Leoben

better days @ www.coopradio.org

We hitchhiked all over Europe that year, Sandra and I.
We had read Ed's book about vagabonding in Europe,
how small the cars are, and had followed his advice
about having smaller, frameless backpacks. Having smaller
packs meant leaving some things behind, finding them
in Europe as we needed them, sometimes being given
them for free by the angels of the road. Good advice, Ed.

I did take a guitar, though, a beat-up Yamaha FG-180
and five sets of medium gauge strings. Sandra had long
black hair in those days that blew back from her high
brown cheekbones and deep brown eyes. I think when
you travel with a woman as lovely as her, the rides
tend to come a little easier. I suppose I could've worried
that we'd attract the wrong kinds of rides, but we didn't,
not once, and we were over there almost a year.
Instead, we found the generous ones, the good souls
of the world. I'm thinking of crazy Gerry and dapper Dave
in Bristol, of Phoebe and Richard in Sherbourne in Dorset,
of Gerdi and Margaret in Kerkrade in Holland, of Gianna
in Venezia and another Gianna in Roma, Isis from Cairo,
Ahmed and Zaffir from Karachi, and the madman Irish poet
Desmond O'Grady in Naoussa, Paros, and of Yorgos and
Marguerite, too, who ran the tavern there where I played
almost every night and was never allowed to pay for our
food or drinks. One night Marguerite asked if I'd play with
Yorgos if she brought his accordion down. He hadn't
played it in a few years, her son Stefano interpreted her
concerns to me. We played and sang and everyone cried,
including me and Yorgos. The fishermen stayed up late
that night, until their wives dragged them by the sleeves.

After two nights in Munich, we were given a lift to a truck
stop where our host and another angel of the road, secured
us a ride with one of the drivers there. We crossed into
Austria at nightfall. It began raining and the road was
flooding a little. I remember passing a sign that read Belsen.
The driver spoke no English, but he had a tape player blaring
Elvis Presley songs, and we rocked to that and talked to
each other anyway, throwing up our hands and laughing
at our impasse. It must have been almost two o'clock in
the morning when he pulled over. Pulling out a map he showed
us where we were, made a line cutting back, then pointed
to his chest and pointing back over his shoulder. As far as
we could understand, he'd gone off course to take us a
little farther south and now, at two a.m., needed to turn
back. He got out and helped us down from his cab. He then
pointed to a gasthaus up a sideroad. The sign on the way
in to the town had read LEOBEN.

There weren't a lot of lights, except a 40-watt bulb burning
outside the little train station across the roadway. We
shook hands and said goodbye, our rain ponchos making a
loud sound as the drops pelted down. The guesthouse was
dark except for an amber light outside. We knocked three
times, but no answer. Sandra was tired and, being in the
middle of somewhere in the wee hours without a place to
stay didn't strike her as being funny. We looked around the
town a little, but nothing was open and no lights were on.
Except one, that is, back down the road, the dim bulb
outside the train station.

We walked down there. It was an old wooden building
with a brighter lightbulb burning inside the waiting room.
There appeared to be no one there at all. We tried the door,
it opened, and we walked in, dripping rain on the polished
tiles of the waiting room floor. A uniformed guard emerged,
a gun on his hip, looked at us warily, then looked at the floor
where the water was creating rivulets. He growled something,
and I said something to him like "Gasthaus ferme," blending
Austrian and French and holding up my hands as if to say,
"What are two Canadian vagabonds to do at this hour?"
He made a big noise getting a mop out, wiping up our mess,
and I'd say he was muttering curses, except I don't know
if that language ever sounds like what you'd call muttering.
Done, he turned and went back into his little office behind
the barred window and sat down. There were a few benches
in the waiting room. We put our backpacks down, removed
our rain capes, and sat down, both of us shivering. More
water was dripping on to the floor, of course.

"He's going to kick us out of here," Sandra said.
"Where are we going to go?" I said, "it's a train station,
"I'm not sure if he can kick us out of here."
"Yeah," she said, "but those boots, that gun..."
I smiled then. "Let's see what happens."

In a few minutes, the guard (watchman?) got up, but only
walked past us to use the washroom. Those boots were loud.
"I'm tired," Sandra said, and got out her sleeping bag
and crawled in. I sat next to her, glancing at the man
in the office, then, when my hands felt warm enough,
took out my guitar. I played Kristofferson's song...
Busted flat in Baton Rouge, headed for the train....
I thought I could see the guard nod ever so slightly
as I got to the chorus. My hands were cold still,
but I always trusted music, so I started singing another.
I got a feelin' called the blues since my baby said goodbye.
Hank Williams. He looked up immediately and our eyes met.
After that I broke into Hey Good Lookin', and he got up
and adjusted the thermostat. The heat started coming.
Hank was working. Take These Chains From My Heart was next.
The guard was definitely nodding now. As I finished,
he came out and said in his Austrian voice, "Honk Villiams."
"Yeah," I nodded. He made a motion with his hand
which I took to mean, play another Honk Villiams.

So I did. I got out my song lyrics folder and played
Move It On Over, then Jambalaya.
When I broke into Lonesome Whistle, he sat down
on the bench across from ours. The boots were tapping now,
and that once stern face began to relax some.
I did a few more. Lost Highway, I think, You Win Again,
and finally, I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry.

Sandra was falling asleep. I put my guitar down and made
the hands together sign next my ear, meaning I will sleep
now. It was 3:30 in the morning. Our watchman-guard
nodded, got to his feet and said something that sounded
like good music, then walked back into his office and put
his feet up. I put my guitar back in its case, got out my
sleeping bag and found a bench for myself alongside Sandra's.

"Was Hank big in Germany and Austria?" Sandra said.
"I don't know, San," I said, "but I'm glad this guy likes him,
'cause I'd run out of Hank songs..."

We said good night and laid back, toasty in our bags,
each with a forearm over our eyes. In a few minutes,
our Honk Villiams fan turned out the overhead light
and we fell into deep sleep in the cozy darkness of a
little town in the Austrian Alps called Leoben.

DL