Berlin or bust: The Test

August 31, 2007

The Test

It is so cold. How can it be so cold? Upper 50s. Bleak and wet and mean. Today I wore jeans, a long-sleeved T, Gortex jacket, Frye stomping boots. Boots! On August 31! No.

Berlin is testing me. This is what cities do. It heard me when I told my cousin I think I want to stay a year. Oh yeah? it said. You think you got what it takes to weather a winter in this town? Slate black skies. Rain and rain. Cold in your soul. A people in retreat, hatches closed.

Try me, I said. And the city did.

When I first I moved to New York: My car got picked up from its parking spot and dropped I knew not where. I found it, leant it to a friend. It got vandalized on Fire Island. I lost my ATM card. I had no proof of residency. No bank would open me an account. I begged for twenties from new acquaintances. I moved into a pad that stank of Pall Malls. Learned I was paying $500 more than the girls on the lease. The third roommate? She got strangled in the hall. Two bones broken in her face. I was the only one home. I spent six hours in St. Vincent's ER. I'd been in New York for three and a half weeks.

I remember the next day. It was August, 90 degrees. I shivered when I went outdoors. Cried without meaning to. You really want to be here? said the city. You strong enough for this place? I felt as if I were standing at a cliff's edge. I hesitated. Then: Yes, I said. Yes. Into the abyss. But one more thing, I said, and I can't do it. One more thing, and it's back to Berkeley for me. Or Bellevue.

So New York gave me a breather. And I stayed.

At a sushi joint tonight, a barrel of a man overheard my English. He told me of a woman he used to fuck in L.A. — "sex, American women like it." He ranted against the U.S. — "the true terrorists." He lifted his shirt and called for me to look. Later he offered me a spliff.

That, aside from the weather, is about the worst Berlin has given. The city is being kind. Or I was smarter when I got here?

It might not be done, though. Hang on.

Aug 31, 2007 3:48:20 PM | Say It Ain't So