En route to St. Pauls...

We enter  Bus #1 under the portico of the Hotel Gloucester wearing  red coats, entering the bus where in America would be the Driver’s side door, nodding to Chris, Vivian looking at us smiling, spring bleeding through squint of the Victoria townhouses directly across the street. We enter our last full day in London.  Charles and Trevor are counting heads. I sit at the back of the bus with Spin Doctor Kenny and Justin and ironically Josh. Spencer is skipping up and down the center aisle. Josh hasn’t said anything about me not running with the group this morning and still seems to be holding some sort of vendetta that we would have won Skit night had we gone with the Skit that was eventually usurped by his girlfriend’s group.

There are muffled sounds of denim bottoms pressed against carpeted chairs in various stages of adjustment. The bus has a medicinal piquant scent like Chris the bus driver mixed aerosol with peroxide and let loose over anglophile upholstery.

The overhead sky is aerie light blue. 

 Jim Baker is still talking about you should have seen the look on Daisy’s face when he did the whole Groom of the Stool bit.

I wish I would have gone running with Meg Weaver this morning.

We are leaving.  We are entering our final leg of this oversea sojourn.

We are leaving and the entire Bus smells like spring.

Vivian says good morning to us by saying Wakey-Wakey. She asks if the group who received third place last night in the talent show is on board and that maybe we should give them all a hand.

Even though we are to be seated when driving Spencer is still skipping as if he is playing hop-scotch through the center of the aisles.

Over the loud speaker Vivian says as you can see we have been rather blessed with a perfect spring day.

We take a right on Harrington Garden’s which becomes Harrington Road. Vivian notes that we have been so pressed for time it’s a shame that we’ve only had a chance to scratch the surface of the city so to speak. Sir Groom of the Stool Baker looks back and smirks commenting that Vivian said, “Tit’s a shame’ before being reprimanded by Sir Charles. Daisy is seated up in the front next to Simone. Her face looks like Miss Arkansas’ face every other time I look at Miss Arkansas.

Her face looks as if she has been crying.

Overhead the sun is the color of Tang limboing through the side of the window.  Both Banky and sub-Five minute miler Bryan from Alaska are wearing sunglasses.  Justin and Chris are seated next to each other like altar boys during Mass.  Trevor turns to Sir Charles and makes a rhetorical comment about  can you believe this is our last full day in England.

We take a hard left at Queen’s Gate. Even Justin comments that driving on the opposite side of the road like this it continually feels that a collision is imminent.  Bus Driver Chris takes another right crossing over traffic on Cromwell road.  Vivian asks if any of us happen to know who  Cromwell was and even though I think I may have a jab I disappoint the interior Coach Mann of my consciousness and play dumb.  Future Rabbi Counselor Dan says didn’t he try to overthrow the British monarchy.  Vivian says yes and then immediately points to our left stating that if you look left you can see the steps to the British Museum of Natural History.  Vivian says again  that our tour could be a whole year and sadly we would not be able to capture everything has to offer.

Vivian states that its also too bad we won’t be able to peruse the offerings of the Victoria Albert Museum as well as the Tate. Vivian looks in my direction as she says the word Tate. It is almost like she can tell by the intractable plateau architecture in which I sculpt my hair that I am really into Modern art and that I live for Depeche Mode.

.

We continue to plow down Cromwell until it morphs into Brompton road. Vivian states the name as a Dutch artist as she gesticulates her wand-umbrella to the right denoting a rather conspicuous hotel.  I look out the side window and see my reflection stained with the reflective bangs of the morning sun.  She then smiles and points ahead on the right. There is a green sign the color of the seats in the house of commons, the color of Mark’s Doc Martens with its name emblazoned in a spool of gold.

 

“And as we can see on the upcoming right we have Harrod’s where later on today we shall be shopping.”

Vivian juts her chin up and down assaying the crowd in her bus.

“I see that none of us are wearing shorts and that our attire is all up to par.” She states explains. 

Mark was wearing shorts this morning when we left.

I wonder if he will be allowed inside.

Harrods is palatial and gilded. Vivian states that  Harrods is where the Royal family does all their exclusive shopping. When she notes again that today being the Queen’s birthday and all which makes me mentally flagellate my non-masturbatory implementable palm into my forehead remembering that I need to purchase something special for my moms birthday.

It is London and we are en route to St. Pauls. We are stowaways on the ship of out tour buses. We are passengers from all over the US blasting through London who, after tomorrow, will never see each other again. For some reason I think about Meg Weaver in a wedding dress. Somewhere I can see Harmony dressed to kill setting up the tape recorder for the interview with the British kids shaking hands introducing themselves to their American intellectual conjugates. Vivian states that while Harrods may look majestic now one should see it at night all illuminated and everything so watch when we are coming home from the Banquet this evening because we just might take that route.  Brompton road now has inexplicably morphed into the rather regal sounding Knightsbridge. Vivian notes that Hyde Park where we ate lunch after Madame Tussuads as well as speakers corner is only a block away. The traffic on the right side of the road continues to sprint towards us. Chris takes a right performing a loop around Wellington Arch which has a long story no one on the bus seems to be paying attention to as Vivian continues with her travel narrative..   I wonder if the group has met the British kids. I wonder if Lynn Minton and Liz Madigan are giving an introduction. I wonder what their conversations are encompassing. I think about Harmony but also Chocotawhatchee Heather with the electric frissoned smile and the Polite Baptist Boy from Alabama. I wonder if they are progeny of privilege and have everything, including this trip, handed to them in life. I wonder how they would fare at my high school which has the lowest I-sat scores in the state and the highest teen age pregnancy in the nation and, even though there is a handful of quality students and exemplary teachers, the majority of us are treated like statistics.

Like we were born to fail.

I wonder how the hell Our Wendy knew my last name since I am sure I never told her.

The road we are on is christened Constitution Hill. Vivian places verbal asterisks on Palace Gardens to our right and Green park to our imminent left. For a second it feels like we are blatzing through the vernal quilt of the British countryside. Vivian adds that UK'ers are quite adept at and proud of our rich botanical tradition. before gesticulating towards Buckingham palace. There are trees flanked on both sides. The statue of gilded Justice adorning the top of the Victoria monument looks like a heaven-sent tear.  

The street we are on at this time is called The Mall.

Vivian states that yes quite right the Mall in the UK is quite a bit different from the shopping malls in America you are oh-so familiar with. Vivian talks about that we are intrinsically taking he route that the Royal Family took during the procession of Princess Di’s wedding which was moved from the traditional West Minister Abby because of increased exposure referencing that Wedding was watched by almost a fourth of the population of the globe. Vivian bites her lip and calculates like she is figuring out a dinner tip, looking around the bus before stating that most of you were probably too young to remember the affair.

The Mall has a sense of British pride attached to it that is not stuffy. Even though we are on the British colloquial right side of the road the sense of vertigo has substantially waned. Chris marshals the nose of the Charter bus left in the direction of a marble arch that is also part of a building. Semi-vertigo induced due to the rackety hard left Chris makes. The name Vivian gives the stately monument is something like Arch Billy. 

 

Intellectual Titans circa bus #4

The moment we glide through the marble vagina of the arch we enter counter-clockwise the cosmopolitan bustle of Trafalgar Square, black taxis and double-decker buses shooting at us in all directions. There is an Equestrian statue of Charles first. It is the second time I have been to the Square.  Vivian mentions something about feral pigeons. A solitary-limb Lord Nelson looks like a giant joy stick flanked by multiple Sphinxes as the sun continues to bleed splashing prisms inside the vehicle. I can see what I presume to by Mark’s bus pull over so the group can crawl on the Lions and pose as one. Vivian states that we are not too far from the theatre district which is walking distance and next time we happen arrive in London do go to Leicester Square because tickets are often half-price the day of the performance which makes me think about how the last day at manual my cool English teacher Mr. Reents who I still  swear I saw sozzled in his underwear the first night in the Gloucester opened a paper like an  atlas and told me that I needed to  really what he called take in a show and that the only show that mattered was Phantom of the Opera. Chris swivels the bus around the square in hard geometrical angles.  The Bus swoops down a side street and onto what Vivian is telling us is the Strand, stating that the Strand and the Mall are comparable to Paris’Champs-Elysees, but of course, with greater pageantry.

I continue to look for a Boots department store so that I can finally purchase the razors for my non-biological granpa Grandpa Salm. Perhaps there is a Boots close to St. Pauls and I can sneak out the side to take pictures and visit the store.

We are cruising down the Strand. Vivian talks about how the Strand is quite a literary street, isn't it, with ties to Charles Dickens and Virginia Woolf. She points out a tea shop that has held the same residence since 1706. She mentions names of places I will hear again someday in dreams. Somerset house. Kings College.  It is impossible to pass an overseas McDonalds without ta least two members of the Big Ten turning around and asking Trevor if he thinks it would be okay if we stop and eat something that tastes like home. Almost on cue Jim feels compelled to make a lewd comment about the Bush House.

I turn to Bake.

“That’ was raw what you did last night. You know. Defecating in a cup and giving it to Daisy.”

Baker is smiling. He says you should have seen it.

“No, I mean. It wasn’t right. You got to stop doing that shit. I mean, you’re ruining her trip.” I begin to bruit.

Jim says Bite me dude. The sun continues pour into the side window.

I look towards Daisy. She is abnormally seated by herself  behind Simone. Her skin is a saltine cracker streaked with tears.  

"I mean, what you are doing just borderlines on being cruel."

"It;s all part of the plan Hair. It;s all part of the Daisy train."

We pass temple bar onto Fleet street.  Several girls in Daisy's group look bank at me and giggle. Gradually the palatial penumbras of St. Pauls flood into view; a sacrosanct bridal veil doused over a taxidermied gar.

Tomorrow at this time we will be on a plane.


We are clanging around London.

We are forever 15 years of age in this lifetime and the next,

We are never going home.