April 13th 1993 (c) Heath

In the magazine there is a sex reporter named Anka who scribes about unsuspectingly videotaping her neighbors having sex and then promenading into them at the corner store afterwards buying mouthwash. There are several chic fashion layouts and a picture of what looks like a naval-officer with his hands wedged down his pants in a fist as if he is searching for something that is never there. There are hip music reviews of Elvis Costello and Frank Black. There are glossy and somewhat lascivious advertisements for Guess and Gap jeans that look like they just were freshly developed from an errant roll of film lost by Robert Mapplethorpe. There is a Q and A interview with Hugh Hefner in which he discusses how size is more of a factor to men than to women and how the most important sexual organ is the brain.

I sit closest to the front of the plane. Behind me Justin and Chris share a row with one seat between them. We are to have food on this flight.

I continue to look out the side window. Nat is seated in the back, five rows behind my peripheral vision. The clouds below look like an overturned a box of puzzle pieces thoroughly soused with a vial of white out.

There is a man next to me. I tell him that this is the second time I’ve flown.
 

“I’m going to New York and then to London.” I acknowledge. The man is wearing a tie and a suit top he sloughed and folded in the seat between us.

He asks me what time I am scheduled to arrive. I tell him I am scheduled to arrive at London at 7:25 in whatever time zone constitutes British tomorrow morning. He smiles and says that I must have a really long layover at Newark.

“Yeah, a couple of hours.” I say, not mentioning that we are to meet and then be chauffeured to a nearby hotel for what will be our orientation.

He smiles. He tells me that I look like a fine young man. He inquires what I will be doing in London. Even though he is occluded from my imminent vision I can feel Nat Pflderer scowl from behind.

            “I won a contest sponsored by this magazine in New York.”

The business man says ‘oh’ and if he is asking permission prior to purchasing a vowel from Vanna  a la  Wheel of Fortune.

            “Yeah, I tried to win it the last three years. The first couple of years the trip was to Paris which I really wanted to see only I finally won it this year.”

He looks at me again and nods.

“Only the first year the trip was canceled because of the Gulf war. They went to Paris last year.

For some reason when I say Gulf war it sounded more like ‘golf war’ as if I am ready to don an emerald vest bogeying before heralding par.

He looks at me again and smiles. He asks me who this contest is sponsored by. I tell him it is sponsored by Parade magazine in New York. He nods his head and says oh again.


I look back at Nat and offer a fist-pump wave. He looks in my direction then swivels his chin as if he has no idea who I am. Nat refrains from squinting out of the window as we the plane slowly throttles and jerks and coughs, as the plane slides into an almost graceful arched pirouette before lifting. My third hour of waiting to know him, of speculating the rapport we would foster, reminiscing how come ten years time I would have a mentor, a buddy, someone to flap open the YC album , slapping across pages of snapped vignettes from our youth as we cackled over the trouble we engendered—four hours after getting to know Nat, I discern one foaming truth—that he is an asshole.
 

I continue flip through the DETAILS magazine interview with Martin Gore, the grinding metallic laced syncopations still heavily ensconced in my head like a carousel of industrial sweat.the deep swells of the earth opening to my left, the outlines of my reflection pertinent as the aerial vessel continues to ascend in deep mechanical huffs. Dave Gahan talks about philandering and sleeping around (a lot) on the road while his then wife was purportedly giving birth and faithful to him and then shooting ridiculous amounts of heroin upon learning that his estranged father suddenly died. Martin Gore talks about the sense of macabre in his lyrics, all he is his is into pornography if it is done right and how Master and Servant is simply a metaphor for something deeper. It turned out he recorded ‘Somebody’ while naked and straddling a piano bench. Six months earlier the first CD I purchased (via trading a copy of Billy Ray Cyrus Some gave all that my dad gave me as joke although it turned out he was serious) was CONSTRUCTION TIME AGAIN, which I listened to over and over again while conjugating French vowels, lost in the synthetic swansong staccato of chords, thinking about cross-country and Twin Peaks and rich girls from the north side of town. Thinking about Dawn Michelle in Bradley park and making out with Anstasia' Blake's forehead backstage. Thinking about the contest to somewhere I have traveled that has always seemed to elude me, the contest that was given to the girl with the golden hair.

We are given a snack on this flight. I fold my magazine back in a telescope-scroll and continue to look past my reflection in the masses bulb of cumulus below, whipped, frosting battered for a wedding cake whose ceremony will never arrive. Even though he is five rows behind me I can tell that Nat is intentionally irked that I just can’t stop losing myself in the dells and ribbons of clouds thinking myself a novice having never flown until three hours earlier.

The waitress passes out what looks like either chicken or fish. When she inquires what I would like to drink I state the name of the beverage I have been chugging all day.

Our flight lands when it is scheduled to, at exactly 11:24, 10:24 central time. I am already one hour ahead of life from where I come from.


                                                     ***

 

I walk out of the terminal at Newark NJ with Chris and Justin. There is short haired college kid  picketing a sign reading Parade YOUNG COLUMBUS WINNERS MEET HERE.  As we step up next to him, he greets us and then begins to cross out names on a slate. Apparently there was one other winner on the plane—a red haired, dark glasses lad named Heath. He was toting a young Columbus bag slung over his shoulder like nylon road kill as well yet somehow neither myself or Nat or Justin or Chris or the Girl with the alter boy haircut or the scared shitless Kindergarten-hydrant sized moppet failed to noticed him at  O’hare prior to boarding.

 

 

It is almost as if he just appeared.

I recognize the college boy with the short brown hair from the itinerary book as being one of the chaperons. He identifies himself as Trevor from Michigan. He is holding a notepad checking off the names of the representatives he is to pick up.

“I think this is everyone.” Trevor says, before commenting that myself, Justin and Chris are in his group. We wait past the conveyor belt carousel ferrying our luggage. Heath apparently has some sort of plastic wrapped over one of his suitcases and runs off while disposing it, looking as if he is fleeing from a polyurethane shaped wraith. We wait on the curb outside the United Terminal. Trevor tells us we are looking for a certain shuttle bus. As has been the case, Nat monopolizes the conversation with Trevor, saying a joke which ends in “asshole,” myself, beginning to wonder about his so-called born again Christian missionary parental roots.

 

We continue to wait on the cement shore of New Jersey, planes stitching the skyline overhead with casting oversized pterodactyls imprinted shadowy-footsteps below.

 

Nat seems to in advance more or less made up his mind that he plans on doing his best and ignoring me the entire trip. 

My fourth hour of waiting to know him, of speculating the rapport we would foster, reminiscing how come ten years time I would have a mentor, a buddy, someone to flap open the YC album  slapping across pages of snapped vignettes from our youth as we cackled over the trouble we engendered—four hours after getting to know Nat, I discern one foaming truth—that he is a dickneck.

We are waiting with our luggage. There is no shuttle bus in sight.

 

I sit next to Heath whom no one wants to talk to even though he is a year older than Nat.

He has a priapic shock of orange hair. He is wearing thick glasses and almost inexplicably, a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball cap. He turns out to be from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

 

“I was in Iowa last summer.” I tell him, mentioning the Amana colonies, telling him that I just can’t stand how flat everything in that state is although it has a certain poetry to it. He asks me where I am from. I tell him I am from Peoria. He inquires where that is at. I tell him Illinois. He smiles. He tells me he has never heard of it.

 

We are waiting outside the terminal at Newark, New Jersey. Trevor keeps on taking out his pen and counting heads, as if to verify that every member of our troupe has indeed arrived.

 

The group now consists of a total of seven.  Trevor points in my direction again.

 

“You Chris and Justin are all in my group. I think you and Justin are roommates. We are the only group with two chaperons. Actually, my roommate from college is a fellow chaperon. His name is Charles. You guys will love him.”

 

“I think that this is really cool,” Trevor notes, “Both you and Justin are roommates.” Trevor notes again.

 

There still is no sight of a shuttle.

 

Nat seems or have taken the opportunity to toady up to Trevor. He asks how the other counselors are on the trip.

 

            “The whole counselors are all actually really cool. We all went out last night and hung out and then came home late.”

 

“So are there any hotties in the group?” Nat inquires to Trevor.

 

“There’s one girl, Ahlex, she’s hot, but she’s engaged. She is wearing this huge rock on her finger. It’s like a six figures rock. ” feel reasons I can’t fathom I feel impelled to interject.

 

“Yeah, I tell you, All the good ones are taken.”

 

Trevor laughs and says yeah and just wait til’ you get in college. Nat swivels his head the opposite direction.

 

Traffic whirs. There is a cab driver with  a sexy girl holding her shoes in the back seat. He has dark hair, dark jersey boardwalk skin.  Her hair is black, frizzy, creeping down her neck. Although Nat has been completely monopolizing the conversation with Trevor I ask the counselor where New York City is located.  Nat scowls and says where do you think we are?

 

Trevor points to the east, looks at Nat and states this is hardcore Jersey territory.

 

“It’d probably take you and hour-hour and a half to get into city with traffic, even if you are taking a cab.”

 

We continue to wait at the curb. Heath seems almost unconditionally reserved. Nat just won’t stop talking to Trevor like they just pledged at the same fraternity. With the blue suitcase that grandma purchase with the leather handle and the squeaky wheels I sit down on the lip of the yellow curb. Trevor overly apologizes, said that he the memo he got said that we were meeting a shuttle with Young Columbus delegates that arrived at a different terminal and that we would all be transported back to the hotel for Orientation. Nat is asking a nonresponsive Justin if he ever heard of a move called the Saturday night special. Chris asks Trevor aren’t we suppose to get blazers or something. We have been waiting for forty-five minutes. Trevor states if he doesn’t see the shuttle in another five minutes he is going to go inside and call. Nat interjects looking at me saying that he is older and can look after the group if Trevor likes. My eyes are lost at the girl in the backseat of the taxi. She is smiling. She is holding her stilettos. The taxi driver in front is clean cut. He is smiling. You can tell that he is looking at her from the dashboard mirror. I wonder where they are going. I wonder if their trip somehow mirrors are own.

 

The young kid in the Seattle Mariners hat points down across the concourse of traffic.

 

“Hey, isn’t that a shuttle?”

 

It has been in front of us all along.