Exactly 32 years ago today, a pear-shaped man named Sepp (Josef) looked at his watch, took a last sip of his coffee, and grabbed his cap. The sun was trying to switch on under a thick blanket of ubiquitous grey German sky. As he was leaving the bakery all he could think about was how excited he was for his last shift before his two-week holiday was to begin. One more shift and then tomorrow he would commence with two weeks of revelry and drunken debauchery at Oktoberfest. He and a dozen or so of his old school friends had reserved a table for the duration, as they did every year, and Sepp went often. Though it had become commercialized in many ways, Sepp still enjoyed the Oktoberfest celebrations. He’d been hung over or had dragged ass too often in his younger days at work during the festival, so to avoid any issues he now took the two weeks off for the party.

He met his three-man crew at the job site. None of them were from Bavaria, in fact, they were Ossies (sl. East Germans). They were all finishing their last cigarettes before beginning the day. It remained overcast and wet, with periods of rain and darker grey. The men were going to lay some new cables for SWM (Stadtwerke München-Munich Utilities) near Dom-Pedro Platz, a very scenic and upscale area in the Nymphenburg quarter on the west side of Munich.

The work commenced at 7 a.m. sharp. It was uneventful. Brotzeit (literally bread time, but it was more like a coffee break) was from exactly 9 to 9:15. The conversation invariably led to the idiosyncrasies of the Bavarians, Sepp being a near-perfect rendition of men in Bavaria, and the other three from Saxony all laughing in great fun. It was to be their first Oktoberfest as they had only been able to come to West Germany only a pair of years before.

At 11:30, the guys decided to take their lunch break and Sepp volunteered to stay with the equipment so the other three workers could duck into an Italian restaurant and grab some pizzas. Pizza was a big thing with the Ossies. And orange juice. Sepp had packed a couple of Leberkäse (Bavarian meatloaf) sandwiches which would go down nicely with the two bottles of Helles (Lager) he had. This was his typical Friday lunch. It is bad luck to celebrate something before it happens which is why Sepp would only begin to drink the special Oktoberfest beer after the festival began.

He finished his sandwiches and one of the beers when he spied an attractive, well-dressed young man sitting on a bench at Dom-Pedro Platz drinking a beer. Sepp, in true Bavarian fashion, preferred to drink beer with another person rather than alone. He grabbed his other beer, locked up the truck, and made his way over to the young man. The sky had quit spitting drizzle for a spell.

Sepp approached the young man. He noticed that the young man was wearing a lambskin leather jacket, expensive Italian shoes, a nice gold watch, and a bouquet of flowers lying next to him on the bench. The young man seemed unaware of his surroundings and was staring at the ground lost in thought.

“Mind if I sit here?” asked Sepp.

The young man looked up vacantly with bloodshot eyes. He looked at Sepp and then at Sepp’s beer. Though there was no reply, Sepp felt from the man’s body language that sitting down wouldn’t cause any friction, and in fact, the man might’ve even wanted Sepp to join him. Sepp sat down and opened his beer with a plank from the bench.

“The weather’s going to be really shitty this weekend,” said Sepp, trying to open the conversation with the most superficial, safe opening he could muster.

“I hadn’t noticed,” the young man replied in a heavy Tyrolean accent, an accent only found naturally in northern Italy.

“You from around here?” asked Sepp, obviously aware of the lilting dialect of Tyrol.

“No. From Merano. In Italy. Live in Bolzano.”

A woman with oversized ears and lips, tilted her head a bit as she walked by with her grey French Bulldog, reaffirming the axiom that owners begin to take on the looks and characteristics of their dogs if given ample opportunity. She and her dog looked at the two men and then the dog seemingly took the lead in passing judgment on the liquid aspect of the two men’s lunches. “Some can’t wait till tomorrow to start drinking in the day…” she mumbled, waddling by.

A few seconds later a woman came by pushing a stroller with a cooing baby inside.

“You have any kids?” asked the young man.

“Me? Not that I know of,” said Sepp. “I usually change girlfriends every few years. Whenever a girl mentions anything about starting a family I know it’s a good time to start looking for another girl. You?”

The young man paused for a moment and then spoke.

“A few days ago a woman called me. She knew my name and she asked if I remembered her – I said I did, though I didn’t. We…hooked up…New Year’s Eve…carrying my child…sure…mine. She…didn’t want anything except…be here…when the baby came…a part of its life or not…my decision…brother and mother…from Poland…accident…not be alone…baby…overdue…induce labor…seven…didn’t know her name they wouldn’t let me in.”

“Shit,” was all that Sepp could say.

The two sat quietly, the young man composing himself, until a bit after noon, when Sepp went back to his crew having to ponder something unexpectedly a day before Oktoberfest, something that muffled his enthusiasm. Around an hour later, the receptionist watched happily as the young man finally sulked away from the bench.

The receptionist called her husband. “A son! It’s ours! The Polish girl already signed to give it up. The father never showed up!”