We Depart

The next day, we awoke and prepared everything for our departure.

Back home, my friends and I would go camping once a year. And, every year, I would borrow a sleeping bag from one of them, and spend an hour and a half trying to force the thing back into its sleeve at the end of the trip.

As I stood in the middle of the room, looking at everyone else’s neatly-packed-away bag, and then at my own still-splayed-out-and-torn heap of blue fabric, I had flashbacks to about seven camping trips, wrestling with sleeping bags while my friends trekked down to the cliffs to hurl rocks into the lake. (We were easily amused.)

It seemed that I had improved since the last camping trip, as it only took me twenty minutes of swearing and sweating profusely to pack away the bag. It didn’t look pretty at all—a quarter of the bag still hung out of the sleeve like a limp noodle—but the damn thing was packed away. I walked into the living room, took the tea that was offered to me, and sat down with a sigh.

The Traveler, always the charming and pleasant one out of the group, thanked the Germans for having us around. He said that our flats were open to them any time—Canterbury, he further said, may not have been the most metropolitan of places, but some times, people need a bit of country to soothe the soul.

I stared at him, wondering how a person could be so talkative and so damn eloquent in the morning. It wasn’t fair.

Anyway, we all stood up and hugged. Nothing makes friends faster than crashing in someone’s house, going drinking with them, and then somehow traipsing out to Wales on accident.

I hugged Dee. She said, “Bye, loverman.”

“You’re not going to tell me what happened, are you?”

She smiled and said, “Nope.”

I nodded and shrugged. It’s fairly easy to resign oneself to ignorance.

We picked up all our stuff (which was quite minimal), said goodbye again, and walked out of the flat down to the car. The Traveler unlocked it, we put our bags in the boot, and got in.

“Son of a bitch,” said The Drunkard, getting into the back. “I forgot that you can actually spread yourself out back here.”

I followed suit. “No kidding.”

The Student popped the front seat into place, sat down, and said, “Honestly, I just want to get back to Canterbury, head to the Sub-Pope’s Flock, and have a pint.”

“First thing after getting back from a trip?” asked The Traveler as he got into the driver’s seat. “You’re turning British on us, aren’t you?”

The Student shrugged. “It’s a relaxing place, isn’t it?”

“What,” said The Drunkard, “this wasn’t a relaxing trip?”

“We did get attacked by Welsh nationalists.”

The Drunkard snorted. “You kidding me? We could’ve taken them.”

The Traveler started up the car and drove out onto the road. “How do you figure?”

“Dunno,” said The Drunkard. “But we could’ve.”

“Huh?” asked The Student. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Americans,” said The Drunkard, putting on a gruff voice, “love a fight. We love to win. Frankly, I feel sorry fo—”

“Shut up,” said The Student. He grabbed a CD from the sleeve of our mixes, tossed it in the player, and the opening bars of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Suite played out of the speakers in the car. The Traveler drove us out onto the main road and towards the M-2.

“Oh come on,” said The Drunkard. He flung his head back on the headrest. “You’re wanting to play Vi-fucking-valdi on a car trip? Have you no knowledge of how these things go?”

“Oh,” said The Student, “God forbid that we have something pleasant to listen to on the trip instead of trash.”

“My music isn’t trash, you plebian,” responded The Drunkard. “It is as much of a musical entity than your precious Spring suite.”

“How? How is that possible? One of your songs is thirty seconds of cacophony brutalizing blues scales in such a way that makes any sane person yearn for the sweet embrace of death.”

“Melodramatic, much?”

“Go—”

“Punchbug green!” I shouted, bashing The Drunkard in the shoulder as a green VW Beetle drove past.

The Drunkard winced, glared at me, and said, “It is on, motherfucker. You shall rue the day.”

The Traveler looked at us through the rearview mirror as we pulled onto the M-2. “You are aware that Beetles are much less common over here than they are in the States.”

“Yes,” The Drunkard and I said in unison.

“Thus,” said The Traveler, “you will be vainly staring out of your windows for the two and a half hours we’re on the road.”

“Yup,” we responded, turning to our windows and peeling our eyes open.

“Just making sure,” he said. He turned the volume up and skipped to the last part of the Summer suite.

Alas, for the rest of the trip, we only saw one other Beetle. And, of course, it was on The Drunkard’s side of the car. He yelled, “Punchbug red!” cackled maniacally, and hit me so hard that my right shoulder was numb for three days. I learned right then never to play a car trip game with a grown man. But, aside from being semi-injured, the trip was pleasant and relaxing—no doubt because of The Student’s collection of classical music. There is, you see, something about listening to Vivaldi and Dvořák that squelches the urge to annoy people. (Also, we found that it is entirely possible to headbang to the last movement of Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony—which is always handy information.)

The Sermon in The Pub

“Yep,” I thought, “this is a chain pub.” Chain pubs try to be relaxing, but somehow keep failing. I’m not exactly sure what it is. It’s just that, whenever I walk into a Wetherspoon’s or their equivalents, I shiver violently for a second, noticing that everything is slightly off.

The second thing I noticed was, in a red booth to the left of the front door, The Drunkard perched on top of a high chair. Around him, sitting on the leather couch and the red-and-green checkered carpet and in wooden chairs, patrons of the pub gazed upon him in expressions ranging from awe to rage. In his brown windbreaker, The Drunkard spoke and gestured outlandishly with his hands and arms. “No,” said The Drunkard, “Americans do not like to see their fellow countrymen trod upon and murdered in the streets.” A vein throbbed in his forehead and I walked forward.

“Not what I heard,” said a large man sitting on the floor with a buzz-cut, camo pants, and a black shirt.

“Oh?” asked The Drunkard, whirling around and facing him. “And what, pray tell, did you hear?”

“I heard that you don’t give two damns about each other. Why else would you not have the NHS.”

“For—” The Drunkard spotted me. He looked up at the ceiling and said, “Thank you, God.” He looked back at me and said, “Narrator, come over here. They think that Americans are a lot of NASCAR-watching megalomaniacs with a permanent bloodlust.”

I said, “Wait a minute.”

I went up to the bar, up to the bartender—a girl with auburn hair, slender, killer brown eyes—and asked for a Guinness. I watched it settle and heard The Drunakrd rant about the Iraq war. I thought about how to explain the absurdity of American government. It would be hard—especially since these people had probably only paid attention to Clinton and Bush—and would probably require a series of at least ten lectures, seminars, and about ninety books’ worth of required reading.

The Guinness finished settling, the barender gave me the pint glass and said, “You his friend?”

“Yeah,” I said.

She nodded. “On the house—you’ll need it. They’ve been grilling him since he walked in.”

I thanked her by buying her a round and walked back to the Sermon in the Pub.

“Are you kidding me?” The Drunkard asked, his hands in the air in disbelief. “No, the United States is not led by the KKK.”

“Seems like it to me,” said an old man sipping from a pint of cider.

A rumble of agreement passed through the rest of the group.

“Wh—” started The Drunkard.

I interrupted. He was about to snap whereas I had at least thirty minutes before I reached that point. “The thing about United States government is that, when it actually does something, everyone is completely surprised.”

A few people laughed.

“See, it’s designed to have such a regular turnaround that every six years, there’s a completely new government. So, the administration in power right now—Obama’s—who, I should add, is African-American and thus ineligible for membership in the KKK, is completely different—at least in name—from the Bush administration.”

“But,” said a woman with blonde hair, glasses, and a black sweater, “the current administration has failed to follow through with closing the prison at Guantanamo, initiate massive infrastructure reforms, and bring a significant change in health care to the United States.”[1]

I nodded. “A valid point, but you’re not taking into consideration the veto powers of every branch. Honestly, it’s a miracle something like the stimulus package was passed so early on in the administration’s time in power. Closing Guantanamo is going to take a while simply because there are people in the United States who dislike the President on principle.”

“And,” said The Drunkard, “because they think he wants to create death panels and eliminate the elderly.”

I nodded. “That too.”

“Why,” said a man whose face looked as if he had seen eons pass by like clouds, “do you calls crisps ‘chips?’ They aren’t bloody chips. Chips are chips, not crisps. The sooner you—” he clutched at his chest, his face turned purple, and then someone passed a glass of port to him. He sipped it and his color returned to the sickly pale it was before. “Apologies. I used to work in linguistics.”

“Oi,” said a man in a white and black track suit in the back. His teeth were in disarray, but his bling was shiny beyond all measure. “I eard from my mate Lil Steve that you is gonna invade us like well good. Fuck you.”

I blinked and turned to The Drunkard. He shrugged. “I can understand your concern, and I assure you that, when the time comes, your question will be addressed by the proper authorities.”

“Oi, fuck off,” said the man, rolling up his sleeves. Two of his friends held him back. Another went to the bar and brought a Stella Artois to the man, who suckled it as a baby does a bottle.

The Drunkard poked me in the arm. I leaned over and he whispered, “We need to get out of here before this escalates. There is not one intelligent person in this place, and I’m pretty sure they’re about to rise up and slay us for not knowing ‘God Save the Queen.’”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “They’re harmless. Just a little, ah, excitable.” I looked at the crowd and saw that they were murmuring to themselves. A few people in the back left and moved to some free tables.

A tall, thin man with red hair, thick glasses, and wearing a disgusting green suit stood up. “Why,” he said, in the accent of the Royal Counties, “are Americans fat, stupid, and lazy?”

“Well,” I said, “it’s funny you mention that, because—”

The Drunkard bolted up from his chair, looked the man in the eye, and shouted, “Why are all English spineless faggots who’d rather drink tea than shoot hard liquor?”

The pub went silent, and I felt my life was endangered.

“Huh?” asked The Drunkard. “I ask you because you seem to be a prime example of your race of cowards.”

To my simultaneous surprise and glee, no one responded.

Until someone threw a bottle at The Drunkard’s head. Instantly, the pub was transformed from silent place of cross-cultural discussion to a redneck bar, and we were the band. The only thing missing from the raucous chaos was chicken wire. And that, my friends, would have been quite handy. “Run!” I said.

“No!” shouted The Drunkard, dodging a couple green bottles. “We stand and fight!” He picked up a bottle that had not shattered on the wall behind him and flung it back at the crowd. “AMURIKA!” he shouted.

I jumped up a bit to get leverage, flung my arm around his neck, and pulled him out of the pub. The crowd, thankfully, did not pursue us out of the pub, and we managed to get across the street—all the while, The Drunkard cursed me for a coward.

We retreated to the car park, where I released him. It was dark by this point, and we stood under a tall light. Rain piddled down from the sky. He whirled on me, veins in his forehead throbbing, and shoved me at a car. “What the fuck?” he said.

Now, this sort of thing has happened to me before. I’ve had a history of enraging people with short fuses, and I’ve learned that the way you have to deal with the situation is—

The Drunkard punched me in the stomach. The air left my lungs. I doubled over and coughed. That was not how you dealt with the situation.

“Huh?” reiterated The Drunkard.  “What the fuck?”

“It,” I said, coughing, “is hard to respond to a question when one is coughing and in pain. Please don’t hit me again.” Those two sentences took roughly a minute to get out.

The Drunkard backed away and leaned against the light. He was still breathing quickly, but the veins in his forehead were no longer standing out.

“Okay,” I said, straightening up. “Did you really want to take on thirty drunk Englishmen? Cause that’s what seemed to be your plan.”

“I said what I said to prove a point.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said. “You ever think that bolting out of your chair and shouting at the top of your lungs might not be the best way to make that point?”

“I—” The Drunkard stopped, scratched his chin. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

“Maybe?” I said. “You’re goddamn right I’m right. Look, man, you just can’t—”

“Get in the fucking car now!” shouted The Traveler.

I looked up and saw he and the Student running at us, laden with shopping bags. A thick sheet of rain followed close behind. This being the first time I’d ever seen rain come at anyone in a perceptible sheet, I thought we had suddenly been thrown into a disaster movie. “I don’t have the keys!” I shouted back.

“Fuck!” The Traveler shouted. He reached the car, threw down some of the bags, pulled out the keys, unlocked the car door, and opened the trunk in a quick, fluid movement. “Don’t just stand there,” he said, picking the bags back up. “Get in before—”

The sheet of rain hit us and, in the space of two seconds, we were drenched.

“—the rain gets here,” he said.

We put the bags in the car, piled in in record time, and closed the doors. “Wait,” I said. “Where are the girls?”

“The Traveler,” said The Student, taking off the wet rag he used to call a jacket, “decided that he’d be a gentleman and take the bags while they waited at the café near the other end.” He glared at The Traveler.

“Look,” said The Traveler, “if you want to deal with wet, sullen women, then be my guest.”

Judging by the look on The Drunkard’s face, it seemed he wouldn’t mind this one bit.

“And no, Drunkard,” said the Traveler, “it’s not fun. I had to deal with it when my ex and I went to Paris. They’re like cats.” He shuddered. “Yowling, scratching. Definitely not fun.” He turned the key in the ignition, backed out of the space, and drove us to the café.

It was situated on the far side of the retail village. The building was white with a blue roof. Some white tables with blue umbrellas were set up outside. As it stood, the girls were huddled under an awning close to the road. The ferocity of the rain only increased and the few trees in the area were bending perilously close to a forty-five degree angle.

We pulled up, The Traveler leaned over, opened the passenger door, and the girls joined our sardine can. “Didn’t outrun the rain, huh?” asked Dee.

We scowled in response.

“Okay, let’s head out,” said The Traveler. He brought us back onto the road leading out of the retail village and back to the sad excuse for a highway.

I can’t say much of the rest of the trip—mainly because I fell asleep a few minutes after we got on the road. However, judging by the time we arrived back at the flat—half eleven—and the general looks of dismay and pain on everyone’s faces, we got lost again. The Drunkard mentioned something about being glad he got to see Hadrian’s Wall, but I hope to God he was joking.

---

[1] This was, of course, before health care reforms were passed in Congress. Hooray!

Concentrated Capitalism

We arrived around three o’clock—about an hour and a half later. Dark clouds largely blocked out the rapidly lessening daylight.

In my time in England, I had forgotten just how big parking lots could be. Opry Mills in Nashville, for example, has a parking lot that, when seen along with the mall itself, is the size of an amusement park—which made sense, since the mall took the place of an amusement park. The last thing I expected to see was a parking lot that size in the country I had come to think of as a modest place. It was a mammoth field of black asphalt and white paint. I flashed back to a trip to Opry Mills, when a friend and I spent longer looking for a spot than we did outside.

As we approached I noticed that “village” wasn’t a misnomer. The place had been built to resemble a small English country village. “At least, it looks pleasant,” I thought.

We finally found a spot after ten minutes of circling—the Germans basically frothing at the mouth the full time. In a split second, the girls were out of the car, running towards the village like they were in a marathon. Confused, we men stayed put, overwhelmed by the speed of their mad dash. Other women dashed likewise through the parking lot. Occasionally, we’d see a shellshocked man stumbling around, looking at parked cars as if they were the mutilated bodies of fellow soldiers on a gruesome battlefield. “Okay,” said The Traveler, after a few minutes of staring at the spectacle. “Okay.”

“Okay,” said The Student.

“Welp,” The Drunkard said. He cracked his knuckles. “I’m going to the pub.”

I looked around. Though the area was set out to look like an English village, I saw no signs that there was a pub—which, really, was an atrocious oversight on the part of whoever planned this place. (I don’t mean to seem to be clinging desperately to ages-old stereotypes, but it is quite true that women shop more than men, and a man facing neverending racks of dresses, shoes, and stores that sell the same things would rather be drinking. Honestly, it just makes business sense for there to be a watering hole in every mall, strip mall, and—the term is starting to grate on me—retail village.) “I don’t see a pub,” I said.

The Drunkard jerked his thumb to my left. I looked and, across the street, there was a large stand-alone pub called The Green Elk. It was the size of two houses put together, brick red with a green roof. “Ah,” I said. “Good call.”

“Told ya: my pubdar is second to none.”

The Traveler and The Student opened their doors and stepped out of the car. The Drunkard and I followed, stretching and cracking our backs. “I think,” said The Traveler, “that at least two of us should go supervise the girls. Lena was saying that she had a couple of grand in her bank account, and someone needs to remind her that we don’t have that much room in the car.”

“Good call,” said The Student. “I’ll come with you.”

“I’ll go,” I said.

The Drunkard snorted. “What? Why? You’re not getting any.”

“Fuck off,” I said.

The Drunkard shrugged. “Whatever.” Then The Drunkard turned, made his way across the parking lot, sauntered across the street and walked into the pub. (This maneuver caused at least ten cars to slam on their brakes and blare their horns—from where I stood, I could hear The Drunkard shout back, “I’m walkin here!”)

“Let’s go,” said The Traveler. He turned and walked towards the retail village.

The Student shook his head, still looking at the piled-up cars on the street. “How’d he live?”

“The sheer will to drink, my friend. Sheer fucking willpower.”

The two of us followed The Traveler.

I do not consider myself an overtly political man. Of course, I have ideas about politics. However, I’ve made sure that I don’t turn into a person whose life is run by them. (My grandmothe, for example, was one of those people. In Tennessee, we had four TVs downstairs. For twelve hours—from nine to nine—every one of those TVs would be turned, full blast, to CNN. When I was downstairs, I’d hear the eighty year-old woman screaming abuse at whatever Republican happened to be talking on-air.)

I believe that it is a citizen’s duty to stay informed about the politics of his or her country, and, as such, I read news aggregate websites from time to time. And, by virtue of having a working brain, I have developed opinions. Some are more informed than others, but they are all opinions. From time to time, my ideas cause friction between myself and others (such as my idea about running for office on a platform called “Culling The Herd”), but, for the most part, they have always been valuable assets and have never really intruded in on my life.

And then I saw this retail village and saw red. Not the red of rage, but the red of Communism. The Traveler, The Student, and I went through the entrance, past the map detailing where every outlet store was placed in its own especial building—yet intrinsically linked together, as if holding hands and mocking the poor of the world—past the coffee shop that peddled a shot of espresso for £2.30, and then got a full look at the retail village. It looked like a sterilized and homogonized version of Canterbury’s High Street. The buildings were a uniform light blue, with white trimmings and black shingle roofs. Occasionally, there would be a few benches, maybe a sculpture in a roped-off grass area. (One of these was a sculpture of two black bears. These were supposedly the mascots of the place, but I saw them as Humanity mocking Nature. “Yes,” we said, “you once had a place of beauty, but now, where your den was, there is now a GAP. Read em and weep.”)

This place of concentrated capitalism, this testament to the free market system, was where a pair of jeans on sale for £90 was seen as a bargain. I fumed. I sputtered. Beside me, The Student twitched. The Traveler gave a little sigh and briefly shook his head. “Oh well,” he said, “no worse than a mall in the States.”

“NINETY QUID FOR FUCKING JEANS!” I shouted.

A few people turned to look, but, judging from the shouts of “Where?” and “Buy them! Buy them now!”, a lot of people just assumed that I had found a great deal. “Woah,” said The Traveler. “Calm down, man.”

I spun on him, my jacket flying behind me. In my imagination, I saw it to be a giant red flag, and I was waving it at the head of a vast mob. “Are you mad, man? We are in the den of the beast. These things cost two pounds to make, and they are marketing them at ninety pounds. How can you remain calm in the face of such a thing?”

The Traveler grinned. “You’ve never been in Brookstone, have you?”

“Why would I go to that disgusting hive of the bourgeoisie, where cheap electronics are sold at extre—”

“You own a Mac, don’t you?”

“Er,” I said. In my head, the mob dissipated, muttering among themselves. “Yeah. Well. Kind of.”

“Do you have a Mac in your possession?” The Traveler asked.

“Well. Yes. But my dad bought it for me. A while ago.”

“You’re still guilty by virtue of owning the thing. If you were really serious about taking down the capitalist pig-dogs, then you’d be looking for a responsible computer company, and not one that works with sweatshops in China. Look,” he said. (I remembered a recent conversation I had where someone tried to say that maybe sweatshops weren’t so bad, and I despaired.) The Traveler’s face took on a sympathetic appearance, instead of a cross-examiner’s. “I’m not saying that you should abandon all your principles. You should never do that.” He took a leaflet from a roving person. It announced the latest sale at the Levi Jeans outlet—two pairs of relaxed fit jeans for £145.99.

“It’s just,” he said, “well, you have to realize that you have to act like you give a damn. Parading around shouting about the injustices of the free market while wearing Nikes and clothes made in Indonesia is a bit hypocritical.”

“Okay,” said The Student, gesturing with his finger. “What would you have us do?”

“If you believe something, then act on it. Buy fair trade.”

“But it’s expensive,” I said.

The Traveler slapped his face with his hand and dragged it down, leaving a red imprint on his skin. “Are you serious? You can’t be that stupid.”

I stared at him.

“That’s the cost of actually acting on your beliefs. He held his hands palm up, as if begging, “Look, you can do other things: Campaign for increased goods production in the United States. Buy from farmer’s markets. Do something other than continue on shopping in the supermarket where your food comes from God-Knows-Where.” He checked his watch. “I’m going to go wander around. Narrator, I like you, but you gotta think about self-awareness some more, man.” He walked off along the High Street.

“Well,” said The Student.

“I just got owned, didn’t I?” I asked.

The Student nodded. “Along with what remains of the middle class in America. Now, I think there’s a book store somewhere along here. You want to come with?”

“Nah,” I said. “I’m going to have a think.”

The Student put a hand on my shoulder and put on a very concerned face. “Don’t strain yourself,” he said.

I didn’t take offense. Being told that you’ve lived your life as a hypocrite is a pretty humbling thing, especially when you realize that it’s true. I had my own little stroll through the retail village, dodging running children, their running parents, and masses of shoppers laden with bags. Eventually, I got tired of looking into shops and thinking about the inherent guilt of profiting off of others’ suffering and decided to go to the pub.

I’ve told some people about my solution to problems—i.e., going to the pub—and the reaction has been varied. Some have viewed me as an alcoholic. Some see me as a person who likes to have a good time. I, however, like to cite a recent Woody Allen movie, where the protagonist delievers a spiel to the audience. Part of it goes like this: “My father commited suicide because the headlines were depressing. Can you blame him? What can do you do?” The answer is whatever works. “Whatever joy or grace you can squeeze or filch. Whatever works.” For me, a pint of Guinness works.

The Welsh Nationalists

The next morning, we were woken up by the most heinous, despicable method possible. As we lay sleeping, Lena crept in holding two tops to pots as if they were cymbals. She clanged them together at the early hour of eight, and the only one of us who did not leap up from their chair howling as if the devil were approaching was The Traveler.

“Wake up!” Lena shouted. “It’s shopping day!”

My brain raced. Blood rushed through my veins. The Student, The Drunkard, and I looked at each other, wide-eyed and terrified as Lena and Dee—standing in the doorway—laughed uproariously and The Traveler slowly sat up and yawned.

“What the hell?” shouted The Drunkard

“Uncalled for!” shouted The Student.

“That shit just ain’t kosher,” I said.

The Traveler continued to yawn.

Lena, after finally ceasing her laughter, said, “I just wanted to make sure you guys woke up early enough. Seriously, if you think this is bad, then you don’t have loud enough alarm clocks.”

“Amen,” said The Traveler, unzipping his sleeping bag as he sat up and then rubbing his hair. “You’d think y’all don’t have jet engines waking you up in the morning.”

“No,” said The Student. “What kind of person would have that?”

The Traveler raised his hand and grinned. “I’m a deep sleeper.”

We decided who would go first in terms of showering and, luckily, it was me.

I showered, walked out, and promptly went back to sleep. When I woke up (again), The Traveler sat at the dining room table and stared at a spread-out map of Oxfordshire with two Post-It Notes on it. The Drunkard sat next to Lena, who sat next to Dee, who sat next to The Traveler. The Traveler said, “Kay, we’re good.”

“Really?” asked The Drunkard. “Cause that’s what we thought about coming up here, and you managed to get us pretty damn lost.”

“It was an off day,” said The Traveler.

The Drunkard, in a green flannel shirt and jeans, shrugged and said, “Whatever.”

The Traveler shot him a look that would have escalated the situation, had The Student not been there to interfere with a hearty, “You know, the thing I like about these sorts of journeys is that—”

“Dear God,” said The Drunkard. “Please, do not equate going to a retail mall—village, sorry—with some literary trope.”

The Traveler cleared his throat. “Okay everyone ready to go?”

“Please,” said The Drunkard, leaning back in his chair, “can we bicker some more?”

We packed in the car. The Drunkard, flattened himself against the window. Dee sat next to him, relatively comfortable (at the heart of each of us was a gentleman perfectly willing to make life miserable for himself so that a woman could be better off). The Student angled himself so that he wasn’t quite making complete contact with the seat. And I, like the Drunkard, was doing my best to collapse my skeleton so I could become a thin layer of fabric against the window.

“You cannot be comfortable,” said Dee, looking at each of us. “Here, let me—”

“Nope,” I said. “We’re fine. Kosher. Hunky-dory.” The left side of my body went numb.

“But—” she said.

“Nope,” said The Traveler, moving the front seat back and getting in. “If they say they’re fine, then they’re fine. These guys wouldn’t lie, would ya?”

“Nope,” we said in chorus.

The car started up and started on the road. We rode in silence for a little ways—mostly because those of us in the back tried, in very small stages, to make the journey bearable for ourselves by making tiny, tiny movements. Eventually, I got in such a position that feeling returned in my left side. The Student was now sitting partially on me, but, damn it, I could feel my whole body again. “This doesn’t change our relationship, Narrator,” he said.

“Dee,” said The Drunkard, shifting slightly. “Does this change ours?”

Dee laughed. “We’ll see.”

“A black year on your head!” I thought to The Drunkard. “May you grow like an onion, with your head in the ground!” I thought to The Drunkard again. Outwardly, I grumbled. “Traveler,” I said. “Music. None of The Drunkard’s trash. Actual, good music.”

“Trash? Trash?” asked The Drunkard. “I’m sorry, but you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about. Bands like Occam’s Razor and I’ll Razor Your Occam are brilliant examples of the indie-backlash going on in the punk scene. But, hey, maybe we should just go raid the local Goodwill, throw on some thick glasses, and not move at concerts. Does that fit your Goddamn perception of music better, you schmuck?”

“Drunkard,” Dee said, “please. You’re flailing on me.”

“Sorry.”

I thought about how many traffic and motoring laws we were breaking by riding in the back like this, and I hoped that The Traveler wouldn’t give a cop any reason to notice us. We passed the ring road out of town, hit one of the spindly two-lane highways that led out of Oxford and parallel to the M2—or 5, or whatever number it was—and to my great joy, the opening notes of Wilson Pickett’s “Mustang Sally” streamed out of the speakers.

I closed my eyes and started bobbing my head in time with the music.

“Narrator,” said The Student. “Please stop moving. This is making me very, very uncomfortable.”

I stopped moving, leaned my head back, and thought, “This is what Hell must be like: not being able to even bob your head to ‘Mustang Sally.’”

“Mustaaaaaaang Sally-oh-oh-oh, now,” said a whispering, almost mute voice.

I looked around. Whoever was singing had just the right amount of chutzpah to pull off a good soul vibe.

“You better turn your Mustang round, now,” sang the voice again. I looked over and, sure enough, it was The Student.

“Holy shit,” I said.

He turned and said, “What?”

“You’re fuckin good, man. Belt it! Belt that shit!”

“Don’t belt it,” said the Traveler.

“Ignore him! He’s trying to keep the brother down! He’s The Man! Belt it!”

And, sure enough, The Student belted it. Then The Drunkard joined in. Soon, the whole car, even the Traveler, was singing along to some good soul music

We were so wrapped up in it all that we must have missed the sign welcoming us to Wales.

The soul music completely negated any conception of time we had. Someone finally noticed something was wrong when the green signs started showing a language that seemed to have fallen in love with the letters l and f. “Dear sweet God,” said The Drunkard. “Traveler, what have you done?”

“What?” asked The Traveler, turning down “I’m So Tired of Being Alone.”

“Did you see that road sign?”

“No.”

“Look,” said The Student, “here’s another one.” The one he was talking about didn’t look official. It was big, white with red lettering, and looked like it had been painted in a hurry.

“What the hell?” I asked. “Are we in C’thulu territory? ‘Cymru am byth?’”

“Hell,” said The Traveler. “Jesus fuck shit,” he pounded the wheel. “We’re in Wales.”

“What?” asked Lena.

“You’re kidding,” said Dee. “There’s no retail in Wales until you get to Cardiff!”

“Good going, putz,” said The Drunkard.

“See? This is why you shouldn’t belt things around me. I lose concentration.”

“I thought you were supposed to be Mr. Internal-GPS-Traveler-Man,” said The Drunkard.

“I never said anything about having an internal GPS. I know where train stations and bus depots are. I fucking hate driving.”

“Then how come you’re driving?” I asked.

“Cause none of you idiots ever learned how to drive stick. Fuck,” he said. We continued on the way, The Traveler drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Okay. Okay, easy way out. We ask someone where we need to go in order to get to this place. We can’t be that far off, right? Look, here’s a petrol station. Narrator, you’re coming with me.”

I looked at my current seating arrangement and laughed. “You’re kidding. How?”

“Dee, Student,” said The Traveler, “Lena, you mind moving for him?”

The three people grumbled. The Traveler pulled into the station’s car park, turned off the car, and we began the nearly impossible maneuver of getting me out of the back seat. Lena got out of the car and moved the seat. The Student, apologizing constantly, hoisted himself up by using Dee’s leg and the back of the seat as a base. I slipped out, tripped over the bottom of the door, and faceplanted on the pavement. “Ow,” I said.

“You’re fine,” said The Traveler. “Come on.”

I didn’t want to leave the pavement. The pavement wouldn’t scream at me an alien language. Lena helped me up. I nodded and said thanks. I looked up at the sky and saw the clouds had turned a dark, threatening color. The birds were quiet, and it all pointed to a massive rainstorm. The Traveler, though, was undeterred by such a minor concern as weather and soldiered on into the petrol station.

Convenience stores are one of the unchanging constants in the first world, along with airports. They will all look the same, and, if ever one finds oneself in dire need of remembering that there is a spark of home, one only needs to look for a convenience store and, hark!, there shall be Mountain Dew. Do the Dew, indeed.

Inside, a man stood behind a white-and-red counter with a cash register with a green display. Cigarette packets were arranged in rows behind him. Candies in front of him, on the customer’s side. To the side, there was a microwave with pre-programmed options for heating up pasties, paninis, and other things. The small aisles were filled with electronics and nick-nacks supposedly designed to increase miles per gallon, fool-proof rain-repellant to be sprayed onto the windshield of a car, radar detectors, all sorts of other things.

The Traveler and I went up to the man behind the counter. “Hello,” he said. He spoke in an accent nearly unfathomable to my ears. Try as I might, I don’t think I could replicate it, and, as such, I will not even make the attempt. “Help you?”

“Well,” said The Traveler, scratching the back of his neck and smiling bashfully. “We’re lost. Meant to be going to this retail village ou—”

The man sneered and he spat something out in a language that sounded similar to God-Knows-What.

“Er,” I said.

He repeated his statement and laughed.

The Traveler turned to look at me. I shrugged. It didn’t sound like the man was angry, more like he was testing waters.

He picked up the phone on the counter, dialed a number, and spat some more words into it. He waited, did it again, and hung up. He looked at us with a grin, muttered something Welsh under his breath and said, in a Southern accent—I shit you not—that could have passed in Georgia, “Y’all ain’t from around here, is ya?” He then burst into laughter again.

I poked The Traveler in his arm and said, “We should go.”

“Nonsense. It’s just the, er, Welsh sense of humor,” he attempted one of his confidence-inspiring grins, but failed. “Look,” he said to the cashier, “we just want to know how to get back into England.”

“Oh, I bet you do. Where you’re safe.”

“Jesus Christ,” I said. “I can hear the banjo. Traveler,” I said, taking him by his shoulders and shaking him, “I can hear the banjo!”

“What are—”

The cashier laughed again as the door to the store burst open and The Student, wide-eyed, panting, and sweating profusely, stumbled in. He said, “We have to get out of here. Now. This is turning into a scene from Easy Rider.”

I forced The Traveler away, pushed him past The Student, and back outside. The skies had opened up and rain poured down. Three other cars—an old and green Peugeot, a black Toyota pickup, and a blue Opel with peeling paint—were parked around the lot. Their drivers—tall, lanky, and grinning wolfishly—leaned against the vehicles and stared at us. “Yeah,” I said, “we’re out of here.”

“Nonsense,” said The Traveler, still desperately clinging onto the hope that he could get us directions even as he was being forced to the Fiesta. “They’re just locals. Locals are friendly.”

The man leaning against the Toyota bent down, picked up a small rock, and hurled it at the hood of our car. It made a good-sized dent and chipped off some paint, leaving a large white spot. “Nope, fight or flight’s out of the question,” I said. “The only option is flight, now. Flee, flee like the wind!”

The passenger’s side door opened and Lena, wisely using the door as cover in a crouch, stood aside as I shoved The Traveler towards the driver’s side. I dashed into the back, nearly crushing Dee. The Drunkard had his eyes closed and was shaking his head. Dee sat still, drumming her fingers on her thigh. The Student barreled in, Lena moved the passenger’s seat again, dashed in, closed the door, and The Traveler started the car just as a cascade of rocks hit the frame. Outside, I heard the men chanting, “Cymru am byth.”

We peeled out of the lot, spewing gravel. “Well, well,” said The Drunkard. “Maybe we should change your name to something else.”

“Fuck off, Drunkard,” said The Traveler.

“Something a bit more reflective of your inability to find—”

“Drunkard,” I said. “Stop. Now isn’t the time. We nearly escaped getting attacked, so let’s not exacerbate the situation by turning it into a pissing match.”

The Drunkard shot me a look. “Growing some balls, eh?”

“Drunkard,” said The Student, still sweating and bug-eyed from the encounter, “shut it.”

“We’re fine,” said The Traveler. “Back on the road, heading back towards Oxford.”

I snapped my fingers. “Got it,” I said. I pulled out my phone and called Giggles, who was, generally, always near his computer. My instincts didn’t fail me, and I got him to give us a rough estimate of how to get to the retail village from the Welsh border.

“What the hell are you doing in Wales?” asked Giggles. I could almost see him in his room, an eyebrow arched up nearly to his hairline.

“Almost getting killed by Welsh nationalists. What else?”

Anyway, we got the directions and, thankfully, we were on the right path. All we had done was missed a turnoff at a roundabout (big surprise there). So, The Drunkard cowed—I expected him to sulk, but he shrugged it off and just stared out the window—we continued on the way to the retail village.

A Bar in a Church

We went through the glass doors and walked into the bar. Even if there weren’t a gigantic Christ painted on the back wall—hovering over a few tables and smiling down, like he was going to offer to buy the next round—it would have been obivious that the place used to be a church. Religious buildings take on a holy air that remains even after they stop functioning as places of worship. (In Canterbury, there is an old synagogue that now functions as a music hall for the King’s School; but, if you go inside, you can almost hear the Sh’ma.)

The bar’s lounge/black marble dance floor was where pews would have been. The raised bit at the back was, I figured, the Orthodox version of a bimah. The tables were black-finished wood, same with the chairs, and there were a couple of black sofas near the entrance. The bar was at our right. It was painted black and behind it, liquor bottles perched on dark wooden shelves. Underneath, a long line of refrigerators contained juice and bottled beer. There was a mirror in the center, and the two bartenders stood in front of it, having a chat.

The Drunkard squeaked, contorted his face into gleeful expression, and dashed to the bar. The predominant liquor was whiskey. Unwillingly, the girls had brought us to The Drunkard’s heaven. “Shit,” said The Traveler.

“Now,” I said, “there’s no reason to assume that this means he’s going to lose control. After all—”

The Traveler looked at me, raised his eyebrows, and tilted his head down. If he had glasses, he’d be looking over the frames and the expression of incredulity would have been complete. “Really? You’re going to try to say that he will not go overboard.”

I looked over, saw The Drunkard returning with a glass of whiskey and ice. “Well,” I said. “Maybe you’re right.”

The Drunkard rejoined us and, tears in his eyes, said, “Truly, this is a place of holiness.”

The Student looked around the walls, at the purple velvet reading Freud—the name of the bar—and the various saints’ portraits leading to the Christ at the back. “Drunkard, you may have found your church.”

“Fuck that,” responded The Drunkard. “You get free l’chaims just for wandering around North London.” He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial tone. “I know when the Lubavitchers unleash the Mitzvah Tanks.”

Lena turned to The Traveler and said, “Was coming here a mistake?”

“Nah,” he said, “it’ll be great.”

The girls, The Traveler, and The Student walked over to the bar. I was about to order a drink, and then my stomach did a somersault. The Drunkard and I walked towards the back where there was a large, empty table. Across the room, there was a table filled with Greeks. But besides them and a couple gazing into each other’s eyes under the Christ, the place was empty.

The Drunkard and I scooted a couple chairs out from the table—yielding the horrible screeching sound of metal on marble—and sat down. The Drunkard, facing the mural at the back, stared at Jesus. “How come he never looks Jewish?”

I scratched my chin. “Dunno. Maybe—”

“Narrator!” shouted someone from the table across the room. I looked up and, sure enough, there was Zaf—resplendent in his gelled-hair, jeans, and black jacket that, inexplicably, had a patch for the University of Alabama on the arm. He walked over, grinning madly and said, “And Drunkard! How are you making tonight, huh?”

The Drunkard’s left eye twitched. “My beloved language. She weeps.” He sipped his drink.

Zaf laughed his confused chuckle and said, “What are you doing here?”

I pointed at the chair next to me and he sat down. I said, “The Traveler arranged for us to stay with some friends of one of his flatmates. The hell are you doing here?”

“O, my friend of Santorini studies biology here. I, Natalya, and Lynn are staying with her to Monday.”

“Cool, man.”

“Hey,” said The Drunkard. “You’re Greek. What’s up with your man Jesus? How come he doesn’t look like a Jew? You got something against Jews?”

“Drunkard,” I said. “Contain yourself.”

“No, fuck off. I don’t get this.”

Zaf looked confused and, as such, didn’t answer.

“Drunkard, please. Don’t make me get The Traveler to unleash capoeira on you in front of the Germans. That would be most unfortunate.”

He grunted and returned to staring at the Christ.

Zaf stood and said, “So, I hope you have good time. Maybe we’ll see you out tomorrow. I maybe return.” He walked off.

“He maybe return?”

“He means he might be back. I’ve been working with him, man. He’s an engineer at heart. They’re impossible to teach unless you’re working with numbers.”

The Traveler and the others walked up and took seats. “Isn’t that Zaf?” asked The Traveler.

“Yup,” I said.

“Huh,” he said, sipping from a glass. “Small world.”

“Woah,” I said. “Hold on, what are you drinking?”

“Coke. Relax.”

The Student had a bottle of stout, and the Germans were drinking white wine. We toasted to Oxford (I held up a phantom glass in my hand) and drank.

The night was pretty tame. We talked about coursework as postgraduates (the general consensus was that the amount of time we had outside of classes was inordinate) and attempted to talk about sports, but it turned into a debate about baseball and soccer, with The Drunkard, The Student, and I on the side of baseball, and The Traveler, Lena, and Dee on the other. Turns out—not surprisingly—that everyone outside of the States feels that baseball is a complete and utter joke.

Most impressive, though, was that The Drunkard did not go his usual route and get absolutely tanked. He stopped after he finished the whiskey in front of him, and managed to be quite erudite and—even more extraordinary—reined in on the swearing. After I reminded him of the omnipresent threat of capoeira, not every other word was “fuck.” The Yiddish curses were still there, but those are funny and, thus, should not count.

We stayed until closing time and then returned to the car. The Student didn’t give another look at the OUP—which was probably good.

When we got back to the flat, people prepared for bed and the next day at the retail village. Much to my dismay, no further light was shed on my nickname—though the girls kept calling me it, probably because I twitched whenever they did.

The Student's Rage

It took The Student, The Germans, and I a couple of hours to work our way through the jambalaya. The Traveler and The Drunkard, who were long finished, watched us like we were dinner theater. After, we decided that the remains would be kept for the next day—in case anyone was brave enough to have it for lunch—and the girls said that they had a bar they wanted to show us.

The Drunkard’s eyes lit up and he sat upright. “About time.”

“It’s in an old Greek Orthodox church,” Dee said. “Great start for a night out.”

“My life,” I said, wiping off the last of the sweat, “is made up entirely of Greeks and Jews. How did this happen?”

“What,” said The Drunkard, leaning in, “you want we should be goyim? No offense girls.”

Lena and Dee shrugged and talked in German for a second.

“Well,” I said, “no. I wasn’t saying anything. Just—”

“You were saying something.”

“I agree with The Drunkard,” said The Student. He leaned forward. “Sounded like you wish we weren’t around. Tell me, why would you say such a thing?”

“I didn’t say such a thing.”

The Traveler, getting into the spirit, leaned forward. “I think you said such a thing.”

“I did not say such a thing!”

Lena cleared her throat. “I’m going to take a shower. Loverman, you might want one too, considering you look like a marathon runner.”

“I could take one with you, but that would just be forward of me,” I said. “Holy shit,” I thought, “I said that out loud.”

Lena smiled and walked to her room.

The Drunkard said, “Finally, you manage to say something instead of squeaking.”

“Too bad she’s got a boyfriend,” said Dee.

“Fuck,” I remarked.

“Ha!” said The Student. “Now you feel my pain.”

I turned to The Student and said, “Vindictiveness, my spectacled friend, is not a quality to be admired.”

He sat back and scratched at the puff of hair on his chin.

“Hey,” said The Traveler, “think of it this way: it’s a milestone.”

I viewed this as being patronized, and, as such, I sulked.

We got ready: The Drunkard cracked his knuckles and put on his jacket and hat; The Traveler took a comb to his hair and put on a grey flat cap; The Student put on his corduroy and sat patiently for everyone else; I took a quick shower to wash away the smell of jambalaya-sweat; and Lena and Dee took an hour to, as far as I could tell, put on jeans and t-shirts—we headed out to the car, piled in, and Lena navigated us to the bar.

The bar was near a very remarkable part of the University.

Anyone who has picked up a literary classic has probably run into the Oxford World’s Classics collection. The white-spined books fill more space in a university bookstore than Norton anthologies. They come from the Oxford University Press, a building which, up until my trip, I expected to be a giant warehouse deep in some dark realm. Turns out that, like everything else in Oxford, the Press looks like the British Museum.

We passed by it in the car. The Student, with a quick eye, spotted the building, asked what it was, was told, and flung himself out of the car. Luckily, we weren’t moving that fast, and, even if we had been, The Student executed a flawless tuck-and-roll. (Another thing in his favor was that there was, yet again, no traffic. For a city as big and prestigious as Oxford, I was surprised that there wasn’t a lot of traffic, but hey, whatever.) The Traveler slammed on the brakes, the car skidded to a halt, and The Student leapt up from his ball and ran to the gates.

There weren’t a lot of lights around the building. I could barely make out The Student clutching what I took to be iron bars of a gate. The words “Oxford University Press,” etched into the stone of the columned entranceway were barely illuminated by soft lighting. I said, “I’ll get him, go get a parking space.”

“You tell him,” said The Traveler, “that if he does this shit again he is never coming on a trip again. That was completely insane. He could’ve—”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll tell him.”

I stepped out of the car, shut the door, jogged across the street and went up to the Student on his right. I looked around. Some light from the grounds—a few lamps were sprinkled around the lawn—lit him up, and I saw that his eyes were moist. “Er,” I said. “You okay?”

He gulped. “These bastards are responsible for making me read Lord Jim. You hear me?” He shouted. (His voice was extraordinarily loud. Enough to make me wince for a moment.) “You hear me, you cocksuckers? You will pay for unleashing new edition after new edition of Joseph Fucking Conrad on the bright-eyed, idealistic new members of academia! Do you realize how may souls you’ve crushed with your World’s Classics? Do you?”

As much as screaming at an empty building was probably therapeutic, it was drawing us very unwelcome looks. An older couple across the street stared at us with their mouths agape. A woman our age rushed out of a door to a building a few doors down with an easel, a canvas, and a paint-covered palette and scratched madly at the canvas with what I assumed was a pencil. A car slowed to a gradual stop and idled in the street, the driver poking his head above the roof.

The Student shook the iron bars. He abandoned all pretenses of coherency and gave himself over to some primordial rage, shouting in everything ranging from a low growl, to high-pitched squeals, to gurgles. Frankly, I feared that, if I stayed much longer, I would be caught up in the man’s apoplectic rage and would find that I too had to shout and wail.

Thankfully, before such a thing happened, The Student’s fit suddenly stopped. One second he was shaking and banging away at the gates, screaming so hard I imagined that his throat would stop working all together. The next, he was straightening his shirt and his jacket. He took off his glasses, cleaned them with a handkerchief, and said, “Ah, Narrator. Whe—” He looked around him. “Where are we? This isn’t the bar.”

I cocked an eyebrow and took a step back. “No. No it isn’t. We’re at the gates to the Oxford University Press.” I shielded my head, sure that, in a second, he’d be flailing out his arms in anger.

Instead, he looked up at the building, said, “Ah, so it is. Fancy that. I was just reading a Cather novel pubished by these guys.” He took a black digital camera out from his pocket, turned it on, took a picture, and put it back in his pocket. “Funny how these things all tie together, isn’t it?”

I blinked. It was the only reaction I could muster. “Er,” I remarked. “Yes. Downright hilarious. Don’t you remember anything of what just happened?”

The Student shook his head. “I was in the car, I looked out the window, and then I was standing here. So where’s this bar? I’d be interested to see a Greek Orthodox church—you see, I’m reading this Dostoevsky novel right now for a module and—”

Someone ran at us from the right. I turned, prepared to see a police officer wielding a nightstick, blowing away at his whistle and preparing to unleash cold, British justice on us, but instead saw The Traveler. He was nearly out of breath, his jacket was waving out behind him like a sail. “What the Hell were you doing, Student?” he asked when he skidded to a halt next to us.

The Student shrugged. “Standing in front of the OUP, apparently. Funny thing is, I don’t remember getting here.”

“Bull,” said The Traveler. “What was that screaming shit you were doing? You looked completely insane.”

The Student cocked his head to one side. He looked at me. “Er,” I said. “Nothing happened.”

“But—”

“Nope. Nothing happened.” I mouthed, “I’ll tell you later,” facing away from The Student.

The Traveler shook his head. “I’m considering never taking you guys on a trip again. Between this shit and The Drunkard, I seriously have no idea how we haven’t been arrested or kicked out of somewhere yet.”

“Oh,” I said, “we’ve still got a full day here. Plenty of time to get kicked out of all sorts of fine establishments.”

“Nope,” said The Traveler. He turned and started walking back the way from whence he ran. We followed.

“What do you mean?” asked The Student.

“I mean that tomorrow we’re taking the girls out to a retail village about half an hour away.”

“Retail village?” I asked. “What’s that?”

“Think of a giant mall spread out to look like a high street. From what they said, it seems like the embodiment of capitalism. Jeans that cost a few bucks to make, selling for £89.99, and that’s on sale.”

“Woah!” I said. I stopped in my tracks and coughed. “Ninety quid for a pair of jeans?”

The Traveler turned around. The look on his face was one I would expect to see at a funeral. “On sale. Remember that. Disgusting, isn’t it?”

We continued walking some more, this time in silence. The Student looked around, unfazed by the discussion of prices—I reckoned that he was apathetic when it came to petty matters of financial transactions. The Traveler looking straight on until we got to the car. “Okay,” said The Traveler to The Drunkard and the Germans. “Shall we go?”

“Is he okay?” asked Lena.

“Hmm?” asked The Student. “Me? Peachy. Why?”

Lena and The Traveler exchanged looks that said The Student was a cause for concern.

We crossed the street and walked up the stairs of a building that looked like a church. I’d always assumed that Greek Orthodox churches were supposed to look vastly different than other buildings, but then I remembered that, after all, we were in England, and this building may very well have been a tea house before. (Or, the ultimate irony, a synagogue. This isn’t impossible—though it is definitely strange. In a place called Ramsgate, the reform synagogue used to be a Methodist church.)