Warwick is a Mottes and Baily castle, deemed so because it engulfs and swallows the interior courtyard (Baily) spilled across the vertiginous dales of electric British-countryside green which could pass as a pretty serious manicured PGA golf course in width, the motte itself being the mound of earth in which the castle itself was constructed. The crenelated parapets seem to rise like some sort of fist riddled with machiolations which Vivian will tell us are little orifices that those protecting the castles could use to drop stones and quicklime and scalding fluid on pending attackers below. Vivian points with her umbrella and tells us to do note the structure of the enjoining battlements. Spencer and Jim Baker are making little charge signs with their hands as if preparing medieval reconnaissance work. Vivian points and asks us if any members of our group are familiar with the architectural term ‘Barbican’ before informing a group of vacant stares that a Barbican is the gate house used to protect the entrance to the original castle. I wonder if Harmony’s group has already penetrated the Barbican and is wading aimlessly inside the interior of the grounds. I wonder if she is thinking about me. One of the younger kids state that there is no way this castle could survive a modern day attack with a B-52 bomber and guns and shit. Every five steps a different crimson coated member of our cadre squints one eye wile holding their camera vertical up to the lid of the opposite eye and lets go of a snap.
I can still taste Harmony’s breath on my neck as we enter the castle, tasting like the scent of a lilac in spring.
As we enter are swallowed into Warwick by what passes for the tongue of a drawbridge. Analogies to He-Man and Castle Grayshull are all but inevitable to those who feasted on afternoon cartoons in the early 80’s. Ahead there is a courtyard with the most gnawing high-pitched shrill I have ever heard.
“I see the peacock has decided to join us.” Vivian notes
I look ahead, I see a plumage of oriental fans with legs walking with a jutted neck. As is as inevitable as the Grayskull analogies Jim makes it incumbent upon himself to break down the etymology of the word Peacock for the group as a whole, warranting a knock-it-off look from Sir Charles. No one seems to care much about Vivan or what she says. She is perhaps Mid-fortish. She looks just inexhaustibly well read. When Vivian mentions that the castle was originally constituted by William The conqueror I go crazy. I think about Coach Mann world History, the one class back in good old Peoria Illinois I truly excel at. Coach Mann who I saw in the back seat at Lastof the Mohicans crying. Coach Mann who has always treated me with deference and respect even though all my other cohorts from Christ Lutheran treat him like a senile dotard.
I raise my hand. The only thing raised is Vivian’s umbrella.
“I know William the Conqueror. Sometimes he’s even called William the Bastard. He was born in France and then pretty much christened the British Isle for his own playground.”
Vivian is smiling. Her smile is reminiscent of Greta's. Little streaks of lavender seem to emanate out from the side f other dimples when she smiles.
“Well done.”
I want to stand up on an imaginary soapbox and tell them all about Coach Mann. I want to tell them how he told me to envision my competitors and judges in their underwear when I gave my speech to win. I think about Harmony in bra and panties. I think about Daisy and Southern Rose form last night in their bra and panties. It seems like half the girls I meet on this trip are named after some sort of flower.
When I turn around we are following Vivian. Both Kenny and Justin are laughing. Jim is pointing.
“Bastard. Harry called the dude who built this place a bastard.”
The weather is old mayonnaise gray. I cogitate mentally that back home at this very moment seven times zones in reverse Dad is walking up to each mortgaged abode and placing newspapers in their front doors. The bulk of the red coats are in front of us and entering the part of the castle. Vivian informs us that we are going to have a walk through the stately interior vectors of the building and then be given some free time to walk around the grounds and go to the gift shop.
It is a dream world and I am floating. Spencer is the Jester
who somehow can’t stop talking about mass celibacy in the state where certain
countries have laws legitimizing polygamy. Jim Baker is dressed as Henry the 8th,
walking around with what looks like an erectile flaccid beanie on the top of
his head.
I am floating. I can feel her. She is near.
We are stuttering from turret to turret. The village looks like
it was used as a backdrop culled from Safety Dance. I can feel her. She is
near.
The swanky New York Photographer is orchestrating his hands.
He is wondering if he might get a picture of the BIG TEN as a whole on top of
one of the Turrets. He has us stand in two rows. Because it is a serious picture
I place my glasses on. Trevor has to look around several times in the direction
of Spencer and Jim and say guys, come on.
I am floating. I am
seeking the creature from last night. It feels like I am the digitalized
protagonist in a video game. It feels like I have no volition over the
movements of my own limbs. It feels like I am wading through a labyrinth of
time emitting little bleeps and plops, occasionally digesting a mushroom that
will empower me with an extra life in this blinked-realm of being.
The Big Ten have just learned the word Codpiece. It is England.
I swear from the tower I see the golden tresses of Karen Christmases hair float
down twenty feet like Rapunzel. I am looking for her. She is a mermaid. She has
musical-clef shaped gills. She also has wings and a halo pissing in conical
domes of white light. I am looking for the girl I couldn’t see in the lobby
this morning. I am looking for the succulent seraph. We scour through the
dungeon. We see a representation of Waxed dignitaries courtesy of Madame
Tussuads. We pass other groups. For the first time the entire trip Amarillo TX
girl refrains from attacking collars but perhaps this is because everyone YOUNG
COLUMBUS already has an Amarillo Texas pin affixed to the collected red of
their attire. I am floating. Room for Room We see a giant
porridge pot looking as if it were usurped from the first scene of MacBeth and Trevor
and several other counselors somehow heave the cauldron up in the air and start doing aerial keg
stands.
Both Chris and Justin are dressed as Butlers ferrying silver
platters answering to the moniker of Jeeves.
The camera man is doing backflips.
Brian with the Blonde hair from Alaska who has the fastest mile
time known to man bobs his head to invisible reggae. When I challenge him to race a full mile
around the circumference of Warwick castle he responds to me an jou and mon donning a very perfect English cool vegetarian Gretaesque psychedelic
bandana on his head like he is part of a motorcycle gang, tossing a copy of the
unabridged O.E.D. in my direction overhead, from atop of the Barican , asking
me jou, mon what’s jou story. Spencer keeps referring to
his roommate from MT. as Bank. Even in the dreamworld he is not speaking. No
one in the Big Ten knows anything about him other than he is what Spencer
refers to as his roomy.
No one knows his real name.
I can feel her feralous scent. I want to enter her body the way
I skidded and elbow-moshed while entering the din of the dancefloor last night.
I want to see the light change seasons across the topography of her face. I
want to hold her close. I want to kiss her forehead in front of the Counselor with
the Southern accent.
There is no sign of Mark. The fastest miler on the planet
keeps inquiring what my story is and for some reason I am looking for Mark in
which to tell it. I see him hiding behind the pristine shale of Oliver Cromwell’s
death mask, located in the room with the armor, the room where the Knights who
look like they should be planted over Western on Jumer’s, overlooking the
bullets of the sothside and starting to move in jilted fragments. I swear they
cough. Oliver Cromwell is wearing a Suzanne Vega shirt on his Deathbed and I
walk up to mark and flick him the way I flicked a local in Stratford the first jetlagged-leg
of the trip later fearing I would be deporting. The second I flick
Oliver-Cromwell’s forehead in breaks in an avalanche of marble clods and I see
her. It is like I am seeing Harmony from behind. She is making reference to
Home Alone and the Kenosha Kickers. She is telling me that I don’t have to look
because everything I have ever wanted it already here. Justin, still attired in
Butler prom-tuxedo with tales gets down on his knees and starts praying.
Spencer has somehow located a pogo-stick and when he is not calling Banky Banky
again reiterates the story about being from uptight Utah and how he goes to one
of the premier schools in the state and how there are 2000 kids in his class there
is only one in the entire academy who is not a virgin and hey, aren’t you one.
The armor in the room begins locking oily elbows. They are starting to dance in
heavy aluminum clanks. They are doing the Charleston. They are safety-dancing.
They are why-em-see-aying. They lock
elbows like the Rockets and begin to kick in oily precision in unison. I swear
I see Patrick McReynolds blowing into a Limestone rocket whistle like a drill sergeant
informing the armory that now it is time to do the hookey pokey and give the
bitch a kid as a prelude to the meaning of life. The girl behind Oliver
Cromwell’s mask has the prettiest face I have ever seen. She is gentle. Her
hair is dripping. I am calling her Harmony while convincing myself that it
Harmony even though she is saying no, she is saying that she has been here the
entire time although I have never seen her.
I am walking into what looks like the giftshop and Nat Pflederer is front
of me. He looks at me. He tells me excuse you. He is walking with a blonde
haired girl. He says excuse you.
He walks away.
I pick up a miniature Knight.
“Harry?” Justin says to me.
Harry.
The gift shop inside Warwick castle contains the same overpriced touristy bric-a-brac as every other collective souvenir gift shop the tour has frequented since Oxford Common. There are Clydesdale horseshoe’s that say the words ENGLAND over the ledge of the top like the entrance to some covert hoity-toity Oxford Equestrian club for lads, there are miniature knights which looks like the side armored warrior steepeld to the side of Jumers back home , over looking the imminent AA clinic and the shingleless panorama of the south side. There are t-shirts heralding the name of various local Rugby teams as well as more touristy grandma shirts that announce the name of the country we are currently in. There are heaps and heaps of rectangular boxes configured in tetris-like stack claiming to be “authentic” British tea. The rest stops like these are germane to every souvenir shop in England.
I think about the bulk of the accumulated 300 I have brought with me to spend on gifts and snacks and the for some-reason-I-feel-overtly-compelled-to-purchase an official guide for every place we stop.The gift shop in Warwick castle, not far from the wax museum display of the presented by Madame Tussauds chronicling the life of
I decide to purchase relics of the knight for both Tim and for Patrick. 16 years and a lifetime later it pains me to think that I bought the crescent horseshoe for Hale. Had I purchased the Knight, it would still be regaling on the mantle of his bar still today.
My vision has been screaming to fall into the pond of Harmony’s presence, for the sight of her acorn limbs to hold and waltz into my own peripheral view, for us to somehow hold each other outside of the din of the dance floor and for us to still, somehow, connect. As if I arrived at the Moat of Warwick castle mainly to rescue the evaporated scent of 12 hours past, her body.
I have not seen her at the breakfast or in the lobby or anywhere around the contours of the castle I am holding the miniature Knight like an best-supporting actor Oscar. I am looking up when I see her, as inscrutably as she blinked out of being last night she is in front of my vision in this moment in time, on the fourth day of our trip.
The last day of time.
***
Holding the dual Knights I strut over to her, inquiring simply one question.
“Hi,” I say, “Yo’re Harmony.”
She is smiling. Like Tamara she looks down when she smiles. But unlike Tamara, she looks up right away and then smiles back.
She says hello. I ask her how she enjoyed Warwick castle. She nods
She tells me that she still can’t wait to see Windsor.
“I remember doing current events in junior high when there was a fire at Windsor and out History teacher turned on CNN and we watched the incineration as it bloomed in a corsage of flames.”
I smile and say yes. I then say we delivered it in the newspaper the next day that the rest of the world read about it. She smiles. She looks at the miniature knight I am holding in my hand as if she is looking at me mounted over a medieval urinal and disappointed in the lack of jousting armor.
I tell her it is souvenirs for back home. She says oh.
I tell her anyway.
“I had a really good time at the dance last night. I really enjoyed dancing with you.”
Harmony smiles and does the whole look down look back up thing. I keep on with the Anyway.
“Anyway, I was wondering if I could call you. Y’know, t’night when we are back at the hotel or something. Like after dinner. I was wondering if perhaps you could give me your room number and I could give you a call.”
Harmony smiles, her cheek-bones forming honey-flavored parenthesis.
I begin to stutter. I tell her that I mean, if its no big deal or anything.
She shakes her head cosigning no again. She is wearing pants today. Jeans. She is wearing a turtle neck under her red parade jacket.
She gives me the three digits of her hotel room. I tell her I will call her at nine. She smiles.
Part of me wants to convey to her just how perfect it felt holding her last night. Part of me wants to spill out that part of my chest where somehow we usurped that moment.
She is smiling. I make a little vertical-protruding thumb and pinkie 'chill-out' sign with my hand informing her that, okay I will call her tonight.
She smiles.
She is smiling. I make a little vertical-protruding thumb and pinkie 'chill-out' sign with my hand informing her that, okay I will call her tonight.
She smiles.
There is Big Ten give it up. It is time to leave the souvenir shop. I pay for the two statues of diminutive knights. I buy a box of British tea for Sandy Hale. For some reason I find a silver horseshoe that looks like it would fit a Budweiser Clydedale with the words ENGLAND festooned across the bridge that I think David Hale would love along with a Warwick Castle official tour book.
We are leaving Warwick castle. We are walking to the bus as one.
As we work our way back to Stratford-upon-Avon for a moment the sun diffracts through the lens of the bus, splintering off into a series of joists before dissipating behind an occluding bulb of gray once again.
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