...if we shadows have offended (a)...

                                                     

I slam my fist into Nat again. I can see headlines from the Peoria Urinal Jar that their two star Newspaper carriers get into a scuffle on their last night in Europe and now Peoria and environs will not be allowed to host or participate in the semi-prestigious Young Columbus contest ever again,
Charles and Trevor are behind me as well as cool Dylan from Sam's group and Dan the future Rabbi. They  are endeavoring to lift me off of Nat.  The Big Ten have risen as if it is the gospel reading in church and are chanting a fight mantra, fight! Baker seem to be initially pleased, sounding like a news caste stating that Harry is crazy as fuck. Nat's face is transitioning to the electric mauve color that is always circling Greta's head.I see Meg Weaver with her fingers cupped over her mouth looking as if she is ready to cry. I swear I can hear one of Rita's friends state isn't that that boy you are always talking to in the lobby who is never around very long.

I take another swing making contact with bridge of my adversary's nose.

If only he would have passed the Goddamn roles.

If only he wouldn't have publicly disparaged Mark in front of me or jested the sociological clime of my school.

I hurl another punch. Jennifer Flood comments aloud to Harmony that it looks like your annoying boy friend is foaming shaving-cream at the mouth and growing fangs.

 Again I am being wheeled back.

 When my left arm goes for a punch it inadvertently makes contact with the side of Sir Charles' visage. I take Nat's head and spike it into the ground.

Blood from Nat's face erupts in constellations of asterisks.

Harmony is biting her nails. She is shaking. Sir Charles is looking at me as if to say why, man? Why? The Lord of the Manor is looking like he is endeavoring to take a conscious bowel movement in his tights without anyone noticing. Vinny has his camcorder and stated that he has gotten everything on film for insurance purposes, sorry Tone.

I turn towards Lynn Minton.

"You want to know about youth today and how they interface with the world with the planet. Look at this privileged dip-shit.

"It's all about social gravity. You are pretty much born into shit and whatever. I mean. it's great that PARADE does this trip and, trust me, its life changing and everything but the bulk of everyone on this trip pretty much already had it made from the outset. I mean. The school I'm from loses half of their freshman before graduation. It also has something like a thirty percent teen age pregnancy rate. It's crazy. The kids just never, and I mean, just never have a chance to make something of themselves because society has already fucked them over from the preordained outset and then there's hoity-toity fucks like Nat here who thinks he's fucking better than everyone else because he goes to a high school where there is zero diversity whatsoever."

 Lynn Minton takes out a parchment and ostrich quill. She is scribbling madly. Finally I have had my interview with Lynn Minton. Finally I have emptied everything that is in my chest.

 Finally I have said something significant of cultural merit.

Harmony is looking at me like she doesn't want people to know that she knows me.

It is pretty obvious that the Lord of the Manor is still squeezing his butt-cheeks together and doesn't know quite what to say. Nat is saying that the only way it would be a fair fight if it were commissioned by the IHSA and we were in the same weight class, explicating to a nodding Miss Arkansas that sometimes the skinny ones like to sweep the leg which is a penalty. For some reason a northern-light reminiscent haze is permeating in the room. I am being held by cool surfer Dylan and Dan the Future Rabbi and both appear to be dressed as if they are on a bottle of Gin and guarding Crown Jewels in the tower of London.  Lynn Minton as well seems to have a monocle and feather in her hair. She is scribbling with an Ostrich quill. I swear she dabs the tip of the quill into the side of Harmony's ear as if refilling ink. When Lynn is done she hands the scroll track-baton-relay style to Liz Madigan who in turn hands it to Frank McNulty the CEO of Parade Magazine  who, for some reason is wearing a bowling hat and walking with a cane.

He is unfurling scroll. There are Oyez Oyez  and the ringing of one of my moms handbell's accompanied by deafening pin-ricocheting silence. I have no clue how the CEO of PARADE Frank McNulty was capable of changing so efficiently still while the upper half of his body is dressed as the former Prime Minister of Britain, smoking a cigar, taking intermittent sips of sherry, while, somehow he is still capable of reeling the scroll apart and holding it up to the wagon wheel ceiling like he is assaying the gloss in one of Jim Baker's centerfolds. Next to Franl McNulty is the Jester how oddly resembles Spencer mimicking everything Frank McNulty does.

There is another oyez-oyez followed by distillate silence

"For the crime of treason against the Young Columbus program, I hereby proclaim thee David Von Barron, guilty and sentence thee to death."

There are cheers. I have failed everyone on this trip.

My head is being taken in the front of the room to what appears to be some sort of gallows. Everything is changing. The ties and dresses appear to be fading from the room leaving everyone attired in drab scraps of cloth. I am being pelted with have-chewed apples and bread that is brick heavy. I am being jeered. Several of the Big Ten appear to be wearing tights and missing teeth.

I am being led to the front of the room.


It occurs to me only when I am being lead in the direction of the gallows that, even though I am only one of two Young Columbusians who didn't wear a tie I am the only one who wore the menstruating standard YC jacket without he standard Elias Das

Nat's face is the color of a prune. He is sticking his tongue out at me. Ironically Harmony is sitting on his lap and he is stroking her hair. The Big Ten is approaching the gallows doing some sort of a dance stating that ol' Hair never fit in anyway.

It is England and we are leaving.

It is England and I am being sent back to the inky uber-consciousness, the blank kaleidoscopic void from whence I came.

It is England and I can feel the lower part of my neck place in the Guillotine. Oddly the opening where my head is placed looks like the drawbridge to the castle, the blade itself resembling a drawbridge gate. 


There is a burning on the bottom of my neck I hear my name echoing from a far off in the distance distance. The Iron Maiden in the hood seems to be squinting at me through my puddle of wassail. She is saying my name in a mellifluous manner. For  a second I wonder if it is Harmony even though Harmony was just seated on the lap of my nemesis all of two seconds ago.

"David."

I am feeling the whisper of the blade pirouette against the back of my neck as Harmony places her  palm on my shoulder at the moment of death everything becomes England. I can't tell if the room is rising up like yeast. The feeling of the back of my neck that feels like a pacific coast breeze and when I try not to blink I realize that this is England and everything is gone.

It is her wedding

It is her wedding and I am drunk It is her wedding and it is August and who gets married (really) in the swelter of august (really) if you stop to think about it for a moment. It is her wedding and I can almost guran-fucking-tee you that he has written maybe a tenth of the epistolary tithes I have sent her by way of US mail.

It is wedding and I am out the money I saved up to visit her in Spokane even though she insisted that I can come in and walk her down the aisle.

It is the day of her wedding and I take the disc out of the CD player and listen to the Smiths, listening to unlovable, feeling black on the outside because black is how I feel on the inside.

It is her wedding and I quote the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock aloud. I quote Ezra Pound.

I quote Anne Sexotn.

It is her wedding and as much as I just want to run this season via Cross country I don’t want to come up short the way I have suddenly the last two seasons.

The way I seem to come up short when I spend all night studying for an exam and find myself getting a B.

It is her wedding and I am a Christian. I have not heard from Mark all summer although I have spoken with his cool roommate Matt on the phone several times.  

It is he wedding and my future is only community college at best.

The way I came up short when I placed everything inside my chest into the sentence of the page promulgating my adolescent ardor only to discern that she wants nothing to do with me at all.

It is her wedding and more that anything else I just don’t want to fail.

It is her wedding and I already have a few cigars stashed so that, after I fall asleep and wake up at three in the morning I can go outside the ziggurat flavored backstops leading up to the only house I have ever known and have a poetic, albeit pensive smoke.

It is her wedding and I know I should have a teen-age angst ridden ritual where I say a prayer to Kurt Cobain and light incense and burn everything she has ever given me. All the letters. The newspaper clippings. 

It is her wedding day and I start the morning off the way I start each morning and after noon. At our tables in LUMS, the Bohemian gala, smoking, drinking carafe after carafe of caffeinated ambrosia 

It is her wedding and I am in the upstairs bathroom, the cabinet where my father keeps his musk and Old Spice cologne, looking as my face forms triangles in the mirror, crying looking for a small cobalt blue tub.

  

It is her wedding day and I think about how Dawn Michelle told me she is getting married. I think about Renae Holiday breaking my heart in the front seat of her Toyota cruiser last Homecoming, as if recompense, as if she wished vindicating death on me only to somehow reel me in and butcher me again. It is less than three years since I started high school and I never would have imagined that all my friends, including myself, our smokers. It is her wedding day and I think about Katie McQuellen in her wedding dress, yelling at me in her underwear, stating GO Dave! It is her wedding day and I think about Sue Gibson leading the herd from Trenton Wesclin, wanting to kiss the blanche canvass of her forehead, wishing that I had a female friend with whom I can run.

It is her wedding days and I triple the dosage of lithium the doctor who works at AGAPE counseling prescribed.

It is her wedding and  I know I should destroy everything I have from Harmony. 

It is her wedding day and I am naked in the bathroom, the house where two years earlier I spied on the college girl and now lives a white trash couple who is unemployed and who knocks on our door cursing my father our every time someone parks in front of what her perceives to be his driveway even though it is not his property

Even though it is not really  a driveway.

Even though it is on our property.

It is her wedding and  I am massaging my cock.

It is a year later and the New Age meditation shop is across the street at the old Lusanne’s dance studio with Bumper sticker reading I heart Fish Taco and SAVE THE HUMANS.

At night I can hear them chanting mantras about elves.

At night even though it is against the religion of my fathers, I feel at peace and think about Cool Hippie-Bandanna clad Greta from my trip all those years ago when they chant into the distilled cool of the autumnal dusk.

\

It is her wedding date and I am officially over Jenny Wilson from last summer.

It is her wedding and the phone rings for a second I think it is Harmony in the Moat House with Jenifer Flood saying something lewd and lecherous. It is her wedding and it feels like the elevator door is opening and I have a stuffed-animal bouquet burrowed behind my back and she performs a little skit when she sees me.   

I rip up a second picture I have of Harmony. She is next to her brother. She is wearing a University of Seattle sweatshirt and has her arms around her brother who has long hair. I the picture her hair is feral and long and her cheeks seem somehow to glisten.  I pace the confetti triangles of the picture into the toilet.

It is her wedding and I am hurting so much.

I can’t live without her.

 It is her wedding and I take another swig of the champagne lost since surrendered its fizzle.

It is her wedding date and I am in the shower, caking my body with a blue tub of noxzema. It is her wedding day and while she is wearing white I am  lathering my body in dollops of white chemical camphor, phenol and eucalyptus in a swath across every modicum of flesh. My chest. My neck. I am groping my penis as if it is a shepherds staff. I am embalming my knee caps. I am patting down the interior flanks of my thighs.

It is her wedding and I am in West Peoria. In the Gloucester. I am experiencing a rift in time-space raffle conducive for the button of the planet. It is her wedding and I am seeing her again for the first time in the variegated flicker of neon lights in Stratford where I am telling Mark not to jump and can’t keep my eyes off of her forehead. 

 It is her wedding  and I am dipping the white cream inside the punctuation mark of my navel.

When I step out of the shower and look in the mirror I look like a human wedding cake with bloodshot eyes, the color of a canned beet.

I am naked cloaked in Noxzema when I hold in front of my vision the picture of her that somehow I feel I can let go of. Somehow I can return.  There is the picture that Mark sent me in his first PopTart letter from the night of the cruise, the dress she wore , the picture that was allegedly snapped by Denis. The first picture you had from Harmony which was taken from the night on the Thames even though it looks nothing like her.

It is her wedding and I am looking at the picture that Mark-Andrew sent of her the night of the dance cruise on the river Thames certain that the other man now was Denis.

Although I have no clue when on the voyage Denis could have snapped the photo.

Perhaps it was when I was out on the deck consulting Sam.

Perhaps it was when Longhorn and Dimas were vomiting over the side of the yacht.

There is Noxzema in my left eye. It is hurting like it hurt at Newark when we said goodbye and the brim of her cheaply marketed chapeau cut into my line of vision.

It is her wedding and I reach down and reel out my cock, almost like it is a fleshy door handle to another world.

I take the photo and I kiss her lips, trying not to think about her husband groping at the top of her wedding dress lowering it into a puddle of ivory below the svelte bulbs of her ankles. 

There are dribbles of urine plopping on her smile. I am thinking about when I was a little kid the Baptismal font at my church always reminded me of a toilet.

It is her wedding and I am peeing on her. 

It is her wedding and I am trying to let her go.

Let her go after all this time.

Medieval dinner: a faretheewell (d.)

                                                                           

The dinner continues. We are brought out soup instead of salads. The Punch-puppet look-a-like Jester comes out and slips on an invisible banana peel instigating ribbons of laughter.  
 Ye Olde Lorde and Ye Olde Lady of the Manor is still chuzzahing, they are still asking each disparate quarter of the room which side of the room so therefor desires to be serv-eed first must express ye desire in chant.   There is a raucous ovation. Jennifer Flood and Miss Arkansas are cheering as if they are in a varsity pep rally.  One side of the room is performing the wave. Again I try to ask Harmony to avail more details about her exclusive tete-a-tet with Lynn Minton and again she is reticent before standing up and cheering when the Lord gesticulates in our directions. I’ve already decided that this is cheesy. I’m already in somewhat of a sour mood.  From the across the table Jennifer Flood shoots me a look as if to say don’t you have anything better to do with your life than haggle my roommate to death.

Harmony is smiling. She tells me this is great.

"Haven't you ever been to a madrigal dinner before?"

Harmony says no.

"Back home there's this school that I really wanted to go to that all my friends go to and, even though my father has taught in their school district for twenty years. I mean, that's where literally all my friends attend and they have this huge madrigal dinner every year, I mean, the high school more or less closes down and they have people literally camping overnight for tickets."

Harmony does a little jig with her eyelashes as if to say wow. She is looking at me like she is paying attention and she is not paying attention at the same time. From across the table I can hear Nat pontificate that Tremont literally washed the floor with Limestone's JV wrestling squad.

I want to ask Harmony about her school. All she has hinted is that it is rather large and she is in the process of taking several Advanced Placement classes.

She turns to me 

"Does your school have a madrigal dinner?" 

I try telling Harmony that the school I go to is lower income. That my class alone will be truncated by a third. That the school I attend we are more or less groomed to be statistics.

"No, my school really doesn't have much of anything."

From down the table I can hear Nat huff a muffled cough once again. It sounds like he is warbling something about future welfare recipients. Harmony gives me a look with her eyes that says ignore him while Jennifer Flood is giving me the same look stating if you can't play with the Big Boys go back to the Kiddie table 


I have finished my soup. I have asked Nat to please pass the God damn rolls at least 12 times. It doesn't even bother me that Banky's lips have in retrospect, monopolized as much time on Harmony's cheekbones as that of my own. I can’t understand why one second Harmony seems madly in love and the next she is completely apathetic about my advances. I still have not availed to Harmony about my on-phone tiff with her roommate who is all three feet to my left.  Harmony still seems that she is not interested in anything I have to say. 

I look up. There are two rolls left. 


"Excuse me." I tell Harmony, standing up, pushing my chair in behind the bottom hem of the table. I walk behind Nat. The moment I reach for the platter with the two tolls Nat picks it up. 

"Would you like a roll?"

At first I think Nat is talking to me. I tell him Thanks. Instead  is holding the platter up in front of Miss Arkansas. She smiles and says yes. Nat then takes the last roll and bites into it.

He is from my hometown. He is the closest thing I will have to an actual human body to remember this trip. He is the person who won the young columbus contest one whole day before I did, the person whose visage was in the paper 


I say nothing to Nat. He is chewing and making abbreviated mmmming sounds with his lips. I say nothing. Nat takes the napkin in his lap and swipes it across his lips. 

"I'm sorry did you want a bees-quit? You should have asked politely now there are no more left." He is talking to me like I am four.

Miss Arkansas is smiling a devious smirk. 

I say sorry. I say excuse me. In a way I was hoping to still rectify thing with Nat. In a way I a trying to apologize for last night when I snapped at him. In a way I still want to have a brother to drive out to in the country in a couple of months once I get my license with a shoebox of photos to reminisce over this experience we have shared.

I sit down. I look at my empty bowl of soup. I am dazed. I am lost in the folded haze of the room. The Jester passes our table and makes a little sad face in my direction when he looks at me.  I can hear Nat laughing. I swipe my hand in his direction. Harmony is looking at me like she is going to cry.

 I realize that I still have not told Harmony about Harrods during the day. I turn into the direction of my makeshift bride.

"I know you girls were all at the interview-thingie this afternoon but you should have seen it.  I mean, Harrods, Harrods was really amazing, wasn't it Nat."

Nat continues to chomp on the roll and ignore me. Nat knows that inside Harrod's I saw him hitting on eight graders in Daisy's group.

"Yeah, and Harrods. Harrods was amazing. You would have loved it. There was this one room that was like the interior of an Egyptian pyramid  I mean, it practically made you want to walk like an Egyptian when you went inside. It was really cool."

Both Harmony and Jennifer Flood nod.  Nat is sucking on his fingers after finishing his final bee-quit.

"And the food. I mean, they had this huge fresh fish and deli section. I mean,

“So Nat, I saw you looking at the fresh meat. Why don’t you tell us all about the fresh meat at Harrods.”

Nat again pretends he doesn’t hear me. Harmony shoot me a look again. She is talking to me with her eyelashes. She is telling me to stop it. Just stop it.

"Yeah, in fact Nat spent alot of time looking at the fresh meat. I tell ya Nat, there's nothing like a fourteen ol' rack.:

Harmony is finally smiling. Both Jennifer Flood and Nat's girlfriend seemed intrigued. Apparently they were in the interview with the British kids today as well only Lynn Minton didn't seem  to pay much attention to anything they were saying. I am letting Nat's proclivities from this afternoon go. I wonder if I should tell Harmony about Longhorn and Dimas and how they stole a bottle of port they filched although I fear that someone at this table might snitch. I think about the cool conversation I had with Tamera about Artemis and dendrites. I think about Jill and her fellow hot Italian girl friend holding up a diaphnous kind of lace in the lingerie section and then laughing.

I try not to picture Harmony trying on lingerie. 

I try to to picture what she is wearing under her outfit.

I am getting a subtle hardon.

I cross my legs.  

"Yeah, it was crazy, you know my friend Mark from bus #4 whom I'm always hanging out with."

Harmony smiles and says yes. She addresses Mark as Denis' friend.

"Yeah, actually, he was wearing shorts and Harrods has some kind of ass-backwards dress code and he was asked by a constable to leave."

The girls are finally looking at me as if I have their attention. Nat says something into his arm pit. I can hear him mentioning Mark name stating that the reason your chap Mark was kicked out of Harrods was because Mark is a butt. He says that Mark is a butt something-something. He is saying something about the reason why Harrods exiled Mark.

I look towards Nat. Harmony shoots me a look like please, don't instigate another conversation like the one that happened last night

I point at Nat. I don't mean to snap but I point at everyone-knows-what-a-chink is Nat.

"Don't be talking about Mark."

Again Nat says Mark who? Again, as he did last night when he claimed that I went to a high school full of Niggers Nat feigns naivete. Everyone at the table is looking at me. I want to stand up. I want to point my finger into Pflderer's face and tell him to shut the fuck up. I want to crumble up my napkin like a white rose and toss it in his directions and tell him lets go. I want to tell him that I don't care about the discipline bus anymore as I get up and tell him to shut the fuck up. As the Lord and Lady and harlequin of the manor pause. Liz Madigan shoots me a look from across the table as I spontaneous hurl my limbs on top of Nat Varsity Tremont wrestling frame. Before I know it I am pummeling the shit out of him. Something seems to break the moment the curvature of my knuckles embrace the angular feature of his nose. Harmony is telling me to stop. Jennifer Flood and Beau have moved to the far end of the table. Miss Arkansas is screaming at the top her already-shrilled out vocal range. Several dishes and a cup of wassail goes flying.  I have Nat pinned down on all fours. He is not even fighting back. Several members of the Big Ten are addressing me as Harry telling me to chill. I have not been in a fight since Aron Rothman earlier this year when I easily could have gotten expelled from school and Coach Man was walking down the hallway the way he always walked and pretended he didn't see anything. I am not going to let Nat get away with talking about the social-economic purlieu of my academic environment.

I am not going to let him disparage anymore people I care about.

I am not going to let get away with his shit.

I am not going to let him win.

Sometimes at night my penis is the central mass of a circus tent inside my flannel boxers. I hold her epistles up as if they are stainglass negatives. She is two time zones away. The sun still bangs heavily over the electric vernal that is the state of Washington.

And sometimes I rub my penis over her sentences.

Like waves in an ocean.

Like I am paddling back to her smile.

Like I am paddling back home.

Medieval dinner: a faretheewell (c)

There is what sounds like a gavel being struck on the floor three times in succession.The Lord and the Lady of the manor come out attired in medieval garb wearing tights and what looks like yellow pantaloons on the males sounding like they are reading Chaucer in olde English. There is a here ye here ye accompanied by the nasal blaze of a trumpet. There are several jugglers and a harlequin-slash-jesters who seems to be at the butt of the Lord and lady of the manor every aside.  It is anachronistic overkill. In the first paragraph the Lord of the Manor has already used the terms peasant three times while alluding to the elixir of Figgy Pudding.

There is wassail served in what looks like chalices that could be pawned off as individual Holy Grails. .

I am anxious, I am irked I want to know why Harmony won’t talk about the interview she helped co-ordinate with Lynn Minton. 

 From where I am seated I can hear Nat comment to Miss Arkansas that this Wassail looks like someone submitted a geriatric Fecal sample to be studied for medicinal purposes, a remark which spawns several of the girls in Harmony's group to shove their quaff across the table in disdain.

Again, I ask Nat if he could please pass the rolls and he pretends that he doesn’t hear me. 

There are more clatters in the front of the room. There is Oyez. Oyez. One of the head monarchs in tights unfurls a scroll and commences to talk about decrees.

"We were informed by ye Fair Head of Council that every night when ye met ye have celebrated a birthday."

I'm lost when I realize that he is alluding to the birthday acknowledgements that is customary at the end of every group meeting. So far this trip there has been at least three birthdays every date of the trip.

"The Lord of the manor states as is standard protocol to herald ye young knave with birthday wishes."

I am lost. Harmony is loving this.

                                                                         

"Please come forward or face execution by Iron Maiden, young Knave, Chad Bailey."

The Big Ten tables seems to implode by way of control demolition. Chad Bailey is Banky who never speaks. I have no clue it was Banky's birthday. Apparently Banky's first name is Chad and he is from Billings, Montana.  He is being hazed by English people attired in tights

Banky is nervous. Banky has not said a word this entire trip. He has more or less just spent the whole trip nodding. He has followed the Big Ten, been an integral parts of all our meetings. Still he has not said a word. He has remained completely reticent and still-lipped. Jim Baker pushes him from behind off his chair as if he is tossing Banky into a public swimming pool.


The Lord and the Lady of the manor address Spencer's roommate as a young Squire.

"Might young squire assist us by opening the festivities with a kiss of thy fair maidens cheek?"

Banky looks perplexed. It is still unreal that none of us realized it was Banky's birthday today until I remember that this was one of the rare days where all the groups were split up so we didn't get a chance to serenade anyone with the colloquial standard Happy Birthday en masse. The voluptuous lady of the manor swoops over Banky. He is blushing.  Apparently he is expected to kiss ye faire maiden's cheek. Trevor yells out go for it. He yells go for it Chad. I still can't believe that it has been the entire trip and Banky has been the one member of the Big Ten who none of us have really gotten to know all that well. Banky is apprehensive. He doesn't want to kiss Ye Faire Lady of the Manor. The Lord of the Manor states that perhaps young squire would be more wont to kiss the Lady of the Manor if thou hath the applause of those of his faire wenches. Apparently wenches is some sort of euphemism for cohorts because Banky, the Montana mime is being goaded in a clattering array of fist-stomps from both sides of the ballroom.

There is a smile on Harmony's face.

Harmony says oh look, your group member is coy.

Banky steps up to Ye Faire Maiden in the front of the room. His face looks more like a squirt gun as he puckers his lips touches the side of her overtly blushed cheek.

The interior of the building explodes.

It is Banky. Banky from Montana. Banky who is Spencer's roommate. Banky who has never talked once during this entire trip nor removed his red cap.

Banky is on center stage and everyone is applauding.

From the back of the room Jim Baker yells out something blatantly PG-13ish which causes Sir Charles to snap and Say comeon' Jim, last night.





The Lord Mayor of the Manor is affable. He turns to Banky, gesticulating his arm across the floor like he is a used car dealer.

"Perhaps thous shalt assist to to open this festivity by kissing the faire cheeks of each young maiden in the room."

There is more applause and confusion. The Lord of the manor asks the rhetorical question again and it is pretty certain that Banky is expected to kiss the cheek of every female in the house. The Lord Mayor of the Manor announces that we are to cheer him on. Both sides of the room again begin to pound on the table which, as we are leaning, in medieval times was an acceptable form of adulation. Banky walks up to the girl who ironically mistook for Elias Das in the elevator. Banky steps up. It looks almost as if he is taking a slurp of water from park fountain as he purses his lips together. He is nervous. His knees appear to be clapping together.

"Go Bank!! I yell out. I make it a salient point to note that Banky is in my group and is Spencer's roomy.

Nat looks at me and  rolls he has yet to pass lolling both his eyes and his chin in one continuous motion of disdain.

After Banky kisses the first girl music begins to play. There is clattering and stirring in the kitchen. Banky is working his way down the pressing his lips against heavily make-up'd teenage countenances.  He passes John Major's table.

There is no hint of Vivian in the room.

I look down at Harmony . She is wearing a Mickey Mouse watch. I swear I have never seen the watch before even though we have held hands several times.

Nat is scoffing and Harmony is a mime.

I am in dire need for an icebreaker.

“I like your watch.” I say.

Harmony says thank you.

“Did you get it at Disney Land or something?”

Harmony blushes. She tells me that if I want to know the truth she’s never really been outside Washington state much. Both the tail and the feet are pointing at 9 and three. You can tell that Harmony spent five minutes adjusting her watch to British time when we arrived on UK soil.

Harmony swipes her head.

“It was a gift. A dear friend gave me.”

Again I feel there is competition. Again I think about what Jennifer Flood, seated all of two seats down told me this after noon when she told me that perhaps Harmony never really liked me. 

“How about you?” She says, slightly jabbing me with her fork I say what. She points at my wrist.

It is the Identity bracelet from Renae. I didn’t realize I am still wearing Reane’s identity bracelet.  The bracelet that I had a hard time when going through the metal detector. 

Harmony looks at me nonplussed. She asks if Renee’s is some sort of a jewelry store in town. 

“No, I tell her Reane was my girlfriend. My ex-girlfriend. It just didn’t work out even though we were pretty much addicted to each other like caffeine."

"Why didn't it work out?" Harmony says. She is looking at me like she is finally interested in something I have to say.  I don't want to tell her because I was Lutheran and I couldn't stop staying up all night and thinking about  gender-defining vectors of Renae's anatomy. I can't tell her because every time Renae and I were together our bodies were as if tryin to enter each other. 

I can't tell her that I harbored shame.

I can't tell her that I already entered the Young Coumbus contest the two previous years and that, somehow, I failed.  

I can't tell her that thee was no way my overtly-male definition of a higher power would assent to me winning the self-proclaimed trip of a lifetime unless I surrender the innate feeling of always wanting to be inside her body.

Unless I sacrificed what we had on the altar of thy God.

 Nat has his right arm cemented around Miss Arkansas' left shoulder Banky is circumnavigating the room as if he is on a carousel.  He is at the table with the intellectual Vixens from Bus four.  He kisses Rose and Shiela both on their cheeks.Three tables  above I can see Sam. They are sitting as a group. Sam is wearing his tweed emerald jacket he purchased at Harrod’s earlier in the day which grants him the appearance of a rather large successful Notre Dame booster.  He tilts his head into the direction of Banky who just becomes totally confused. There is laughter. I can hear Jim Baker's voice as Banky's shadow is standing over Daisy stating that Spencer's roomy has now gotten further around the bases than he has. There is laughter. He is circumnavigating the medieval chamber. He has arrived to our table. There is something about Banky that looks both bored and excited and extremely embarrassed at the same time.  Beau seems lost as Banky bends over to kiss Jennifer Flood, whose cheeks transitions into a benevolent shade of puce.  Harmony is next.Banky kneels over and kisses the side of Harmony's face. I make a joke alluding to an aborted make-out session on the Thames last night making the ill-timed quip that I guess the only way I'll be able to kiss you is if it is my birthday. Harmony blushes. Banky bends over and kisses Jennifer Flood's cheekbone.  I give Banky a little Mark-inspired attaboy fist pummel. He has made his way up three rows and his lips look like a wilted corsage.

When Banky bends over endeavoring to kiss Miss Arkansas Nat slaps his Tazewell county palm over his date's cheekbone mentioning some Tremont Turk varsity wrestling move.  Banky jilts back. Miss Arkansas turns to my nemesis and inquires what the big deal is.

"It's fine," Nat says, looking at Banky. This is my opportunity. I have given Harmony eye-brow tilts insinuating that I will behave with Nat tonight.

When I look down I notice that Nat is wearing Penny loafers. It looks like he placed what could be classified as a British pence in the center slit of his shoes. I want to tell him that in the part of the city I am from nobody would caught dead wearing Penny Loafers. 

"Go for it brother. Big Ten in the house. Kiss her."

Banky still looks bemused. Nat places each palm over her cheeks as if showcasing some warped sense of propriety. I intervene.

"Nat moves your damn arms. Sir Banky of Big Ten is commissioned to Kiss every Girl before we eat and I'm Hungry. Especially since you Sir Nat of ye-Deaf-tards avoid me-every time I ask if ye may pass me an olde roll."

Miss Arkansas releases Nat's hands. Banky goes in for the kiss. The second his lips touch the side of Miss Arkansas' face the entire table implodes in a series of claps.

Baker says kiss her good and then begins rattling his torso and hushed down my Sir Charles.

Nat has humiliated himself through his own appropriation.

Nat turns back to me. His face is the color of antifreeze. He is scowling. He is scowling at me worse than he did last night when I snapped at him at the table

He has done nothing but scowl at me the entire trip.

He is scowling. I swear I hear miniature grrrrs. I swear it looks like he is sprouting fangs.
                                                                   

Again I ask him if he could please pass the rolls.

Again he says nothing at all.

                                                                        

Years later I will learn just how poor Harmony is. Years later I will learn how she was raised in a single class family where her mom worked two jobs. Years later I will learn that the reason she had to wash her dress in the porcelain baptismal font o the sink was because that was the only Young Columbus outfit she brought with her was the only dress she owns.  

Medieval Banquet a faretheewell (b)...

 Harmony's group is already seated at the first table up front. It appears to be the proverbial couples' table.  There is her roommate buxom Jennifer Flood and her beau simply named Beau who appears to have nothing between his ears with the possible exception of a Lite beer and meaningless sports stats.

Two seats down are Nat and Miss Arkansas.

 Jennifer Flood is dressed to kill.

It is more or less the same seating arrangement last night during the skit when I got into it with Nat.

 Harmony has a place saved just for me.

I place my glasses in the side pocket of my vinyl Young Columbus jacket. I am wading through the foreheads and scent of those who were strangers to me all of less than ten days ago. Sam is wearing the emerald jacket he purchased from Harrods earlier in the afternoon. Vinny is blowing into the lens of his camcorder and rubbing it counter-clockwise Karate Kid wax-on/wax-off style with a tie he seems less than thrilled to wear.  I see Elbert, one of three African' American's to win the Young Columbus. Longhorn is not wearing his leather cap for the first time this entire trip only Dimas is still inexplicably wearing the polo derby cap even though we are in doors. I am shocked when I see Paul McCartney circa Wings not wearing the Trench coat for the first time this trip. For a second I swear I see Lois Lane, the high school reporter whom I met the first day at the hotel in Newark. Perhaps because I got her confused with someone in the elevator every other girl kind of resembles Elias Das. I pass Harmony's friend Kazu who doesn't speak much English who just appears to be lost. From the corner of my eye.  Harvard bound Tamera is scrutinizing the vacant porcelain of the dinner plates as if mulling over the calculated radius of the human condition.

Daisy is seated on the opposite side of the Hall, with her group, practically hand-cuffed to Simone for what Liz Madigan has stated were insurance reasons.

Even with my glasses off I can tell that Wendy Cummings looks ravenous in a different dress that, although not the prom dress she wore on the Thames that was later used in the skit, is almost equally as ravishing.  Near-sighted Sheila is nothing but a gushing fountain of fumes. Lord knows why Rose is still wearing those ubiquitous sunglasses in doors on the last night, granting her the unseemly semblance that she is more blind than I am.  Chocatawhatchee Heather smiles and wave even though I offer  a half-wave back mainly do to wondering why she always seems to take a pertinent interest in me.

I note that Eagle Scout Josh is also disobeying the unwritten mandate that the Big Ten break bread together on the last night and is also seated with his girlfriend with the excessive rogue which, judging by her fingers he has still yet to give her the promise ring he purchased at Harrod's with his Grandfather's credit card earlier this afternoon.

Nor do I see Rita, with the sexy dress she was wearing earlier that afternoon.

There is still no hint of Vivian.

Mark again has blended into the bulk of bodies like a chameleon and is nowhere in sight.

I find Harmony.

It is the final night of our tour of England and Harmony has a place reserved just for me.

Harmony is seated. She is wearing the same flower-dappled dress she has worn on the previous two discos. For a second I wonder if there will be dancing here tonight. When I arrive at the table Harmony stands up. She then presses her cheek against my cheek. It is not quite a kiss. It is more like a beckoning greeting.

“You look nice. I would kiss your forehead but I’m afraid I would clang into the top of your halo.”

Harmony erupts in a pearl string of giggles.

Jennifer Flood offers a semi-wave as if she is annoyed and I semi-wave back without looking in her direction. Beau grunts with an overt Adam's apple. Nat seems to be telling Miss Arkansas that everything is going to be alright. That they still have tonight. That the night is young. From the way he is talking it sounds like he has a hotel room waiting them after prom. Meg Weaver is She smiles when she sees Harmony and myself together. I could kick myself again for not going running this morning one final time, if just to be next to Meg one final time.

“Hey, I tried calling your room earlier only you weren’t around.” From the opposite side of the table Jennifer Flood is blinks and looks up. I wonder if she told Harmony about the tiff that erupted between us earlier this afternoon.

I look at Harmony's dress. Nat makes it known that I am the only male in this side of the room that isn't wearing a tie for crissakes. I look at Harmony's dress and tell her that she looks nice. It. It is the third time she has worn this dress. Somehow it still looks good on her.

“Oh,” Harmony says, looking down blushing. She is exactly like Dawn Michelle in that she looks down every time she blushes.

“I’m not like (she pauses, looks around) What’s your friends name? She was in the interview today. The one who brought the evening gown to the dance cruise on the Thames?"

I say that’s Our Wendy. Harmony points as if she has her fingers into a miniature shotgun and says bingo.

“Yeah, Wendy. Anyway, I mean, I only brought one dress on this trip and Jennifer only brought one dress on this trip so we had to wash them.

Harmony said that she actually washed her dress last night when she was on the phone with me.

“How did you wash them?” I ask. I am confused.  I have not seen the inside of her room. I wonder if there is somehow a washing machine in her room.

“We used the sink in the bathroom.” Then we hung them in the bathroom with the  drying light on that you have on after we take a shower.

I try not to think about Harmony in her bathroom, the bottom half of her anatomy clad only in panties bent over the sink in oblique angles. 


There are rolls on the table. Apparently the loaf made the rounds before I was seated and is reclining directly in front of Nat. I make a motion towards Nat asking if he could please pass the bread and butter and he consciously crosses his legs and turns the opposite directions.  

Jennifer Flood just seems plain vexed every time she glances in my direction. It is like we are seated at the couples table. Loverboy Nat is two heads away from me and his girlfriend keeps looking down into her plate and chewing, looking like she is about ready to miscarriage. I offer him a wave and he turns the other direction. Even though has he treated me like what the British punks this afternoon would classify as Shite as still have one more try to rectify everything with Nat. Once I arrive back to Peoria the only person I will have to share this memory with will be a person who does not want me in his.

The room is coming to life.  What looks like either medieval paige's with bad haircuts walk to the side of the room brandishing elongated phallic horns.  In the front of the room a semi-portly man with three day stubble beard  wearing a crown is holding the hand of fair maiden in some sort of tiara that look like a diaphanous dunce cap.  There are two succinct jugglers and a jester who seems to spend an inordinate amount of time in front of Simone's table learning how to stand. 


I try to be witty with Harmony. I ask her if after her interview she had time to squeeze her David today. She she looks at me perplexed.

"The Teddy bear. The David. remember, 'It wasn't a Bobby it's-a-David."


From down the table I can hear the sounds Nat makes when he looks in my direction and rolls his eyes.

"Oh, I already packed that already." She says

Harmony is smiling but it looks forced. Even when she placed her lips on my cheeks in a manner that was not exactly a kiss there is something about her that feels sad.  I want to know more about meeting with the British youth. Harmony says that’s the only part of the trip that actually felt like work and she’s rather not talk about that right now.

"It was kind of crazy. I was on top of St. Paul's Cathedral which my cool English teacher Mr. Reents told me that I needed to go to the top of because of the unbidden view of London. There was over a thousand steps so most of the Big Ten didn't want to go but somehow I cajoled Trevor and Justin to go to the top and the view, I mean, it was like being on top of a skyscraper in Manhattan or something. It was the most panoramic view of London I have yet to see."

There are nods at the table. Jennifer Flood is looking at me as if I am in special class. I tell Jennifer Flood that St. Paul was the church where Princess Di got married. She responds by saying  that everyone on this trip already like knows that fact.

"And the crazy thing is, out of all this when I was at the top of St. Pauls Cathedral I just started looking out and taking all these pictures, and there was this old man who works for the church and he looked like he could either be CS Lewis or TS Eliot of JRR Tolkein or some other British writer with initials for a first name and it was really weird because I kept looking at him as if I knew him from somewhere  before. I mean, it was like we had an avuncular rapport or something and its weird because it has happened at least twice already on this trip where I am talking to someone and they are looking at me like they already know everything about me. I wouldn't even classify it as being De Ja vu. It's like something deeper. It's like parallel worlds or something.

Much to her chagrin Jennifer Flood's boyfriend seems interested in my couple's table ice breaking personal anecdote.

"It was crazy. He seemed to know who I was and started inquiring about the trip and I told him how, pretty much this trip to London was everything, it was everything that I hoped it would be, but in a way it was almost like an older variation of myself in a way I just can't put into words. Like he was me sixty years in the future or something. In fact he had even been to Peoria and studied at the university close to my house. It was crazy."

There are several nods. Again I look down and ask the Young Columbusian nearest to my inhabitant in Central Illinois to please pass the dinner rolls and again he blatantly ignores me by looking in my direction and asking Miss Arkansas if she heard something. 

Surprisingly Harmony doesn’t inquire about Harrods or having fish and chips at Flanagan's.

I don't know why Harmony doesn't wan to know about any of the highlights that she missed today.

It seems like something else other than the interview with the columnist from PARADE is weighing on my bride.

For a second I think about telling Harmony all about my earlier tiff with Jennifer Flood. For a second I think about telling her how I was irate. How I slammed down the phone. How I was about to pull a Mark and jettison the cultural niceties and posh comforts of the trip and leave, just dip into the cosmopolitan nest that is London. For a second I think about telling her how I mis-identified  Elias Das in the so-called lift. How I for a second, this trip wasn't about Harmony, how I found something in the subtle smile of Rita even though every time we have two seconds together it feels rushed that I never could have had with Harmony. How I saw Daisy dressed up looking like she was going at a celebration at a local mosque and followed her and then got loving accosted by some local Punks and chastised by Liz Madigan upon our return to the Gloucester.

How I only have a few scattered hours remaining with Harmony. And with Mark. ANd with everyone on this trip.

How in a way, I wonder if I will ever see any of these people again and in a way no one around here seems to be nursing that question accept for me\ and I don't know why.

The overhead lights resmebling a wago wheel begin to dim.

This is our finale. This is our curtain call. This is our last night in London.

Tomorrow all of this will be gone.

Harmony nods. I wonder who the boys were in her hotel room earlier in the day.

I am still trying to make what passes at small talk when I spot Meg. Meg Weaver is wearing a blue dress the color of an ornithological-toting egg and seated at a table with mostly males although they are all wearing glasses and have bad haircuts The semi-nerds of bus three. Whatever they are saying are making her laugh. She is being lavished.  She is being romanced. When she stands up and does the wave  her body undulates like a willow in a spring zephyr.

I will never go running with Meg Weaver again.


I again ask Nat if he can please pass rolls and he again pretends that he doesn't hear me. 

There is the heralding brass rip of a bugle.

The banquet is about to begin.