It was a joyous occasion. We were happy and loud and laughing and spitting in the face of the night. Well, a bottle of Jagermeister will do that to you. It was my third night in Austria and we were off on a random mission to some bar in the mountains. There were six of us. Myself, Flo (an Austrian friend from the pub crawl in Amsterdam), Martina and Rosa (two local girls) and Pixie and Trent. The idea was to hike up the hill at night to some relatively close bar, have some drinks and then the grand finale would be to sled down the hill on a skibop. We had some practice drinks at home, and had some practice skibops at the base of the hill. Spirits were high and it took a brisk ten minutes for us to reach our destination.
It was exactly what you picture an Austrian bar in the alps to be. A trickle of smoke rising from the log cabin, no doubt a gulaschsoup or gluwein on the broth. Discarded skis and sleds framed the entrance as we traipsed in and the jovial warmth slapped us in the face. Benches and tables made up the room and despite being relatively full we managed to find a vacant table. A round of beers and Jagermeisters was ordered as reward for our mild exertion. As we settled in, I noticed what was happening around us. There were two men dressed in full mountain regalia, one playing an accordion, the other a guitar, parading around performing apparently popular Austrian folk songs. The people in their seats swayed and sang with the songs in utter revelry and the three Austrians amongst us too joined in the chorus. The musicians were in their element, prancing on and off the tables and sang each song with more gusto than the last. After a few more rounds it was go time and we headed out to get on our skibops. In essence, a ski bop is a dildo glued upright onto a plastic plate, ergo the name penis bopping that Martina gleefully referred to it as. In our state we were barely finding our feet to prepare ourselves for flight. It was planned to be a no holds barred dog fight to the end. Organization was shocking and as the first one hurtled down we all threw ourselves onto our penis bops and down the piste. Squeezing the penis, squealing, and having no real idea how to do what I was trying to do, I managed to make it to the bottom unscathed. We all did. In quick succession. Except Trent. He eventually showed up, we glanced at him, took no real notice and continued our shrieking. Trent got up, trotted over and casually mentioned that he had hit his head. That is when we saw it. The blood. It was thick and dark red, almost like gulasch soup. In our excitement we did a horrible job of not freaking out.
“Oh my fuck, Oh my fuck, Oh my fuck. OK Trent you’ll be fine”.
“What?”
“No don’t worry, you’re not gonna die…. Is he?”
“What?”
“No its a mere flesh wound. You’ve just been drinking so that’s why it is thick and covering your entire head and neck and back and won’t stop bleeding… let’s go to the hospital.”
“Fuck, that’s a lot of blood.”
What we figured out, once Pixie confessed, was that Trent fell off his ski and Pixie following close behind hit Trent in the head with his sled and carried on going because ‘he thought it was me’.
We arrived at the hospital, Trent shaky, the girls worried and the guys ecstatic at the outing and some gore. Trent was taken into the operating room immediately and our unruly gang was left in the waiting room. We busied ourselves doing wheelies on the wheelchairs and expressing our horror/delight at how much blood Trent had lost. His scarf and jacket were soaked with it.
Trent would later report that we were not the only ones who freaked out. While we were celebrating in the waiting room, he was lying on the metal operating table, and under the care of the night nurses all he could make out between the two of them was “Scheisse, scheisse, scheisse”. They were not doing anything because the injury was so severe that they were waiting for a senior doctor. They kept on looking at and poking his head, repeating “Scheisse, scheisse, scheisse”. His bleeding had not stopped and lying on his chest, face sideways, the blood was slowly rising, eventually forcing one eye closed and nearing his nostrils. It was about that time that he became very cold , and recognizing the symptoms of shock, got a little worried and asked the doctors for a blanket. The senior doctor arrived, the bleeding slowed, the wound sutured, head bandaged and a dishwasher’s life saved. He eventually came out of the operating room to see us and get ready to go to bed.
We were regailing each other with drinking injury stories, when Trent appeared. 
He entered through the side door and in an instant I took in the picture. He was dressed in a hospital gown, head heroically bandaged around his ears, hobbling in, hanging onto a drip, looking very sorry for himself, and rightfully so. The sight of him appearing through the door threw ourselves onto the floor in hysterics, pounding the floor with our fists at the this. The noise we were making was beyond laughing, it was an impossible gasping for air, giggling and coughing and shrieking. We just could not believe Trent’s get up. It was too good to be true. Too classic. Too awesome. Rosa had earlier seemed irritated with how terrible friends we were. We explained to her, “Hey he’s not dead, so it’s all good”. She didn’t agree.
Trent spent the night high on morphine and dined out on a slice of bread and jam in the morning. We went out and had a few more drinks, boasting of our adventure and Trent’s misfortune. He survived, with this anecdote and a cool scar for the chicks to dig.
No comments:
Post a Comment