Hairdresser on fire...

 

In the lobby the group as a whole has been truncated by a third, mainly the older kids. I look at the gilded Stag in the center of the room. I'm sick of Jennifer Flood. I'm sick of every other time I call Harmony feeling like I am chafed. Mark is walking with Heath and Denis. He is wearing bright yellow shorts that seem to drip off his torso and abandon mid-thigh. He is wearing his complimentary Parade shirt and a jacket with his camera lassoed around his neck. He is wearing ruffled socks and cool emerald green shoes that have what looks like pronounced bright yellow staples around the circumference of the shoe.

 “Hey David man, how do you like my Doc Martens?” Mark inquires.

 “Cool.” Is all I can say. “Did you get them at Windsor yesterday?”

 

Mark smiles.

 
“I took the tube down to Sloane Square yesterday once we got back. I wanted to get a really cool souvenir for myself, something not culled from those prosaic gift shops for tourists that always carry the same things. I wanted something from England that reeked with  culture yet that didn’t look like a postcard.”

 I stare down looking past his kneecaps in awe. The shoes are coniferous with a suede splash of emerald and grants Mark the appearance like he just performed a techno- jig on the back of a leprechaun. I am fifteen years old and have never seen a pair of Doc Martens before. There is something alluring in the affixed golden staples streaking around the contours of his feet.

Mark talks to me as if I have already achieved his level of inimitable coolness, that I have already scaled the cultural rungs of academia as he tells me that, even as we all know, most Doc Martens are black, he  really wanted to get something that you

 

“Did your whole group take the tube down to Salon square?”  I ask, not sure how it is spelled, just a bit peeved that it seems that everything if considered off grounds to us before telling Mark that I really wanted to ride the tube but I don’t think Trevor and Charles wanted to keep track of ten hormonally-addled high school freshman as they ogled the teeth gaps of the hotties in southern Soho.

 

“My group didn’t go. I just decided to be Independent and go by myself.”

 

There is something about the way the word Independent punts through his lips, as if he wasn’t going to let the mandated rules Xeroxed and passes out by the counselors at New York sully his trip of a lifetime

 

“I left right after we got back from Windsor yesterday. I snuck out the back of the hotel and took the Gloucester yellow line down to the Sloane Square stop. It was really cool because there’s this song by Morrissey called Hairdresser On Fire and he talks about being All around Sloane Square.”

 

“!!!”

 

I am curious. I ask Mark if he was apprehensive sauntering off from the group on his own. I ask him if it took him a long time to figure out how to properly operate the mass transit subway system of London. I ask him how he knew which stop to get off on. I ask him how he was able to discern the labyrinthine-grid complexities of the  Underground. I ask him again if he wasn’t scared of getting caught. Getting in trouble with the counselors and having to spend the day on the discipline bus.

I look down at the shoes again. I am in awe.
 

“I don’t think Michael would care anyway. It’s not like the counselors don’t go out every night and get drunk anyway.”

 

Xeroxed Young Columbus rule #3—Young Columbus ’93 representative may not leave group without escort or PARADE counselor.

 

“But wasn’t it difficult knowing which stop to get off on?”

Mark tells me that he’s never had a problem learning how to get off. I pause.  He barters a familiar smile.

“I studied the map once I arrived at the station. I really wanted to experience mass transportation this city has to offer. You get a different perspective of the citizens in the London underground.”

 

I look at his shoes again. The bulk of Mark’s group is meting with Lynn Minton and the British kids. Only Heath and Denis remain. We form a triangle. Heath nods at Mark like he has already heard about the shoes. Denis is busy loading a roll of film. Behind me I see Rita. As always she is standing by herself. As always she is beautiful, forehead resembling the allocated white on blue willow china. I hold up my palm in an unpslayed manner as if trying to tell someone to halt, excusing myself to go speak with Rita. As I swivel on the ankle of my non-Doc Marten shoe Mark prods me in the fashion he has been doing since Newark, his elbow configured like a boomerang.

 

“By the way, I saw you with Harmony outside yesterday when I was returning. You guys were holding hands. She seemed really happy.”

 I pause medias step, turn back to Mark. I try to shoot him a look of “not now.”

I look at Rita. 

 There is something sheepish in Rita’s eyes that looks like she needs someone to talk to. I want to tell her congratulations on winning the skit last night. I want to tell her that the Big Ten was originally planning on performing that same skit. I want to tell her that she looked like a snow angel with all that cosmetic gunk strewn on the contours of her face. From behind me I hear Denis' voice.

 “Yeah, you and that Harmony girl really seemed to be hitting it off on the dance floor that night. What are you guys like officially dating now?” You guys like boyfriend and girlfriend now or something?" Denis says, in his New York accent.

 “No,” I tell him, looking back at Rita. She smiles and then looks down as if she is waiting for me to come over to her.  She can hear every word we are saying.

 “We’re just good friends.”

“Yeah, but I mean you are going to see Harmony when you get back home right? I mean, I saw how you guys were like holding each other. Maybe that could be your next trip. Save up your money and go dance with her at her prom or something.”

I can’t tell if Denis is being facetious. I don’t know why I’ve pledged everything towards Harmony who has only dialed the three digits to phone my hotel room twice during the duration of this whole trip. Mark is still giving me several nudges as if it is five years later and I am his age and he has just finished telling me all about my wedding night. The architectural blueprints of a two conversely shaped question marks slowly joust and form the click of a light bulb when I realize that somehow Rita is waiting for me. That I realize all I need to do is to walk over to her and ask her if she is excited about seeing  St. Pauls and then inquire what room she is crashing in. That maybe Rita will avail her digits to me in a way suggestive that she wished somehow to hang out after we leave this place, that maybe I will write her letters, scribe her poems, drive up the three hour north to Kenosha with a crisp corsage concealed in a translucent plateau shaped big mac box waiting to be elegantly slapped around the subtle slope of her wrist. I look back and she is waiting.

Denis is still sounding like George Gershwin, saying that it sure does look like true love as I again excuse myself, heading in Rita’s direction, as if underwater, as if in slow motion, as if a bubbling catharsis is waiting to permeate and ripple. She looks up and sees me somehow at that moment of my apex, the moment I am to confess to the creature I have blown off that I would like to talk to her, would like to know her, I slam right into Sir Charles walking towards the door. He is smiling.

 “Time to go chief. Big Ten give it up.”

 He pats me on the back like I just made both free throws to tie up the game. I turn around. I pass Mark looking down almost solely at his shoes. Spencer and Justin and Chris are behind me as well as Spencer’s roommate who doesn’t talk. As I walk into the front doors that open automatically I can see Rita’s reflection looking off to her side in a subtle manner.

 

Sir Charles tells me to be excited.

 

 
“It’s our last full day in England. Time to see St. Paul’s.”

                 
“Yes,” I say to Sir Charles, thinking about my English teacher. Thinking about how Rita looked like she wanted me to talk to her. Thinking about how Harmony is grooming with the crème de la crème of the trip right now and probably not thinking about me in the slightest.