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The first morning, on an early loop-curve, going probably twenty miles an hour, I spun out, the scooter on its side sliding to a stop, the engine racing without the traction of the drive-wheel to pavement, and me unhurt but embarrassed. Neighbors came out of their doors and looked out windows. I had a viewer-ship of Austrian tourists. They were all old. I know I thought later - what stories they could tell. This might not be worth mentioning except, I did it three mornings in a row, on that same curve. If the first time was embarrassing?
Grandparents, they remembered horse and buggy. I examined the road, which was of a lighter color ash-fault. It was not damp. It was no different from the rest of the road. It wasn't greased that I could detect. I could see or feel nothing. They had to come out and look - it's the idiot, every morning. I thought they might be greasing the road, using some secret German chemical for making slippery roads undetectable. I thought they were laughing at me. However, they showed serious faces. And they were lean and of a grey-grizzled look. I was an idiot, or they were perpetrators. I didn't know which. It might have been just dampness, accumulated in just that spot particular. I never did figure it out. Don't think it happened on the fourth morning, or however more morning there-afters, there were.
In Vienna, I met a woman. I don't really remember her except she was later-teens, bouncy, blond, maybe a bit Raggedy-Annie, but she took me for a tram tour around the city. She showed me the sights of which I remember zilch. What I do remember is that she showed me - an automat. They were a novelty, the coming of machines, "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers".
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