Going Home

The waitress hadn’t left a pen for me to sign the bill so I dug one out of my bag. It was a white Bic; I got it in Tokyo. It said WESTIN TOKYO on the side. I tried to think about that trip and that hotel but it didn’t work. I put the pen back in my bag. A travel bag is good that way, like a good jacket. You’d find all sorts of shit in it, stubs of theatre tickets or a playbill, receipts, maybe some old matches. Loose ties to those things that you had forgotten.

Candyland in Lilongwe

Purple. Candy Hearts. I missed the Rainbow Trail. Boy, you can say that again.

It’s almost eight o’clock in the morning and I’m playing Candyland with a Dutchman at a hotel bar in Lilongwe. You’ve never heard of Lilongwe, I know. It’s the capitol of Malawi. Maybe you’ve never heard of Malawi; that’s okay too- it’s lost in that thin murky section of Africa. We’re drinking bad gin and killing time. What do the Dutchman, the bad gin and Candyland have in common? A flood, a political insurrection and a lot of bad luck.