A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world.
-Jack Kerouac, On the Road
The atmosphere at Joe’s Beerhouse in Windhoek is somewhere between that of a family restaurant found anywhere in the states and that of a dive bar that I used to frequent in Superior, Wisconsin. The walls are covered in African memorabilia and there are waitresses walking around everywhere with trays of game meat and big pitchers of German beer.
We went to the beerhouse last night with Bizarro Us. We sat down and ordered food- big plates of meat- and it came with lightning speed. I laughed at Felix’s order- a pork knuckle- because of its size. The hunk of pig was only slightly smaller than a bowling ball and fried crispy brown. It came with sour kraut and a cup of mustard for dipping.
As soon as we sat down, Jolene began talking about ordering an Irish Car Bomb. I agreed to join her in this endeavor and we ordered a glass of Guinness and a shot of Irish whiskey each. We had a little trouble at first because the shot glasses containing the whiskey were too big, but we called the waitress and were soon set up with the right equipment. Jolene and I touched glasses, said, “Merry Christmas,” and dropped the shots of Jameson in the glasses of thick, dark beer. I drank mine quickly without tasting much of it- I’m a champion guzzler- and Jolene took a little longer but emptied the glass before putting it down. Cheers rippled across the table. Jolene put down her glass, took a breath and glowed. As I tucked into the rump steak in front of me, the whiskey and beer coursed warm inside and would have struck me as Christmas cheer if anything about the situation had felt like the holidays.
I finished my steak with way-too-big bites and then finished a good chunk of the pork knuckle that Felix couldn’t cram down. Then Jolene and I ordered another Car Bomb. Feeling fine, I followed the group to the back of the bar and we ordered more beer- big bottles of German beer- and talked about the Peace Corps. While we sat and talked and smoked, we watched a European family celebrating at a table not far away from ours. In their group there was a boy that couldn’t have been more than eleven. His parents (I assumed) were buying him shots. After the third or fourth drink, the little tike was off his barstool and couldn’t get back on. Luckily, his mom was there to give him a hand. I thought then- as I had thought countless times before- that I’m definitely a stranger in a strange land.
I woke up this morning feeling hung over. Felix and I made eggs in the backpacker’s kitchen. It was a big pan of scrambled eggs with onions and ham and tomatoes and cheese. As we paced about the kitchen, chopping and frying, we chatted with a fellow from Australia named Bill. Bill is also volunteering in Africa and has been doing so- on and off- for quite a few years. He seems like an extremely nice person and I wrote down his email. You never know who you’re going to meet next when traveling in Africa from backpacker’s to backpacker’s. So far, at the Cardboard Box, I’ve met Bill from Australia, and others from Italy, Israel, Ireland, Canada, and some very nice nursing students from Norway. This place has collected quite a few people and their perspectives.
We took our breakfast and went down to the bar. On the way, we passed the front desk. The girl working there was a different girl from the day before. She was wearing a very short black skirt. She had perfect legs and a seeming animosity toward everyone and everything. I said hello and she glared at me. It must be terrible to have to work on Christmas day, I thought, and proceeded to the bar.
After the big plate of greasy eggs, I started to feel like a normal human being again. Felix and I went back to the dorm room where Sam had remained. Sam and Felix decided to have a nap, but I couldn’t sleep. I said that I would be at the bar and walked out.
In the bar I put 20 Namibian dollars in a machine and was given a pack of Marlboro menthol cigarettes in return. This was the first cigarette machine I had seen in a very long time and I had been looking at longingly ever since we had arrived at the Cardboard Box. I went to the bar and got a Windhoek Draught. Sitting down at a booth as far away from the bar as I could, I tried to put myself in the writing mode so that I could record the events of the past two days before they disappeared forever in the fog of beer and credit card debt that is slowly gathering through the course of this trip. I wrote about a half a page with workable focus and then was distracted.
I looked up briefly to gather thoughts and took a long cool drag of the menthol. I exhaled a wring of smoke and squinted. The sun glared off the swimming pool just outside the bar. I was about to go back to writing when a figure came out of the water and cut the glare. She stepped on the stone edge of the pool and stood there for a moment with beads of water drying on her brown skin and then smiled at someone or something to my left. I smiled too and then caught myself staring and tried to look back at my notebook. I couldn’t help but look up with the corners of my eyes. I had seen her the day before in the lobby, but didn’t realize it until this moment. Now I noticed her completely with orange bikini and perfect dreadlocks as she moved across the pool area to a picnic table where she stood talking with a very European-looking man with a blonde mustache. I sat there for another ten minutes or so trying to write and trying not to stare. I failed at both, so I mostly just smoked and stared and fell in love.
I was in this state when Felix walked up the table and said that Sam was coming down in a bit and that we were going to play Rook. I said that I was almost done- though I hadn’t written much at all- and that I would really like to play some cards.
When Sam came down, she brought a deck of cards specially designed for Rook and I realized that I had no idea how to play Rook. We read from a little direction card in the deck and I gradually became more and more confused by the game. Sam said that the best way to learn was to play. I nodded while looking out to see where the girl with the dreadlocks was. She was back in the pool. I sighed and looked back at Sam who shook her head and started to deal.
I picked up on the game pretty quickly, but half way through the game my phone rang and the little screen said that it was from my parents. I excused myself from the game and answered the phone. Finding a quiet spot in a hallway of the backpacker’s I sat down and talked with my mom, dad, sister and brother-in-law. I could hear my family opening gifts. I could hear them drinking hot chocolate. I could almost smell the peppermint and pine in the living room. I said less and less as the conversation went on, and when the call was finished, I went back to the card game in a melancholy mood. I watched as the girl with the dreadlocks got out of the pool again. I feel a million miles from everyone.
So now I’m going to the kitchen where we’ll make a Christmas dinner of pasta with Bizarro Us. We’ll eat it in the bar.
Merry Christmas.
-Jack Kerouac, On the Road
The atmosphere at Joe’s Beerhouse in Windhoek is somewhere between that of a family restaurant found anywhere in the states and that of a dive bar that I used to frequent in Superior, Wisconsin. The walls are covered in African memorabilia and there are waitresses walking around everywhere with trays of game meat and big pitchers of German beer.
We went to the beerhouse last night with Bizarro Us. We sat down and ordered food- big plates of meat- and it came with lightning speed. I laughed at Felix’s order- a pork knuckle- because of its size. The hunk of pig was only slightly smaller than a bowling ball and fried crispy brown. It came with sour kraut and a cup of mustard for dipping.
As soon as we sat down, Jolene began talking about ordering an Irish Car Bomb. I agreed to join her in this endeavor and we ordered a glass of Guinness and a shot of Irish whiskey each. We had a little trouble at first because the shot glasses containing the whiskey were too big, but we called the waitress and were soon set up with the right equipment. Jolene and I touched glasses, said, “Merry Christmas,” and dropped the shots of Jameson in the glasses of thick, dark beer. I drank mine quickly without tasting much of it- I’m a champion guzzler- and Jolene took a little longer but emptied the glass before putting it down. Cheers rippled across the table. Jolene put down her glass, took a breath and glowed. As I tucked into the rump steak in front of me, the whiskey and beer coursed warm inside and would have struck me as Christmas cheer if anything about the situation had felt like the holidays.
I finished my steak with way-too-big bites and then finished a good chunk of the pork knuckle that Felix couldn’t cram down. Then Jolene and I ordered another Car Bomb. Feeling fine, I followed the group to the back of the bar and we ordered more beer- big bottles of German beer- and talked about the Peace Corps. While we sat and talked and smoked, we watched a European family celebrating at a table not far away from ours. In their group there was a boy that couldn’t have been more than eleven. His parents (I assumed) were buying him shots. After the third or fourth drink, the little tike was off his barstool and couldn’t get back on. Luckily, his mom was there to give him a hand. I thought then- as I had thought countless times before- that I’m definitely a stranger in a strange land.
I woke up this morning feeling hung over. Felix and I made eggs in the backpacker’s kitchen. It was a big pan of scrambled eggs with onions and ham and tomatoes and cheese. As we paced about the kitchen, chopping and frying, we chatted with a fellow from Australia named Bill. Bill is also volunteering in Africa and has been doing so- on and off- for quite a few years. He seems like an extremely nice person and I wrote down his email. You never know who you’re going to meet next when traveling in Africa from backpacker’s to backpacker’s. So far, at the Cardboard Box, I’ve met Bill from Australia, and others from Italy, Israel, Ireland, Canada, and some very nice nursing students from Norway. This place has collected quite a few people and their perspectives.
We took our breakfast and went down to the bar. On the way, we passed the front desk. The girl working there was a different girl from the day before. She was wearing a very short black skirt. She had perfect legs and a seeming animosity toward everyone and everything. I said hello and she glared at me. It must be terrible to have to work on Christmas day, I thought, and proceeded to the bar.
After the big plate of greasy eggs, I started to feel like a normal human being again. Felix and I went back to the dorm room where Sam had remained. Sam and Felix decided to have a nap, but I couldn’t sleep. I said that I would be at the bar and walked out.
In the bar I put 20 Namibian dollars in a machine and was given a pack of Marlboro menthol cigarettes in return. This was the first cigarette machine I had seen in a very long time and I had been looking at longingly ever since we had arrived at the Cardboard Box. I went to the bar and got a Windhoek Draught. Sitting down at a booth as far away from the bar as I could, I tried to put myself in the writing mode so that I could record the events of the past two days before they disappeared forever in the fog of beer and credit card debt that is slowly gathering through the course of this trip. I wrote about a half a page with workable focus and then was distracted.
I looked up briefly to gather thoughts and took a long cool drag of the menthol. I exhaled a wring of smoke and squinted. The sun glared off the swimming pool just outside the bar. I was about to go back to writing when a figure came out of the water and cut the glare. She stepped on the stone edge of the pool and stood there for a moment with beads of water drying on her brown skin and then smiled at someone or something to my left. I smiled too and then caught myself staring and tried to look back at my notebook. I couldn’t help but look up with the corners of my eyes. I had seen her the day before in the lobby, but didn’t realize it until this moment. Now I noticed her completely with orange bikini and perfect dreadlocks as she moved across the pool area to a picnic table where she stood talking with a very European-looking man with a blonde mustache. I sat there for another ten minutes or so trying to write and trying not to stare. I failed at both, so I mostly just smoked and stared and fell in love.
I was in this state when Felix walked up the table and said that Sam was coming down in a bit and that we were going to play Rook. I said that I was almost done- though I hadn’t written much at all- and that I would really like to play some cards.
When Sam came down, she brought a deck of cards specially designed for Rook and I realized that I had no idea how to play Rook. We read from a little direction card in the deck and I gradually became more and more confused by the game. Sam said that the best way to learn was to play. I nodded while looking out to see where the girl with the dreadlocks was. She was back in the pool. I sighed and looked back at Sam who shook her head and started to deal.
I picked up on the game pretty quickly, but half way through the game my phone rang and the little screen said that it was from my parents. I excused myself from the game and answered the phone. Finding a quiet spot in a hallway of the backpacker’s I sat down and talked with my mom, dad, sister and brother-in-law. I could hear my family opening gifts. I could hear them drinking hot chocolate. I could almost smell the peppermint and pine in the living room. I said less and less as the conversation went on, and when the call was finished, I went back to the card game in a melancholy mood. I watched as the girl with the dreadlocks got out of the pool again. I feel a million miles from everyone.
So now I’m going to the kitchen where we’ll make a Christmas dinner of pasta with Bizarro Us. We’ll eat it in the bar.
Merry Christmas.
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