FRI JULY 21, 2017 // OFF THE BOOKS
OSLO, NORWAY
I woke up late and walked to a coffee shop to enter figures into the ledger I'd drawn in my journal to figure out how much money I didn't have that I was spending away. I was aware that many might find it a peculiar exercise, particularly while traveling, but I don't care. I find numbers comforting. Once something is measured, it is no longer abstract, and for me it becomes convincing that worrying about it is a waste of time.
The ledger had five columns. One for money spent on food and transportation, one for lodging, one for other (which was miscellaneous items which was usually beer and cigarettes) one for total amount of money spent that day, one for total of money spent on the trip thus far, and one last ominous column for my escalating debt.
I sipped an espresso, and removed yesterday's receipts from my wallet. Then I converted their totals from Norwegian krones to US dollars and placed them in a neat pile on the corner of the pine table. I sat by the window with a view of the sidewalk and the park across the street. I was able to determine that last yesterday I'd spent sixty five dollars on groceries, twenty two on the bus from the airport, four dollars on dish soap, thirty one dollars on beer, four dollars on coffee, sixteen on dinner with Torbjorn and company, and seventy on lodging for a total of two hundred and twelve dollars. It brought my total spent thus far on the trip to four thousand, seven hundred and ninety six dollars, and the amount presently borrowed against my home to ninety nine thousand, one hundred and fifty two.
That whopping ninety nine thousand dollar figure had been accrued over many years of living beyond my means. Primary culprits in the past several years had been the repairs to the home I made in order to rent it out before I traveled. I had the floors sanded and refinished. I had a rotting kitchen counter top replaced a long with the sink and faucet. I bought a new refrigerator, and I painted all the walls and ceilings. Promptly after the completion of this work which took place over the period of a rather exhausting month, some of which had me sleeping in a tent in the garden, I had moved out and begun my journey. Not that it matters much, but I never did get to enjoy living in a house that was all fixed up like this. And I'm fairly certain in retrospect it would have rented just fine if I'd left it in its previous shabby chic condition. It would have saved me thousands to do it that way, but the main thing I regret is the decision to paint the walls some distasteful color of gray. I like the hardwood floors, and white walls. Let the plants and pictures make the colors happen. Let the walls reflect the light from the ocean. If I ever move back there, the first thing I'm doing is painting those walls back white.
I reflected on all of this as I walked back to my quarters from the coffee shop. On the way back I took a picture of the awning over Naboens Pub so I could recall the name to tell Torbjorn later. Once back at the apartment I did my laundry and got everything in order to travel the next day. With my clothes neatly folded, and my bags packed I checked in with Maren about meeting up. She gave me the address of a bar near where she lived. I looked it up on my phone and deduced it was walking distance.
It was a cool foggy afternoon. I walked up the hill past a park where a junky was asleep. Some paramedics were attending to another delirious man across the street. The blue train went by. I passed a hardware store and two Lebanese restaurants, rounded a corner. This block which intersected the one I just left diagonally was quiet and verdant. There were no loud noises or troubled citizens. Just stately buildings and empty sidewalks. The bar Maren had suggested had an awning over tables and benches on the sidewalk. Inside it had high ceilings and pool tables. It looked like where graduate students hung out.
Maren arrived a little after me. We got our drinks and wool blankets and went to sit on the benches a bench on the sidewalk. Her friend arrived next. We talked about Magnolia. Her garden. Why people never grow food in graveyards. She was intelligent and alert. I had the feeling that sometimes I was in over my head with these women, and why they’d made time to hang out with me.
After two beers she and her friend were going to head home. Torbjorn had texted and said he was at a bar called (bottaniske) closer to the city center. I was tired, and hungry and had made up my mind to have an early night so that my travel day tomorrow would be easy. Maren was mysteriously insistent that I meet Torbjorn though. She and her friend walked me to a lebanese restaurant where I could get a quick dinner and gave me thorough instructions on how to take the train to meet Torbjorn. I thanked them and said goodbye. They gave me a hug and I watched them walk away down the sidewalk.
It was nearly 10:30pm. The light outside was dim and blue like being thirty feet underwater. The light in the restaurant was yellow and garish. The tables were greasy vinyl. I ate french fries and a chicken shawarma, washed my hands and face in the bathroom, and went outside to catch a train.
One came before long and boarded it to head down town. I did not buy a ticket. I was travel weary and held in mind the details of what Maren told me as best I could as the train rumbled back through my neighborhood and past the park where I’d had coffee in the early afternoon. I got off once I’d been on for fifteen minutes or so and had a look around. A couple was sitting in the glass station and asked me where I was going. I said botanist and they both nodded and looked at each other. The young man told me I’d need to travel two more blocks a long the train tracks and make a right. Then the bar should be on my right in another two hundred meters or so. “Yes that’s right,” his girlfriend said. “Would you like for us to walk you there?”
I thanked them, and said I could figure it out. They smiled and wished me good luck. I walked to the bar. It had glass gabled windows and string lights. I walked inside. Torbjorn and his friends were seated at a round table near the entrance. I took a deep breath and assessed the situation for a moment before being noticed.
Torbjorn saw me and invited me over with a grandiose welcoming wave. He was seated with his back to the window. At his left was a woman wearing a nervous smile and a dress purchased specifically for going out. Next to her was a dashing young man with short hair who sat with his elbow on the table gripping a pint glass. There was an empty chair, then moving clockwise around the table a strikingly beautiful young woman with long dark hair, a tall studious woman, and a long haired man that looked stoned and melancholy. I sat down in the empty chair.
Torbjorn introduced me to everyone. I said hello politely, careful not to make eye contact too long with the radiant creature to my immediate left. She smiled brightly and her eyes were fierce. I didn’t want to behave badly. I didn’t want to put any miles on my soul. I was resolved to make a reasonable showing and go home before it got too late. It had been incredible trip, and I wanted to quit while I was ahead.
Seated at my right was Thomas Anton. He was Torbjorn’s roommate. We quickly fell into conversation. He asked me about my surf trip to the Lofoten Islands and told me stories about surfing in the winter time on the central Norwegian Coast. He asked me about where I’d been before Norway. I told him about my winter in Puerto Escondido, and he replied enthusiastically about a recent trip he’d taken to Mexico City, and the time he’d spent in Los Angeles before hand. He remarked on how welcoming and generous his hosts had been in Los Angeles, and everywhere he’d traveled in the US.
The woman in the party dress said she’d never go to the US because she didn’t want to get shot. “Doesn’t everyone have guns there?” she asked, looking downward at the ice cubes in her cocktail.
“No, I don’t have any guns.” I said.
Thomas Anton reiterated to the whole table how friendly Americans were and rolled his eyes at the suggestion that it was a daily shoot out. I didn’t want party dress to feel foolish, so I said I know why you would think that, and the gun laws are on the foolish side, but it’s not quite as bad as it may seem. She shrugged her shoulders and stirred the ice cubes in her cocktail with a straw, so I went back to talking to Thomas Anton.
He was curious how I came to be a solo traveler. I went through the speech that was in danger of becoming wrote. He asked me if I’d ever consider moving to Norway, and said it wouldn’t be impossible to get a job in Oslo. I was genuinely impressed with the country, and loved my time there. My mind was still on finishing my music projects, which would seem impossible to explain to these people so I nodded my head and asked questions. I didn’t say anything committal.
I caught a glance of Torbjorn out of the corner of my eye. He had his arms outstretched and his fingers pressed downward on the table as if he’d been frozen playing a piano that was no longer there. His gaze was distant. There was a bemused, slightly frustrated look on his face. Somehow he seemed to notice I was clocking him and he interjected to Thomas Anton that I was a musician.
“Really?” Thomas Anton said enthusiastically. He asked what kind of music. I fumbled for which option of the several stupid ones I drew from for these occasions. I told him it was like old rock and roll music, like girl group, but a bit less precise. It brought up my insecurity being around these people. All of them had the equivalent of graduate degrees. They spoke multiple languages. They’d read the classic novels, of which I’d read a few. They’d read people’s doctoral thesis papers, of which I’d never read a lick. They had jobs, paying jobs, as writers and research assistants. They were crisply dressed at a stylish bar on Friday night in Oslo. I had on jeans, a wilderness is not for purchase t shirt, and a hoody. The same clothes I’d worn more or less for the last three years.
Thomas Anton told me about the music he liked, about his job, and what he might do next. He was undecided. He liked the job but there were a lot of responsibilities. He was tired. He asked me what I’d do next with my music career. Again, I felt foolish. I told him I’d be going to Michigan to finish a project with my bandmate when I got back to the United States. He told me he’d like to hear it some day. I wondered what he’d think if he actually heard the music. I’m not someone who suffers from low self esteem. I am a realist. The quality of my work, and the person that produces it falls somewhere in the continuum between terrible and perfect. If I had to bet I’d say it’s well above average.
Thomas Anton though, was someone who’d won the interstellar lottery. He could pass for a movie star. He had a good job in a country where the standard of living was near the top of the earth. His good fortune was not lost on him. He was humble, measured, and inquisitive. I was an adept chameleon, and quite lucky like him, but I doubted his past had the wreckage of reckless mistakes that mine did. And the fact was, I was forty, alone, in Norway, having on paper never accomplished anything in my life. Everything I’d finished had been a failure, and my trajectory didn’t look good. I wasn’t mad about it. I liked my spaceship. It was fast and daring, and I was ready to go up in flames if that’s how it turned out. I just wondered how much of this everyone else could see.
Torbjorns arms were still stretched out in frozen piano player formation, but now his shoulders had slumped a bit. He was doing a restless neck stretching exercise. He looked like a weary crime boss. He looked at me.
“Michael,” he said, “You need to talk to someone else at the table. Mira is Norway’s leading Knausgaard expert.” He pointed at the woman to my left.
“No I am not.” she said.
I looked at her. She smiled.
“Yes she is.” Torbjorn said.
Thomas Anton makes a remark about all the places I’ve traveled before arriving in Norway. Mira raises her left shoulder toward her ear and says to no one in particular “I’ll never fly on an air plane again.”
I survey the other people at the table for a reaction to this pronouncement, and I gauge that this was not the first time Mira has made a bold claim. She asks me how I know Torbjorn and I explain it. She looks me in the eye. My heart rate increases. Torbjorn interjects something about the letters we’d written back and forth before I came to Norway and my phone, laying face down on the table begins to flash and vibrate repeatedly.
Mira watches the phone with crossed arms for several seconds. “Who, at this hour, is trying to contact you so much in Oslo?” she asks.
“I’m afraid it’s probably someone from Tinder.” I reply.
“From Tinder?! Turn it over I want to see.” Mira says excitedly.
Now everyone at the table is paying attention. I turn the phone over and there is a message from a hippy looking lady who, according to her bio, uses her music to heal trauma. She’s good looking, but I’m kidding myself if I think I can listen to her talk about crystals without losing my patience. She wants to meet at a bar called glass house. I report his to Mira.
“She wants to meet at Glass House!” Mira says raising her index finger toward the small chandelier that hangs over our table.
“Glass House is very near here!” Torbjorn says. “Let’s go!”
“Yes,” Mira says enthusiastically. “I want to go on a tinder date!”
“Are you serious?” I ask.
“Of course I am.” says Mira. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“We’re going.” says Torbjorn. “We’re all going.”
Thomas Anton appears weary and reticent, but Torbjorn convinces him to go for one drink. Ingrid says she’ll go. And it’s decided. We walk out the front door and up the cobble stone street under th lanterns.