I want to fall asleep with the breath of her voice in my ears.
Throughout our conversation Justin keeps turning at me and scowling, telling me
that people over on this side of the room and actually trying to get some sleep
around here so that they can enjoy the trip tomorrow. I am floating on the
cumulus of her voice. I am cartwheeling into the overture of her sentences. She
is apologizing profusely about last night. Janelle La Flaneur even gets on the phone
for a second and says sorry before stating that Harmony is taking off her
shirt. There are giggles. She is thanking me for calling. I want to speak with
her the entire night. I want to hold her close to my ear, avowing promises of
lunar immortality punctuated by the triumphant rising of the London sun.
Midway through the conversation there is a pause. Harmony
tells me to wait one minute. There is another pause. It sounds like there are
additional voices in the room. Perhaps Janelle La Flaneur’s in-trip boyfriend is
paying her a visit. There is a rustle.
The digital clock next to the bed reads 11:24. It is 5:24 in Peoria. My family is seated at the table, bowing their heads in prayer before supper.
Outside a breeze is kicking in
through the window granting the drapes a wraith like appearance.
Even though she is not on the phone I can hear that
she is laughing. A minute passes. When her voice comes back on Harmony is still
laughing.
“Hey, can I call you back in like five minutes,” She says. I nod. I hang up the phone. Next to Justin’s bed are a pack of Fig Newtons and his bible. I walk over to the window and lose myself in the ribbons of air exhaling in from the city street. There is always noise. A black taxi appears to be skidding past. Human beings with pink and green hair carousing in groups of threes and fours skirting between pubs. Laughing.
Justin appears to be out for the count. Ten minutes have inspired and the phone has not yet volleyed back a nasal ring. Outside of the hallway someone presumably from Dandelion Lorelia's group yelps out, 'Gross, Jim' in a high-pitched squeal. I pick up the
phone and dial Harmony’s number again. It is busy. I am confused. Perhaps she
is trying to call me at the same time. I go over to the window again basking in
the succinct chill of the city at night. London feels different. It feels safe yet
exudes a metropolitan vivacity and industrial girth. There is always movement.
For the second night in a row my phone conversations with Harmony is not what I
inwardly imagined it to be. Thirty minutes
have eclipsed since Harmony punctuated our phone conversation in a string of
giggles requesting that I call her back. I pace around the room from the phone to the
bed to the window. At the window one of the Victorian townhouses directly
across the street I see slender feminine-heron shadows waltzing from window to window
like REM eyelids and think about the college girls back home. I wonder what
Harmony looks like naked. I wonder what she looks like with her jeans
handcuffed around the caps of her honceycomb knees when she goes to the
bathroom, or, in Britain, the WC. I walk over to the bed. Justin is once again
drooling saliva on his pillow. I want to stand at the window and urinate on
Brompton avenue below only that would be subjecting myself to the puerile level
of the Big Ten.
Instead I pick up the phone again. It has been an
hour. I punch in her number with my thumb. In the receiver I can hear the phone
drill several times like a defibrillated siren. The dial tone in England always
sounds like the phone is about ready to sneeze. On the sixth ring there is a
voice.
It is Janelle La Flaneur..
“Hey, yeah, this is David. I was wondering if I might speak
with Harmony.”
Janelle says uhm. She says hold on. I hear laughter
on the opposite end of the phone followed by silence. It seems obvious that La Flaneur has the palm of her hand stamped against the receiver. I am waiting again. Two minutes
passes when Flood picks up the phone.
“Uhm, Harmony can’t talk right now. She’s in thee-uh- shower.”
I feel like I am getting spoonfed a ploy. I want to
say something on Janelle La Flaneur caliber. I want to tell Jennifer Flood that
there was really no reason for Harmony to get into the shower unless she wanted
to cool down since I was already making her soaking wet, so wet that if she tilts
her head and looks up her panties are sticking to the ceiling. Instead I
refrain,
“Well, can you tell her I called,” I reply, meekly.
“Yeah, I’ll tell her you called but she likes to take
really long showers and it’s getting late so I’m guessing she probably won’t
want to talk with you once she gets out. She’ll probably just want to go
straight to bed.”
Janelle adds a colloquial you-know-Harmony.
I want to tell her that I don’t. I am naïve. I tell her that part of the reason that I am calling is because I would like to know her better.
I hear more voices behind Janelle La Flaneur. Harmony is a
sophomore and is eight months older than I am. Janelle La Flaneur is a junior. It
seems like whatever substratum of friends I seem to fall into on this trip it
is like I am always the leper. I can’t connect with the Big Ten. I can’t get
along with Harmony’s group.
“Okay, well, just tell her I called then.
Janelle says yeah in lieu of saying goodbye. There is
a bellowing click followed by a tandem snore one bed over. I can’t understand
why I am so drawn to Harmony. I can’t understand why every time is seems that
we are close she emotionally evaporates.
It is almost one a.m. I walk over to the window.
Without thinking I am whip out the fleshy scepter of my virility wedging it out
the side of the window. Above me is The Union Jack next to the American Flag. I
look behind me, not wanting Justin to wake up for fear he would tattle amongst
my peers’ in the Big Ten that I was dry humping the London zephyr. I can feel
the breeze French kiss the bottom of my testicles. I am urinating. I want to
get Harmony out of my system.
The last time I pissed in public was the day before I
entered high school and I was at the cannon in Glen oak Lagoon and had just
broken up with Dawn Michelle even though I could have easily gone all the way
with Tina who is now pregnant. I was saying goodbye to the greatest summer of
my life and could not fathom that I would be in London come half a years’ time.
My urine is forming vertical-nylon peninsula down the slope
of the Gloucester. A stalactite. A harlequin’s tear.
I zip up and head back to bed. I call Harmony’s number
one more time. After one ring I press down on the receiver until the phone
drones into nothingness. I then place the phone on my chest like a dead swallow,
click my light off above my bed, telling myself again and again and again that
I am in London.
I am in London.
That this is where it all somehow begins.
No comments:
Post a Comment