for the Staten Island Ferry at Battery Park.
He sits on that boat in a cluster of miserable commuters and tourists from around the world. Chris hears a cacophony of accents and languages. He drops his belongings at his feet, thrusts his hands deep into the pockets of his pea coat, and pushes his sailor’s hat down on his forehead, resting it on the top of his thick gold-rimmed eyeglasses.
It is his first time on a boat. He feels at home. The thrill of travel has returned, even though he is not sure of his immediate destination.
The sights from the ferry are at first breathtaking: the Statue of Liberty, that American image that he has seen depicted a million times growing up, the Brooklyn Bridge, the skyline of lower Manhattan with the World Trade Center towers rising majestically over every building
He thinks briefly of his mother and father. He lights a cigarette and looks at the industrial New Jersey shoreline to the west, full of nothing but iron and steel and concrete, and the Brooklyn shoreline to the east, residential, almost bucolic compared to the Jersey shoreline.
After roughly twenty-five minutes and two cigarettes, the ferry deposits him at the north end of Staten Island. The scenery is more suburban, similar to his own native surroundings. He is disappointed. He expected to feel like he was in the middle of a big city.
He walks along the main road and realizes that it is already mid-afternoon and that he hasn’t eaten in nearly two days. He stops at a fast-food restaurant, eats without tasting, barely breathing, and continues walking.
Tired, he stops at the first motel he sees, a rather bland building.
He gets his room and peruses the phonebook. There are many Mahlers listed, and Chris is too introverted to start randomly calling people, looking for his friend. Upset, he turns on the television, removes his uniform and neatly hangs it in the closet. He collapses on the bed and falls asleep. He dreams of his childhood, of a camping trip his parents promised him but never took. In the dream, he loves his mother and looks up to his father and brother. They fish from a dock at the campground. They paddle a canoe.
He awakes at dawn the next morning, the day before Christmas, disappointed that his dream did not lead to a reality and that his current reality is a Christmas without a home in a city he doesn’t know and a life leading god knows where.
He sighs, retrieves the last cigarette from the crushed pack on the nightstand. He scratches his head and turns up the volume of the television, which has stayed on all night. He can’t stand silence. He has not been entirely alone this much in his entire life, and the noise from the television and the brightness of the screen comfort him.
He still has over a week and a half of leave left, time he had planned on spending in Michigan, exchanging gifts with his family, visiting one or two of his friends, returning to his school in his uniform, as he had seen upperclassmen do in previous years.
No one would have known him anyway, he decides.
He thinks about crying but doesn’t, thinks about shouting but doesn’t, and he shifts his thoughts to how to spend the next eleven days before he is due in Scotland.
He decides to head there early.
He showers, dons his uniform and heads out into the early New York morning, Christmas lights twinkling all around him in that dusky cold and clear sky.
It is a difficult trek to La Guardia, back to the Staten Island Ferry, and then a very expensive cab ride to the international terminal, where he finds the Pan Am counter.
He is able to change his ticket for a flight leaving that day. He checks in his sea bag and garment bag and has seven hours to kill inside the airport. First, he eats a breakfast of a cinnamon roll and soda, and then he purchases some reading material and selects a seat at the gate from which his plane will be departing. He reads the New York Times because he is in New York and he feels that’s
He sits on that boat in a cluster of miserable commuters and tourists from around the world. Chris hears a cacophony of accents and languages. He drops his belongings at his feet, thrusts his hands deep into the pockets of his pea coat, and pushes his sailor’s hat down on his forehead, resting it on the top of his thick gold-rimmed eyeglasses.
It is his first time on a boat. He feels at home. The thrill of travel has returned, even though he is not sure of his immediate destination.
The sights from the ferry are at first breathtaking: the Statue of Liberty, that American image that he has seen depicted a million times growing up, the Brooklyn Bridge, the skyline of lower Manhattan with the World Trade Center towers rising majestically over every building
He thinks briefly of his mother and father. He lights a cigarette and looks at the industrial New Jersey shoreline to the west, full of nothing but iron and steel and concrete, and the Brooklyn shoreline to the east, residential, almost bucolic compared to the Jersey shoreline.
After roughly twenty-five minutes and two cigarettes, the ferry deposits him at the north end of Staten Island. The scenery is more suburban, similar to his own native surroundings. He is disappointed. He expected to feel like he was in the middle of a big city.
He walks along the main road and realizes that it is already mid-afternoon and that he hasn’t eaten in nearly two days. He stops at a fast-food restaurant, eats without tasting, barely breathing, and continues walking.
Tired, he stops at the first motel he sees, a rather bland building.
He gets his room and peruses the phonebook. There are many Mahlers listed, and Chris is too introverted to start randomly calling people, looking for his friend. Upset, he turns on the television, removes his uniform and neatly hangs it in the closet. He collapses on the bed and falls asleep. He dreams of his childhood, of a camping trip his parents promised him but never took. In the dream, he loves his mother and looks up to his father and brother. They fish from a dock at the campground. They paddle a canoe.
He awakes at dawn the next morning, the day before Christmas, disappointed that his dream did not lead to a reality and that his current reality is a Christmas without a home in a city he doesn’t know and a life leading god knows where.
He sighs, retrieves the last cigarette from the crushed pack on the nightstand. He scratches his head and turns up the volume of the television, which has stayed on all night. He can’t stand silence. He has not been entirely alone this much in his entire life, and the noise from the television and the brightness of the screen comfort him.
He still has over a week and a half of leave left, time he had planned on spending in Michigan, exchanging gifts with his family, visiting one or two of his friends, returning to his school in his uniform, as he had seen upperclassmen do in previous years.
No one would have known him anyway, he decides.
He thinks about crying but doesn’t, thinks about shouting but doesn’t, and he shifts his thoughts to how to spend the next eleven days before he is due in Scotland.
He decides to head there early.
He showers, dons his uniform and heads out into the early New York morning, Christmas lights twinkling all around him in that dusky cold and clear sky.
It is a difficult trek to La Guardia, back to the Staten Island Ferry, and then a very expensive cab ride to the international terminal, where he finds the Pan Am counter.
He is able to change his ticket for a flight leaving that day. He checks in his sea bag and garment bag and has seven hours to kill inside the airport. First, he eats a breakfast of a cinnamon roll and soda, and then he purchases some reading material and selects a seat at the gate from which his plane will be departing. He reads the New York Times because he is in New York and he feels that’s
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