Rainer: The First Meeting

Rainer: The First Meeting

The early night was balmy and laced with drunken shouts and intonations. Faces illuminated under bright lights in a line looked forward with a mixture of hope, impatience, and the anticipation of a haphazard series of undertakings. The spell of youthful indulgence breezed through Berlin like a ghost-rider across corn fields as though no one in the world, and yet everyone who had ever lived, was watching all at once. Bottles clicked and lost their contents, makeup smudged under the eyes and everyday events were discussed by the waiting line in earnest and with applause. There was no need for anything more than what the night held at that moment, and for all those concerned, there might as well have been no more in the world than that four hour line in Berlin before that club. This is for our purposes, the point of reference and the only place in the world that exists in this story. Of course no story or event is isolated, but we will leave relating the manifold chains of time for another time and place.

Rainer began work promptly at 10:08 p.m., which for work at a nightclub that considers itself too rebellious to abide by societal rules about punctuality is extremely timely. Today had been a rather successful day for him – he had only cried once about his broken heart and had not spent more than two hours ruminating on his lost, red-headed girlfriend. He stood before the entrance of the club confirming or disallowing guests in on the VIP side wearing long denim shorts, black Reebok shoes and a black shirt that showed the tip of his tattoo coming up his neck. His head was shaved as always, making him look somehow shark-like and yet at the same time handsome in an earnest way. There were slight blue circles under his eyes, likely related to his working at night six nights a week. His face was even, fairly pale, and wore at that moment what he considered to be its 'menacing' expression, meaning he kept his eyes slightly narrowed, and his head tilted upwards towards the sky until it came time for him to address someone – then he lowered it to them.

Twenty minutes long he had been standing there, greeting important guests or firmly rejecting the irrelevant who attempted to enter his side – the VIP and returning guest side, when a girl came up behind him. Her hair was blond and a curly and she was petite – nearly a foot shorter than him. She had on a teal tank top and a jean skirt and appeared slightly tanned from three months of summer. Approaching him intrepidly, she asked in a high voice heavily tainted with an American accent if she could ask him a question. He hated when people began conversations like that.
“I know that you are going to say no, but I have to ask anyway since I promised” she began looking up at him.
“Then ask me and get it over with so that I can say no,” he replied curtly, not taking his eyes away from approaching guests but looking at her deftly enough to notice she was attractive.
“My friends are waiting in line and they have been for over an hour. The line isn't moving and I told them they probably won't get in anyway. It's not possible that I leave and they come back in with me, is it?”
“No, that isn't possible. It's not fair to the other guests.”
“You're right, it's not. I didn't want to ask but I promised I would try anyway. I'll go tell them to leave,” she said as she skipped by him through the exit, which was conveniently the returning guest and VIP entrance. Ten minutes later she reappeared and as she approached him he noticed her childish features for the first time. As a rule, he didn't make exceptions for rich or beautiful people so he even did his best not to notice things like that – out of pride of course.
“I'm sorry about your friends,” he said again. “It's not fair to other people though.”
“No I understand... What's your name?” she asked him hesitantly.
“Rainer, my name is Rainer.”
“Nice to meet you, I'm Karla.”
“You are visiting Berlin? Why do you speak such good German?”
“I live here, for over a year now. I study in German.”
“You know you look 16, Let me look at your ID,” he said smirking.

She stood there while he handled the flummox of guests pouring in and waited until it was quiet again, when he returned to her to speak. Eight hours later when she visited him for the fifth time that night while he worked and there were few people attempting to enter, he asked her first for her number and, having that, asked her if he could kiss her. The sun had risen and marked a clear yet softly cloudish morning as she left and went home, while he stood yet still by his post and watched her walk away, into the morning breeze and away from the nightlife.