Munich, 1997

I celebrated Oktoberfest for an hour!

Image: Author — good reason to cut back on drinking 1999

I stood and watched the world through iron bars, fresh fragrances trickling through the two-inch gaps. I should have been happily in another part of the world two weeks previously, but a fight with an inmate cost me my early release. I was asleep in my bunk, waking to find my cellmate, who I only remember having stubble and black hair, pissing on me, in my hair, my mouth, up my nose, stinging my eyes.

This is what happened.

I’d heard a lot about Oktoberfest, but I did not get why, in a place like Munich, where there are a thousand drinking places, there should be a special fair for beer. When I first heard the word Oktoberfest, I assumed it to be a season during which one could be entertained by writers, poets, magicians in the street and Bavarian dancers.

I soon found out differently.

The Oktober beer is twice as strong—thirteen per cent—and the peasants enter and go at it for two weeks. It was taking place in the Theresian Fields, which are on the outskirts of town, just before Austellungs Park. The beer halls were terrific. Four or five thousand people, it was immense and appalling at the same time. I went two or three times.

My son had left home to do his own thing. I didn’t know what that would feel like.