Per our itinerary lunch that day is split. Buses # 1 and 4 will eat a potato pub called the King's Head. The other two buses will eat at a place called Sturdy Castle. We are eating at the King's Head, a pub that serves cask ale and has engravings on the side of the wall dating from the last 1700s. It is a potato bar. Trevor comes around with a notepad in the back of the Bus, Big Ten territory, inquiring what we would like on our potato for lunch so he can place the order when we arrive.Years later I would have loaded it up with domed cathedrals of sour cream, a gratuitous offering of olives, chives, grazed bolls of shredded cheese, dollops of melted butter. I would have asked for tomatoes and flecks of bacon. But instead, being young and culinary unfledged, my palette accustomed to the bland potluck-pinched of Lutheran cooking I ask simply for salt. Trevor looks at me and offers out a simple shrug as if letting go of something he never once possessed in the steeples of his shoulders.
We are en route to Oxford which is all of fifteen minutes away and then London.
The Big Ten sits as one. Everyone is inquiring about the romantic status of Spencer and Daisy. The potatoes are the size of lettuce heads. I am the only one out of group who eats the skin. Only buses # 1 and 4 stopped at the Kings Head so I have no chance of floating into Harmony or Rita during lunch.
From across the room I see Mark. I excuse myself and say hello.
"You're not going to believe this." Mark says, holding a drink that looks like flat 7-up in his hand looking both ways.
“I was just at the bar asking for a refill and he asked me
what I was drinking and I said scotch and water and then I got served.” Mark
holds the glass up in front of his face as if scrutinizing organ chimes before
taking a swig.
His beret is just fucking cool.
Part of me wishes I would have loaded up my potato more.
Part of me is pissed that Harmony’s bus dined at the opposing pub and that I
didn’t get a chance to espy the scent of her smile over nearsighted calculated
chomps. Part of me wonders what scotch
would taste like, remembering how Mr. Reents’ always told the class that when
he drinks he prefers to guzzle scotch.
Mark takes another swig making no effort to conceal the
libation inside his glass. Goal number two of the handout rules that could land
you isolated and confined on the discipline bus for the day is that we are
prohibited from drinking or sampling alcoholic beverages.
I ask Mark what he thought about the architecture of
Blenheim palace. Mark says that he
thinks it’s the coolest thing on the trip so far. He uses the word righteous.
“I mean, David man, the architecture. I just wanted to move into a closet and spend the rest of my days there.”
Next to Mark Dennis comes over and slaps his hand on Mark's
shoulder and says hello. The
intellectual titans are seated at a long table three rows down. Part of me is addled and wants to be social
and walk up to cool hippie Greta and naively inquire if being a vegetarian, she
ate the well-flooded potato today as well. Tamara and Rose sit next to
her. As does Sheila the artist and Rachel.
For reasons I can’t evince into the grainy salt of my vocabulary I never seem
to discern that we have already left the interior comfort of our first hotel
and that the trip is half over. That this diminutive oak pub outside of Oxford christens
the halfway point for the European sojourn that has been my sole aspiration
since puberty.
Mark takes another healthy swig. He uses the word culture
and talks about a style of art I have never heard before referencing the
interior of the building we just left. From behind me I can hear Trevor mandate
that Big Ten should give it up. Since the disco no one has been saying the name
of the Big Ten school they are affiliated with but occasionally Spencer still
says the word Ohio in a nonplussed fashion.
The trip is half-over. We board bus number one with the rest
of the fellow plebeians. Justin asks me what cool Mark was drinking. I smile.
Our bus pulls out through thick vats of earl-grey mist.
We are headed to Oxford and then we are headed to London and
then we are headed for all of eternity.
Outside it continues to rain.
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