Passport

Passport

This story is about being late and missing things. This story is also about false information and the tribulations it wrings and the improbable triumphs of schedules and transportation in this world we inhabit of false information. Then again, this story is about things that should have been missed but somehow were not. This story is about seconds.

This story is about post office windows and torn trousers, Spanish curses, negative capability and unreliable government employees. It's even about Chip Cummings. And it's true.

Mysterious things happen. Sometimes I almost believe there are such things as astrological cycles. You see, ever since Thanksgiving, 2004, I have had the most astonishing run of close misses of travel connections. Oh no, no, you say, oh no, no. You're describing your permanent condition, not an aberration. Well, ok. You've already heard about how Chip and I missed our flight back from Paris in 1992. But there's no need to act like it's my fault. After all, I've missed things and caught them when in both circumstances it was beyond my control.

I remember a bus trip back to New York with one of those damnable layovers in Washington. Passengers must exit their buses and form a line to get on their new bus. I'd struck up a conversation with an amiable fellow on the Richmond-New York leg of the trip, and we'd arrived in Washington to find the bus station crammed like the Fall of Saigon, it being the end of the Christmas holiday. Form a new line? There were no lines, no more than there were lines to exit the Coconut Grove when it burned down.

The amiable fellow and I stuck together. It seemed like we both trusted each other. We waited. The New York bus hadn't come. And when it did come, the odds of our getting on, what with the seething mass with similar plans, seemed slight. And then came an announcement. The New York bus wouldn't arrive for one half hour. People filtered away to sit, smoke cigarettes and visit the bathroom. The amiable fellow said he would go buy a hotdog. He walked away. And then came an announcement. The bus for New York was boarding at gate 10. Right then. I looked around for the amiable fellow. Nowhere. I got to gate 10. The bus was already half full. But I got on. I sat. I looked through the window and saw the glass door to gate 10 had been closed. A mass of people seethed behind the door. At the front of the mass, pressed against the glass door, I saw the amiable fellow, peering out as though he could see me. I sometimes wonder where he is today.

And then there was Christmas, 1990. I was staying at Dan Gillette's apartment in his surburban complex, and Dan had gone home to Chattanooga, and it was Christmas day, and I walked out and locked Dan's apartment without his keys in my pocket. My bags were in Dan's apartment. I was to leave Richmond the day after Christmas because I was to go to Paris the day after the day after Christmas. And I was locked out. No bags. No Dan. No apartment super. Not on Christmas day. I'd even left Dan's stereo playing. When I peeked through his mail slot, I could hear the music. What could I do without an axe? I had to get in, but I didn't want to destroy Dan's property. Also, Dan gets nervous easily. I didn't want to burden his mind with information such as how to break into his apartment. So I had to get in and I had to conceal the fact. I got tools from my car trunk. I went to the rear of Dan's apartment. I stood on the airconditioner beneath his kitchen window. I started chipping out the putty around one of the window's panes of glass. Then I levered out the pane of glass into my hand. That was the skillful part. I unlocked the window, raised it and crawled through right into his kitchen sink. I forget. I also had to move some plants off the window counter. Plants grow in the direction of the sun. So I moved Dan's plants back so Dan wouldn't wonder why his plants were growing in the direction of his living room. I cleaned the sink. I got the keys and turned off the stereo. I left through the front door and marched back around and stood on the airconditioner. I put the pane of glass back in the window. The putty was gone, but the worst that could happen was that Dan might open his window in April and the pane might fall out and smash, but he would never be able to guess that someone had burglarized his apartment four months previously. I went to New York and caught my flight. Voila. But what if that air conditioner hadn't been beneath the kitchen window?

And then there was the Paris trip Chip and I made in 1993. We visited a girl on Montparnasse Boulevard one evening. That's in Montparnasse. It got late. It was almost one a.m. The girl said, "Maybe it's time for you to leave. The metro stops running at one. You've missed the last one. But with luck you might catch the last bus. You knew the metro and buses stop running at one, don't you?" Sure, we knew that. Sure.

Now we were about four miles away from Lala's, and we sure didn't want to walk to her home at one a.m., so we didn't linger. Moreover, Chip's right foot was bothering him on that trip. Something about the size of a half dollar was growing on the sole of Chip's right foot, and Chip said each step he took felt like he was pressing his bare foot on broken glass. He had taken to walking with an umbrella in lieu of a cane. It troubled him so much that he attempted home surgery with a razor blade, shaving off some of the built up outer carapace of the half dollar, and I vividly remember his "Ack! Ack! Ack!" as he went about this process. Such are the vagaries of memory.

So Chip didn't want to walk home either, maybe even more than I didn't want to walk home. We walked onto the sidewalk and peered anxiously up and down the chilly January boulevard, made even chillier by the absence of any public transport on the street.

"You think we missed it?" I asked.

"It'll come," said Chip. "it's just one a.m. now. It'll come."

Then, far up Montparnasse Boulevard, came headlights.

"Is that it?" I asked.

"That's it," Chip said. "I told you it was gonna come."

I held up my arm and waved. "Hello!" I yelled.

Chip held up his arm and waved. "Hello! Hello!" he yelled.

The bus went roaring past us.

"He didn't stop," said Chip.

"Come on!" I yelled.

I took off running. The bus caught the red light at the next corner. Paris has some long, long blocks, but I ran faster. I was going to catch him. I pulled astride of the bus. I reached the bus door and came to a stop. I reached for the door handle. The light changed. The bus pulled away. I drew breath. Far up ahead, at the corner of the next block, the light turned red again. The bus was going to get stopped a second time. I took off running. I gained speed as I ran. Desperation equals determination. I pulled astride of the bus. The light turned green. I pulled astride of the door. The bus started to move forward. I took my palm and pounded on the glass of the door, yelling simultaneously. I heard the brakes. The bus stopped. The door opened. I took one step onto the bus and turned back, trembling and sweating in the January night.

"You're a sentimental fool." That's what Dan Gillette says to me. And he's right, of course. But what is the stuff of life anyway? What is the meaning of it all, except for our memories? I don't know if I can convey to you my feelings about this issue in words, but I think maybe, just maybe, if you could have been there, and if you, like I, had turned and looked back and seen Chip trotting and hobbling along down Montparnasse Avenue, with a look on his face like with each step he was pressing his foot onto broken glass, then you would understand me when I sigh, "Oh! Those were the days!"

How Chip has come down since those days, mentally. Why, just last week he told me with complete conviction that his cat has learned to turn on the stereo all by himself. "No," I said. I always humor him. "Yes," he replied. At 4:30 a.m., he totally assured me, he'd awoken to a song by Led Zeppelin coming out of the darkness. He said he'd thought he'd died and that he was experiencing entry into the afterlife. Does that sound like aught but a remnant of the man we used to know? Cats turning on stereos...he didn't even attempt to account for his cat's musical tastes or choice of playing time.

And yet those almost missed connections were the aberrations. It was not a pattern. No. I deny it, even though on this very trip to Paris in January 2005 I sat at Lala's dinner table and said, I don't remember in what reference, "I enjoy a certain amount of chaos and uncertainty in my life."

Lala said, "I know."

I deny it is the pattern. If it were the pattern, then how to account for the stunning number of damn close runs beginning at Thanksgiving?

I read an article about obituaries. There's a man who edits a magazine devoted to obituaries of the distinguished dead and the dead who died oddly. Oddly, like the man who shuffled off his mortal coil when his penis implant exploded. And the editor was asked if he could draw any generalizations about what sort of persons lived a long, long time. And the editor said his scholarship had led him to the conclusion that people who never went anywhere and never did anything seemed to live long lives. "I would advise you to stay in one place if you want to live forever," the editor said.

Well, since Thanksgiving I'm living on borrowed time.

It began at my brother's. If I caught the 12:45 bus, I could be in Flushing by 9:45, assuming no traffic returning from holiday, and there's always traffic returning from holiday. The next bus left at 3 and made more stops, so I'd be arriving in Flushing about one or two a.m. And I had to teach in the morning. So I explained this to my brother. I asked to be driven to the bus station at 12:15, at the latest. He said ok.

At 12:15 I stood by the cars, my bags in his backseat. No brother. Minutes passed. No brother. The back door opened. He walked out with the garbage. He walked through the back yard to the garbage can. He placed it in the garbage can. Then he lashed the top on tight so the raccoons couldn't eat the garbage. Then he walked up to me. I thought to myself, "He's going to say, 'Are you ready?'" He said, "Are you ready?" I said, "Yes, but don't mind me if you'd like to wash the windows." He went back in the house. He came out with the keys.

It was 12:26.

He said, "We're taking Sarah's car."

I took the bags out of his car and put them in Sarah's car. I thought as I did so, "All life revolves around a few seconds when you stop to think of it. This is taking me 30 seconds or less, and yet the pain and waste of the possible consequence of these 30 seconds might well beggar comprehension...at least of most humans."

There's no such thing as a broken speed limit with my brother driving. The car purred along, catching every stop light. I wouldn't even look at him. He broke into one of his communications. "Archer, next time you come down we oughta write down a list of questions about family history so we can visit Emma Lee and ask her about these things before she dies. She's getting really old."

I paused. I said, "We may do it today."

Time passed in silence. Then he broke into another communication. He said, "I don't know why I was doing that stuff in the house. And I guess I didn't have to take the garbage out right then. I guess I could've waited until I got back from taking you to the bus station."

Time passed. Then he said, "I don't know why I do stuff like that. I guess the garbage could have waited until I got back from taking you to the bus station."

I said, "Drive me to the door. Right to the door. Do not look for a parking space."

We pulled into the bus station parking lot. The time was 12:46.

I grabbed my bags and lept out without a goodbye. I punched the automatic opening doors and ran in, lips frothing. About ten people were waiting in line at the New York gate. The gate was closed. I stood at the end of the line. All of the people ahead of me were couples or families. Minutes passed. People got in line behind me.

Then the gate opened. There was a whoosh of pneumatic sound from the bus engine. The driver called, "We got one more seat for New York. One single."

A middle-aged lady behind me came running forward, mouth open. But I beat her. I got my seat and looked out at the couples and families.

Think about that. Had we arrived 30 seconds later, I would have been behind the middle-aged lady. Why were all the people ahead of me couples and families? I felt like asking, "Why me?" It made me think about chaning my life, trying to amount to something, do something good in the world. But not for long.

After Thanksgiving came Christmas. Chung-Yung and I rode the bus to my brother. When we left, we took a cab.

Wait. Narratives aren't all action scenes. They need interludes. Quiet, heart-warming family scenes.

The Espiscopal Church owns a lot of open fields down the street from my brother's house. Beyond the fields are a train track, then a canal, then more muddy fields over which an expressway passes and finally the James River. At Christmas I asked Rand and Chung-Yung if they would like to visit the river. Rand agreed. "But it's not easy any longer," Rand said. "There's a fence in front of the train track and keep out signs." He paused. "But I know how to get around them," Rand said.

"This is the meaning of family," I thought. "He is like me. He is. Breaking the law with nephews and fiancees...that's the meaning of life." We evaded the barbed wire fence by climbing down under a railroad trestle and then up on the other side of the wire. With Rand pulling me and Chung-Yung pushing, I got up. "Bottom so heavy and slow," Chung Yung said, giving a heave. "Like old man's bottom."

We now faced the open bridge, highly visible to observers. Rand said, "Archer, can people see us if we cross the bridge?" I said, "We better bend over and run, stay low, like commandos."

So we took off with Rand and Chung-Yung both giggling. There was an old concrete sluice gate beside the river, maybe twenty plus feet high. I didn't make Chung-Yung go up there with me, but I did take Rand. We walked out to the end. I kept a good grip on his hand and his jacket collar. Isn't that also the meaning of life, risking one's own life and one's nephew's as well? Looking down at the water foaming below did create a sense of vertigo, but, as I told Paul on our visit just past, heights don't seem to bother me much. Paul said, "You must have some Indian in you, Archer." "Yes," I replied. "I come from a tribe known as the Poorwhites."

There was an echo under the expressway on the way back. Cars whooshing by far overhead. Thum-thuck of cars passing over metal grates. Spectral. Rand liked it. And then we made another commando dash across the bridge. As we returned to semi-legal Episcopal fields, a train hooted. It chugged past. Rand got a strange look in his eyes. He turned, a victim of a spell. He walked slowly toward the train, hypnotized by the sound and sight, stopped and stood fixed. Chung-Yung said, "He will remember this when he grows up." After the train passed, we had to call to Rand. He turned like an awakened sleeper.

I had a dream that night. I realized I had been teaching valuable lessons that day. I saw myself imparting to Rand all the moral instruction I had ever learned: "Rand...I don't have a lot I can teach you...but I can teach you this...whenever you see a law, the only reason it's there is for you to break it. If you see a barbed wire fence...you climb over it...if you see a 'Keep Out' sign...you go past it. They're all there to test you...they're there to see if you'll stay in the place they want you...or if you'll be free...always be free, Rand...always be free...and when you grow up and hear a train in the distance, a huffin' and a chuggin', remember the one you saw with us today...and remember what we did and what it means."

Then Chung-Yung hit me in the back and I woke up.

And when we left my brother's, we went to Charlie Peeples. And we had to change buses in rural Pennsylvania. And the first bus was late, but the second bus was still there regardless. Pure luck, even though Chung-Yung did do a little praying.

And Charlie Peeples drove us to catch the bus back to New York on New Year's Eve. And the bus was closing its doors - no surprise. And I had to buy tickets in the station. And the station was closing. And I got the tickets and we got on the bus and we made it back to New York. Pure luck, with no time for praying.

And then when we were returning to France from Spain - but there are things so horrid that memory will not recall them. So I must skip relating how we got into the cab with the Spanish lady cabdriver in the Place d'Espana and merely depict what occurred therein. One day before I had commented to Paul that his daughter was so adorable that it was hard to imagine she might experience tantrums. Paul said she got cranky sometimes. I told Paul not to worry inasmuch as even I myself still had a tantrum now and then. And it was one of those tantrums in progress at that moment within the cab.

"Goddammit," I said. I slapped my thigh. The Spanish lady cabdriver, looking straight ahead, twitched. "I knew this was going to happen," I said. The Spanish lady cabdriver twitched.

Chung-Yung said, "There's an aeroport bus right behind us."

"Stop!" I yelled. "We're getting out here!" We had driven about ten feet. The cab stopped. Chung-Yung grabbed her bags and ran. I hurled money into the cab. I got my bags out of the trunk and stalked toward the aeroport bus. Behind my back came a stream of high-pitched agitated speech from the Spanish lady cabdriver. But it didn't bother me. I don't understand Spanish.

That's all I remember.

This may look like a simple recitation. But it's a symphony. And the making of a symphony rather than a recitation is that every symphony has a crescendo.

When I bought the tickets to Paris in May, 2004, it was, personally, extreme long-range planning. I'm growing up, you know. I'm trying to change my ways. I'm planning. I am. Things wouldn't go wrong this time. And I was well aware that I renewed my passport last in January 1995. In fact, it was due to expire on January 24, 2005. And I knew very well that I would be leaving Paris on January 27, 2005. So I took care of the matter.

On the afternoon of December 6th, 2004, I went to the Passport Application window in the Flushing Post Office. I said to the young lady behind the window bars, "My passport will expire next January 24th. But I'm going to be in Paris at the time of expiration. I'm leaving on January 11th and I'm due to return on the 27th of January. I want to renew my passport."

The young lady looked at the passport. She said, "Don't renew your passport."

I said, "Don't renew my passport."

"Don't renew your passport," she said. "There's not enough time. There's a 30 day grace period on expired passports when you're overseas. Renew it when you get back."

"A 30 day grace period. So I won't have any trouble returning to the U.S. if my passport is expired by three days?" I asked.

"No," she said.

"You're sure?" I asked. "They won't make me stay in Paris?"

"Ha ha. I'm sure," she said.

"Ha ha," I said.

I know what you're all thinking. He should have double checked it. It's so easy to tell another person what they should have done. But how often do you double check things? And besides. Other issues intruded in my life immediately that demanded total attention.

For example, Chung-Yung needed her visa to travel to France. For the third time we called upon Cathy and Christophe to furnish Chung-Yung with her certificate of accomodation, and they responded with heroic efforts. On January 31st we returned from Charlie Peeples'. At 10 p.m. I read my e-mail. Christophe and Cathy had come through again. The certificate of accomodation had been faxed to Chip Cummings. Now all that had to happen was to get the certificate of accomodation from Chip Cummings to Archer Irby. It was 10 p.m. on New Year's Eve. We were leaving at 10 p.m. on January 11. Nothing could go wrong.

I believe the best explanation of the events that followed lies in the reproduction of the documents below. Please read them from bottom to top.

.

From :	Archer Irby
Sent :	Monday, January 10, 2005 10:18 PM

Subject :	Re: your arrival

|

Inbox

Dear Sabine;

Il est arrive. We have it. Off to the embassy tomorreow morning and cross fingers. I'm not sure that I will arrive with Massachusetts cranberries, but I promise you that if I don not, Chip will bring a suitcase full.

----Original Message Follows----

From: "Archer Irby"

To: Sabine.

Subject: Re: your arrival

Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 18:20:31 +0000

From: Archer Irby
To: Sabine.
Subject: Re: your arrival
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 6:20 PM

Dear Sabine;

My suitcase is packed, but I'm not sitting on it.?I'm doing about 24 things connected with school and the trip.?I think I should dampen enthusiasm for my arrival.?We are departing tomorrow at 10 p.m.?However, it is 1 p.m. today, and we still don't have Chung-Yung's visa.?The consulate changed the rules and wants an original document rather than a copy.?Christophe and Cathy have mailed the original express, but it hasn't arrived yet.?The consulate is open only until one p.m., so if the document arrives today, we may be able to get the visa tomorrow.?In other words, hope is not dead, but hope is getting squeezed awfully tight.?I cannot blame anybody if we don't arrive.?I can only thank everybody and write a story I hope will amuse you.?You have no idea how much I think about you.

---Original Message Follows----

From: Sabine.

To: Archer Irby

Subject: Re: your arrival

Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 16:43:45 +0100

Hi Archer,

She does not have your phone number, so if you need to telecommunicate with her, you need to unveil your phone number overseas.

Now that you have everything packed, sitting on your suitcase and wondering how you could spend your time left before getting to the airport, why not taking a stroll go to a grocery store and get me 3?packs (about 250 gr each) of Massachussets cranberries ??Do not thank me for that brilliant suggestion, I was just worrying about your sunglasses, the Hägen Dasz ice cream basket and the packs of cape Cod potatoes chips you have been sitting on for hours now.

See you soon and have a good trip,

Sabine

Archer Irby wrote:

>Dear Cathy;

???Ah oui, ah oui, ah oui...ah oui, ah oui, ah oui.?I did say I

>was getting the certificate from Chip on Sunday.?Here is how the

>plot played out.?Chip told me Saturday night that he was going to

>visit his boat partner, James, on Sunday and put the cover on the

>boat.?Therefore, Chip said, he would not be back until 3 p.m. or

>later.?On Sunday, beginning at 3 p.m. or earlier, I called Chip

>about 10 times.?His answering machine would not pick up.?The

>answering machine's recorded voice said Chip's machine was full.?

>Finally that evening Chip called me.?I do not remember the time.?I

>informed Chip his answering machine was filled with messages.?Chip

>said that he had not after all gone to visit his boat partner,

>James, and that Chip had been at home since about 1 p.m.?Chip

>dissuaded me from coming to pick up the certificate that evening.?

>Chip had previously told me that he would not work on Monday,

>January 3.?I offered to come to New Rochelle on Monday, January 3,

>to pick up the certificate.?Chip then told me that he was, after

>all, going to work on Monday, January 3.?On the evening of Monday,

>January 3, I had to teach.?Therefore meeting with Monsieur Cummings

>turned out to be a bright fantasy, glistening in the sunlight,

>elusive to the grasp.

>

>?? Cathy, we're arriving at Charles de Gaulle on January 12th at

>11:55.?I mean we're arriving at thtat place and time barring any

>future developments like, for example, giant pink rabbits leaping up

>and down on my chest and necessitating a hospital visit before the

>11th.

>?? Cathy, I believe I told you another couple is coming with us.?

>They are Tom and Costanza Kokis.?Sabine met Tom.?I know I informed

>Lala of this fact.?I am going to e-mail Lala and call her.?I

>informed Lala previously that four people does not divide evenly

>into Lala's apartment, even though Tom and Costanza are staying in

>Paris only one week.?Therefore I asked Lala to please give me the

>name and e-mail address of a small hotel two blocks from her.?Tom

>and Costanza have reservations at a hotel in Montmartre, but I want

>to be close to Lala.?In fact, I have told them so many nice things

>about Lala that they also want to be close to her, so they will

>cancel their Montmartre reservation.?I find it hard to believe that

>I have been able to influence the mind of an American.?Maybe

>miracles do happen.?But Lala will not tell me the name and e-mail

>of the small hotel.?Lala, please tell me.?Cathy, if you see Lala,

>please tell her to tell me.?Cathy, I don't know how to thank you

>all so much.?I will write or call tomorrow, but I believe there is

>a giant pink rabbit coming through the window.?Love to everybody.

>

>----Original Message Follows---- From: catherine padiou

><catherine.padiou@huawei.com> To: archer <archerirby@hotmail.com>

>Subject: your arrival Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2005 14:07:09 +0100 Hi

>Archer, I thought you would meet Chip on previous Sunday. When and

>at what time are you arriving in Paris. I have to make sure you get

>the code and the key if Lala is not at home.--

We went to the French consulate in Manhattan on Tuesday morning. We got the visa. I went to my college on Tuesday afternoon. Then I got a haircut. Then we waited for the car service. He was one half hour late. Then we got to the airport. Tom Kokis and Costanza had arrived three hours early. Tom's motto is safety first. This is why we don't travel together much. Costanza asked to see my passport. "Archer," she said, "your passport expires on the 24th." "It's ok," I said. "I checked. There's a 30 day grace period."

My vacation in Paris. Wunnerful, wunnerful. Kangaroos in the park. The lost Paris of Yves Montard in the springtime. A full moon behind Notre Dame and falling snowflakes, light and crisp as ashes. The mystery of Paris is that it can take even someone like Tom Kokis and wash all the objections out of him; Paris functions as a sort of acid bath that sloughs off all the anxieties and apprehensions; the pent up raging negativity becomes revealed as nought but wisps of smoke, foolish wasteful spews of emotion revealed as such once that one is in Paris.

Tom Kokis came, too. He and his lovely wife Costanza. But they left on the 17th, not the 27th. As life is strange, so art is hard. And something happened to Tom Kokis on the 17th, and something happened to me on the 27th. And I've had the devil's time deciding how to relate both, inasmuch as they bear relation. Should I tell the more catastrophic first, and relate the second as a comic coda? Should I intercut between the two stories, altering chronology and yet ratcheting up the tension? Should I tell one as a prelude to the second, so that the audience, upon the point of thinking that this is really just an anti-climax, sees it in reality is amplifying and magnifying and all meshing without seams?

I have concluded that Tom's experience can be done justice only if rendered in the form of a movie. Yes. Exactly as he told me in every detail. But as a movie.

Open close upon sign: "Gare de Nord". Upon the soundtrack plays "The Lieutenant Kijay Suite" by Prokofiev. The camera pans down and we view people passing to and fro. Costanza and Tom enter from the right carrying suitcases. Behind Tom is a mime pretending to carry suitcases.

Cut: Tom passes a trash can and throws away his metro ticket. The mime pretends to do the same.

Cut: Costanza passes through the turnstile. Tom passes through the turnstile. The mime passes through the turnstile, exaggerating his motion.

Cut: All three walk forward. All three stop.

Cut: There is a second row of turnstiles. Beyond the turnstiles are the seven foot high pneumatic steel doors. People insert their tickets and pass through the turnstiles and then the steel doors open and close with crushing force.

Cut: Costanza holds up her ticket. Tom holds up his empty hand. The mime holds up his empty hand and looks sad.

Cut: Tom indicates to Costanza with gestures to pass through and wait on the far side of the steel doors. Tom looks at his watch. The mime does everything Tom does.

Cut: Tom speaks to a man who points to his right. The mime points to his right and then draws a question mark in the air.

Cut: Tom speaks to a man who points to his left. The mime points to his left and then draws an exclamation point in the air.

Cut: Tom speaks to a man who points up. The mime circles around the man's arm as though trying to see up a mountain spire.

Cut: Tom speaks to a clerk at a token booth. The clerk keeps shaking his head. Tom walks away. The mime shakes his fist at the clerk and runs after Tom.

Cut: The music has stopped. It is replaced by a sound of a heart beating rapidly. Tom looks at the turnstile. He looks at his watch. He looks at the turnstile. The mime does the same.

Cut: A blind lady with a cane and dark glasses approaches the turnstile. She inserts her ticket.

Cut: Close up of Tom.

Cut: Close up of the mime. The heart beat accelerates.

Cut: In slow motion, Tom begins to run. The mime does the same, but he slows more and more and finally stops and just watches, waving goodbye ruefully.

Cut: As the blind lady goes through the turnstile, Tom barges into her. Her cane and dark glasses go flying. She is sent flying through the steel doors.

Cut: Closeup of Tom's trouser pocket getting hung up in the turnstile. It rips and tears off. The mime hides his face.

Cut: Closeup of Tom's face.

Cut: The steel doors are starting to close.

Cut: Closeup of Tom's face - determined.

Cut: Closeup of Tom's feet - they move in slow motion.

Cut: The mime's mouth is open, forming the words "Come on!"

Cut: Tom is caught between the closing steel doors. He pushes with all his power.

Cut: Closeup of Tom's ankle and foot. Blood begins running down his shoe. The mime hops around holding his knee with his mouth open.

Cut: Tom is through! He steps toward Costanza. One foot crushes the dark glasses. The mime raises his face to heaven. He clasps both hands on his chest. He walks toward the camera and kisses the camera.

I hope Tom doesn't get sore about my portraying his experience as a movie...I could have portrayed it as a ballet.

It all makes me think about something John Keats wrote. In a letter he wrote about a quality some humans possess which he termed to be 'negative capability'. I'm leaving out a lot of the quote - look it up on Google if you like - but Keats defined negative capability as "when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason." Tom has no negative capability whatsoever, zero, kaput. I, on the other hand, have more than I can use. Friends have suggested I sell some, and I say I would, but I fear the capital gains tax.

The evening of January 26th. Lala asked us if we wanted to do anything else before bed, after we returned from Sabine's and Christophe's. I told her about how on the previous night we'd walked out of Notre Dame. The moon was full, with wisps of clouds passing in front of it. A few flakes of ash were coming down. They were snowflakes. Notre Dame and snowflakes. Golden. The buildings, the moon, the clouds and the snowflakes were deep golden, as though hushed, not darkened by the deep blue of night. No, I said to Lala, I can't do better than that. No more adventures for me this trip.

It was cloudy the next morning, one of the rare cloudy days we experienced on this trip. Our plane left at !:15 p.m. We arrived at noon. An Air France employee checked my passport. He said it had expired. He said another employee had to ok my proceeding. There are times for dignity and times to bid dignity adieu. I pretended to have a heart attack. I clutched my chest and emitted deep coughs. Think Fred Sanford. Or maybe I wasn't pretending.

A cute little Air France woman came up to me. She said I couldn't go. If they let me go, she said, Air France might be fined and the U.S. customs might send me back.

"I'll pay the fine!" I shouted.

"It's $3,000," she said. I didn't offer again.

"I have no desire to do anything wrong. There's a 30 day grace period. I was told that by a United States passport official. A United States passport official in Flushing, New York. Please call the U.S. embassy. Please call the ambassador."

The Air France employee said she would call the embassy. She left us.

"It will be ok," Chung-Yung said. "I will pray to God." She turned her head away. Whether her lips were moving or not, only God knows.

The Air France employee came back. She said, "You cannot go on this flight. You must go here -" she presented an address - "to the U.S. embassy. You must try to get a modification on your passport. Or a letter of transit." She was holding our boarding passes in her hand. She looked down at mine and ripped it in half.

You've heard of "Death Takes a Holiday". Well, this was "God Takes his Coffeebreak". Streaks of luck run out, and mine just had, typically as you all know, at the exact moment when luck was most needed. My brother couldn't do it. Charlie Peeples couldn't do it. Two soulless Greyhound buses couldn't do it. Chip's answering machine couldn't do it. The trans-Atlantic express mail service couldn't do it, and neither could the Massachusetts cranberries. A car service driver couldn't do it. A Spanish lady cab driver couldn't it. No, my Nemesis came in the form of a young lady at the Flushing post office.

Biut it was Chung-Yung who looked like she'd gotten a bullet in the heart, and it wasn't on account of my imminent retirement on the east side of the Atlantic. No. She had called upon God, and he hadn't come through. My entire life has been nothing but one disaster after another. When the line of soldiers points their rifles at me, I'll just yell, "Wait a minute," and spit and say, "Tell your captain he's made his wife very unhappy." But Chung-Yung - how slight is ruin of life in comparison with ruin of faith. She was crushed - too crushed to speak.

There's a movie called "A Night to Remember" about the Titantic. In the movie an old man and his wife stand by the lifeboats. She must go. Men must stay behind. The old wife turns to her husband and says, "Isidor Strauss, I've been with you for forty years. If I have a choice of dying with you now or to go on living without you, then I'm staying with you."

Well, Chung-Yung and I aren't like that. People were clustered around us. I said, "What about her?" The crowd went through her passport and checked her ticket. The Air France woman said, "She can make it if she hurries." We took off for the gate. Chung-Yung was in front. At the scanner I said, "Wait. Here's the electronic ticket."

She said, "Have you got another copy from your e-mail?"

I said, "I'll stop by an Internet cafe and print a copy."

She took it and went. So I had an invalid passport and I'd just given away my only record of a ticket. Things were normal.

I returned to the Air France employee. "When's the next flight?" I asked.

"6:50. But you must check in by 5:50."

"Where?"

"At the reticketing office."

"And the next?"

"8:20 tomorrow morning." Forget that one.

"And the next?"

"This time tomorrow."

I left, but I did not thank her.

Ok. Now I wish you all had a map of Paris and its environs in front of you, so that you could envision the challenges facing me. The time was 12:45. The next flight was 6:50. The last check-in time was 5:50. I had to get back on the RER (which was a good 1/2 mile distant) and go to Chatelet-Les-Halles. I had to transfer to the 1 and go to Concorde. I had to part the Red Sea. Then I had to get back on the 1 and transfer to the RER and get back to De Gaulle. Going there and coming back would consume one hour each way. At least. So I had an absolute maximum, absolute, of three hours and five minutes to part the Red Sea.

And I had my two bags. Yes. Why hadn't I given them to Chung-Yung? Ok. "Mr. Irby, it takes a minimum of three weeks to issue a new passport in these circumstances." I mean, that's the way the day had been going, right? I instantly calculated that I had more sweat to risk than luck at that point. So I kept my bags. So a 50 year old man with two heavy bags had five hours and five minutes to get there and back and part the Red Sea.

I waited on the RER platform until 1:20. The train took forever to come. I reflected that Chung-Yung was leaving probably right then. I reflected that not a soul on the planet earth knew where I was or what I was doing. I was in a sense a totally free agent, in a freedom that is possible only when nobody even glimpses what one is doing. Totally free means in a sense almost obliterated, forgotten, for only then is free action truly attainable. For the next few hours I moved in a world where only I existed, for noone else had the slightest idea what was occuring with me. I could even if I wished disappear into another life altogether. It would be days and days and days before anyone even asked where Archer was. And disappear is what I might have done if events had turned out differently.

I could have taken some of the pressure off and just decided to wait 24 hours. No. This was the moment of decision. I decided I would be goddamned if I would return on a day different from the day stamped on my ticket. There was somewhere, someway, going to be a victory in this.

I went to the embassy. A gendarme told me I had to go to the consulate. I went to the consulate. It was 2:40. I couldn't go inside. Guards, you know. A man walked out to the gate. He asked my problem. I told him. He asked to see my passport. He said, "We're closing right now. We may be able to issue you a new passport this afternoon if I can catch the woman who issues them." He walked away with my passport. So I had no ticket and no passport.

Minutes passed. The guards weren't up for conversation. The man came back. His hands were empty. He said, "You can hurry and we may get this done. The application costs $55. Do you have it?" I did.

"But you cannot bring bags into the consulate. Security, you know."

"Can I leave them on the sidewalk?"

He pointed down the street. "You can take them down there. Go into the barroom."

"Go into the barroom. Yes."

"And leave them in the barroom. They will charge you four euros."

"And leave them in the barroom. Yes."

"And hurry, man! Hurry! Everyone's leaving!"

I went down the street and into the barroom. The bartender motioned me to go to a huge pot-bellied man with a waxed moustache. He pointed to the base of the bar and said 'Ici! Ici!' and 'Quatre!" I dumped the bags and forked over the cash.

I ran back to the consulate. Nobody was visible but the guards. Minutes passed. I thought, you know, this would be a great Hitchcock film. I have no passport. No ticket. And I just left my bags in a barroom. I imagined the consulate telling me to come back tomorrow. No, they didn't know who took my passport. What did he look like? And then I would go back to the barroom. And the base of the bar would be clean as a whistle. And I would say to the huge man with a waxed moustache, "Ou est mon valise? Mon valise. Ou est?" And the man would pop his eyes at me and raise his shoulders and drop them.

I was getting a pretty good grasp on the plot basics when the consulate employee came back. "Hurry! Hurry!" he said.

I went through the security check. I went across a courtyard and into another office. I went to window 3. The woman behind the window said, "You're very lucky. I'm supposed to leave now. Have you got $55?" I forked it over. Always carry cash. Am I right or wrong? "Fill out this application," she said. I filled it out.

She asked, "Do you have any photographs of yourself on your person?"

I said, "I don't believe I have any photographs of myself on my person right now."

She said, "Go around that corner. There's a photo booth. It's reserved for visas, but we'll make an exception in this case. It costs four euros."

Everything in this neighborhood cost four euros. I thought about how on the previous night I left some euros for Lala to reimburse her for telephone calls and whatnot, and I had hesitated to toss in one more 20 euro bill. I swear. Always listen to your intuition.

I sat in the photo booth. There was a sticker beneath the mirror. The sticker said, "Smile". I didn't. I took the photos back to the woman. She said, "Go around the corner and wait for your name to be called.

Around the corner were rows of plastic chairs and people. This man trying to get his wife into the U.S. That woman trying to get her husband into France. Visas. Children. The Pledge of Allegiance. It went on and on. I became aware that behind one window there was a group of people looking at me. One bald, bearded, suited man with his arms crossed seemed distinctly suspicious. I thought maybe it was because I kept getting up and stalking back and forth. Maybe it was the way I held my head in my hands. Maybe it was because I claimed to be American, and yet I picked up and read a stained copy of the French version of Metro. Hey, I can read French.

In fact, I looked at my horoscope. You won't believe me. You never do. But this is what my horoscope for that day said, in French: "Stop screwing around and accomplish the goal which you have set for yourself to accomplish."

Finally I figured out why all the people were looking at me. My old passport photo and my new passport photo look amazingly alike. I'm wearing turtlenecks in both. I've got the same haircut. And I've changed amazingly little in the ten years between the two.

Oh, there's a difference in expression. In the earlier photo, I have a look in my eyes like someone who might enjoy nailing human hands to the floor. The later photo reflects experience with the world. As Tom would later say, "You look like you just got out of Abu Gharaib." And yet the second photo is better. Healthier. More focused. Just not happier.

And the consulate employees were whispering to each other, "Who does he think he's fooling - walk in here with a story like that - obviously he took the earlier photo in the recent past, and he's just slapped it on this old passport that belongs to the real John Irby, whoever that might be." And there's evidence behind this idea. I'm looking right now at my old passport, and the plastic above the photo has been loosened. An instrument has clearly been inserted under the plastic at the edge of the page. I could now myself stick tweezers under the plastic and dicker with my old photo. They did it. They did. They checked for signs of tampering.

And then again, the idea occurred to me that my name might be on a watch list. It's 2005, after all.

"John Irby," a lady called. I went to the window. "Keep these and sign these," she said, passing me forms and passports. She said, "Your old passport has been cancelled." Indeed, on the inside page above my signature is the stamp "Cancelled. New passport issued Paris France". And on the identity page of the new passport are the words "Authority: U.S. Embassy Paris, France." Boy oh boy. Wait until Chip hears about this. Will I be one up on him.

The woman was scribbling something. She was finished with me. I said, "Excuse me."

"Yes?" she said. I said, "Everyone here has been incredibly helpful. I thank you deeply. But I have one question. This happened because I was told by the passport officer in Flushing, New York that there was a 30 day grace period on passports that expire while the traveller is overseas. So what she told me was simply untrue?"

"Yes," she said.

I left. I walked out of the consulate. I walked out into sunlight. The sun was beaming up my street. It was 3:45. I walked into the barroom. I got my bags. I walked by a copy shop. They didn't have Internet access. Screw it. I would tell Air France, "At 12:30 you had a boarding pass for me. Are you going to tell me now you have no record of me on your computer?"

I got back to Charles de Gaulle at 4:50. I'd done it all in four hours.

I went walking past Air France, headed for the ticketing office. And then the same cute little Air France employee came running out to me, smiling. She was running.

She said, "You made it back." She gripped me by both my elbows. "Did you get the modification or letter or transit?"

I said, "I got a new passport."

She seemed surprised. She asked where I was going. I said to the reticketing office.

"No, no," she said. "Come with me," she said, guiding me toward the check in counter. If you go to the reticketing office, they will charge you more to change your schedule. But maybe I can get it annulled." She went behind the counter and began pushing buttons. "Now," she said, "Let me see both your passports." I passed them. A beefy male Air France employee appeared on each side of her and peered with her at the passports. "It's all done," she said. "Here's your passport."

I went through security. I couldn't call Chung-Yung. She would still be enroute when I boarded. I watched it get dark. Snow began to fall. Some people say it doesn't snow in Paris. I believe them. I've only seen it fall three times.

We boarded. Passengers submitted to one final search in that elongated giant condom they pass through between the airport and the plane. The search was so personal it was almost sexual. But the guard was smiling, well-mannered, smiling, lots of "Mercis" and "Apres-vous". I thought, "When he does this to Chip in February, Chip may actually enjoy it."

I picked up copies of The Herald Tribune, the Economist and Liberation. I had a copy "Ron Kary: My Story" in my pocket. You know, Ron Kray, one of the Kray Twins, the gangsters who terrorized London in the 1960's. The first sentence is, "I remember precisely the moment when I went insane."

I sat and read. The snow, which doesn't fall in Paris, made de-icing necessary and kept the plane on the ground for two hours. In the air, I ate, read and watched "The Manchurian Candidate". There's a scene where Meryle Streep completely loses her composure and goes on a tirade about what has happened to the United States that it must ask permission to do things to protect itself and how the U.S. has the right to go anywhere and do anything, and I made a mental note that I must tell Tom how much I thought of him on my way home.

Kennedy airport. The customs guard looked at my passport and said, "Welcome home." He didn't smile. I got a taxi.

It was 11:30 p.m. when I opened the apartment door. I got my ticket in May of 2004 to return on January 27 2005, and I returned on January 27. I entered my home. All was dark. I dropped my bags. I walked to the bedroom. Chung-Yung lay deeply asleep - on my pillow. Odysseus comes home to Penelope. I woke her.

"How did you get here?" she asked.

"I took a taxi," I said. I have a gift for pretending not to understand questions.

I asked, "Why are you sleeping on my pillow?"

She said, "It's the comfortable one."

Flushing, February 2005

************************************************************************

A passport.

What is a passport? Do you mean literally or figuratively? A passport allows entry to a foreign country. It allows return to a home country. It has value. They are stolen or forged. Some travel without them. Most of those who do are turned back. A passport. Pass - go through or forward. Port - a place where things enter and leave, go and come back and maybe remain. The photo page of passports has a small notation in one corner reading "Amendments/Modifications see page 24". My new passport has a page 24 and it has an amendment/modification thereupon. It reads, "This passport expires on 26Jan2006 and cannot be extended." Those words have a meaning to me. But I don't care now to say what they are.

Something happened recently that reminded me of a story by Mark Twain. In Twain's story, two little girls decided to write, produce, stage and star in their own play. Opening night came and the curtain rose. The two little girls were playing the roles of two single middle-aged women living alone in a cabin in the wilderness. They complained of their loneliness. One said, "If only we had a baby, we would be happy. But where can we get a baby?" The other said, "Don't worry. God will provide." A tremor of supressed emotion, Twain wrote, ran through the audience.

And in the play, God DID provide. He sent the two single middle-aged women living alone in a cabin in the wilderness a baby. And they were happy. And one day one said, "If we only had another baby. But where can we get one?" And the other said, "Don't worry. God will provide." The walls of the theatre bulged outwards, Twain wrote, as the audience tried to suppress their feelings.

Ok. Here's the moral. When you need something, God will provide. Remember that.

I've received unexpected things in the mail before, so I shouldn't have been too surprised. I received an American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) card in the mail while I was still in my thirties. I mailed it back and told AARP it was supposed to go to Chip Cummings.

Then there was the time I received a card in the mail that granted me membership in the National Rifle Association. I kept that one. The way the country was going, I figured it might get me out of trouble some day.

And it was only two weeks ago that a friend asked me who Chung-Yung was voting for. I said she couldn't vote. She's a permanent resident. Permanent residents can't vote. Hey. That's the law.

Therefore I was surprised but not shocked when yesterday's mail brought a card for Chung-Yung from the New York Board of Elections. A voter card. Authorization to vote. Election district, assembly district, congressional district etc. "Your registration remains in effect," it read. "Your enrollment has been corrected."

God will provide

"Honey," I said to Chung-Yung as I handed her the card, "I'm very proud of you. For the first time you will vote in an American election, and it's going to be for John Kerry."

Her face showed complete bafflement. "How can?" she said.

"How can?" I said. "I'll tell you how can. You just march into the polling place on November 2 with this little card in your hand and you pull the correct lever. God wants you to. That's why He sent you the card. That's how can."

She was not completely convinced. Oh, she wanted to vote for Kerry alright. She was just not totally assured that America's laws permitted her to. I attacked that idea immediately. I told her that people who achieve high goals in life don't ask questions when a voter card comes to them gratis. I said she was as entitled to exercise her god-given American right to vote as she would be entitled to pick up a Metrocard on the street. More so.

I said, "Did Dick Cheney stop and think about how he had no business experience when Halliburton asked him to become its president? He did not, my dear. He saw that Metrocard on the street and he picked it up, without giving one thought to who it might actually belong to. Did George Bush hesitate about calling himself the President of the U.S. when five Supreme Court justices said he was? No sir. George Bush didn't even know whether he was an American citizen or a permanent resident, but when his voter card came in the mail, he used it, no matter what the law said. There is the proof. You just don't get anywhere in life when you consider laws and morals. Banish them from your mind. Like our leaders have."

But Chung-Yung's inbred caution isn't easily overcome, particularly inasmuch as she has observed me and listened to me for years now.

"Honey," I said, "Surely you're not going to throw away your right to vote. A vote has a value. Even more importantly, a vote has a price. It can be bought and sold. And it IS bought and sold, all the time. That's the American way. Why, in Georgia today, according to the New York Times, you can sell your vote for $5 and a pint of whisky. That's the price of a vote in Georgia. And America loves freedom so much that there are many parts of this nation where people who are dead vote. Don't give me that look. It is true. It is true. People who are dead care so much about the elections that they vote. It's a fact. Will it make you feel good to have dead people vote and you don't?"

The more I got into this lesson in American civics with Chung-Yung, the more enthusiastic I became. I then brought up the example of Texas and Florida and how votes are bought and sold in those states. "Darling," I said, "Most voters in Texas and Florida care so much about voting that they don't even demand cash or whisky for their votes. The buying and selling takes place in funeral homes. The funeral home directors, who are in league with the political parties, are always careful as election time nears to load up on attractive young female corpses recently demised. They've been flash frozen, see, like in the coffee commercial. And come election day they're run through giant microwaves to freshen them up. The funeral home director can do a little patch work, of course - pop in a glass eye or a dental bridge, a putty nose, fill in minor gouges on the torso, even a prosthetic limb, some rouge and mascara. And then, for the price of a vote, the voter is left alone for 15 minutes with the corpse. In Texas and Florida, that's the price of a vote."

Chung-Yung said, "Did you read that in the New York Times?"

"No, dear," I said. "That I did not read in the New York Times. But you're ignoring my point. You received that voter's card because God wants you to vote. God either wants you to vote, or God wants me to vote twice. Now you can have it one of those two ways. But America's God is a patriotic God - even baseball players sometimes ask God to win a game for them - and this is God smiling at you and touching you and pointing at that little booth with the names and levers inside. It's practically a command from God - vote for Kerry dammit! Remember what happened to Moses when he didn't obey God?"

Chung-Yung said, "I thought God was not supposed to become involved in politics."

I said, "Ordinarily he wouldn't. But he's watching all those Catholic priests and archbishops telling their parishioners that Kerry should be ex-communicated because of his stand on abortion, and God's been standing up there in heaven with his chin on his chest and jingling the change in his pocket and he finally shook his head and said, 'this is even beneath those other things those priests and archbishops have been accused of recently. I must level the playing field and send some voting cards to deserving humans like Chung-Yung.'"

Even I had to stop for breath after that. I'm still working on Chung-Yung. Has anyone out there got $5 and a pint of whisky?

Flushing, November 2004