Sunday Overrun: When the thing you plan to do’s outdone by the doing thing you thought you’d finish sooner. The Mathematician and I set down coffee cups, book, and stitching needle and stare out of the window.
“It’s nearly lunch,” I say. “How ‘bout we eat first, then go out. You know, otherwise we’ll be out an hour, we’ll get hungry—“
“You’ll get hungry.”
“Right, and we’ll be looking for a place to eat when we’ve good food here at home.”
“Fine. But no watching Buffy while we eat — just music. I don’t want to get stuck in the chair.”
“Agreed.”
“Look at the legs on that!”
One swift lunch later, we’re off out to the Pleiße. We’d normally cycle farther, take in a couple of lakes, but The Mathematician’s bike’s decided that pedals are passé and taken to casually spitting its crank-arm nut. So we’re going à pied, French for slow.
It’s pleasantly warm in the shadows, unpleasantly not in the sun. We walk where the high houses hide us, find trees where they can’t. An old coach creaks onto the Schleußiger Weg and soils the underpass.
“God,” says The Mathematician, covering her mouth and nose.
“More like Satan,” I say, wondering how long I can hold my breath(*).
The air’s better by the river, sweetened by the work of middle-aged rowers churning southwards to the rhythmic call of a coxswain. I’m quietly impressed. When we reach the Biergarten, I’m more vocally so.
“Oh, look, it’s open,” I say, noting all the jolly sorts in shades and shorts. “Lots of trees in there. Lots of tables, chairs … a view of the river (kind of).”
The Mathematician’s tempted. I’ve a rucksack with two flasks of water, but there’s something perversely fun about paying for what you already have, albeit goldener and gassy.
“Fine. But I want to go to the cherry man first.”
The cherry man. He sits in the shade of a nearby linden, close to the bridge(**), selling apples. Then the summer comes, and the apples redden and shrink. Yum.
“Deal.”
“Ah, you must be here for cherries,” he says as he sees us approach.
I smile. It’s nice to be read.
“How long will you sell these for?” asks The Mathematician as he upends a tray into a blue plastic bag.
“Oh, a good few weeks yet, I think. Don’t worry. But don’t wait too long,” he winks.
“We won’t,” I say, paying him with a note that matches the bag.
Cherry-laden, we turn around and walk past the racks of red kayaks to the Biergarten. We pass the small play area with slide and plastic donkey-on-a-spring and, seeing plenty of tables free, both go up to the bar. I smell fresh chips in yesterday’s oil and see cakes in need of a home. There’s a card advertising the Drink of the Day: Yeast Smoothy.
“They mean beer, right?” say The Mathematician, noticing it.
I smile.
Monk’s lubricant in hand, I retire with TM and her Radler to one, then another, then a third table, this last beyond the lines of cigarette smoke, beneath something tall and leafy.
How nice it is to watch the clouds go by.
“Look at the legs on that!” says The Mathematician, drawing my attention.
I see where she’s pointing and whistle.
“Wow.”
Thirty flies swarm over a slug-sized turd.
A family of four comes in, young boy in a baseball cap leading. He slows by The Mathematician, seemingly fascinated by the way she’s sitting. The parents look around for a free table (many remain) and whilst they do, cap-boy drifts.
“Wow,” I say again. He’s stepped with one sandalled foot squarely in the shit. “How did he miss that? It’s not like it’s hidden.”
The Mathematician shakes her head, bemused.
When the family decide on the nearest table, they steer cap-boy away, who takes the turd with him in its entirety.
“Maybe it was a slug,” I say. “I mean, there’s nothing left on the ground.”
We watch his foot as he walks, watch the black mass rise, fall, and remain.
“Whatever it is, I wouldn’t want it on my shoe,” she says.
“How’s his cap still on?”
Not too much time passes before cap-boy’s bored. Not being able to partake in the liquid laughs of his parents, he wanders off to the donkey and hops on. He gets some motion going, back and forth, back and forth, until the burro’s a bronco, straining on its spring. Soon there’s a bop, bop, bop.
“Can you hear that?” The Mathematician says.
I nod. “It’s the donkey,” I say, pointing behind her.
“The donkey?”
She turns to look and sees cap-boy riding so wildly, he smacks the mule’s head into the mud with each swing forwards.
“How’s his cap still on?” she wonders aloud.
“That’s not all,” I say, telling her I watched him wander over. “He’s a sticky kid.”
Cap-boy … leaves the saddle to give donkey dunking a try.
Seems things don’t just attach themselves to him; they collect. Another two boys go over, drawn to the permissive violence. They devise a game: pull the donkey’s head down to the ground, then release it and watch the rider hold on. Soon they’re all laughing. Cap-boy, already having ridden long and hard, leaves the saddle to give donkey dunking a try. But the new rider’s not up for it and smacks cap-boy upside the head. (The cap stays on.)
The cowboy’s response? He walks off, crying. The other two play on. He wanders back to his parents, past our table. The Mathematician looks at me.
“It’s still there!” she says, in her best stage whisper.
As the parents clear their empties and make space, we decide to head off. Not into the sunset — it’s not that kind of movie and we’ve not been sat that long — but home, past Clara’s flower gardens and The Round where the Peanut People(***) pass.
“Holy shit, it’s hot!” I say as we step into the sun. “It’s burning my back!”
I wonder how cap-boy sat in that sun-baked, plastic saddle. Maybe not so thin-skinned after all.
—
(*) Not long enough.
(**) By the bridge I mean the nearest to the Biergarten. There are several on this stretch of the river alone.
(***) I mention the Peanut People here
