I briefly thought about hailing a taxi, but dismissed this idea, as I didn’t want to burden someone else with my anaphylactic issues. Dad always taught me to take care of my own problems. I called an ambulance instead, considering situations like this are the very reason they exist.
By the time I spoke with triple zero, I’d managed to get myself to a side street, not even wanting to bother pedestrians on the main street the pub was on. As my throat tightened and I struggled for breath, I sat down on the footpath and slumped against somebody’s brick front fence, the emergency operator urging me not to hang up or go to sleep, which I was desperate to do. I put that down to a lack of oxygen. Aside from not being able to breathe, I couldn’t swallow, so was forced to spit on the ground, making me even less of a candidate for assistance from passers-by, because I looked like I was blind drunk.
After about five minutes I regretted not asking for any assistance. The way things were tracking I was going to be an inconvenience to someone, be it hospital or morgue staff.
It took nine minutes for the ambulance to arrive. That doesn’t seem like a particularly long time, but to give it some perspective, if I’d synced up with the film clip of Guns N’ Roses’ ‘November Rain’, just as Slash stood in a field out the front of a church, ripping out his guitar solo, I was about to die.
When they got there, the paramedics went to work immediately, administering adrenaline and steroids, then loading me into the back of the ambulance. Adrenaline is what an EpiPen contains, which is why almost all allergy sufferers have one – me included. I didn’t use mine as I’d made the super intelligent decision to keep this life-saving implement tucked safely away in my bathroom at home.
Once the paramedics had shut the doors and the ambulance headed off towards the Alfred Hospital, a sense of relief washed over me. I was probably going to live. But I still felt horrible, my swollen insides causing incredible discomfort, feeling like someone had rammed their fist down my oesophagus.
I closed my eyes as we sat waiting at a set of traffic lights, inwardly acknowledging that that incident was the closest I’d ever come to death. Another few minutes lying on the street and it would have been touch and go. That’s when it dawned on me that we’d stopped at the traffic lights. I was in anaphylactic shock; was that not dying enough? How bad did things need to be for them to turn the lights and sirens on? It felt like my life wasn’t as important to them as it was to me. The least they could do was run some red lights at double the speed limit, considering I was paying for the ride.
Emergency wards are impressive places to people-watch, particularly on a Saturday night when you’re sober. By the time I was admitted my condition had stabilised, so I was able to pretend I was watching a Twenty-Four Hours in ER type reality show, live and unedited. I’d been given my own bed in a private section of the ward, which was a huge upside, as it was relatively quiet. The downside was I was hooked up to a computer that monitored my pulse, blood pressure, oxygen levels and heart rate, so I couldn’t wander around and investigate the drunk dickheads carrying on.
Disappointed that none of my friends at the party had inquired about me, I started firing off text messages admonishing them. They responded that they’d thought I’d gone home, which was fair enough considering that was the exact thing I had led them to believe.
After a few hours in the ER I was well enough to go home, but the doctor recommended I stick around rather than risk the small chance of having a relapse at home. I thought about doing a phantom from the hospital, but instead took his advice. But even though a hospital is full of state-of-the-art technology, they don’t supply phone chargers; my phone died after about two hours.
Boredom and I don’t mix. With nothing else to focus on, I became fascinated by the computer screen giving me real-time updates of what was happening inside my body. As I studied the screen, I thought, ‘I wonder what would happen if I held my breath?’
Looking around to confirm I wasn’t about to be visited by a doctor or nurse, I took one deep breath and held it. Initially, nothing happened. Thirty seconds in, however, and things started to change. My blood pressure dropped. My oxygen levels plummeted. The peaks and troughs on the heart monitor became shallower and shallower. As I approached the one-minute mark, the decline continued gradually, yet I still felt totally fine.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
That was the constant, high-pitched noise that came out of the machine. If you’ve ever seen a film, you know it means someone has died. Out of the blue, the machine had flatlined me. There was no warning, nothing telling me, ‘Back off, this had better not be a joke, mate, I swear, I’ll flatline if you don’t stop mucking around.’ Just beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
My mind raced, praying that once I started breathing again the machine would correct itself and stop the noise. Not only did the noise not stop, alarms started going off, alerting everyone in the ward to my predicament. As I sat amongst the screeching machine and wailing alarms, all I could think was, ‘Oh, fuck.’
Hearing an alarm that usually means someone is in cardiac arrest, people came running from everywhere. When they reached me, they couldn’t comprehend that I was sitting up, completely alert, watching it all unfold. I wasn’t at death’s door; more sitting on the comfy swing on death’s porch with a nice glass of chardonnay. This group of medical professionals abruptly stopped, confused looks on their faces, as my state obviously contradicted the machine’s foghorn.
One nurse took the lead. ‘What happened???’
As an adult, there are times when you have to hold up your hand and take responsibility for getting something wrong. This was not one of those times. ‘I don’t know,’ I told them, shrugging my shoulders.
Luck had it that Markus, a wisp of a man, was an English translator, which would prove very handy during our time in Munich. Physically he was the complete opposite of his tall, heavyset boyfriend Hans, a baker. Both were very friendly and warm, and we felt relaxed as we chatted about our flights, Hans making as much conversation as his limited English allowed.
We hopped into their VW Golf – Markus easily, Hans snugly in the passenger seat – and I wondered if everyone in Germany drove a VW out of loyalty to the Fatherland. Despite being a small car, surprisingly Dad’s suitcase fit into the boot, even though it meant mine had to ride between the two of us in the back seat.
As they drove us from the airport into Munich we passed one of many service stations dotted along the highway, prompting Dad to ask our hosts, ‘What’s the price of LP gas?’
It would have been one thing if he’d asked about petrol, but LP gas? None of the vehicles he owned ran on gas. Perhaps he had kept an eye on the price back home, in case on our travel he came across some dirt-cheap LPG, thinking he’d make a killing chucking some in his massive suitcase and selling it in Melbourne.
Markus and Hans dropped me and the Wolf of Liquid Petroleum Gas Street off at our accommodation, a small Airbnb apartment in the heart of Munich. We agreed to meet up with the boys a little while later, once we’d settled in, unpacked our bags and freshened up.
Dad seemed disappointed with the size of the apartment, perhaps expecting a sprawling, warehouse-type loft. He seemed shocked someone could live in something so pokey, but everything was compared to the three-bedroom house on a quarter-acre block he was used to. I told him it wasn’t a big deal since we’d be spending the bulk of our time sightseeing and the apartment was basically just for sleeping. Though I did note that if it was raining and we were stuck inside, we’d be in each other’s pockets. While Dad went to the bathroom to wash his face and change shirts, I made sure to check the weather before we headed back out. We were going to be okay.
Our first foray into Munich was relaxing, being shown around by the boys. We strolled through the Marienplatz, the market square in the heart of the city. Dad seemed pretty impressed as we walked along, taking in the nice, clean city that is Munich. We had no plans of our own, so were h
appy to be led around by our hosts, acclimatising and walking off our jetlag while they pointed out various things of interest, like the town hall and Mary’s Column. Nothing lets you know you’ve arrived in Europe like a religious figure on top of a big 400-year-old pillar in the middle of town. In my backpacking days I would’ve thought it was perfect for climbing after a night out.
Travel inevitably involves a visit to a place of worship, whether it’s to honour a god or just out of curiosity. Europe is no exception, with cathedrals hundreds of years old drawing visitors by the truckload, including the Frauenkirche (Church of our Lady) in Munich. I was curious what Dad would make of the churches here, because he had always been vehemently anti-church, having turned from Catholic-school-attending altar boy to openly agitated whenever the Pope appeared on TV. ‘Bloody bastards,’ he’d say, to everyone and no one.
From an early age, Dad would tell us he thought they were money-grabbing grubs. Although he admitted he was heavily influenced by regularly finding himself on the receiving end of a whipping with a nun’s belt. I was surprised to learn that nuns could be so violent, but more so that they wore belts. As a kid I imagined them to be like Batman’s utility belt, complete with rosary beads and quickdraw holy water.
Mum tried to raise us kids as Catholics, but it fizzled out when we moved house and my sister and I had to enrol in the nearby state primary school. Only our older brother had to go through the communion/confirmation rites, back at the Catholic primary school near our old house. Peace be with you, sucker!
On my previous trips I’d always visited a couple of churches in the first few days, then became bored with them and stopped. This time around I had to make sure the churches we visited were of high quality, because if I bombarded Dad with any old run-of-the-mill cathedrals he was just as likely to cut loose with a tirade about how they’re all a bunch of rich paedophiles.
I’m not a huge fan either – of churches or paedophiles – and there’s no way I’d ever visit a church in Australia except for a wedding or christening. But overseas they have a sense of history to them that you just don’t get in a country like Australia, because we came so late to the world party. In Europe churches have a magnificence that draws people into them, regardless of their denomination. I’m also more inclined to have a look knowing I can leave whenever I want, without having to sit through my friends’ self-written vows. I guess the ornate detail is also a drawcard, the churches decked out to show riches and wealth – effectively the casinos of their time.
As we entered the Frauenkirche, Dad held his tongue. He didn’t know his cousin or his boyfriend well enough to let fly with a rant about priests just yet. Plus, he looked genuinely impressed by the most magnificent and grandiose cathedral he’d ever been in. Over 600 years old, the cathedral had somehow survived the Allies’ bombings of World War II relatively unscathed.
Dad stared in awe at the intricate carvings covering the interior, work that would have taken gifted craftsmen thousands of painstaking hours to complete. As we stood in rapt silence, I thought maybe we could go to churches after all; the skills of the labourers and the sheer size and detail that graced these elegant structures would override Dad’s distaste for religion.
After a couple of minutes of Dad taking it all in, and me taking in Dad taking it all in, he leaned over and whispered, ‘I wonder who cleans all this?’
If you’d asked me what I thought Dad might say in that moment, that question would not have made my top 250. Why would it? There were so many other, better questions. When was the church built? Who did the carvings? Under what conditions would they have worked? He could have asked anything, but what Dad decided he really needed to know was who cleaned the place.
Rather than being impressed by this extraordinary feat of medieval architecture, he’d have been more excited to be introduced to the cleaner. ‘Dad, this is Johan Klauss, the head cleaner. He can’t speak English so if you want to find out how he goes about his business you’ll have to mime vacuuming or dusting.’
As we continued around the church I suspected Dad was looking for power points or hoping to catch a glimpse of a Dyson neatly tucked away in the 500-year-old crypt.
On our first night in Munich, we ended up at the famed beer hall the Hofbräuhaus for dinner. Dad was in his element, excited by the litre-sized beers and vast offerings of schnitzel (a delicacy of the region, so I couldn’t play the ‘try something local’ angle), and surrounded by English speakers.
We sat on a communal table with a couple from Pittsburgh. Dad befriended them immediately. Within half an hour of introducing himself he was trying to convince them to re-invent their lives.
Dad had changed jobs late in life and loved it, taking a redundancy from his job manufacturing antibiotics, which he’d had for over thirty years, and moving first to window cleaning and then on to the mini-skip business he still owned. Because it had worked out well for him, it stood to his reason that it would be the same for everyone else.
Even though he’d known them for barely an hour and had no idea of their circumstances, Dad implored them to start anew, because life was too short. That was Dad at his finest, confidently dishing out advice with abandon because things had worked out that way in his particular situation.
He even exchanged email addresses with his new American friends (Mum’s address – he wasn’t that far down the technology track), reminding me fondly of a time when I’d do that with almost everyone I met while backpacking. It didn’t matter if I’d spent a whole week with someone or just two hours, I’d be convinced the friendship would continue on way into the future. Only to find myself years later pulling a scrap of paper from amongst maps and tickets forgotten at the bottom of a backpack and staring quizzically at ‘[email protected]’.
Long after Markus and Hans had left, Dad and I partied on, letting the night get away from us, more than happy to enjoy some beers with some other Aussies in celebration of us making it back to Dad’s homeland. We didn’t get back to our Airbnb until late at night – way past Dad’s bedtime – and a little worse for wear.
I have to admit the excitement of being overseas had gotten to us, and we both started the next morning hungover. Not a new experience for me on an overseas trip, but sharing it with Dad was. In terms of our relationship, we’d gone from a leisurely 3km/h to standing up in a speeding convertible Lamborghini. I hadn’t slept in the same house as Dad for at least fifteen years, and just like that we’d become BFFs. Well, for three weeks. BFFFTW, as it were.
I’m a huge fan of living alone. I had loved my first sharehouse, but the perfectly balanced functioning-alcoholic ecosystem we’d established there was destroyed when my friend Steve moved out at short notice and a guy named Lee took his place. Within days I had decided Lee was the worst human being on the planet. He had an Eminem tattoo that wasn’t the result of a failed bet, he went to work and left the front door open so anyone could come in and steal all my stuff and, worst of all, he rolled up one leg of his jeans to the calf. I couldn’t run the risk of people seeing us in public and thinking we were friends. So, with my pant legs both at the same height, I resigned myself to finding a place of my own.
I thought I would hate living by myself, that I’d be lonely, but within months I was in love with it. My mess was my mess – if I wanted to clean it up I could, but if I didn’t that was okay too. The smells would let me know when the time was right. I watched what I wanted on TV. I didn’t have to put pants on for hours longer than usual. And I discovered that drinking alone sounds a lot worse than it actually is.
I lived by myself for nine years and loved it. I knew at some point that would change, that one day I would (hopefully) move out with a girlfriend, but I was very comfortable with my lifestyle for all those years. Suddenly gaining a mid-sixties housemate wasn’t something I’d planned for, even if it was just for a few weeks. But I felt I could handle living with Dad, as we were only going to be in the accommodation in the mornings and at night, so surely it couldn�
��t be that difficult.
For his part, Dad had never lived alone. He was still living in his family home when he married Mum, they moved in together straight away and added three kids into the mix in rapid time. Really rapid time. I still can’t bear to think about the thirteen-month gap between my sister and me. Jesus, Dad, give Mum a break.
By the time Dad was twenty-eight he was living in a sharehouse with four other people, an adult and three kids, but because it was his house whatever he did was considered okay. By the time I got out of my bedroom in Munich he was already up and about – even though we were in a completely different time zone and our body clocks hadn’t adjusted yet, he still managed to be an early riser. But what I wasn’t expecting was that, having only just used the bathroom (or more precisely, the toilet), he’d decided he didn’t need to shut the door afterwards. This led to a very one-sided discussion about why I didn’t appreciate it and how he might want to think of others (me) in the future.
With that awkward conversation out of the way, I gave Dad first use of the shower, while I looked for things for us to do around town. Before I’d even worked out how to get into the city from our apartment, he’d somehow showered, dried and dressed for the day.
I grabbed my toiletries and headed into the bathroom, only to be met with a fine dust on every surface. Either Dad had developed a severe cocaine habit (without losing an ounce of weight) or still used talcum powder long after everyone else knew of the damage it does to your lungs. The talc was everywhere. His regimen appeared to be to fill the airspace entirely and walk through it as though he was being deloused in the fifties, allowing the talc to settle on – let’s say the ‘humid’ – parts of his body.
Talc had always been one of Dad’s idiosyncrasies. For all I know Dad’s hair and moustache might not even be grey; it’s probably just talc he hasn’t washed out. The other thing he swears by is wearing a singlet, tucked into his undies, ‘to keep your chest warm’ no matter the temperature, a trait pushed onto me and immediately abandoned the moment I was old enough. Amazingly, since giving up the life-saving singlet, my pneumonia count still stands at zero.
Paris and Other Disappointments Page 5