Day 1: April 13th, 1993 (a) Farethewell P-town...

                 

 

The lids of my eyes peeling open in morning, wriggly nocturnal quills accompany my every blink as I press my eyes into optical patches of being. My head is pushing through a canvas of anxiety. My body has quavered all night, the only thing I can think about being the imminent need for caffeine. I stumble to the kitchen. I have reserved a bag of whole-bean Gloria Jeans java that I need to grind first with the coffee grinder grandma gave me for Christmas placing excessive measurements of grounds into the top silo of the coffee pot for caffeinated nirvana. I sift the grounds into the top of the coffee pot and switch the illuminated red nose signaling on, listening to the machine aromatically rumble and purr. It is four in the morning. Mom informs me that my own father has already done the route so that I shouldn’t have to worry about a thing except for getting ready. My flight is scheduled to leave at 6:15. We were advised that we should be at the airport no later than 5:30. In the bathroom mirror my visage is raspberry-hued and sleepy. There is a rattle accompanied by the gentle whisper of my mother’s voice telling me again in case I missed it the first time that Dad already went ahead and did the paper route.  I am trying not to inwardly dwell that I am about ready to embark on the most important psychological sojourn of my young life. With adroitness that borderlines somewhere between the aesthetic and naïve, I hold the plastic handle of the comb in my right hand plowing the dirty tines of the instrument into my scalp, as if I am engendering some kind of clay pottery crafted mortarboard awaiting the incendiary haze of a convenient kiln, hoping that my thoroughly shackled scalp remains intractable thirty-five hundred feet above ground.

I can’t get my hair the way I want it. I spray. I slather. I sculpt. I continue to seriously abuse whatever depleted dent of ozone is left above my parents’ abode. Every time my index finger sprays down on the nozzle of the aluminum can of Aqua Net it makes a muffled hiss which sounds like someone has just publically farted and is trying not to make a big deal about it. I repeatedly look in the mirror. I fill up the sink with water while baptismally dipping my entire head into the interior of the basin. I repeat again frenetically whipping  tines across passages of my vision. It is like I am graffiting my scalp with a type of bedlam-induced anarchy, flagellating the side of the comb in a lithe endeavor of adolescent vanity.

 

 I can tell by the wisps and the percolated gargle that the coffee is almost down. My hair looks like an abandoned skateboard ramp.

 

I can’t get my hair the way I want it. This is the day I have anticipated for the last three years.

I can’t help it. My face transitions pomegranate in hue.

I explode.

Mother is asking me what is wrong.

My nerves kept me swaying in an insomniac-addled hammock the entire night. I pour myself a cup of coffee. I crack open the crystal sugar lid allowing half of the grainy contents of the receptacle to plummet in cubistic clods before dissipating in an alchemistic swirl inside the liquid. I look for the cream and add three dashes.  In a futile attempt to regain my equilibrium I take a swig that looks like it could seriously wound somebody. Quickly I alight the coffee pot and refill half my cup. Mom is asking me if I am alright. I still need to go back to the mirror and face the jaundice-comb brandishing creature spawning the hideously reflection staring back at me.

“I’ll be fine.” I tell mom, taking a slurp, walking towards are French door, past the nylon brick of packed suitcase, telling mom that I need to step outside for a second and get some fresh air.

Mom tells me to make it quick. I take another slurp. Mom then tells me what I need to hear. That my hair looks nice today.

I won’t look into an additional mirror until I arrive on British soil.

The sky is dashed with almost velvet bruises and cobbled drifts of clouds, jet-trails streaming across the skyline like feathery exclamatory marks over head that slowly bend into the shape of an ethereal question etched into the electric blue before dissipating altogether.  It is almost five in the morning, the flight scheduled to leave in forty-five minutes. Mother reminds me if I have everything, and I nod. With the three cups of Java I inhale back at the house. I am now casually chugging cups four, five and six, respectively. My eyes, peeled open, the panoramic flashes of my pending sojourn dilating before me as the earth opens.

My clothes are laid out.

I sling on my belt, tucking the bottom of my brown banana republic turtleneck stage curtain into my waist in a slovenly manner like a fat kid and cummerbund at prom. I slip the wings of my arms into my nylon Manual jacket. I make a conscious decision not to look in the mirror for fear of the sullen ramifications it might possibly render on my self-esteem. I leave the ersatz leather boots, serving as the podiatric potted soil of my ankles and stalked youthful spine under my bed. I listen to half of the oceanic chimes of Enya, to the song which has breezed me into the last two years of my existence—Coating me through the channel of adolescence like a splash of wind and a like a sail. Midway through Caribbean Blue dad walks into my room. 



 The silver-filling chip of my father’s smile insinuates that it is time to go. He hands me a large MISTER DONUT coffee and two sausage biscuits/hash browns from McDonalds.

 My sisters, sixth grade and eighth grade respectively, arising in sweat pants, crumpled hair and squinting morning countenance, giving their brother an embrace, telling him to have a great time as their father grapples the handle of the suitcase, his left shoulder, limping slightly closer to the ground because of the exceeded weight, granting him the semblance of a sozzled frat boy returning home from a night of domestic inebriation as he scuttles down the front sidewalk, opening the elongated back of the station wagon, as if shoving a wooden corpse into the back of a hearse. Mom tells the girls' to hurry up and get dressed so that they can ride to the airport with us. I walk down the sidewalk leading up to the digital abode I have inhabited all my life, swallowed in the early film-negative flavor of morning, taking copious swigs from the MISTER DONUT coffee father bought separate, giving me a caffeinated jolt to the beginning of the day. I enter the shotgun passenger wing of the station wagon, looking back into the shingled habit of the house that has nourished me as Dad guzzles the  vehicle into ignition and coats off .Mom insists on sitting in the backseat as we travel en route, to the Greater Peoria airport, Dad at the helm of the stationed wagon, coasting the vehicle down Sherman avenue, taking a hard left on Sterling, rattling past the neon electric pool table green of Madison Golf course, the thatched green vector of earth I row my limbs around in cross country practice almost daily. Dad takes a swift right, Martin Luther King Dr, the brick plateau of my high school visible in the early tint of morning below the hill. I am leaving. The tickets arrayed in a PARADE envelope, arriving in a specialty postmarked package via New York only days earlier. My itinerary—a day of hop scotching into the direction of the rising sun, a 6:15 a.m. flight from the Greater Peoria Airport to O’Hare at 7:20 a.m. The flight from Chicago leaves at 8:30, landing at Newark at 11:24, eastern standard time. I continue to ingest half of my breakfast as father continues to wend his way past Bergners, down Harmon Highway, into the direction of the airport.

            As I look at my reflection looking out at my reflection from the passenger side I hear mom’s voice ask in the back seat if we would mind if she prays.

We arrive at the airport with dawn splitting half the earth open, the sound of birds chortling hi-pitched tithes in the background. I grapple the leather earlobe of a  handle of my suitcase and lead it inside, allowing the thirty-pound cargo to be weighed, ticketed and deposited into the tongue of a conveyer belt at the appropriate station before heading through the metal detectors where my identity bracelet and my ring and jacket are doffed as I walk through the transparent gates (which I have to amble through the porous gate twice, because it keeps on bleeping, finally, after being padding down with what looks like a barcode scanning device, I am allowed to proceed), into the terminal, my progenitors in tow. Mom tells me to remember that once I arrive at O’hare I don’t have to worry about my suitcase until I get to New York and that in New York just look for the blue suitcase with the big blue suitcase with the Young Columbus tag and I should have no problem.

 

I am waiting .

The aerial shuttle to Chicago is called the skipper. There are a bevy of exceptionally well groomed business associates lolling in the lobby, shuffling dossiers like flash cards. A black haired pony tail man who could be me in a decade opens up his laptop and looks into it as if he is making an important conference call. I have arrived before Nat Pflederer—waiting to meet the face of my fellow winner and mentor, imagining reminiscing over the trip with him ten years from now, bartering photographs, dipping into the vortex of memory as we enter the cusp of adulthood.  Since he has failed to return any of my calls the only reputation I have to go on of what Nat is like is derived solely from his black and white half-smiling visage in the paper.  My anxiety-riddled nerves are superseded only by the pending element of curiosity and elation. The terminal begins to swell and fester with traveling patrons. Grandma arrives, giving me embraces, telling me she is proud of me. Both of my Uncles arrive as well, toting scepters of Styrofoam coffee. It is quarter to six. The sun is almost about ready to lift its proud solar chin above the landscape of spring. I am waiting. Holding the black bag reading simply PARADE—waiting for the amplified heralding boarding call of passengers to take flight.

Nat has still not showed up. I am seriously beginning to wonder if I am on my own.

There is an approximate ten minutes before the stewardess will announce first boarding call. There are less than thirty passengers on this plane.

My sister Beth is next to Shawna. Matthew is reading a book and is admittedly grouchy. All of my cousins are on spring break. Three more slurps and then my Mister Donuts extra-large coffee will be reduced to sugary dregs totaling the cups of coffee I will have ingested into my fifteen year old anatomy to about ten cups. My daily avg. is around five.

“It’ll be a nice short flight.” My Uncle Larry adds, between intermittent swigs of his coffee.” I nod my head. I am ready to board.

“David,” I hear my mother’s voice. She is excited. I turn around she is talking to a lady with permy hair wearing a maroon jacket. There is a man next to him who is bald and wearing a gray sweater and a turtleneck.  I turn. I am still holding my extra-large coffee. Next to the lady with the maroon coat there is young girl with frizzy hair and glasses about the same age of my sister Beth and next to her is Nat Pflederer.

Finally.

“David this is Nat.” My mom says, smiling, formally introducing the two of us as if we are at Kindergarten round up. I smile. I set my coffee cup down on the vinyl stump of an empty seat. I smile. Nat is carrying the same black Parade tote bag.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” I say, looking at him as the person who has been delegated to embark on this adventure with me.

For some reason Nat does not smile back. His hand has no grasp to it whatsoever as we exchange perfunctory Young  Columbus hand-gesturing salutations. Nat has hair that also, perhaps hereditarily, slightly frizzes, with subtle curls dripping down the back of his neck like a embryonic fetus into a cidery half- mullet. I have been waiting to meet my fellow Young Columbus brother  for three months. Nat looks different than the somewhat cheeky smiling glossy lip lad pictured. He doesn’t seem to smile. His voice is a solid lower than I imagined it would be. He doesn’t resemble the John Irving wrestling future English major   He is hoisting the same parade bag, feigning a smile as we shake hands, remaining soporific eye-lidded and aloof as I tell him I’ve been looking forward to meeting him. Greetings are cast like limp spells into the direction of Nat’s parents as palms are grappled and wedged up and down.
 

“Nat’s a little tired.” His dad says. I wonder how he can be tired since he has a paper route as week and intrinsically gets up at the same time I do every morning. 
 

I introduce myself to his parents and sister, who wears thick glasses and looks down when I shake her hand.

     “I’ve never flown before,” I tell Nat’s mom. Everyone is telling me to expect a popping sound like corks being wedged out of my ears. When Nat’s mom ask if I chew gum, insinuating that it would help to assuage the pop in elevation I say no taking  final swig of caffeine.  Her son  is wearing his Tremont Varsity wrestling t-shit. I look at his furled lip and angular features of the pony-tail lad with the long hair, suit and laptop. Nat and his father begin to talk about the bulk and size of the airplane we will be traveling on to London as if they are attending some sort of conference sponsored by Boeing. The passengers begin to assemble in a serpentine line leading out of the terminal into the Skipper United express plane en route to Chicago O’hare. It is early morning. Nat seems nonchalant and not the least bit excited about the pending sojourn ahead of him.

 

 

 I am leaving.

The line forming at the gate looks like a question mark. 
 

It is time for hugs. It is time to say goodbye to everything ever known. I make it a point of  re-shaking the palms of both of Nat’s parents'. Uncle Larry and Uncle Albert both shake my hand like a visiting politician soliciting votes. I give both my father and mother one final embrace before looking down at my seat number and stepping into the line of passengers. Looking back I can see both my parents standing next to each other, my fathers arm around my mother. The runway spills out for 800 meters like a licked cement tongue. Men attired in orange ferrying nectarine scepters pump their arms north and south as if lifting weights before orchestrating their limbs. I enter the cushiony blue aisles of the Skipper, seated next to a window seat, from the enclosed window I am opposite the panoramic vista of my relatives looking out from the interior-aquarium window of the terminal. Nat is seated several aisles behind me and appears to be vexed and annoyed with life as he plays with the over head plastic nipple, as if trying to arouse it, so a splash of circulating air can zip on to his face. Apparently the cool thing to do is to act like flying overhead is a total ill convenience. I look out of the Plexiglas eyelash of the window as the stewardess makes charade-like motions with her hands.
 

We are still on the runway. For some reason everything inside the plane smells like recycled vinyl. The plane slowly begins to angle. There are loud aerial exhaust hisses. The plane feels like it is lumbering crawling home on all fours after a night of drinking before I can feel the entirety of the vessel sweat and titter, exhaling in guttural pronouns, coughing, taking off in a subtle canter before

 accumulating velocity. When I look at the window I can see the wheel skating, speeding, needled up where there is a jilt. Before I realize I heading uphill, my head back in the  in the seat, the vessel I have momentarily found my self ensconced in is arcing into a screech, my ears seem muffled,  plugged, looking down I can see that we are being bulleted across the windex blue of the sky.

 I look back and notice that Nat is being totally standoffish. He is acting like he flies everyday. He is acting like flying is no big deal.

            Following my Uncle Larry's mantra, I get another cup of coffee on the flight (#11 cup-o-java-meter for the day), looking out, below the tufted cobbled sheets of clouds below and the patch of earth. Every time I glance over my shoulder at the fellow YC recipient, he has his head lolled to one side and his eyes shut as if he used to this. Looking down I see the pentagonal arrayed dashes of the Kings park.  I can make out the bald forehead mall and Westlake center as shoebox diorama before the plane arches in a stratospheric dip before pirouetting into the direction of the sun.


 The lady sitting to my left is attired in a sexy navy blue eye-liner business suit. She is wearing stilettos and has inky-tights that look like stalks.  I order another cup of coffee(#12) She looks at me as if I am too young to be drinking coffee. I look behind me. There is no sight of the gentlemen in the business suit with the ponytail who was writing on his two thousand dollar computer notebook.

I can’t stop staring out past my reflection. I can’t help gazing out at the scalp of the planet below.

Nat is still pinching the plastic nipple above his seat .I look back and smile.  He immediately turns the opposite direction and fakes a yawn before diverting his attention again to the plastic nipple overhead.

“What’s this?” I ask the lady, raising my hand as if in a classroom, and touching the circular protruding oval.

“That let’s air drain on you. If you feel like you are getting too stuffy in here the extra air sometimes helps.”

 

I look back again. Nat has winged his in towards his shoulder. Much as I look around I fail to locate the lanky long-haired lad with the laptop and expensive sports coat who looked like a writer.

“You're pretty young to be drinking so much coffee.” The classy lady says.

I’m headed to London. I won a contest with a magazine in New York. I’ve never flown before.”

Her eyelids seem to arch open as if impressed. She is sexy. She is reminiscent of the classy girl from the Junior League who I interviewed with to win the contest. I tell her that I need to drink a lot of coffee  of coffee since it is almost three in the afternoon  London time. She smiles.

“Do you take this flight much? I mean do you fly a lot?”

“I take this flight three times a week, from Peoria to O’hare. I take it for work”

"It gets kind of exhausting. I take the shuttle back at 9:30. It makes for a long week sometime."

I ask her what line of work she is in. She tells me she is a marketing specialist with Caterpillar.

“Yeah. Caterpillar. They really fuel this town.” She smiles.

“How did you win the contest?”

"It was a scholarship contest sponsored by the Journal Star and PARADE magazine in New York. There was two winners. One from the city and one from the county. I was chosen to represent the city."

I look over. Nat seems annoyed that I am socializing with a sexy middle aged vixen.

“You’re pretty young to be drinking so much coffee.”

“I love it. I’m a paperboy so I normally get up at four-thirty every morning. I love coffee. I just always enjoyed the taste of it.”

She nods  a petite assent.  I order another cup. The stewardess tells me that the plane will be landing in ten minutes so after I ingest this cup I need to readjust me seat to the forward position.

 The middle aged lady is looking at me and smiling.

"We'll be landing soon," she says. with a smile, wishing me a good trip as she touches, perhaps intentionally, the top of my knee.
 
I look  back and smile at Nat.
 
When he sees me he turns his head the opposite direction.
 
I see a series of cement  rectangles followed by what looks  like an enjoined botanical  gardens.

 
The captain  announces that we are to buckle up. I think about Depeche Mode. The captain announces that we should be prepared to land.