What the Hell Am I Doing?

“Yes, I come from Germany. Years ago that was. Had a wife. She’s no more . . .” An old man named Michael was telling me as I was sitting outside a Subway eating my turkey and ham on Italian herbs and cheese. Instead of getting oil and vinegar on it, I got honey mustard because the idea of putting oil and vinegar on a sandwich doesn’t seem to exist here.

“I speak seven languages. Seven. You go through all these years. Australia. Germany. Everything kaputt. Es kaputt.”

“Seven languages? Wow, I barely know this one.” I had stopped tasting my sandwich and focused all my concentration on trying to hear what Michael was telling me. I had taken German for a good eight years in school, but I had never been good at understanding the spoken language, and those eight years of study are long behind me. The only German word I recognized in his mumbling mess of slurring and spitting was “kaputt.” He used it often.

“Glebe here. 220 a week here. 220. Kaputt. Down on [inexplicable street name] I pay 220 a week. Bathroom. Kitchenette. Bed. Es kaputt.”

“220 seems pretty standard around here if not more.”

“Oh, it’s expensive though. My wife and I in Germany years ago. Come to Australia and . . . why Australia?” Michael gestured out in the distance. “Are you from around here?”

“No, I’m from the states.”

Michael leaned back and looked off at nothing. He was incredibly drunk and rambling, and for every ten words he spoke, I struggled to hear one or two of them. I was getting the impression that he wasn’t understand many of the words I was saying either, but that was okay because I let Michael do all the talking. It seemed to comfort him.

“What do you do here?” That wasn’t the exact why he put it.

“Oh, I don’t know. Travel? I like Glebe here.”

“Eh. 220 a week. It’s expensive here.” Michael mumbled a lot more. “Do you have the time? Must be about quarter to four.”

“It’s 11:15.”

“Quarter to four?”

“No, it’s only 11:15.” Michael’s eyes widened with surprise.

“I could have sworn it was almost four.”

When I was first approached by Michael, I expected him to ask me for money. He was wearing a navy blue sweatshirt and matching sweatpants. They looked old and dirty. It looked like neither he nor his clothes had been cleaned in quite a long time. He came up to me introduce himself as Michael and asked if he could have a seat. I said sure.

I eventually gave up trying to actually hear what he was saying, just nodding and smiling and laughing where it seemed appropriate. I began to try to observe him, and I noticed his fingernails. His fingernails were grotesque. Yellow and black and untrimmed with each nail sporting a different length and shape. Some of them were long and pointed while others looked like they are broken off at random angles. Regardless of what he said about renting in Glebe for 220 a week, I guessed he was homeless.

I finished my sandwich without tasting it. I thought that I should at least get a chance to taste my chocolate chip cookie, so I stood up and wished Michael good luck and to have a nice day. He asked me for 2.50 for some coffee, and because I had collected an incredibly heavy pocket filled with silver (the 50, 20, 10, and 5 cent coins are called silver while I assume that the 1 and 2 dollar coin are considered gold because of their respective appearances), I was happy to oblige Michael and lessen the weight of the silver in my right pocket.

With a lighter pocket, I walked toward Victoria Park next to the University of Sydney campus, found a bench and ate my chocolate chip cookie. I asked myself the question I’ve been asking myself for the last few days, “What the hell am I doing here?”

I am surprised just how overwhelming and intimidating the feeling of nearly infinite freedom can be. It’s certainly not something that I have considered in the past.