Chapter 1
I stare out of the window of the airplane. The City—my city is coming into focus below. Until eight years ago, this city was the city that cradled me from birth and swaddled me in its loving—smothering arms. Eight years ago, I left this city much like a prisoner who finds the door to the jail cell wide open and I bolted almost literally in the middle of the night.
I have spent the last eight years in a self-imposed exile—not coincidentally, in a place across the world from this city. This city. This city is coming closer and closer to me through my little, plexi-glass, airplane window. It welcomes me with its glowing orange-yellow street lights. The cars below me move like ants with shining halogen eyes. I adjust my perspective. I can see my face reflected in the little window. When did I get so old?
Flight attendants, prepare for landing.
Eight years ago, I ran away from this city to Hong Kong and now eight years later I am repeating the same act only in reverse. I have run from the frying pan, to the fryer, and now back again in hopes that the heating element underneath has gone cold. Has it? These thoughts race through my head as the city comes closer into view.
As I look below, I start to recognize the city. There is Banks Street. There is the Orange Gulf Bank Building. Over there is where Colette and Lafayette intersect. I snuck out of this city with hardly so much as a goodbye. Now I am sneaking back in much the same way. I have only told my old friend Trent about my return.
The Captain's voice comes over the airplane speaker.
"Flight Attendants—prepare for landing."
A few minutes later, I feel the strength of the plane's brakes as the wheels touch the runway underneath. For the first time since lift off, I feel the real power of the airplane as it comes to its eventual halt. After a few seconds of hard braking, the plane is coasting like a car on a Sunday drive. I have been on more flights than I can recollect. I have no fear of flying, yet every time the plane has landed, I always think the same thing. Safe!
For the last time, I look out of the plane's window. I watch the terminal come into view. The plane comes to a halt. I stand up and begin to gather my things. I have a beat up, Eastpak backpack that has seen me through trips across the U.S., Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Vietnam, and various Far East locales. I have a little music player filled with favorite songs. I carry two novels. One is a Douglas Coupland novel that takes its name from an old Smiths' song. The other novel is a Hunter S. Thompson novel about a free-lance journalist living in Puerto Rico. It seemed fitting to bring a Douglas Coupland novel along. It was on my flight to Hong Kong, eight years ago, when I read my first Douglas Coupland novel.
As I gather these things, I am already planning my next move. I picture myself as a spy behind enemy lines. Today the fantasy is fitting. It is not the first time that I have played these Walter Mitty styled games. My mid-twenties have become late-twenties. The big three-O is around the bend. I am far too old to be playing pretend.
My plan of attack is to get to baggage claim and quickly find my suitcase. Do not stop to get a drink. Do not stop to urinate. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.00. I am on a mission. How quickly can I exit the plane and be away from this airport? The airport is too public. There are too many chances to see a familiar face. There will be time to see them soon enough but it will be on my own terms. Very soon I will again be a resident of this city. For this trip, I have only packed for a week. The next time I arrive here on a plane, it will be my permanent exit from Hong Kong . I originally thought about going somewhere different—another place, another exile in another paradise, but I realized that, at least for a little while, I need this city to take me back in and to hold me tight. This city and I have unfinished business.
We passengers of flight 803 stand hunched over—awaiting our exit orders. Once received, we slowly work our way into the aisle and out of the plane. I stare down at the red and blue, checked pattern that adorns the airplane seats. It is probably the same pattern that was used in the 1960s. In some ways, time stands still on airplanes.
This fantasy mission I have given myself makes me want to hurry. I want to push past the little old lady who is in front of me. She arrived on a connecting flight from DFW. I was forced to listen to her conversation with another passenger in which she espoused her belief that “God has a plan for us all.” I don't know what God's plan is for me but my plan is to get out of this airport as quickly as possible—her plan, albeit subconsciously, is to stop me from executing my plan. God, I don't want to get old. Yet the alternative still scares the hell out of me.
On the way out, the stewardesses…No that's not right—the flight attendants beam at me with their all-too-perfect smiles, thanking us for flying with their airline. I give them a none-too-perfect smile in return. It is a smile of a broken man. If they notice, they don't show it.
I travel through the portable, rolling tunnel, and emerge under the bright, fluorescent lights of the terminal. As I enter, I see that some of my fellow passengers are being greeted by loved ones. Hugs and kisses rule the day! None for me thank you. I am the thief in the night. I am the spy behind enemy lines. For a second—not even a second, I wish that there was someone here to warmly greet me. Coldness washes over me as I fully contemplate why I am alone and why I am back here.
I quickly work my way to the tram that will send me, like a bullet—Jetson's style, to the other side of the airport. The scene feels surreal. It is hard to believe that I am back. Were the last eight years just some dream? I wondered if I would ever see this city again. Now, mysteriously and inexplicably, here I am. I am here as much by choice as I am by random chance.
The tram lets us out amid the neon signs of the airport bars and franchised restaurants. The pretty lights and corporate trappings that are designed to pull me in, hold no appeal for me. I want to escape this crush of people, grab my bag, and find a place of solitude. Come tomorrow, I will be confronted by faces of my past—again that will be on my own terms. Even though there is just a minutia of chance that I will run into a familiar face here, I don't want to roll the dice. Sometimes I can be that unlucky and lately I appear to be a prisoner of tragic design. I want to take no extra chances today.
I make it to the baggage claim. I have a few minutes to wait before the serpentine conveyor starts up in its mission to dispense the luggage of flight 803. I stare at the motionless conveyor belt unsuccessfully willing it to move. Just when I am about to give up on my mind's telekinetic powers, the red flashing light spins, the warning buzzer gives two sharp cries, and the machinery of the conveyor comes on. I give a quick glance around the baggage claim area and survey the familiar faces of my fellow passengers. Some faces reflect smiles and others are almost expressionless with possible hints of sadness. I wonder how many divorces, deaths, and lost opportunities, those expressionless faces have experienced.
My bag is one of the first to roll out. The Gods of Airports have seen through to my anxiety and have shown me blessed mercy. I am the tragic Greek hero of my own invention. Regardless, right now I have won the luggage lottery. My suitcase is winning the race. I watch it proudly like a parent who is watching their child beating out the other children in the potato sack race. Go for it baby! I'm proud of you!
My suitcase is easily recognizable—it being cloth, plaid, and manufactured in the early 1970's. Over the years, it has served my family well. What it lacks in style and looks, it easily makes up for in history and durability. In truth, I realize that it probably wasn't fate being kind but simply having an ugly, old suitcase that the baggage handlers noticed immediately. If it was a charging soldier, it would be the first one clipped by an enemy bullet.
I grab the suitcase. I want to flaunt it to everyone around. Mine was first! There are advantages to having the ugliest suitcase in the airport. After giving everyone a quick, victory stare, I head towards the car rental agency.
Once at the counter I am greeted by another perfect, airport employee. I think to myself that she could be related to the flight attendants from my flight. No, the more I think about it, I realize that she looks nothing like the flight attendants. It dawns on me that the car rental agent and the flight attendants are pressed from the same corporate mold. It has been eight years since I have felt the power of glossy, corporate America. I am ill-prepared to handle the reflection from their gilded sheen.
After some initial pleasantries, we get down to business.
"Okay Mr. Rowe. I have your contract right here. Will you be accepting the insurance?"
"No thanks."
"Very Well, initial in the box there." Ahh there it was, the first falter in her perfect smile. She does not approve. It is irrelevant that my auto insurance will cover the rented car, I have refused to buy their superfluous insurance and I have effectively and temporarily chiseled away at corporate perfection. The best way to break through any corporate veneer is to hit them in the wallet. It works every time. The falter though is short lived. She quickly recovers and the plastic smile is back. We finish up and I am given some paperwork that I will never look at along with a key to a car that is probably designed to neither please nor offend.
Escape is the prevailing theme of the night and I am close to accomplishing my goal. For the first time since landing, there is a little spring to my step. Escape from this press of humanity is an aphrodisiac. I take an elevator that deposits me to an outdoor garage and for the first time in eight years, I inhale the air of my city. The city blankets me in hot, humid air not much different in climate than the air of Hong Kong, yet this air is sterile by comparison. The smells of Hong Kong are gone and in their place . . . nothing? I smell nothing. It is as if someone has taken a deodorizer to the city.
I walk through the parking lot through the rows of almost identical cars until I find mine. It is a small, boxy, ugly thing in blue metallic and the pride of South Korea. I place the key in the door and it thankfully turns.
Inside, the car is stripped of almost anything that would be considered unnecessary. Where the ashtray should be is a sign showing a circled cigarette with a slash through it. I roll down the window, pull a pack of smokes from my shirt pocket, and have my first drag in about five hours. Damn that tastes good.
Now I have one last step to freedom. I drive to the toll booth. I am in a rental and do not have to pay for the parking. I still have to show them the contract. In true Walter Mitty Style, I imagine myself at a checkpoint in some Eastern European country during the cold war. Instead of the friendly Latino girl in the booth, I picture a stern faced Russian or East German with a rifle slung over his shoulder.
"Thank you Mr. Rowe."
The bar swings up and I am free.
Instead of the hotels near the airport, I have driven almost a half an hour to find a hotel in the affluent suburb of Scarlet Hills. I say I am from the city but almost my entire life I have really lived in Scarlet Hills. We moved in from the city when I was seven. I went to Scarlet Hills elementary, Scarlet Hills Junior High, and eventually Scarlet Hills High School. At least superficially, I am here for my ten year high school reunion. It was a reunion that I had no intention of attending a month ago but then fate, life, God, aliens from the planet Zigaxxxt, had other plans and now here I am out of Hong Kong and sitting in the Park Avenue Inn of Scarlet Hills intending to go to my ten year reunion.
The room is nice and why wouldn't it be? It is smack dab in the middle of one of the nicest suburbs of the city. Everyone in the city wants to live in Scarlet Hills. You may meet some who say they don't but it is only because they lack the means to do so and can't admit it to themselves. That sounds snobby. I'm not a snob. I'm a pragmatist.
Before getting to the hotel, I stopped at a fancy little convenience store on the corner of Park Avenue. I paid too much for a six pack of imported beer and got myself my first pack of non-imported American smokes in eight years. Mmmm. Fresh tobacco. Marlboros just don't taste this good in Hong Kong. I may be creating little cancer cells in my lungs but at least, starting tonight, the act of doing so will taste a little better. I pull a beer from the hotel supplied mini-fridge, pop the cap, and head towards the little sofa. The beer tastes like most imported lagers. I am always amazed how German, Belgian, Japanese, and Chinese lagers can taste so much alike and why American lagers taste so weak by comparison. Was there a secret recipe that was given to every country in the world but the United States?
Lately, I can't stand to be around people yet being alone is worse. Regardless, I still crave the solitude. It must be the masochist in me. When I'm alone, dark thoughts take over. The memories both good and bad come flooding in. Recently, those memories have been bad, very, very bad. It is strange, as time goes by the good memories are just as painful as the bad ones. I think this is the real definition of melancholy. The good memories are wrapped up in a warm, fuzzy haze and the reality that those times are forever gone cuts to the very core of my soul.
I have the sliding door to my balcony open but the curtains closed. I love it this way. I can secretly sit back and listen to the chatter of the people down on the avenue below. Again, I am the spy. Passing below me, I hear a group of teenagers. From their conversation, I would guess that they are two happy couples. I hear their happy laughter. I imagine them to be the carefree double couple. One of the boys teases one of the girls about her breasts. Her retort back to him is a quick stab about the size of his penis. Their laughter is like an old song that transports me back in time. Has it really been ten years since I was one of those teens?
The passing teenagers and my upcoming high school reunion send my thoughts racing back to my graduation night. My friends and I were heading into what we thought would be our last summer together before various colleges threatened to tear us apart. Every high school has their cliques and Scarlet Hills was no exception. My clique was the theatre clique. We collectively referred to ourselves as The Scarlet Hills Crew. On that night, I remember sitting at our favorite late night diner, Zeus' Grotto. Zeus' was a mainstay for The Crew. It was fitting that we should be there on graduation night. Graduation night alone would have made that night special but in our collective history, that night took on a historical importance in which our graduation was merely an added bonus. It was on that night that Trent proposed a crazy idea. This, in itself, was not uncommon. Maybe it was the euphoria of graduation night, maybe it was the fear of separation but for whatever reason, we didn't dismiss Trent's grandiose idea as would have been common for us on any other given night. Trent's idea became known in the annals of our collective history as Colette Street. Colette Street managed in one simple night to change the lives of everyone who was there at Zeus'. We didn't realize it then but we suddenly took our respective lives off of our planned, predictable paths, and broke hard left. I have thought back to why we were all so willing to go along. Trent was after all a starfucker and there probably was not a week that went by where he didn't come up with some crazy plan worthy of a late 1970s A.B.C. sitcom. For years, I think we all considered ourselves to be so brave in going with Trent's plan but with the perspective of time, I now realize that we were afraid—afraid of change, of moving on, of losing our friendships through distances of geography and time. Of course we were foolish to think that we could stop change from coming. No matter how hard we tried, change did come.
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