29: Potty Training

As anyone non-British will discover when they visit the country, electrical sockets are generally installed in the place of greatest inconvenience. Nothing of higher power than a shaver socket is ever to be found in a bathroom lest we accidentally electrocute ourselves by using a hairdryer in the bath and the light switch hangs from a dirt-encrusted string that disappears into a suspicious stalactite on the ceiling.

I was reminded of the way in which we regularly make life difficult for ourselves – whilst pretending that such irks are perfectly normal – in the Boston Hotel Buckminster on Saturday afternoon. Perhaps other rooms are different but, in room 502, the bathroom light switch is cunningly hidden in the bedroom.

Did it matter? Did he lack of light play any part in the drama about to unfold? Let me know…

The luxury of time to perform a light switch search does not exist after sitting in a car for forty-five minutes, not long after a fried breakfast on the morning following the intense celebrations at the end of a three thousand mile bicycle tour, when your bowels are trying to explode. The urgency with which I rushed into the bathroom with a single purpose in mind did not allow the extravagance of appropriating reading materials and so the availability of light was unimportant.

Even the ownership of a new Nick Hornby novel would not be enough to bring a halt to the irrevocable flow of events and I was content to execute and complete the task in the minimal gloom that could filter through the closed wooden bedroom shutters and reach around the bathroom door. Einstein’s observations about light and straight lines do not apply in hotel room situations, particularly in times of personal stress.

Eventually satisfied, I stood and reached behind to press the flush. Something not quite right with the sound of gushing water made me turn to observe. Dismayed, I watched the silhouette of that-which-should-not-be-named rise towards the edge of the bowl and remain perilously close to its rim.

Holding my trousers up with one hand and finally locating the light switch several yards away with the other, my worst fears were confirmed; a blockage. Would it go away? Would there be a long pause, followed by a comforting swoosh as normality returned?

No.

I tried to will the situation better but my powers of telekinesis were insufficient. I glared at the disobedient toilet with the best look of superior British scorn I could muster. I kicked the side of the bowl repeatedly. Nothing changed.

Ben Stiller faced a similar situation in There’s something about Mary and attacked it with an ornamental toilet brush - but I had no toilet brush. Besides, I’m not Ben Stiller and stand no chance whatsoever of shagging Cameron Diaz. Not that the toilet brush incident played any great part in advancing his success on that score (ha ha excuse the pun), but I’m just saying… Oh, never mind.

I tried to ignore the vile, nasty potty in the center of the room. Time to lower the lid on, umm, well, just time to lower the lid. There are more things to do than worry about – that.

The toilet refused to be ignored. I unpacked and went back to the bathroom to check – maybe it’s all better?

No.

I plugged in the laptop, waited the usual Sony eternity for it to boot up and then checked the bathroom again.

Perhaps a small decrease in the level.

Should I try another flush? Too risky. An overflow situation did not bear consideration. Time to take a shower. Maybe another usage of the water system would cause something to occur? Clutching strings is the technical name for thoughts like that.

Problems in the shower with reversed hot and cold water, unmarked and entirely unsqueezble shampoo and conditioner bottles and the usual lack of places to put toiletries paled into insignificance.

The toilet was in control.

Anything could happen. I’ve seen it at the movies – one moment all is fine and the next, the toilet takes on a life of its own, becomes a high-pressure fountain and covers the bathroom ceiling in, well, let’s just say it misbehaves in a very bad way. I couldn’t forget Ben Stiller and the toilet brush.

Several times, I slyly pulled back the shower curtain to make sure nothing disastrous had occurred. The lid was still down. In my mind it had become a living, breathing evil plotting demon from the pit of hell, whose mission was the destruction of a single being; me. I even thrust a tentative step out of the shower, wet and naked, to gingerly lift the lid in the hope that fate had intervened.

It had not.

Nothing had changed by the time I was dressed. What now? I’ve had toilet problems before, but always had the tools available to deal with it. Now, I have not. Then it hit me…

This is a hotel.

Of course! I pay for this room. That’s what hotels are for – blocked toilets and other dramas are part of the room rate. It’s like insurance. Not everyone blocks the toilet, just like not everyone has a car accident or a house fire or a burglary – but we all pay for insurance.

Why am I worried? Why do I care? It’s not even my fault, not really. This isn’t New Jersey, where everyone is a percentage blameworthy for everything.

I don’t live here. It’s not my apartment and it’s not a friend’s home where I’m house-sitting, baby-sitting or dog-sitting. No one knows who I am other than the guest in 502 and I’ll be gone on Monday. It’s not my responsibility – what’s what hotel maintenance people are for. Do I care if they’re Mexicans and have horrible jobs. I began to smile; a plan had formed. The toilet was no longer in control.

I got dressed, picked up the bedside phone and called the front desk. If the phone cord had been longer, I could’ve glared into the bathroom at the same time as I reported it. Bastard toilet; that’ll show it.

On the way out, I even kicked it again; viciously, this time. No psychopathic improvement of Thomas Crapper is going to get the better of me.

28: Avalon

One might be forgiven for thinking that, after two specific hotel tales and several references to the mixed state of accommodations as we pedal our way across the country, all material had been exhausted.

Not so.

Let’s not dwell on the coffee maker with the wrong-sized pot, too small to trip the coffee-release valve so that it overflowed the basket until I poked it with a finger and became drenched in scalding brown lava.

Let’s not whine about the Wooster Best Western breakfast of rubber scrambled eggs, biscuits and bile-like gravy, thin coffee and sausages resembling dog turds or the low quality do-it-yourself freebies provided in a myriad of other hotels that caused many riders to embark on 100 mile days with empty stomachs.

Let’s not mention the numerous hotels where internet connection was inoperable either by wire or wi-fi or those where it connected, only to immediately disconnect at the press of any key.

Let’s not cry about those furniture-challenged rooms where the chair was several inches too small so reaching the laptop keyboard was like trying to eat at the adult’s meal table as a 4 year old.

Let’s ignore all those and concentrate on the Avalon hotel in Erie, Pennsylvania…

After pedaling 52 miles through cold rain, sitting soggily uncomfortable in the SAG van for the remaining 37 and finally reaching the hotel, I’m handed the key to room 724.

I navigate the mop-wielding Mexican in the lobby, slopping sudsy water from a bucket over the already-slick floor in a perpetual state of cleaning. He’s like those painters who work forever on the Golden Gate Bridge because it takes so long to get one coat done that it’s time to start again. You can make a career out of it. They never take the paint off though, so one day it’ll get so heavy it’ll fall down and stump scientists for decades.

Anyway, I digress…

The Avalon was built around the time the Dead Sea scrolls were written and everything above the lobby gives the impression of having not been not upgraded since the Carter administration. As I walk my bike along the seventh floor hallway, my nose is filled with the lingering smell of paint, so it seems that something is happening at last. I don’t particularly mind the pungent odor – it reminds me of my first non-shared apartment; my personal ‘new car smell’.

Being cold and wet, air conditioning is not required, but the room feels like a fridge and the wall unit has no switch to select between heating and cooling. Turning the thermostat from the 50 degrees where it’s currently set, shuts off the A/C fan but does not produce any warmth. Maybe it needs time but, after unpacking and doing laundry, the heat still has not come on, so I call the front desk.

“Turn it to 70,” she says. It’s on the maximum of 85, but I do as I am told in case there’s something magical about the 70-mark. Nothing changes. “Try turning it the other way,” she says, but that switches the air conditioning back on. “Umm, put it back to 70,” she instructs, less confidently. “Wait five minutes and call back if it doesn’t work and I’ll send maintenance.”

This feels like staying home to tough out an illness and then, at death’s door, struggling to the doctor only to be told, “Take two aspirin and come back next week.” I decide to shower first. Options are slim when you’re naked

There’s no shampoo.

The bathroom is equipped with a coffee maker, ice bucket, hair drier, body lotion, soap, two bottles of conditioner and enough towels of varying shapes and sizes to supply a whole village in England, but no shampoo.

I was in my teens before learning that washing my hair with hand soap wasn’t the way to go but my hair is the way you would expect after riding more than fifty miles in the rain, so it seems that I must suffer once more. I’m starting to get what Harry would call ‘arse-ache’ with this hotel and my cold, wet state does nothing to salve it.

The shower has a mind of its own and seems to have lost it. The single water control switches the temperature from scalding to freezing in a one-inch band of movement. It does not vary gradually, but simply changes from one extreme to the other, requiring more luck than skill to find the single sweet spot where the water will neither freeze my private parts nor take my skin off.

The shower height might be suitable for midgets, dwarves and full-sized short people, but I am none of those and have to force the showerhead almost horizontal. Consequently, the water shoots the length of the bath like a jet stream, rebounds from the wall and floods the floor until I aim it at a lower angle – but then I have to stoop to get wet above the waist.

Fifteen minutes later, clean and refreshed but with backache and hair standing up like sexually excited string, I emerge into the hypothermic living room. The heating still doesn’t work. The same girl answers the phone and promises to send maintenance, so I take the opportunity to also ask for shampoo, then get dressed quickly and go out.

Starbucks is a ten minute walk (thank you, God) so I consume as much brown hallucinogenic as possible without passing out and return to the hotel several hours later. The heating still does not work but the presence of a blue bottle of shampoo in the bathroom shows evidence of a visit.

Perhaps repairs are ongoing? The thermostat seems to be in the same position as earlier and there’s no note, so I call the front desk again. A different woman from earlier tells me that repairs are not ongoing and promises to advise maintenance, who will attend to it whilst I am out for dinner. Two hours, one burger and three beers later, I return to find the room still cold.

Perhaps personal attention may make a difference, so I take the elevator back to the lobby and stand at the desk in front of yet another clerk – a man this time – whilst he answers call after call from the switchboard without ever once looking up. It seems that all calls take precedence over physical presence so, with a flash of what can only be described as personal brilliance, I return to the room and use the phone to call him.

I explain the situation, being careful to not let the three beers sway my negotiation. He promises to send maintenance. “Haven’t they already been twice,” I ask, but he does not know. The front desk does not keep records of the comings and goings of the maintenance man, he says.

I cannot stay in the room to wait and I cannot go to bed; so I go out again. Many hours later, after returning from various bars in the area, the heating still does not work.

The cold seems to have dissipated, although that might be imagination brought on by the large amount of beer that I have consumed as a result of being in close proximity to Harry; a quantity that also makes it inadvisable to visit the front desk again. Fortunately, I have enough sense to not do so.

In any case, there is nothing that can be done. I have learned, from talking to other riders in the pub, something that the desk clerks could easily have told me…

The heating is inoperative for the entire hotel.

No rooms have it.

It is off for the summer.

27: Sunday

This has nothing whatever to do with riding a bike across America but, as we pedaled through a closed near-ghost town the other day, someone remarked that it felt like Sunday and my mind traveled back in time a generation to another era…..

It’s Sunday morning.

It’s 1978.

It’s England – Shrub End, Colchester, to be exact.

I wake up, momentarily pleased that it’s a weekend, but then realize that it’s Sunday. Should I be happy or depressed? The weather will determine which, but the single hole in the curtains hasn’t yet rotted enough to see what’s going on outside.

True, the weekend is only half used but the Sunday Trading laws ensure that everything is closed and that no one goes anywhere or does anything not directly connected with church or family.

For someone in my position – not religious and having no girlfriend, no car, no friends without family obligations and living in the world’s smallest bed-sit in a house run by an eighty year old gay man who calls himself Maur-eece – Sunday holds little promise.

I get up, dress quickly and pull back the curtains in anticipation and stare out at a dismal gray sky with a warming sense of glee. There’s not much evidence of actual rain, apart from the odd dribble collecting dirt as it runs down the cracked window, but the general degree of dullness shows that the day has potential.

This is the kind of rain that old housewives like my mother, who do their hair up in headscarves, refer to as fine rain. It gets you cold to the bone and wet through and makes the world so dismal that there’s no point spending time outside. It’s the kind of inclemency that makes Sunday acceptable; a perfect day for the pub.

I’m dismayed to see that the old red Westclox alarm clock on top of the TV says it’s only eight o’clock. Maybe I forgot to wind it up and it’s stopped? Did we switch to summertime in the night? Neither of those is true and I must face the fact that I have four hours to wait, so I try to summon a sense of stoicism, which is the closest to the British stiff upper lip that I can manage at the age of 21.

What now? The afternoon’s entertainment will be the cinema, of course, that much is certain. Besides the pubs, with their minimalist trading hours, the cinema is the only thing allowed to open on Sunday, but not until four o’clock.

Of the three in Colchester, the Cameo closed due to lack of interest but no one noticed until it became a bicycle shop. The ABC went bankrupt and soldiered on for a while by presenting unfunny comedians to children on Saturday mornings until the kids realized that there were no films anymore and stopped going. That leaves the Odeon, which shows two features concurrently but alters the start times on a Sunday.

The only ways of finding out the Sunday program is to look in a newspaper, to phone them, or to physically go there. It would help if they could put up a notice on Saturday, but the sour old woman who runs the ticket booth evidently feels that this would be an unnecessary drain on her energies.

The newspaper option requires having the forethought to buy one on a Saturday – because not even the newsagent is open on Sunday – and calling is no use as the ticket seller rarely answers the phone until after the film has started. In any event, that would require the co-operation of Maur-eece.

To retain phone control, he placed a small locking device on the one-hole of the dial and keeps the key on a string around his neck. The only numbers that can be dialed must be composed entirely of ‘1’s and I suspect that there are not so many of them. It is possible to pick the lock with an opened paperclip or to generate a number by clicking the receiver rest or even rattle it until the operator answers, but none of these is practical whilst Maur-eece is in the house.

The best option is to go there. On a weekday, there are so many buses into town that they form an almost unbroken stream like giant maroon and cream ducks but not today. On Sunday, there’s one per hour, if the driver has turned up for work. At least fifty percent of the time he has not and I have to walk three miles along streets devoid of people except skinheads looking for a fight, past closed shops, closed pubs, closed garages and closed restaurants. Since the single Sunday bus, driven by the single Sunday driver performs a special Sunday loop, its absence in one direction means that I will be walking both ways.

Still wondering how to use the morning, I notice the bulging plastic bag of dirty clothes in the corner and realize that I could go to the launderette, which is the only place that will be open besides the pub and the cinema. I’m so happy with this discovery that it even occurs to me to take a bath.

The water is cold.

Only Maur-eece can turn on the boiler. He has never been persuaded to set the time clock to do it automatically and the key to the boiler cupboard is, for reasons known only to himself, kept in the same place as the telephone key.

Involving Maur-eece in anything at all requires a discussion at the kitchen table concerning justification for the request, latest news about his affected friends Rich-ard and Kenn-eth, their eye-diseased dog, his brain-tumored Burmese cat (who frequently jumps into boiling pots on the stove whilst aiming for his adjoining basket) and unbelievable anecdotes from his army days.

On the good side, such a scene would use up a part of Sunday otherwise having no value but it would take at least half an hour to heat the water. Staying in close proximity for that long whilst a bath-robed Maur-eece complains about my lack of washing-up skills and smokes those stinky Gitanes that he claims he got a taste for in the French Foreign Legion (not that anyone believes he ever went to Corsica) is too painful.

I’m not supposed to know he left the army thirty years earlier under something of a cloud and I’m certainly not supposed to question his dubious presence in the Legion. Our relationship has been somewhat strained after I laughed when he claimed to have invented vinegar and now I’m expected to listen and gaze in awe at whatever he says.

Such a discussion is impossible to avoid when I want something and Maur-eece does not tolerate escape attempts whilst he is recounting the past, fabricated or not. Suffering of that degree represents too much misery for a Sunday and besides, I’d never be able to justify two baths in the same week.

Aside from remnants of six-month old copies of Reader’s Digest that even the dentist would throw out, British launderettes never have anything remotely helpful or usable in them and a machine to dispense soap powder or change for the washers falls firmly into that category. Fortunately, I manage to collect enough coins from odd reserves I have scattered around my room and under the carpet.

I open the windows wide to let in the wet freshness, which is about as close as I’m going to come to personal hygiene today and stuff into the bag everything that can be washed. Suitably prepared, I creep downstairs, steal some detergent from the smelly cupboard in the kitchen and walk out into the inviting chill of the outside world.

Sitting in the launderette as my clothes turn in sudsy circles, I wonder where my life is going and whether today’s mission is one of relevance. There’s a disconcerting feeling that time is slipping by, but attaining the confidence to radically change it is a gift that I have yet to receive.

26: Half Way

It’s raining.

I’m alone in a Dairy Queen.

I think it’s Tuesday.

By tomorrow night in Topeka, we’ll have passed the halfway point, both in miles and time. That’s around 1,700 miles - is the trip half done or half left? Ask Freud, I don’t know.

Yesterday was the end of a nine-day continuous stretch from Sante Fe to Abilene. Everyone is much stronger and daily mileages have become meaningless. Seventy miles, a distance that might strike terror into the hearts of mortals, now feels like a rest day. Tomorrow’s ride is 108 miles with 6,200 feet of elevation gain and the only point of consternation is the weather.

George and I will be allowed to leave early because we are the slowest – ahem, the most concerned with looking around at the beautiful countryside. It’s like being the foxes for the baying hounds, who’ll be given our scent and allowed out of the hotel when we have a forty-five minutes’ head start.

Sitting here, watching the rain outside, it’s hard to accept that, only two weeks ago, we were burning up in the heat of the Mojave Desert. Hydration is no longer a key issue and ‘camelback’ is no longer a swear word on people’s lips.

Gone are the scrub bushes and wastelands of the desert, gone are the seemingly endless mountain passes and switchback ascents and in their place are farmlands with undulating terrain, rolling hills and fields of wheat rippling in the wind.

Not gone, are the instances of minimal IQ in this heartland of the country. I’ve eaten at restaurants that list chocolate pudding as a vegetable. OK, I admit it – only one did that – but we meet people who couldn’t point to a world map and know any of the countries except Canada or Mexico. Getting both of them right might be a stretch. Even the pod people in Grants could do better.

All that differs on tour from one day to the next is the destination, of which we generally see very little. It’s easy to forget where we are, where we were and where we’re going. Remembering what room you’re in? That’s just not going to happen.

Local sights are noted on the cue sheets but it’s easy to roll straight past – or decide not to bother in favor of a hot shower and dinner. Abilene has the Eisenhower museum, Liberal had Dorothy’s house from the Wizard of Oz and Dodge City had the OK coral. Missed ‘em all.

Our hotels are almost always on the edge of town and surrounded by little more than a gas station with a convenience store. That’s wonderful if you need 19 kinds of beef jerky, 5 types of chewing tobacco or a 64oz Slurpee with free (miss-spelt) donut but not so useful if you want a postcard or a magazine about something other than NASCAR or guns. Luxury is the occasional Walmart.

Breakfasts are either so-called continental breakfasts in the hotel, which is really no more than an excuse for wasting an hour over sticky plastic-wrapped muffins, fake eggs and the occasional do-it-yourself waffle, or the full-on diner, where an embarrassing amount of food is served, so large that it will often not fit onto a single table. As Ira said, in appalled recognition, “Now I know why Americans are so fat.”

There’s more of a willingness amongst the riders to socialize after dinner now. Sometimes it’s no more than a swift drink in a sterile environment but other times we experience the treat of seeing locals at play in their natural habitat.

In Dalhart, we discovered the Texas Tavern; a wood fronted local saloon with a cute blonde bartender missing a tooth. Blue and red neon beer signs glared through swirling cigarette smoke and Stevie Ray Vaughan sang from a CD jukebox.

Two people played a noisy game of pool - Sam, clad in denim overalls and grinning like a country bumpkin and Brenda, generously sized brunette with a bulging midriff, squeezed into a poorly-chosen white tee-shirt. Brenda had a way with words…

“When I start drinking,” she said, up-ending the bottle of Jack Daniels by its neck and taking a long swig, “Two things could happen; I go to jail, or I get laid.”

Ignored by all, she swayed her abundant self to the pool table to take a shot.

“I ain’t had it for more’n two months and I’m gonna get me some tonight,” she continued, unabashed by disinterest. “I think I done dried up.”

We had discovered the cultural center…