Once I found myself as a passenger in a 1970 black Mercedes, driven at a dangerously high speed through dark country roads somewhere in quiet Niedersachsen by a horribly drunken German student who introduced himself to me with the words, "First I consider myself an anarchist, and then secondly a business student."




He was accompanied by two equally drunken girls. One described herself as an "anti-bourgeois apprentice". She talked a lot about Immanuel Kant and why the German civil war would come any day now. Something about the enlightened young people now being too smart to "tolerate all this spiessig scheiss". The other girl was a self-described anarchist too, although she seemed more interested in acquiring a vintage Mercedes of her own.




"OOoooohh Heinrich, dein Auto ist so...so......sooooooo......"




"...revolutionary...?" Said I (auf Englisch).




"Mmmmmmmmm......wir brauchen mehr Bier!"




"Und Banjo!" yelled the anarchist business student driver.




"What the hell does he mean by a banjo?" I wondered.




Turns out a Banjo is some sort of chocolate bar. And he bought no less than ten of them from a frightened looking Tankstelle worker, while the girls danced around the shop and blew him kisses and piled as many beer bottles in their arms as they could carry.




Meanwhile back in the car, he confides in me: "Everyone calls me Banjo because all I really like to eat are Banjos." I pointed out to him that "banjo" is Spanish for a WC. He merely laughed and said, "The Spaniards are true revolutionaries!" I said, "I wa stalking about Mexico. I don't know what they call it in Spain."




Girl #1 yells: "Forget the Spaniards, let's drink!"




Girl #2 edges up entirely too close to me (we're in the back seat), places her hand on my knee and says, "I can see that we have the same attitude."




"Revulsion?" I ask.




Meanwhile Banjo is driving wildly, gulping beer and barking like a surgeon: "Bier.......Banjo.......Bier....Banjo......" Girl #1 is playing nurse, handing him his beer and/or Banjo, whichever one he requests, lovingly feeding him the chocolate slop whenever he demands it be put in his mouth.




Silence while Girl #2 contemplates the meaning of the English word "revulsion", Girl #1 gazes off into the revolutionary distance, the sound broken up by Banjo's disgusting chocolate munching.




Suddenly he pulls the Mercedes to the side of the road and asks for his hat. Yes, a hat. Girl #1 produces a baseball cap from under the seat. It's blue and says "I did it!" on it. Whatever did he do, I wonder....




He takes off again into the dreary night, sticking his head out the window and screaming (in English) .....




"I love everyone and I love Banjo!"




All I can think of is how much I despise Banjo and his bastard hat.