Endless Possibility: a RUSH novella (City Lights 3.5) (6 page)

“Taxi,” I said, swallowing down my panic.

“Taxi, yes. But please. Let me call an attendant to help you.”

“No, no, thanks,” I said, feeling better already now that I had at least the smallest of ideas of the layout. “I can do it. Thank you.”

“It’s no trouble, really.”

Irritation flared. My old nemesis. It was laughing at me, showing its teeth.
You think you can beat me? Just wait.

“I can do it,” I said through my own clenched teeth, then forced myself to smile. But Christ, the line in the sand between where I was and where I needed to be for Charlotte was so long and so deep, even
I
could see it from a mile away.

The stewardess let go. “If you insist, sir. Enjoy your stay in Vienna.”

I can do it. Just do it. Like the ad says.

I started to walk.

My cane tapped from side to side, unobstructed, but the sheer size of the airport was overwhelming. I felt it open above and all around me, and my skin broke out in gooseflesh and sweat at the same time. I don’t know what you called the anxiety that gripped me: the opposite of claustrophobia, but with the same panicky overtones. Overhead speakers made announcements in German, French, and English. Conversations, close and far, were a background hum, though some whizzed past, growing loud and fading, as people walked by. Many people. Too many fucking people. My flight had been a red-eye; it was nine in the morning in Austria. A new day. And it sounded as if the entire country were bustling about the echoing halls of this airport.

I found Customs, but only because I bumped into the guy at the end of one of the lines. And waiting in line, I came to learn, was a contingency I hadn’t prepared for. It seems like the easiest thing in the world: you stand in line. The line moves up, you move with it. Except that I had no way of knowing when the line moved. I stood as close as I dared to the guy in front of me; a man who smelled of leather, coffee, and the sterilized airplane cabin. I’m sure I looked like a skulking creep, towering over him, but it worked. When I felt him move, I moved, carefully using my cane at his heels to keep a sense of distance. Finally, it was my turn.

“Passport, sir.”

I’d already had it clutched in my hand for fear of holding up the line by fumbling through my carry-on. I went to offer it up and smacked my hand into the bullet-proof partition that separated me from the Customs guy. I felt my neck burn as I found the little space below where you slide your documents.

“Are you visiting Austria for the purposes of business or pleasure?”

“Pleasure,” I said, though I knew already that was a big fat lie.

“Anything to declare?” he asked.

“Only my pride.”

“Pardon?”

“Sorry, nothing. Nothing to declare.”

I heard him stamp my passport and then felt it touch my fingers. “Elevators are to your left. Enjoy your stay.”

I moved left—or what I thought was left. My sense of direction was shit. What I thought of as ‘left’ was often not left enough or too much. I had countless barked shins from my townhouse days to prove it.

I found a wall and a drinking fountain instead of a bank of elevators. I almost bent to take a drink, as if to show I’d meant to be there—and to quench my blazing humiliation. But that would be too pathetic, even for me.

I felt around for my phone, hoping the street navigation might somehow work in here. I could ask it to find the nearest Starbucks—there’s always a Starbucks—and then ask a barista where the damn baggage claim was. I could even be bold and buy a coffee while I was at it.

“Directions to Starbucks,” I told my phone.

“Starting route to…Starbucks,” my phone replied. “Head northwest along concourse three.”

Northwest?

“Fuck me,” I muttered.

I was wracking my brain for another bright idea that didn’t involve me walking aimlessly, when I learned that Austrians didn’t stand by and watch dumb blind guys flail helplessly without doing something about it.

An older man’s voice addressed me. “Was brauchen Sie?”

“Uh…The elevators?”

“You are American?”

“American,” I agreed.

“What you need? Baggage?”

“Yes, baggage claim. If you could tell me where—?”

“Ja, okay. Kommen.”

He took me by the arm, and tugged me.

“Wait, sorry. If you could just tell me where to go…?”

“Eh?”

I could picture the guy blinking at me like I was some kind of moron for resisting his help. And he was right. It was quite obvious that my rule about not asking for help had to die a swift death. Before I even left the airport. It just wasn’t possible to do this without help, and it wasn’t like
getting
help would make this trip a walk in the park. I mentally modified Rule #3: Ask for help without suffering a kick to my pride every damn time.

Respectfully—I hoped—I angled out of his grasp and took the crook of his arm instead. I smiled in his general direction. “Better like this.”

“Okay, gut,” he said and I felt him shrug.

We walked about ten paces before the man stopped and said, “Rolltreppe.” A nano-second later I learned that was German for
escalator
. I nearly lost my balance trying to find the downward rolling step, and my heart dropped somewhere to the vicinity of my balls as I clutched at the railing.

“Es tut mir Leid. Langsamer,” the man said. “Uh, slower? I go slower.”

If you don’t fucking mind…
Humiliation burned my neck. Langsamer, I thought. I’d have to remember that one.

We took two escalators down to the main concourse, and then the airport’s size swelled to even greater heights and widths. Evidently the baggage claim was roughly six hundred miles away, as we walked for ages in this loud, crowded, cavernous mini-city, where the sounds bounced up and down, all around; each one amplified and multiplied to infinite numbers. The smells of coffee and hot food came and went, and while I’d have killed for a strong coffee, stopping was out of the question. My guide was on a mission, and I was too freaked by the unknowable enormity of the airport to do anything but be led.

Finally, we arrived at the baggage claim; I heard the trundle of suitcases, the whirr of conveyor machines that spat out luggage, and voices. Hundreds of them. The place was packed, and the reality of how unprepared I was hit me again like a lead weight. So many contingencies I hadn’t even considered. Like how to know which baggage wheel was mine, or which fucking bag to grab as they went by. The old anger flared, like sneering laughter.

“Die Airline?” the man asked.

“Uh, Austrian,” I said. “From New York City.”

“Kommen.”

My guide tugged me through from one morass of people to another. “Here. I go. Ich bin spät.” I felt him pat my arm, his voice was heavy with concern. “Viel Glück, junger Mann.”

“Danke,” I said. “Vielen Dank.”

A grunt of acknowledgement and then he was gone.

Cut off from my anchor, I was adrift in a sea of black sound. A storm battered me; people standing too close, speaking words that meant nothing to me; no way to orient myself, no memory to rely on. This was insanity and I felt less than sane, standing in the hub of all that chaos.

For Charlotte. You’re doing this for Charlotte.

The thought calmed me a little. I inhaled deeply several times, concentrating on my breathing, letting the people part around me like a rushing river around a stone. Having no way to identify my bag, my grand plan was to wait until the crowds thinned. After everyone else had grabbed their luggage, I’d see if I could feel what remained, or find an airport worker to help me before they put my bag in the lost luggage jail.

After about ten minutes of standing in the overpopulated blackness, trying my damndest to look casual and not panicked or pathetic, a soft hand touched my arm.

“Are you waiting for your bag?”A woman, and American. She laughed sheepishly. “I mean, of course you are. We all are.”

I smiled wanly. “I’m waiting for the crowd to thin out a bit.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that! I can help. What does it look like?”

“It’s blue and kind of big. The rolling kind.”

The young woman went silent for a few moments, then, “Maybe this?”

I heard her struggle and bent to help. Together, we hauled a bag over the side of the conveyor.

“Here’s a tag…Noah Lake. Is that you?”

“That’s me. Thanks, very much.”

“Sure thing,” she said and cleared her throat. “Do you have someone coming to pick you up?”

“No, but if you could point me in the direction of a taxi stand, that would be awesome.”

“I’d be happy to help,” she said brightly, and it didn’t escape me that the tone of her voice had changed to one I remembered well from my past life. The light, feathery sound of flirtation. And then I felt her hands on me, as she gently turned me around.

“Straight ahead are automatic doors. Go out and turn right, past a little café, and it’s right there.”

The vagueness of her directions made my teeth ache, but this woman must have seen my hesitation.

“You know what? Let me take you there myself. We can stop at the café…I’ll buy you a coffee?”

In my past life, I would have taken her up on that. And beyond. To my hotel and a mid-morning roll in the sack, maybe. Then a late lunch, more naked gymnastics, and finally a smoothly executed getaway that left no hard feelings or attachments. I marveled at how easy it all had been…and how far away I was from that guy. I only wanted Charlotte, would only
ever
want Charlotte. My love for her ran so deep, it left room for nothing else, not even curiosity.

“That’s kind of you to offer, but I have to get going,” I said. “Thanks again.”

I gave the woman what I hoped wasn’t a dickish smile, and followed her instructions toward the cabstand. Or tried to.

Before I left New York, Lucien and I had debated what I would need to bring to survive and not bog me down as I traveled. I brought the barest minimum of clothing to wear for every day, but for Charlotte’s shows, I’d had to bring something nice. Lucien tried to talk me out of it, but my overriding need to not look like a fucking schlub won out. I had to bring a suitcase large enough for two suits, and added finding dry cleaners in every city to my quest.

But that fucking luggage. It took me exactly 3.2 seconds to determine it was going to be the bane of my existence. Rolling it behind me with one hand and holding my white stick in the other made me feel like someone had chopped off my left arm. My shield arm. Plus, it was heavy as hell, and I tried not to think about what it was going to be like dragging that thing on trains or buses, from city to city.

I exited the airport, felt the carpet under my feet turn to cement, and headed right. Slowly. Christ, I was slow. Not just slow.
Timid.
The controlled chaos of the airport morphed into an untamed wilderness of a strange city. The sounds of cars alone—so many cars—filled me with dread. I had to remind myself that they were just cars pulling slowly to the curb to let people in, and not death machines driven by crazed maniacs.

I moved forward until my tapping cane struck an obstacle. I hoped it was the cabstand sign, but it was someone’s heel.

“Eh?”

“Sorry. Taxi?”

“No, no, dieser Weg. Kommen.”

This time, the man took my arm and I let him.
As if you have a choice
. He led me down the sidewalk a few more feet. “Here.”

I waited in the cabstand queue for a good twenty minutes until it was my turn. A cabbie—at least I hoped it was a cabbie—took my luggage from me and I felt my way to the backseat of the cab. I slumped into it, feeling as if I’d just played sudden death chess for fifty straight hours.

“Wo gehst du hin?”

“Uh…Grand Hotel Vienna?”

“American?”

“Yeah,” I said, leaning back.

“Oh yeah! Go Yankees, eh?”

I offered an unenthusiastic thumbs-up. “Go Yankees.”

The Grand Hotel Vienna was an expensive luxury hotel, chosen by Lucien because of its concierge services. He’d booked me in five star hotels in every city, so that I’d never be without first-rate help in English, should I need it.

But this hotel was a few minutes’ walk to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde where Charlotte would be playing for the next three nights. It was risky to stay so close, but Lucien had insisted on making things as easy as possible in Vienna, my first city, until I got acclimated to the whole experience.

I let the bellboys take my luggage, and lead me to the front desk. I checked in and readied my credit card, but learned Lucien had paid for this hotel himself. A little bon voyage gift. A wave of homesickness crashed over me so strong I had to grip the counter for a second.

I was led again to the elevators, then my room. I tipped the bellboy with a €10.00—identifiable to me by the fold I’d made in its corner. When he was gone, I slumped on the bed, savoring the merciful silence. The stillness. The fact that I didn’t have to feel my way anywhere but the bathroom, and that I could do with no curious or pitying eyes on me.