And me. Unable to go back to sleep. Knowing that I’ll have to wake up and walk to the ferry sooner rather than later. Waiting for the faceless ones to leave so that I can eat breakfast with Robin without having to talk about my trip. Because the loggers don’t really care anyway.
And I’ve said my goodbyes to the ones that I know, and I hope that I’ll see them again. But now all I need is coffee (and will I ever drink you again, you delicious dark demon, without thinking of Wayne sipping brews?). All I need is coffee and the shoes on my feet and the pack on my back. And I’m gone.
To ferry across the Cook Straight. For the sixth time. Count ‘em: one two three four five six. For the sixth time. There and back, and there and back, and there and back again. Eat your heart out Bilbo Baggins. I’m the Blue Bridge wonder boy, I’m the Inter Islander acolyte. Ping-ponging between the North and the South like a bird that can’t sense seasons. Back and forth, and back and forth, and back. Now forth again.
Early morning on the ferry and the realization that the toilet-paper tissue is of the finish line sits pale and parallel with the horizon. This is the end of the trip. The final push before the retreat. And the day blooms soft in the window.
There is another thumb song sing-a-long. Off the boat and running. From Wellington to Rotorua. Nine rides. Construction worker to drug dealer to wine salesman to bushman to old man to rabbit breeder to young gun to train engineer to gold-medal-winning masters. Nine rides.
Then the waste away in Rotorua. The Tuesday Wednesday waste away. Two doctors appointments to check-up on my still-injured elbow. And when I’m not in the waiting room I am reading, writing, watching movies, eating, sleeping, slowly beating back the ghosts of going home. Anxious.
Nothing to do in Rotorua as the Boyes brothers work alongside their father in the garage. Attempting to “use up” all of the native New Zealand wood that father Paul has hoarded in his builder’s lifetime. Precious wood that can no longer be cut-down nor processed nor sold in New Zealand. And now they must use it, now they must build, now they must make things. Before Paul moves out of the house and begins travelling the world with step-mom Tracy. So the saw blades sing and the hammers keep time and the drill bits hum to the tune.
And I cannot tote a table to the states. No room even for a picture frame. So there is the waste away.
The Tuesday Wednesday waste away. And the Thursday ride to Aukland. Feet dipped into the ocean off of a dock in Aukland. Beside sailboats sitting in slips. Shirtless. Shoeless. Browning like a bird in the oven. The sunshine city. Sun shine.
Then suddenly—dropped like a quiet bomb—there is my last night in New Zealand. My last night, and it spent in the Aukland International Airport. Like a fart leaked from the clenched butt-hole of technology: my last night spent on a brown plastic bench and bathed in the ghastly fluorescent glow of the infinite tube lights. Curled beneath the golden arches of a built-in Mackers with the air-conditioning blowing cold from the ceiling. Blowing cold to keep vagrants like myself from calling this hot-house of movement a home. Even for a night. But I am willing and able and, after extricating the sleeping bag from the bowels of my backpack, I sleep tight for a couple of hours. At least.
This the last night. Dropped silent but deadly. This the quiet bomb surprise. And I am painted into the scene: the morbid creature that is common to all of us. That is common to us all. The one that lifts the covers of this last fart-of-a-night. That lifts the covers over its head and sniffs the stale pungent air. Just to see what it smells like.
Because curiosity never really killed the cat. And I’m creeping on claw-paws toward another adventure waiting. Waiting in the dark unknown. Somewhere in the black tunnel of the not-too-distant future. And what will it be? And what?
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