We wait around the luggage carousel at Heathrow for our suitcases to coast around the arc of the loop, students exhausted, our
passports already notarized in different imprints like vintage wines. We wait in
a splotch of congregated red, each of us waiting wondering when the
rectangular objects in which two weeks
of our life is stowed will expectorate down the center chute and whiz around the circumference of the carousel
waiting for us to pick it up.
Charles says that we need to find our own luggage and
then we are going to meet near the sliding doors until it is time to get on the
tour bus.
Trevor reminds us just to look for the luggage that
look like ours with the Young Columbus tag affixed to
Most of us lumber at a slight angle due the weight
of our respective suitcases.
There is no sight of Nat Plederer, and even if there
was he wouldn’t acknowledge me. There is no sigh of Lois Lane or the Italian girls.
There is no
sight of Mark.
Seconds prior to the chrome chute atop the luggage carousel barfing up bags a diminutive siren erupts in shrills above. We wait for are cargo containing clothes and hygiene items used to groom our bodies as we tramp across a fairy tale soil, somewhere we have never been before.
Seconds prior to the chrome chute atop the luggage carousel barfing up bags a diminutive siren erupts in shrills above. We wait for are cargo containing clothes and hygiene items used to groom our bodies as we tramp across a fairy tale soil, somewhere we have never been before.
We wait all alone for our rectangular box containing our earthly possessions.
We wait as one.
***
“I got an
idea.” Trevor says to group number three as a whole. “There’s ten of us. How ‘bout they each shout out a name of
a big ten school every time we meet up.
We form an elliptical matrix of jostling limbs and
forearms. Trevor continues to sound like he is coaching football and it is perennially
fourth and inches. After a minute he claims that since there are ten of us
every time he or Sir Charles holler out
the mandate BIG TEN we all state the name of a BIG TEN school.
I claim Illinois. Chris is archrival Michigan state.
Josh is Indiana. Reticent lipped Kevin is Purdue. Justin is Trevor /Charles alma matta Michigan, having already worn the cap.
Spencer has no clue what we are talking about, saying “Ohio” like he is trying
in earnest to have a conversation with a Japanese delegate for his International
corporation some day. Jim Baker from Colorado is Iowa publically states his disdain for this sort of mnemonic by claiming it is gay. Kenny from Connecticut is Minnesota. Bryan from Alaska is given Wisconsin.. The silent dude from Montana is given Penn state by default.
We are known as the Big Ten.
“Yo Big ten, give it up.” Trevor says, each of his
troops are expected to announce the name of a big ten school
As is true in the Big Ten in regards to the NCAA
tournament, Northwestern somehow gets left out.
There are four charter buses awaiting us in muffled
snorts.
We enter the bus on the “right side of the road.” Compounded with the skipped jubilation, detumesced elation, hormonal overload spawned by the sight of two Italian girls from New York and the fifteen year old fascination with a certain oh-so elusive mile high club. Fatigue, jet-lag, it seems fitting that we are driving on a different side than we are accustomed. The faces on the bus are flushed with exhaustion. Trevor seems to have taken a liking to me and sits near me on the bus. Baker notes that there is something just not right with this bus. From now to the end of the trip the back of the Bus will be christened as serious Big Ten territory. Justin is still a tad loopy. He is singing a country song in a high-pitch keen and keeps inquiring if I ever cried when Old Yeller died. Bryan Fanning has his hat completely reverted on the back of his head. I monopolize my place and grab a window seat, endeavoring to inhale my first breath if Europe, of England, the country of princes and pageantries, is earl gray and wet.
The lady in front of the charter announces herself
as Vivian, our tour guide and individually welcomes each of us by shaking our
hands. Our bus consists of three groups of boys and one group of girls. The
girls appear to be either eighth graders or freshman in high school.
"As you know in England we drive on the “right” side
of the road," Vivian adds.
On the bus a girl with straw-sun flavored hair sits
next to Spencer, as if she is brave, all by herself, having a seat next to the
lad who is by far the most conspicuous virgin on the trip.
Vivian inquires if there are any joggers with us in
the group, noting that London is agog this coming weekend with the festivities
for the upcoming marathon and whatnot, wondering if any of us young athletes
are going to put up the effort and wake up early the next morning to
athletically clop across the bucolic avenues and arteries of the British
countryside. I think about Coach Ricca, timing my mile again before I left,
hoping to slash the seconds on the digitalized visage of the stopwatch.
Justin raises his hand as does Josh and myself. Brian from Alaska who purportedly ran a 4:40 mile looks like he can care less.
I am still armored in my cross country vest.
I am still armored in my cross country vest.
“Big ten give it up on
the back of the bus.”
There is rain and there is a dreary feeling of sadness—of having left somewhere the moment you have already arrived. Spencer has already begun in his speech about how he stems from Utah and there is only one kid inside his high school as a whole who is not a virgin, as if everyone else on board won preliminary entrance into this competition by popping someone’s cherry in the back seat after homecoming the prior fall. The rain skis down the side of the charter bus windows. Within minutes it seems we are out of the hoi poloi traffic skirting the suburbs of London and find ourselves the only vehicle alone in the country. The pastures are mossy green and sprawling. Trevor makes a comment about how this place looks kinda like Michigan.
There is rain and there is a dreary feeling of sadness—of having left somewhere the moment you have already arrived. Spencer has already begun in his speech about how he stems from Utah and there is only one kid inside his high school as a whole who is not a virgin, as if everyone else on board won preliminary entrance into this competition by popping someone’s cherry in the back seat after homecoming the prior fall. The rain skis down the side of the charter bus windows. Within minutes it seems we are out of the hoi poloi traffic skirting the suburbs of London and find ourselves the only vehicle alone in the country. The pastures are mossy green and sprawling. Trevor makes a comment about how this place looks kinda like Michigan.
Two rows in front of me, Spencer is saying something
to the skinny girl with the straw flavored hair to make her laugh.
I look at the harlequin expression of my smile in
the window, Iowa next to me, Michigan in the front and a flirtatious Ohio. Although I am in Britain it seems I am surrounded by
the midwest states. Vivian notes that we have a three hour drive from London to
Stratford-upon Avon and that if any of you would like to sit back and get some
rest she we wake us when we arrive to the first scheduled stop on our
itinerary.
“You ever cry when old
yeller died?” Justin inquires, once again, just to piss me off.
***
***
The rain continues to flagellate outside, spanking
the earth as if trying to tame the seasons for the gentle pastoral arrival that
is spring. When the bus automatically switches gears it seems to offer a
wobble. My eyes forms dual pink caves as they open and close and then re-open
once again, all the while being accompanies by the subtle overhead patter of
rain on chrome.
“If you look to your imminent left t you will see Windsor castle, on our tour later in this week.": Vivian says
The walk seems like a ribbon that stretches miles
emptying out into the gray tiara that is Windsor castle.
The rain is coming down in drapes of precipitation. We are fifty miles away from Oxford Services, the first stop listed on our itinerary.
Vivian
is talking into them microphone, giving us
details about each city we just so happen to pass. She tells us that there is a
bathroom located on the bus but do keep in mind that if we use the lavatory we do have to live with the
smell. Trevor is to my right. In front me and I can hear Spencer trying to
offer something glib to the straw hair lass who sat next to him and then I find
myself sunken into t my flesh and there is the sound of windshield wipers
batting against glass in tempo and the crackle of the tour guide microphone and
then silence and then nudge from Trevor and Vivian saying the words wakey-wakey
over the top of the microphone telling us in fifteen minutes we are scheduled to arrive at our
destined stop.
I try not to envision it being 2am central, try not
to picture my mother hushing her chin into her neck and praying for her son's
safety.
There is a skid and what sounds like something
letting out a long ablated fart dragging,
the back of the bus where we are seated seems to fumble and lower. We then
start to hobble. There is a sense of commotion. The rain is an
impenetrable curtain. Vivian looks at our bus driver Chris and says that it
appears that one of our tires just whimpered out on us and so it’s a good thing
we are so close to our first rest stop.
The rain continues to bleat. Even though we are driving
on the wrong side of the road it is pretty obvious that something is wrong.
Someone in the now ubiquitous Big Ten notes that
this is just great, first a lousy meal on the flight no sleep and now this.
Vivian is saying that this is not good. Just not
good now is it.
***
Our tour bus has a flat. We lumber our way to our first scheduled stop already wounded.
***
Our tour bus has a flat. We lumber our way to our first scheduled stop already wounded.
***
Oxford services is a rest stop-slash-souvenir haunt.. The Big Ten begins to pillage the snack section, commenting about how weird all the stuff looks over here. Everyone in the Big Ten is loading up on candy and chips for the bus ride to Stratford. Jim Baker notes that it sucks because when you buy a coke over here it is already warm and comes in a glass bottle and the top has to be practically vivisected ajar with a bottle opener. Spencer notes that this is like America only different, a seemingly profound remarks that somehow instigates ribbons of giggles from the group of junior high training-bra girls on our bus.
The sign for the British pound looks like a dieting
ampersand. Trevor, the future commissioner of he NCAA notes how to figure how much
something listed in British pound would
“Just whatever
the cost is, divide by two and then add the difference. Like say it says ten
pound, divide ten by two and add five to ten, so that it would be fifteen
dollars in American currency.
Someone in back is saying the word dude and that he
just paid five dollars for a coke.
In the back of the Service station is a music section. I find Depeche Mode. I come across an album I have never seen in the states.
“Back home its not
called the singles, it called Catching Up with Depeche mode.” I say, aloud thinking
about last June and dawn Michelle Kimble and being on stage in the Music Man
and walking with her in Bradley park, falling in love with her vocabulary while
listening to her stories about going to stage 2 and only dancing when JUST
CAN’T GET ENOUGH comes on. I still can’t get the
Industrial grunge and searing street-wheeling gnaw of the opening Chords of I
FEEL YOU out of my head. Nor the article
I read on the plane ride from O’hare to Newark that had a picture of Martin
Gore looking at a Graffiti breast and Gore confessing to sinning and to
learning from sin and to being unfaithful and to sleeping around a lot on the
road while being married.
“When your in a band you are in a gang.”
Jim Baker struts up to me and asks me what I am
looking at.
“It’s Depeche Mode.” I tell him. “They’re my
favorite band.”
“They look like a bunch of new-wave fruitflies. They
look like a bunch of fuckin’ faggots
Look you can see that guys nipple.” Jim gesticulates.
“They’re not fags. They
only dress like that. It’s how people used to dress in the SoHo section of
London in the mid-80’s. They just had a new album come out but this is my
favorite, only this is a different rendition than the one they have back home.
At home its called CATHCHING UP WITH DEPECHE MODE.”
Jim gives me
a-to-each-his-own I’m-glad-we’re-not-roommates-shrug. I head towards the
counter to make a purchase Jim tells me the person who is Northwester that that
weird kid in the Cross Country jacket is buying fag music, telling them that
you’d probably get HIV just by listening to the opening chords.
***
“It’s been crazy. Our tire literally blew up. Everyone is jetlagged and the rain just isn’t helping.”
When exiting Oxford Union I feel a prod on my
shoulder. It is Mark. He has succumbed to the masses and is clad in his crimson jacket. He inquires how I like England so far.
“It’s been crazy. Our tire literally blew up. Everyone is jetlagged and the rain just isn’t helping.”
“Here,” I
hold up the recently purchased Depeche Mode cassette. “This is my favorite
band. Over in the states this one is called catching up with Depeche Mode, but
apparently it gas a different title over here.”
Mark smiles. He says he is familiar with the band.
“They just had a new album, come out which I didn’t
know about until about a week before we left. It’s funny because Depeche Mode has
probably been the soundtrack to my youth.
There is an echo. Someone is informing the Big Ren
Give it up.
“”How about you? What's your favorite group?’
“My favorite band is the Smiths?”
“The Smiths?”
“The Smiths. My favorite band of all time. Check them
out. Especially if you like Depeche Mode. You will love them.”
I say the word smiths to myself aloud and nod. In
the background there’s another reverberating carol offering the BIG TEN to give
it up. Midwestern states are being named. Spencer looks perplexed every time he
says the word “Ohio.’
“Illinois,” I say from a distant. Trevor is addressing us by referring to us as
here’s the thing guys.
“Our bus has three flats so we’re going to have to
pair off and ride in a different bus. We
are escorted to what we will later learn
is bus #3.” Charles says that the agency will be out here in a couple hours to
fix the bus so that we shouldn’t worry because we have a big traveling day
tomorrow and the bus will be fixed by then.
The students on bus number one are each split off by group
on different busses. As we enter
the third bus. The lady who is presumably one of the other tour guides is
talking through the elements into a microphone, prattling on about Margaret
Thatcher, stating the British populace as a whole does not like her and is not
very found of her ways. The group of students on Bus number three seem even
more worn out and facially exhausted. A beautiful girl with black hair who I
will learn later is named Jennifer is resting her head on the shoulder of a man
with glasses she has just met hours earlier.
It feels like we have known each other for a filched
eternity.
It feels like we are going to a home we never knew we had.
It feels like we are going to a home we never knew we had.