Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
meaning in life until David insisted that we celebrate my breakthrough by heading down to
an area known for clubs. The world made such easy sense, and on a lovely stroll we found a
fish and chips vendor for newspaper cones of greasy, salty cod. At 50p each, we were feeling
more efficient all the time.
Making our way to the lively block where the music lived, we met a fellow about nightfall
offering a small bag of opium for six pounds—about twelve bucks, or fifteen. That amount
represented two and a half to three days of Europe, but we bought it, because this was the
world.
Did we really want to meet it on opium?
Are you kidding?
We walked down the alley past a few bars and stopped at a place with a band playing
One
is the Loneliest Number
. David had that album and out of his daze exclaimed, “It's them!” He
meant Three Dog Night. That's how it was back then, in a world where reality was real and
accessible, even on opium, or maybe especially on opium. I remember nothing after that but
loud music, a long walk back to the pension and great relief at finding my new motorcycle
where I left it.
We cruised a few days more and soon felt the itch to get out of town. So I lashed my back-
pack on back. David wore his. We got coffee and rolls and headed out with David riding bitch,
though we didn't call it bitch then; we called it on back. He tried to keep the map from flop-
ping out of control while I tried to keep us from dying as we wended our way through Lon-
don, veering east-southeast for Dover and the bonnie cliffs and the ferry to the continent.
In a densely populated area on the outskirts of London we drove up a wooded road on
David's insistence, arriving at a heavily wooded cul-de-sac, where he demanded that we stop
immediately because he had to take a dump right now, because he ate too many crumpets, or
trollops, or treacle, or buns, or rashers or any of those strange things the English eat. Squat-
ting indelicately under a tree, just as a strange white man would plant a flag on the moon only
a month hence, David laid claim for America. He draped his handkerchief over the top of it
like a flag, sort of, though it lay limp, hardly discouraging the fly swarm or constraining the
stink.
“I know I should be proud of you,” I said, “but that's disgusting.”
David was in no laughing mood, coming so close to a breach as I had caused him to do,
and he assured me that it wasn't nearly as disgusting as some of the stuff I did.
“We could look at it. Poetically, I mean. We could call it the waste of wasted youth left be-
hind for distant lands and a more brilliant wasting yet to come. Or some shit.”
He didn't think that was funny either. he exchange was a symptom, a first friction
between friends traveling together.
The road to Dover passed the castle at Canterbury, white-cliffed and seagull screaming,
then it curved easy to the terminal for the Ostende Ferry. The channel rolled and sloshed,
