I met a Walloon once.  It was Spring time.  He was a truck driver, he was drunk and he was late for a political meeting.  He picked me off the side of a road, in the afternoon, somewhere near the German border. 

    He spoke first to me in German, which I didn't understand.  Then in French, which was a struggle, but with a little English mixed in I learned he wanted me to drive the truck for him.  I told him I didn't know how to.

    Miles later, he parked on the main road near a traffic light in the center of a very small town.  When we got out we were greeted with cheers and flags.

    The meeting included more food than I had seen in weeks, but when the beer is free, and when the company is good, and while cheering a rousing speech, food retreats into an ordinariness best left for tomorrow.  

   I woke up on his kitchen floor.  He didn't know who I was and his wife threw me out of her house.  I could hear them yelling at each other.  Soon he joined me.

    He bought me breakfast, he showed me the road to Oostende, he hugged me and he wished me luck.

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