Steve Katz - The Compleat Memoirrhoids - 137.n

My sister had an anthology of modern poets, edited by Mark Van Doren, I think. I kept that book in bed with me, and was stirred by Walt Whitman, Muriel Rukeyser, Archibald MacLeish, T.S. Eliot, Carl Sandburg, Robinson Jeffers, Dylan Thomas. I vowed that I would write something, that I would use language to mitigate hatred and violence in the world.

My father wrote notes to himself on small memo pads, brown shiny covers, spiral bound at the top. I inherited these at his death, and carried them around with me for years like an urn of ashes, in a sealed box. We went from Ithaca, to Nevada, to Eugene, to Italy, to New York City, to Ithaca again, to Pine Bush, to New York City again, to South Bend, to Boulder. There was some value in these, I thought, if not for me then for my kids. I opened the box in my forty-third year, hoping to find some answers to questions I had about my own life, perhaps a hint of how to go on; I feared the nothing I anticipated from those notebooks, and that’s what I found. The memos were memos — some to-do lists, a bit of accounting, a banal address to me about being a good kid, which brought a tear, some muddled grievances against his brothers and sisters he didn’t dare express in person. I wanted language from my father, some sense of lineage in the bloodline, a few phrases of thought. I wanted great words; but there was nothing, nothing of interest, nothing to move me. The revelation was that I had to take Walt Whitman as my father in that realm, and cobble him together with William Faulkner, Dylan Thomas, Frank O’Hara, Ernest Hemingway, Marianne Moore, John Keats, Chuck Berry, William Blake, Cole Porter, Emily Dickinson, Pablo Neruda, John Berry-man — all the great wordslingers whose language I had fetched into the word hoard building in my spirit.

I didn’t find out till much later that Darmstadt is a center for new music, and has the largest archive of jazz literature in Europe. Maybe most of the development happened after my sojourn. Nowadays it even has a goofy apartment complex designed by the whimsical Austrian, Hunder-twasser, one of my favorites. Karlheinz Stockhausen lectured and performed there, as did John Cage, Oliver Messaien, Luciano Berio and many others. Maybe knowing that I might have been happier to be there. For me in 1960 it appeared as a dark, featureless city, the old buildings destroyed by the war, the new ones with nothing lively or inviting. Maybe if my stay had been timed with the asparagus season I would have been more jolly. The city sits at one end of the spargelstrasse , Heidelberg at the other end, and all along the route, in the sandy soil, farmers coddle the beloved white asparagus.

I was sent to teach there at a US Air Force base by The University of Maryland. They arranged college classes on US military bases. I did literature, Homer thru T.S. Eliot in six weeks. Darmstadt was a long way down in sunshine and spirit from Verona, Italy, where I was living with my family. I was billeted at an officer’s hotel near the downtown. At night I would plug out alone onto the streets to look for something to do, to grab some shnitzel and kartofelsalat at one of the restaurants or beer halls.

This night I was at a table alone and gloomy, staring into my hassen-pfeffer. The beer was good, pillowy head, brown, nutty, easy to drink. A woman kept smiling at me from her table by the window. She sat alone, sipping her beer. She looked fairly young, and plump, and wore no make up. When I motioned for her to come over she picked up her beer and joined me. She was more hausfrau than hotty. Her sad, chubby face cranked out a smile, teeth pitted and stained. She spoke no English. I had a pocketful of German. She asked if I was an “Englander”. It seemed to please her when I said that I was American. I managed to filter from her German that she had always lived in Darmstadt and had a couple of kids and no husband. Her good humor and friendliness was forced, lay like an oil slick on a bog of chronic despair. After I paid my bill she asked if I wanted her to come to my room. I was some lonely, a little horny, but didn’t find her physically appealing. I asked where her children were. They were staying with their grandmother. It didn’t feel like something I totally wanted to do, but I agreed for her to come.

“Gibst du mir zehn mark?”

“Ten marks? Sure.” I shrugged.

“Wirklich?”

Ten marks seemed like very little, a few bucks, but I don’t think she had been very successful as an amateur hooker. She wasn’t sure she was worth ten marks. It surprised her that I agreed, and it made her happy. Maybe ten marks solved a problem for her — paid a bill, bought some toys for her kids. She fairly skipped with her arm hooked in mine as we walked to the hotel. The desk clerk didn’t even glance at us as we entered. The room was standard government beige and brown, holding a small desk, an uncomfortable cordovan leather easy chair, a twin bed, the portrait of a Sherman tank on the wall. There was no radio, no TV. Frederika disappeared into the bathroom I shared with the adjoining room. I’d never met my neighbor, and didn’t have enough German to warn her to lock his door. If he surprised her in the bathroom that would have been one mode of introduction. She came out unbuttoned, tested the bed with her hand, pulled back the covers, dropped her dark flowered dress, raised her slip off her body, released her sagging breasts from the bra, and wiped the sweat from under them with a corner of the top sheet. She kicked off her underpants, sat naked on the stained blanket, nodded at me, watching her from the uneasy chair.

“Tun, shatzi, mein shatz.”

I dropped my clothes and as I crossed to the bed she looked from me to the ceiling and back again, as if for her it was taking a long time for me to get there. I touched her nipples. She opened her arms for me. “Kommst du doch herein.” I lay down beside her, then rolled against her. Her flesh was soft and enfolding. We moved into the business of the night. I had little enthusiasm. Her words of encouragement turned me off. “Tun, Amerikaner, tun.” It was all perfunctory, dull as Darmstadt itself. “Do it, American, do it.” I was definitely American. When I paused to rest a moment she asked, “Bist du fertig?” I guessed that she was asking if I came. When I said no she asked, “Willst du Franzoisisch?” I didn’t get what she meant, but I thought if it was French it might be pleasurable.

“Ja,” said I.

Franzoisisch was the blow job. She scrunched down and wrapped her lips around my soft erection. I closed my eyes and tried to enjoy this, but it didn’t happen. I looked down at her working earnestly, her stringy hair fallen to one side. She was trying to do a good job, but there was nothing erotic about it. Maybe it was the liverish light from the ceiling fixture that made it all too dreary. She could have been sucking on a hose or licking a creamsicle. She was totally conscientious, I’ll give her that. When she asked me if I was “fertig” again, I said yes. She lay back to rest a moment, pleased with herself. She looked at her watch, and jumped up and got dressed. “I did everything,” she said. “I was good, yes? I did Franz-sische. Du bist gut fertig. Jawohl.” I agreed she was good, that I came good, and I gave her ten marks. She looked at the note and smiled. As she opened the door to leave she turned to me and what I understood that she said was, “Please, if you see me on the street, or in a shop, or at a coffee house, please do not greet me.” She obviously feared the burghers of Darmstadt. I promised I wouldn’t greet her, but I never had the opportunity to keep my promise. because I never saw Frederika again.