Carrying

by Theodore Weesner

  This time I’m the one to cough beer onto the side of my hand, to laugh and wipe my mouth. “Ting?” I say.

  “Is a word widely known in Germany,” she explains with her mischievous smile. “Do you not find this amusing?”

  “Whose side are you on, anyway?” I say. “What makes you think you know so much about race relations in America?”

  “Am on no side,” she says. “I wish only for wine and pleasantries. Good company, as you are providing. Tell me: If I am acquaintance to the soldier of whom you speak, what are you thinking then?”

  “DeMarcus? You know DeMarcus Owens? You’re kidding?”

  “What are you thinking, if I am very close friend to DeMarcus?”

  I study her, trying to get what she’s saying and where she’s going.

  “Perhaps I share wine with him also. Maybe we are lovers. What are you thinking of this? Does this explain why you are jealous of the size of his ting?”

  I sip from my lacy glass of beer, look into her blue eyes, cannot help grinning while wondering why she is taking such pleasure in baiting me. The thought crosses my mind that it is risky picking up or being picked up by strangers in town, as we were warned. Not because Europeans might be dangerous, but because they might be crazy. At the same time I was lonely on making my way into town, had not met any Germans with whom to talk, and there was a pure sexual thing about this Magdalena that was captivating, despite her age.

  “I’m not sure I believe you know the size of his ting,” I reply at last. “I can see that you are one tricky lady, trying to get me to rise to the bait like a country boy. But I’m not from the backwoods…I’m from the Athens of North America, known as Boston. I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night,” I add with a grin.

  She looks ever more pleased, maybe challenged and intrigued. Europe, her eyes seem to say, has a logic all its own, together with languages and ideas I have yet to come close to comprehending. “Oh, I am not meaning to be a tricky lady,” she says. “Teasing, yes, but not tricky. I am liking you, my dear young man. Am wishing only to sway you apart from the racist attitudes that have grown in your heart like weeds in Norse America.”

  I snicker, taking her latest as a jab not seen coming. “Weeds?”

  She smiles and continues being sexy and attractive to me while I must admit that she has me intimidated, even wounded in the face of her verbal talent. I think, to hell with this…it’s only going to get worse, and I say quietly, “I’ll tell you: It’s not racial for me, though I’m beginning to think it is for you. What is coming through to me is that you like putting me down because I’m white. You’re fun to talk to. I like talking to you. Still, if you’d like me to tool, it’s cool. I did not mean to offend and am not looking for trouble. Okay?”

  She studies me, perhaps with alarm. A look in her eyes enters my own and touches me. “I’ve hurt your feelings,” she says. “For this I apologize. I do not wish for you to leave, of course not. I wish only to tease as a friend. You are teasable, you see. Do not be angry wizz me, please. Let us be friends.”

  “You don’t think I’m racist?”

  “My darling, of course you are racist. But let us not argue this point. In your fear of blacks, in your eyes you accuse me as ‘nigger lover.’ You see, I know the word quite well, have heard it many times from American soldiers. I believe this attitude defines racism. What am I to do, lie to you? How am I conveying wisdom if I am lying to you? Black soldiers…they say that in America the white man crosses the street when a black man approaches. Have you not suggested here that we cross the street?”

  I stare and smile, astonished all the more with her range but also thrilled with her intelligence and audacity. “You sure can talk,” I say. “How did you get into all this stuff?”

  “How do you think?” she replies.

  “I love teachers,” I say. “Love people who speak their minds. I’m not sure your take on America is accurate–things have changed a lot–but I do like you. So let me think about it…Momma Magda.”

  “Please, not Momma. Papa, perhaps, but not Momma.”

  I laugh, though I can’t say why I’m so taken with this remarkable woman. “Agreed,” I say. “Papa Magda.”

  She gives me a one-eyed grin as I try to contain my giggling. Feeling intoxicated–on one glass of beer!–I’m as pleased to be spending time with a woman who picked me up as if I had done the picking! “I can see that you’re someone who’s fun to argue with,” I say.

  “You are aggressive…I see this,” she says. “Aggressive and a baby face.”

  “A baby face? I don’t know about that.”

  “Baby blue eyes.”

  “Not a racist?”

  “If you prefer this lie, of course. Not a racist. Though of course you are a racist.”

  “It comes up in my mind, the racial stuff,” I decide to confess. “I have my reasons, though it’s something I try not to let into my heart.”

  “This I believe.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I believe in part.”

  As I look to the ceiling in mock exasperation, she gets to her feet, saying she must use the WC. “I must warn,” she adds, on her feet. “If you are wishing to use the WC, they do not, in Germany, offer a ‘whites only’ option. The nearest, I believe, is Johannesburg.”

  “You’re wrong all the way,” I say after her. “You’re losing touch with reality!”

  Without replying, maybe not hearing my words in the noisy tavern, she weaves off to the WC.

  A moment later, confused and, I think, defeated by the racial charge put forth by this authoritative individual, I decide to stay after having decided but seconds earlier to go on my way. I don’t need a racist charge, is my thought. I have my new stripes, came to town for some R&R and to look around like a tourist, wanting only to get a little buzzed and maybe hear some cabaret music. Seeing that her glass is as empty as mine, I’m reluctant to return to the bar. What if she is in a relationship with DeMarcus Owens? Won’t things grow more aggravated on more drinks, even dangerous?

  On her return, as I get to my feet to help with her chair, I utter “Papa” to let her know I’m more perplexed than angry and, taking up the foam-laced crystal, add that I’ll be right back. “If I don’t get jumped and cut,” I note.

  DeMarcus remains at the same table, talking with his friends as before. I remain eyes-front, rooster chested, showing but little back to my nemesis while my mind is saying, well, if something goes down, go ahead and duke it out and get out of here before the MPs show up. Drunk or not, you can take the son of a bitch if he fights fair. That’s one thing you know.

  Heart pitched with fear all the same, I put up three fingers as I order.

  The woman says “Drei mal stuck?”

  Not understanding her German, I raise three fingers and half-whisper, “Three rounds.”

  “Drei mal?”

  “Three beers and three glasses of white wine,” I say, showing three fingers once again. I keep my eyes front, thinking screw it if I’ve been overheard or not.

  The woman shakes her head as she moves to prepare a tray. She writes ‘DM 36,60’ on a slip of paper that she places on the damp tray (over twenty bucks, I calculate, knowing enough Deutsch to tally charges in dollars). Leaving paper money and coins, I take the loaded tray in both hands and turn–angled toward DeMarcus, if avoiding eye contact–and carry it back to where the aristocratic German lady explodes with laughter on seeing right through me.

  Plopping down, I can’t help laughing with her. “Can’t get away with a thing, can I?” I say.

  “Tough guy does not fear the black man, of course not,” she mocks again.

  Nailed by her as before, laughing with her, I must admit that it’s funny. A moment later, when I’ve poured off half of a glass, she says, “Perhaps next time six glasses, in a display of courage.”

  “Don’t overdo it,” I tell her. “Besides, you’ve got me wrong on this. I’m not afraid…per se. I grew up with black guys, foug
ht with them as stablemates, live and work with them in the army, have a black roommate…like I said. I did have a run-in with that DeMarcus guy, which you don’t seem willing to factor into things. He vowed to cut my throat. Twice! I’m only being careful…can’t see going back and forth to the beer station and tempting fate.”

  “Your black roommate, he is where? Roommates do not visit town togezzer?”

  “We’re friends on the job. Crewmates. Off-duty he goes his way and does his thing. You sure know a lot about the army…wha’d you do, serve yourself?”

  “‘Fought as stablemate’? This means?”

  “Boxing, in the ring,” I tell her. “Same Police League stable. Same manager and trainer, stuff like that. You become stablemates. I was the only white guy in my squad. Five black guys, two Hispanics. And me. They were friends, sort of, but mostly they never became anything more than stablemates with me.”

  “You do this–boxing?”

  “For a while. Several years. Only I don’t tell people about it. I did once, in basic, but not anymore. People don’t understand, unless they did it, too.”

  “In boxing ring? Unglaublich!”

  “Trained for five years. Had eight organized fights. Lost one, really lost one, to a fighter named Hector Chavez who was only fifteen…as was I. Which isn’t to say he didn’t take me to school.”

  While she studies me new interest, I drink another half-glass, aware that a buzz is exciting my veins, and wondering if I really want to say any more about what I decided, in basic, to leave behind. “Saw it was a dead-end,” I tell her. “Joined Uncle Sam. Was hungry, but I wasn’t starving. Hispanic guys, black guys…it’s starvation city for them, and they fight to kill.”

  She’s shaking her head, but there is some fondness in her disbelief. “A child wizz baby blue eyes? I am a foolish woman in many ways, but sorry, boxing in a ring is hard to believe.”

  “You think I was born with this nose?” I profile my face to allow a look. As she angles to inspect, something female about her plays my heartstrings. Her eyes meet mine, and in her glance she might as well have kissed my dumb downy cheek.

  “Darling, you are how old?”

  “Pushing thirty,” I say, resisting the desire I feel to caress her fingers there on the table.

  “As I shall soon be sixteen,” she says, telling me somehow with her eyes that she wants me to adore her, in public or not and no matter her age.

  “Wish you were sixteen–not really,” I correct myself at once. “I’ll tell you this,” I add, eye-sweeping the room and, to my surprise, seeing DeMarcus Owens glaring in our direction. “I like talking to you. You know stuff and you’re honest, and fun. I like knowing stuff, like history–was my favorite subject in school–and you are prime in terms of knowing things. You were sixteen, truth is, you wouldn’t know beans and there’s no way we’d be talking like this. None of which is to say I wouldn’t like, you know, being alone with you.”

  She spurts laughter. Then she is lighting a cigarette and, redirecting her gaze to my eyes, says, “At eighteen you are already a Romeo?”

  “Soon to turn nineteen,” I reply. “Getting old.”

  “A young man who speaks his mind. Is bright. Drinks beer too quickly. I enjoy talking wizz you, too, is true.”

  I return her gaze only, in shock, to realize that DeMarcus has come to stand hardly two feet away and is glaring. Also caught off guard, and confused, Magda is quick to raise the faintest Mona Lisa smile and to say to the muscular dismount scout, “Is okay. Please. We shall visit. As before.”

  “He giving you shit?” DeMarcus Owens wants to know.

  “Please. Is okay.”

  I shift my eyes from one to the other, trying to sort out what is happening. She knows him! I don’t think I believed she did, but she does. Noting that he is returning to his friends, I say, “You do know him! You’re too much.”

  “I drink wizz him also. Is a friend, as I have said. I believe he may be jealous that I have other friends…many young soldiers who have come to Bayreuth.”

  “Do you, like, sleep with your friends? If I can ask?”

  She smiles. “I shall say: You may be the most interesting U.S. soldier with whom I have spoken in a long time. I have many friends, yes. I lie about nossing. We are having a pleasant time, yes? You are hoping it leads to the bedroom, not true?”

  “I guess that’s true.”

  “If I am to say we shall never be togezzer to the bedroom in this way, you are having nozzing more to do wizz me?”

  I look at her and perceive, again, her blue eyes and movie star features. “I didn’t say that,” I say. As she keeps taking me in, I add, “This NCO warned us about getting involved with Europeans. Said you’d take our money and break our dumb hearts. Something like that.”

  We smile at each other as I add, “I gotta go to the john myself. Give me a minute here, because I don’t know what’s going on…if anything.”

  Glancing to check on DeMarcus (he sits talking with his friends as before) I angle across the crowded room while trying to sort out the boozy experience I’m having. She knows the gangbanger! He’s pissed because she’s drinking with me! She wants me to know that she will not be going to bed with me, no matter that I haven’t asked…have I? Is it because I’m white? Is DeMarcus jealous? His jealousy doesn’t make sense…yet it does. Magdalena von Benschotten is smart and exciting, I must admit. Would DeMarcus be jealous if she were talking to a brother?

  At least she says she finds me interesting…while I can see that the NCO who warned us about devious Europeans wasn’t talking through his overseas cap. He was talking about this woman, who may have more tricks and sleeves than even he was aware of.

  Into another tray of drinks and knowing that alcohol has loosened my screws and that I’m having a wonderfully intoxicated time, I hear myself put up an idle boast in boozy talk. “Face to face…I fear no man,” I tell her.

  As expected, Magda spurts laughter and wine. She removes a beige hanky with which to dry her nose and mouth and, as she raises her hand, her delicate wrist.

  I giggle foolishly with her, liking her all the more as I sense her liking me in turn…despite the fact that I’m white. I like that I’ve made her laugh, like how she laughs, like the amorous urges she has stirring within me.

  “There are times you have to believe you’re fighting to the death…it’s the only way to live,” I add with a straight face.

  She exudes her amusement and affection, both present in the warmth of a smile that keeps expanding. Once more my desire is to touch her, to extend my face and kiss her powdery cheek. I believe I detect a similar urge from her and give it a try…lean to where I can kiss her cheek, and catch part of her chin as she turns away, giggling.

  Our glasses are empty yet again, and I can see that I am as drunk as a skunk. The last time I went for refills, I noted that DeMarcus was away from his table, and as I gather our empties I realize that Magdalena’s rate of pouring it away is beyond my own. It pleases me that she’s a drunk–there’s something deeply satisfying in getting intoxicated with a smart woman who is doing the same–and I’m aware that life is wonderful and that I have never been so joyously buzzed.

  DeMarcus is back with his friends, staring daggers at me again. As I stand waiting for the tray to be loaded, I look at him and smile. Thinking it’s the funniest thing I’ve ever said, I say, “How’s it going? You as polluted as I am?”

  He glares, doesn’t respond, which makes me gurgle with more laughter.

  “Having a good time in Germany?” I say, inhaling an odor of strong cigarette smoke that, in training, I had long tried to avoid. “Just having drinks with a lady,” I add. “She says she has lots of friends, even you!”

  I don’t know where I’m going with my drunken yammering, and sway as I turn to pay the tab and take up the tray.

  “Bitteschon,” the stout woman says, and not having learned how to respond auf Deutsch, I say, “Thank you, too.”

  Turning with th
e tray, I feel like a smart ass in my detachment even as I know I had hoped to alter the course of humanity with the muscular brother sitting at his table. There comes at my back: “Bitch! Ain’t done wid yo ass!” with venom enough to have me see that humanity hasn’t been altered at all, that the brother is spoiled and psychologically twisted, is not about to meet me half or even a third of the way.

  I weave off, carrying the tray in both hands, neck burning. His urge to go for my throat remains alive. I should have known. Perverse street logic is one thing a person needs to keep in mind, I remind myself as I reach the table where the aging movie star, in her cups, sits waiting. Is she sixty? Devoting her life to tricking young soldiers into buying her booze while enduring her insults, lectures, accusations. Putting out to exotic black soldiers alone. Whatever, it’s no time to let down my guard no matter how much booze I pour into my gullet. No time to shut off the brain cells while a street punk out for blood has a view of my back and my white throat.

  Why can’t black people let it go? Are they blaming slavery a century and a half later? Is their position rational? Or dumb as dirt? What’s with carrying shanks, slashing throats, embracing hate? Wasting lives in prison? Why can’t they grow up? Why go on running stupid with weapons that kill children, old folks, innocent bystanders, themselves? Will they ever wise up, in the words of Smoking Joe? The sad truth is I hate gangbangers and believe they’re devoted to keeping my hate alive. Prejudice (who can help it?) isn’t a license to rob and kill. Life’s tough. Prejudice, as charged, is more myth than reality. It’s myth in the army, in school, in everything I’ve ever known. Might someone please tell me why black guys cannot let it go and get on with their fucking lives?

  “What it is with you and the dude over here?” I say with a drunken, curious grin.

  “The dude to whom you refer? I know many dudes.”

  “You know which dude I’m talking about. No more baloney. He acts like he’s your boyfriend and you’re making him suffer by sitting here with a white guy he happens to hate. I feel like I’m not being fairly informed.”