Changing of the Guard...

We are blasting through London. I breath on the window. I write her name in a cloud of escaped breath on the bus window. I am calling her tonight. I am finding her somehow all over again. We are let off five blocks from Blenheim palace  Vivian states that we do need to hurry up so as not to miss the ceremony. It is packed. Not all the buses have arrived. 

We can barely see the gates of the Palace it is so packed

There is music.Everyone I cheering.  Rivulets of guards stream by playing various instruments.I am back at Westminster abbey. I can’t stop thinking about Poets’ Corner. I can’t help thinking about how it felt the first time Chaucer scraped ink to parchment, conceiving his first sentence, leaving Canterbury in pilgrimage, bartering stories

Trevor has found a way to shimmy up a lamp pole. 

Harmony is nowhere in sight. I wonder if she is again working for Lynn Minton today. 

Vivian notes that a certain flag is dangling over the architecture of Buckingham palace meaning the Queen is in residence.

It is the changing of the Guard. An amoebic mass of instruments. It occurs to me only midway through the ceremony that this is the England of the Pomp and Circumstance I alluded to in my speech. I am waiting.  It is congested. Jim is still next to sir Charles   Everyone is cheering, Quite a few people are waving plastic UK flags

 The British guard march in Tandem gait. It is constant flux. Everyone is going crazy for reasons I can’t fathom. This happens every day. Somehow I can picture Queen Elizabeth jutting her head out the side of Buckingham Palace saying well shut up. People seem to be going crazy. Some of the younger members of Dan's groups are sidled on the shoulders of various members of the Big Ten,

I am not thinking about the changing of the Guard.

I a focused solely on Harmony.

As the military flotilla of limbs marches away what appears to be Bus #3 or 4 gets halted by the procession. They have missed it. Even though the sides of the charter buses are tinted I can still make out everyone weighing on one side of the bus wildly snapping pictures.

As I get back on the bus I pass Frank McNulty and his wife. Frank is looking at me. Before I realize it he pulls me aside.  I wonder if he is going to lambaste me for cursing at Jim earlier in the day.


"You're the one who got into that tiff with that ginger-haired boy who is always acting up."

I nod.  In a way he looks kind of like Winston Churchill. He leans close to me. His breath smells like peppermint. I am nerve-addled.

I nod my head into a yes.

Frank smiles.

“It’s about time someone told him to shut up,” The CEO of the magazine with the largest Circulation on the planet says to me before offering a little wink. I smile back. Because I don't know what else to do I shake his hand.

Jim is still next to Sir Charles. In the microphone Vivan states that we are now en route to lunch and then off to the American Embassy.

I look out the back window and think of Harmony. I think of the look of pride stowed on the CEO's lips. It seems sophomoric and junior high like but I am calling Harmony up to the dance tonight. I am asking her if she wants to go with me. It is affirmative consummation of her voice echoing out the words yes.

                               


Yes.