Kilabuni Nights – Installment 1

McBride. Can he be trusted?

11 Feb 2010      9:00 a.m. local              Chicago, IL

THE TRAVELER sits at his desk, shedding the last drops of his morning shower.  The last shower he will take, mercy to facilities and his own inertia, for who knows how long?  Sleep was a problematic companion last night; there have been myriad personal and professional affairs to arrange in advance of the expedition.  He has not yet packed.

Our Mission

We are set to depart presently.  Any moment now, the Finn will arrive to take us to the airfield and the adventure will begin.

Ostensibly, we leave on a mission of goodwill and expansion for the EAST VILLAGE HOCKEY LEAGUE (EVHL).  Owing to deficiencies in the global media apparatus, nearly all those in the Global Equatorial Zone suffer a dearth of exposure to the healthful and beautiful activity of Sport Hockey.[1] As representatives of the league’s two most popular teams, Mr. I. McBride (Southpaws) and I (Eskimos) comprise a delegation meant to spread the good news of this elegant (it’s the filet of the genre) sport across the oceans.

This trip of good faith holds a darker, potentially more volatile secondary motive.  Nearly 15 months ago, one of the founding architects of the EVHL, Boots Himself, struck off into the wilds of Tanzania and has all but disappeared.  Aside a handful of sporadic, hand-scrawled (nigh illegible) dispatches, and perhaps an e-mail every now and then, communication has been a dead idea.  There are rumors – sinister rumors — that he has thrown off the tenets of Sport Hockey entirely, that he has grown an ugly goatee, that he has become a vegetarian.  Also, we are bringing him Valentine’s Day candy from his mom & sisters.

It is a not un-haunting effect to set off on such an exciting trek with ominous bodes swirling below the surf, and I hesitate to document a journey with such a potentially grisly ending.  As one of my predecessors[2] famously said, however, “A man’s most open actions must have a secret side to them.”

The Finn is here.  It is time to depart.

12 Feb 2010   12 midnight local   En Route to Amsterdam

Very nearly a disaster for THE TRAVELER!  As he writes, 6000 miles above the stormy waters of THE ATLANTIC OCEAN, he reflects on his narrow escape and what might not have been.

A mealy-mouthed omen at the Detroit Air Station.  As we waited on the tarmac, ready to leave for Amsterdam, a general page went out from the flight commander.

“Will passenger [My Name] please report to the boarding door?” the tinny voice cackled through the overhead.

How now, what’s this? I thought with a twinge of discomfort.  What could the matter be?  Surely it was too early in the expedition for me to earn a medal.  Tendrils of dread trickling over my heart I trekked to the front of the aircraft, knowing I would sort things out one way or another.

A farty looking man in a blue sportcoat regarded me with an unimpressed look.  “This was on the ground in the terminal” he said wearily, extending his hand.  I looked down and saw a U.S. PASSPORT.  My U.S. Passport, I thought.

After drying my eyes, I reflected on how I may have been so careless.  You see, having passed through international flight protocol at Chicago’s O’Hare Air Station, I found no need to have my passport at the ready through our layover at the Detroit Air Station.  We were surrounded by duty free shops, for goodness’ sake.  When it came time to board, however, the jetway queue was clogged with novice and backwards travelers (some of them foreigners, even).  One of the evident points of delay came from this riff-raff rummaging through their pockets and belongings for their passports, though it was ambiguous from the gate crew’s reaction whether or not this maneuver was even necessary.

“Do we need to show our passports again?” McBride asked me.  As expedition commander, I felt compelled to be resolute.  “What?  This?” I said, pulling my passport from the plastic attaché I carried with me.  “Ha!” I tossed my head back and placed the item back in my pocket on the ground.  My instincts were confirmed, we in fact did not need our passports to board.  What transpired next has already been related.

As I sit peering through the porthole at the felt blackness of the Atlantic twenty Mt. Everests below, I confess to find the whole incident somewhat disquieting.  That the blame is McBride’s is beyond question.  What vexes still though is this: is he simply incompetent, or are more sinister motives at play?  No Eskimo has ever visited the tropics and lived to tell the tale.  Perhaps there is a reason why.

Epilogue: I broke my headphones watching Iron Man.  While McBride was asleep, I shoved the wrecked item into his seat pouch; supremely incriminating.  This Eskimo will not go quietly into the night

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[1] For further reading on SPORT HOCKEY, please refer to Appendix A (“Sport Hockey”)

[2] Joseph Conrad