THE STRANGER

 We arrived in Geneva and my one (and only) art collector JF picked Buddy and I up at baggage claim. Swiss Customs was a breeze. They looked at our U.S. passports and just grunted. As I always expected Americans are beloved across the globe. Piling our bags and my paintings into JF's car we headed for the Alps. 

    The first sorte was by ski lift to the top of some peak that looked totally inaccessible. The air was as thin and my worn down Frye boots not quite the correct footwear for icy walkways with 10,000 feet drops on either side. We ate. We drank. We slept. The next day we hit the spa. 

   Chamonix is a glacial cut between ridges 14,000 feet tall filled with tourists and fromage. Even in a bad snow year like this, there was plenty of snow above the tree line. The place was packed. I don't ski but Buddy, JF, wife Mrs. Warner, and kids Lu and Or do. I fell in love with this little family in the Catskills and we were all pissed when they moved away..... to Europe of all places. Now that I see where they ended up I'm more accepting of the wisdom of their move. I love the old mountains of Sullivan County, but I have to admit that this place is a vortex, one of the rare wombs of the world; devastatingly beautiful.

    On Saturday we partied Frenchie style: a giant oxtail stew prepared by new friend A, at another new friend, Y's house. The six of us drank good wine, ate the ox stew and downed a handful of X. Then we went to the disco. The place was a thumping bass and drum, sphincter splitting, mountain DJ oasis, filled with in bouncy bros and cool gals in ski togs. As we got squiggly a group of ski-bro KNUCKLEHEADS in spandex pants surrounded me on the dance floor. They shook their fists at my beard and made menacing eye-contact. Did they want to fight or fuck me? I couldn't tell. This was France after all. I winged it, smiled, blew them all air kisses and and ran for my life.

   When the drugs began to wear off, we left Y on the dance floor and returned to her house to grab our coats. As we entered the living room we couldn't help noticing a large middle-aged man asleep on Y's couch. Huh? Nobody said anything at first, thinking it must be a friend of Y's. Then, concerned for Y's safety, A shook the sleeping giant's shoulder, trying to rouse him. He didn't come to easily. When he finally woke we had some basic questions for this extremely drunk man. "Where are you?" Blank. "Whose house is this?" Twisty fingers, furrowed brow, and another blank look. Then he stood up and pointed at all of us. "I don't know you." he repeated as he went around the room. Stopping at A he said "I know you." A wasn't biting. It was only then that we became worried that this dude was some random intruder. We couldn't leave the house until Y returned. The mood immediately shifted. 

     JF, A, and Mrs. Warner took the lead, with Buddy Buddy stuck to the couch. As the stranger resisted leaving, I got up to help toss him and was immediately yelled at by all my hosts. OK. Fuck 'em. Let them deal with him. I'm on vacation. Down the stairs they all went. Should we call the cops? Not yet. At the front door, in the confusion the drunk fell to the frozen ground, JF hit his shoulder on a car, and everybody rolled around in what little snow there was. Finally my hosts got the drunk out, tossing his shoes after him. Mission accomplished.  We all felt a sense of relief.

     It was only then that we (they) realized that Y had been upstairs the whole time star gazing. Turned out she did know the guy. He was a friend....just like he had insisted. Acknowledging our (their) mistake A and JF now went in search of the poor idiot. "COME BACK!!!!" they called into the night. "We're SORRY......." Silence. Had he fallen into the river? Would he now freeze to death. Should we run away? Eventually they located him but he wasn't buying the ploy. There was no way this poor sap was gonna trust us now.

    I don't know what the lesson is here. He was in the right. We were wrong. But how were we to know he wasn't a genuine intruder? The door wasn't locked. We couldn't just leave him. When we woke him out of his blackout, drunken slumbers he panicked. I probably would have too. He was too far gone to remember specifics like "where are you?" or "who owns this house?" Those are tough questions sometimes. We meant well. Eventually the guy returned and hugged us all. No harm. No foul. We were all friends. Just another night in the Alps. I love this place.