on going nowhere

Our driver arrives exactly 4 hours late, at 10 pm, after the Spanish couple had flaked on us. We regretfully inform the man that we must cancel our trip, and pay him 500,000 rupiah for one day's car rental even though we never set foot in the car. We are greatly disappointed with the Spanish, who were the whole reason we agreed to go on the trip, as we could have split the cost between 6 people instead of just 4. Our driver says he will shower and change and then send us text message so he can lead us down to Kuta for make party. As soon as he leaves, we realize he had left the front gate open and allowed our host's new puppy – Kaya – to escape into the night. Exhausted from waiting hour after hour in the heat, we comb the neighborhood on foot and moped, calling the dog's name and searching rice paddy, ditch, unlit homestead, and trash-heap. After a solid hour, the German next door pokes his head over the wall and says, “Are you looking for a dog?” What joy, what joy, the prodigal pup has returned! We call the driver, tell him we go make party after all, and follow him to a lush compound down the street, where we quaff drinks and make friends with local surfers, Putu and Awi and others. At 1 am, our convoy of 3 bikes heads south-east, taking back alleys and flying between ancient city walls, our scooters low on petrol, running on fumes. In Espresso Club, I sing backup vocals on Paradise City by Guns & Roses, elbow-to-elbow with the Singaporean headman. For an hour, a wasted-drunk New Guinean aboriginal man with long dreadlocks rakes his fingernails across my sunburned back, grabbing and pinching Martin's forearms so hard they start to bleed, screaming in our ears in his native and incomprehensible tongue. Security tells him to calm down twice but does not kick him out, even though Martin has already sworn at him in Czech and very nearly knocked his block off. The aboriginal realizes how angry he is making us, and so for a while he tries to appease us with gifts proffered from a small black hand, cigarettes and crumpled 2000 rupiah notes, warm beers and handshakes, scraps of trash and an empty packet of rolling papers. We finish eight rounds of Jungle Juice and then head for the local surfer hangout, meet girls, talk and dance with them, fall in love, meet different girls, and deal with the ensuing jealous confusions. The lights come on in the dance club and I realize with horror that I have dropped my keys. I turn to the first broom-wielding employee and ask him if he found a set; he pulls them out of his pocket. The other workers start chanting “100,000! 100,000!”; my friends join in, and I hand over my last big note, which I will regret later when the Malaysian professional ballroom dancer with braces on her teeth tracks me down on the street but won't ride back to Changgu with me, as she feels I am too drunk to drive. For what it's worth, I am a millionaire in Bali.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

brace for travel

The snows start to fall as soon as I drive into Virginia. I am going to the airport to fly from D.C. to Doha to Singapore and finally to Denpasar, and it is nearly dark outside. As indicated by the mapping software I had used, the trip takes 5 hours. I drop off the rental car, sign paperwork indicating I did not shatter its rear bumper, and hop the shuttle; it has to turn around only once so I can drop off the car's key-fob, which I had left in my pocket. I arrive at the airport three hours before my flight, pass through security so quickly I barely register the inconvenience, and immediately go to my gate, just so I know where it is. Then, I begin the first of many circuits of the half-mile-long airport, watching the Sunday travelers as they hurry to board their flights. We embark on time, maybe a few minutes late, and I am overjoyed to find that the seat next to me is unoccupied. Seven hours later, at the crack of dawn, after having been de-iced and then heading straight back to the gate to try and wait out a raging snowstorm, the captain cancels the flight. We finish our meals and start leaving the plane, but the other passengers are not following the crew's instructions to de-board in an orderly way, by rows, so that when I exit I am at the very end of a queue that will take three more hours to clear. By the time I reach its front, I have circuited the airport a dozen times, only to be told that I did not have to wait in the line at all, as the same boarding pass will allow me to board the rescheduled flight. In an age of ubiquitous wifi and powerful computers, the Qatar Airways ground crew processes each affected traveler's queries and taxi vouchers in analog fashion, by hand. For the next twelve hours I alternately circuit the terminal, sleep at random gates, eat the healthiest fast food I can find, and with dull eyes watch hundreds of green-glad people (it is St. Patrick's Day) hurrying to their gates.

The flight to Doha finally takes off twenty-three hours behind schedule; exhausted from constantly walking, I awake nine hours into the twelve hour flight. In Qatar we go through security check again, and I spend my hours there over-watching a massive duty free area, making countless walking circuits, and eating halal food I pay for with a credit card. While riding the bus to our plane I let my tattoos show, hanging from the hand-holds and peering deliriously out into the night. I find myself being appraised by several young ladies, whose male companions eye me warily. Having sat in the wrong row I change seats and find myself next to an attractive, skinny British woman; her boyfriend is livid, staring straight ahead, on the verge of tears; he does not look directly at me until perhaps our last hour together, before which he tracks my every move out of the corners of his eyes; I could have taken a seat in one of the many empty rows, but I enjoy his torture, and so I stay. In roughly eleven hours we reach Singapore, go through security again, and enter a waiting area that has access to neither water nor restroom. The flight to Denpasar is uneventful, and when I arrive, my ATM card works, my ride is waiting, the rains have just stopped, and the sun is setting on a day that only Bali can deliver.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

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I retreat to warmer climes will update this when there is time

awake now adventure

Awake now, adventure – begin, up!, & start; the thought of it livens and quickens the heart. It's off to the islands, to surf and to chill, to walk through the paddies and climb in the hills, to eat with the locals and taste of their ken, to laugh with the women and smile with the men. To observe and sample, to watch is the goal, to sit with the people and drink of their souls, to dance in their eddies and eat what they eat, a light-year from snowbank and shovel and sleet. Now onward, adventurers, both far and near, say bye-bye to loved ones and pack up your gear, we're leaving at sundown for ports yet unknown, where heartbreak is mended and magic is sown.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on letting go

I used some core muscles, to push out a bun, tan nuggets that shot out as if from a gun. Four times I have mounted, and straddled the throne, three times with some reading, just two times alone, and ushered much effluence out of my hole, continuous ribbons down into the bowl. Some kids just got dropped off, some loaves got pinched out, with quite a few whimpers and some joyous shouts, the poop left my bottom in an urgent rush – I even performed a quick courtesy flush. There's meters yet in me, they've swelled me up good, were caused by the handfuls and servings of food, that I've been binge-eating since Friday at noon, to nothing but hunger have I been attuned. I've closed up the ice-box, and put down my tray, I'll shrink back my stomach and ponder the Way, and take up the habits that made me feel right – eat little, stay moving, sleep soundly at night.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on daddy's drinking

My daddy spoke loudly, and acted deranged, I thought he'd done rehab and promised to change. It started with brewsky and ended with shot, so often repeated I quickly forgot, that his bum addiction – not I – was to blame, instead I hung low my head, weeping with shame. I learned to be agile, to counter and spar, although just the slightest nudge pushed him too far, if I stood up quickly or spoke out of turn, I'd soon bear the brunt of a cruel savage burn. He could not forgive his own failure at sea, self-torment and -loathing did fill him with glee, he'd bury his feelings and push them deep down, then starting at sunup his sorrows he'd drown. The drinking did little, but hurt harm and foul, drive into his features a hard lasting scowl, although toward the end he made more laughs and hugs, buoyed by a girlfriend and anti-sad drugs. I sorely do miss him, the old aged P, who'd give his right arm just to spend time with me, who loved a young grandson, that bounced on his knee, whose mouth ever uttered a deep I Love Thee. All hail the ancestors, the ones who are gone, whose exploits we recount in story and song, who harry, cajole, serenade, and inspire, who stoke up and tender a vast holy fire. Goodbye now, dear father, whose ashes now rest, I'll double me efforts and give it my best. Aho.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

what the fuss

A thing was inside of me, but it's now out, and I'm not so sure what the fuss was about. It was a tooth fragment, that had been left in, then pushed to the surface right under the skin, by forces within me beyond my control, the same ones that tug at and shelter the soul. The doc was a good one, he made a small slit, through which but the root and his pliers could fit, with minimal tugging and not too much strain, he quelled my discomfort and lessened my pain. He pulled out the fragment, with a steady hand, then told me a bad joke – the best in the land – then vanished while my mouth got swollen and bled, then came back to help me get up from the bed. It's all out, he told me, with confidence vast, the proof of which lay in his completed task, Don't brush it too harshly or sip drinks too warm, and thanks for behaving in such model form. Thank you for your efforts, for fixing me right, I said to him with an obvious delight, and fled from the premises swift as I could, back home to my great roaring fires of wood.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on winter days

The driveway sits under a good foot of snow, with all of this whiteness there's nowhere to go. I've sent home the servants and locked up the Rolls, stoked me a fire and banked up its coals. To make it quite cozy for you me and dog, we'll burn through this pile of kindling and logs, together our spirits shall find their delight, while outside the winter winds howl up a fright. The muskets are loaded, the pantry is full, our feet are enveloped in socks made of wool, we've sackfuls of goodies and liters of gin, to us it's a blessing when we get snowed in.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥