Scotch Whisky a Go Go: Part, the Third

A basic continuation of Part, the Second. Here we leave the French angel behind; we settle down for a beer; we meet the Swede.

I leave at least the physical version of the angel behind and head up the Royal Mile, toward the castle, and drop into and out of various tourist shops, thinking all the while that what I see on the shelves is not unlike what I've seen in tourist shops in other places. Near St. Giles' Cathedral, which is a fine place if you are ever need a quiet place to rest, I pass a street musician who packs away his cell phone and begins strumming the opening guitar chords to Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." I know these chords because I have played them. I linger across the street waiting for the musician to sing, but when he doesn't, I turn right off the Royal Mile and find my way to Rose Street, in New Town (which, really, is simply less old than Old Town). More specifically, I find my way to a the Rose Street Brewery, just uphill from Princes Street, where I order a beer, sit down, and feel good to be off my feet for the first time in nearly 8 hours.

[Blog-entry interlude... I have often carried small notebooks on various travels. I have a few friends who do likewise (Tom, Shawn, and Lazlo, for example, though Lazlo generally carries scraps of paper onto which he records the genetic material for upcoming works of literary significance). I am not, however, one to bare said notebooks in public, just as I do not take my shirt off away from total darkness, and probably for the same reasons--embarrassment, a certain unwillingness to display too much information about myself. This certainly contributes to the lack of detail penned into my notebooks... On this late afternoon, however, I indeed had my notebook and pen on the table. End of interlude.]

As I sit with my beer while writing in my notebook, a short, stocky, brown-haired man walks into the bar. He, too, orders a beer, and he sits down at a nearby table, where he produces not only a notebook similar to my Moleskine, but a copy of Czeslaw Milosz's Roadside Dog, a book I not only own, but have read. My first reaction is to stow my pen and Moleskine, for I don't want to be the cliche' writer sitting over a notebook in a dark bar (even though I am). When I return from the bar with another beer, he walks over and asks if he can join me--he says that he has seen me writing, that we must have something in common.

He tells me he is Mark. I tell him who I am. He says he is Swedish, a university professor in Stockholm where he teaches comparative literature. I tell him I've seen what he is reading, that I've got a friend who's Polish and who likes Milosz. He says he is in Edinburgh for a seminar that somehow (I miss the exact title) combines Freud and "writing your life." Unable to get into the seminar, however, he has instead spent 3 days drinking. I tell him there are worse things.

He has a family--wife, daughter, son--but he hates the idea of being part of a family, that he can't stand things like family dinners. He'd rather drink or read (neither of which are bad activities, I think), but he does enjoy being one-on-one with his children. He says his father is an alcoholic and is ill, and that his family has never been "happy." He also says he and his daughter will soon see Bob Dylan in Stockholm. That his favorite movie is The Last Waltz, which he has seen 20 times but is always saddened by it because it reminds him of "more innocent times."

His son is quite the musician but often plays too loudly. He likes Emily Dickinson. And he tells me his wife has left him twice during their 20-year marriage. "But she has also returned twice," I tell him, hoping this is a bright side. He tells me that his country once believed it was God's favorite, and he doesn't understand how people can vote for George Bush twice. (Our favorite word, apparently, is "twice.") He rambles a lot. He mumbles. He repeats things. He leaves to call his wife, for this is her birthday. He offers to buy me a beer, which I foolishly decline.

And then he is gone, and I am gone. I walk immediately to a nearby Internet cafe' where I type some of this story and send it to Kominksi because I know he'll appreciate the progression from "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" to the Dylan concert to The Last Waltz. On my way back to my hotel room, I stop at a grocery store to dinner: pita bread, some hummus, beer.

Now, 9 months later, I wonder if he was an angel, too, just a different kind.