KISSES

This is apparently what happens when you, and by you I mean me, go hiking on the Polish borderlands with Michal: kisses from fat, topless drunk guys holding fish.

I guess I should have seen that coming.

We were in a minute speck of a village consisting primarily of train tracks (featuring exactly one train to and from Warsaw a day) and a hole-in-the-wall bar that dispensed serious booze for men who want to get drunk as cheaply as possible and stay that way for as much of the day as possible. I first visited this pleasant little establishment at the outset of my journey around 9:40 in the morning, by which time at least ten of the village's finest had gathered at the joint in order to drink vodka out of fist-sized glasses and exchange vague grumbles about, presumably, existential ennui. This visit ended fairly innocuously: I came, ate chicken-bowel soup and pizza slathered in ketchup (a Polish speciality), and went on my way without so much as a handshake from a fish-bearing fat topless man. I was not to be so fortunate during round two.

After the hiking trip came to a satisfactory close involving many hours of forcing our way through sparse forest and undergrowth along a beautiful river and occasionally being savaged by stinging nettles, Michal and I decided to kill the hour we had until the train arrived by joining the crowds of sweetness and light bustling in and out of the same dingy bar. Michal cunningly ordered a shot of "the worst stuff you've got," which as it turns out is pretty much the worst stuff that exists this side of lighter fluid mixed with actual death - I should perhaps mention that the shot cost about sixty cents and was steep at the price. We drank it with relish and not even remotely disguised coughing and retching, because we are two tough dudes. Having proven our credentials by navigating the rough seas of heinous vodka with manly aplomb, we were ready to join the bar flies in smoother seas and sat down at a table outside with rather more palatable alcohol and a heady sense of a job well done.

Michal first noticed our friend stumbling around on the street in front of the bar, and the sociologist in him discerned in the man's great drunken girth, ambling gait, and beached-whale exposure ample material for a work of photo-journalism on the faces of the Polish countryside. The man, for his part, spied Michal's half-empty shot glass from afar and discerned in it a chance to get ever so slightly drunker for free, with the result that in a few short moments he had joined us, flopping a fish (photographed above) down onto the table and exhorting us to partake of its bounty with him. As we did so, it came out that I was American, which led him to start a long monologue involving anecdotes about his time as a jet pilot in Iraq and his disdain for Ronald Reagan, who he thought was still president.

This was all well and good, but Michal decided it would be a shame to let our little piece of inter-cultural exchange escape undocumented, a sentiment heartily supported by our topless friend, so out came the camera, the photographs, and the kisses. The man had already planted a big Slavic present on the side of my head earlier in our conversation when some unknown theme in the conversation filled him with an intense love for humanity that simply could not be restrained any longer, but the fine specimen you see in the above photograph was the work of Michal, who suggested in Polish to the man that a mere smile would not be enough of a sign of international friendship, and after all what is a better sign of affection than a kiss? I do not have an answer to that question, and apparently neither did the man.

I guess the moral of the story is this: if you're ever traveling in the east of Poland along the border with Belarus and feel like what your life is missing is a big vodka-flavored kiss that subsumes most of the left side of your head, a trip to the local watering hole would not go amiss. Fish optional.