The Place to Be

By: Henry Holben

The rain is trickling down the window and pitter-pattering on the roof of the bus. The glass is cold. There are fourteen on the bus. The bus stops now. The doors open soon after. The driver lets some others get on. Two go away. Now there are fifteen on the bus: a net increase of one.

The location stopped mattering two-hundred and six ago- the last time that the bus stopped. The doors opened and the driver exchanged two for four. The number on the bus went up from ten to fourteen. This proves that this bus must either bee the place to be, or is soon to be in the place to be. This happened forty-five ago.

People make a lot of fuss over the process of packing all possessions into a suitcase before traveling to some other place. The method is straight forward and will be demonstrated here. First is to acquire a shopping cart. This essential tool is available at no expense both inside and outside of most supermarkets. Second is to place everything from the home that will fit in the shopping cart into the shopping cart. Last is to fork over all possessions that the pawnshop will accept, and to leave the shopping cart at the nearest thrift store. What remains includes the clothes that go over the body, the water bottle that contains the water that is to go into the body, a suitcase, and a big wad of money. Everything else has been left in a shopping cart outside of a thrift store. The water bottle goes in the suitcase. The big wad of money goes in the pocket.

The bus stops. The doors open. Newcomers shuffle about. A man with a bushy beard, a two-and a half long braid and body odor sits down in the next seat over. His lips move up and down and he smiles a toothy grin. He must have just introduced himself. His name could be Phil. Phil is a forty-six year old fast food junkie who clearly has held no full time jobs for any more than two. Smiling and nodding before looking at the window again is the polite thing to do.

There exist certain commercials, billboards, greeting cards, and cereal boxes that depict small red-haired men in green suits guarding cauldrons filled with treasure at the spot where a rainbow lands on the ground. These little red men are called 'leprechauns'. The leprechauns on the TV, in squeaky, happy voices, have explained that the place to be is a cauldron filled with gold on the far end of a rainbow. Rainbows are caused by refraction of sunlight through water droplets. Small red-haired men are caused by rainbows.

A clump of trees goes by, then comes a row of halogen lights, Then some over passes, a drug store, another set of halogen lights. A window seat makes for a tricky place to determine whether the bus is going in circles or if the scenery is being disassembly behind, hauled away on freight trucks and reassembled ahead.

A wise teacher at the school once said to do what everyone else is doing and to not do what everyone else is not doing. Simulations of the prisoner's dilemma thought experiment have proven this to be sage advice as long as the situation is be repeated ad infinitum. For example, if one is standing on a trolley track, and two are tied up on the other track and a big trolley is hurdling its way down to a branch, the one must lie down next to the two. This rule is referred to as "masking" by psychologists and "populism" by news anchors

The bus stops again and there is some shuffling about. Several people get off. There are nine on the bus: a net decrease of six. At least Phil, stinky as he is, remains loyal to the cause of discontentment. What is so important that these people so desperately need to get somewhere else? Some of them had only just ceased to be strangers. Now, just like that, they are gone forever. Why do they keep leaving? Don't they see that everyone else is staying?

The bus has stopped again and now even Phil stands up to disembark. Everyone is getting up to leave- even the driver is on his feet, ushering with his hands for everyone to get off the bus. Now you understand. The bus has reached its final stop. Tripping and tumbling out of the bus during a dizzy spell is a natural thing to do.

Another example: if a classroom of students is asked to report the antiderivative of one divided by a variable, and one more than half of the class answers incorrectly, the next student in the sequence must state that the answer is not the natural logarithm. To do anything less is called defection. It only pays to be a defector in the short term. This too must pass. Pilgrimage is a long term game.

Although fresh air feels good, there does not appear to be anywhere to go and no reason to stay put. The ridiculousness of this is unfathomable. There is no telling how this off places came to be the place to be. It is almost unfathomable how ridiculous it all is. There are no rainbows here with big cauldrons of gold here and little red-haired men because the sky is still very dark. Now a big glowing sign bellow a long aluminum building draws attention to itself. It is an airport terminal. Inside is better because it is wet and cold out here. Inside is vast and bright and dry.

The lobby smells like cardboard and linen, The entire space of the place seems to funnel the riff-raff forward. Tickets can be purchased at a counter. If the guy at the ticket counter is asked for a ticket to the place to be, he gets all confused. The cheapest ticket costs two hundred plus the suitcase and the water bottle inside it. The guy's name is Guy.

Between the bus and the jets stand the metal detectors, the x-ray machines, and the men in black who are here to probe their enemies. The men in black demand that everyone take off their shoes and belts. They do this so that if any of their enemies get nervous and try to run away, they will be slow- and their pants will fall down. Everyone who manages to keep their pants on their persons will get their shoes and belts awarded to them as prizes. The boarding ramp is a tunnel that goes into the jet.

A woman who must be named Sandra hoists up her carry-on bag with a sigh; sits down with a sigh, watches the inflatable vest demonstration with a sigh, and sighing, accepts her second favorite beverage from the flight attendant.

Sandra must not be aware that the jet is going to the place that is the place to be. With another sigh, she stands up to go to the lavatory, with another she returns. Sighing hard and slow, she unsuccessfully attempts to sleep while the jet gracefully touches down on the runway like a cautious, one-hundred and fifty long silver swan.

The jet is expertly taxied and gets docked with another boarding ramp. Every last one of the passengers leave. Sandra is seen disembarking from the parked aircraft with a sigh and a pompous look of contempt for all people who posses the training, discipline, and professionalism demanded in the airline industry. Apparently, the crew also gets off of the airplane. A jet is a place that many people wait for hours to go in, but no one wants to stay in.

Beyond the gate lies a special kind of chute-like gumball machine. Only, the machine emits parcels instead of gumballs. Each parcel comes out of a black leathery birth canal, slides down a chute, and meanders around in a loop until it is devoured by the wall. The suitcase with the water bottle in it is the thirty-fourth to be borne out of the gumball machine. It must be rescued from the hungry wall, but is hard to pick up because it got heavier while it was in the womb. Outside, the air is dark and warm.

Most people with suitcases get into the cars that sit by the curb. Some people walk across the street to a hotel. None of the cars sitting by the curb were pretty anyway.

Beside the front desk hangs a diagram of the hotel, which has eleven going up, with forty along both. Behind the desk, the man with the little gold pin that says "Larry" on it is wearing black slacks, a white shirt, and a red vest. He looks like a Steve. Steve does not seem to like letting people stay in hotels even though this is his job. The trick to dealing with people like Steve is to show them a big wad of money. Such people will even give a plastic card with the number four-hundred nineteen on it to anyone who has a big wad of money.

Steve says that the place to be is room four-nineteen. Since there are eighty on each, the four hundred and nineteenth should be the nineteenth on the fifth. But after many fruitless attempts, and one incident, it turns out that card is actually for the nineteenth on the fourth. People who build hotels are bad at math.

People should drink sixty-four a day. But the water bottle is no longer in the suitcase. Instead of water, there is a bunched up wad of ties, and gowns, and underwear and other such refuse that should have been in a shopping cart outside of a thrift store. Amidst the mess is a leather book. The book contains tickets, pictures of a boat, and a list of dates and locations. The first (and earliest) date in this list is March 14th, which happens to be tomorrow. The location that belongs to this date is 5816 Mariner Drive.

A dream is dreamt of outer space, where in a spaceship and her crew of three are intercepted by the pirate ship of the odious Captain Clamp. Because a plank is far too rustic an accessory for a spaceship, Captain Clamp orders his biped crocodiles to bring the spacefarers to their airlock.

The first falls to his knees and begs. First he has a daughter, then he also has a wife. Next he has three wives- and an orphanage- nay a leper colony- and all he's left is the deep, cold, and breathless night.

Stoically, the second calmly states the laws, the morals, the rations of food, fuel and air. She cites her many ratings, qualifications, skills, and accommodations. She is only midway through these when she too goes gentle into that good night.

The third, serenely, asks to know the day of the month. Surprised, the vile Captain asks this space-man what the source may be of his indomitable calmness. Shrugging, the man says that he blasted off into the heavens to be in the heavens, and if he must now go outside into the heavens, then he shall be in heaven a little sooner than expected.

The lobby might be the place to be. it has bacon and eggs and gravy and cereal and yogurt and waffles, and grits, and sausage, and corned beef, and oatmeal and orange juice, and coffee. But after these have been consumed, there are only people entering and leaving. Nobody stays in the hotel lobby unless there is food. A hotel lobby must not be the place to stay.

The lobby has a stand with maps on it. The airport is on this map, so is the hotel- and a road labeled "Mariner Drive". According to these maps, Mariner Drive is connected to the hotel by three roads. It just so happens that mariner Drive is the same road that was mentioned in the leather book. It also just so happens that the boat that was on the photo in the leather book inside the suitcase where the water bottle should have been is sitting on the ocean right up against a building that is right up against Cedar Boulevard. The boat is not on the map because boats move.

Many stand in a long line in front of the building that is next to the ocean that the boat is sitting on. At the end of this line, a woman who likes looking at leather books that have tickets in them will demand to see the leather book that was in the suitcase in the hotel where the water bottle should have been. This woman is not like Steve. Showing her a big wad of money only makes things worse. Note that her face turns weird when the leather birth canal of the gumball machine is mentioned.

Everyone who makes it up the ramp gets to be on top of a boat- which is a fine place for people and suitcases to be. On the top of a boat, a swimming pool can be found. In this pool there is a big plastic donut. In this donut, there is a smaller pool. In this smaller pool, there is a smaller boat. In this smaller boat, there is the smallest of all pools. In this boat there is a bug. A bug is like a boat that is dead. The smallest of all donuts must be inside of this dead beg. Bugs sometimes eat donuts before they die.

A boat is not the place to be, but rather a place that might eventually turn up in the place to be.Sometimes the boat goes to places with tour guides. Tour guides show people where to find things. Some tour guides are also policemen. When a policeman says that a tourist does not have to have anything they say used against them in a court of law, it means that a guided tour of the officer's workplace there will be a mandatory tour of the policeman’s office. This can be risky for any passenger because boats keep tight schedules. It must be explained to this officer that because rainbows are relative to the perspective of the observer, it stands to reason that small-red haired men must be relative to the perspective of the rainbow. The officer who hears this wants to have a full psychiatric analysis done-but once the matter is cleared up, a nice lady opens the door.

How is it that anyone can mask the popular consensus when the populous is going in all different directions? Why is it that they are going different ways? Don't they all want the same things in the end? Don't they all want to be in the place to be? Don't they know that only two directions can take them there and none of them are this infernal sidewalk? Why does this sign say to stop and the next one says to go?

The rain has cleared. The cloudy sky is a donut in the greatest of all pools and the sun is shining through the hole. There is also a rainbow. The path to the rainbow- where the place to be must be is not a sidewalk but a side trail. It winds up hill and down hill, through the woods, across a pasture, and straight up the stairs to the summit of a rocky slope.

Lugging a suitcase with a water bottle in it over tree roots, steps, and rocks is a hard, hard thing to do. But a rainbow and its landing spot, between the rocks and the babbling brook could be seen from the precipice. Surely the place to be is close . Unfortunately, the suitcase's wheels break when dragged over boulders, and once broken the suitcase must be carried by hand. This situation will make any carrier tired in the arms, fast. Fortunately, a suitcase is as good a thing as any to sit upon.

A rainbow landed here once- right on this very spot. It too has been hoisted up and taken away like the folks on the bus and the drugstores in the window. The leprechauns have all run off with the sunlight. The sky is getting dark again.

While sitting on the the suitcase, something hollow clanks under the percussion of a swinging foot. A metal box, made of sheet metal is discovered. Green, and covered in weathered stickers, it was half-buried under a tree root.

Inside the box is a smell of rust and rubber. Also, a plastic bag is in the box. A long scroll is in the bag. A list of the name of the leprechauns who left the treasures- treasures like bouncy balls and marbles, and toy snakes, and stamped pennies, and erasers shaped like race cars. Best of all the treasures, there are green and purple necklaces made of strands of plastic beads. Running the palms of the hands over a clump of these necklaces feels nice.

Squeezing these beads and clenching these eyes makes the spotlight narrow in and focuses. Like a great, sweeping fog, the world dissolves into whiteness until all that remains is a suitcase that once had a water bottle in it.

Try asking why nobody else is here at the place that once had been the place to be. Wait and see if the leprechauns will dare to show their faces here again. And if the will not, try taking the earphones out and listening to the babbling of the brook. Perhaps it will say that the place to be was always relative to the observer. Perhaps it will say that the grass is always greener on the other side. Or perhaps it will tell you that its water has a source and a destination. And every road leads away from Rome if you are headed the wrong way.