US 1: Looking for an Endless Summer

My cell phone vibrated on the bedside table at 4.30 on a cold, dark Canberra morning in late July. Road Trip Day!  Absolutely superfluous really, because I’d been awake for hours anyway. The only thing that had been keeping me in bed was the fact that it was cold enough to freeze the balls on a billiard table. I was definitely looking forward to an endless Summer

How the hell did I get here?

Well, after getting crook towards the end of 2012, one of my Dad’s favourite aphorisms kept playing in my head. He used to say: one of these days, each one of us will stand with one foot in the grave and the other one on a banana skin . . . and when that day comes, we’ll all wish for a great many things – but I guarantee, one of them will not be, I wish I spent one more day in the office.

Now, I haven’t always been great at following through on my Dad’s instructions. But, after a stint in ICU, I’d concluded that there was an unassailable logic to this piece of advice. So, when I got back to Darwin, my first call was to the Director of Catholic Education to let him know that I’d decided to retire. My next call was to the Chair of CaSPA. At 62, I was a bit nervous about whether I could actually afford to retire completely.

The arrangement

I’d actually been a Director of CaSPA representing the NT for several years; and, had taken over management when the Executive Director retired in August of 2012. During my phone call, I’d suggested that I could continue with Association management through until the end of June, 2013. This would, I proposed, allow breathing space to identify and appoint a permanent Executive Director. So, by the end of the call, I had scored a limited term appointment as the Executive Director of CaSPA. The only downside to this arrangement was that I had to live in Canberra.

In theory, it was the perfect engagement. I would have an income stream through to the end of the financial year, and still be free to head off on our road trip late in July. In practise, the Board had been dragging its heels with its appointment processes. I was a month over my agreed stint and not particularly happy. There was no enjoyment at all in coping with sub-zero temperatures, scudding clouds, grey sodden daylight hours, and the cutting winds that blasted across the plain from the Brinbabella Ranges. It was definitely way past time that I went looking for an endless Summer.

Getting there from here

I jack-knifed out of bed, flicked on the lights, turned on the percolator and stepped into a scalding shower while the coffee brewed. It was bitterly cold; especially for an old bloke who’d spent the previous thirty-five years avoiding winter. And, if it was freezing inside, heaven only knew what it was going to be like outdoors.

With jeans, boots, long-sleeved T-shirt, hoodie, and leather jacket, I ventured gingerly onto the frigid ceramic tiles in the kitchen, poured a steaming black cup of arabica and edged out onto the veranda for a quiet smoke while I waited for the taxi. It really was bloody freezing! Looking for an endless Summer in the US suddenly seemed ultra attractive.

The sky wouldn’t begin to lighten for another hour or two. But, by then I would be on my way to Sydney to connect with a Virgin flight to LA.

Canberra fog

A winter fog blanketed the city and muted the lamps in the street to a set of ghostly glows backlighting a row of denuded oaks that reached bare limbs into the swirling mist. The weather app on my cell phone reported the temperature at – 6℃. I debated the wisdom of standing outside for the extra ten minutes required to have another cigarette. The sound of an engine gearing down and headlights that swept into the end of my street resolved my dilemma. 

The taxi worked its way slowly along the empty street and stopped just below my balcony. I waved at the driver; stepped back inside; locked the sliding door; grabbed my helmet and T-Bag; turned the key in the deadlock; and. took the stairs – two at a time – down to the apartment’s entry foyer. Right then, I was finding it a bit hard to believe that this was actually happening. I’d finally got to the starting gate for this long awaited and much anticipated road trip that we’d decided on five years previously.  

Cocooned in the warmth of the taxi as it made its way through the fog, I wondered if the flight would be delayed. If it was, I would risk missing the onward flight to LAX and so delay my quest for an endless Summer.

A terrorist threat

As things turned out, I needn’t have worried; we were wheels up out of Canberra at 5.45am. And by 7, just as the sun was struggling to get over the eastern horizon, I was on the transit bus skirting the end of the Sydney’s main runway enroute to the International Terminal. The sky was a pale, watery grey and it was still cold but without Canberra’s cutting edge. Thinking ahead twenty or so hours, I tried to visualise stepping out into a Californian summer. There, I would have about four hours to kill before heading out across the Mojave Desert on a connecting flight to Las Vegas.

As luck would have it, an alleged terrorist threat to flights out of Sydney had triggered a security alert. It took the best part of two hours to get through Customs and Security Checks. And, in the end, there was no time for a leisurely coffee or a browse through Duty Free. It was just onto the aircraft, doors closed, and into the pre-flight briefing. 

Across the Pacific

Now, when you head out of Sydney across the Pacific you’re flying east into the sun and usually with the Jet Stream. Daylight hours are concertinaed and almost before you know it, you’re flying in the dark; not that there’s anything much to see outside. I’d worked some very long hours updating accounting records and finalising financial reports for the auditors; so, almost immediately after we lifted off, I drifted off to sleep.

Flight attendants were serving dinner when I finally woke, and it was getting dark outside. It was time I gave some thought to the things I needed to do once I landed in the States; or more accurately, when I got to Las Vegas.

The flight was expected to arrive in Los Angeles at around 6am. Allow an hour to get through immigration. Another hour to collect luggage, get through customs, and then get outside for a smoke. Getting a smoke is kind of urgent if you’re a smoker and have been quarantined for fifteen hours. On arrival, I’d check in for my Flight to Vegas; get a coffee and something to eat; and then kick back for a couple of hours.

Killing time

I ordered a whisky and soda and scrolled through the movies on offer. 

Because nothing on the entertainment channels grabbed my attention, I settled for reading my dog-eared copy of Pat Conroy’s Beach Music. I’m not sure what it is about this novel that draws me irresistibly and repeatedly to it. Certainly, I like Conroy’s turn of phrase, but it is something more than that. Perhaps it’s the confused richness of the South or maybe the complex dystopia of dysfunctional families. Equally it could have been my fascination with the generation that struggled to define itself against the context of the Vietnam War. I was certainly drawn to the music and lyrics of Beach Music; that genre of music still evokes my own youth, my idealism and my foolishness.

Los Angeles

I read and dozed through the night and, before I knew it, cabin lights came on. The PA informed us that breakfast was being served and that we would soon commence our descent into Los Angeles. 

As a much younger bloke, with black hair and handle-bar moustache, I’d never been able to get through immigration or customs, hassle free. I seemed to be always on the end of questions about the purpose of my travel; and my luggage always seemed to require special attention. But not this time. I slipped my passport into the automated scanner and got the green light. My picture was taken for the facial recognition software and I got fingerprinted. Then my passport was stamped, and I was duly welcomed to America. Perhaps it was the shaved head, the white beard and the deeply furrowed face. How dangerous can an old bloke be . . . Right?

Old blokes are OK . . . apparently

Customs Officers were equally accommodating. I collected my bag and helmet, presented myself at the nominated customs gate, and was promptly waived right through. So, some forty-five minutes after stepping off the aircraft, I had collected an Americano from Starbucks, and was heading for the exit in search of the green arrows that would direct me to a designated smokers’ area. 

Only a smoker knows the irresistible urge the long-haul air traveller has to rush terminal exits in search of a designated smoker’s area. And only a smoker knows the deep pleasure of lighting up with coffee in hand after hours of enforced deprivation. I don’t know any nicotine addict that doesn’t revel in the head spin that comes with that abstinence breaking first cigarette. 

It had just gone 7.30am when I stepped onto the pavement outside the Tom Bradley International Terminal. Already, the temperature was somewhere north of 80℉ [27℃] and traffic was grid-locked around the massive U-shaped motor vehicle concourse. So, this was what looking for an endless Summer looked like. I parked my T-Bag and helmet, stripped off my leather jacket, and took a load off on a low pebbled concrete wall. Lighting up, I drew the first aromatic draft deep into my lungs, and made a start on the Starbucks.

People you meet

Now, just along from where I’d parked my butt, sat an African-American gentleman complete with crisp white shirt, bow tie, maroon vest, black tailored slacks, a full head of neatly trimmed white hair, white moustache and spit-polished back dress shoes. The combined effect made me feel a bit worn, shabby and disheveled.

His gaze was open and directly focussed on me.

‘Morning,’ I said, and nodded.

‘You look like you bin hangin’ out for that cigarette,’ he responded in a voice that was both deep and velvet smooth.

‘You’re right about that Mate. Fifteen hours on a plane plus a couple of hours in terminals and I’m screaming for a bit of nicotine.’

‘You Australian?’ More a statement than a question.

I nodded.

‘Got to know a few of your guys in ‘Nam’ back in the day. Could drink like it was going out of style. Good blokes though,’ he said in a credible Australian drawl.

Everyone has their sadness

And so, we smoked, drank coffee, yarned and wasted the best part of an hour together. We talked about life and the experiences that tend to slap the doe eyed naiveté and idealism out of you. Turned out he was half a dozen years senior to me. He was an ex-marine who was paying his dues and rent by working a bar in the Departure Lounge. He’d lost his wife to cancer because he didn’t have the medical insurance to finance effective and timely treatment; and a son to Desert Storm because serving in the Marines was something of a family tradition.

He was svelte, without an ounce of fat anywhere. When he stood to get the lighter from his pocket, you could see that military ram-rod, straightness in his bearing. His voice was stentorian and he laughed easily, but there was something else; a depth of pain that his laughing eyes could not completely conceal. We chatted on, about family, children and grandchildren; about the things that made us proud; and, about some things we probably shouldn’t have done.

And so . . . on to Vegas

A little before 8.30, he said that he would be due on duty at 9. We shook hands and he headed off towards the main hall of the International Terminal Building. We’d only had the most abbreviated encounter, and yet I was left with the feeling that I’d been allowed a brief glimpse into another man’s sadness. The odds against ever meeting him again were incalculable and yet, for an hour, we’d been friends. We’d laughed and shared confidences and experience, safe in the knowledge that we’d never have to read our own misdeeds, or submit to judgement, in each other’s eyes at any time in the future.

I had one more cigarette, because I knew that it would be mid-afternoon before I got the chance to have another; then. sauntered off towards the South Western Terminal to check in for my flight to Vegas. Just one more leg before I could start looking for an endless Summer.

Just a thought . . .

One day we will stand with one foot in the grave

and the other on a banana skin

and when that day comes, we will wish for many things 

but I guarantee that one of them will not be

I wish I’d spent another day in the office.

Click to continue reading: US2 What Happens in Vegas stays in Vegas