The Journey Home

Monday, 29 June

The last four days have been a blur. The guys are leaving the job intermittently, due to the availability of return tickets (we’re finished way ahead of schedule). Wednesday night I learned that I was one of three guys leaving Friday. I woke up early Thursday and drove to E. Leclerc (Super Wal-Mart?)to buy some French snack goodies to take home. I got there at 7 AM and realized they don’t open until 10. I drove to the town center and parked, trying to kill time before Leclerc opened.

Watched other stores opening. Guy setting up the sidewalk in front of his store with oblong baskets of fruit--oranges, kiwis, plumbs, apples, berries, cherries--each in their respective basket. Looky there... a woman escaped from the loony ward. She was 80+, and I expected to see her buns showing through the hospital-esque garb she was wearing. A little boy opens the wooden shutters that covered his window, and pokes his head out to spy the downstairs fruit basket store guy in the adjacent building. Old man reads a paper on a bench next to an abstract sculpture (Jean d’Arc statue background), his cane beside him. Looks like his morning routine. I’m thinking, Wow, what a great picture. What a time to not have my camera. You know, if I tried to read that paper in an open town square, it would be blowing all over the place. No wind on this guy though. Just the long shadows cast by a bright morning sunshine and a promising day. The headline catches my eye. Michael Jackson...Mort...? I’m staring now, Closing the distance, squinting to make sure I’m reading it right. I look around for an open store--the reason I’m burning time here in the first place. Can’t I buy coffee and a paper ANYWHERE?

Okay, finally, the first of several bakeries opens. People trail in and out of it like ants for their daily bread. I go in and treat myself to a ginormous chocolate marzipan pastry (hey, I’ve been a good boy). I think it was sold in slices, but I bought the whole thing. Mmmm. Best sex I’ve had in months. The proprietor pointed me in the direction of coffee... the Tabac shop. The same one, in fact, that we usually drive past on the main road--ride beside le Chat Noir piano bar. I walk in and there’s not an open space at the bar. Old guys in business suits drinking coffee as part of a morning ritual. It’s the first real sign of life in Beaugency this morning. I order a big coffee and suck it out of the small shot glass in an instant. I sip the second one and pay the man, thanking him. The radio verifies Michael Jackson’s death repeatedly, though I can’t quite catch how he died.

I head back to Leclerc and pull a shopping cart out of the corral. I get in the store and wait with 75 other people for the gate to lift... And they’re off!!! The mad dash for beer and cigarettes begins. I buy some snacky stuff and a couple French-specific toys for the kids. A Madeline book for Lily. A bottle of Paddy’s Irish whiskey (the real deal!) for Matt. I left the store. Drove back and handed off the keys to someone else.

Grabbed the bike off the balcony. Patrick called. He and Laurent are stopping by the hotel to say bye...Patrick’s headed home to Sylvie and his girls as we speak. They stop by and we finish my existing bottles of Clan Campells and Paddy’s. Another French hotel guest takes our picture for me. Earlier in the project, Patrick and I had exchanged contact info and swapped knives. I’ll get up with him soon after I get back to the States. They took off and I yelled after them in the fashion of Mr. Miyagi. “Banzai, Danielson! Banzai!” Then I went for my bike ride, stopped in on the St. Laurent Pompier Station (Fire Department) for a couple pictures... they gave me some patches/insignia for m’boys, and we swapped addresses. Went for my last swim. Rode back to the hotel.


Went to work. Got off early. One last ride to Beaugency. Hung out on the bridge, watched the setting sun. I’m amazed at the number of birds that inhabit the island close to the bridge. Enough seagulls, pigeons, and waterfowl to choke Alfred Hitchcock, flying and swimming in every direction every day. I rode back. The stadium at St. Laurent was occupied by a thousand people, who stood under the big lights on the dirt that surrounds the field. There were 20 different bocce tournaments going on at once. It was cool. I reached the hotel, broke down the bike and stuffed it back into the long box I picked up from All About Bikes before I left the States, packed my suitcase, shook hands with my roommate Doug before he took an assisted drift into sleepyland, walked downstairs, set down my crap, sat on the couch, finished my last bottle of wine and waited for the 3AM shuttle to Paris, courtesy of Joe Rinaldi. I busted out my last drawing, the side view of the cathedral at Orleans, for Sean, per his request earlier in the week. I like giving artwork away. It makes it more intrinsically valuable, and it can’t just be obtained by anybody that way.

3 AM. We drive to Paris. 5:15 we arrive in Paris. The airport is dead. Can’t find the Continental check-in. Find the hidden bastard. Crash out there with my traveling buddy Dadrian Hall. A guy walks up and leaves his suitcase with us. He walks away for an hour. I was too lazy or apathetic to give it much thought. A nice-looking family with three small girls is traveling home to Bogota, Columbia. They wait with us. 7:30 AM, the rest of the airport springs to life. Our desk takes another hour. I pay $50 (36 Euros) for my barely overweight bag, but I refuse to take anything out, including the legibly-stamped brick I grabbed from the fireplace in the rubble of a deteriorating 14th-century castle home.
I head to the gate. Buy Petra some Yves-St. Laurent Printemps (Spring) perfume from the duty-free store, the budgetary alternative to her usual handbag / jewelry / fashion accoutrement gifts. I’m embarrassingly perfume-saavy, and know what scent Petra would appreciate. I was specifically looking for something French (albeit internationally available), that was also popular in France, and that was not l’eau d’Issey (her normal scent--and consequently my favorite). I thought it was a nice twist that our town was also named St. Laurent.

The flight was good. Chatted it up with a real-deal Special Forces officer Vietnam veteran, who was an advisor to an ARVN Ranger battalion. By far, the single-most pleasurable Vietnam experience that has ever passed through these ears. I felt like I was there. Being a Green Beret, he had also attended Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA, for Vietnamese. He was chatting it up with our stewardess, a woman who also recognized me from my flight over to France in May. She is a bigger-built but not unattractive woman with high cheek bones and a New Yorker’s accent, who looks like a cross between a Samoan and a Navaho. “Are you Hawaiian?” I asked during our first flight. “No,” she said, “but if you can guess where I’m from, I’ll buy your next drink.” “You’re Vietnamese. Make it a vodka. Olive if you’ve got it.” “Wow, I’m impressed! Most people don’t get that.” “So, double or nothing if I guess your last name?” “Sure.” I’ve got a 50/50 chance. “Nguyen?” “You are good. Double of vodka coming right up.” So me and Vietnam Jeffrey are chatting it up a month later. She recognizes me (“Hey, Dinky Dao! [sp?]) and asks if I’d like some wine. She gives me several small bottles. Jeffrey chats it up with her in her native tongue. He’s loaded down with wine too. I never did get her contact info. The guy to my left finally spoke up 6 hours into the flight. Told me we had some fascinating stories. He’s a war game developer. Tells the story of his dad in WWII in Italy. I was deeply moved by his demeanor and his sincerity. I dug up the 50 Lire Allied War Currency Note (printed similar to a dollar bill... cool looking) that I picked up in Orleans at the market. Gave it to him in return for an email detaining his father’s experiences. A bill like that was probably exchanged through his dad’s hands long ago.

Laid over in Joisey (Newark). Gate changed 5 times! My little French/Columbian family had some trooper girls. Talked to dad in French, explained that I also had small children at home, and I know that they’ve got a long way to go. Offered up a big sealed pack of kinderschokolade, which he gratefully accepted. His girls’ eyes lit up. Finally made it out of there. Talked to an F-18 driver hot off the Ike, getting ready to PCS with his family. We swapped KC-130 refueling stories and ground fire mission stories from both perspectives. Finally made it home Saturday night. Pet and the kids didn’t recognize me walking up to them; I was clean-shaven and had my hat on backwards. Went home and dished out goodies to everybody, in the grand tradition of traveling parents everywhere. Glad to be home. Feels like heaven.