• Dirty Old Town

Tuesday, 1990-1-23

I went to the academy and met B.P. by accident the first time since New Year’s Eve. I saw, she was a bit embarassed. We hardly did know each other yet, but seemingly she wanted to get me know more, or she had nothing else to do, so we went to the canteen. We were sitting, drinking and talking there, when the swing door did open. I thought, I don’t see right, the woman with the nice smile from last night came in, and she came directly to our table. I wanted to tell B.P. what had happened yesterday, that I did know that woman from seeing, I was excited, she was on the way to me, but I didn’t have time to tell anything, she already kissed B.P. on the lips, saying hello. „She is my best friend, you know?“ said B.P. to me. /Oops!/ Of course no! I could not know, they were friends since seven years. I couldn’t guess how old U.B. was, she had an indefinable ageless baby face, and (as already mentioned) a nice smile, only beneath her eyes she had two strange deep wrinkles. I thought, she certainly must be already over twenty. (Later I learnt, she was sixteen days older than me. We both were born in July, nineteen-sixty-four. Almost twins.)

Thursday, 1990-1-25

I took my lunch at the canteen. I didn’t know yet for whom I was waiting for. U.B. came soon, B.P. appeared after a while as well. U.B. left, B.P. stayed with me, we drunk some glass of red wine again, and we went later to an opening from Franz West into the Secession. Leaving the exhibition soon (there was nothing to eat, just chairs everywhere but not for sitting), we met a small group of (still studying) young artists, U.B. was among them. She was a painter, too, and was studying in the same class as  B.P.. U.B. kissed me briefly on my lips, seemingly she was happy to see me again. On that evening I was not surprised about anything. We all went out, during that night she was giving me her phone number.

Tuesday, 1990-02-06

I called U.B. just to say her, that I won’t be available for the next two weeks. (I wanted to lose some pounds and started an acer-sirup cure.) She said if I would change my mind, we could meet again. I promised her, to call her in two weeks.

Tuesday, 1990-2-20

As I called her again, I already had twenty-four pound less, and felt pretty depressive. She invited me to her apartment for the same evening at seven o’clock. I was on time, as always, but the foreign apartment made me feel cramped. I had the rescuing idea, I took her out for dinner in a china restaurant. There I felt much more relaxed, and looked at her finally in more detail. She had quite short blonde-brunet hair, she had beautiful blue-green eyes, and she had a charming smile. /did I mention?/ She was a bit of a punk, but I liked her style. She told me novels about her skin, the two deep wrinkles were the distinctive sign of neurodermatitis. I didn’t even know, that this illnes does exist. But the food was good, and all in all the evening very pleasant. Her farewell  kiss was this time different too. Her lips felt more softly on mine and the kiss lasted for a trace longer. I was very sensitive for such signs and they left me pondering.

Wednesday, 1990-2-21

I visited B.P. and met there U.B. again. They lived ten minutes apart from each other. I still had something to do, and asked U.B. if she wanted to come with me. I did like her better with every meeting, and she did like me too, I felt that. The more often I saw her, the more I could even imagine, that our encounter could leed to more, but I didn’t want to rush. She didn’t have the time to come with me, anyway. Before I left, I invited both for the next weekend for a lunch. U.B. was out of town for the next few days visiting her parents in Carinthia. I felt the love growing in me, it was not love on the first, but on second view.

Saturday, 1990-03-03
B.P. cancelled my invitation, U.B. wasn’t back yet.

Monday, 1990-03-05

I called U.B. early in the morning, she already was in Vienna. She took over the initiative and asked if we could meet, and I felt instinctively, that that could be our first real date, tonight at 9 o’clock. I had a new job and working that day outside of Vienna. I came back feeling drained but just in time and ready for the date. I waited for her nearly an hour downstairs by one of the many escalators in a subway station, but I couldn’t see her, nowhere. After a while I went to the public phones and tried to call her (there were no mobile phones yet), but she wasn’t at home. So I went home, disappointed and downhearted.

***

That was the vital point. We could have lost each other there. I could have felt offended, /as I was/ and just let it go. But I wanted to know, why she had standed me up, what had happened. I did forget about my hurted proudness, and called her next day. Her voice first sounded disappointed too. She had been there, she had been waiting for me an hour as well, but upstairs. During I called her from the public phone downstairs, she was going home. That’s why we didn’t meet. She asked me for a new chance to repeat the date, but I didn’t react to that, I didn’t commit myself. Late that afternoon I visited B.P. again, Tuesdays were our days. U.B. stopped by unexpected, ten minutes later. When she saw me, she was running into my arms, she kissed me passionately and she didn’t set me free for the next six years.

THE POUGES • DIRTY OLD TOWN

• Night Time

Everytime is the first time, if it is with somebody new. You never know, what happens after the first night, which is rarely the best (compared with the next, if you get a second chance). Almost everything is still open. U.B. was seemingly not averse to starting something more serious with me. She was ready for me, and stayed with me not only through one night, although she said „all is going too fast“, she wasn’t scared. She just needed time, to process the overwhelming events. She was not gay, but open in her feelings for that. I was her first real close encounter of the second kind. Frantic thoughts mixed with ambivalent feelings, fearful hopes put me in a turmoil. With her it was like being in a thrilling reality show, we both were the winner of the first casting, and were allowed to play in our own colored movie which story we had to write commonly and spontaneously, fine tuned on each other. We both hoped for a happy no end. We didn’t have another choice, than to give the chance a chance. We had to trust, open up ourselves and let the feelings flow, even if we did know, we could get hurted someday, we were ready to take the risk. We both were twenty-five, mature enough for a serious relationship. To be together with her was a new experience for me, too. She was the first, who cared about me. I felt secure, familiar with her. She touched something in my soul, she got me and I didn’t want to lose her. We didn’t fall in an all stirring passionated love, but we loved each other deeply. It was a relationship in a stage of development, based on a close friendship, on common interests, and on some mercy.

KILLING JOKE • NIGHT TIME

• Can’t Help Falling In Love

It didn’t take a long time to notice, oh, she didn’t even conceal that she had feelings for others as well. Although I knew she loved me, /Yes, she did!/ she hopelessly was in love, already for years, with somebody else. The other woman was her secret dream, and I had to fight with a phantom. I felt intuitively the invisible danger. Unwittingly I suspected, she will come along with us for a long time. Sometimes it made me feel desperately sad, if I felt, she was with her in her thoughts, but I couldn’t do anything against phantasies. She was not the only one who accompanied us. B.P. was always present. She was my real problem, since she was the third wheel. She ignored the relationship between U.B. and me totally. As U.B.’s best friend she was used to being the first. Sometimes I had the feeling that for U.B. this friendship had more priority, than the relationship with me. I got jealous of their friendship /sure!/ but not without a good reason. I had to realize that I never was integrated in their common plans, no matter about what, they always did forget to ask me about it, or to involve me. They were like Siamese twins. They came from the same county, both came in the same year to Vienna, for studying arts at the same academy, in the same class. They even painted in a similar style, their apartments were furnished with the same furnitures, both learnt to play saxophone. It was hard to say, who cloned whom, which one of them needed the other more. They complemented each other completely. Having such a friendship in the most classical sense seemed absurd to me, I didn’t know something like that. I only had a close friendship with H.Z., never with a woman. U.B. personified everything to me, she was my best, close friend, my lover, and my partner, all in one. B.P. had a big influence on U.B. so I had to get in with her, even if she never respected my relationship with U.B. I had to accept their friendship for all times.

KLAUS NOMI • CAN'T HELP FALLING IN LOVE

• Take Five

Only the sometimes more, sometimes less quickly flowing time helped to get together. It required a lot of compromises by both of us to build, to continue and to deepen the relation, to work on it, to create a basic for a common future. Every day happened something new, something beautiful, some drama, some love. In the meantime I changed my jobs frequently, I worked for many polling agencies, sometimes I had five part time jobs simultaneously, but currently I only teached my native language. I was well qualified in spreading the secrets of a language, especially my own, the students were asking for me, so I got more and more teaching units, allthough my outfit didn’t fit implicit to the reach man’s world. I did some new colored printed graphics at the academy, they were exibited in Japan at a graphik biennal. U.B.’s study was sponsored by her parents, she had just a part time job two times a week, visiting old people. B.P. did the same job. /needless to say../ The baroness sold her house for a place in an old folks home, I had to vacate my room, and to find a new place to stay. U.B. said „you already have the keys to my apartment“ and she spontaneously offered that I could move into her flat, even if only temporarily. She was not very convinced about living together, as she didn’t want to give up her independency so quickly, but she wanted to help me. I thought, living together would be our only chance for staying together. But as the time came to move, I got more sceptic, although I was looking for being able to see her more often. On May thirteenth (1990) I moved into the tiny one kitchen-bath-bedroom student dig, which was comfortable for one person, but not for two. I brought most of my stuff back to Hungary, so one could hardly notice the presence of a second person in her apartment. I even tried to smoke less. I got one more job as a reprophotograph for an edition. I earned pretty much money with my jobs, I just hardly was at home. We didn’t meet often for days, beside the time we shared sleeping in her narrow bed. When I went to work early in the morning she was still sleeping, when I came home late at night, she was already sleeping. We just met on Sundays. That was our day. We went to a laundromat nearby to do our laundry, than we cooked together, sometimes we also played music together, she on the sax, I was on guitar, till B.P. came for a visit, or called on the phone (mostly during lunch time). Nevertheless to have me there was an unsolvable stress situation for U.B., her skin signaled that very soon. I was holding her hand for nights on end so she could not scratch herself. She cryed often due to her illness, it terrified her. I couldn’t relive that why, I loved her, the way she was, with the whole shebang, only my own helplessness, that I could not help her made me feel sad. But nobody and nothing could help her. Neither doctors nor drugs, nor cortison-bombs. My patience did cease sometimes, the constantly relapses were a nightmare. I tried to get to the ground of this deceitful disease and I realized, that U.B. actually used it, even though automatically, to hide herself behind the illness, like behind a shield. If she could not solve a problem, she used her skin for a blackmail. „Please, don’t hurt me! I’m sick.“ and sometimes (in spite of all my love) that made me sick too.

DAVE BRUBECK • TAKE FIVE

• Goin’ Out West

U.B. spent her vacation with her parents in Grado, in Italy. I took time off, too and went to Greece for the first time. I went there with a small group of friends, who were invited for a wedding somewhere there. They booked the journey for me, too, it was the perfect trip for masochists. We took the bus for twenty-six hours. Straight after they went to the wedding, and I had to take a ship for seven hours. As I arrived at the island Skopelos (next to Lesbos), I was in the state of an awake coma. I can not say how I got on the top of the steep mountain with my bag. I immediately fell asleep for twenty-six hours. As I woke up, I already missed U.B. terrible. I spent most painful two weeks in Greece. I got a sun allergie additonally, and was only happy when I finally could go home. In the letterbox I found her love burning letters to me. As she called me one late evening, I asked her „what would you say to a breakfest for two tomorrow?“ She said „You are totally crazy!“ but I didn’t hear that anymore. I jumped in my car (I still had my almost oldtimer) and was on the road again, although I hated to drive during nighttime. I drove my car on the highway against a scary storm, I floated through opaque clouds of fog, I just could intuit the road, I hardly could see anything. At three o’clock in the morning, the car said „no benzine“ and stopped. I hitched a ride with a truck to the next gas station and back. No other incident till the Italian border. There I got stuck in a traffic jam. The tunnel was closed after the heavy rain due to a dangerous landslide. I had to wait there for seven hours, I missed already the breakfest time. I arrived not until early afternoon in Grado, and found U.B. sunbathing on a beach chair at the terrace of her hotel in company of her aunt. The joy of our reunion was pretty short. U.B. was not happy at all to see me again. We rented a room, but the second night she didn’t want to spend there anymore. She appeared so different to me, that I became suspicious, she could had cheated on me. I was right, she did it. She said “you can’t understand that“, but I understood it very well. That was not the first time she had an affaire. She had several „cold cases“ still from her past, which she solved one after one. But that was not all yet. She couldn’t take it, me and her family on the same place in the same time. Although her aunt did like me, she got panic that her father could show up. She said „better you leave!“ She saw her double life in danger. Our dispute ended in tears. Deeply hurted and at the same time inflamed with rage suddenly I could cry. Next morning I drove away, as she wanted me to. Her cold-blue eyes followed relieved the departing clouds of my car. I never had seen such ice cold eyes. Her face had  never seem so strange to me. I just could drive to the next village, I felt so sick that I had to take a room. I spent the whole day in bed, in the following night I got back to Vienna. I was driving my car since four years. Although it was not licenced anymore, I didn’t want to sell it yet, cause I did know, I won’t have any other car /as it happened that way/. The old Ford brought me always home. Even that time only to the city limit of Vienna. That was the last journey I did with my (almost) oldtimer, a journey I already bitterly regreted and damned. I still blowed smoke, that the best solution would be to stay together in her apartment. U.B. mentioned occasionally, that slowly it would be time to search for a new stay. I just didn’t have the time to search for. I illustrated my first schoolbook. I didn’t work for the edition anymore, I taught during the day, and did the drawings during the night. U.B. and B.P. rented a studio together with a brasil guy, they didn’t ask me, if I would like to rent it with them. I didn’t have a place for doing my art. On an excessively Sunday afternoon I put out U.B. from her own apartment, I drank a half bottle of Whiskey and did some wild drawings with black ink. I was deeply depressed, because I did know, the story with the „somebody else“ was not from the table yet. I anticipated, the danger was all around me, and was just waiting for an opportune moment. One week later (that night the war in Iraq started), I came home and found the bottle of whiskey empty. She hardly was drinking alcohol, so I did know, she did it. I couldn’t believe it! Oh, it hurted so much, I hated her infinitely, because I didn’t want to share her body with anybody. But she was happy, her dream came true finally, and she was letting me know, she would do it again, and again. I had to say her, it's ok, if she needs everybody else, but then she certainly does not need me anymore. On the next day, on All Saint’s Day I packed my stuff with stormy speed, I moved in a subleased room to an unlikeable old lady. Although I hated to be there, I realized, the only chance of getting over the shipwreck of our relationship was to live n o t together.

TOM WAITS • GOIN' OUT WEST