Day 960

Food, fun, fab four

I never saw his face, only imagined it while I hollered down the phone line. I imagined the sort of angles and jut and and tan worn by urban sunbathers of the time. He was the new restaurant owner. I was the angry neighbor. It was 1984.

A godsend apartment: the entire top floor of a two-storey walkup perched above the lifestyle porn and display-case kitsch of Glauber Strasse in Lichterfelde, a locality in the borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf in Berlin. Roof garden out back, two rooms, a bay window.The rent was $250 a month, of which I paid half in liquor from the PX.

I came home one afternoon and saw, across the street, opposite my room, a sort of party taking place on the balcony of a house that had until then been boarded up. Shoulder pads and glazed cocaine smiles clinking beer mugs, toasting – it surely must have been – a primo investment. A new restaurant was opening. The theme was traditional German food. The menu would boast Currywurst, Kassler, Potato pancakes and Bratwurst.

Late …