Drugs, Sex & Wiesn

           Klaus and Otto would have enjoyed chowing down roasted pork knuckles and pretzels at the fairgrounds of Oktoberfest by now, but instead were waiting for their friend Daniel to buy the remains of his lederhosen outfit.

           After a few hours, the two childhood friends headed out to meet him at the train station. During the later months of September, the Munich transit system was an unpredictable hub for a herd of pedestrian traffic. Much like the three friends, people from across the world were eager to partake in Wiesn (as the locals belovedly called the Bavarian celebration) for copious amounts of drinking and a great time. Klaus decided to call Daniel to ensure his whereabouts.

           "Hello?"

           "Daniel! Are you on board?"

           "Yes, but I'm a little discouraged about coming along...."

           "Oh, don't get insecure with me now."

           "There are more Italians, French, Dutch, Swedes than ever." he rambled. "American girls love those accents. With my luck, I'll end up hooking up with that crazy girl from Berlin again, it's a sealed fate." 

           "Trust me." Klaus laughed, tugging on his white and brown Bavarian socks as he left his apartment with Otto. "Nobody can resist a handsome blonde" he teased. "Especially when we're wearing these cute little Bavarian outfits and we look like they copied and pasted us." 

           Otto snatched Klaus' phone away.

           "Daniel, I don't want you running away again like that time we almost had a three-som with those Swiss girls." Otto laughed. "Promise me we will have a good hunting season? Tell me, you'll warm them up for us?!" 

           Daniel rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right."

           "Don't you worry. We're going to find you a New York City girl to lift those spirits and forget about your long-distance ex girlfriend. The girls with the same color Dirndl dresses will be drawn to our outfits."

           Klaus grabbed his phone back and laughed. "It's like we're the Birds of Paradise, with our own little colorful courtship spectacle."

           Klaus hung up and the two rushed into the Reinickendorf station, where they found themselves very intimately spaced between crowds of strangers.

           While inside the train, they had noticed it was full of mostly women dressed elegantly in various colors and assortments of the traditional Bavarian Dirndl dress.

           "Daniel! Where the hell are you hiding?" Otto hollered out in the crowd. As he squeezed through them, he bumped into a man with a dirty-blonde ponytail. 

           "Shhh!" the man turned and pressed his index finger to his lips. Before he said another word he took deep whiffs and flicked his thumb under his nose.

           Otto had just been staring.

           "Is there problem? Can you not keep quiet, please? If you walk down you may find your friend, no?"

           Otto walked away scowling. "I hate the fucking French." he whispered. "I just get bad vibes from them."

           Klaus shook his head. "Found him!" He said distracted by the sight of Daniel through the window of the next car over. His friend appeared to be snoozing besides an attractive girl with a blue apron and green Dirndl dress.  

           The two friends made their way down the aisle but a few women sitting together caught their eye, they were also ogling back at them.

           Otto approached a brunette and noticed her outfit had a bow, tied to the front-left side of her skirt. It signified her dating status as single.

           She smiled at Otto.

          "Oh, I can tell someone's ready for Wiesn?" Otto winked. He leaned his arm across her seat and could smell her peculiar scent, hints of booze on her warm breath mixed with a floral and fruity perfume.

           "Maybe." She shrugged. "Not as ready as you two...oh wow!" she said reaching out to caress his long curly golden hair. "You're like one of those Heavy Metal singers."

           Otto smiled and grabbed her number before Klaus pulled him by the back of the suspenders to hurry him.

           They stood now in front of their good friend, Daniel. "Get up, you damn drunkard." Klaus prodded at him.

           Daniel sat there unresponsive, but the push caused him to lean towards the girl sitting besides him who was texting apathetically. She had a gingerbread heart necklace with "Ich Bin Single" written in glazed frosting.

           "Daniel, you absolute fiend, you menace! You just had to keep all the fun to yourself? Did you overindulge on Peppermint Schnapps again?"

           Even after a light punch to the groin from Otto, Daniel did not respond. Finally, he stumbled over sideways to the girls lap.

           "Ew! You pervert! Get off of me!" she yelped.

           Daniel fell down face first between the seats on a filthy aluminum floor as Otto and Klaus cackled loudly. "Oh wow! Daniel, you know you need to ask consent these days, right?"

           Otto laughed harder. "He's gone!"

           Klaus noticed the girl looked upset. "I'm so very sorry for my friend. Tremendously sorry." he said before turning to Daniel. "Daniel. Get up!" He demanded.

           After a moment, it finally registered that he wasn't breathing. Klaus and Otto's demeanor changed. They tried to pick him up.          

           "We need to call 1-1-2." Said Klaus in a shaky voice.

           "Oh no... no no no." Otto said. "The fuck happened to him?"

           "Whoa. Is that guy OK?" asked a local German woman with royal blue scrubs, she looked devastated. She pushed the two friends away and pressed two fingers under Daniel's nose to feel a breath.

           "Shit. He's not breathing..."

           The girl with the edible necklace began recording on her phone whimpering a monologue. "This is so crazy, guys. Some guy just collapsed onthe-"

           Otto smacked the phone from her hand. "Show some respect, Bitch!"

           "I'm sorry..."

            Meanwhile, Klaus is frantically trying to get someone to pick up the emergency line, but it takes a minute or two to get an operator. They advised him someone was already dispatched, he was an off duty officer headed home who took an overtime shift patrolling Munich at night, he just so happened to be on board that very moment.

           "Someone is on their way, guys."

           The young policemen moved as quickly as he could through each car in the train. When he arrived on scene and after he flashed his badge, he quickly got to work. His blue eyes were intense and bloodshot from exhaustion.

           "This is an emergency, everybody head towards the back end of the train. Keep orderly and do not panic." He dispersed the crowd circling around Daniel. "Get away from him please, I need everyone away from the crime scene."

           The pedestrians followed orders but still gawked back and chattered.

           The officer turned Daniel's body around. His eyes were bulging and his tongue swollen.

            Klaus, and Otto staggered, they wanted to look away, but couldn't.

           "Is there a problem, gentlemen?" the officer asked wondering why they were still in his presence.

           "We-We were the ones who called..." Klaus admitted.

           "He is... was our good friend, Daniel" said Otto rattling a cigarette box he had picked up by his friend. "What do you think happened to him?"

           "I'm sorry for your loss, gentlemen. Please have a seat nearby, the two of you. I will have some questions for you in a moment."

           The officer looked around the subway and spotted a red emergency handle. Despite several attempts to pull it, it was unresponsive. The train had kept running as usual, but the doors malfunctioned skipping a few stops, it continued it's route down towards the fairgrounds.

           The policemen was agitated, he struggled with his phone to find another connection, then he heard a mysterious voice nearby. It was a man in a tattered brown coat.

           "Isn't it so strange that, hic how fragile l-life can be? One day you're enjoying a hic, cigarette then!...you take it to the balls! Like that..." he tried pinching his thumb and index finger together. "Like...THAT!" he snapped.

           "You better keep your mouth shut, or I'll break it, stupid old Frenchman!" Barked Otto.

           "He's Belgiu-." said Klaus.

           "What?"

           "He's Belgium, not French."

           "The two of you calm down." demanded the officer. "Let him speak."

           "I had just s-spoken to the young man. He was very kind and offered me to smoke. Lots of nice people here, even the blue lady give me electrolytes from her shirt pocket. So what caused him to be in this predicament?" the homeless man asked. He had a Flemish accent and a very distinctive thick mustache with pointy ends.  

           He grabbed an old water bottle and sloshed it back and forth before taking a big swig.

            "It was...somebody here on this train! Ha Ha!"

           "Excuse me? Are you aware there's a no-drinking zone in this metro system?"

           "Pardon? Mr. Police-boy. I'm sober as uh...hmm, besides yer not the boss uh me." he tumbled back onto another seat. The homeless man looked as if he belonged in a different era the way he was dressed and groomed his facial hair.

           "He stinks...." flinched Otto.

           "Can you please elaborate Mister." pried the officer. "Did this man say anything to you before his unfortunate passing?"

           "I, just. I asked him and his friend for light. He was going to give, then the stampede came from the so many degenerates!" He burped. "They all come through and and then, he took a big nap... Just like that! Hahahah."

           "Sir, please sit down."

           "Wait! I remember... " the homeless man pointed his index finger up as if he would divulge the answers to the universe.

           The officer, Klaus, Otto and several other eavesdroppers were attentive. 

           In an unremarkable fashion, he smiled then projectile vomited against chairs, and Otto's brown boots.

           "Ugh. What the fuck." Otto grimaced.

           The officer quickly helped the homeless man sit upright, and watched him fall into a deep sleep. He began to grow frustrated from his failed attempts to make the train stop, the crowd of strangers had begun complaining more frequently.

           "Mate, I missed my stop. Can't you do something about it?" said an Australian wearing a T-shirt lederhosen and a feathered green hat. "My girlfriends also getting light-headed."

           "This is very terrible." the woman in the scrubs said. "I'm needed at the Großhadern Clinic. There are more worthwhile people's lives in need out there. I don't have time to sit around with these people." She said in a pretentious tone.

           "OK." the officer interrupted. "I need everyone to stay calm while we fix this, before losing connection I've dispatched earlier an emergency team waiting just twenty minutes away at the Theresienwiese stop.

           The officer finally walked over and placed his jacket to cover Daniel's face.

           "I'm very sorry about your friend."

           "Daniel would never get into anything strange..."

           "Right, he just enjoyed his other vices." smiled Otto with moistened eyes. "...He was a good guy nevertheless. This wiesn was supposed to be his last before moving away."

           "Ahhhh!" A young woman shrieked, it sounded like the girl with the Oktoberfest heart.

           The officer quickly rushed over, Otto and Klaus followed behind.

           There was a blonde man bleeding from his nose, he coughed and gurgled.

           "Shit. Is that the French guy." said Otto

           "Do you know this man?!" the officer called out as he attempted to resuscitate him.

           "Oh no, I don't."

           The officer found he had a white powder residue on his nose and some falling from his shirt pockets.

           "Oh no. Is this cocaine?" someone asked.

           "No..." said another passenger, he noticed a small plastic box with the white substance in a hinge lid, "Wiesn Koks."

           "Please! Save him." said an exasperated woman of Asian descent returning from the bathroom. "He's my friend." she cried. "Please!"

           The officer kept a steady chest compression. After several attempts, he was unable to save him. He overheard the crowd talk about the plastic box, he could rule out drugs at least, but there was now a possibly murdered second corpse in the train with no evidence and a pack of an unruly crowd desperate to get out.

           "What the fuck is Wee-sent Cock?" asked the American guy.

           Otto rolled his eyes. "I have neither the time or the crayons to explain it to you..." .

           "It's menthol you snuff. Just gives you a sugar rush. No caffeine." Said Klaus.

           "It's like brushing your teeth through your nose." said another local.

           "Everyone stay put and in your seats! Do not try to exit the end of the second car. I need to know what happened, I'll need to speak with the young lady who discovered him and a few other people."

           "This is bullshit." said an American. "This had to be my last day in Germany."

           "Listen to the officer, he's just doing his job." said a man with a short old-fashioned haircut, he had an older Southern dialect.

           "Thank you, for your support. You're from down South? Vienna?"

           "Yes. But no I'm from a small town near Graz. I'm here for temporary work. I am a security guard in Wiesn, sir. I can try to help you in any way, I can. I have experience with helping the police agencies and dealing with crowds." 

           The officer was relieved to find someone who could assist. He frisked the security guard, and checked his I.D. first.

           "Thank you again, Lorenz, right?"

           "Yes sir. Nice to meet you. Maybe you'll put in a good word for me when this is all over?"

           The officer nodded and turned to the group of people in the train. "I need everyone here to listen to me and my friend, Lorenz going forward. Please make sure nobody leaves this car, this is all for your own safety."

           Otto stood up. "Who the fuck in here killed our friend!"

           It had changed the mood in the room, the public had realized now the two deaths were highly suspicious and someone may have been the cause of it, someone in their presence.

           Otto and Klaus told the officer there was the young girl sitting next to Daniel. She was the same one that discovered the second body too. The girl with the gingerbread necklace.

           Otto quickly pointed her out sitting in the corner.

           "That Bitch!" Otto pointed. "What a coincidence finding both of them."

           The young girls sat with her mouth agape. "What! You're a stupid liar!"

           The officer escorted her to a corner of the train for some privacy.

           "Ok. Can you tell me about seeing the first man?"

           The girl sighed. "I didn't do anything to him, if that's what you're getting at."

           "Just answer the questions, please, Miss."

           "He was just there talking to the weird homeless Dutch guy and some tight-ass doctor."

           Just as the officer began to jot the notes, another scream startled him.

           "Ahhh!!" a woman moaned.

            This time he wouldn't leave the incident a giant question mark. So he rushed over to the third car from where the noises came from. The officer barged in and swept through the unassuming passengers that had been unaware of the commotion in the first two cars. The officer found three giggling men in the traditional Oktoberfest outfits all wearing black leather jackets. They were all joking and speaking Italian by the train's toilet facility.

           An older woman looked appalled and pointed towards the bathroom.

           "Police. Open the door right now!" he shouted. "I'll give you one warning. Answer me!" his fist punched through the plastic door causing it to vibrate violently.

           "Ok, Ok. Calmati!"

           He watched as the doorknob spiraled and the door was pushed open. 

           The officer kept his hand close to his holster expecting the worse outcome, but was greeted instead by a rosie-cheeked tall skinny blonde girl. She looked embarrassed as she adjusted her hastily placed wrinkled bodice and apron.

           Then a tall tan man came out smirking and combing his dark hair back.

      "Mi Scusi."

           The officer sighed and quickly returned back to the second wagon where his partner attempted to hold the helm, trying to keep composure to a slightly-drunk, highly unruly group of people.

           "Everybody sit back down and get away from the bodies!"

           "Lorenz. What happened to the French man?"

           "Oh, I moved him to the end of the wagon with the other one."

           "Did I give you permission to do that? Do you realize you just tampered with delicate evidence regarding a potential homicide?"

           The security guard looked stunned, then smacked his own face two or three maybe four times. "I'm so stupid! I'm sorry! I screwed this one up! Shit! Shit!"

           The Officer shook his head. "Go kindly take a seat with the rest of the passengers."

           "Yes, sir." the security guard walked away defeated.

           "When are we getting out of this damn place, mate?" said the Aussie.

           "Like I said, we have a team waiting for us at the Hackerbrücke station any minute now. Everybody stay calm, we're close."

           The few minutes in the train had been silent, as if the air had been suffocating. Something disturbing was piercing into the officers mind wondering who was responsible.

           Klaus and Otto sat by the officer by the door of the second car.

           "Who do you think did it?" Klaus asked.

           "No idea." he said.

           "I don't feel safe here."

           "The young girl in the green dirndl was around both deaths." said Otto.

           "She's not the culprit. Just an enigma for bad luck, she wouldn't have been trying to broadcast the first body to her ten thousand followers and incriminating herself, would she?."

           "Then whom? The mustache guy?"

           "The damn Frenchy before he died?" Otto mumbled.

           "No. I'm not having this conversation with you two. Back. Now."

           The Asian woman chimed in as Klaus and Otto made their way to the rear.

           "That guy who looks like Robert Plant. He's racist to French. I think he did it."

           "Please get back to your seat."

           The officer pinched the side of his forehead back and forth.

           "Where is she?!" he got up desperately as he had a realization, and searched around. "Shirt pockets., electrolytes?"

           "Who?!" asked the Asian woman.

           "The Nurse. The Belgian, the Gingerbread girl, all had mentioned her, the woman who handed them the drugs. She would be the only one who has access to strong medication, and a whole concoction of shit nobody knows. She despised the celebration.

           The officer rushed over to the sleeping Belgian and checked his pulse, "Shit. He's... dead."

           He ran over to the first car again where he had spotted Otto beginning to light a cigarette. Right before he placed it to his lips, the officer lunged at it.

           "You don't want to do that." he said.

           When the train abruptly stopped, the Munich station had been full of police officers, and firefighters. There was no signs of the nurse anywhere, who must have escaped to the front of the train before leaving. Worse yet, she could have been in route to one the biggest festivals in Europe. The young officer would have a long night ahead of him with three bodies in the train. Wiesn as he once known to bring people joy was starting to now become a never ending nightmare in his eyes.