Gehen zu Betchen
Saturday, June 10, 2006
A typical Friday at the office – people were hard to please. But Aubree Spinnings called to invite OLeif and Collette to dessert and coffee later in the month. The three stooges: Joe, Wallace, and Curly were off to see Cars at the cinema that evening. Collette brought sandwiches in a box for dinner after Jimmy’s and OLeif’s meeting at 5:30. Piper was at seven that night over cans of ginger ale from the night before and the remaining white donut gems (after Magnus had already eaten half the bag himself). Rose decided to apply for work at Target as soon as she turned 16 (as Susie had just done, and had been hired). And Rose called Molly to let her dad know that there was a dead armadillo on the side of the road.
Best yet – there were storms on the horizon, far off…
Piper lecture and discussion ensued that evening with Jimmy present (sporadically), OLeif, Collette, Magnus, Ben-Hur, Augustus, Rose, and Molly. Susie was at the Fabulous Fox, and Bob B. paranoid-ed himself away by reminding everyone that he had the ACT in the morning (as did Joe, Wallace, Curly, and Rose) and could not attend.
Beforehand, Carrie was brought up briefly as an object of discussion – her fancies of America being an island with a great root suspending it above the ocean and that pineapples grew on trees, and that she was always angry and in black all the time at church because she hated work and school and never talked to anyone.
Discussion turned to craziness as usual, following an hour of Piper and talk about the lecture. Magnus began to imitate The Vines’ lead vocalist, singing quite stoned on the Late Show. Ben-Hur lay sprawled out on the couch talking about how his language teacher wrote romance novels that were sold on Amazon.
“Oh, is the lead character’s name Julio?” Magnus asked, interested.
And Augustus hollered on about the World Cup, about which there was really nothing wrong. But somewhere around that time the discussion dipped into the land of no return. Molly shook her head and kept saying:
“This is so bad,”
as the conversation spiraled downward. Jimmy was lying on his back on the floor, laughing at things he probably shouldn’t have been laughing at, but didn’t say anything. After OLeif put out the idea of sticking a paper-clip in someone’s deodorant, and Augustus responded with:
“That’s amazing! My brother’s gonna die!” (Revenge for Pablo having filled his shower with balloons)…
OLeif groaned, and said:
“Jimmy is so gonna have a talk with me tonight when ya’ll leave.”
Later, Joe and Carrie blazed into the parking lot, just as the timer had switched off the parking lot lights. Carrie put her head out the window and yelled out:
“Collette! Elizabeth and I are going to Europe! I’m totally broke! But that’s OK! We’re going back-packing! Whoo-hoo! See ya later!”
And they screeched out of the parking lot, Carrie waving peace signs in the air.
Ah, Europe…
And so, it was those five long years ago, that Collette and Diana found themselves walking back through the overgrown park in Budapest to the Gellert, where sleep called. It had been a long day, a hot day, and the hotel had only just been filled with Germans – students, all of them. Before the Germans’ arrival, the hotel halls had been quiet and somewhat cool. It had been practically the perfect place for one’s first visit oversees. Diana had been able to sleep there quite comfortably, despite the terrible jet-lag she had been experiencing for the first several days. But this particular evening, it was not to be…
The halls had filled with Germans, tall Germans, loud Germans, beer-drinking Germans. Collette was not entirely certain that she was comfortable surrounded by older class men who were allowed to drink so very much at such a young age. She and Diana were only sixteen themselves, and as Diana didn’t know a hair of German, it didn’t precisely help the matter. Collette did, however. True, she was certainly no German dictionary, but she knew enough for what she needed to say that night.
After passing the Germans in the halls, Diana and Collette opened their room and locked the door behind them. The night was still quite warm, and the sun had just set. They opened their window, which contained no screen. Collette leaned out the window, several stories up, and looked above her to the dark heads of German students leaning out of their own windows.
“This is ridiculous!” Diana said, “We’re never going to get to sleep!”
Diana was already grumpy from the jet-lag, and Collette thought it best not to upset her further. The noise continued, and one of the dark heads above, blew on a cigarette which lit up the dark like a small orange fire. Collette decided that they could not have such noise continue for so long. And so, because it was quite dark, and no one would ever know, she leaned out the window, plucked up the shaky German that she did know, and yelled into the darkness,
“Gehen zu Betchen!”
(Go to bed!)
Whether she said it correctly at all, remained to be seen. Whether anyone heard it or not, who was to say? But Diana and Collette were not disturbed the rest of the night. And that was that.
So hoist up the John B’s sail,
See how the mainsail sets,
Call for the captain ashore,
Let me go home, let me go home,
I wanna go home, let me go home,
Why don’t you let me go home.
– Beach Boys