A Boy Absconded

There comes a time in every man's life when he needs to be kidnapped and that time for me happened on Tuesday morning while washing the dishes.  I suppose I should have seen the signs in the preceding days, even minutes leading up to my absconsion: Michelle's encouragement that I find a substitute for Wednesday morning, her pushing me to finish my wedding shopping a couple days early, her insistence on us cleaning the house the day before, and finally her refusal to let me get elbow deep in bleach water to scrub the tub, instead convincing me to just wash the dishes.  The door buzzer rang; Michelle answered.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Don't know,” Michelle answered.

“Was it the postman?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” I asked.

“Well, he was speaking in Hungarian.”

“Well,” I asked.  “Was one of the words 'posta'?”

“Don't know.”

“By now, I'm sure we've gained a reputation for just letting anyone in.  I bet every bum on the street knows that all they have to do is hit 15, then spout out any old thing in Hungarian and we'll let them in.  I bet one of them is pissing on our stairs right now.  Or maybe some robber or maniac could just waltz in our front door...”

I looked up from my dishes and saw a scruffily dressed man with dreadlocks to his feet and crazy smile standing our kitchen.

“You're coming with me,” my future captor declared.

“Will I need anything?” I asked.

“Just your shoes.”

“Ok,” I said, “let me pee first.”

I was brought to the 23 tram line, which runs south from my ghetto neighbourhood, through another ghetto neighbourhood on its way to the ghetto.  We got off near the natural history museum and grabbed another bus I'd never heard of heading further south.

“What the hell could possibly be in this part of town?”

We were in the heart of the old industrial district, just gypsies and abandoned warehouses as far as I could see.

“Can I at least have a hint of where we're going?”  I asked.

“It's gonna be loud,” is all he said.

We boarded another bus, this one going even more south.  I was sure we had to be out of town, but that would involve another type of bus ticket.  We passed Hero Square, but a different Hero Square.  I didn't even know there was another Hero Square.  The bus went over a bridge and I could see we were just on the other side of Csepel Island, further than I've ever been, then the bus driver slammed on his breaks, turned towards us and began yelling.

“You can't do this!” he screamed in Hungarian.  “There is not a problem, so just stop doing that!”

I looked behind me and realized he was yelling at a man in the back, who seemed to feel the need to press the request stop button incessantly.  The man said sorry and the bus continued towards nowhere.

Shortly later, “Get off here.”  And we did.  “Do you know where we are?  Have you figured our yet where we're going?”

I shook my head.

“Good.” the dreadlocked man said and brought me around the back of a shady looking warehouse.  He led me down a dark staircase and knocked on the metal bars that blocked the doorway.  A bald, 150 kilo man, all muscle, like an old Vin Diesel, answered the door.

“This is Aaron,” the man in dreadlocks said.

“Ah yes,” he said in a thick Hungarian accent, much like Dracula's. “We've been expecting you.”  He unlocked the cage and I was pushed through the door.

Inside, it looked like a dentist's waiting room, only it was filled with British tourists and instead of Cosmo and Newsweek, they were all reading Soldier of Fortune.

“What is this place?” I asked, playing dumb.  I knew full well where I was; I'd heard rumors of this place from backpackers and locals.  This is where people came to pick up AK-47's, sniper rifles, whatever deadly weapon's they fancy and let 'em rip.

“This is gonna be cool!”  Alan said with his distinct Irish accent and nodded his dreadlocked head.

Our appointment wasn't until noon, so we passed the next 20 minutes looking at catalogues aimed at cops, soldiers, and Montana-residing conspiracy theorists.  They sold every form of tactical clothing, all lightweight and able to securely hide even giant guns.

“Who the hell needs tactical pants?”  I asked, just as a man handed me a clipboard; he was wearing the exact pair I saw in the catalogue.  I smiled awkwardly and read the form.  It was all the standard safety rules and release questions for any semi-dangerous activity: Do you have a heart condition? Are you pregnant?  Do you suffer from chronic back pain?  Most importantly, are you currently depressed or being treated for mental illness?

Next were the goggles and ear muffs, followed by a further reiteration of the safety procedures.  In the middle of the briefing, we heard a loud American voice drift in the door.  We all groaned.

I may be an American, but few things bother me more than American tourists.  They are always loud, demanding, self-important and even though I display these traits myself, I'm usually the only one in the room.  A single American is loveable and charming; two or more and it seems like an invasion.

“Hey, is there where I get to shoot big guns?”  The voice asked.

Count Steve Austin went to the bars.  “Do you have a reservation?”

“Man, I tried, but I couldn't find where to do it on the website.”

“No reservation, no shooting.”

“Please man, I came all the way out here!”

The count opened the door, “You can get the basic package, but that's it.”

The American walked in.  He wore a red trucker hat with some strange cat/dog Siamese twin logo, a baggy white tank-top and camouflage shorts.  The only thing worse than an American tourist is a hipster California tourist.  He was followed by his scrawny, meek, skimpily dressed girlfriend, with pouty lips and nervous brown eyes.

“Ah man, just the basic package?” he plead.

“The basic package includes a Ruger Mk. III, a Glock 17, a Ceska Zbrojovka revolver, Taurus 86 357 magnum revolver, Remington 870 pump action 12 gauge shotgun, and an AK-47.  Is that enough for you?”

The American's lips only moved to form a wide grin and he smugly nodded his head.  He was handed goggles and was ready to go.

They took us into a long room, the walls and ceilings lined with tire chunks, a table filled with guns and ammo sat in the middle.  We were given yet another explanation of the rules: we shoot two at a time, don't aim at people, only aim at the targets, make sure you aim, everything in the movies is wrong, etc.  Then we took turns blasting up sheets of paper.

The first two rifles were only .22's, I've shot similar weak guns numerous times at boy scout camps and the Troye's garage.  Things got interesting with the next two guns.  The Glock had a bit more kick but still not too bad and so by the time we upgraded to the .357 magnum, everyone was feeling confident with the firepower.  However, once we pulled the trigger, we realized what a powerful thing we each held.  It was different word for each person, but we all uttered a vulgarity of choice after firing the first bullet.  A part of me just wanted to unload all shots quickly, to take something so deadly out of my hands quickly, but I was more concerned with aiming carefully to make sure nothing unfortunate happened.  The paper man was killed many times over.  When finished, I placed the gun down gently with respect.

 

I thought the AK-47 would be the highlight, and though it was stronger than the colt, it didn’t seem so powerful, especially since people aren’t even allowed to own one.  I will admit, it was cool, even empowering to hold such force in my hands, but I was shooting at a target in a controlled situation, intimidated into discipline by the two six+ feet bouncer types strapped with handguns.  To allow an average person to own such weapons, however, to take home or bring onto the street is simply stupid.  People are not always careful; we don’t live in rubber padded rooms and real people aren’t paper.  The only purpose of such weapons are cheap thrills or murder, neither is a good enough reason to put these in our hands.  It was sobering experience.

The American guy was given the opportunity to shoot a few more guns, such as an uzi and a sniper rifle, though it was his tiny girlfriend that was the best shot out of all of us.

The ammo was removed, the guns unloaded and we were all allowed to pick them up for facebook profile photos.  This was the time to act silly and ignore any safety rules and proper shooting stance; most guns were held sideways at this point.  The floor looked like the end of a Matrix film and we all went to grab empty shells for souvenirs.  Before we left, the owners warned us that airport dogs often have trouble differentiating spent shells from bombs and room was filled once again with the sound of metal dropping to the floor.

Alan and I enjoyed a good pizza after the hour trip back home, before I was whisked off for the next activity of my stag do.  The fully informed Michelle brought me a pair of jeans, but that was the only hint I was given.  Whatever was happening was to start at 16:00 and it was mobile.  In the end, it turned out to be Alan’s friend Bora, who arrived on a massive Harley to take me on a two hour cruise around the city.  We didn’t really go anywhere in particular, mainly twisting up and down the streets of the Buda Hills.  It’s a difficult and slow area to explore by foot, so I enjoyed the speed of the bike.  I’m normally not a fan of sitting on the back of bikes; the speed often makes me uncomfortable, but Bora was a safe, considerate driver.  After a couple of hours, he dropped me off at one of the more popular Hungarian restaurants in town, Paprika.

I had a venison ragout served over potato dumplings with cranberries.  There was enough to serve 3.  I ate it all.  Then Alan and I embarked on our two-man craft-beer pub crawl.  We started at a Czech beer house called Ferdinand, close to Nyugati train station.  The atmosphere, beer, and menu were all fantastic. Of course we didn’t eat, but I made note of the place so I could return some day for dinner.  At the second pub, we found ourselves in an empty room, no music, just two American girls enjoying their beers.  They came and hit on us, but Alan and I aren’t the types to flirtatious when not interested.

The night ended at District IX’s Eleszto, the newest ruin pub in town.  We were worried about the neighbourhood: it all gets a bit dodgy after Krudy, but once we turned onto the pub’s street, everything became well lit and nice.  The pub had a wide selection of local microbrews and the prices weren’t much more than other ruin pubs, only the beer was much better.  We stumbled home late and I was glad I didn’t have to teach the next day.

I was kidnapped again on Friday in Norway, though I’d known about it before; I just didn’t know the plan.  Michelle’s cousin Stein-Erik was the organizer.  He arrived that evening at six PM and Michael and I got into his car with workout clothing and rain gear.  An hour later, were on one of the barrier islands outside of Bergen, staring at the North Sea.

“Do you know what we are doing yet?” Stein-Erik asked.

“Nope,” I replied.

We met with three of his friends and they all grabbed a few large duffle bags and we headed along a trail towards the sea.  I was getting curious.  Finally, we dropped our things in front of  cliff face.

“You are going to climb that,” Stein-Erik said, pointing to the 15m cliff.

“Cool,” I said.  I love climbing.

Apparently, Stein-Erik had this great plan of having me climb up the cliff and film me getting vertigo or freaking out and posting it on facebook.  He wasn’t informed about my broken danger meter. Naturally, I had a blast.  I’d forgotten how much I loved climbing and I couldn’t imagine many more beautiful places to do it.  This was all followed, of course, by the consumption of insane amounts of alcohol, something I find much more frightening.  I once again learned the lesson that I should never attempt to keep up with anybody when drinking: I’m an eternal lightweight.

I ended my second bachelor party being nursed back to health at 3AM by my future wife: a fitting introduction to married life.