Guild Hall...

It is Guildhall and we are scheduled to leave. It is Guildhall and we are to meet the Lord Mayor of London who Vivian elucidates to us that there is quite a difference between the mayor of London and the Lord Mayor in the City of London. It is the bus and I have Harmony all over me. While on the bus Josh starts passing out pieces of paper.

"What are these?"

"They are lines."

"Lines for what?"

"Lines for our skit tonight that is in a couple of hour sand we don't even know what
Josh is steamed. Trevor turns back and says don't worry about it. We will figure it out somehow.

Baker states that this is what I think about your lines as he wads up the script handed to him and pretends to wipe his ass with it before flicking the flicking the fist sized glob back in the direction of Josh followed by Sir Charles once again telling Baker to knock it off, we are almost at Guild Hall.

We have almost arrived.

                                                                             ***

 

There is something seemingly gothic in structure about Guildhall. The bulk of the group still seemingly seem exhausted from the cruise the night before. Two statues that look heavily bearded Pygmies guarding bells Vivian elucidates are named Gog and Magog.Several boys from Sam’s group purportedly didn’t get the no-tie memo edict at breakfast this morning. I sit next to Mark on the cement plank awaiting to see the mayor. Today is the day that Harmony will present the Lord Mayor of London with the slab of shale culled from the expired ashes of Mt. Saint Helen.

Something is different with Mark. He seems somewhat pensive. He seems somewhat sad.

Vivian points to the a chamber and states that the Lord Mayor will be us shortly. Judging from the trident I surmise that the statue we are sitting underneath is that of Poseidon.

 Mark is still quiet. I'm not sure what's up.

"Hey Mark, you alright brother. You alright?"

Mark is quiet. He looks back in my direction offering out a smile.  
 

                                                                         ***

It is 17 years later and I work on Gill Hall.

It is seventeen years later and the calendar dates are the same.

It is 17 years later and everything in my life is gone. It is 17 years late and I am four years removed from the girl of my dreams the black hair girl of my dreams. It is seventeen years later and I live with a Psychic who told me that I would be living with him someday the first time I met him.
 

It is17 years later and I my life is nowhere what I thought it would be.
 

It is seventeen years later, and, unlike 17 years before, I have not run in almost a decade.

It is 17 years later and six years earlier, out of nowhere, my father is gone reduced to a heap of dust.

It is seventeen years later and I work on G(u)ill Hall.  I work with youth who are orphans. I work third shifts, more than 90 percent of my monthly income goes to rent or to bills.

It is 17 years later and I am drunk all the time and I chain smoke diminutive cigars.

It is 17 years later and 17 years earlier when I was a freshman in high school I couldn’t even fathom butting that shit in my body.

It is 17 years later and I’ve never had more than 1700 dollars in the bank at one time living almost exclusively pay-check to pay check.

It is 17 years later and I have several novels that are longer than a 1000 pages.

 

It is seventeen years later and I have devoted myself to the filling the white thighs of the page.

It is seventeen years later and I am currently enamored with a girl who would have been in third grade when I was in Europe in 1993 and she keeps breaking my heat over and over again.

It is seventeen years later and I wish things just somehow were different for a moment.

It is seventeen years later and I have

It is seventeen years later and I owe a mortgage to the university I graduated from. The university I gave my heart and health. The university that fired me in the winter when I had already lost everything, when I had already given everything inside my chest

It is seventeen years later and I have harbor a pending middle-aged paunch, the burgeoning concavity of flesh known as a beer belly.

It is seventeen years later and I got understand why I just wasn’t good enough.

It is seventeen years later and I haven’t run once since 2001, shortly after that day that none of us thought was possible.

It is seventeen years later and I go down to the catacombs of my job and brew coffee that looks like motor oil.  The hall with the same name as the Lord Mayors hall in England all those years ago.  It is seventeen years later and my life has gone nowhere as planned. It is seventeen years later and she is still married, from what I can glean, celebrating her fifteenth wedding anniversary.

It is seventeen years later and I have not returned to Europe in fifteen years.

It is seventeen years later and it took me almost a decade to get through college.

It is seventeen years later and I have longhair. I give poetry reading across town.

I get handjobs behind the bar and hook up in closets, sex on pool tables with undergrads.

It is seventeen years later and I am in denial about the psychic who will be, like my father, gone in one year time.

It is seventeen years later and I can go on something called Google, a virtual reality cyber magic 8-bal and oracle

It is seventeen years later and everyone sends instant pornography through the slate lens of their phones.

It is seventeen years later and I wish the remainder of high school would have been as promising as the first year.

It is seventeen years later and I have not spoken with Coach Ricca and in a lot of ways feel that I have let him down.

It is seventeen years later and, when I a not on Gill Hall, I spend my days drinking beer and writing, working on the novel I started about my trip in Europe all those years ago, the novel that takes place in spring The novel I started as a epistemic diagnosis. The novel I stared writing because it seems like, years later, the red coats we wore and the place we found ourselves was almost reminiscent of the flesh I wear wizened by age and enervating dreams

It is 17 years later and I was fired from a job I loved, employed by the university I

It is seventeen years later and I am on Gill Hall.

It is seventeen years later and I am all alone.

It is 17 years later and I work on Guild hall. I have been bitten and peed on. Every day I am cussed out by  kids with no father.

Everyday I feel like I have failed.

 

It is exactly seventeen years later and I am back on Gill Hall.

                                                                     ***

 

 

Mark and I sitting together inside Guildhall for what, in another lifetime I am sure, is eternity.

For the first time this trip Mark looks sad.
 

“Hey man, I know this sounds crazy and everything but there’s been something I’ve been meaning to ask you. Something I’ve been meaning to ask you ever since I first me you way back in Windsor and you told me that you were from Arkansas.”

 

Mark benevolently asks what almost in a whisper. Mark looks sad He looks like he is ready to cry. Perhaps he is just sleep deprived after last night on the Thames.

 

Mentally I think to myself how I never would have surmised that Mark is from Arkansas. Both by his mannerism and with his

“What do you think about Clinton?”

 

Mark blinks. He says what.

 

“You know, Bill Clinton. Our president, you know, with Clinton being from Arkansas and everything. How did you guys feel when he was elected?”

Mark lets go of a phonetically sounding o.

 

He says oh. Him.

 

“Clinton, lets just say Arkansas was pretty sick so they decided t get rid of him”

Mark is still pensive Several girls are taking pictures. Once again, a member of Daisy's group is pre-menstrually crying in front of Simone.

"Hey man you alright?"

 

I can feel Mark taking a deep breath.

 

“Tell you the truth David man this constant itinerary we’re on really has me feeling manacled.”

 

I have no clue what Mark means. Again Mark addresses me as David man.

 

“I mean, David man, this whole trip. It’s like, when I won the trip I really thought I would at least be able to have some free time to divulge from the group and immerse myself in the culture. I mean, we have been on a leash this entire trip. It’s like its one long monotonous grade school field trip where there will be a quiz at  the end.”

 

Mark still seems pensive. I try to say something witty but I am just stunned.

"I'm sorry." Is all I know who to say to my mentor.

 

The groups are lining up. Vivian tells us to line up.

She says that the Lord Mayor of London will see you now.