friday, september 18, 2008

how to end up in a small town in norway with nothing but a computer and the shirt on your back

on a pretty afternoon at an italian restaurant in my neighborhood, i was sitting at a sidewalk table with my pretty daughter and my pretty girlfriend. the phone rang and i saw from the screen on the device that the caller was my friend arne "honda" høvda from stavanger, norway calling. i was happy that he was calling because i'd been meaning to have a little chat with him all day on account of the fact that i myself was leaving to go to stavanger, norway to join honda and some other talented writers for a songwriting workshop on an island in a fjord near that seaside town the next day.

or so i thought.

honda asked me how i was doing and i told him i was doing fine and he asked me if i was all set and i told him that i was even though i hadn't packed yet. i have a process of packing ninety percent of which, in the words of yogi berra, is half mental. i make lists in my mind and obsess about the stuff i don't want to forget and then finally i take the stuff from my mind and put it in a suitcase making sure to forget one or two key items after all.

it's a half-assed process but at least it's mine.

anyway, i held the to phone to my ear, gazing through the pretty afternoon at my pretty daughter and my pretty girlfriend and told honda i was all set and that i'd see him the day after tomorrow.

there was a pause.

"you mean tomorrow." honda said.

i smiled and patiently corrected my friend. god, in his infinite wisdom, does not hand out willy-nilly to every one of his children the mental precision of a chris barron.

"the flight leaves tomorrow," i explained, "but then i fly overnight so i get there the day after tomorrow." (silly)

"no, but your flight is tonight."

i think in this episode of these chronicles so far i've managed to convey that these particular events took place on a lovely afternoon. my daughter and girlfriend were lovely too, in fact they were smiling radiantly in the september sunlight that seemed to mantle all the world like a canopy of sweetness held aloft by pins through the fabric of heaven. let's just take it as fact that the hum of the city around us had laid aside it's more frantic paces for a rhythm that seemed synchronized with the order of things and that this order of things had unfurled itself into a sort of grand dance that we will call, "a lovely afternoon."

well, at honda's words this "lovely afternoon" lurched slightly and i'm pretty sure i heard the sound of a phonograph record skipping. in fact, i'm not sure a part of my skull didn't pop off allowing some of the rusted gears and broken springs that seem to suffice as my brain to fall out onto the table cloth with a muffled rattle and lay among the stuffed mushrooms and silverware.

"you're joking," i said, not because i found anything the slightest bit amusing about his words (in point of fact, i found them to be not a little gauche and in very questionable taste) but more because that's just what people seem to say in these sorts of moments.

honda said that he was not joking.

"what time is it?" i asked.

"it's about ten minutes after four, your time," honda said.

"and what time is my flight?" i asked.

"it's at five forty."

an hour and a half.

i think i might have said something like, lord love a duck or sweet mother of abraham lincoln but i don't exactly remember because i was calculating in my head the time to newark airport versus the traffic, the fact that i had not packed, the prevailing winds and all the things a manhattanite must consider when he is catching a plane to stavanger, norway out of the crashing, crumbling ruins of a lovely new york afternoon.

with rush hour just starting i gave myself chances on par with those of a snowball in a parka in an oven in hell's hottest kitchen.


to be continued...