Thursday, 11:33 am, July 12, 2012
“McCail, lunch. Time to wake, honey… Mac?”
Surfacing out of his three-hour sleep, he asks, “what did you say?”
“The captain said we’ll be there after lunch.”
“Lunch, what happened to breakfast?”
“We ate that hours ago.”
“Oh. That’s right. Are we home yet?”
“Yes dear, in about two weeks. We’re on vacation, remember?”
“Two weeks?” He adjusts his chair forward. “We’ve been on this damn’ plane that long. Shit. This is torture! Where’s the stewardess?”
“What do you expect her to do?” asks Ann.
At thirty-eight thousand feet over the Atlantic and six hundred miles from the coastline of England, Ann McClary and her husband McCail, are enduring a long flight. Impatient to arrive in the British Isles, she has prodded him awake.
Landing starts their fourteen-day vacation. They will roam the English countryside for seven days before heading to Greece for their second week. She has dreamt of doing this for years. While he, on the other hand, has been sleeping, dreaming about the winter of 1962.
Traveling to England, or anywhere for that matter, never sat well with him, in fact it rattles his cage. A deep and lasting fear of the unknown holds him to a daily routine. Traveling out with his familiar environment only brings anxiety. Right now he is very anxious and everyone had better stay out of his way. Meanwhile, touchdown is over two hours away on this non-stop flight from Los Angeles to Heathrow.
“Stewardess, can I have another magazine? Or is there nothing else to do besides sleep or watch Kung Fu movies on this flying tin can?” he protests. He’s in a first class seat and that’s another annoyance, as 12 B is not 12A, which is by the window, and Ann won the right to sit in by a toss of a coin.
“Oh, I am sorry, sir.” Is the stewardess’s insincere reply, “you’ve just missed the fashion show in the rear compartment!”
‘What a bitch.’ He watches her turn on her heels to fetch his magazine.
This leaves Kym Jade’s serving cart unattended. Kym with green eyes and auburn hair, who can shoot down more egos than Prince Charles does birds in the pheasant season and she only needs a few simple words.
Kym’s thoughts are on McCail. Evidently being fed three fine meals in first class along with a host of other treats is not enough for some passengers!
“What are you doing?” asks Ann.
“Give it a rest Ann!” Snaps McCail, as he grabs another handful of nuts.
“Give it a rest, yourself Mister! It’s really embarrassing, you know; the way you always grab all the free stuff within your reach. Why do you do that?”
Her question goes unanswered, but troubles his conscience, nevertheless.
“Say, Jade,” whispers a co-worker from behind the galley curtain, “there’s a man going through your cart.”
Kym peers from behind the curtain and checks it out. “Oh him! He’s been acting like an arsehole the whole trip. I hope he gets gut rot. Those nuts are off. They’re out of date. He can guzzle as many as he likes and get as sick as a dog for all I care. It’ll serve him right, the arsehole!” Her eyes become slits as she stares at him.
“Kym, I know that look. You’re up to something. What is it?” whispers another stewardess.
“What? Oh! I was thinking about Carl in customs. I’ll get him to take care of this swine when we land. Get him to put this sod through the mill, give him a full body search and up there as well! I’ll mark him down as a drunkard too! That’ll fix him good and proper!”
A few of the other passengers, on seeing McCail’s actions, turn away in disgust. A small boy, sitting all alone, interrupts McCail’s unbridled rummaging by loudly clearing his throat. Sensing the boy’s eyes on him, McCail turns and shoots a: ‘what do you want, kid stare. A budding opportunist himself, the boy returns the stare with a ‘gimme a bag of nuts or I’ll scream glower. That wins, and McCail hands over a bag of peanuts, which he only does after a short tug-of-war and mumbling, “You little shit!”
Stealing, or by his way of it, having the right to possess ten to fifteen bags of airline peanuts, he considers only justice, having paid dearly for his ride in the sky. After earning all those travel miles by spending tens of thousands of dollars over the years he reckons, if it isn’t nailed down, it’s mine!
“Sir, I’m terribly sorry, but we’re out of magazines. Can I offer you some nuts instead?” asks Jade.
“Certainly, oh and, by the way, the service on this plane sucks!”
Embarrassed, Ann turns away and seeks refuge in the passing clouds.
“I’m sorry, sir if we have failed to meet with your expectations. We have a form you can fill out if you wish to complain officially.” McCail clears his throat and makes no further comment. “Have another pillow then, sir. If I have shown you a lack of attention, I apologize. Once we land I’ll make sure you’re given the royal treatment. In the meantime, do you wish more nuts? She reaches into her cart, “or would you like this book to read instead?”
“Don’t think this makes up for anything, if I take it. What’s it about? I can’t see. My glasses are stowed away.”
“Then sir, if I may ask. Why do you ask for a magazine? For its pictures perhaps?”
“Just give me the book.”
“A bestseller. Look, it’s even been autographed.” Beams the stewardess.
“Alright already. Okay, I’ll take it.”
Ann looks across at the title and picture of the writer, and it’s Kym Jade! Kym’s and Ann’s eyes meet and they laugh. Ann gives her a wink and nod of approval.
The landing is smooth and cheers and sigh’s abounded as the pilot applies the brakes.
“Thanks for traveling Pan American. I hope you enjoy your stay in England.”
At debarkation, McCail takes everything he can, including his pillow, which he clutches like a teddy bear, along with the book. He has yet to see the title: “Traveling with Asses”, and oblivious to their joke, he walks with Ann down the ramp and into a fast moving crowd.
Positions in this race for the outside world forever change as all passengers charge down a stuffy corridor like buffalo. McCail like a drum major on crack takes the lead, but is soon overtaken by a group of youth. Everyone knew the rules. The slow will be trampled and left behind, without exception, as this stream of passengers pushes along the hallway in a wild non-stop drive toward the exit and freedom. However, in this Exodus, there is no Moses, no Prophet, and no clue. Instead, there is a primal instinct to walk toward the shiny thing that seemed to be a sign or a door.
Some had hoped that by following one another on this carpeted footpath the end would appear. What fools! Muscular atrophy and rumpled clothing walk the narrow halls in clumsy unison while the hopes of freedom lay just beyond; but is freedom an illusion? The only thing beyond is just another sign telling them, ‘this way suckers.’
“There is an end, right Ann?”
Disgruntled voices bounce against the walls like angry tumbleweeds’ as a destination looms out on the horizon or past the horizon-no one is sure. Some stayed occupied conversing about the weather, others curse it.
“Feels like we’re walking to England, Ann. Hope we’re following someone smart. This hallway is like the twilight zone.”
Seasoned travelers plant one foot in front of the others and know better than to look up, knowing the end could only be reached by walking like zombies for just one more step, and then another. Corners, are a rarity where hopes are planted, and then dashed once reached, in an overlapping deja`vu of another hallway.
“How are you doing Ann, want me to take your pack?” says McCail, a smile sneaking to the surface.
“No, I’m okay.”
The crowd moves along to the piped in music of a Van Morrison song. Like used candles the interior walls and flooring are showing signs of use. An estimated seventy-thousand passenger’s prance all over Heathrow each day and by its looks, they all had goats.
But things are beginning to turn as money begins to pour into England. It is in this particular summer that the winds of change have begun and take on the heat of a dragon’s breath, also warming the moods of Londoner’s. People were beginning to prosper with tourism on the rise.
It is the hottest place in all of Europe. France is still as cold as its population’s reputation, and Italy’s warm waters are still a bit cool as tomato’s with melons, like Sophia and Gina, anxiously waited with bikinis in hand for the sun to appear ,while the Spanish city of Barcelona is being besieged by gay linguists.
England is the new hot spot, Night life flourishes.
An assortment of souvenir patches cover the backpack of an elderly Swedish woman who walks like fire down the long corridors ahead of all others, thanking those who move. “Tack so meken.”
The young for the most part keep a bounce in their stride and tennis shoes are still the preference of both the young, and old. Jackets once worn are now carried in reaction to the humid weather, while buttons on shirts and blouses are loosened. Some of the elderly are picked up by swift moving carts, while others refuse and soon become roadblocks, boulders, in this flow of humanity, but finally the end is in sight and it isn’t all that much of a comfort.
A small room holds groups of thirty, like packed pickles, as the failure of deodorants becomes apparent. Groups are sorted out by who goes where, and after a flushing of that batch, another group is injected following the same process. Ann and McCail are lucky and make it out on the third bus heading toward customs. The hours of cramped legs and sour looks of dread is coming to an end.
Warm rain pelts the windows of their bus.
“Welcome to England or is it Jamaica?” says the driver with unruly hair, speaking over his shoulder to his closest passengers, Ann and McCail. “It’s not to me liking at all. This is the queerest weather I’ve ever seen.”
The backlot of Heathrow is a beehive, filled with worker ants wearing shorts and exposing white sun starved skin. Transparent to the eyes and white, like Casper the ghost, these albino worker ants move about in a sea of motion with some taking corners on two wheels.
A hurried place where drivers have the apathy of baby-sitters, using horns in quick bursts, to either say, ‘hello’ or ‘go to hell bugger,’ as a giant game of chicken between vehicles and pedestrians is played out on this twisting roller-coaster ride.
Their bus comes to a stop.
“Boy, am I ever glad that’s over. Talk about a ride from hell. Ann, I think I’m going to barf.”
No one is there to greet them. Not that they expected anyone as the two westerners out of Ventura, California, plough their naïve way through a battery of customs agents and corridors of closed doors, a hand stops McCail at the last checkpoint.
“Excuse me sir. Will you step to the side and follow me.”
McCail looks around at Ann who was still at the counter and shrugs his shoulders. Her eyes follow him till he is out of sight.
“What’s this about?” McCail asked.
“Just follow me sir.” said the customs agent who walks with a brisk step.
It isn’t a long walk. The hallway is just off the customs area, and is patrolled by unapproachable men, men with guns, big guns.
The room is small, just big enough for a desk, three chairs and a bright green table. A cloak rack stands off in the corner where the agent tosses his hat.
“Sir. Sorry for this slight delay, I insure you this will only take a few moments if you cooperate. My name is Carl. Your passport seems in order sir, but you seemed somewhat nervous in line. We have a duty to the public to detain people of suspicion.”
“Suspicious? Of what?” says McCail, set to walk he moves one step closer to the door.
Carl moves to block his exit. All five-feet of him takes a stance like a pit bull.
McCail looks at him and notices just a hint of lavender rouge and two small ruby studs embedded in each ear.
“It means sir, that we, you and I, that is, are going to get to the bottom of what’s making you so nervous. It’s my job to leave nothing uncovered, leaving nothing hidden.”
“You must be kidding? Uncover what? I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“Good! Then let’s get on with it.”
“Shit!”
From the first moment McCail’s buckle hits the floor, it is off and running with a nonstop parade of instructions and poses.
“Now the socks, sir. Place it alongside your pants and shoes.”
“Do you have to watch, so closely? Aren’t you the least bit ashamed?”
“No. It’s my job, sir.”
Stares from the two occupants, hold and take different stances. McCail, standing in one corner is beyond pissed, approaching outer space, while Carl sits watching and directing, his passions aflame.
The door opens and a old woman with sagging stockings and cropped platinum hair, walks in and begins speaking. “Oh, sorry Carl. I didn’t know you had a guest.” She then walks over and whispers in Carl’s ear and walks out. Carl follows locking the door from the outside.
McCail stands firm like a statue, his boxers wrinkled and worn, staring at blank walls.
“Carl here. Oh hi Jade, how was your flight? Good, good. What’s that luv? What’s the name? McCail? He’s in me office now. Not to worry, his rudeness will be dealt with.” Carl hangs up the phone then places a do-not-disturb sign on the door handle.
A night at a horse opera would come closest to describing the sounds which pour through the walls. Notes meant for farm critters, jitter-ed through McCail’s teeth like a herd of donkeys at daybreak.
By the time Carl is done McCail’s rump is packed to captivity, yet void of jewels or weapons or anything else for that matter.
“You may go.”
McCail’s walk back to Ann is slow and uncomfortable, although his stride and pride pick up once he sees Ann, seated near an exit. He almost makes it to her, when he hears a somewhat familiar voice ring out, “stop, sir. Stop!” It is the customs agent out of breath and running.
McCail stops, dropping his head.
“You forgot your belt, sir.”
Standing tall and towering over the agent, McCail yanks his belt from the man’s grip and proceeds on his way.
“You know, Ann, that guy strip-searched me big time, and enjoyed it!”
“Why shouldn’t he? I always do.”
“That’s not funny, Ann. You don’t know the half of what I had to go through and that little bastard ripped my pillow to shreds in the bargain. Why the hell would he do that?”
Once outside, his spleen still vents on the air. “Shit! We left home for this muggy crap?”
He dabs his face and throat with his handkerchief and wipes it over a small, round, onyx medallion sweat-pasted to his chest. It was the last gift he received from his father before he died. He has worn it for the past fifteen years, despite having an aversion to men’s jewelry. His father had found it in Scotland back in 1947 while traveling there as an archaeologist.
Now they stand waiting for a cab amidst the chaotic antics of other harried travelers. They wait as long as they did in the customs line. Behind them a newsstand displays the latest headline: ‘Caribbean Heat Wave Hits UK.’
“I knew it would be hot, Ann, but this is unbearable.”
“Behave yourself, will you! We’ll get used to the weather soon enough. Once we get to our room, you’ll be fine. You can have a nice cool shower. Say! I can’t believe we’re actually here!” rejoices Ann as she prances about in delight.
“I can’t either. It’s like a bloody nightmare.”
She stops and frowns. “Wait here, dear. I’ll be right back. I need the bathroom.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Ann! Can’t it wait?”
“No it can’t! Stay right there. I won’t be long. See you in a bit.”
“Yeah, right! Not long. I’ll bet.” is his sarcastic reply. She never returns, “In a bit.” But he’s a teddy bear deep down and says. “Take care, darling, won’t you. Love you.”
Smiling, she responds, “Yeah, I know you do.”
The distant thrill and roar of Niagara Falls is nineteen years in the past for them, and the passion it engendered equally so. Exactly when that happened they do not know, but it did.
This decided Ann, although her partner reluctantly agreed, to set out on a quest that would spice up their lives by venturing into the unknown while traveling as sophisticated backpackers. Their itinerary is not planned, adding to the mystery and excitement. With no timetable or hotel bookings, other than a bed and breakfast outside London, they will take each day as it comes, sampling new tastes and odd places as they chance upon them on their journey through England all the way to the Scottish Highlands by rental car.
Or so they planned.
Anxiety rules McCail. He is afraid of everything not within his control. Yet he is about to learn anxiety is his friend, trying to whisper to his soul.
