A few month back, Halane and I were returning from one of the many baby doctor appointments we attended during this recent pregnancy. It was a hot, beautiful summer day. In fact, the photos are here(link coming). The doctor’s we chose, since we have private insurance, tend to be located where more people have private insurance—which is, generally, in Vienna’s tonier, more remote districts near the vineyards.

We were hoping for one of the “new” street cars to carry us back to the City because we had Maple in a stroller and trying to get onto the old style street car with a stroller is pretty much murder on your back. Plus, I can never figure out which way I’m supposed to put the stroller. In the U-Bahn, they have signs that say “please park your baby stroller perpendicular to the direction of train travel,” which I assumed was good advice and applied to all methods of conveyance. But I’ve been fussed at for doing so on the streetcars and, quite honestly, there’s simply not room to park them in the “safe” manner. Anyway, I wrestle with it every time. But anyway, we were waiting, staring at the vineyards, entertaining and being entertained by Maple, sitting in the shelter for shade, and hoping for a new street car. Our wish was granted, as a new street car pulled up.

Since we were near the end of the line, the cars were not full at all. I took the seat designated for baby stroller bearers, and Halane and Maple sat the seats directly across the aisle from me. Our ride was uneventful, but as we pulled up to a stop, I could see a loony-looking guy sitting there vigorously rubbing his right eye and dropping an empty can of Ottakringer beer on the sidewalk. You know the type: bigger, dirty hair, gray skin, missing a tooth or two, dirty pants, a shirt that’s tucked in only above the left front pocket. Anyway, I saw him, and hoped, as the street car came to a stop, that a different set of doors than the two directly in front of me would present themselves to him as easier targets.

As it turned out, the doors opened right in front of him. He stood up, stumbled onto the streetcar (they are the lowest-barrier streetcars I have ever seen—they come right to the curb—he didn’t even have to step up anything) and immediately grabbed the hand-hold nearest the door. The whole time, he was furiously rubbing his right eye with his right forearm, and raising his eyebrows as a person who is about to sneeze. “Oh well,” I thought, “at least he’s not trying to talk to us”. I could smell the dirty beer smell emanating from his body.

He leaned over and said something to Halane.

I looked at the floor. His shoes were open at the toes, as if sliced. His toes were sticking a good two inches over the front of the sole. He had very dirty feet with bandages wrapped around the ankles. His toenails were easily an inch longer than his toes, curved and brown like the skin of an onion. There were weeping wounds and scabs all over his feet.

“Ich verstehe nicht,” I heard Halane say.

The man turned immediately to me.

“Excuse me,” he said in German. “Is this eye looking straight like this eye?”

He removed his hand from his eye to reveal his eye socket. There was no eye in it—just some sort of white thing to the right. It wasn’t a glass eye, but some sort of concave cap that was jammed halfway into the corner of his eye and partly rolled up under the lid. I could see some meaty, red tissue in his eye socket. His hand went immediately back to his eye.

“No, that’s not right.” He adjusted some more with the palm mashed into his eye socket method. “How about now?”

He removed his hand, and the cap was now more in place, but still looking slightly askew.

“Is it okay?” he began to move his hand toward the eye again. Fearing a repeat of the gaping socket incident, I interjected—
“No, that’s just about perfect! It looks almost like the other eye.”

“Good. It’s not exactly right, though. I couldn’t afford a real fake eye,” he explained.

He went on to tell me the story of losing his eye, but I couldn’t quite understand the exact details—something about a work machine and a sudden accident.

“It was thirty thousand Schillings for a real fake eye!” he exclaimed. “I couldn’t afford it.”

“That’s too bad, but this one works,” I said. I noticed that the blues in the irises didn’t match and were different sizes.

“Well, I just got out of the hospital. My feet,” he gestured toward them, “they keep giving me trouble. What’s the next stop?”

I told him.

“Okay. Then I will get out there. I wish you and your family all the best. Auf Wiedershauen.”