Tower of London (Sunday, silent and grey)

The minute I leave Mark the clouds start plowing across the upside down canvas mattress of the sky . They arrive in rows.  Clouds are skirting heavily across the top of the city we have embraced. We are headed for the Tower of London. The London Marathon is still transpiring. I see Charles. He waves at me. So far I am the only member of the Big Ten to seriously interface with fellow Young Columbians outside my group. 

It is Hyde park. Unbeknownst to everyone on the tour it is Sunday and we are at Speakers Corner. People are on overturned milk-crates. They are preaching. They are wailing their arms as if conducting their own private symphony.  Around each soapbox are a cluttered group of pedestrians, nodding, assenting, disagreeing, yelping in jest. Trevor notes about the eccentric people we met in the hotel last night and warns us with a blessing of caution.

Idling on a soapbox is a middle-aged man wearing glasses. He seems well read. He has a receding hairline. He is holding his bible in front of him as if it is a hymnal. He is British. His accent sounds like sonnets every time he punctuates each sentence.

He is talking about Hell and damnation. He is talking about God being a loving God and saving him from the evils of Hell fire by being saved. He is stating that the only way he was saved was through full immersion baptism.

He is talking about eternity lasing forever and how mankind, with all our foibles, has a hard time fathoming that concept now, don't we. He takes out a match and burns his hand with it. He says that the hurt he endured from his tenth of a second burn is what he would endure for 100^th thousand to 100^th thousand year ad infinitum and even beyond, days after day submerged in the fiery morass of flames, pain beyond the notion of human comprehension had he not accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and savior.

Christ is the only way to salvation. Not Buddha. Not Mohammad. Not New Age John Denver Not some religion I have never heard of before that starts with a B. Not Joseph Smith. Not the religion of Materialism. Only Christ and Christ’s love for his church."

Spencer is silent. The last time he was this silent was after he was dancing with Daisy. Spencer can't go two seconds without stating that he is a Mormon from some swanky middle-class high school in Utah where there is only one kid who is not a virgin. The man on the soap box is still preaching. He is saying that it is only through Christ's true church can one avoid the evils and damnation of hell fire.

It is only through Christ that one can be saved.

                                                           

          

As we arrive at the Tower of London we see the Marathon. It is a mass of bodies, a malleable blob crossing Tower Bridge in huffs and droves. Vivian notes that the leaders passed by the spot about an hour earlier and apparently its been rumored that they had quite an exciting finish. As the runners pass Jim makes it an excessive point and says look, you can see their pork-sausages bobbing in the center of those flimsy little shorts.

I tell Jim to shut up.

The tower looks like Warwick castle only half melted. Perhaps it is the marathon. Perhaps it is the first day being somewhere new, the creepy eye-brow verisimilitude of the statues in Madame Tuassauds notarizing a permanence of the flesh that will invariably fail or the youthful catharsis that in one week from now all of this will somehow be gone. That we will back coddled in the geometry of our parents’ domicile in the US, severely jetlagged garnering an adolescent calculus of the past two weeks realizing that everything that we were once somehow a part of is now gone, floated through impenetrable fortress of  heavy-tea bag clouds, dissolved.

Perhaps it is just the weather, overcast, shards of misty taupe, the group is restless.

Perhaps it is just the fact that the Big Ten still hasn't toned it down.

   No one  pays attention as Vivian gesticulates with the wand of her umbrella stating that the Tower of London has been in almost perennial use for over 900 years.

Jim points at the staid faced British guard ferrying an M-16 and comments how those are those type of guards that never move. Jim says that he wonders if he goes and stands next to the British guard and moons him if he would do anything.

The building is a bastion  of  British history. It is intractable. Somehow a cobbled float of clouds the color of the Tower of London has descended upon us.

We are swallowed whole.

I am looking for Harmony. I can still feel her scattered breath on the phone from last night before she, once again, seemed to dissipate into her own oxygen. Directly outside the tower the marathon is forming a river of runners. Judging from the pace they are middle-aged amateur 8 minute per mile athletes. I want to run along with them.

 I want to abandon the group and just run.

Jim is making farting sounds. Spencer still has a quizzical look sewn into the bridge of his lips like he is pondering the essence of eschatology. The rest of the Big Ten is restless. When I turn to Bryan from Alaska who can purportedly run a sub-five minute mile with ease and inquire if the marathon makes him feel like running he says not really. Every time I ask fellow track-star short distance sprinter and roommate Justin if he wants to go running in the morning he responds by stating that the only thing his coach told him to do was to see Madame Tussauds and eat at Flannagans, one of which he has already done.

 Josh still hasn’t told me if they are planning for certain on running tomorrow morning. He can’t go two seconds without stopping to remind everyone that it is skit night rehearsal at the hotel after dinner tonight.

Vivian is talking about the ravens being permanent inhabitants. She mentions Henry the VIII and Anne Boleyn. It occurs to me that Jim would look just like Henry the 8^th if he would gain fifty pounds, don a beard and tights.  Behind me I see Mark. There are three groups clustered around his tour guide who yelled at me while counting the RollRight stones. The tour guide who resembles John Major. The tour guide who looks like he has a perennial case of the runs and has a habit of tilting his head inquiring why North American Youth can't find his anecdotes more entertaining.

Rarely do run into Mark twice in the same day.

Mark is restless as well. Denis is next to him. Even Sheila and Tamera the intellectual incumbent Ivy league savant look bored to tears.

Mark is standing away from his group while John Major makes windshield wiper motions with his arms..

“You alright, bro?”

“This sucks,” Mark notes, “It’s like I’m in a history class.  We’re in London. We should be allowed to experience the city. “

I nod my head.

“It’s just like a history lesson here. I wish they would just let us go out and experience the city on our own rather than lecturing at us like we are in a seventh grade geography bee."

I nod. It seems like all these excessive tours followed in succession has been getting to the group as a whole.

“We’ve been listening this tour guide talk none stop for the past week. It’s like I’m stranded in 7^th hour world history for remedial monad pleabs.”

I have no clue what Mark is saying but it sounds cool. I see Greta the Vegetarian next to Rose and Sheila. I give Tamara a little wave.

“I’m totally gonna ditch  this. This is vapid. What are they gonna do? Send me home.”

I nod. Trevor is looking at me pointing that my vector of the tour group is headed a different direction than Mark’s group.

“I gotta go.” I tell him, dragging behind my group like a disoriented caboose.

Mark tells me that he will see me back at the hotel if he doesn’t ditch those whole tour thing first. We are headed in the direction of one of the skulking towers that looks like a protesting fist. When I look back I see that Mark’s group is moving in a different direction only Mark is staying behind, straggling, becoming statuesque once again, like how he was at Madame Tussuads earlier this morning.

He ambles away from the group on his own towards the back, like the tail of a crimson comet.

It is like he doesn’t want to be a part of the tour anymore.

It is like he doesn’t want to be here.

 Tour guide John Major is still pontificating.  Mark is slinking away from the group. Ahead Vivian is obviating our attention to the Beefeaters. I am trying to listen. I look at the Beefeater and realize that he is the same name and costume as the figure adorning the bottle of the gin my cool call-it step grandfather uses to mix his martinis with in Chicago.

“This is actually kind of cool.” I tell Jim Baker.

Vivian is talking about how becoming a Beefeater is different from being a Bobby or  stoic-countenanced guard. She is saying that once you are a Beefeater you are in a fraternity for life.

“Quite right. They even have their own pub and living quarters exclusively inside the tower of London.

Vivian talks about the ceremony of the Keys. She talks about how each Beefeater must have a minimum of 22 years service to the crown. She states that Beefeaters' today are in charge of Guarding the crown Jewels.

“Crown Jewels,” Jim says, as if he is on to something. I tell Jim to chill.

“Hey Harry, that fat girl you are always trying to get on, I’m sure she’d love to be your beef-eater.”

I scowl back in his direction Charles has padded Jim on the shoulder and inform him that that is enough.

"Beefeater Harry. That fat girl you are always macking on, she wants to be your Beefeater."

                                                                          ***

We visit the Crown Jewels being warned ahead of time that there is to be no camera allowed in the museum and any film will inevitably be confiscated. A net above the entrance shows rolls of confiscated film, many with what appear to be Japanese labels etched on them. Purportedly they even kicked Vinny out of the tower for filming a Coldstream guard without the prior uppity chin-nodding consent of the Queen.  There is another tour group of students in front of us who Vivian has slammed as being french, claiming they are obnoxious, deeming them as rude, asking out loud if they have any manners at all by saying the word at tall.

As we enter the crown jewels museum.Baker can't seem to go two seconds without mumbling the word testicle.Vivian is commenting how the jewels are priceless, estimated value reaching up to the 100 million pounds or about. We look at several crowns. Orbs. A diamond which is referred to as a brilliant. In the back of the museum there is a rack of armor armor. Vivian again talks about the sloven-antics of the preceding group, mentioning a hurry up several times. As we exit the jewel house she  points out several tour groups stating they are completely inept for feeding the pigeons they must be french.

The French are beautiful. I can't stop staring at them.


 It sounds like they are singing in an Lenten mass every time they speak. Their sentences are an oceanic purr. It is mellifluous. I am taken back to last summer when I was in Madame Breton classroom, lost in the nasal echo of Andrea who sat in front of me. I am getting an A in Madame Suhr’s French class at Manual but still I feel I would have a hard time communicating tete-a-tete so to speak.

They are French. They are beautiful. Each of the girls has hair that isn’t exactly black and isn’t brown but looks gilded when the sun occasionally stretches its chin out from the cobbled cumulus of overhead clouds.

Next to the confetti spatter of pigeons is the prettiest  girl I have ever seen.

She has olive skin and autumnal flavored hair.

I can’t stop looking at the girl. I am taking a picture of her and filing her in the cabinets of the limbic system of my brain. I am promising myself that I will remember her forever.

I can’t understand the innate British disdain for the French. Perhaps it has something to do with Waterloo or inbred monarchy.The french are beautiful. Their language is ravishing and beautiful.
 I wish I could contort my mouth in the oblique angles while music shrills out of my body in all directions communicating oratorio of sound in a latticed-stream of enjoined sentences.There are several jokes transpiring about how the French pre-photo bomb pictures, just like the lanky boy with altar-boy haircut who is a BIG TENer is waiting seems to appear in half of mine. I am youthfully enraptured by the distant optical waft of the french girl.

The most beautiful girl I have ever seen.

Dan the future rabbi is having a conversation with her solely en francais. This is the second time in public Dan has felt the need to practice his French. Whatever he is saying to the French girls in their native tongue is making them blush. For some reason when Dan the future Rabbi speaks en francais as he holds his right hand up at shoulder length forming what looks like the petals to a fortune cookie when he speaks.

She is giggling at me. Her visage is angular and looks like it could be scraped from a coin of antiquity, a granite-riddled Pompeii nickel. It sounds like  she is tuning up for Mahler's 4th symphony  as she is communicating with Dan.

I look at her an smile. She looks down, brushed an errant strand of hair back from the Normandy of her forehead.

Dan is motioning something so the girls. He then makes a charade-party game motion like he is asking them to take their pictures. The girls blush. As he snaps several shots several other french girls who are not in the group seem to sprout out of nowhere to get included into the shot.
.
Dan points at me. It sounds like he is speaking while chewing gummy worms,  all the while making knitting-motions with his hands.He wants me to divulge in small talk with the girls, use the french I have learned in the past year, the language I am in love with, the language I am a purported savant in fluency.

The girl with with Olive skin is ravishing. She is biting down on her bottom lip. Her eyes are welded ajar as if she is giving me chest a sonogram only to discern the outlines of her own face.

I am trying to communicate. I am Jim La pelting. I am saluting. I am stating the word Quest'-ce que like it is an abbreviation on the New York Stock exchange. Dan is looking at me like I am a failure.  Like he thought I was planning on leading everyone in the  a rendition of La Marseillaise before dinner. The french girl is waiting. Vivian is still nagging instructing the french to move on.  From ahead I can hear what passes as the Prettiest French girl of all time tour instructor beckoning them to do so.

I am looking down into my shoes as if they need to be re-laced before looking up again.

"Hey," I say. Very fifteen year old. Very Demurely.

She pirouettes a commiserating smile. He friends are pushing her in the opposite direction. She is looking at me and blinking. I am endeavoring to communicate with her. I am endeavoring to tell her about the consummated vow I christened in the sentimental fifteen year old Nintendo honeymoon suite of my chest.

I am trying to evince to her that I will never forget her,

She is being reeled away from me. She says Au Revoir, She is smiling. She looks at me for one feels like a still-life eternity, the same eternity that the bloke on the soapbox in Hyde park was preaching,  
he is saying goodbye while I am saying hello yet we are saying both at the same time, she blinks her eyes like a Turkish fan before swiveling around and following her group.

She is gone.


Outside the marathoners are passing us in front of the Tower of London. Many are running for charities. People are tossing pounds at them as if they have just entered weight watchers.They are dressed in funny outfits. There are clowns. There are dinosaurs. One is dressed as a urinal. They exit Tower Bridge and are heading for finish line near Big Ben.

From a passing the Tower of London looks like a cement snarl. It matches the color of the overcast day.

There has been no sightings of Harmony since she eavpaorted into the receiver of the phone line again last night. I am forcing myself to concentrate succinctly on every facet of the french girl so that I might no forget her as in ever.Vivian is orienting our attention, digressing, talking about the difference between Tower Bridge and London Bridge which I'm sure you are all familiar with the nursery rhyme but no one seems to be paying attention at all.

At tall.

It is our first day in London.

                                               

Everything is grey.