Funk Berlin

Funk Berlin by Lita Doolan

LHR
Duty free sucks me down its hole and Pippa splits. Like Zola Budd that
girl makes a run for it in all the wrong places. I board the plane,
aware of the big space next to me where Pippa isn't sitting. The empty
seat sums up our relationship. Finally Pippa figures out the departure
lounge isn't Berlin and makes it to her seat. She's coming across like
a mad woman. Her breath smells of sulphuric acid. "Sit down and shut up
woman. Drink your vodka." Except vodka comes in tiny bottles that
dribble down her cheeks. Maybe we'll lose each other at Alex
Platz.
YHA KLUCKSTRASSE
They throw your bed linen at you here, it's a refuse sack with a hood.
Pippa's on top (no change), bunk beds confuse me. The girl's a little
drunk and is sitting on her top bunk shouting "Geronimo!" in a loop.
Face it, you don't ask. Pippa does stuff with a hairdryer and squirty
gel, I leave it all to spit. It was good enough for James Cagney. We
are open hearted and ready to share cultural heritage with the
Berliners and generally see who can belly the most German voddie. Man,
we just want to get trollied. I want Absolut but Pippa has such a tight
ass, she wants to buy the supermarket stuff, balls to that. Anyway the
supermarkets here have no less than twenty soft porn magazines all done
in a very tasteless way so there's no rush. I don't know how she does
it because Pippa barely speaks English, but she gets us onto the right
U-bahn.
KUDAM
The alcohol has poisoned us with paranoia. Solution? Swallow a shed
load more (but the bar is still as friendly as nitric acid.) A
unanimous decision is made and we follow the neon lights to the
stylishly tacky gay bars. (Note to self: If you're being ignored stick
with a minority group.) Pippa does her fag hag bit and makes numerous
new friends. The bar man swizzles me out of a fiver, I fight for it
("Ist dass gut?") and then the manager comes over and fair play gives
me my proper change, which is nice. The bar plays jazz because jazz is
parasexual.
TURKISH KEBAB HUT
4am. Immigrants in leather jackets mither about the price of beef. I
order two of everything but the kebab man keeps presenting me with one
of everything. Pippa gets the kebab, (I'm so manly I kill myself), I
get the coleslaw and cola. I know I'm sobering up as I can feel my
teeth (and boy do they need a spearmint based smell badly). Pippa is
leaning against the wall like she's got off a fairground ride or is on
drugs. We wait at a station anyway (you don't get far with a woman
slumped over you) and ride a train. The fact that there are two loaded
Polizei with muzzled Rottweilers at every station is freaking me out.
Do they arrest you for having roll up paper? Y'know that part on
Reservoir Dogs where Tim Roth fakes a story about going to a public
lavatory with a load of dope in his pocket as a tonne of sniffer dog
police come in? I feel his sweat right now. Pippa drags me out of it
and that's mainly why I rate her. All the same I wipe the rest of her
kebab in her face. She has shards of kebab meat up her nostrils and is
wiping ketchup in her hair but still looks great. Except now she wears
malice in her gorgeous alcoholic brown eyes and bops me on the nose
quite hard because she's as mad as a hellcat and I don't care. I know
we're not speaking but sometimes it's enough to get out alive.

? Lita Doolan 2001