PURE EXISTENTIALISM

There was a lad, Mickey, I remember from secondary school who simply took it for granted that the world existed only as far as his eyesight extended, and nothing beyond his immediate experience and his love of Sunderland Association Football Club subsisted otherwise. Scarier still, being an avid away, as well as home supporter, meant the world only ever ‘expanded’ for him roughly on a fortnightly basis as and when he travelled to follow the team away from home. Despite this extensive roving however, he continued to understand each and every new town or city throughout his wide-ranging travels as a place which miraculously only appeared for away games and this purpose alone – Leeds, Manchester etc., even neighbouring Newcastle, ceased to exist for him as soon as the game was over and he was safely tucked up in his seat on the coach home!

For some unknown reason in my local the other night two fairly weird things happened which reminded me of Mickey… The first happens often enough as par for the course back in England if you frequent drinking holes regularly enough on your own that is, and although the ravings of numerous old drunks for me are nothing particularly horrendous back home, as a foreigner here it continues to unnerve, mainly for the lack of understanding and the cacophony of one way noise that accompanies this…

So anyway, sitting in the hope of having a quiet beer on my way home from buying some canvas, this old guy plonks himself down opposite me and proceeds in a very animated manner to pose question after question continuously in Polish, to which my increasingly diminishing replies of ‘nie rozumiem’, (although I suspected he was after a free glass of something cold), were laughed off in loud whinnying cackles through a huge mouth full of silver crowns and wild shakes of the head! (What was name of the guy in James Bond with the teeth?) Anyway, after about twenty minutes or so of this, for I didn’t have the heart or energy to send him packing, a bloke I chat in English to occasionally at the bar arrives and joins the table… It transpires, the old bloke, (Jaws, that was the guy’s name – Jaws!), who in turn, turns out to have been a genuine veteran of the special services during WWII but subsequently has lost the odd marble or two, held the firm belief that I was a Polish under-cover agent and that my Englishness was merely a smokescreen! I mean, what can you say to this? Nothing I or we tried would convince him otherwise and he toddled off tittering and snapping his sharks teeth at anyone he caught looking in his direction, only to return minutes later with three shots of the best Polish to salute our honourable profession!

And, profession is what brought character number three to the table… The large canvas I had leaning against the window was invitation enough for this rather sharp looking geezer I’d noticed checking me out on a number of earlier occasions with what seemed like weeks of fleeting edginess in passing to finally make his introductions! I might add, I feared the worse, as his previously cursory glances did seem a little less than friendly as and when our eyes met briefly during instances I was ordering at the bar in my broken Polish - Białystok is and remains staunchly reactionary and I’m not altogether quite sure yet how tolerant of outsiders..?

Wrong again however, but this is how weird this place can seem..! The guy, like everyone I’ve met here so far, is as friendly as they come, but just how friendly is friendly believable..? The conversation starts off conventionally enough, although my suspicions that indeed he had been keeping an eye on me since my arrival around six weeks ago turned out to be quantifiable, it was also inevitably totally innocent – He’d been looking out for an English speaker to coach his son, and it turns out that he’d simply been eavesdropping to check out my ‘verbal skills’ without wanting to bother me… However, here’s the weird bit: After, the arrival of yet more Vodka and a few of the usual exchanges between new acquaintances – how I’m finding it living in Poland, what I’m doing here, where am I living etc., to which I explained about needing to find somewhere else to live soon… Well, on hearing this, he only goes and offers me one of his apartments rent free..? Now, I take this as meaning in exchange for coaching his son… Not so, and I don’t know about you, but I find this just a wee bit strange and ask what the catch is? No catch he tells me, so we exchange phone numbers and I’m out of there as soon as the last drop of vodka blazes my lips promising I’d be in touch after the exhibition in a few weeks time…