|
Asleep in Munich - Fate Fairies - book version
This entry was posted on 2/1/2012 1:30 AM and is filed under Fate Fairies:Fate Fairies - book version.
"You're going to get too tired my friend," Fred told me as we were driving at four in the morning doing a special advertising route for the publishing company we both worked at.
I took the task on as a favor to my old boss in another department. That would be the transportation guys. The agreement with both bosses, current and former was, I would do the special task after my own production job was finished, and I must recruit the help of another production person. Only us two were allowed to work on the task.
On top of my regular job and the extra weekly task, I worked for another paper in town. It was a semi-weekly advertiser. I delivered 700 small papers twice a week. Don't get too shocked. Some of the papers were delivered in bundles. But none-the-less, this semi-weekly gig involved a great deal of walking. It was just the exercise I needed to get my tired old legs up to a second trip to Iraq.
I did the three jobs for a year, rarely slept, and when I did, it was not good sleep. But, this too, prepared me for Iraq.
"I am telling you, Man, you're going to regret the abuse on your body; you are going to fuck something up," my big pal Fred kept saying. Fred used to be a cement block builder. Now we both lifted tons of paper product all night long. He knew the perils of excessive strain on a body. About the only thing we both gleaned from our blue-collar lives was biceps that looked like bowling balls.
The fateful day came that I would leave yet again for Iraq. I would do my own journalist work. I put my jobs on until-further-notice hold. Quietly, I bid just a handful of people farewell (going to a war zone should not be advertised up front; it could be dangerous if the wrong people get wind of your pending arrival). So as not to draw attention to my project, I worked right up to 12 hours prior to my departure.
"You're going to get sick or something; you look like hell," my buddy Fred yet again reiterated as I shook his hand and said goodbye.
By the time I got to Munich, Germany, Fred was right. I could barely keep my head up. At least Munich airport was run better than London's Heathrow during my first trip to Iraq. Leave it to the Germans and their ubiquitous, culture of..., "order." At my terminal, I found a bench by the window in view of my plane that sat on the tarmac. It waited patiently to leave for Turkey, who is Iraq's northern neighbor. The seating area began to fill up with passengers for the flight.
I laid down hogging the whole bench. The departure desk was only feet away. The German staff of which was made up of cute ladies, giggled at the ruddy American. I was asleep before my head hit my travel bag.
Six hours later I awoke to an empty terminal. The plane was gone. A janitor had bumped my bench with a broom. My mind raced.
"Oh, hell, I will be an ordeal to get another flight to a war zone. Fred was right. I have fucked up."
I ran groggily to the desk. A fight staff member, one of the same young woman who had giggled at me, was setting up for the next flight.
"We, called, and called for you, Herr Kite (the same pronunciation that they used to say my last name Keith when I was stationed in Germany)," she said, looking at me with a stern face and a noticeable pout.
"Jesus, Mother, and Joseph," I said, "I was right on the bench in front of you."
She looked at the bench and pouted again. "You sleep like dead man. Luck' for you, Herr Kite. Der plane leave every few hours to Turkey. We have many relationship with Turkey."
For what it is worth, Turkey and Germany have had ties going way back to the First World War - they were allies in that war. I frequently communicated in German while in Turkey and Iraq on my first project there. Back when I was stationed in the Army in Germany, whole neighborhoods of Turks sprung up because they functioned as foreign workers. Someone had to rebuild the country after us Americans and the British reduced the place to rubble during World War II. Them Turks had some hellacious watering holes in Germany in my day - those forays into the dark taverns run by the Turks never ended with anything we might have wanted to mention to our moms - but I digress.
I held my breath expecting to have to mortgage my house to get another flight having booked my missed one over a year prior. But, to my relief she said, "I make exception for tired American; we have your bags waiting in Ankara, Turkey. Go now, get on this next flight. No money. But, no more missing flights, Herr Kite." Aside from a walk to the other side of the airport where that next flight left from, I was for the most part left unscathed.
You were right of course Fred, I almost fucked the whole project up right out of the box. I dodged a bullet. And, I was still a couple thousand miles from the war zone.
Note: This blog "Fate Fairies" - book version Category is a work in progress. The original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Fate Fairies Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
