We arrive at Harrods. A bronze palace levitating in Central London. Vivian notes that Harrods is the world's largest department store and that it is the institution where the Royal Family does all of their exclusive shopping.
"It’s kind of like your Macy’s in the states only they don’t host a parade on Thanksgiving Day because the British populace as a whole does not celebrate Thanksgiving."
Behind me the girls from Daisy's group glance in my direction and giggle, hands cupped over lips as if consciously trying not to spread germs. I think about Harmony. I wonder how Lynn Minton's interview with the British Kids is transpiring.
I wonder if she already set up the tape receptor. I wonder if she was really flirting with someone else this morning when I called her on the phone.
I wonder if some other boy was in her hotel room while she was brushing her teeth.
I wonder if he has his shirt off.
I wonder why I feel, even though we danced on the Thames and it felt like we became one amoebic entity, Harmony keep sporadically blowing me off.
I wonder why she didn't invite me to be in the discussion with Lynn Minton.
I wonder if Harmony thinks I am intellectually flaccid.
I wonder if she thinks I am dumb.
We have been told at breakfast that, due to some sort
of dress code, no shorts or halter tops are allowed inside Harrods.
We are told that there is absolutely positively no film to be allowed in Harrods and if anyone is caught snapping a picture the film will be confiscated a la Tower of London Beefeater brandishing a Blackjack style. We are also told that one of the rules in Harrods is that if we inadvertently break anything on display we need to pay for it so to please mind which sections of the store we choose to spend both our time and our finances. Vivian reminds us that Harrods has a very stringent code of ethics and that several years ago there was a
 |
| Photos of Harrods snapped from Bus #1.. |
Trevor adds a time-out guys forming what looks like a capital T with horizontal and vertical palms.
Trevor says allow me to translate:
"Basically what Vivian is stating is that Harrods has a You Break it You Buy it Policy."
Charles steps next to Trevor and begins to nod like an assistant Little league coach to everything Trevor is stating.
"So when you are walking to bump into anything. Avoid section that look like they have a lot of expensive merchandise. I can see Charles looking in my direction. At first I think he is going to say, Hair wear your glasses only he refrains.
"And guys, you are allowed to walk through the store together but no Horseplaying. No jumping on each other's back or playing that juvenile crotch-gnashing Jewels game. All of you guys need to be mature. "
Vivian adds a yes now, I believe that would be rather puerile in a place such as this. Future Rabbi Dan tells his kids that they need to find a buddy. Charles grapples the microphone from Vivian for a second, commenting that remember, this is our last official stop and we won't have a chance to stop at a Bank until we are back home so make sure you use up the bulk of your British Currency here before we leave British soil because it's hard to convert pounds to US dollar back in the states.
Trevor blathers something like yeah, talking global economics with a reference to the International exchange rate.
As we are exiting the Bus Vivian states that she’s glad no one on this bus is wearing shorts. I think about Mark the yellow shorts he was wearing this morning along with his emerald Doc Martens.
Charles steps next to Trevor and begins to nod like an assistant Little league coach to everything Trevor is stating.
"So when you are walking to bump into anything. Avoid section that look like they have a lot of expensive merchandise. I can see Charles looking in my direction. At first I think he is going to say, Hair wear your glasses only he refrains.
"And guys, you are allowed to walk through the store together but no Horseplaying. No jumping on each other's back or playing that juvenile crotch-gnashing Jewels game. All of you guys need to be mature. "
Vivian adds a yes now, I believe that would be rather puerile in a place such as this. Future Rabbi Dan tells his kids that they need to find a buddy. Charles grapples the microphone from Vivian for a second, commenting that remember, this is our last official stop and we won't have a chance to stop at a Bank until we are back home so make sure you use up the bulk of your British Currency here before we leave British soil because it's hard to convert pounds to US dollar back in the states.
Trevor blathers something like yeah, talking global economics with a reference to the International exchange rate.
As we are exiting the Bus Vivian states that she’s glad no one on this bus is wearing shorts. I think about Mark the yellow shorts he was wearing this morning along with his emerald Doc Martens.
" And do Keep in mind that today is her majesty’s Queen’s birthday,
so perhaps many of her royal friends may be out shopping for a gift for her
later on tonight so that manners should be imminent since we never know who one
might see now do we?”
***
She is getting dressed, surrounded by bridesmaids. Surrounded by friends barely out of puberty. She is in her underwear, blanched white like the flipside of cloud after takeoff, She is pinching her body together, stapling the back of the strapless Brassiere she wore for the Miss Teen pageant, forming angelic-winged triangles. She is applying her make-up. She has gone out earlier in the day with bridesmaids in tow to have her hair done.
She has gotten into an argument with her mother. She is not 100 percent sure that her mother will even attend. She is being dressed like a carnation as the dress is slipped over her body like a drape, she is thinking about the plump size of his fingers, unbuttoning her entire body later tonight, she is thinking about the configuration of his lips as he says the a life-affirmative vow assenting their commitment below a statue of the Virgin Mother painted to look real.
She has known him all of six months.
She has been engaged for three.
She thinks about the arguments she has gotten into with her mom. She thinks about the Honeymoon along with Oregon Coast. She thinks about how handsome her brother looks with his unkempt hair back in a ponytail. She thinks about how everything is changing in her life. How she received her high-school diploma in the mail because she didn't want to attend the ceremony even though she was in the top ten.
She looks at the vestigial bouquet she will hold in front of her like a candle as she traipses toward the front of the church.
Six months ago she wrote me a letter at the stroke of midnight stating that 1995 was how she wanted to spend her year.
That she wanted to spend her year with me.
***
I leave my camera on the bus. I make sure to have my hands wedged deep into the side of my pockets when as I enter the store. It is Harrods and everything is gilded and green. There are advertising billboards look like a seat cushion in the House of Commons. The color of the Gideon bible I keep stowed in my front pocket at all times. There are emerald carpets and emerald arrows. In a way it feels like we have just gained access to a commerce-riddled Oz. In a lot of ways it reminds me of Szolds in the southside of Peoria although Harrod's is more commodious.
I look for Mark. I want to tell him that everything in this mecca of commerce is the color of his shoes. Josh just won’t let us forget that we could each have 100 dollars more spending money had we not blown the skit last night.
She has gotten into an argument with her mother. She is not 100 percent sure that her mother will even attend. She is being dressed like a carnation as the dress is slipped over her body like a drape, she is thinking about the plump size of his fingers, unbuttoning her entire body later tonight, she is thinking about the configuration of his lips as he says the a life-affirmative vow assenting their commitment below a statue of the Virgin Mother painted to look real.
She has known him all of six months.
She has been engaged for three.
She thinks about the arguments she has gotten into with her mom. She thinks about the Honeymoon along with Oregon Coast. She thinks about how handsome her brother looks with his unkempt hair back in a ponytail. She thinks about how everything is changing in her life. How she received her high-school diploma in the mail because she didn't want to attend the ceremony even though she was in the top ten.
She looks at the vestigial bouquet she will hold in front of her like a candle as she traipses toward the front of the church.
Six months ago she wrote me a letter at the stroke of midnight stating that 1995 was how she wanted to spend her year.
That she wanted to spend her year with me.
***
I leave my camera on the bus. I make sure to have my hands wedged deep into the side of my pockets when as I enter the store. It is Harrods and everything is gilded and green. There are advertising billboards look like a seat cushion in the House of Commons. The color of the Gideon bible I keep stowed in my front pocket at all times. There are emerald carpets and emerald arrows. In a way it feels like we have just gained access to a commerce-riddled Oz. In a lot of ways it reminds me of Szolds in the southside of Peoria although Harrod's is more commodious.
I look for Mark. I want to tell him that everything in this mecca of commerce is the color of his shoes. Josh just won’t let us forget that we could each have 100 dollars more spending money had we not blown the skit last night.
Chris says check out these prices before verbally tithing a rather Nebraskan Ye Gads.
There is
a giant head of an Egyptian Deity. Twice I have seen Sir Charles turn to Trevor
and state that we need to keep an eye on Baker just in case.
I think about Harmony and the Lynn Minton interview. I
wonder if they are laughing. I wonder if Lynn Minton is applauding Harmony’s
precocity, the rapid fire certainty of her wit.
Sun streams though the window off Knightsbridge in the direction of the Gloucester. Everything smells like windex and like spring linen. The younger groups
have to stay together. It has already been mandated by Charles and Trevor that
we are allowed to explore the store independently in groups of two or three as
long as we don’t break anything for crissakes. I am looking for Mark. Several
members of Nat’s group strut past us without looking in our direction as if they are on a scavenger hunt. We are being swallowed by the golden veins of Harrods, errant scattered British pounds clanging in our pocket in a misplaced jangle. Chris who sold me the Teddy bear yesterday at Warwick castle tells me that he really wants to look at some polo shirts. Spencer is pantomiming as if he has a trust fund counting invisible currency in front of him like a deck of playing cards. Conspiracy Theory Jim has reverted back to hormonally scatological-addled Groom of the Stool.
We are lost inside the department store.
There are names you see while flipping through magazines at the dentist office. Dolce & Gabbana Ralph Lauren. Tommy Hilfiger. Prada. Harrods is a labyrinth. It is an animated sarcophagus. It is coming alive like an uncoiled serpent. Three- fourths of the male mannequins boast feminine mannequin-looking eyelashes and have sweaters wrapped in a loose-noose around sporting cardigans. Every male with the exception of those on our groups are wearing Khakis. Spin Doctor Kenny is the first to note that this place doesn’t even sell jeans. In the back of the Mens section there what looks like athletic garb, names of Sports teams I have never heard. Watford. Tottenham. Everton. Justin asks the insightful querry to future NCAA commissioner Trevor on why every sports team here is referred to as a quote club and Trevor candidly answers back informing Justin that he doesn’t know the British are just plain weird all the while Baker wields a cricket paddle informing Banky to bend over and take it like a man, big boy.
Justin of all people makes the analogy that it feels like we are going down to the second level of Giza pyramid when we reach the escalator.
“Every time you walk in the hallway you have to walk like an Egyptian.” Spencer adds, making crooked wing-like motions with his limbs.
We arrive at the basement level. There is a subtle nab at the back of my shoulder. It is Mark. He is with his posse. He is walking with his friend Matt. He is waking with Denis.He is wearing shorts even though one is not supposed to- wear shorts in Harrods.
Mark's group seems to have taken off as if they are on a scouring expedition.
They have a certain bad-ass gait. Heath is
intermittently lagging behind the group like a
caboose.
Justin glances back at Mark.
“That kids like really cool.” He says. I smile. I
think about Mark ditching this Bitch yesterday trundling throughout central
London on his own bad-ass insurgent volition, riding the tube simply to buy cool shoes.
As Mark passes me he offers his signature fist-to-shoulder pummel. There is only one Boy from Mark's group to participate in the discussion, one being Connor, who looks kind of like an almost like a wannabe Mark, with his similar haircut and gait.
I love how every time since Day One on this trip Mark has always acknowledged me and made me feel special even though he is a Senior and I am a Freshman. Even though I am on Bus #1 and he is on Bus #4. Even though there are time when I despise every member.
I think about Harrod's no shorts policy.
I wonder how they let Mark through the door.
Mark and his boys appear to be headed out a side exit. Perhaps they have intellectually diagnosed the materialistic vapidity of British commerce.
Perhaps they are ditching this bitch to walk down to Salone Square and buy another pair of Doc Martens.
I want to go with them.
Instead we continue to walk.
We are ambling around Harrods. It feels almost as if
we are in a different tax bracket.
Justin asks me if I have found anything yet. When I say no Justin states that he is surprised that I haven't looked for any coffee yet.
"You drink more durned coffee than anyone I have ever met. Even more than my grandpa."
Justin says the word durned again. He says the word tooting as we wend our way through the golden labyrinth of uppity commerce that is Harrods in London. There is caviar and there is Fois gras and there is wine. There is fresh fish in a vat of ice. There are fruits. I no longer want to hang out anywhere near in the same proximity of Jim Baker. I remember Mr Reents telling me to check out the meat sections. He says that it is to die for while rubbing his tummy.
I look in any direction for Mark and his posse.
Being seen with the Big Ten is really starting to get to me.
They have gotten to me from day one.
The group of Girls who was in Rita’s skit last night who
performed the skit that Josh wanted to use are holding up dresses looking at
the price tags and smiling. I think about an extra 150 British pounds would
have been nice. I look for Rita but she is nowhere around. I wonder if Harmony asked her to participate in the interview. I look again. I swear I see Elias Das from goddam Amarillo Texas
It is Harrods and I am lost.
Other clots of red coats stream pass us. I don't see Sheila or Tamera or Greta. I see Rose walking with one of the few African American's on the trip only I don't want Rose to see me. For a second I swear I see Elias Das pinning one of her goddam Amarillo Tx pins on the lapels of a mannequin. For a second I think I spot the back of Rita's head until I realize that it is one of the high school sized Young Columbians I will never meet on ths trip.
Other clots of red coats stream pass us. I don't see Sheila or Tamera or Greta. I see Rose walking with one of the few African American's on the trip only I don't want Rose to see me. For a second I swear I see Elias Das pinning one of her goddam Amarillo Tx pins on the lapels of a mannequin. For a second I think I spot the back of Rita's head until I realize that it is one of the high school sized Young Columbians I will never meet on ths trip.
Baker says that he is going to go to the Lingerie section and check out some serious lace, yo. The female employees inside Harrods are pallid-skinned and thermometer skinny. They look like uber-anemic airline stewardesses. We go to the bakery. We have samples of the chocolates. I am remembering what Vivian said about Harrods stringent You Break It You Buy It policy. I’m surprised they let Baker through the doors.
At a decade and-a-half years of age I can’t fathom how much money PARADE has invested in
this trip of a lifetime.
Justin asks me if I have found anything yet. When I say no Justin states that he is surprised that I haven't looked for any coffee yet.
"You drink more durned coffee than anyone I have ever met. Even more than my grandpa."
Justin says the word durned again. He says the word tooting as we wend our way through the golden labyrinth of uppity commerce that is Harrods in London. There is caviar and there is Fois gras and there is wine. There is fresh fish in a vat of ice. There are fruits. I no longer want to hang out anywhere near in the same proximity of Jim Baker. I remember Mr Reents telling me to check out the meat sections. He says that it is to die for while rubbing his tummy.
I look in any direction for Mark and his posse.
Being seen with the Big Ten is really starting to get to me.
They have gotten to me from day one.
.I think about buying a puck-size can of Beluga caviar for Mister Reents until I realize it is 80 pounds for something I can discreetly place in my pocket. I am waiting for Baker to make an inappropriate comment comparing Caviar to female ovulation only he is nowhere around.
"What's that?" My roomy Justin inquires.
"It's caviar?"
Justin looks back at me disgruntled. Alaskan Bran who can't run-a-sub-five-minute-mile worth shit is looking at me disgruntled with his face askance.
"It's fish eggs but its a delicacy."
"It looks like Sperm." Alaskan Bryan says . My dear roomy Justin looks at me in his Midwestern Iowan parlance and shakes his head back and forth as if in shame. It is the Queen's birthday, It is my mother's birthday, I still have her voice resonating in my ears from talking with her long distance last night. I am looking for a gift for her as we board the Egyptian Escalator ascending to the third floor.
In the polo shirt section is a member of Mark’s bus who keeps commenting aloud that he wished he could buy that but he lost his wallet somehow on the Thames.
He looks like he is in tears.
I turn to Justin,
"Are you going to buy anything for your girlfriend back home?"
Justin shrugs. He responds to the query the way he has every time I bring up his girlfriend by stating the his girlfriend is hotter than any of the girls on this trip by far. We continue to walk into the
There are several mannequins with loosely threaded cardigans around their necks.
"Hey man I know you probably ate breakfast with Chris this morning, and I was wondering..."
Justin makes a mulling-it-over expression with his closed lips reminiscent of a thoroughly inquisitive otter.
"I mean, when you were walking with Chris at Breakfast, I was wondering if you just so happened to have seen Harmony?"
"You saw Harmony with someone else?"
Justin shrugs. He then says maybe.
"Who is it?"
Justin is still reticent. He says there are 150 kids on the trip he can't expect to know everyone's name. Justin adds a for-crying-out-loud.
We are walking through an aisles demarcated toiletries even though it is perfume. From up ahead I can hear Jim pointing to the toiletry sign and say no wonder all Europeans smell like shit.
"I mean, were they like together?" I am still inquisitive. I shouldn't let it bother me so.
Justin shrugs again.
He looks down before looking back up.
"I don't know for crying out loud. What am I some sort of spy or something. All I know is that I saw that girl you are fawning over and they looked like they were flirting. Heck, perhaps they were even holding hands. I dunno."
Justin tells me that I am whupped.
***
The first time I kissed a guy I think to myself that I really like this. I mean I really like this.
I want to do this again.
***
Years later I will read about how to do things to the horizontal bookends of her anatomy. Years later, while still in the turbulent swill of high school I will reach between the mattress of the same bed I daily kneel down and supplicate in front of the living God, leafing through a stash of light-core periodicals with a glossy tongues emanating from the center. Years later I will filch a box of Franzia wine leftover from Last New Years in our basement, still listening to Opera, still listening to the Writer's Almanac after feeling lost and all alone in the listless blue trough that is high school.
It is years later I use a black notebook the month of her wedding, scratching welts into the brow of the page. Years later I picture sticking my tongue out like a book mark between the tome of her rather cottage cheese white Victorian thighs, painting by an unknown integer into the hated fresco between above her kneecaps.
I am trying to make her eyes flutter, like the dove the moment of my saviors baptism by a wild and hirsute man.
She has been to London.
She has been to New York.
She is only 18 years of age and she is standing in front of a pastel statue of the Virgin Mary making vows.
***
We continue to waltz through Harrods. Part of the inside feels like a gilded tower of Babylon with a series of high-rising concentric balconies granting one the feeling of being lodged in a crystalline chandelier. I see Nat. He is walking with a different girl. She is actually a girl on bus #1 from Daisy’s group. His girlfriend Miss Arkansas is in the interview with Harmony. I wonder why he is flirting with younger girls. It looks like he is talking about his prosaic wrestling moves.
I have no clue why he is walking with her.
At an intersection we come across Sir Charles who asks if any of us have seen Jim. Spin Doctor Kenny says that he’s hoping to find the CD section because he’s heard that the British version of popular CD’s often have different tracks than the familiar American version. Justin is next to me. He looks at his watch as if he is calling splits at a cross country race and states that we need to be back at the front of the store in 45 minutes. I still need something for my mom.
The Big Ten are holding jersey's reading London Arsenal. Even Alaskan Bryan notes that at his school where there is always snow on the ground soccer is considered a wussy sport. Justin states aloud that he wants to get a souvenir for his track coach which makes me realize that I haven't gotten anything for Mr. Reents or Coach Ricca. I wish I had funds to buy a cool Nike t-shirt. I can't wait to tell Coach about witnessing the London Marathon first hand.
I feel another shoulder pummel and see Mark again trouncing around the retail Mecca with gaunt authority. He is walking with Matt and with Denis.
I can’t understand why every time I try to use what
the British classify as the lift I am always next to Jim Baker.
“I’m surprised to see you. I figured you’d be looking
at legal porn.”
Jim states that they don’t sell shit like that here.
“Dude you should have seen it man We like found this
really skimpy bra and we had this British guy hand it to Daisy and ask if it was her size. She was like balling up and crying everywhere.
Justin says great. Baker says you should have seen
it. I tell Jim to leave Daisy alone.
“I mean, it's like incessant with you guys. All you ever do
is taunt and harass her. I mean, really harass her. This is her trip. Whatever she did to win this trip she deserves it. She may never be back overseas again and every time she reflects back over this so-called trip of a lifetime she is going to feel majorly depressed because she spent the entire trip as the recipient of your crude humor."
Jim is laughing. There is a look of accomplishment bleeding into the fuzz of his countenance. He says hey she'll probably look back from her trailer one day bare foot and pregnant and with five kids and cry.
I tell Jim to shut up.
I tell Jim to shut up.
“You see your fat Truffle-snuffing girlfriend today?"
I’m not sure why Jim is asking me this question.
“No. I thought you knew. She was coordinating that
meeting with the English teenagers thing."
The elevator door is semi-closing. Jim Baker is seated
on his bottom on he floor of the Lift with his legs arrowed out.
“What are you talking about?”
“She has another guy. There are two of you, Hair. I
mean, most of the Big Ten is already aware of it. Most of the Big Ten knows that your
relationships with that Hog is just somewhat of a joke."
I tell Jim no. I tell Jim that we really care about
each other. I tell Jim that you should have seen the reflection of her visage
yesterday when I gave her that Teddy Bear dressed as a British Bobby.
"She has some other guy Hair. Just ask your roommate. He knows."
Jim point to Justin as if playing a gamne of paper, rock, scissors and forget the adjoining blade.
Dude, face it. She’s like dicking you, dude.
"She's dicking your fucking balls."
***
I am licking her body. I am trying to make her forget about the 8 hour flight. I am trying to take her somewhere where going through customs entails cementing her eyes into her skull and screaming out the name of the living God three times in a row.
Her wedding dress is a puddle of silk ivory near the front of the bed.
I am licking the dimensions of her body.
I am trying to take her somewhere she has never been before.
I am trying to make her come.
***
I am licking her body. I am trying to make her forget about the 8 hour flight. I am trying to take her somewhere where going through customs entails cementing her eyes into her skull and screaming out the name of the living God three times in a row.
Her wedding dress is a puddle of silk ivory near the front of the bed.
I am licking the dimensions of her body.
I am trying to take her somewhere she has never been before.
I am trying to make her come.
****
It is 2007. We are communicating on the flat-chested wash board of a pixeled screen, a form of telegraphy typing instantly, somehow, each receiving the others thoughts at the moment of conception in leap technological telepathic faith, firing back and forth separated by a bulimic screen.
The caterwaul and confusion of the early 90’s seems
like hundreds of years ago.
The last time I have spoken to him was six months after my own father's demise.
The last time I have spoken to him was six months after my own father's demise.
Mark is asking me. why I am so obsessed with something
that happen half my lifetime ago.
“You are like must be into emotional archaeology or something. There’s just no reason for you to go back so far and dig, dig up the trash of those memories.
All of which happened so long ago.
Half my lifetime ago.
So long ago.
***
While I am dialing her number the day of her purported wedding I am looking down at the flight tickets splattered on the front of my writing desk.
I think about the girl from Ottawa Illinois I made out with earlier this summer in the back of Linda Martin's Van outside Cornstock theatre.
The girl I went further with anyone I have ever gone before.
I think about how I haven't run all summer.
How every time I run, every time I do the one thing I want to participate in more than anything else on this planet
I Listen to Morrissey's I Am Hated for Loving, A song which, along with, WHY DON'T YOU FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF I listen to every morning after I finish my paper route which my father tells me that I need to give up soon. The twin dongs which I listen to every morning before I chug a pot of coffee. The songs that have been my solace and best friends my Junior year of the so-called high school experience where every time I enter the aquarium blue of the hallways it feels like I hae just manacled cement blocks to my ankles hurling myself into the muddy arteries of the Illinois river.
Every time I go to the institution where I am excited to learn, where I want to learn and augment my comprehension of the planet, it feels like I have drowned.
That maybe the reason I am experiencing all of this chronic Fatigue and listening to this sullen music and wearing black turtle necks while composing reams of poems.
I listen to Morrissey carol about being recanted for wanting.
For internally lusting after something he will never have.
It is 2007 and I have just turned thirty years old.
***
While I am dialing her number the day of her purported wedding I am looking down at the flight tickets splattered on the front of my writing desk.
I think about the girl from Ottawa Illinois I made out with earlier this summer in the back of Linda Martin's Van outside Cornstock theatre.
The girl I went further with anyone I have ever gone before.
I think about how I haven't run all summer.
How every time I run, every time I do the one thing I want to participate in more than anything else on this planet
I Listen to Morrissey's I Am Hated for Loving, A song which, along with, WHY DON'T YOU FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF I listen to every morning after I finish my paper route which my father tells me that I need to give up soon. The twin dongs which I listen to every morning before I chug a pot of coffee. The songs that have been my solace and best friends my Junior year of the so-called high school experience where every time I enter the aquarium blue of the hallways it feels like I hae just manacled cement blocks to my ankles hurling myself into the muddy arteries of the Illinois river.
Every time I go to the institution where I am excited to learn, where I want to learn and augment my comprehension of the planet, it feels like I have drowned.
That maybe the reason I am experiencing all of this chronic Fatigue and listening to this sullen music and wearing black turtle necks while composing reams of poems.
I listen to Morrissey carol about being recanted for wanting.
For internally lusting after something he will never have.
***
I no longer wish to be around the Big Ten. I think about Josh and his girlfriend who wears the copious rogue and how they are already making plans to visit each other. I think about how from Day 1 I have felt ostracized from the jock-itch Varsity letter bulk of the Big Ten.
Justin looks at me and he asks me where I am going. He ushers a caveat that we are suppose to stay together this entire leg of the tour.
Justin is getting on my nerves. He acts like he would rather take a tour of Amana, Iowa with senior citizens than be shown another cathedral in England. He has been getting on my nerves eating all the Fig Newtons that my mother sent as provisional rations in my suitcase.
He has been getting on my nerves looking at me disjointedly every time I make a phone call.
He has been getting on my nerves since we landed at Heathrow in the tempest and he began keening some country song with the refrain of You ever cry when Old Yeler Died?
Up ahead Spencer is still walking like an Egyptian looking like a white boy trying to break dance.
I tell him to shove it.
I think about Justin doing his devotions every night in the hotel room down on one, knee, not asking questions.
I am walking away from my group. I am pulling a Mark. I am on my own.
Everything inside Harrods is the color of the Gideon Bible that I have in my pocket right now.
***
"It's just that..."
There is a pause in our conversation. Two weeks ago on the phone we came the closest we have ever to emotionally consummating our teenage love.
I want to hold her close.
She has been distant. I can tell that she is hiding something from me.
Twice I have called her and twice she has failed to call me back, which is not like her at all.
***
I should be looking for razors for Granpa Salm with
the inimitable Boots logo on him so I can maintain my promise I made to him on
church Good Friday to purchase him the best damn razors he ever had. I need a momentary sabbatical from the Big
Ten. Justin tells me that Trevor told us
that we really needed to stay together inside Harrods.
I tell Justin that I don’t care.
I don’t want people to think that I am more whupped on
Harmony than I already am. I don’t want people to think that I am pouting in
public.
I no longer wish to be around the Big Ten. I think about Josh and his girlfriend who wears the copious rogue and how they are already making plans to visit each other. I think about how from Day 1 I have felt ostracized from the jock-itch Varsity letter bulk of the Big Ten.
Justin looks at me and he asks me where I am going. He ushers a caveat that we are suppose to stay together this entire leg of the tour.
Justin is getting on my nerves. He acts like he would rather take a tour of Amana, Iowa with senior citizens than be shown another cathedral in England. He has been getting on my nerves eating all the Fig Newtons that my mother sent as provisional rations in my suitcase.
He has been getting on my nerves looking at me disjointedly every time I make a phone call.
He has been getting on my nerves since we landed at Heathrow in the tempest and he began keening some country song with the refrain of You ever cry when Old Yeler Died?
Up ahead Spencer is still walking like an Egyptian looking like a white boy trying to break dance.
I tell him to shove it.
I think about Justin doing his devotions every night in the hotel room down on one, knee, not asking questions.
I am walking away from my group. I am pulling a Mark. I am on my own.
Everything inside Harrods is the color of the Gideon Bible that I have in my pocket right now.
***
"It's just that..."
There is a pause in our conversation. Two weeks ago on the phone we came the closest we have ever to emotionally consummating our teenage love.
I want to hold her close.
She has been distant. I can tell that she is hiding something from me.
Twice I have called her and twice she has failed to call me back, which is not like her at all.
***
It is the chandelier that is central commercial valley
of Harrods once again I feel like I am in a brain. The neon light are neurons.
I I see a Gucci signs.There are picture of male
models in jockey underwear whose crotch look like a baseball diamond made out of
paper-plate Styrofoam. Everyone is spending money to buy clothes to somehow
have them stripped in a heap on the floor while wildly inside the other face.I am walking around Harrods and I have jettisoned the group and I am walking on my own. Due to my stringent Lutheran upbringing Harrods is a homonym for King Herod.
King Herod who was a purported tyrant of Judea. King Herod who was vile and corrupt. King Herod who met with the wise men and then mandated a dictum that all new born males be executed as to preserve his throne in what as known in 8th grade confirmation class church as massacre of the Innocents.
The massacre of the innocents and I am realizing that
we are being butchered. That we are being hung over like flanks of meat in the
deli department. That this trip is cutting into us. That it is eviscerating our
psyche. That it is bludgeoning out periphery of the planet.
We are being slaughtered. We are being pillaged of young breath.
That once we somehow arrive back from the place we
originally hailed from we will never be the same again.
That there is a Christ Child amongst us and he fled to
the Egyptian wing of the commercial Harrods because of a dream his
non-biological father had. That he is performing miracles. That he is baptizing
sinners in the bidet.
Herod who was a necrophiliac. Herod who after he
murdered his wife continued to mount her corpse for seven years.
Herod who considered himself the nominal King of the
Jews.
***
I leave and I am walking. I am floating. For a second I swear I see the wraith of Mary Queen of Scots brandishing a rolling pin goading me to pass the mannequins playing badminton while wearing cardigans, I.am on my own.
I am wanting nothing to do with the Big Ten.
There are seven floors in Harrods and traveling between them in the escalator shaft with the Egyptian head makes it feel like it is somehow Passover weekend all over again. I am walking by myself. I am passing a kiosk of Umbrellas. There is what looks like a cool men's section devoted entirely to offerings of Emporio Armani and Katharine Hamnett. Diesel Jeans and Helmnut Lang. Kenneth Cole. I feel like Mark. I want to jettison the social niceties of the conga lines we have been ordained to march in from the moment we stepped off the plane. I want to slough the red coated armor, ambling around the slithering avenues of London mistaken for a local. I want to be the same age of Tamera employing Mr. Reents and Coach Ricca for letters of recommendation to be accepted into the most prestigious university of higher learning on this continent.
I want to unzip the attributes that has associated me from the Big Ten from Day one.
I want to be all alone.
I want to scale the the pinnacle of the architectural commerce leap off into the bustle of the street. I want to become part of the oscillating parade of traffic.
I want London to be mine.
I pass luggage and see the same suitcase that my grandmother bought me at Sears in Downtown Peoria which runs 100 pounds more this side of the pond. There are names such as Luis Vuitton and Coach.
***
I see Sam and several members of his group. Sam is trying on an emerald sports jacket that looks like he just won a golf tournament.
I really wanted to have this all filmed because, you know, I mean, you know, 20 years from now its like this will be all we have, you know. We’ll be at home with our wife and kids and everything and for some reason we’ll start thinking about that crazy trip we won to England all those years ago and about all those friends we made and we’ll start squinting and trying to reminisce, you know, like trying to reminisce what the name is of that hot girl and everything and all we have to do now is to plug in a VHS cartridge, which, I’m sure, twenty years in the future, I can only imagine what we’ll be watching our films on,probably everything will be on computers or sumthin' but still-you know what I mean Hair. Somehow filming this was my way of ensuring that none of this ever gets lost. That all of this mattered. That we were all here and hung out and everything.”
***
I walk through the cosmetic section. Apparently there’s a free mini-manicure set up and half of Daisy’s group standing in line while the other half is looking at their nails, hands of splayed as if they have just gotten engaged. I move to the far end of the aisle when I come across a sign reading Hosiery/Intimates hearing what sounds like giggles, looking ahead, seeing Jill Acquilino, the hot Italian girl who has been the hardon of the Big Ten since day one and her other Italian friend smiling They are giggling. They were also in Rita's group last night that usurped our skit and won the 150 pounds spending money.
I look ahead. They are holding up what looks like lingerie. It is white and looks like revealing-rococo snowflake. They are laughing. I feel like I am spying on the college girls back home when I look at them. They are holding it up to their body and then blushing. They are squeezing each other's hand. Her friend says that it wouldn't hurt to try it on.
They laugh. It looks like one of them is laughing so hard she is crying.
In the shoe section I don't see any shoes that resemble the cool shoes Mark was wearing earlier this morning, the first pair of Doc Martens I have ever seen. I am walking. I have maybe 100 pounds left.
There is a gentlemen with byrclecremeed hair and pinstripe vest and cuffed pants. You can see that he consciously made it a point so that his sylvan belt would correlate perfectly with the color of his loafers. He is wearing a tape-measure around his neck like a lei. He has a slight mustache that looks like he makes a few extra pounds on the weekend by performing fellationin softcore porn.
"Excuse me?"
"Yes?"
He looks perturbed. He looks at me up and down as if examining an e-ray. This is to be my first major purchase overseas. I am trying to be mature as I unconsciously jangle a handful of pounds in my pocket, sounding less like currency and more like pocket-fraught with broken Christmas ornaments.
"Yes, I was wondering, good you direct me to the Doc Martens?"
There is a chuckle. He laughs with his fist rolled into his mouth.
"Excuse me?"
Shit, I think to myself. For a second I wonder if I got the name right.
"Uhm Doctor Martens. I think they are called. They are really shiny shoes with what looks like a circumference of Yellow staples around each shoe. If you have any green ones I would be much obliged."
Good Sir, perhaps you have mistaken Harrods with some sort of cultural punk venue in Notting Hill."
I am not sure what he is saying although from the tone of his voice I can tell that he's being sarcastic.
"This is Harrods, Sir. Harrods. Here, allow me to show you. These are Salvatore Ferragmo. They start at five hundred pounds."
I think to myself five hundred pounds, that is almost 750 american. The podiatry concierge continues. He says per foot.
I leap back. That is 1500 USD a pair.
The clerk is starting to become more condescending. He again looks me up and down as if he is painting something with the clef of his double chin. I can tell he is scrutinizing my attire. I think about the so-called prestigious dress code and wonder if he is going to exile me.
It occurs to me that even though we are on the opposite side of the pond immersing ourselves in a culture we hardly eve communicate with anyone outside our tour.
I leave the shoe section. I walk past appliances. Briefly I think maybe I should buy a coffee pot overseas until I realize that the plug doesn't correlate with the outlets in the US.
I need something for my mom. Something that reeks of England.
I leave and I am walking. I am floating. For a second I swear I see the wraith of Mary Queen of Scots brandishing a rolling pin goading me to pass the mannequins playing badminton while wearing cardigans, I.am on my own.
I am wanting nothing to do with the Big Ten.
There are seven floors in Harrods and traveling between them in the escalator shaft with the Egyptian head makes it feel like it is somehow Passover weekend all over again. I am walking by myself. I am passing a kiosk of Umbrellas. There is what looks like a cool men's section devoted entirely to offerings of Emporio Armani and Katharine Hamnett. Diesel Jeans and Helmnut Lang. Kenneth Cole. I feel like Mark. I want to jettison the social niceties of the conga lines we have been ordained to march in from the moment we stepped off the plane. I want to slough the red coated armor, ambling around the slithering avenues of London mistaken for a local. I want to be the same age of Tamera employing Mr. Reents and Coach Ricca for letters of recommendation to be accepted into the most prestigious university of higher learning on this continent.
I want to unzip the attributes that has associated me from the Big Ten from Day one.
I want to be all alone.
I want to scale the the pinnacle of the architectural commerce leap off into the bustle of the street. I want to become part of the oscillating parade of traffic.
I want London to be mine.
I pass luggage and see the same suitcase that my grandmother bought me at Sears in Downtown Peoria which runs 100 pounds more this side of the pond. There are names such as Luis Vuitton and Coach.
Everything has a name associated with it.
Even the Big Ten.
***
***
“Here’s another thing, and you can but this in your
book if you like. In a way, I thought my whole life would be like that. I
thought my whole life would be like those two weeks I spent in England and in a
way looking back on it now twenty plus years later, I just had no clue how hard
everything in life would be.”
Mark tells me again that I can put that in my book if
I like.
***
I see Sam and several members of his group. Sam is trying on an emerald sports jacket that looks like he just won a golf tournament.
“Heya Tony, whaddyathink?”
“It’s totally you Sam,” I am looking around for Vinny wondering if he is okay after his meltdown. I continue to walk
It is Vinny. He is in the electronics. He is frantically pillaging through cache of cartridges.
I think about Vinny as we sat together on his bed in his hotel room yesterday. I wonder if he found anything else about the condition of his brother.
“Hey Tone, man.”
I ask Vinny how he is doing. He smiles and props the camcorder into his eye as if it is a telescope before beginning to narrate.
"And this is our Good friend who you've might have seen on NBC's Blossom. Go ahead Tony, tell them all about Harrods. Tell the people out there how this trip to London has changed your life."
"And this is our Good friend who you've might have seen on NBC's Blossom. Go ahead Tony, tell them all about Harrods. Tell the people out there how this trip to London has changed your life."
“What royally blows goats is that I am out of blank VHS film and the cartridges over here are funny. I mean, it’s like the United Kingdom has yet to graduate from anything higher than Beta.
I’m laughing. Vinny is serious.
Vinny talks fast. The nasal entendre of his accent seems to whip across my forehead in a breeze.
I really wanted to have this all filmed because, you know, I mean, you know, 20 years from now its like this will be all we have, you know. We’ll be at home with our wife and kids and everything and for some reason we’ll start thinking about that crazy trip we won to England all those years ago and about all those friends we made and we’ll start squinting and trying to reminisce, you know, like trying to reminisce what the name is of that hot girl and everything and all we have to do now is to plug in a VHS cartridge, which, I’m sure, twenty years in the future, I can only imagine what we’ll be watching our films on,probably everything will be on computers or sumthin' but still-you know what I mean Hair. Somehow filming this was my way of ensuring that none of this ever gets lost. That all of this mattered. That we were all here and hung out and everything.”
I nod. Behind me I see Tamera and her ubiquitous trench coat float past. I haven’t seen Mark since I passed his posse heading up the stairs.
“I was really hoping to immortalize every portion of this trip that I possibly could, you know—especially the girls, the girls love being on film."
Vinny holds his camcorder out in front of him like he is verifying the gender of a newborn.
Vinny holds his camcorder out in front of him like he is verifying the gender of a newborn.
“But Beta, I mean, it’s not even Beta. It’s like the UK’s own kind of variation of VHS that isn’t compatible with my camcorder in the slightest and now I won’t be able to finish my montage that I told my teacher I would film.”
I listen to what Vinny is saying. I wonder if I will know Harmony twenty years in the future. I wonder if I will still be madly in love with her and feel the way I feel right now.
I wonder if all of this will somehow one day change.
Sam is modeling his coat. If he wore the Coat with Mark's recently purchased Doc Martens he would look like a slightly overweight yet jovial headed Leprechaun.
"I mean, Beta. Tony. All the way to London and now I'm not even going to be able to film the last day all because of Beta."
I tell Vinny that I know what he means.
Beta.
Sam is modeling his coat. If he wore the Coat with Mark's recently purchased Doc Martens he would look like a slightly overweight yet jovial headed Leprechaun.
"I mean, Beta. Tony. All the way to London and now I'm not even going to be able to film the last day all because of Beta."
I tell Vinny that I know what he means.
Beta.
***
I walk through the cosmetic section. Apparently there’s a free mini-manicure set up and half of Daisy’s group standing in line while the other half is looking at their nails, hands of splayed as if they have just gotten engaged. I move to the far end of the aisle when I come across a sign reading Hosiery/Intimates hearing what sounds like giggles, looking ahead, seeing Jill Acquilino, the hot Italian girl who has been the hardon of the Big Ten since day one and her other Italian friend smiling They are giggling. They were also in Rita's group last night that usurped our skit and won the 150 pounds spending money.
I look ahead. They are holding up what looks like lingerie. It is white and looks like revealing-rococo snowflake. They are laughing. I feel like I am spying on the college girls back home when I look at them. They are holding it up to their body and then blushing. They are squeezing each other's hand. Her friend says that it wouldn't hurt to try it on.
They laugh. It looks like one of them is laughing so hard she is crying.
In the shoe section I don't see any shoes that resemble the cool shoes Mark was wearing earlier this morning, the first pair of Doc Martens I have ever seen. I am walking. I have maybe 100 pounds left.
There is a gentlemen with byrclecremeed hair and pinstripe vest and cuffed pants. You can see that he consciously made it a point so that his sylvan belt would correlate perfectly with the color of his loafers. He is wearing a tape-measure around his neck like a lei. He has a slight mustache that looks like he makes a few extra pounds on the weekend by performing fellationin softcore porn.
"Excuse me?"
"Yes?"
He looks perturbed. He looks at me up and down as if examining an e-ray. This is to be my first major purchase overseas. I am trying to be mature as I unconsciously jangle a handful of pounds in my pocket, sounding less like currency and more like pocket-fraught with broken Christmas ornaments.
"Yes, I was wondering, good you direct me to the Doc Martens?"There is a chuckle. He laughs with his fist rolled into his mouth.
"Excuse me?"
Shit, I think to myself. For a second I wonder if I got the name right.
"Uhm Doctor Martens. I think they are called. They are really shiny shoes with what looks like a circumference of Yellow staples around each shoe. If you have any green ones I would be much obliged."
Good Sir, perhaps you have mistaken Harrods with some sort of cultural punk venue in Notting Hill."
I am not sure what he is saying although from the tone of his voice I can tell that he's being sarcastic.
"This is Harrods, Sir. Harrods. Here, allow me to show you. These are Salvatore Ferragmo. They start at five hundred pounds."
I think to myself five hundred pounds, that is almost 750 american. The podiatry concierge continues. He says per foot.
I leap back. That is 1500 USD a pair.
The clerk is starting to become more condescending. He again looks me up and down as if he is painting something with the clef of his double chin. I can tell he is scrutinizing my attire. I think about the so-called prestigious dress code and wonder if he is going to exile me.
It occurs to me that even though we are on the opposite side of the pond immersing ourselves in a culture we hardly eve communicate with anyone outside our tour.
I leave the shoe section. I walk past appliances. Briefly I think maybe I should buy a coffee pot overseas until I realize that the plug doesn't correlate with the outlets in the US.
I need something for my mom. Something that reeks of England.
Upstairs I see the boy from Nat's group who looks like a moustahced Paul McCartney circa Wings era being asked by store security to please open his trench coat, being accused of theft. I wonder if he is getting busted. He keeps saying that he brought this coat from home and that this coat even has a history. He says if you have a room with blue lights he could show you.
I am looking for Mark and his posse.
I am on the stairs where I last saw Mark and his group descend.
The sun enters in pawing waves. I am looking out at Basil Street.
This is the longest time I have spent walking by myself this entire trip.
For a second I close my eyes. For a second the dust motes resemble constellations.
For a second I want to walk back to the Gloucester on my own.
I think about the man I met earlier in the day at the top of St. Paul's cathedral.
I wonder how he seemed to know everything about me.
I swear he knew my name.
***
It is the jewelry section. I wonder since the Royal family does all of Harrods exclusive shopping princess Di bought her wedding ring here. I shouldn't be walking through this apartment. the bulk of the jewelry appears to be six figure in British pounds.
I can't fathom what that would translate into american currency.
Several British girls in tight blue dresses and heels with immaculate make-up clatter past.
I am in London and I am on my own.
There is a red coat in front of me with a Colorado hat. It is Eagle Scout Josh.
He is talking to an associate on behind the counter. He is scrutinizing rings.
Tiffany. Faberge. Hermes.
"Josh man, your girl who usurped our skit is downstairs trying on dresses. What are you doing upstairs?"
I want to ask him what happened to the fellow Big Ten but I realize that more than any other member of our locker-room pubescent cadre besides myself Josh would benefit greatly from being in a higher group.
Josh smiles. He says he is buying something nice for her as a goodbye present. I ask who. He says who do you think.
"You're buying a ring for your girlfriend? I mean, what are you going to do? Propose?"
Josh says no, He says it is more of a promise ring. I have no idea what a promise ring is.
"I thought a promise ring was something that a daddy gives his daughter that she is suppose to save and give to her husband after their marriage is vowed and consummated."
Josh says I sound like I just got back from attending a Promise Keepers convention,
"A promise ring is something that she can wear so that she knows I am always thinking about her. A promise ring entails that I am making her a promise ring is something that she can look down on and thinking about me whenever we are two thousand miles away."
Suddenly my gift of a British Teddy Bear deemed a Bobby to Harmony seems paltry and superficial. Suddenly I wish I would have given Harmony something more substantial. Suddenly I wish I would have given something where every time she glances down on the lips of her finger tips I would be winking at her intractably,
In promises.
In prisms,
In diamonds.
In hope.
Josh is quiet. He says that this is the reason he wanted to win the skit so bad was so that he could buy his burgeoning bride a becoming farewell gift.
"But you are going to see her in a few months."
Josh says yeah. He rhetorically asks again aren't you and Harmony making plans?
I pause. Harmony has given me absolutely no indication that, while she sporadically seems to enjoy my company she wishes to see me again once we awake from the transcontinental dream. Most of the time when we are talking about our respective futures on the phone late at night it sounds like I am getting in the way of Harmony's dreams and ambitions.
The proprietor behind the counter at Harrods has his hands behind his back. He brings Josh another ring. Josh holds it up up and smile. He says that yeah, that's the one. That will be perfect.
There is what looks like a bluish-azure sapphire in the middle which I will learn is really some kind of diamond.
Josh is smiling. He is smiling the way Harmony smiled at me just for a moment the night on the Thames. He is smiling at me as if he is madly in love.
"Yes, that will work. That's perfect."
The jeweler behind the counter inquires about her size. I am waiting for Josh to say lower case B until I realize he is talking about her finger,
Josh says I don't know. Josh says that it is probably comparable to the size of his pinkie,
"By the way, I should elucidate something about last night. Even though my girlfriends group won the skit I didn't tell her the idea until after the Big Tenn as a whole decided got to use it. After that I thought well someone should use that skit and hopefully win and I'm glad the group that won was hers."
The gift he is buying her is over 1000 pounds, from my mental math, 1500 dollars US currency.
Suddenly my twenty dollar teddy bear I purchased off of Chris to give to Harmony as a keepsake of our travels together seems trivial.
"That's alotta moolah bro. I mean, that'd more than our '86 station wagon that we are driving out West in June. I mean, did you like save up money for this trip."
Eagle Scout Josh swipes his head. He says no. I can't imagine how Josh is capable of buying a piece of Jewelry that costs almost as mush as Parade paid per person for the trip.
The gentlemen behind the counter asks Eagle Scout Josh how he will be playing for this. Josh reaches into his wallet and hands him an international credit card. The credit card is gold and has a picture of the planet in some sort of holography on the front of the card.
When the cashier accepts the card he looks at Josh as if he has money.
"How did you get a credit card? I thought you had to be 18 and have a job to get a credit card?"
"My grandpa gave this to me before I left. He told me it was for emergencies and that I had to pay him back if I used it."
I think about his girlfriend with the perennially caked makeup.
"When are you going to give it to her?"
Josh pauses as if reflecting.
"Yeah, but I mean, you just met her. I mean, I understand that you want to give her something really nice and all that, nut, I mean, what if something happens and it doesn't work out."
Josh tilts his head.
"I mean, you are fifteen. She is what, sixteen?"
Josh nods and says yeah. He says that the age ratio is the same between that of Harmony and myself.
I can tell that Josh is madly in love.
"You guys are young. Alls I'm saying is that something could change. I mean, she could go back to her home in Maryland or wherever and you could go back to Colorado and things could just change. Maybe she'll meet someone new and feel manacled because you slipped a promise ring on her finger."
Josh is irked. He tells me that you of all people of the Big Ten I would expect to understand. For some reason that I can't comprehend I look down at my TO DAVE: love Renae identity bracelet. I think about making out with Renae in the inclement autumnal weather in the sunken garden outside of Westlake.
Eagle scout Josh is vexed with me. for a minute I feel he is
He is a yuppy. He looks like he could be modeling a skinny-tie while attending an East Coast prep school. You can tell his parents probably have some bank
As I am walking through the diminutive halos of collared bling I realize I am envious. I realize I am pissed. I realize that the rapport Josh has with his girlfriend, the girl with the copious rogue is what I have forever yearned for with Harmony.
That Harmony has never so much as hinted that she would like to casually keep in contact much less desire that I visit her.
That perhaps this is the reason that Harmony didn't invite me to the Lynn Minton meeting is because she feels the way that everyone at my high school feels about me.
That I have no future.
That I have nothing to contribute to whatever to this optical blink of Global affairs.
That she doesn't want to hear my voice.
That she doesn't want to hear me when I tell her that I want to be with her.
That she doesn't want a thing to do with me at all.
***
Six young Columbueses and the same president later I will read about the school where Eagle Scout Josh attended. How tow boys who could be members of the Big Ten enter the institution wearing trench coats. The high school I graduated from will mark several homicide a year none has been inside a school.
None has been inside a school teeming with promise.
They where a trench coat like the Trench coat the bloke who looks like Paul McCartney circa Wings era the entire trip.
Eagle Scout Josh has long graduated but perhaps he has a brother. lost in the ricocheting snaps of the hallway. There is chaos and there is prayers. Clinton has been screaming for something like this, not on the Challenger but close to national fiasco to transpire to divert attention from his botched impeachment trial.
And there is blood. Jim Baker lives less than 45 minutes away. There is anarchy splotched in the hallways. There are reporters.
Twelve students and a teacher who were lost.
There are wounds. It is almost exactly six years later to the date.
Eagle Scout Josh has friends and relatives who has been shot only he has graduated. I wonder how Eagle Scout Josh ever put the ring he charged on his grandfather's credit card on finger tips of the girl with the copious make-up.
Eagle Scout Josh is nowhere to be found
***
When she asks me the question it feels like she is asking my permission. It feels like she is serving as a proxy for her faux-beau. It is like she wants my blessing.
I am a junior in high school. It is 22 months after our trip. In the last six months Harmony and I have grown closer than I ever could have fathomed.
In the last six months Harmony and myself have somehow become one spiritual integer.
Harmony is my best friend.
She sent me a letter at stroke of midnight New Years eve 1995 telling me that this is how she wants to spend her year.
When she tells me all of six weeks later that she is getting married I do the most adult thing I can think of to do.
I laugh.
I tell her yeah right.
I tell her that's a good one.
There is silence on the other end of the phone.
I have never known Harmony when she was in a steady relationship with anyone.
I have known Harmony less than two years. I have venerated the cusp of her smile. I have inked poem about the almond dales of he cheekbones.
For the last three months it seemed like we were deeper.
For the last three months it seemed like we were somehow one.
***
I am pissed at Josh. I am pissed that he was able to buy his girlfriend a ring. I am pissed that perhaps he had something with his girlfriend that I will never have with Harmony. That they actually have some sort of plans to keep in touch once the trip is officially punctuated come all of 24 hours of what is perceived as time.
I continue to walk.
I have clue where I am walking.
There still is no sign of Mark. There is no sign of the bad-ass posse he was walking with.
Occasionally I will pass someone wearing a crimson red coat and look sideways and wonder aloud if I have met them yet or not. For a second I think I see the girl I met during orientation at Newark who is the high school journalist and who reminded me of Lois Lane but after I say hullo she looks at me with her head kiltered and I realize it is not her. The overall size and bulk of the YC group as a whole is finally starting to register. In a way it is starting to pain me how I have found myself enrolled in this make-shift, international high school of my dreams for the last ten days and maybe I have met 30 percent of the globe-hopping students.
I walk in the direction of what I think will be the music vector of Harrods.
I have all but given up in finding Mark.
I am entering into what looks like a cave. I think about how I wish I would have a grandfather who would give me a credit card allowing me to purchase a ring for someone I am almost sure I love.
I am walking into a fauna womb. I am walking and there are Merlot flavored snouts arrowed in my direction. I am walking with my glasses off, in dire need of conversation. I am walking thinking that somehow Harmony will hear of Josh's gift to his girlfriend and think the gift of the teddy bear I christened a bobby laughable.
I am walking. It is pretty clear I just stumbled into the wine cellar-slash-Spirits den.I am walking and I feel something fingery and cold pressed against the back of my neck. It presses deeper. I am certain it is Harrod's overbearing security. I am certain that I am going to be whisked to a dim-lit room and interrogated. Perhaps they saw me interfacing with Paul McCartney in the ubiquitous trench coat. Perhaps they think that Josh purchased his merchandise with a stolen credit card and they need to interrogate me as a witness. Perhaps Jim went on a much-touted panty raid and gave them my identity as a ring leader to get off the hook.
There is a voice behind me.
It tells me not to move.
It calls me Hair.
I look back.
It is Longhorn.
I am being accosted. I turn around. Longhorn tells me to act natural. He tells me not to move.
I begin to wriggle my neck.
"Dude, comeon'."
No Hair. Just cool man We need you bro. You're awesome bro. We just need your body for a moment."
I remember Longhorn and Dimas drinking on the night of the cruise.
Longhorn is wearing his
Leather jacket and leather cap. Dimas is still inexplicably toting the derby
cap he has worn the last two days as if for religious purposes.
“You guys buying more
booze?”
Dimas puts his finger to
his lips and blows over it.
“No man. Fuck that.”
Dimas is looking both
ways as if he is crossing the street in America. Before I know it Longhorn
picks up a bottle of what looks like some kind of port and slices it down the front of his jeans.
“Last night Hair. I mean,
we’re gonna celebrate.”
I remember how Dimas and Longhorn got so drunk on the Thames and urinated over the rail.
I think about what Vivian said about Harrods having a stringent dress code and even stricter you break it you buy it policy.
I can't imagine what they do when it comes to downright theft.
“You guys are gonna get busted. They’ll lock your ass up in the Tower of London.”
Dimas looks at me again verbally emitting a shhh’d expression.
“No man, Hair, don’t you
know anything about the fine art of purloining libations. All you have to do is
act nonchalant.”
“Yeah, all you have to do
is act nonchalant dude. Just act nonchalant.”
I swear I have heard that
term somewhere before in reference to theft. Before I realize it Dimas is pinching the back of my neck as if I am a
ventriloquist doll. He orients my entire body three baby steps to the right. I
am not sure what is happening. Dimas leans forward informing me to dude, just
look straight ahead. He says the word nonchalant once again. A man who looks like every other middle-aged
balding British blokes has his hands behind his back walks in front of me. I don’t want to be spotted anywhere near the
same area code of these cultural yahoos. I don't want to be around these two thieves. I have already seen one member of our group being accursed of theft being frisked like he was going through a metal detector at customs.
Longhorn is adjusting his groin area. He is saying that we need to find a restroom
Dimas tells me just keeps walking. Dimas tells me just keep acting natural as we exit the wine cellar.
Again I see Elias Das. She is part of Rita’s group, the group that won the contest with the Skit Eagle Scout Josh really wanted to perform last night. Elias is holding up an outfit. I wonder if she is out of Amarillo Texas Pins. I want to ask her if she has seen Rita. I feel like Dimas is sticking me up. He tells me to keep walking to the stairwell.
I think about how my first bona fide conversation with Dimas back in Stratford when I told him that I thought cool-hippie Greta was nothing short of brilliant and he informed me that she is closed minded.
"I got to go say hi to someone."
"You don't want to be talking to those girls. Hair."
"Why?"
Longhorn coughs while walking British sentinel straight.
"Because, those girls, excuse me, those bitches over there, they are Artemis as shit man. You don't want to touch that cooch with a putting-iron."
We are still walking fast.
"What do you mean, Artemis-as-shit?"
Longhorn snickers and then stiffens up again,
"You know, Artemis. From like Greek mythology. Don't you know Artemis. With the Bear clan? The huntress. The ultimate free-thinking lesbo-she-wolfe goddess Christ Hair don't hey teach you Mythology in the midwest?"
Mr. Reents taught us mythology for six weeks. I remember Demeter. I remember the Trojan war and Paris abducting Helen. I remember his story about Midas and how he would whisper, "Midas has the ears of an ass," while relaying it to us.
For the life of me I can't remember Artemis.
"Artemis was like the goddess for all those feminazi-granola-cruncher protesters. I think she was she was the Indigo Girls in another lifetime."
I still have no clue what Dimas is talking about.
"Anyway, Artemis had this cult, see, where women who were just in the middle of puberty, you know, 14, 15, 16 years of age, they would go to this Island and learn how to be unattractive. They would learn how to use their minds. They would learn not to care about looking good for their man so Artemis would teach them to walk in an unattractive manner so that they wouldn't be raped when they re-entered society.
"Artemis would teach them to walk like a bear."
We pass a row of Fedora's. We pass a row of bowling hats. We pass a sign that says Burburry London. Dimas pauses, places his hands on his hips and begins to undulate his neck.
"They were mermaids one seconds and they were minnows the next."
Longhorn snickers again. In a weird way this is what I thought the intellectual Titans on bus #4 would be like at all times. Referencing mythology and astrophysics as the Bus skirted through the vernal green of the British countryside.
I'm surprised how smart Dimas is. I wonder why all he wants to do is destroy his brain by getting drunk all the time.
"The point of the Artemis, clan Hair, was to make the young women blossom into maturity. It was to make them discover something inside themselves that had been there all along. It as two make them acknowledge that they had gold inside their every pore and they didn't need to genuflect to the whims of some patriarch or social dowry."
I am looking back at what I am almost sure is Rita. Somehow I picture her in clad in a toga for some reason walking like a bear.
Longhorn adjusts his gait.
He is walking as if he has a massive hardon. He looks like he just shoved a prevaricating Pinocchio face down into the center of his body and told him to lie about the size of his own unit.
"It was about thinking they were nothing short of a fuck-incubator."
"Anyway Hair,man, you don't want anything to do with those girls. It's like that talk we had during that gay-as-fuck dinner dance cruise on the Thames. It's all about the pooh-tang woo-thang."
These are the older more mature kids from bus four I have been intellectually venerating the entire trip.
I don't want to be associated with them anymore.
From behind me I am mandated again just to keep walking. I look behind me. The Artemis clan has all but dissipated.
We walk into the pyramidal shaft. A beam of light drips from somewhere above. I perform what looks like a half moonwalk shuffle ball chain, walking away from both Dimas and Longhorn, walking in the opposite direction on my own.
"Hey yo Hair, you have to come find us tonight back at the hotel. Find us tonight and get fucked up with us Hair."
I am talking with an authoritative lilt for once,
"No. I won't join. I'm fine."
I then tell them to leave me alone. I can hear both Dimas and Longhorn snicker as if in rehearsed tandem.
This is the last night of the trip and the only people I want to see are Harmony and Mark. And if I can't find them I am leaving the hotel. I am walking around all night around the sooty avenues until I can buy a pair of Doc Martens and watch the sun rise over the embankment of the Thames and close my eyes.
As I walk by myself up the sarcophagus laced stairwell I can hear Dimas and Longhorn. I am sure they are disparaging my antics but for some reason they sound as if they are cheering me on.
"Go Hair man. Yer' alright Hair Go Hair. "
Go.
Longhorn is adjusting his groin area. He is saying that we need to find a restroom
Dimas tells me just keeps walking. Dimas tells me just keep acting natural as we exit the wine cellar.
Again I see Elias Das. She is part of Rita’s group, the group that won the contest with the Skit Eagle Scout Josh really wanted to perform last night. Elias is holding up an outfit. I wonder if she is out of Amarillo Texas Pins. I want to ask her if she has seen Rita. I feel like Dimas is sticking me up. He tells me to keep walking to the stairwell.
I stop. I turn around. For a second I want to push him. I don't want to be implicated in any sort of crime.
"What are you looking at Hair?"
"I want to go say hi to my friends over there."
I point. The girls are trying on outfits and giggling. They are talking about the farewell banquet transpiring later on tonight
I think about how my first bona fide conversation with Dimas back in Stratford when I told him that I thought cool-hippie Greta was nothing short of brilliant and he informed me that she is closed minded.
"I got to go say hi to someone."
"You don't want to be talking to those girls. Hair."
"Why?"
Longhorn coughs while walking British sentinel straight.
"Because, those girls, excuse me, those bitches over there, they are Artemis as shit man. You don't want to touch that cooch with a putting-iron."
We are still walking fast.
"What do you mean, Artemis-as-shit?"
Longhorn snickers and then stiffens up again,
"You know, Artemis. From like Greek mythology. Don't you know Artemis. With the Bear clan? The huntress. The ultimate free-thinking lesbo-she-wolfe goddess Christ Hair don't hey teach you Mythology in the midwest?"
Mr. Reents taught us mythology for six weeks. I remember Demeter. I remember the Trojan war and Paris abducting Helen. I remember his story about Midas and how he would whisper, "Midas has the ears of an ass," while relaying it to us.
For the life of me I can't remember Artemis.
"Artemis was like the goddess for all those feminazi-granola-cruncher protesters. I think she was she was the Indigo Girls in another lifetime."
I still have no clue what Dimas is talking about.
"Anyway, Artemis had this cult, see, where women who were just in the middle of puberty, you know, 14, 15, 16 years of age, they would go to this Island and learn how to be unattractive. They would learn how to use their minds. They would learn not to care about looking good for their man so Artemis would teach them to walk in an unattractive manner so that they wouldn't be raped when they re-entered society.
"Artemis would teach them to walk like a bear."
We pass a row of Fedora's. We pass a row of bowling hats. We pass a sign that says Burburry London. Dimas pauses, places his hands on his hips and begins to undulate his neck.
"They were mermaids one seconds and they were minnows the next."
Longhorn snickers again. In a weird way this is what I thought the intellectual Titans on bus #4 would be like at all times. Referencing mythology and astrophysics as the Bus skirted through the vernal green of the British countryside.
I'm surprised how smart Dimas is. I wonder why all he wants to do is destroy his brain by getting drunk all the time.
"The point of the Artemis, clan Hair, was to make the young women blossom into maturity. It was to make them discover something inside themselves that had been there all along. It as two make them acknowledge that they had gold inside their every pore and they didn't need to genuflect to the whims of some patriarch or social dowry."
I am looking back at what I am almost sure is Rita. Somehow I picture her in clad in a toga for some reason walking like a bear.
Longhorn adjusts his gait.
He is walking as if he has a massive hardon. He looks like he just shoved a prevaricating Pinocchio face down into the center of his body and told him to lie about the size of his own unit.
"It was about thinking they were nothing short of a fuck-incubator."
"Anyway Hair,man, you don't want anything to do with those girls. It's like that talk we had during that gay-as-fuck dinner dance cruise on the Thames. It's all about the pooh-tang woo-thang."
These are the older more mature kids from bus four I have been intellectually venerating the entire trip.
I don't want to be associated with them anymore.
From behind me I am mandated again just to keep walking. I look behind me. The Artemis clan has all but dissipated.
We walk into the pyramidal shaft. A beam of light drips from somewhere above. I perform what looks like a half moonwalk shuffle ball chain, walking away from both Dimas and Longhorn, walking in the opposite direction on my own.
"Hey yo Hair, you have to come find us tonight back at the hotel. Find us tonight and get fucked up with us Hair."
I am talking with an authoritative lilt for once,
"No. I won't join. I'm fine."
I then tell them to leave me alone. I can hear both Dimas and Longhorn snicker as if in rehearsed tandem.
This is the last night of the trip and the only people I want to see are Harmony and Mark. And if I can't find them I am leaving the hotel. I am walking around all night around the sooty avenues until I can buy a pair of Doc Martens and watch the sun rise over the embankment of the Thames and close my eyes.
As I walk by myself up the sarcophagus laced stairwell I can hear Dimas and Longhorn. I am sure they are disparaging my antics but for some reason they sound as if they are cheering me on.
"Go Hair man. Yer' alright Hair Go Hair. "
Go.
***
There still is no sign of Mark or the posse he was trampling around the interior of Harrod's with earlier in the afternoon. I pass a tea room where reservations and tweed jackets are required. I pass an Oyster Bar with a cool looking black man in a tux playing piano. Several men wearing Edwardian period costumes with Top hats are apparently giving a tour of the building state that Harrod's motto is Omnia Omnibus Ubique, Latin for all things for all people, everywhere. As I pass one he tips his hat adding a rather cockney gawd day sir. I am petrified that this is Harrods security. I am petrified that I was surveyed being forced to stand in front of the counter as Longhorn stowed the bottle of port in his pants.
I am lost. I can't believe I served as a makeshift accomplice while Dimas and Longhorn stole. I can't imagine what would happen to the three of us if we were caught. It would be more than just the discipline bus.
We would easily be sent home.
In a way I wish I would have befriended the polite boy from Alabama, the boy I forensically slammed during our mock debate yesterday morning during breakfast. I want to ask him about his life. He looks kind of like I would look in a could of years if I kept my hair cut short and was more open-minded about wearing my glasses in public.
I want to tell him that I am just like he is.
I want to tell him that my faith is my life.
I continue to walk.
When she sees me she lets of a smile
I see Heath. He looks somewhat frazzled and lost. I see Heath walking by himself, looking divorced from Reality standing next to a mannequin which because of the angular plastic tilt of the nose, looks more British than the mannequins in Northwoods Mall.
“Hey man have you seen Mark?”
Heath swivels his head the other direction. It is like
he doesn’t hear me. It is like Heath doesn’t realize I am next to him.
“You were just walking around with him a minute ago.
Mark and Dennis and Matt? Have you seen them by chance?”
Heath swipes his head from opposing shoulders once. He
is reticent. He is all alone.
“Hey man you alright, bro?”
Heath is quiet. It looks like someone has just tazed
his chest. I wonder if Heath feels like I feel in the Big Ten. I wonder if he
feels like he is part of a group yet he also feels like he is all alone.
There are giggles. In the female shoes Spencer is
flirting with other members of Daisy’s group by trying to slip into a pair of
stiletto’s before being publicly reprimanded by in a series of guttural
coughing sounds by an employee of what appears to be Pakistani descent. When the girls look in my direction they giggle even more. One of them points. Spencer gives me a calcium deficient wrist wave.
"Maybe we should go check out the music section." I tell Heath before looking around realizing that he has vanished. I can't figure out how Heath always seemingly seems to dissipate whenever something imperative is transpiring on the trip.
Spencer is still talking in his Pakistani accent. He asks me who I am talking to. Because of his mock accent it sounds like Spencer is talking about glue.
"Maybe we should go check out the music section." I tell Heath before looking around realizing that he has vanished. I can't figure out how Heath always seemingly seems to dissipate whenever something imperative is transpiring on the trip.
Spencer is still talking in his Pakistani accent. He asks me who I am talking to. Because of his mock accent it sounds like Spencer is talking about glue.
Near the shoes I see Meg Weaver. She is next to three girls on her group. She is trying on running shoes. Apparently she is having hard time shuffling her foot into the shoes and is pressing every hard, laughing with every thrust.
I stand next to one of the mannequins that has eyelashes and fold my arms and look at Meg smiling.
I think about how I could look at her forever.
The further she keeps trying to press her foot into the running shoe the ore she continues to laugh.
I walk up to Meg, without thinking I get down on one knee pinching my thumb and pointer finger behind her ankle.
"Here Cinderella, let me help you."
Meg pushes a final time, gliding into the sneaker.
She is smiling, Her cheekbones look like freshly watered pomegranates when she smiles.
No one on this trip has a smile like Meg Weaver's. I press down on the front of her shoe. Her girlfriends are giggling holding a hand in front of heir mouths as if they are consciously trying not to spread germs.
No one on this trip has a smile like Meg Weaver's. I press down on the front of her shoe. Her girlfriends are giggling holding a hand in front of heir mouths as if they are consciously trying not to spread germs.
"So if I'm like Cinderella that would make you my prince." Meg says. I do a bow waving my right arm in front of my waist like a peacock feather.
More giggles.
More giggles.
"Only you are Harmony's prince." Meg says rather seriously. I want to tell Meg that I don't even think Harmony would use whatever ardor stowed inside my chest as a makeshift maxipad.
There is an awkward pause.
"I figured you would be with Harmony at the interview thing today?" I ask Meg. She looks down.
"No. She didn't ask me. She invited her roommate Jennifer Flood and Jennifer Flood's beau named Beau plus Sara although not Sara's boyfriend."
I have no clue who Sara is and then I realize she is alluding to Miss Arkansas and that Sara's boyfriend is my bosom buddy for life good ol' Nat Pflederer.
Meg is still smiling. She has her strawberry blonde hair pulled back so that her forehead looks like a renaissance canvas awaiting immortal brushstrokes. She is still smiling.
I think to myself again that I fucked up this morning.
I should have run with Meg this morning.
I should have gone out and ran my last full day of London. if nothing just to have fifteen minutes with Meg weaver's smile.
"I figure Harmony would have asked you? I mean, you guys are like..."
Meg pauses. I don't know what to say. I want to tell Meg that I don't know what we are. I want to tell Meg that as teenage-idle as it wounds we piratically made love on the phone last night by asking each other the respective positions of the others hand. I want to tell her that Harmony punctuated our phone conversation last night by promising me she would call me so that we could watch the sunrise together. I want to tell her that I have been haunted of images with her hanging out with a short-haired dapper lad from Bus 4 whom she might have abandoned me on the dance floor to tango with two nights earlier on the Thames.
For a second I want to pull Meg aside confidentially and ask her to verify what Baker told me earlier in the shift. If I was the vestigial guy friend. Emphasis on the friend.
"Yeah, she never asked me. I don't know why. I guess she thought that I wouldn't add much to the deep intellectual conversation, although I'm sure I can add more than Jennifer Flood or Nat's girl. Hell, the only thing Nat's girlfriend could possibly add is a puddle of tears."
Meg laughs. From behind me there is a jab. For a second I think it is security telling me that they surveyed me assisting Longhorn and Dimas foisting a bottle of port.
When I turn around it is Kazu, Harmony's friend.
"You know me?" Kazu says, She is smiling. I still can't figure out whose group Kazu is in. She is pointing at me. She touches me like we are playing freeze tag.
"Yeah I , remember you. We danced the other night. On the Thames." The only person I have seen Kazu hanging out with is Harmony and then she dissipates in molecules.
Kazu looks at me as if no one is in the room.
Kazu looks at me as if no one is in the room.
"You know me." Kazu adds again. She is smiling. Normally when I see Kazu she is hanging around Harmony only
"Do you know what group she is in?"
Meg looks back at me.
"Kazu?"
Meg looks at me as if I have just sneezed. At first she says bless you, in an innocuous manner that makes me cry
"No, Kazu?"
Meg looks at me as if I have just sneezed. At first she says bless you, in an innocuous manner that makes me cry
"No, Kazu?"
"Who?"
I point in he direction of Kazu. She seems to have been swallowed up in the glossy aisles of commerce.
"You know, Kazu. The Asian girl who doesn't speak much English. She's always hanging out with Harmony only I can't figure out what group she is in?"
Meg still looks confused. She is trying to take her shoe off in a motion that looks like she is stretching her calf muscles. She is adorable. I am look at Meg Weaver trng on a shoe the same way I looked at her as we ran through Hyde Park.
Sometimes I think that I can look at Meg Weaver forever.
I want to see Meg's countenance in the afternoon light. She tries on another shoe.
Sometimes I think that I can look at Meg Weaver forever.
I want to see Meg's countenance in the afternoon light. She tries on another shoe.
As I point again one a girl with strawberry hair that is Meg Weaver.
I wonder what it would have been like had it been Meg that I somehow met on the dance floor in lieu of the creature in which I am currently obsessed.
I wonder if I would have called Meg instead of Harmony if we would have flirted all night on the phone.
I wonder if she has a boyfriend.
I wonder if, in the vernacular of Dimas, Artemis as shit. I wonder if she is putting off transitory delights such as boys and dating remaining focused on other goals.
To find out who she is as a woman,
I look back at Meg Weaver, even though she doesn't see me,. She is trying on her show. She is shuffling her body just to see her smile on more time.
***
"It's just that, all of three weeks ago we were verbally consummating stifled vows of what seriously passes as adolescent ardor. It's just that you told me at the stroke of midnight that this was how you were anticipating spending your year. It's just that I saved up money to visit you. I saved up money because all I have rally thought about since the moment we said goodbye in JFK was somehow seeing you again. Was somehow holding you again. Was somehow kissing every facet of your anatomy."
Harmony remains silent. There is a still life with a bowl of moldy fruit tranquility.
She tells me that she doesn't know what to say.
She tells me that she finally met someone and that he doesn't live so far away.
She tells me that she is madly in love and that is what she wants.
I tell her she is only 18 and that she has never even voted.
***
That was really weird," He says to me, over the phone at 2 o'clock in the morning referencing the first time he has ever had sex with a man."
stating very simply that part of him didn't want to go through it. Stating that it felt weird. Stating that part of him even felt wrong in a way.
Although it needed to be done.
I wonder what it would have been like had it been Meg that I somehow met on the dance floor in lieu of the creature in which I am currently obsessed.
I wonder if I would have called Meg instead of Harmony if we would have flirted all night on the phone.
I wonder if she has a boyfriend.
I wonder if, in the vernacular of Dimas, Artemis as shit. I wonder if she is putting off transitory delights such as boys and dating remaining focused on other goals.
To find out who she is as a woman,
I look back at Meg Weaver, even though she doesn't see me,. She is trying on her show. She is shuffling her body just to see her smile on more time.
***
"It's just that, all of three weeks ago we were verbally consummating stifled vows of what seriously passes as adolescent ardor. It's just that you told me at the stroke of midnight that this was how you were anticipating spending your year. It's just that I saved up money to visit you. I saved up money because all I have rally thought about since the moment we said goodbye in JFK was somehow seeing you again. Was somehow holding you again. Was somehow kissing every facet of your anatomy."
Harmony remains silent. There is a still life with a bowl of moldy fruit tranquility.
She tells me that she doesn't know what to say.
She tells me that she finally met someone and that he doesn't live so far away.
She tells me that she is madly in love and that is what she wants.
I tell her she is only 18 and that she has never even voted.
***
That was really weird," He says to me, over the phone at 2 o'clock in the morning referencing the first time he has ever had sex with a man."
stating very simply that part of him didn't want to go through it. Stating that it felt weird. Stating that part of him even felt wrong in a way.
Although it needed to be done.
***
I am lost as I continue to waltz by myself under the hard lights of commerce that is Harrod's. I can still somehow smell Meg Weaver. I think about Rita in the dress she was holding beneath her chin like a sail. I think about the Artemis clan.
Try as hard as I may I can't stop thinking about Jill and her friend smiling trying on Lingerie.
In the music section I see Tamera.
I look at Tamera hovering in her trench coat. She looks like she doesn't have any legs.
“Hey,”I say.
Tamera says hey without moving her lips. Tamera has a habit of looking at her shoes every time she smiles. Tamera has worn her trench coat every day of this grip, often with socks and Birkenstock sandals. I remember how I harbored a vivid crush on her at the dance in Stratford-Upon-Avon. I remember how she told me she was seriously into late-60's folk music and I feigned naivete while pretending to be an authority on the subject.
Tamera says hey without moving her lips. Tamera has a habit of looking at her shoes every time she smiles. Tamera has worn her trench coat every day of this grip, often with socks and Birkenstock sandals. I remember how I harbored a vivid crush on her at the dance in Stratford-Upon-Avon. I remember how she told me she was seriously into late-60's folk music and I feigned naivete while pretending to be an authority on the subject.
“ If you
are looking for Peter, Paul and Mary you are looking in the wrong place. I saw
statues of all three of them inside ST. Paul’s a couple of hours ago.”
Tamera
smiles, She blushes. Her face looks like a sautéed cranberry when she blushes.
This is the first time in the trip I have seen Tamera by herself. She is
usually flanked by Sheila and Greta. This is the first time in the trip I have seen Tamera by herself.
“How come you’re not with Lynn Minton?”
Tamera's intellect is just plain ebullient. She is going to Harvard. I have no clue why she isn’t participating in a deep intellectual discussions with fellow members of our troop at this very moment.
“Well, your girlfriend asked me only I told her no.”
I am
shocked. It fails to phase me that Tamera alludes to Harmony as my girlfriend.
She is the first person I have met that has not wanted to participate in the
lecture.
“I mean Sheila and Greta are there…it’s just…” She pauses.
I am hanging on her every vowel like a cliffhanger.
“It’s
just that…it was sophomoric, you know? I don’t want to miss a day of this
tour just so I can interface with a lot of kids that I really don’t have that
much in common with. I mean, not that I don’t want to partake in a global
discussion on working-class socialism or see my face in PARADE."
In Britain
CD’s still come in the skinny packages that look like skyscrapers.
Aerosmith's new album was released just 24 hours earlier on 4-20 and has
a picture of a cow's udder pierced with an earring of punk. For reasons I can't
comprehend dual decades later I forget about Depeche Mode or the British group
with the most common last name plural in the United States that Mark states is
his favorite band of all time and zoom in on Tamera. Tamera is in the New Age section. Here, I say, holding up Enya.
“She looks
just like you.”
Tamera
blushes. She says it’s the haircut. She says she has heard that once or twice
in her lifetime before.
I
ask her what she is looking for. She says she is looking for PM Dawn that you
can’t get in the United States. She asks me what I am looking for. I forget
that I am searching for music from the bands I love After four
years of electronic idleness New Order has just released a single
synonymous with remorse whose cover is one-half paradise one half Armageddon.
“ I'm looking for something for my mom. It’s her birthday today. She has the same birthday as the Queen. I want to get my mom something nice.”
Tamera
smiles. I want to have a deep philosophical
discussion with Tamera. I want to ask her what she thinks that Harvard will be
like in the autumn. I want to ask her what it feels like to be touted as a bona
fide genius. To have a photographic memory.
“So, I
mean like, are you excited about going to Harvard next year? I mean, that’s
like the most prestigious college in the Unites States. I can’t imagine how
hard it is to vie and attend the school.”
Tamera
says yeah, outdrawn. She says that Harvard kind of came to her.
She
continues to flip through vertical cache of compact Discs.
"So I mean, its crazy in here. I mean, there's alot of mitochondria."
Tamera informs me that she isn't thinking about mitochondria today. She's thinking about Dendrites.
"Dendrites?" I say nonplussed, wonder if she is referencing the name
of a quasi-alternative band I have never heard of before.
Tamera says that its all about dendrites again.
"Dendrites?" I say so that the question mark in the middle of my eyes.
Tamera says, you know, dendrites, I nod, I don't know dendrites but Tamera does. I listen as Tamera gesticulates about neurons and synapses and axons. I am nodding. I am oblivious to any hint of her scholarly prowess.
"You know, dendrites, the branch-like nerves at the edge of every molecular cell in our brains that, in an almost quantum frisson, connecting with other cells. Every memory, every smile, every relationship enjoining on additional relationship is activated via a tree-branch dendrites sprouting out of every cell in our brain."
Somehow I can picture Tamera winning her state spelling bee when she, like, just graduated from Kindergarten.
I continue to nod. I have no clue what Tamera means about dendrites. I wonder if the school she attends a school where the teacher makes the subject he is teaching intriguing. I wonder if every teacher she has makes the world seem brand new, teeming with possibility. I think about my anatomy/physiology teacher cool JoeThomas who spends 45 minutes of each class period telling personal anecdotes then assigns us fifty pages to read. I wonder if the school she attends has a biology teacher who actually teaches.
I wonder if the teachers' she had in high school makes them want to learn about very formative facet of existence.
"Dendrites." I say to Tamera, trying to keep par in the conversation. Trying to sound like I am on her caliber of academic ebullience.
Tamera says the word Soma. She says the word Axon and references the bark to an oak. She is making the neurological x-ray of my brain looking like an arboretum beneath the soil.
I look around at music, bands I have never heard of before. London Suede. Black 47. I look at some more CDs. There is a new release batch. Midnight Oil. Digable Planets. Stereo Mc's. Apparently U2 has a new album out in a couple of months even though they are still on tour and Harrods is taking orders for it already. I have never met anyone as brilliant as Tamera. Or as cool as Mark..
She talking talking about synapses. She is talking about connections. I realize that Tamera is beyond brilliant. I have never met anyone going to Harvard before.
I can't understand why Lynn Minton wouldn't rallying for all she is worth to
give them an interview so that she can immortalize their ethos in print.
"I
mean if you think about that all this trip really is right now. It’s just some
memory we are creating so that neurons in our brain can relive the situation
over and over again. In fact, there are neurologists in JAMA who will seriously
debate the veracity of reality. "
"Dendrites."
Tamera nods. Her svelte bangs look as if her untaxed brain is sweating. She nods. For a moment this creature I met at Stratford trying to cajole her on the dance floor when Mark took a picture of us.
"It’s
all dendrites. Even this conversation right now. Everything we experience is a
neurological microscopic tree branch in our brain. We are pruning future
memories of this trip through this interface we are having right now."
Tamera sounds like Vinny for a second in she is talking about what we will purportedly remember about our sojourn twin decades from now.
Tamera is brilliant. I want to jerk off to a centerfold of her
brain.
It shocks
me that Tamera refers to this sojourn we are on as some sort of sociological
experiment. I am trying to find myself, if only momentarily, on the poetic
podium. I volley Tamera’s neurological observation back at her. I tell her that
I concur. I use the word concur. I try to sound as if I a attending some goddam
Nobel prize summit on climate change. I tell her that if you think about it
there’s really nothing more poignant than dendrites.
"If you
think about it when someone says the words I will remember you, you’ve made a
neurological covenant with this person that they have permanently transformed
the topography of your brain at even the most rudimentary level. The fabric of
your brain has physiologically changed because of a presence that was previous
unknown which, at a neurological level you made a vow to always remember
no matter what life throws at you.I mean, the next couple of days as we
separate from the Island and from each other we’re going t be saying goodbye a
lot and we are going to be saying things like ‘keep in touch.’ And “ I’m gonna
miss you’ and I’m sure all the Young couples are going to be crying at the
terminal planning some sort of adolescent road trip.”
I think
of Dawn Michelle when I speak with Tamera. I think of Dawn Michelle driving
around last summer with a mobile stereo in her car because her station wagon
didn’t have a tape deck and listening to Concrete Blonde and New Order.
"So you mean like, this conversation, may all be some sort of a neurological dream?"
I think
about Tamera. I think about what she is saying. I picture the molecular
dendrites as branches on the sweet gum tree in the front lawn of the only house
I have ever known.
I see trio from the Big Ten strut into the Music section.
Spin Doctor Kenny only I pretend not to see him.
Tamera is holding up a Cat Stevens CD and asking me if I have ever heard of him, stating that he is really into both his music and his faith.
As I leave Tamera and I can't help but think about Enya. I can't help and think about two years ago after Caribbean Blue came out when I was prepping for the Young Columbus, listening to Enya, in love, listening to Caribbean blue, standing in front of the full-length mirror in the Music room, the room which is now my bedroom reciting the speech that I felt would give me the globe. For years I have shuffled note cards, reciting lines dreaming of this place
I have found Enya. She is wearing an overcoat. She is coy. She would rather not flaunt her brain.
She is neurologically brilliant.
I look back and see Tamera again, by herself.
I can't help but smile.
***
I have just finished the bottle of champagne culled
from last New Years, the New years when at the ineluctable tic of midnight I
bump into my bookshelves. I keep quoting poetry to myself. I am quoting
Prufrock. I am quote Sylvia Plath. I wish I had another cheap Swischer sweet to
smoke. I wish I could waltz down the street to Lums and see everyone I love.
Tersely I think about Lisa Joy Katcher whom I made out with in Linda Martin’s van
weeks earlier.
I remember the first summer of knowing Harmony. How the Midwest was an over flooding slither, Mississippi morass. How I inspected the interior metallic palate of the mailbox every afternoon as is performing a dental checkup, waiting only to see Harmony’s handwriting addressed to me in white tongue, disconsolate, how there was nothing from her for almost a year, how I watched 1993 fizzie into late-night cable static always seeking some scent of her smile and how she was never there
and them suddenly, somehow, at the moment I needed her
most she appeared. Her voice coddled and mellifluous as if echoing from a
shell, as if spilling into every orifice of my body, how we were one for six
months, how we couldn’t stop writing, how we couldn’t stop conveying
I am crying. Every time I look into the mirror my
freshly christened 18 year old visage resemble a thoroughly menstruated beet—it
is red, I am stained with dried stalactite of tears. I am wishing the
everything I have ever touched on this planet was somehow different.
It took me three years to win the Young Columbus.
It has been just over two since I held her last.
I saunter into the upstairs bathroom.
I am Mark’s age. I am a poet. I am a writer. I am a
fossilized shell of everything I once was the summer of Dawn Michelle. Three
years ago where there was promise there is now only a bleeding void. There is a
hollowness that somehow is hickied to the center of my chest 24-7.There is
emptiness that hurts and bleeds all the time and the only way I can momentarily
assuage the hurt is if I sit down in front of a spiral notebook and piss out
everything inside of me with a pen in hand
Dad has already told me that he is writing Coach Ricca
a letter.
He is thanking Coach for his friendship.
He is apologizing for his son.
His only son who once had promise.
His only son who has lost everything in his chest he
has ever known.
****
On one floor of the sarcophagus there is a clock. The
dueling arms look like an emaciated male cheerleader performing a Victory
chant. I picture the neurons in my brain
being ants and the dendrites being licorice-coated glens. I can’t stop thinking
the rather Buddhist concept Tamera was alluding to that I have lived this exact
scene in my life over a hundred million times before, that everything is
phenomenologically regurgitated, that I am both the hero and the adversary, the
potent and the impecunious.
That I am here in this calculate blink of eternity.
As I scamper past into arteries of Harrods, past the reptilian-nippled Lacoste shirts and the vials of Burberry cologne. I pass as ad for UNITED COLORS OF BENNETON that is somehow commissioned for those who are optically colorblind and impaired stating that AIDS has no color. I pass an ad for Calvin Klein with the words ESCAPE brimming underneath it as if imprisoned. All the ads for clothes seem to feature models who just can’t wait to take them off.I pass an ad for a cologne that looks like a Star Trek Cocktail simply called JOOP! Which I will later learn to pronounce while not pronouncing the J. wandering back down the Egyptian escalator, hushing past accouterments and British mannequins wearing ascots like nautical nooses. I take a hard right and then reverse seeing that I am walking back into the direction of Booze den and the last thing I need if for the British Inquisition to be on my ass. I think about Dendrites. I think about maybe all this trip is nothing short of an agitated Dendrite. Perhaps I am on my death bed. Perhaps it is what I once read Timothy Leary talked about, the seven minutes where the heart is stopped yet the brain is still conscious. Perhaps I am experiencing all of what I experienced decades earlier in the dawn of my youth. A neurological soliloquy. A laser-light show of electrons extracting into neon fourth of July bouquets. For a second I swear that I see mannequins of Mark and Harmony and Jennifer Flood. I see a mannequin of Sam trying on an jacket that is two times too small for his girth stature.
I look at the mannequins and think about Mark in
Madame Tussuads standing statuesque in the penumbra of Prince Andrew and Fergie.
For a second it looks like everyone is frozen in Ralph Lauren attire and pastel polo shirts.
I am picturing the evaporating protons and neurons in my brain exploding like kernels in my grandmothers air popper on Friday night when she watches Dallas. I am reliving all off this. A random image, and for some reason I am reliving it over and over again. Perhaps I have been dead for hundreds of thousands of years and my corpse was discovered frozen next to a Mastodon. Perhaps I am a hirsute Cromagnon pygmy slowly being revived by a mutant scientist fueling neutrons, memories that are not my own into my frigid cerebellum.
It is Tamera and there are dendrites and it is Caribbean Blue. I am looking at myself two years ago in 8th grade in the full length mirror and I am rehearsing the antics of my speech that somehow will give me Paris. I am looking at myself rehearsing the speech and I my reflection is reeling me into the mirror. I am looking at my fifteen year old and I am imprisoned in my mirror. I am nothing more than a reflection verified by a string of physiological asseveration and movements.
I have no clue who I am.
I wonder if any of this is actually happening.
I wonder if I am already dead and the neurons and dendrites in my brain are exploding like fireworks exploding in an ovation of pomp and circuitous circumstance. I wonder if I somehow fell down on my paper route and I am having a dream and that Tamera is Enya and Mark is a passing classmate that I skirted next to in the hallway several times at Manual but who never said hello to me.
I wonder if the man I saw with a bottle of J & B scotch is really my beloved English teacher.
I wonder if Harmony was the waterfall of Treasure trolls I knocked over on my first date with Dawn Michelle.
I am trampling inside Harrods. There is no Mark. I hear a voice. It is Spin Doctor Kenny. He is holding several CD's under his arm. Justin is looking at his watch stating that we need to hurry up, Trevor said everyone meet back and that we have only 10 minutes
I gotta find something for my mom.
***
Two years later I keep photos from the trip in a red-album. There is the classic picture of the Big Ten. There is the one picture I snapped of Mark-Andrew wearing a Malcolm X t-shirt where Denis lassoed his arm around his shoulder even though I just wanted a picture of Mark to remember the trip. I see an awkward picture of Heath. I see picture's of the surrogate Big Tenner who was in Dan's group with the altar boy haircut who is the size of a telephone poll who just happened to appear in a third of my photos.
I see the picture of Justin I took when he was passed out on the bed, snoring.
I think about the VHS cartridge I received in the mail and the voice-over of my former Young Columbus brother stating that the one thing he misses the most are all the people he met.
With the exception of Mark and Harmony I have kept in touch with no other voyager of our tour.
No Sam. No Rita. No Daisy. No Greta or Sheila. No member of the infamous Big Ten even though I wrote Justin a very stream-of-consciousness Christmas card. No Trevor or Sir Charles. No Eagle Scout Josh or the incessant string of vulgarities emanating from the lips of Jim Baker.
No Spencer from Utah where only one kid in his school is not a Virgin.
No Polite Boy from Alabama.
No Chocotowhatchee Heather.
No Lois Lane.
No Vinny. No Rose No Longhorn and Dimas.
No Kazu.
No Rachel I mean Moran the Minx
No Meg Weaver who I promised I would go running with the next time I found myself in Bethlehem Pennsylvania
No Nat Pflederer, even though all he had to do to visit me to reminisce about our trip of a lifetime is drive across a bridge.
How I wish I would have written everyone on the trip a letter.
How I wish I would have told them that I was on the trip and, even if you don't remember me, I would kill to have correspondence with you. I would kill to hear about your dreams. About your ambitions.
About your loves.
About your feelings. About how crazy it was that we all found ourselves together for ten days of our collected lives. How we visited monuments over 2000 years old together. How we feasted together. How we didn't realize that the petals of our youth were wilting as we dance on the arteries of the Thames.
How I would sit down and write all of them. Even Nat. Even Jim Baker.
I would write them the way I would stay up all night write Harmony 10-page letters to Wiscomb avenue in Spokane Washington where I wanted to watch her smile as she cranks open the mailbox and looks down at the rectangular envelope and smiles.
How all I wanted to do every time I picked up a pen and skirted it across the page was to write something that would make her smile.
And now I am losing her even though she asked me to still come.
Even though she said if I wanted I could stand up at the altar of he only God I have ever known even though the deity is catholic.
She is getting married and she wants me to stand up with the party.
She just doesn't want me to make a vow.
She just doesn't want me to stand next to me and make promises.
She wants me to stand next to her.
Just not for eternity.
Not for eternity and beyond.
***
I wish I could find Mark, who for some reason I want to call by his middle name.
***
We are in the book section. So far this trip I have
purchased is a Depeche Mode tape unavailable
on the other side of the pond for myself. I have purchased the standard Hard
Rock Café London shirts for both my sisters.
I have bought miniature Knights for Tim and Patrick and a giant
Clydesdale looking Horseshoe with the word ENGLAND christened across the top for
Hale, I have purchased a box of tea for his mother Sandy.
I have purchased an official GUIDE for ten pounds at
every place we have stopped with the exception of Tower of London and the establishment we find ourselves in right now.
I still need something for my both parents. A souvenir. Something they can point at and show their friends during their weekly Bible study.
Something they can look at and smile and be proud.
Something they can look at and smile and be proud.
My Mother’s birthday is today.
I look at the books. My mom loves to Garden. There is a book that says Royal Gardens. It is a book elucidating the gardens of the royal families and Lords throughout
Chris who is holding something in his hand.
"Hey look Harry, that’s you."
Christ,
Hey listen I know this seems kind weird but you saw
Harmony this morning right?
Chris says yeah.
“She was dressed to kill. I mean. She had her tape-recorder
instrument. She actually looked really sexy. She was wearing a skirt."
Chris nods again. I should not be interrogating Chris. Chris who is from roommates state of stoic Nebraska. Chris who has always been indifferent yet cool. Chris who I still can't figure out who is roommate is although I have a tendency to think it is Sub-five minute miler Bryan from Alaska.
I am petitioning Chris in the middle of Harrod's even though I should not.
Chris nods again. I should not be interrogating Chris. Chris who is from roommates state of stoic Nebraska. Chris who has always been indifferent yet cool. Chris who I still can't figure out who is roommate is although I have a tendency to think it is Sub-five minute miler Bryan from Alaska.
I am petitioning Chris in the middle of Harrod's even though I should not.
"Who was she with?” I inquire again. I don’t want to
be the jealous boyfriend. Chris rolls his shoulder and says yighdunno, Hair, some guy.
“He was making her laugh a lot.”
“Like flirting laugh?”
Chris pauses for a minute and then contemplates with
his thumb and pointer finger on his chin.
“Yes. Flirting. They were definitely flirting.”
Chris says that sorry he has to be the one to tell me.
He says that it is probably no big deal.
Yeah, your right, no Big Deal.
“Chris points and says look. He says Harry. At first I think he is talking to me then I
realize he is pointing at a book of sheet music by Harry Connick Jr.
"Harry you should buy this. I mean, it looks like you
on the cover."
Chris says again that you should totally buy this
Harry.
Yeah, I say thinking for a second that I am Harry
Connick Jr. Thinking that I will start taking piano lessons again when I get
home and pay for them myself out of my paper route money. That perhaps I will start writing songs and singing them to people I love. That I will write a song about swinging in London. That I will write songs about the confusion I feel sometimes in high school. That I will write songs about the
That I will compose a song with jazzy staccato chords simply called Harmony.
That I will compose a song with jazzy staccato chords simply called Harmony.
Justin is chewing out his sentences stating that it is
time to go.
"Just a minute." I tell the Big Ten. As I bring the sheet music up to the check out altar I see a book displayed. It is touristy. It is hardcover and expensive, a quote Coffee table book. On the cover is a what looks like Blenheim Palace's illegitimate younger half. I casually flip through the botanical tome. It appears to be a book showcasing various upper-crusts gardens.
I am running low on pounds. I wish we would have won the skit noncompetitive last night
I step up to the counter and place the Harry Connick Jr. sheet music and the Royal Gardens book on the counter with aplomb.
Back in Peoria it is my mother's birthday. Back in Peoria the family will go to grandma and mt sisters will give mom home-made birthday cards blotted with glitter. Back home they will look at the dual itinerary reading Mom's copy pointing stating that today their only son will have seen the cathedral where Princess Di was married. He would be at Harrod's. He would be attending a Mideval banquet later on tonight.
Mom will be honest stating that one of the highlights of her birthday was when her son called her from overseas last night. The trip that the second year I endeavored to win where I was jousted by Karen Christmas I remember mom fasting my second endeavored to win this trip 8th grade, the second year I entered the contest, the year I refused to wear a tie and wore an albino turtleneck with a psychedelic sweater that looks like I would be telling Afrocentric jokes on IN LIVING COLOR. Back home they will meet at my Grandmother's table and they will pray. asking the only God they have ever known.
They are praying.
I am slapping my pockets. I reach in my back pocket laying down two British notes with a watercolor crest of the Queen. The cashier places my items in a coniferous green Harrods bag.
The bag looks like an elongated an helium-filled american dollar.
The Big Ten entered Harrods like they entered Blenheim Palace Like they are lost. Like hey feel more at home in a McDonalds or in a North American locker room espousing football stats.
The cashier hands me the bag. Justin looks down at his watch and states that it is time to go like now.
I step up to the counter and place the Harry Connick Jr. sheet music and the Royal Gardens book on the counter with aplomb.
Back in Peoria it is my mother's birthday. Back in Peoria the family will go to grandma and mt sisters will give mom home-made birthday cards blotted with glitter. Back home they will look at the dual itinerary reading Mom's copy pointing stating that today their only son will have seen the cathedral where Princess Di was married. He would be at Harrod's. He would be attending a Mideval banquet later on tonight.
Mom will be honest stating that one of the highlights of her birthday was when her son called her from overseas last night. The trip that the second year I endeavored to win where I was jousted by Karen Christmas I remember mom fasting my second endeavored to win this trip 8th grade, the second year I entered the contest, the year I refused to wear a tie and wore an albino turtleneck with a psychedelic sweater that looks like I would be telling Afrocentric jokes on IN LIVING COLOR. Back home they will meet at my Grandmother's table and they will pray. asking the only God they have ever known.
They are praying.
I am slapping my pockets. I reach in my back pocket laying down two British notes with a watercolor crest of the Queen. The cashier places my items in a coniferous green Harrods bag.
The bag looks like an elongated an helium-filled american dollar.
The Big Ten entered Harrods like they entered Blenheim Palace Like they are lost. Like hey feel more at home in a McDonalds or in a North American locker room espousing football stats.
The cashier hands me the bag. Justin looks down at his watch and states that it is time to go like now.
***
It will be almost a year from now but she will somehow come back to me. It will be after ten letters and an awkward phone conversation the date she appears in the magazine whose logo has paid for this experience. It will be after a letter she forgot to send that looks more like Business resume than a heartfelt ardent-pulsating personal letter.
It will be a year later and she will come back to me.
It will be a year later and I will be holding her
voice at this very moment.
It will be a year later and I will be holding her
right now.
***
Near the uppity-chinned British mannequin Trevor is counting heads. He is congratulating each of us for not breaking anything inside the store. He sounds as if we just had a good Little League practice. As if each of us hustled. We do the customary Big Ten shout our where each of us name a College we will never attend. Trevor starts reverting to his Little League parlance stating that he is proud of all you guys before Charles' interjects and says hey where's Jim followed followed by Jim's voice stating that he over here fuckers followed by Sir Charles mandating Jim not to curse in public.
Spencer is nowhere in sight. Jim is boasting that the reason he took so long exiting the establishment was because he was sniffing some serious panty-crotch in the lingerie section yo, a remark invoking another Jim, Comeon by Sir Charles. Eagle Scout Josh is by himself. He is holding the Harrod's bag in his fist. When Spin Doctor Kenny inquires what he purchased he says nothing before stating something for his grandmother back home.
I want to cough and say yeah, a $1500 unexpected Visa Bill only I refrain.
This is our last major stop. Our next outing is the Medieval banquet tonight. It will be our final gathering as a group. It will be our last dinner together.
It will be our goodbye.
Spencer is the last to arrive. He is walking with two different members of Daisy's group with Daisy lagging behind, looking forlorn. Looking forgotten. Looking lost. Looking as if she has just spent the last fifteen minutes in a spray of tears.
Cool Simone walks over to her and Daisy bats her away.
Both Trevor and Charles are looking around counting heads again. Charles is stating that once we get back to the Gloucester it is a good idea to start packing so that we don't feel rushed after the Banquet. Trevor reverts back to his Little League Coach of the year parlance. He tells us to do a double sweep of the room.
Near Bus #4 I see Tamera. She is walking by herself. Next to Tamera I see the kid from eastern MO outside of Mark's bus who purportedly lost his wallet and doesn't want to divulge his shopping experience.
Spencer starts doing an imitation of Trevor and Charles being Stratler and Waldorf from the Muppets. As if Trevor and Sir Charles were nothing more than moribund ol' patrons carelessly critiquing everything reeled in front of them from the burgundy lip of an all seeing balcony.
Now I can see the mercurial jester that is Spencer.
For a second I realize that this is the funniest parody he has done the entire trip.
For a second I can't help but laugh. For a second I am noticing the way the light of London washes through the doors of commerce. For a second I am seeing Spencer.
The girls' flanked next to him erupt in a stream of laughter.
I am laughing too.
I laugh so hard I snort.
Baker looks back at me as we are exiting the building.
"Careful, Harry. You sound just like your girlfriend."
I act like I am going to hit Baker. My fist wielded above my shoulder like an old testament sling.I see Sir Charles looking at me in my direction. His lips are clasped into a simultaneous hyphen.
I pause mid-stride, my knuckles the the size a second trimester fetus.
I take a breath.
Jim is looking at me like he expected me to let loose. I am laughing with the Big Ten. Through the chaos and histrionics whatever the Big Ten is, I am somehow a part of this raucous adolescent enclave.
Jim is performing a jig.
Jim tells me now to laugh. He tells me I snort. He calls me Hair. He tells me Hia when you laugh you sound just like a pregnant sow.
***
It is fourteen months later and I am kissing Harmony
in front of the Eiffle Tower. She is the size of my thumb. She has a picture
that was taken at Olin Mills with a very Lynn Minton assenting bad perm. Her nose and face is almost painfully reminiscent of a honey-bottle shaped from the likeness of a plastic bear.
I am in Paris and I am holding Harmony.
I am in Paris and I am staying at a youth hostel with
cute Italian girls, the progeny of Plutarch and Boccaccio. I am in Paris and the erect phallus is in
front of me as I am looking at Harmony. As I am kissing her forehead again. As
I am thinking about the celestial chimes emanating from stereo as I rehearsed the
speech over and over again.
I am in Paris and I think about the placard that my
father students made me stating Hello Paris for the first Young Columbus even
though the contest was cancelled due to the fitst Gulf war.
I am in Paris and throughout the whole trip I am
pulling a Mark-Andrew and leaving the group in search of my Doc Martens
I am in Paris and I swear I have seen Karen Christmas
maybe twice.
Her hair, looking like the French sun making out with
a boll of hay over the burgundy dales.
I am in Paris and for a moment there is no Morrissey.
There is no Reality Bites. There is no smoking cigarettes at One World Coffee
and Cargo just to look cool.
There is no pregnancy. No feeling of failure. No
sexual ambiguity.
There is no Jenn Wilson.
In this moment I am back in Europe. A trip I have
worked for all my life.
I am under the Eiffel tower, the architectural
exclamatory mark that Maupassant couldn’t stand to see as he wrote about
Parisian society so he ate lunch on the second floor every day.
The sun is hitting me. The French language sounds like
a oratorio of birds chirping Vivaldi.
For one moment I am in Europe and I am holding Harmony.
For one moment both Harmony and Europe are mine.
I am in Paris and I am kissing Harmony.
I am in Paris and after four years this is somehow all
I have wanted.
I am in Paris and she is here and somehow this is all
I ever wanted.
All I ever wanted is everything that is offered in this moment that is now.
***
In front of the bus there is Vivian. She is holding her Umbrella up. Red coats begin clotting around her in various syncopation. She is holding her umbrella up as if it is an unknown clef signature to sheet music unknown to man.
It is Vivian and she is in her mid-forties. It is Vivian and she is ravishing.
She smiles. She greets each of us individually with a benevolent nod. She asks each of us how was our Royal shopping expereince.
I think about how graceful Vivian was reciting a poem she wrote specifically for the event at skit night less than 24 hours ago. I am looking for Rita. I wonder if she bought the dress she was holding up to her body like a shadow. From the edge of my periphery I see Jill and her Italian friend walk beneath the eyelids of the green awning laughing, each holding a miniature bag overflowing with diaphanous tissue the nature of such contents I can only wildly speculate what might be inside.
Daisy still looks like she is crying. Loverboy Nat is giving 8th graders his hotel room number even though they are not repeating it twice or writing it down.
Outside bus #4 I see Mark outside already waiting. He is wearing sunglasses.
I look at my mentor.
He looks disgruntled.
“Can you believe it they kicked me out? And they were
following me from the moment I entered the store.”
I think about Longhorn and Dimas. I wonder if they ever got caught with the bottle of Port. I wonder if they would get in trouble if I would tell Trevor and Sir Charles about their kleptomaniac skills.
I wonder at this point in the trip if anything really matters at all.
I think about Longhorn and Dimas. I wonder if they ever got caught with the bottle of Port. I wonder if they would get in trouble if I would tell Trevor and Sir Charles about their kleptomaniac skills.
I wonder at this point in the trip if anything really matters at all.
"I walked out the side and then when I tried to re-enter the Harrod's police or whatever they pawn themselves off of wouldn’t let me re-enter and started talking about my shorts. He was adamant and infuriating. I was like, 'I got these shorts form the Banana Republic at an outlet mall in
Dallas when I went to visit my brother last summer. They tried thinking I was
some sort of a thief. Tried frisking me and everything and then asked me to
leave. Which I did. Dennis and Matt followed me.'"
Mark is a bad ass. My eyes are wide. I ask him if he got in
trouble with his counselor. I ask him where he went once he got exiled from the
world’s largest department store for his daily choice of attire.Mark shrugs. He then smiles at me the way he has smiled at me since I met him at Newark.
He smile at me like we have somehow known each other all our lives.
"The three of us just walked around a bit. In a way it was
nice not to be so heavily chaperoned."
The sun seems to drip and form splotches and drunken triangles against the outside
of Harrods. For a second it is spring and for a second everything is golden. I am looking at Mark and it is occurring to me that this trip is evanescent. That the itinerary of this trip is echoing the preordained itinerary of life--that for a second we find ourselves clad in a red coat of consciousness ensconced in a bubble of strangers and architecture and sunsets and arcana and anvil-heavy longing and for the next second we are not here.
We are gone.
I look at Mark, I met the first day on a shuttle bus on Newark who I swear looked familiar, who I swear looked exactly like a kid named Jacob Simeon who plays Soccer at the high school I attend who I now realize looks nothing like that at all,
That somehow I have known Mark all my life.
That now it occurs to me although I can almost give two-shits about the Big Ten, I wonder if after tomorrow I will ever see Mark again.
That I don't want to leave the brother I have found.
That I don't want to leave Mark.
Overhead the sporadic clouds are blotched splotches of ermine. Overhead it is youth and everything is brand new. Overhead I am in high school and the entire Parade cadre are my classmates and we are on a field trip and we are all one inside each other until the end of time.
Mark smiles back at me. For a second he is looking sad. His facial expression conveying exactly what I am feeling in my chest at this moment. Like the collective consciousness of the group as a whole is somehow being evinced in the subtle movements of his lips.
We are gone.
I look at Mark, I met the first day on a shuttle bus on Newark who I swear looked familiar, who I swear looked exactly like a kid named Jacob Simeon who plays Soccer at the high school I attend who I now realize looks nothing like that at all,
That somehow I have known Mark all my life.
That now it occurs to me although I can almost give two-shits about the Big Ten, I wonder if after tomorrow I will ever see Mark again.
That I don't want to leave the brother I have found.
That I don't want to leave Mark.
Overhead the sporadic clouds are blotched splotches of ermine. Overhead it is youth and everything is brand new. Overhead I am in high school and the entire Parade cadre are my classmates and we are on a field trip and we are all one inside each other until the end of time.
Mark smiles back at me. For a second he is looking sad. His facial expression conveying exactly what I am feeling in my chest at this moment. Like the collective consciousness of the group as a whole is somehow being evinced in the subtle movements of his lips.
“We actually went into a pub. The three of us all got served
with no problem.”
I asked him what he drank.
“Scotch,” he replies back with a smile. “I asked for a whiskey
sour but they pretty much just made me a scotch on the rocks so I drank three
of them before we had to meet the tour bus back outside Harrods."
I have never been inside a bar. I inquire how British pubs
are different from American bars.
Mark looks back at me and smiles. He tells me that he
doesn’t know. That most American bars he’s been inside had a proclivity to card
him.
He uses the word proclivity.
Mark, the coolest human being I have ever met.
It is time for the Bus ride home.
Big Ten give it up.
It is time for the Bus ride home.
Big Ten give it up.
Give it up indeed.
his chapter is long (ouch) and (watch out for a Jane Austen pending Dear reader) was arduous to write since, in mid-composition,, dear reader, I lost my brother Mark Andrew Feaster, whose friendship and time we spent together is featured prominently in the text. Mark was a fan of the novel, did a fair amount of individual research, would chide me about the length it took to piss out chapters, of which he received the first link the moment they were posted. The plan was initially was to travel back to Britain with Mark once the book was completed and carouse through the labyrinthine avenues of London imbibing cask ale like there was no t'morrow on the banks of the Thames....I miss Mark everyday but (as this novel I hope displays) remember every solitary moment I spent with him, even 23 years ago....in this chapter the protagonist ambles around Harrod's department store (neurologically) while Mark gets exiled from Harrod's for wearing emerald-flavored Doc Martens with skimsy banana-colored shorts.... Love ya MA!!! God rest the distilled immortality of your soul....
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