I couldn’t imagine him hurting anyone.
“Fries?” he asked me, once we had settled in.
“Sure, thanks.”
I accepted the napkin, heavy with french fries, trying not to let any fall overboard as I picked them up one by one. It was a cheat on my diet, as I’d been trying to lose weight, but I didn’t care. The only things I could focus on at the moment were how good the fries were and how blue Stig’s eyes were.
“You’re from Norway, yes?” I asked, looking for something to talk about, and knowing that I had read that fact on a brochure I often handed out to guests in the reception area as they waited in the lobby.
“Yeah, a place called Bergen. It often gets mixed up with Oslo. They’re not really close, though. It’s kind of like confusing Seattle with Portland.”
“Wow, that must get annoying.”
“I’m used to it. We live here now, anyway. All of us in Loki’s Laugh. We were all friends as kids, growing up together back home. We had some other friends who didn’t form the band with us or move here with us but who we still keep in touch with. Like our friend Theo, who does our opening act. He has a one-man act called Mad Alchemy.”
“That’s so cool. Do you ever want to go back?”
“Sometimes. In addition to Theo and some of our other friends, my family lives there still— my parents and my brother. My brother is actually in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.”
“Really?” I asked, taken aback.
“Yeah.” He looked glum. “But that’s a long story we can talk about another time. I don’t want to spoil our lunch. In general, I do miss Norway all around. The call of the fjords is stronger than most mere mortals could even resist, but yet, I carry on. The waterfront around here is beautiful in its own way.”
“But it’s a different ocean,” I pointed out.
“Sure, but the Pacific also has its charms.”
“What about the people?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you think about Americans?” I clarified. “At least the ones around here?”
“Oh, honestly, I haven’t noticed much difference between people here and those back home. I get some ribbing about my accent, but nothing too major. No one’s called me Swedish, or worse— German.”
I laughed, then said, “Well, I’m glad to know my fellow countrymen are able to distinguish one country from another.”
It took a moment, my next question not the sort that was easy to ask. My curiosity was getting the better of me, though.
“What about the women?” I finally asked him.
“American women?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying not to blush. “I hear the girls over there are beautiful.”
“Oh, it’s true. The stereotypes do perfectly fit them. I guess they’re stereotypes for a reason.”
“Are there girls like me over there?” I ask.
“I doubt anywhere has girls like you.”
“You mean I’m weird?” I asked, to deflect from what I felt was an obvious compliment that I had gone fishing for but then didn’t know what to do with, like a kid who felt surprised when he pulled up a flapping fish from the water despite having spent hours holding onto a fishing pool.
“I’d use the term ‘unique,’” Stig said.
“Wow, thanks,” I gushed, sincerely flattered.
Stig reached out and placed one of his warm, large hands on top of my own.
“You must really like being called unique.”
“Compared to some things I’ve been called, it counts as a keeper.”
“I know the feeling. We got busted a few times back home, basically for just existing. Some of the bad press from the 90s Metal scene in Bergen rubbed off. The ghost of Vikernes, we call it.”
When I gave him a blank look, he elaborated.
“He was a Norwegian Black Metal musician who turned into a murderer and arsonist.”
“I see. Well, you don’t sound like Black Metal,” I told him. “The guitar does a bit, but not really.”
“Thanks, but try telling the police that. We did, unsuccessfully, on several occasions.”
“I thought Norway was really relaxed about stuff like that,” I said, confused.
“That’s more Sweden and Denmark. Scandinavia tends to get thought of as a monolith, particularly in the modern context. I assure you, it is not. Norway has been culturally authoritarian for quite a while. Which was why people like Henrik Ibsen made the work they did. From great oppression can come great art. Just look at Britain in the 1970s and 80s. Even after social democracy arrived, change took a while.”
Anger bubbled up hot inside me. Nothing got me going like unfairness. I was fine with authority in general. That wasn’t the impression many got when they looked at me, but it was true. Abuse of authority was something else entirely, though.
“That’s awful,” I remarked.
“We survived. Things are better here. We have free speech in Norway too, though it is more vigorously applied here. If a cop showed up to a gig in Seattle, we wouldn’t know it, because they would be off duty and a paying customer. Whereas back home, they would be there to break up the concert.”