Tourist

In the early morning I moved the shower out from under the shady lee of a wooden upright, set aslant against an old, abandoned bake-house at the edge of town. Before the sun had come up I had already socketed the copper plumbing, laying it out in a flat pasture full of cow pads, near where water flowed out of a big pipe.

By mid-afternoon the pipeline was scalding, and with a pitcher filled with strawberry juice and ice I stood under the spout and washed for the first time in over a month. There was like a brick in my lungs and my throat was clogged, and adjusting the corrugated hose of the showerhead I put it to my chest and coughed up black gloop and horked into the drain. Once I had finished my drink I began filling the pitcher and pouring it over myself.

With the water I had left I washed out the shattered tile, then wheeled the shower back under the shade of the weathered upright. At night I'd collect the plumbing, once it had cooled in the dark. I'd end up leaving the shower behind.

After my shower I headed into town. I was starving, literally, and as the late afternoon entered in the way of stiff laundry being taken down I asked a village woman where I could find a place to eat. She showed me an arched passageway between two small buildings, decorated with an inscription of welcome. Through it I found myself in an outdoor kitchen, a sort of arboretum, where presumably trays of food were carried out and set before the divans and settees of the court. I waited at the entrance out of custom, but soon seated myself as I saw no one was going to meet me. I felt a bit self-conscious and I pretended I was reminded of something standing there, some fragment of words, something I heard a long time ago, and I parted my lips like an idiot trying to phrase them.

These coastal places, now supplied with steamship service throughout the summer, restricted in the winter because of arctic drift ice, had only just begun to experience tourism.

I picked a spot in some tall grass. The wicker of settee squeaked as I gradually placed my weight on it. There was only one other group there, an absolutely smitten couple, necking on two brought-together chaise lounges, surrounded by an aggressive spread of personal belongings, pieces of clothing and books, covering almost half the lawn.

Through the matted undergrowth and over the couple's heads I could see the roofs, the plants, the boatyards and the huts of the slaves, and as the inessential houses began to melt away at the horizon I perceived spasms of smoke to the north.

A pretty girl with long dark hair and a clear complexion brought me a tray carrying a diminutive meal of mixed flats, waters with faded paper labels, and a clear liqueur with very thin yet visible flakes of gold floating in it. Flats work like this. You mix the different waters with the flat, it fizzes, gets hot, cools, and then you eat it. I messed up on the first one, not being able to read the inscription of the bottle, burned myself on the tip of my thumb, but after that I got it right.

Soon a bleached man in a faded shirt came up to where I sat in the grass. He addressed himself as the cook. I asked him about the liqueur.

The flakes cause small incisions in one's esophagus, the man said, allowing the alcohol to enter the bloodstream faster. The body can't digest heavy metals easily, so you usually only drink one per meal. I can get you something else, he said... and the man sneezed.

That's quite alright, I said, thank you.

And everything else, the man asked.

Excellent, thank you, I replied.

I drank the liqueur, looking up at the man over the top of the glass, staring down at me under his corrected brow. Now that I was drinking from it I noticed the enamel around the rim, a jutting mouthpiece, shaped as if you were drinking from a clam. He had this look on his face.

I said it was good.

Enjoy your meal, he said. I watched him walk over to the couple.

They were having the same, sweaty with the hot struggles of the day, sharing a pot of hypo-allergenic tea. I could smell it from where I was - the whole garden reeked of it. They laughed. They laughed and they talked over the foul-smelling tea. They were pouring each other's glasses, one after another, and when they opened their mouths to talk or drink I could see at least two-thirds was crammed with gum. I remember being struck with the range of civilization's reach, and seeing them with that macrobiotic stuff really made me sorry I'd come, and anyway, I'd wanted to be alone; one has always been one too many around me. I finished my drink. I got up and carried the tray inside the kitchen and handed it to the dark-haired girl, paid, tipped more than I should have, and left the arboretum.

I'd sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the eastern seaboard telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand board members of the Public Health Service.

I walked down the street for a while until I found a kid's bike tilted against a garage. I pulled it away and walked it to the road, kicked the seat up to the highest it could go, got on and started peddling.

I rode that small uncomfortable bike across the filter bridge and through the grotesque tarmac town center, off into the woods and on to a small dirt path that led to the tracks. I rattled down thick roots and down the dip of the ditch and landed on the steel spaghetti of the tracks, buckled and regained balance. I got in a rut against the left rail and was carried down the line, peddling at first to get to the hill until being carried down by gravity. I shot by wispy curved-in trees and stripped them of their leaves, spraying ballast into the forest twanging off all the slag and tipped cars, derailed or else smashed in from some head-on collision, all with their doors rusted open and empty. My smooth travel made me aware of a faint, barely perceptible wind, and I could feel some of the gold leaves still in my mouth, and the airiness of my dirty canvas bag bouncing against my shoulder, and felt like I had no feeling inside. I rode down the tracks, circling the valley until evening. It was nice out. It was fall. But it wasn't cold yet except at night.

I collected my copper plumbing among the cow pads, listening to the water flowing from the big pipe. I walked along the embankment back towards the valley and the tracks, under the sullen sky and lusterless moon. I rode the bike to the ferry service in a town called The Pied Cow and ditched it in the lake.

Angry, and cross with myself for changing too quickly, and tremendously sorry, I took the ferry back home, back to the bombed-out dry-cleaning plant I slept in amid a few hundred houses crouching under an old expressway.