Europe

My brother Bill lives in Copenhagen with his Danish girlfriend, Annie.
“Come,” he says.
Pete’s still hoop dancing.
I hop on a Boeing 747 and I left all my crap in L.A. 
Some kinda Peter, Paul and Mary song.
I wore a yellow hat. 
I’ve got like a hundred bucks in one pocket, Otis in the other.
The European culture seduced my senses. They’ve been doin’ this shit for, What?
2 thousand years?
Bill tries to teach me Danish but it’s useless.
I hook up with a paint factory that caters to internationals. All day, I fill little cans with color.
It was a cool job. I can’t remember why I got canned.
‘Easy Rider’ opened in America 6 months before and is now playing here.
As I watch I sink down in my seat.
I found a job as a chambermaid at the Hafnia Hotel before it burned to the ground.
I’m the Mexican in this end of the world. My boss was a big girl who liked to throw her weight around. She yelled German as she swiped lights with white paper gloves.
I met 2 best friends over bleached toilets. They invite me on a trek to the Swedish coastline. We spoke Hieroglyphics but had this eye thing goin’
.
When we got to the beach, I climbed a high tower and saw rusted World War 2 tanks half buried like the sand over Egypt.
I saw the bloody ocean.
I saw twisted bodies on the beach.
I saw the flags.
I saw why no one wins.

We eat oxtail soup for breakfast. We build fires with driftwood, and pass the hash pipe. We sing Swedish folksongs. They laugh like hell everytime I mispronounce a word.

I hook up with this Chinese guy, Tony. He's a champion chess player. His black hair sticks up punk and he always looks like he’s been in a fight. Now, it's my turn to laugh at word butchery.

We hear England calling.

We hitchhike across Europe hitting university dining rooms hustling chess games. He wins every time. The pretty girl and the geek.
When we got to the White Cliffs of Dover, they turned us away because we didn’t have a sponsor or 30 lbs in our pocket.

I met a ‘Nam vet named James who had a wounded leg and the disability to go with it. I moved in. He’s melancholy and stoic. I found a letter he wrote to his stateside sister while he was out.
 
“I want to run with Elizabeth in the mountains”,  it read.

That’s ok.
I didn’t love him either.

Bill hit the road and I decided it was time to come home.
I’m at the Leeside in Woods Hole and I’m old enough to buy a beer.
I’m listening to the news about Kent State. I can’t believe they’re killing our kids.
I stay with Artistgirl in her apartment. She seems fragile and distant. We went to visit a friend my first night home. While we were out, her apartment building burned to the ground along with everything she owned and every trace of my 6 months in Europe.

My belts low
My belly’s hangin’ in the snow.
My rhyme’s good,
But I ain’t choppin’
No wood.