I haven't felt angry like this in a long time. In a bodily way.
"Ich hab's nicht," I whimpered.
(But, I did.)
And it was so sunny. I was going to walk. I normally do.
"Siebzig Euro."
"Ich habe nur funf und zwanzig."
Don't ever pay up front. Though, I did. This morning.
I thumbed out my March card. He did not really care that two days ago I was legally riding the subway. But neither he nor I noticed that I was legally riding the subway when I got off the escalator to meet his sour expression. I quickly payed the 25 Euro I had in my wallet, trying to bypass the embarrassing moment, while he took my information brusquely.
I had been told the Viennese were not very nice about infractions, so my default posture was complete defenseless dejection. I was severely late for class in the first place. Did I deserve this chastisement from this style of system with which I am not inscrutably always aligned?
I walked up the several rounds of walks and stairs to where our classes are, my funny body filling up waterlike with anger. I had felt to turn back from my typical walking path and take another way, instead walking down Mariahilferstrasse past the subway stop. I crossed into the metro station, under the Strasse underground as I usually do, thus to avoid waiting for the light above and to check the length of wait for the Karlplatz bound train. The blinking yellow sign read two minutes for Karlspatz. Blink. It changed to one. Perfect. One minute to get down to the platform. One minute on the subway and a quick jaunt up the several escalators and through the smoky drug deals and up into sunny blue Opernhaus freedom in the heart of town.
The first escalator up, however, led us all up through three yellow vested men and one women. I don't have my April's pass. They were supposed to have given it to us already at the Institute. I am ready for this. This might even be funny. Money means nothing to me. Let me just look through my backpack for that one weeks punch pass I bought way back in January. That might save me. It's not here.
But money does mean something to me. It means seventy dollars. I'm not thinking about gelato or bread or tithing. Instead, I think that God wanted me to take this way. I get to feel this wateryness.
I walk into class and quickly explain what happened. Joseph, your pass is still good today. I hadn't realized. I walk to the door, close it, and run back outside and down to the man who took my twenty-five hard earned Euros and wrote down my name.
Yes, sir, I will wait to talk to someone higher. My German isn't very equipped for negotiating. I'll stand right next to him. He will be aware of me. He will see me while he checks the many passes of those coming up the escalators now and he will not be brusque to those without a pass with me in the triangle.
It's like the sunny day I joyfully let my bicycle cruise down from the temple.
Visit the Nibleys.
I turned course with bright beatings in my chest and loosened my body's grip on the bike. Stadium Way. I could see their driveway curve before me as I accelerated down towards their pink bricked house, my body loose. I reached the up-curve of their driveway and turned up towards it only to find myself pressed against the pink brick of their driveway under my bike. A mini-van stopped to call out at me if I needed help. My skin was ruffled up on my pinkie in sharp blood softened pain.
I picked up, rang the doorbell. No one home. I biked home in the cold blowing wind, my new blue pants ripped and my body stinging open. I (blowing) blew down, down to my pink cinder block house to my from Hong Kong bandaging roommate Wallace in my green bathroom, and then to my dark cornered bottom bunked bed.
Joseph, turn and now I will hurt you. It won't be much, but consuming. For a moment.