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747-400 JNB-JFK 2/23/01

Goddamn it if it wasn't more of the same yesterday. After being dropped off at the third-rate Days Inn. Halfway across the world and there is a fucking Days Inn. A cheap city hotel. An eyesore firmly planted and now invincible. The clerk, a young Muslim male, gives me two electronic keys and says one is for the door and the other is for the little white box just inside the door and it turns on the electricity. Huh? Of all the penny-ante ghetto shit. The room is adequate. Seen one, seen 'em all. I put down my bag, get undressed down to my shorts, turn down the bed and climb in. After watching the Scottish news and South African sports updates for two hours, after falling in and out of sleep for two hours, I decide to motivate a bit and go out to walk around. I got out of bed and dressed again. I exit the hotel and walk down the hill and toward Green Market Square. Bums occupy most of the benches. Some are walking, slowly. Same types as we have in the States. Worn and leathered faces. They are older, yes, but the mileage makes them look even older. Yet they move better than that. They are timeless, aged and ageless, always counting down the last 250 breaths. Filthy and unhealthy-looking. Their graying hair is not white. It is yellow. A shade of yellow lighter than the yellow-brown film on their teeth. Nothing to do except keep walking, keep breathing, keep your bundles close to you, keep an eye out for still-burning cigarette butts, half-eaten foodstuffs in the garbage, aluminum and tin cans, keep an eye out for a safe place to flop for the night. Don't they say that a lot of homeless have mental diseases or are drug addicts? So there is that as well, you make eye contact with one, the two of you recognize each other—two bums. There is no mistaking it. The insane and the drug addicts in slow motion on the streets. Jesus H. Christ Mary Mother of God. Imagine seeking out another human being with whom to share the loneliness and misery, knowing that to make it through the day, you will need to see another human being who does not want something from you, who does not want you to 'move along' and all you get is some piece of trash. Fuck that Joe Pesci bum movie. The last refuge from the wind and rain and cold and hunger pains in your belly is some fucker with swiss cheese for a brain. The need for companionship is too great to leave it alone. Steady yourself for yet another new low. Seek out the good parts, no matter how putrid, fog them with your breath and polish them against your shirt. Men and women like this sitting or sleeping on the benches. The phlegm-webbed leather lungs of Death wheeze a lullabye. They sleep soundly outdoors, although in a city one doesn't really say 'outdoors.' More like 'out-of-doors.' They are outside. The world is going by. I am walking by. They are in a sub-REM state of unconsciousness, but yes, alive. One can tell, you know. Imagine that, being numbed to the world by poverty. Perpetually exhausted by lack of food and being made to move from place to place by the police, the weather, the vultures. 1000 times jet lag. Not just plain tuckered out from Sunday beer softball league or a brisk hike through the woods. To be so tired that the only right thing to do is sleep. I cannot keep my eyes open. My knees are sore. I cannot go it another step. Fuck it, I'm sleeping here. Watch my shit. This stretch of cobblestones goes past big lawns and painted historical homes and private schools for small children.^* It is a straight stretch that takes me about 20 minutes. I did not dilly-dally either. The large black metal fences funnel me through. There is still daylight now. I turn right out of the stretch and walk up the hill. There is some café or another, neon sign over the door. It is a yuppie bar/restaurant. A first date place. Comfortably hip with wood floors. A sandwich and a beer. I cough up some Rand and I am out of there. Now it is darker. The wind is kicking up. It is because we are near the ocean. Not that you would know it. I am walking through it now—little tornadoes of trash, wrappers, crinkled clear plastic sheets, dust, bits of paper swirling in the warm wind, longing to curl around my legs and brush up under my chin. The cars are buzzing by and letting off heavy exhaust. If they weren't going in the wrong direction I would think I was in Newark, New Jersey. It is now 7:50 pm and that is fine because I am headed back now anyway. She is supposed to call at 8:00 or so, or at least she will probably call then because she said she gets out of computer class at that time. She will have a couple of messages from me waiting for her. When I get back to the room I am sweating a bit and my jeans are sticking to my legs. It is now 8:05. I put the card in the slot and the lights and A/C come on. Well, fine. I get undressed and put my jeans over a chair in front of the A/C to air them out. I just lay on the bed in my shorts and wait. I call again. Maybe I didn't press the right button of something to leave a message, I don't know. It is also the end of a long trip for me. A lot of internal flights all over the damn place. I have been active in my jet lag. This time her phone rings before the recording came on first, no ringing. Now it rings. It is ringing loudly in her car or in her house somewhere. I remember she had a Tigger doll as a cell phone cover. I saw it on the plane. It looked like a cell phone embedded in a Tigger doll. We walked off the plane together but then she said she forgot it and went back to get it. I saw her outside the airport about 10 minutes later and she said she got it. She was nice on the plane. The stewardess had skipped me in the dinner service somehow. I did not mind because I was meeting someone for dinner anyway. She paged the stewardess herself and told her to bring me my dinner. We talked for the rest of the plane ride after that. She was blonde, Afrikaaner, kind of plain-looking but very sweet and that is enough. That Dutch accent. She gave me her phone number and we sort of agreed to get together when there was a free day. I did call her from Johannesburg and Gordon's Bay to just say Hi and we talked for a while each time. On Wednesday I was back in Cape Town and we agreed on Friday. I am falling asleep. Fuck it, I think. I am not a creep, I am not a stalker. So—another one bites the lint. Midnight the phone rings, waking me up. It is her and through the sleep-fog she is saying sorry and such. She says she had forgotten my surname and finally remembered and called the hotel. Well that's bullshit, I am thinking, is this really her excuse? I mean, 1) I called, 2) I left my full name on one message and I am certain that 3) I left my room number on another message in the context that she could just pop by if she wanted to. And did she not say earlier in the week that she'd even drive out to Gordon's Bay (an extra half-hour drive) if that's where I'd be. And then, in matching shit-brown frosting she says, When are you leaving tomorrow? Sounded familiar. Like, "Oh, what a shame, we'll have just missed each other." I started thinking, why bother with this bullshit? Why even bother to call? We talked politely for another minute or two and that was it. I hung up. The A/C was ineffective. Just a little bit too hot. The sheets were sticking ever-so-slightly. Kicking them off. Buk talked about despising L.A.-type of swinging (1970's) and a 'gymnasium of bodies namelessly masturbating each other' or some such. So my brain belches a response—insert 'emotionally' before 'masturbating' and there you have it. Who knows what goes through someone's brain, the little misfirings and arcing in the circuitry, the way they need to arrange the world around them so it seems as if there is no danger, no threat, the path remains level. Monitoring the perimeter. The way we are made to act—stand over there, stand still, say something, say this, say it like this, don't say anything. Wait. I was caught in someone's web, squirming a bit, being tickle-teased, goosed with antennae. While I am distracted, a tiny indiscernible something is removed. Nothing is taken, almost nothing, which is to say that everything was taken. I lay awake for another couple hours. C'mon, surely not that disappointed. I kept that thought in mind until I finally drifted back off.

^*'Now, dear, you mustn't play near the fence. If the ball rolls out, get me or one of the other teachers or the janitor. And don't say anything to those people, even if they try to talk to you. Just walk away and get someone, OK?'

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