A slant of sunshine seems to drip into the room. Behind the Moathouse students' are playing soccer. I remember my French teacher Madame Suhr telling us that in Europe schools are not affiliated with Sports teams as they are in the United States. My body is still Jet lagged, still unaware that it is near midnight on the near side of the globe and that the ribbon of golden light siphoning through the curtains on the opposite end of the room will not be visible in the central time zone of my continent for another seven hours.
On the
opposite bed Justin is lying sprawled, slumbering as if either he has just
gotten drunk for the first time or knocked out or both
April fifteenth. The day taxes are due. My father would
often press the palms of his hand deep into his forehead as if relieving
himself of a headache.
The Italian girls. The girl with the Armadillo pin. Lois Lane. Cool Mark.
Apparently Spencer, the most conspicuous virgin on the trip so far achieved rote conversation talked with Daisy last night on the phone between hotel rooms.
I pluck my glasses from the near the light stand, there is the sound of birds and British boys thwacking a ball between them using only their lower bodies. The light is tubular, almost beam-like. Justin lets go of a snore. More than anything else I wish to go out for a run—wish to enter the vernal countryside of England with my arms drumming into my torso, wish to lose myself down a cobbled avenue in a street I have never before seen, basking in the lashes of morning sunshine, trying not to be overtly concerned with how much valuable training time I am losing by just remaining idle in my bedroom, away from my country, away from my coach.
The Italian girls. The girl with the Armadillo pin. Lois Lane. Cool Mark.
Apparently Spencer, the most conspicuous virgin on the trip so far achieved rote conversation talked with Daisy last night on the phone between hotel rooms.
I pluck my glasses from the near the light stand, there is the sound of birds and British boys thwacking a ball between them using only their lower bodies. The light is tubular, almost beam-like. Justin lets go of a snore. More than anything else I wish to go out for a run—wish to enter the vernal countryside of England with my arms drumming into my torso, wish to lose myself down a cobbled avenue in a street I have never before seen, basking in the lashes of morning sunshine, trying not to be overtly concerned with how much valuable training time I am losing by just remaining idle in my bedroom, away from my country, away from my coach.
Justin lets out another snore in muffled fashion sounding as if he is trying not to make a sound as he cries at a funeral. I showered last night, but immediately dip the entirety of my head into the basin in a fashion reminiscent of a southern church baptismal revival, before reaching for the sallow tines of my yellow comb, sculpting the damp strands of hair into a miniature Parker Lewis assenting like podium above my forehead, before drenching it into an intractable helmet courtesy of the ozone dibbling mist contained in the scepter of Aquatic Net solution my vanity all but swears by--before entering the lobby in a sea of red coats, looking around to see if somehow I spot the creature I somehow I felt distance to meet on this trip, before all that--
I really want to run.
It seems hard to fathom that Bryan could really run the mile
in 4:45.
The telephone reverberates twice. It is Trevor, talking to
us like he is our little league coach, inquiring if we are both up and that
breakfast is downstairs being served. My fears of being deported home on the
first night have all been allayed. I hang up the phone and rattle my roommate into
the realm of consciousness before exiting the hotel room and heading via the
steps, into the dining area.
Breakfast is every morning until 8 consisting primarily of a buffet.
There is nothing like breakfast in England. The eggs are scrambled and fluffed with a taste reminiscent of a dissolved cloud when it enters your palette. There are eggs and bacon and sausage, a line of buffet. Gradually fellow Young Columbi saunters into the room, there faces drooped, eyes poked into their cheekbones. I sit down, refilling my coffee cup three times.
Several other Big Ten troop members join us. When I ask Chris where Josh is he says he went running earlier that morning.
"What?"
"Yeah, apparently their was a whole group of runners who set their alarm clocks early got out and ran."
The dining hall seems to be a confluence of bodies. Most of the kids who are eating breakfast stem from the first two groups. Seveeral girls from the older groups walk down in curlers.
"What?"
"Yeah, apparently their was a whole group of runners who set their alarm clocks early got out and ran."
“They went running this morning?” I ask, my voice raised high in inquiry.
“Yeah,” He says, acting as if it were no big deal.
I verbalize the word shit inside my psyche. I feel that I have somehow let Coach Ricca down. Like I have failed at endeavoring to become an athlete in training. I am trying to work on splintering apart the flashing neon decimals of my mile time.
I have failed.
A series of several runners enter the building, their arms drilled into their waist in triangles. I see Josh (Big Ten Indiana) out of breath, exhausted.
I ask them if they are going running tomorrow morning. Josh the Eagle Scout says that he does not know for sure. I tell him that I wish I would have known. Josh comments that maybe if I would have been up earlier I would have known.
"Let me know if you are going running tomorrow. I really need to run. I promised to Coaches back home that I would run when I am overseas. Let me know if you are going running tomorrow and I will join you."
Josh looks back at me and shrugs.
***
There is twenty-minutes left until we have to congregate in
the lobby of the Moathouse. I take the side stairs to the third floor. Once in
my room I open the bathroom door, brandish my comb as if a paintbrush, digging the tines
across my scalp with a flagellating flit of my wrist. I then reach for the silo
of Aqua Net and press down the nozzle as
if I am graffiti-ing a halo on the top of my scalp. I dip the comb back in
water and begin to start over. I verify my reflection in the mirror.
I then grab the cylinder of Aqua Net again as if it is a
baton give it a healthy rattle and breeze it over my scalp again.
The bathroom door is open. Justin is looking at me.
“How much of that stuff do you normally go through?”
“Back home I go through a bottle of week. Sometimes I feel like I’m narcissistic but I
want to get my hair just right.”
I plow the comb across the side of my scalp, near my ears. I am trying to get everything right.
Justin is from Nebraska. He is looking at me like he has
never seen anyone comb their hair before.
“Is that how you get it so it doesn't move? You just plaster it with that hairspray stuff.”
I nod again. I left up the scepter and again press the
nozzle before verifying my existence in
the bedroom mirror. I hold the can out to him and ask him if he wants some. He
looks at me like I am trying to pass him a roach behind the bleachers after
football practice.
“All my friends back home know that its all about the hair.
All my friends back home know not to touch the hair.”
Justin seems lost. I ask him if he excited about the Roman Baths today. He sends back a shrug .
“So you drink a lot of coffee and you use a lot of hairspray? He states. I have made coffee in the hotel room with a pot that is reserved for tea.
“Yeah, just don’t get the two confused. I’ve used lemon juice on the top of my hair before to bring out its natural shine, but I think if I put coffee on my hair I just end up smelling like a used filter.”
Justin smiles. He says no one in his high school drinks coffee, except for like the teachers.
“Coffee is like dirty water.” Justin says, sounding just like Eggplant Elmore back home.
I take a slurp. Back home it is one in the morning. Back home the papers have just been plummeted on the corner of Sherman and Cedar in one ruffled heap. Back home my parents have spent the last day wondering how their jet-lagged son doing on his first full day in England. I look at my hair in the mirror. It is the intractable plateau I aim for . Again I vent to Justin that I’m upset that no one even slightly mentioned that we were running his morning in our group even though I wore my Cross Country jacket the entire morning. As if grabbing a baton in a 4x200 relay I grip my canister of Aqua Net and hold it up like a vigil candle in Justin’s direction.
“Here,” I say, offering a little squeeze, laughing as my designated roommate for this trip, the one from Nebraska who also runs track steps back in a little yelp, as if being set on fire. Minutes later we arrive in the lobby, the menstrual red colors of our capes, ferrying cameras. Congregating, talking, bartering sentences, trying hard to be accepted and liked, trying hard to make each other smile.
***
In the lobby Mark is once again being the cultural insurgent, defying almost unwritten warranted mandate that we clad ourselves in our red PARADE jacket, donning his shoulders in lieu with a sleek black jacket, his hair parted fashionably on the top of his school. I look behind and find him again, wishing me good morning, addressing me as buddy. I wade across from the continent of red coats and chat with Mark and what I perceive to be his cadre of cultural elite.
Mark has his haired styled and combed differently this morning, long angelic tresses coifly combed back with a subtle hint if gel. He is sporting sun glasses that look like they were found on an archeological dig at Woodstock. The coolest bad-ass human being I have ever seen.
We greet each other with our signature fist pummel-to-the shoulder. It is hard to believe that it was only yesterday that I seriously thought I was going to endure serious time on the discipline bus because I mistook mark’s finesse for a local bloke and almost somehow started a fight.
“I like your hair.” I tell him.
“I’m trying to emulate you.” Mark says, using the word emulate, the sounds of a word in which I have never heard.
Mark begins to inquire about my hair.
I guess I just started doing it one day, I added.
Not far behind Mark I can make out Nat. I want to go over and inquire how my area-code cohort is enjoying the trip but instead I wave. He pretends not t o notice me, swiveling his chin in the converse direction.
One of the big ten adds that Mark
does have a point about my hair.
“It's because of your Harry Connick Jr.” Spencer-Ohio says. I tell him that I get that a lot. I tell him that Harry Connick Jr. is somewhat of a mentor. Spencer begins snapping his fingers and breaks out into a version of Harry Conicks You didn’t know me when, talking about riding a roller coaster from Coney island to key west.
I look back at smile. Spencer's nickname that he gave me the first day of the trip will adhere.
Everything is the most vernal green I have ever seen—It is
almost like a felt colored pool table colored carpet rolled out and layered
over patches of countryside. For the second day in a row Daisy sits next to
Spencer. The Big Ten is still giving it up every time we enter the bus, stating the name of a college most of us have never heard of—entering the Bus on
what would be the drivers side door in the United StatesThe clouds have now cleared completely. Sun slips into the
window of the Charter bus in thick translucent bangs. Much to my perpetual
chagrin, Vivian is inquiring how many of us rose early and had a good run this
morning.
We enter the bus, walkmans being
strapped on as if junior football helmets.
It is a two hour chartered skip to Bath. There are four
groups of ten on our tour bus, ours, the BIG
TEN being GROUP number three, ages 12-15, seventh grade through Freshman year.
TEN being GROUP number three, ages 12-15, seventh grade through Freshman year.
It is customary that Big Ten has
marked their territory and sits at the back of the bus. In the front of our bus
is a portly man with a rubicund featured face I will later learn is Frank McNulty,
president and CEO Parade and his wife, equally rubicund and windmilled
shaped Audrey, the reasoning perhaps they are placed on our bus, reason being
that the younger students are perhaps more refined than a bevy of hormonally
addled yet academically exceptional high school seniors.
I sit next to Trevor. He is wearing a shirt that looks as if it could be the crescent seal for an overtly foppish county in France, a long-sleeve crest, half denim teal/ half pink. Kenny tells him that that is the coolest shirt he has ever seen.
“The Gap.” Trevor notes, “You just
can’t beat shopping at the GAP.”
Behind me Bryan Ferry from Alaska is listening to Bob Marley on his Walkman, making synchronized bobbing sounds with his chin.
We have yet to pull out of the parking lot port of the Moat House. I turn around and ask eskimo-descended Bryan Ferry if he irked that he didn’t get a chance to run this morning. He doesn’t hear me at first and when he does he responds back in a single swipe of the chin.
“I wish I would have known, I really wanted to go out for a run this morning.”
Bryan tells me that he did know.
“I just wanted to sleep in. It’s vacation from running. I probably won’t run this entire trip.” He says again, reggae and marimbas caroling from his ears in hunched static.
Everything is the most vernal green I have ever seen—It is almost like a felt colored pool table colored carpet rolled out and layered over patches of countryside. For the second day in a row Daisy sits next to Spencer. The Big Ten is still giving it up every time we enter the bus, stating out the name of a college most of us have never heard of—entering the Bus on what would be the drivers’ side door in the United States.
Tonight is the first DISCO. When all four groups will congregate and dance. There is a heavy rumor circulating on the bus amongst the glittery-gossip of the girls that Daisy really wants Spencer to ask her to dance with him tonight at the dinner dance. The dinner dance is noted on our itinerary as being the Disco which spawns sophomoric John Travolta pointy-finger gesticulations through the bus followed by the opening chorus of staying Alive.
Over half the group of 125 has an Amarillo Tx pin affixed to the label of their bleeding red jackets.
I wonder if I will find the Italian girls or dance with the Amarillo pin girl.
The clouds have now cleared completely. Sun slips into the window of the Charter bus in thick translucent bangs. Much to my perpetual chagrin, Vivian is inquiring how many of us rose early and had a good run this morning. Several hands raise like albino stalks of corn. Mine isn’t one of them.
I scowl. Two hours later we will arrive in Bath.
It is a sea of green which stretches in all direction at once. The highway is two lane. Five miles out of town there appear to be little traffic with the exception of our busses following each other in tandem, passing the occasional truck.
There is an abandon gypsy car on the side of the road.
From out of nowhere all the busses seem to pause. Several non-big ten are pointing. Ahead there appears to be a shepherd conveying a bushel of about twenty sheep to the antipodal side of the road.
The bulk of the Big Ten are
listening to their walkmans and/or are asleep. Vivian continues to talk. Occasionally
there are high-pitched giggles from the training-bra girls four rows up.
I can’t stop looking out the window and noting just how green and perfect everything is. Green sporadically dappled with hints of lavender and yellow. An emerald sheet of conifer flavored pine stretching into what feels like eternity.
The bulk of everyone on this bus has their heads banged against the back of their seats or the side window like a half-deflated helium balloon.
No one else on the bus with the exception of Vivian seems to care.
I take my glasses out of my pocket and stare out the British countryside.
I refuse to miss any part of this at all.
***
And hour past Stratford we enter Bath. Out Itinerary calls for a panoramic driving tour before we eat lunch at BATH university.There is a rumor on the bus that the counselors went out and got drunk last night. Vivian begins to tells us about what is known commonly to residents of Bath and throughout England as a whole as the circus which is derived from the Latin for circle or ring and how you can notice that in the curvature of the architecture. Vivian tells us to note the pillars.
It is palatial and vowel-shaped. Vivian uses the word
grandiose to discuss the architecture
I am in awe of the architecture.
Vivian tells us that the Circus was originally bestowed with
the appellation of Kings Circus and was designed by Sir john Wood the elder who
never saw it come to fruition.
We drive around the circus. In a futile attempt to impress
Daisy, Spencer raises his hand and asks Vivian that, since its called a Circus,
shouldn’t there be tents and tightropers and stuff like that. The entire bus
effuses in laughter while Vivian tilts her head nonplussed. Jim Baker says and
elephant poop. One of the younger kids in the lower group who is almost in high
school says that the smell will fit right in with scent of the British country
side I have hardcore fallen in love with.
Everyone is still laughing from Spencer’s circus quip. Sir
Charles a motion with his palms pressing towards his lap pantomiming everyone
to quiet because the tour guide is talking.
I wonder what the intellectual titans on Bus number four are
discussing right now.
I lose myself into the serpentine curvature gilded spine of
the circus. Remembering how I read in SPIN magazine last summer that Robert
Smith of CURE renown is said to reside in this town, wondering if I am passing
his apartment right now.