapped with the real one.
“And my last stop,” Isaac says, with dazed incredulity. For a moment he stares at a döner kebab shop, without seeing it.
“You must be hungry,” Teddy says. “Time for beer and schnitzel.” He picks up the smaller of Isaac’s packs and turns to lead the way out. “Food food food,” he says.
Later, in Teddy’s apartment in Starnberg, Isaac and Teddy sit sipping Jim Beam, playing UNO. It almost feels like good old times — like dorm days. The apartment is homey, with sloped wooden ceilings and simple wooden furniture; red rugs of oriental design; floor lamps giving genial yellow light. They’ve pulled two chairs over near the open window so Teddy can smoke a cigarette, and are playing the cards onto the broad marble sill. Mild autumnal air drifts in from the dark outside, soothing their bourbon-flushed faces.
Isaac thwaps down a Draw Four, followed by a blue 7. He picks up Teddy’s cigarette from the glass ashtray and takes a cool drag. He already knows Teddy has no blues.
“Motherfucker,” says Teddy. He draws his four-card penance, checking for blues, then shakes his head. He draws another card, then another, and another.
“NO BLUES!” Isaac howls at Teddy, in the crazed voice of a mean old lady — a joke that goes back to a specific moment neither of them can remember — a joke that by now references nothing more than its own ridiculousness. Together, they crack up.
At the end of the night, Isaac and Teddy sit on a wooden lake-pier, their legs dangling over the edge, the water almost close enough to lap at the rubber soles of their shoes. The lake is still and disappears into the dark, though Isaac can feel that it is large; can see villages around its edges like clusters of stars. Two wraithlike shapes float silently toward them, materializing as a pair of swans, that come near, wondering after these voices in the night.
“In Istanbul there’s a bridge where hundreds of people fish, like elbow to elbow — it’s crazy — just catching these tiny little fish.” Isaac holds up a measurement between thumb and forefinger. “Buckets full of them, all along the bridge. I can’t imagine how they avoid getting their lines tangled.”
“Huh,” Teddy says, his mouth half-full with a bite of a döner kebab from the shop near the train station. They already had dinner in Munich but when Teddy drinks, he keeps eating. One of the swans glides closer to him. “Crazy. I gotta get to Turkey while I’m here; to Eastern Europe, all those places.”
Teddy’s just starting on a two-year contract as Publications Manager at an International school. He got the job the spring semester of their senior year — to Isaac it had seemed sneaky, or disloyal, the way he had turned so much of his attention to an independent future when they were all supposed to be soaking in the sunset days of their time together.
“Our first vacation is next month. There’s already talk of a group of us going to Prague and Budapest. A friend of mine’s mom has a timeshare near Budapest.”
‘A friend of mine’ affects Isaac in a strange, humiliating way — as if he’s been shoved. The feeling bubbles with jealousy and self-pity.
“Do you really feel like you know these people well enough to go on vacation with them?” he asks.
Teddy chews and swallows. “I don’t know, they seem cool.” There’s some hurt in his voice, which melts over Isaac — a different kind of shame, now. Why is it so hard for people to be happy for each other? The bolder swan passes in front of them, close enough that they could reach out and touch it. It eyes them tensely.
“I’m sure they are,” Isaac says. “It’ll be fun. You have to go to this bath I went to. Unlike anything you’ve ever seen. I met this old Irish guy there…”
“Do you want any of this? I’m done.”
“Nah.”
He tosses what’s left of the sandwich toward the swan, who snaps with its beak and catches part of it mid-air, like it had known it was coming; like it had been casting a spell on Teddy, to get what it wanted.
It is Isaac’s first time in lederhosen, and as he takes in the sight in the full-length mirror, he reckons it might also be the last. They’re much shorter than anything he’d normally wear, and his pale, spindly legs poke out from the leg-holes in such a way that he can hardly bear to look at them (his own legs!). There’s something lewd about the gappage between the bottom rim of the suede shorts and the tender white skin and curly dark hairs of his upper inner thighs.
“Ugh,” he says. “That’s bad news right there.”
“What?” Teddy calls from inside the bathroom. “What’s bad news?”
“These lederhosen, man! That’s what.”
There’s about five extra inches of waistline, and thanks to the suspenders the shorts just kind of float there. He wags his hips and the lederhosen swing around him as if they’re a bell and he’s the clapper. He makes a doofus face to match.
“What’s wrong with them?” Teddy says through the bathroom door, already starting to laugh.
“Come have a look for yourself.”
“Hold on.” A metallic jangle, a flush.
Isaac prepares — ringing the bell, making the face, bending at his knee knobs for added effect, standing with the toes of his hiking boots pointed outward — all of it working together, the inner-thighs really hamming it up. Teddy comes out of the bathroom and immediately cracks into a high, almost girlish laugh, which Isaac knows to be the one that comes with the funniest things.
“I look like Pinnochio! How am I expected to attract women in this?”
“Trust me. You’ll do better with them than without. Oktoberfest is all about being game for whatever. You wear your lederhosen; you drink several liters of beer; sing along to songs you don’t even know; you dance on the table.”
“Really? On the table?”
“Yep. And get this: the Oktoberfest anthem, which they play like every hour, is that John Denver song, ‘Country Roads.’”
Isaac thinks if he knows the song, and Teddy helps him with part of the chorus: “West Virginia, mountain mama, take me home, country roads.” Isaac nods along — it’s an old favorite of his mom’s.
“Strange.”
“Yeah. But it’s great. Everybody sings. You gotta wear the lederhosen. Otherwise you’ll look like a tourist.”
“I am a tourist. And so are you, pretty much.”
“Hey, I’m a resident,” says Teddy, holding up a finger.
“You’ve only been here for a month.”
“And I already love it. I could see myself here for awhile. Especially if things work out with Sylvie.”
Sylvie was one of the first things Teddy brought up yesterday, only a few minutes after meeting Isaac at the train station. She teaches German at the International school, is a native of the area, and according to Teddy, she looks like Heidi Klum. Teddy never goes long before finding the next supposedly amazing girl. He’s not a player, but the opposite — a romantic, and a serial monogamist. Isaac’s place on this spectrum is not so easily pointed at. On paper, he would look like he’s more toward the other end, but it’s not something he’s proud of. He always hopes for things to work out, but they never do. He fears that his appeal is quick-burning.
“I know she digs me. Yesterday she came into the teachers lounge and I was the only one there, and she blushed! Upon sight of me!”
“Just put your lederhosen on, man. I can’t even stand here like this without some solidarity. The sooner we get to the beer the better.”
On the S-bahn they sit facing each other, sipping on half-liter bottles of beer. These German trains are designed with both style and heart — the seating arranged in miniature communities of four, each with their own window, their own little flip-out trash bin. Isaac and Teddy have one to themselves. The window between them rolls green forest.
“What will you do back in Florida?” Teddy asks.
Isaac has versions of answers but doesn’t like their hackneyed sound when he says them out loud. They feel propped up, stuffed with the bullshit of just not really knowing where you’re going or what the hell you’ll do once you get there. And they all seem lamely militaristic, probably absorbed from his father, who did a stint in the Reserves — terms like: base camp; regrouping; and the worst, drafting a new strategy.
“Shit, man. I don’t know.”
Teddy nods, unsurprised. “Maybe you don’t stay too long then,” he offers.
“Maybe,” Isaac says. “That’s the hope.” The last time he spoke to his mom on the phone she asked if she should get in touch with her friend who runs a call center for a collections agency — “they’re always hiring, I bet,” she’d said. “I’m sure they are,” he’d replied. He wants now to steer the conversation with Teddy elsewhere, make it light again. Is this all they’re good at? Banter?
“Or maybe I meet the woman of my dreams tonight, and am utterly compelled to stay here with her and make babies.”
“Prost to that,” says Teddy, raising his bottle. “Then we could all hang out together every day. You, your woman, me, and Sylvie.”
“I could live with that.” Somewhere, a real pang.
“We’ll see what we can do.”
Triumphant oom-pah music fills the tent. A band of maybe twenty men, all bedecked in top-shelf lederhosen, honk out bouncy tunes from a large central stage — a raised island in a teeming sea of jovial bodies. The air is laden with dank smells — rotisserie chicken, hoppy beer, fresh-baked pretzels, sauerkraut, cigarette smoke. Isaac and Teddy sit with a group of Teddy’s colleagues, the bench seats packed hip-to-hip, everyone near-yelling to be heard over the din. Sylvie hasn’t showed up yet. Isaac strains to listen to the girl smushed up against his right side — an American whose name is either Brenda or Kendra. He has gleaned that she is from New Hampshire, also just graduated, and is an assistant in a first grade class.
“How do you and Teddy know each other?!” she shouts.
“We went to college together!”
She nods dramatically — gestures too, like voices, must be turned up a notch. Across the table, Teddy talks excitedly to an Australian guy with a ponytail and a horsey mouth. Between Isaac and them, on the table, is a cityscape of massive beer glasses in various stages of fullness. Isaac’s is empty, but his hand still routinely reaches for it, only to learn again that he is without beer. The third round has already been ordered, but it takes awhile in chaos like this. He eyes Brenda/Kendra’s neglected, half-full beer.
“What’s your spirit animal?!” she asks him.
“What?! My spirit animal?!”
“Yeah, like if you were an animal, what would you be?!”
“Like what animal am I most like?”
“Yeah!”
“Hmmmm… I don’t know! Let me think!”
Tiger? Falcon? Fox? None seem passable. Gentler?… Panda? Duck? Manatee? Too soft, too round.
“What about you?!” he deflects, sensing she has an answer she’s anxious to blurt.
“Dolphin!”
Isaac nods, eyebrows raised, as if impressed, even though this girl is no dolphin. More of a koala.
“I know what you should say!” she says.
“What?!”
“Monkey!”
Isaac visualizes the monkey — a hot rush of self-recognition. The monkey in lederhosen, sitting in a cubicle at a call center, phone to his ear, gabbing nonsensically, calling people who don’t want to be called. Cue the canned laughter. The heat flashes and pulsates in his head. Something bursts into flames.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!”
“Hey! I like monkeys!” she defends, not yet believing his anger.
“You don’t even know me!”
The girl’s cheeks go red and her mouth hangs agape, as if she’s been slapped.
“What did you expect?!”
“Whoa,” she says. “Sorry. I was just joking around.”
“Yeah, yeah, everybody’s always joking around!”
He wonders if Teddy has heard; if he can sense the burning from across the table. But he won’t look.
“Okay,” the girl says, shocked, looking around for a way out. “I’m gonna go to the bathroom.”
Isaac leans away as she unsqueezes from the bench and disappears. Embarrassment and regret come rushing in from the empty space next to him. He can feel Teddy’s eyes on him but doesn’t want to meet them.
Teddy shouts his name.
He looks up.
Teddy mouths the words: “What happened?”
Isaac shakes his head, making a face that says, we don’t talk about this here. He waves a hand, as if to wipe it all away — some simple misunderstanding, let’s start over. Unthinkingly, he grabs Brenda/Kendra’s abandoned beer, takes a few gulps, then lets it clunk heavily back onto the table.
He levels his eyes on Teddy, wanting sympathy and provocation and boyish camaraderie all at once. But Teddy is looking over his head, beaming a smile.
“Hey! You made it!”
Isaac turns around. Standing just behind him is a girl — a young woman, maybe — blonde with a ponytail and straight bangs; soft blue-green eyes. Rosy cheeks and an unbridled smile. No one could say she’s not beautiful. Of course, this is Sylvie. She looks at Isaac curiously, not yet knowing who he is. Maybe it’s better this way. He tries desperately to cool down, but the effort is counterproductive.
“This is my good buddy Isaac I was telling you about!” Teddy says. “This is Sylvie!”
“Oh, hi!” she says, extending her hand. “So nice to meet you!”
Isaac wipes his clammy hand on his lederhosen before reaching out to shake. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, for sure. Good to meet you too.”
She’s in a black and pink dirndl, dotted with tiny blue and white flowers. The skin on her chest is flushed like her cheeks and she breathes quickly — she must’ve hurried. She points down to the empty space on the bench. “Is anyone sitting here?”
“No,” says Isaac. “I don’t think she’s coming back. Please — ” He motions for Sylvie to sit. Her scent wafts up as her skirt settles — powdery, with a sweet-sharp tinge of something like grapefruit. He is sweating from everywhere. Teddy makes small talk, so her attention is focused across the table. Isaac wipes at his brow and upper lip with his shirtsleeve. He looks around for a napkin but they’re all soaked with beer.
“It’s great to have Isaac here,” Teddy says. “My first visitor.”
The attentions turns: Isaac smiles flatly and nods.
“Are you coming straight from the US, or have you been traveling before this?” She has a sing-song voice, but not at all chirpy. A German accent is barely perceptible — her English somewhere between American and British.
“No, no. I’ve been traveling for four months already — been all over Europe; Eastern Europe…” In the air in front of him he makes vaguely geographical hand gestures, not sure whether to make them sweeping and proud, or localized and modest.
“Wow, I would love to do that. My father is from Bulgaria, but I’ve never been.”
Isaac brightens: “I went to Bulgaria!”
“Really?”
“Yes! It was beautiful. I would love to go back!” Something about her is electro-magnetic, and he feels his voice vibrating around the edges as it leaps out toward her. She shifts in her seat and he has a thumping hyper-awareness of her hip against his. Anxiety is morphing into some kind of delirium.
Teddy jumps in: “I didn’t know your dad is from Bulgaria!”
A cheer erupts from the far end of the table. Isaac swivels to see that their waitress has returned — hallelujah. This woman is more than a waitress, really. She bears a load of ten gigantic beer glasses, somehow cradled against her body, tucked under her heaving breasts, a miraculous amount of cleavage showing out from the top of her dirndl. To unload she has to bend at the knees and lower the beers to table-level, sliding them all onto the surface at once, which she does with unfazed aplomb. “Helles!” she shouts, and index fingers poke up around the table — Isaac’s nice and high — and she begins doling out the beer, sending great frothing glasses down an assembly line of passing hands. Isaac receives his like treasure, with two hands, and is baffled yet again by its weight.
From near his shoulder, Sylvie says, “I need to order one — could you help me get her attention?”
“Of course!” He turns and immediately throws up his hand. Peripherally, he sees Teddy waving as well. Isaac stands up, as much as he can from his cramped bench seat, and waves higher and more vigorously, as the waitress counts out coins in her palm. He feels a draft high on the backs of his thighs and remembers what he’s wearing. After the waitress drops the coins into her money purse and tucks it back into the tie of her apron, she looks up, like: yeah, yeah she’s seen him the whole time. He holds up one finger and shouts, “Ein Helles!” then points to himself. He wants to pay for it when it comes. Quickly, he sits back down. He turns to Sylvie and says, “Comin’ right up! Only a half an hour!”
She laughs — a real laugh — and looks at him with a sparkle of surprise. Then she looks at Teddy, who shrugs, biting down on some bitterness then swallowing it back.
“He’s a pro already!” Teddy says. “Plus I got him in lederhosen!”
Isaac knew it would come eventually — so here it is. His best hope is to make fun of himself; to not be embarrassed; to be secure.
“I was just noticing that,” Sylvie says, leaning away to get a wider scope.
Isaac sits upright and puffs out his chest, thumbs hooking suspenders. He aims a theatrically cocky gaze at Sylvie and raises one eyebrow. In a deep, swaggery baritone he says: “Don’t act like you’re not impressed.”
Again she laughs, bigger this time, then looks at Teddy, like: where did you get this guy?
“They’re a great fit,” Teddy says, beating Isaac to the next stage. “Show her.”
Keep with it. Isaac takes a swig of beer and stands up, doing a little a shake, letting them swing. “Teddy thought it would be best if he borrowed from Andre the Giant, because we’re about the same size.”
“No, no, she can’t get the full effect from there!” Teddy motions with his hands: up, up.
“What, you want me to get on the fucking table?!”
“We do it all the time!” Sylvie shouts. She points around the tent. There are a few other people already up on the tables, drunkenly boogieing to the music with sloshing beers.
“A bit early isn’t it?” Isaac says.
She shakes her head no, and there’s a giddiness in her eyes that surges him upward — first onto the bench, then, one clunking boot at a time, up onto the fucking table. And he’s up there; up there above the sea of people, all of them seeming to be falling away from him over and over again. He steadies himself, levels his eyes on the bandstand. From below he hears an Australian “whoa!” and a round of cackles. Most of these people he hasn’t even met yet. Teddy is cracking up — that high, girly laugh for the funniest stuff — and he hears a cheer from Sylvie, but he won’t look down. To look down could mean disaster. The band has just finished an oom-pah, and are starting in on a new song — not polka, but country; folky. Something familiar. He starts swaying.
“Do it! Do the dance!” Teddy shouts.
Isaac closes his eyes and starts gyrating his hips. Dance, monkey, dance.
The chorus kicks in, and then Isaac knows the song. All these people are singing the words; all of their voices rising up around him, filling the great tent; and Isaac closes his eyes and sings with them: country roads, take me home, to the place I belong.
