'It is night and then it is morning. The morning of my third
full day of England
“Justin wake up man, Trevor said to make sure our suitcases
are all out the door and ready.”
Justin responds by emitting a light pitch snore.
I look around. Consensus was last night that they would let
me know if they were going running. Part of me just wants to run by myself.
Part of me doesn’t care.
I look in the room. There is no coffee left. Only tea to brew in
the hotel with a machine that plugged in into a complicated outlet that looks
like a rubbix cube.
“Justin you need to get up bro.” I shake him again several
times. He seems unresponsive.
The phone lets out a nasal blare. For a second I think it is
Harmony finally calling me back. When I pick up it is Sir Charles.
I answer the phone by saying good morning.
There are like five different channels that have the word
BBC in the title.
I look at the telephone where last I verbally fumbled and
limped. On the television the Big Breakfast is still blaring, a dog randomly barking. I
feel like kicking the TV screen. I don’t
know what happened with Harmony last night.
It is requested that our luggage be outside our door before
we depart for breakfast. Still reeling from the shame ignominy and shame of Harmony's roommate Jennifer Flood, feeling that my affections for Harmony somehow are not shared
or warranted by her group.
Justin gets up. His suitcase is still open. He asks me if I can believe we saw all that stuff on tv last night.
"That like wasn't even cable. It wasn't even like we were watching porn through the blocked channels or anything like that."
I am brooding over Harmony. I say whatever as we head down the stairs.
Justin gets up. His suitcase is still open. He asks me if I can believe we saw all that stuff on tv last night.
"That like wasn't even cable. It wasn't even like we were watching porn through the blocked channels or anything like that."
I am brooding over Harmony. I say whatever as we head down the stairs.
It is our final breakfast at the Moat House. The buffet this
morning consists of Ham and eggs and fruits. I look around. There is no
Harmony. Part of me was hoping to saunter into Mark supplicating for advice
about what to do about my unflinching infatuation of this elusive creature.
Justin still has saliva drooling from the side pocket of his
mouth. He is seated next to Chris. I am
looking for the waitress I had yesterday who was old and called me love to see
if she could brew me a fresh cup of coffee. When I look behind me I notice that
an older boy from Bus #4 is seated with Chris and Justin for breakfast. Normally
I’m the only one in our group who socializes with teens outside our bus.
I sit down. Justin and Chris seemed enamored with the older
Young Columbus winner. He has dark hair and a military-reserves haircut. He is
from California. He is telling Chris and Justin how he saw Guns-N-Roses and
Metallica in concert.
“What part of California are you from?”
The older boy says San Dimas
“San Dimas. That’s where Bill and Ted’s Excellent adventure
was filmed.”
The intellectual Titan on Mark’s bus looks at me with an
assenting nod.
I take another swig of coffee much to the chagrin of almost
everyone seated around the table. I want to inquire about what the cool older
boy who has seen Guns-n-Roses has thought about the trip so far. I want to
inquire what being on bus #4 is like. I want to inquire about the hot girls
riding in the back of the bus and their intellectual acumen. The old’ lady who hobbles and looks like she
is in her 90’s comes over and asks me if I would like more coffee and when I
tell her yes she again calls me love. I wonder why this lad decided to sit at
the table with all of us self-deemed Youngsters’.
The mischievous BIG TEN.
There is so much I want to inquire as I take another fluffy
chomp of eggs. but all I can think about is San Dimas California and Bill and
Ted’s Excellent adventure.
“So is San Dimas just like it is in the movie? Do you go to
the high school where it was filmed?”
The cool kid from San Dimas looks down.
“That school was fucking awesome.” He curses. He makes the
word fuck sound cool.
“I think everything including the high school and the
water parks was filmed somewhere in Arizona. The high schools in San Dimas are
nothing like that. There’s no girls. It’s kinda just like this trip.
“So nothing from the movie was real?” I inquire, again,
taking a swig of my coffee, crossing my legs as if I am interviewing a guest on
Charlie Rose. The San Dimas bus #4 titan is trying to swallow.
“The circle K was. The circle Kay was real.” He says, taking
a bite into his eggs as if he is a military officer, hills fork-wielding arm
congruent with his elbow at a forty degree angle.
I tell him that circle K was cool. He looks at Justin and
Chris and cuts into his ham as if he is utilizing a scalpel in bio class. He
tells Justin and Chris that he used to get slurpees there all the time when he
was a little kid. They nod. I ask him
what he’s thought about the trip so far.
“There’s no girls here. I mean, I figured they be stacked
with babes. But our bus is just full of these intellectual nerdy girls who look
like their knap sack are full of tampons.”
Justin and Chris begin to break into hysterics. I try to
engage further in conversation.
I ask how he won the
trip. He says he doesn’t know. He says they took a certain percentage of
seniors with a GPA over three-point-oh and said we had to write and essay for
college about Europe or something and the next thing he knows he is here.
Chris picks up his tray with both hands grade school
cafeteria style informing Justin that he needs to hurry up because he think he
forgot to pack something in his bag. The
moment he leaves the lad from Texas with the leather jacket and the black ball
cap who was seated on the charter next to Mark the first day outside of Newark.
He is still wearing his leather jacket and cap.
I have not seen him wear the red jacket that we have been
asked to wear in the slightest.
The San Dimas kid waves to him like he is giving signs from
a dugout. The Texas kid is tall, around 6’5. It feels like I am throwing Lyndon
Johnson an alley-oop. He is always wearing a leather baseball cap. The
short-haired military lad from San Dimas points in my direction.
“This kid is like in love with all things about our bus. He
thinks there are cool people on our bus.”
The TX kid laughs sounds more like a barnyard snort. He says
that nothing ever happens on their bus. He says it is just like this trip so
far.
“You got some cool kids on your bus. I mean. Tamara. And
Greta. Greta’s a vegetarian and she’s
really open-minded.
Saying the word open minded the way Madame Suhr does when
she talks about the French.
“She’s not open minded,” He notes, “She’s closed minded.” He
confesses adamantly. She’s into a bunch of la-la.
Lyndon Johnson begins to laugh. I like Greta and Tamara.
Rather than getting an additional cup of coffee I get up and state that it was
nice meeting them. As I stand up I notice Josh and the girl with the
excessive blush walk in attired in their athletic garb. Meg Weaver is next to
them, looking at me with her head tilted, abacus pebbles of sweat
skiing sexily down the side of her face..
“I woke up early and packed and
placed my luggage outside my hotel room and then we ran. There was only like
six of us. I looked for you.”
I tell her I’m sorry. I again look
at Josh and ask why he didn’t tell me that he was running with counselor Dan
this morning. Josh looks back at me and tells me that I didn’t ask. He then says
that he thought I said I was serious about running. Something in his retort spawns
giggles from the girl that is always in sunbathing in his silhouette. Meg gives
me a little slap with the saltine interior of her wrist.
“Well I missed you,” Meg says,
smiling. Before I can tell her that inexplicably somehow I not only missed
running in the British countryside this morning but I missed running next to
her she asks me if I’ve spoken with Harmony.
I don’t know how to respond. The
second day in a row of scouring for Harmony in the breakfast dining area.
“I talked with her last night.” A
smile breaks across the center of Meg’s countenance. I don’t know what to tell
her. I don’t know how to tell her that
I’m not sure she was trying to flirt with me or trying to blow me off. I’m not
sure how to convey about to Meg about Jennifer Flood’s unsavory antics.
“We talked for a little bit. I
still wish I would have known you guys were going running today. I would have
made it a point to have been there. I actually got up earlier and laced up my
shoes then thought that nobody was going running.”
Meg helps herself to a plate before
dishing out a helping of scrambled eggs. She seems
just to smile at me every time she looks at me. I wonder why Harmony never
looks at me that way. She asks me if I want to sit with her while she eats her
breakfast and drinks her tea. I tell her I can’t and then I sit down anyway.
Behind us the Big Ten is loading up on Bacon. Jim Baker is being Jim
Baker making uncouth pork references. Kenny is talking about how he really
hasn’t acclimated all the much to oversea grub. Spencer is actually seated with
Daisy whose head seems to fall back into a geyser of giggles every time he
opens his lips.
“So, has this trip overseas been
everything that you have envisioned? I mean, we’ve been this clogged artery of
red coats wandering around foreign towns as if lost. What do you think about it
so far?”
Meg Weaver is laughing. There is
something about her laugh that almost magnetically reels me into the
seminally arched contours of her lips. She tells me yes, take a small perfect
bite of her eggs. She tells me she has loved every second of it.
For a second I look up and she is
chewing. She has a bit of egg on the side of her bottom lip. Latitudinal
streaks of expired sweat are still noticeable on the top of her brow. Quickly
she swipes at her lips with her tongue and then smiles. Judging on his charade like motions Jim Baker is showing those who missed it what was on late night telly last night.
“I need to go finish packing.” I
say, even though I don’t. Even though I set my suitcase outside my bedroom this
morning yearning that I had someone to run with salivating for a female
companion whose shade would flank with my every stride into the distillate
pastel of the British countryside.
Meg looks disappointed but
continues to slice her scrambled eggs and fork them into her mouth using her
knife to assist in the scooping endeavor. I am still thinking about Harmony. It
is like I am somehow being unfaithful to harmony even though she was rude and
more or less blew me off last night.
As I rashly excuse myself screeching my chair as I push it beneath the wooden chin of the table in a gentlemanly
manner. Meg looks at me. The girl with the altea boy haircut seems to be roving
in her direction. I know she will not complete dining alone. I shouldn’t be
thinking about Harmony but I am. As I turn around I hear her voice. A spring
zephyr echoing through the chasm of her cheekbones.
“Just promise me one thing,” Meg says.
I look back at her not knowing what
to think.
“What,” I say, thinking that
whatever sentiment she is about to espouse will be about Harmony. Three tables
over Josh the Eagle Scout and the girl with the copious blush are laughing.
“When we are in London tomorrow or
maybe the next day or when Dan says so, promise me you’ll go running with us.”
I look back at her. Both the shy girl and the girl with the straight blonde
hair have modulated to Meg’s table keeping her company. Although they are all
from the Harmony’s group Harmony is nowhere in sight.
“Yes,” I tell her definitively.
“I promise.”
As I leave and pass Josh with his
female friend I notice that he is giving her hand a slight squeeze.
***
In the stairwell back to my room I
wish I would have indulged in another cup of coffee. I wonder why Harmony was
so crazy last night. I wonder why every time we spoke on the phone she felt compelled
to give the phone to her roommate who just went crazy. I wonder if I was
getting played. I take another swig of coffee when I hear a voice.
A sweet mellifluous feminine
dripping voice.
“David?”
I turn around. It is the girl I met
yesterday in the lobby with the pasty skin. She is by herself holding the rail
presumably headed down to breakfast
“Hi,” I say,
She smiles back. I don’t know how
she knows my name.
“I’m sorry, I remember talking to
you yesterday about the implicit irony in the name Columbus but I don’t believe
I caught your name.
She smiles. She extends her hand.
“It’s Rita. I’m from Wisconsin. A
town called Kenosha.”
“Why Miss Rita, from Kenosha
Wisconsin, it is indeed a pleasure to meet you.” I say.
She is smiling. I ask her if she
slept well last night. I ask her if she is enjoying the trip so far. I tell her
I am pissed because I really wanted to go running this morning but no one in
the group told me they were going.”
She is smiling.
“You like to run?” She inquires
while blinking her eyes.
“It’s my life. I love running.” I
tell her about how I ran three times a day last summer. I tell her that that’s
all I really wanted to do with my life is run.Midway through my medias stammer
I realize that Rita is beautiful. Her face is pasty white, parchment awaiting
the inky scribbles of Shakespeare’s greatest soliloquy.
I don’t know why I am looking
around the stairwell trying to find Harmony.
Rita tells me again that she can’t
wait to see London.
“I mean, I’m from Wisconsin There’s
just something about the energy being in a large metropolitan city and London
is one of the Largest in the world.”
I tell her that I know what she
means. I tell her that I felt that way being in New York even though we were
only in Newark.
Rita is beautiful. Her fingers are
the color of freshly shaved fleece. She has her hair tied back in a slight
bouquet so that her unblemished forehead s completely visible.
“What did you think about
yesterday?
She looks at me confused and then
says oh. She blushes and curves her lips when she says oh.
“I thought Warwick castle was
really cool but I was really bored meeting all those dignitaries.”
“Plus it felt like the entire town
turned out. It was crazy.”
She is smiling. She says I know
right and then she smiles again. Rita always makes me smile. I always seem to
run into her at breakfast or in the lobby even though I always seem to be
looking for Harmony.
“I’m looking forward to today
though. When I finally received my itinerary I went to Bradley library and
looked up all the sites listed. Blenheim palace looked amazing. It looked like a
an overhead regal square. Just beautiful.”
Rita is smiling. There is something
about Rita’s smile that is enamoring. It is almost like Meg Weaver’s smile. She
is smiling like she is a Klutz and her clumsiness makes her smile all the more.
I look around the room for Harmony once again. Several Younger kids come and go
eating dry cereal. It occurs to me that I have not had a glass of milk this entire trip.
I am thinking that maybe I should try to get to know Rita. I
am thinking that maybe there was a reason Harmony seemed both coquettish and
curt at the same time last night.
“Yeah, Harry, make sure you didn't forget to pack your ball-sack, I don’t know how you’re going to pack your fat
girlfriend into that suitcase of yours.”
Rita looks down. I want her to like me yet I don’t want her
to think I am exclusively involved with a girl I am somewhat obsessed over, a
girl who I danced with and held close two nights ago who last night wanted nothing
to do with me.
“You should go with your group and finish packing your
suitcase.” Rita says.
“It’s so nice talking to you,” I say to Rita. I tell her I
will see her soon.
She tells me she will see me in London if not before.
Our luggage has already dissipated
from in front of our doors. I ask Justin if he is ready. He nods. I lock the
door one final time, handing Justin the credit-card configured key which he will give to Trevor. As we return en route to the lobby we are joined with a confluence of red coats.Kenny is commenting how he can’t
wait to get out of this place, as if Stratford-upon-avon were a combat zone. Spencer
is still crazy. It is heavily rumored that he was on the phone with Dandelion Lorelia for
five hours straight last night.
I can hear Jim Baker comment that yeah, Hair was on the phone all night with his fat girlfriend as well, before making masturbatory wrist-jerking motions with his hand.
The first person I see in the lobby
is Mark. He is wearing a beret. Most people
can’t wear berets without looking like they are in a mock-military cult or a
failed artist.
Mark can wear a beret. He is
wearing a black trench coat and sandals with socks.
“How do you like my boo-ray?” Mark inquires, coming up and hitting me on
the shoulder. the way he has done since day one.
I love it.
It is the coolest thing I have ever
seen in my life. With the exception of the first day Mark has jettisoned his
gratis PARADE YC jacket. He has worn something culturally insurgent and bad boy
chic every morning of the trip.
Mark says that he purchased the
boo-ray at a cool independent college bookshop after driving all night to go to
a rave in Tulsa.
“We drove all night to find this
crazy hole in the ground underground rave and then we danced until five in the
morning, slept in the car for a couple of hours. I woke up and just started
walking around and found this cool grunge coffee shop independent bookshop and
for some reason I felt compelled to purchase a souvenir of our crazy high
school sojourn.”
I tell Mark that I wish I could
find cool souvenirs. I tell him that I have been buying official guide books
for five pounds a pop every place we stop. I tell him that I bought a few
souvenirs for my buddies at home but I’m waiting to London to find something really
cool, perhaps.
“I don’t think I’ll find anything
that unique.” I reference the boo-ray again.
“Unless of course, we end up in
France.”
Mark laughs. He chuckles. Harmony
is absolutely nowhere in sight. Mark asks me if I would like to know a secret. I ask what.
He looks both ways.
“We snuck out last night.”
“What?” I think about the code sheet stating you are not to
leave the room after curfew.
“There was about four of us. You know Denis The New Yawker
from our group?”
I nod and say yes. Denis also has the New York accent. There
is something about Denis that reminds me of a young George Gershwin,
I ask Mark where he went. He says they just sort of hung out
in the meadow behind the hotel.
“We really didn’t linger off the hotel property still it
felt good to get out and get away from all of this I mean, this trip has been so restrictive.”
I asked Mark what he did.
“We drank and talked. It felt real good. A few of us
smoked.”
“Did you drink?”
Mark swipes his head back and forth. He says that beer is such a pedestrian libation on both sides of the Atlantic.
“..and it was warm. They serve it warm over here. I don’t
think many in my group really liked it.
Denis said it tasted like an atomized cork.”
Mark states that it felt so nice just to break off from the
group for a while. I ask him how long they were gone.
“We got back around four. I had the best sleep I’ve had so far this trip. I woke up refreshed.”
I want to ask him if he plans on going Awol.
Mark asks me what I did last night. I almost feel ashamed to
tell him that I received the chafe from some girl I thought I was destined to
meet. It seemed like everything that transpired
between us on the slate of the dancefloor was some kind of farce. That there
was some provisional orifice drilled in my spine to serve as her puppet, as her
entertainment.
From Behind me I hear Trevor.
He is stating Big Ten Give it up.
The Big Ten is petulant. They are
grumpy. Spencer comments how hopefully, once we arrive in London we’ll have
something other than roast beef and potatoes.
There is an amen. I am leaving
Stratford. I am leaving the first leg of my trip.
The trip is by all accounts half-over. I am looking around the lobby at the Moat House trying to create a memory. I give Sheila a little wave. I think about the grandfather clock and the old lady who served me coffee in the morning. I think about William Shakespeare's spirit hovering above the lounge, slipping into the portal of the next world I slit open via copious amounts of Aqua Net into the ozone.
I look around one final time.
I wonder if ever I will see this place again.