He could be seen spending his money on drink, pouring wine down his gullet at one of the jerry-built booths on his former parking lot. He wasn’t allowed into the Ambassador Bar. Besides, it was too expensive for Piggybank’s purse. It cost a lot at the wooden booth as well, but not so much. When Freddy got drunk, he cried. He grabbed chance listeners by their coat buttons and told them to their faces of his pain, of his heavy cross. Freddy Piggybank used to be an honest car park attendant. This here used to be a car park in the past, his only joy. He spent all and every day here. He was happy. Then came the bitch from the town council. She said the market would stay until Christmas. He said, “fine”. So they built these booths and now they won’t pull them down. Soon it’ll be New Year. And then? The booths will still be here. Apparently for good. And so Freddy Piggybank is broke.
As the last sentence comes out, he always cries. He has no money left. Just a few crowns. All his savings went on paying for the damage done to the bar. Included in the bill was everything that had broken in the last five years. He’s afraid to go home now. His parents demand money. They need it for food and electricity. But he doesn’t have any. He eats what customers leave on their paper plates. It’s not much; customers are mean and eat everything. They wipe the plate dry with their last piece of bread. Freddy Piggybank can’t believe that this is what he demonstrated against the communists in freezing weather for.
But people soon tired of listening to Freddy. They chased him away, wherever he was. He stank. He didn’t wash. His clothes were falling apart. His trailer had its electricity supply cut. He wasn’t paying for anything. He had nothing to pay with. For nights on end he shivered with cold. He would sit, or lie and think. Then he disappeared for days. The sellers and servers in the market booths thought he might be lying dead in his trailer. But nobody went to check. First of all, they hated the idea of entering his stinking home. Secondly, nobody wanted to go to the police station and sign statements.
“If he’s alive, screw him,” said the manager of the drinks stall. “If he’s dead, same thing! He won’t rot fast in this cold. If he starts to stink, we’ll have to do something. But he doesn’t stink yet. So, what do we care? He’s not one of us.”
What a surprise when, after three days, the door of the trailer opened and Freddy Piggybank appeared! Between his moustache and beard appeared a scornful grimace, and his bulging eyes burned with spiritual ecstasy. “Pray, sinners!” he cried in a stentorian voice, lifting his arms. “Punishment is near,” he added stepping between the shocked servers and drunks.
This was the beginning of a new life for Freddy. It consisted of imprecations, gesticulations, and a daily list of the most horrendous punishments which would fall on the heads of everyone around him. He lived on snow from the yellowish snowdrifts, leftover food, and rage. He became a demented hermit and, for the people from the Hotel Ambassador and its surroundings, just as well-known a character as when he ran around the parking lot with the red money bag and his fat face glistened with resolute self-importance.
“I say unto you,” shrieked Freddy, “the Lord will be awesome in his anger. He will sweep away the sinners.”
The elderly Austrian dithers. He looks back. The demented man is dressed in a baggy jacket made from a potato sack. His feet are bandaged in burlap tied with coarse hemp string. His bare knees are blue with cold. He patrols the salty pavement at a waddling run.
“You too, you Whore of Babylon,” he yells at Wanda the Trucker, and a thin string of saliva dribbles from his mouth and instantly freezes. “You, too, will be punished! Your white sinful body will fry in the fire and the torments will never end.”
“Was ist das?” Wanda’s punter asks in alarm.
“Nix, gor nix. Ein Trotl. It’s nothing; he’s an idiot,” she assures him.
The punter laughs knowingly. “Ja, ich verstehe schon,” he says in heavy Austrian dialect, “A madman, yes?”
They both get to the car and leave, spraying the immobilised hermit from head to toe in dirty salty slush. The hermit retreats into himself. He closes his eyes and feels the water running down the snowflakes on his moustache and beard. Yes, he deserved that! Even a man of God must suffer and expiate his sins. Yes, suffering is sweet! In his imagination he sees Wanda the Trucker’s long white body writhing in the fire. “As she gave herself to her lovers, so she shall give herself to burning torment,” says Freddy. He represses the shiver of joy that this thought gives him. The prostitute must suffer to pay for her moral laxity. Freddy focuses his wide-open, bloodshot eyes on the wooden stalls that have sprouted on what was his car parking. A few freezing, but obstinate customers gather at a counter, sipping mulled wine. The hermit stares at them impatiently with bloodshot eyes. He comes to a decision: they, too, will get their deserts. He hurries to the stand.
“How are you doing, Freddy?” the bartender addresses him. “Sleep well? They took the car park off him, and he lost his marbles,” he whispers to the fellows at the counter.
The hermit approaches. “Throw away your money,” he yells with pathos, lifting his arms over his head. “Throw those dirty little bits of paper away, for the end is near! Yes, I say unto you, the waters of Babylon have swollen greatly and they smell of sin! God will come to punish Sodom.”
The customers listen and wink at each other in amusement. “And now, Freddy,” the bartender suggests, “tell us something about the whores.” He winks conspiratorially at the others, as if to say, “Just wait; you’ll see something now!”
Freddy Piggybank warms up. He is a holy man and has been called to warn them all. “As for women who sell their bodies, there is no salvation for them.” The man of God knows exactly what torments await them for selling their bodies. “They will be impaled on poles, quartered, gutted alive, boiled, and fried. Nothing will help them, even if they become models of piety. They deserve it!” Freddy was out of breath, and paused.
“And what about you?” one of the drunks asked. “Are you a Jehovah’s Witness, or a Franciscan?” He asked just to show his friends that he knew all about the subject.
“I am from God,” Freddy interrupts him. “The Lord appeared unto me and commanded me to tell everyone that the end is here.”
“Take this,” the bartender tells him, winking at the others, “have a drink! It’s good, with cinnamon and cloves. Won’t you?”
“There’s no helping you either!” the hermit shouts. “You will end in torment in the fiery furnace!” He waves his arm wildly and knocks the glasses of mulled wine into the snow.
The men are enraged. “Not that,” a drunk in dungarees and quilted jacket yells. He grabs the hermit by the beard and throws him into the snowdrift.
Freddy digs himself out of the dirty snow. He gets up and lifts his arms above his head in fury. A man of God had come to warn them. But he who will not be warned can’t be helped. The holy man is leaving now. He has to proclaim the news of the approaching end! The hermit leaves with dignity, stomping his burlap shoes in the snow.
“And we get this all the time,” the bartender sighs and takes a sip of mulled wine. “Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s not.”