Trip

The bus shudders, once again you are cruelly shaken awake. It’s been more than two months without any real sleep but you soldier on. You reach into your bag, take out a Discman, place the headphones to you ears and hit play. Slowly at first, the bass of the trance music fills your head, building as layers are added, your mind begins to wonder. You remember the beginning of the trip, filled with, energy, convinced that this would be the start of something great. Not sure how or why but none of that mattered. A foot reaches out and kicks you. One of your travelling companions has lashed out at you in his sleep, he’s six four, almost all legs, those damn legs, they’ve been kicking you every chance they get. You’re reminded of a park in Valencia; stretched out on a bench trying to grab a few moments sleep before the hostel allows check ins and those damn legs kept kicking you. The music begins to crescendo the beat gets faster and you think of Natalia. At least that’s what you think her name was. Dancing with her in a seedy club in Paris that has more in common with a dank basement, you know that you’ve had too much to drink and all of the booze is reacting badly with the pain killers that Ross the shady Australian gave you in exchange for your Elvis CD and half a duty free bottle of Vodka stolen on the ferry from Dover. Silently you curse shady Ross as Natalia bounces around bathed in green now red now purple flashing light. You wonder if you’re going to be able to stay upright long enough to even try to…why else are you dancing with her? Swallowing the small amount of vomit that has forced itself into your mouth, you motion that you are going to the bar and Natalia smiles turning to dance with a large bald guy from… who gives a fuck. You stumble to the bar, then try and think of where you met that crazy Russian girl. As you cling to the bar for support you wonder if this is what you wanted. To be tired, craving a clean bed and dry shoes perhaps a home cooked meal. The start had been different, as you look back through your hazy memories to the first day you recall too much exuberance occupying a young, clean- kid who has now aged in just a few short months. The trip was about to unfold the bus and train passes had been bought. The anticipation was flowing through you, a shot of adrenaline. Dreams of Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, Milan and Florence fill your head. The train leaves tomorrow morning from Victoria station, seven sharp. But seven seems a lifetime away and last minute preparation has been replaced with a vague plan to stay out all night. The people who are your travelling party are made up from a lifetime of friendships. Their names and faces aren’t important as this voyage is about you. Your self-discovery, finding out who you are, a baptism in fire. But all of that starts tomorrow; tonight you are out to sample all that London has to offer. To do this you have procured the services of a local guy you met while having a cigarette near James Park. He has agreed to show you the real sights. You meet him at his local, a run down place with only three taps of warm beer, stale crisps and an old trivia game whose screen is smudged with god knows what. The place is called the Prince Edward. It soon becomes evident that you and your associates are perhaps too rambunctious for this particular spot, and its working class demeanour You down your pint quickly, convince the America in your ensemble that this is neither the time or place for “shots” Your escort mentions a club near by, you shepherd your friends out the door just as a group of locals come in. On the way to the club you receive the cliff notes of your new friends life. Turns out he has quit school and now pays the bills selling some type of dance drug, no not ex but at a quarter of the price he makes a good living .You quickly grasp that he is a clever salesman who has from the start pegged you as a mark. He offers you enough xtraxt or sxract for the whole trip at a “reasonable” price. Nervous about the idea of bringing even watered down drugs across a border you decline and decide to ditch him at the first opportunity. You arrive at the club, now you… now you… now you. Fuck, your CD is skipping and it’s dragged you into the reality of the present. Realising you are in desperate need of piss, look at your watch. Six hours to go you’ll never make it. A decision is made to risk the toilet. Upon entering you are greeted by an obnoxious odour. Dimly lit, you almost expect the bowl to be surrounded by flies. You finish as quickly as possible, return to your seat. Looking out the window at the dark M25 you begin to become hypnotised by the break lights of the cars ahead of your bus.
Melinda is an attractive American from Minnesota, she constantly talks about Minnesota, when she is not discussing David, the guy she met in Manchester. He’s the reason that she’s in Madrid. He’s supposed to meet her here and take her to Ibiza. She tells you that Ibiza is going to be insane, and that once they go there her friends will forgive her for dragging them to Spain. Apparently they are supposed to be studying art in Florence. As you glance over at them you sense venomous hostility. They are sitting inside the Café, arms crossed. Occasionally glancing outside at the table you and Melinda occupy, they shoot daggers then go back to what you can only assume are plans for a mutiny. Melinda corrects you for the hundredth time. “It’s not Dave, it’s David, gosh.” You are quickly losing interest, and hope your friends get back soon with the bus tickets to Barcelona. Turns out Madrid is boring, but an escape plan has been hatched. You find out later that your companions are distracted by a Swedish field hockey team due to travel to Seville tomorrow. With nothing else to do you spend the day walking the streets of Madrid with Melinda. She invites you up to her hotel room to “talk some more” you wake up the next morning, quietly steal the three bottles of wine from off of her dresser. They are good expensive bottles meant as presents for friends and family back home. They will make an airless bumpy bus ride a little more bearable. You pause for a moment to speculate on whether Dave will ever show up. You know the answer and wonder if Melinda does. When you get to the bus station you discover that the escape to Barcelona has been postponed as your friends have procured a ride on an air-conditioned bus commissioned by a Scandinavian sports team bound for Seville.
“My head is fucking killing me.” You reach into your bag and pass a pill across the aisle.
“Got any water?” you throw an old screwdriver in a ribina bottle. The complaining lump moves around some and then goes back to sleep.
“The only reason that we buy Celine Dione CDs is so that she will have enough money to go on tour and leave Canada.” Maxine is a French Canadian staying at your hostel in Milan. With shoulder length black dreads and great tribal tattoos Maxine has been travelling the trains in Europe for almost eighteen months. He knows the best places for everything. Where to sleep, eat, get drunk stoned or laid. As he talks you make mental notes of places to try out. The three hours conversation with Maxine would have been great except for the fact that every twenty minutes or so he grabs your arm and demands “ Do you know where I can score some heroine.” Despite the fact that his thick French accent is almost comic, something in his eyes scares you deep down. You always say
“ No.” he then tells you he just got in from Prague where there is
“Heroine everywhere” but not in Italy no “those Nazi fucks have gotten rid of all of the good stuff. Mon duie there are no good brothels either, only scabby street walkers who…” He goes on for a minute then returns to talking about good hash dens in Oslo or underground clubs in Paris inhabited only by models. Yet each outburst lasts a little longer, each outburst is a little more violent. The last time Maxine asks you for heroin he is gritting his teeth so hard you can hear them, he looks at you and says that you are holding out on him, that he has a knife in his boot. that... it soon passes, he slumps back into his chair. Afterwards you make an excuse then leave, go to your room, lock your flimsy door, hide your few things of value and lay in bed not sleeping till dawn. In Rome a Dutch guy, a spitting image of Ziggy Marley, tells you that Maxine was arrested for stabbing a policeman. In Florence a skinny short girl from Copenhagen tells you it was a hooker. You’d believe either story.
The bus has pulled over so that the driver can have a cigarette. In the distance you see a sign that says London 50 miles. With the end of the trip in sight you begin to deliberate on whether the trip was worth it. You read Rousseau in Paris and Nietzche in Prague only to discover that the books said the same things as when you first read them in your safe suburban home. You met new people simply to certify that people were at their core the same no matter what language they spoke. They liked to sound smart, hated being wrong. They tried to make their lives seem important, tried new things only to be able to say that they had tried them, and looked down on, or even worse pitied, those less experienced than them. You had fun though. It was a hectic trip with four day Merlot binges in southern France, of waking up with women whose nationalities you couldn’t recall let alone their names. Still you could have fun at home, this was supposed to be about self-discovery of learning your one true path. The bus has come to a complete stop; you have arrived at the bus station near Victoria. All that is left to do is wake up your cohorts, catch the 36 bus that will take you up Denmark hill to Camberwell, a full nights sleep, and the long flight back to reality. It is five A.M, technically still night; the city buses won’t start running for an hour. You sit on your bag, look around at your half dead travel companions, no one talks. You smoke a cigarette as dawn slowly illuminates the London skyline. Your mind roams free. You finish not at the end but somewhere in the middle. You drift back to a small village on the Mediterranean coast. The name eludes you, but the sunny cobbled streets and warm populace are slowly taking shape in your mind. You had come here because you couldn’t go on. The frantic pace of the previous month had fried your brain and sapped your body. You can’t remember how you first heard of this place, but you do know that it has been mentioned more than once. Perfect, between Madrid and Barcelona, cheap in the off season, great food, great people, you can live here in relative comfort for a week with no real damage to your travel funds. There is nothing remarkable about the town, no beautiful church, no historic castle, nothing that would compel you to do. Instead you like to go to the beach, alone. You sit on the deck chairs about twenty yards from the shore. There are families around you, something tells you that these families are local, all of them are wearing swimsuits. You begin to feel out of place in your cargo pants and sweatshirt, but with the wind whipping off the sea the way it is you marvel at how these happy families continue to do happy family things unaffected. You light a cigarette and take a long cleansing drag, drawing the smoke all the way in. You hold it, not wanting to let go. You become aware that your mind is for once still, that you feel calm and peace. You grasp that this is a moment to keep, that this feeling should be preserved and remembered. The coming weeks of abuse and neglect will not destroy this memory and you innately know that this one moment is what your trip has been all about. And then it is gone and once again you are on the move.