YD6-23 Brussels to New York, In Pursuit of a Fresh Start

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Now that I’m settled, seated by the porthole, ascending to clear skies’ endless stretch, the European coastline retrieves below. As ocean blues perpetuated, no turning back, De-P’pa and M’ma arose a sad wave. My heart aching, at the thought alone driving back from the airport to a chilly, lonely castle. Surge echoing in my head, a few days earlier, on my return from Paris, struggling to find for De-M’ma, the right words, harrowing a simple. “[Flemish] I’m leaving.” De-M’ma’s sinks, replying. “[Flemish] If you leave, then I’m going back to South Africa. . . ‘_To be with my children.’_”

My suitcase packed, I descended light cascading imperial stairs. At the base, I veer to open the door, clearing De-M’ma in thought, standing by the tall kitchen window. picturing Helios’ eager rise to the summer solstice, swept up rococo clouds with a silver lining over the distant woods, for my birthday furthest from my mind. But I read De-M'ma's mind. ‘_I have to let my son go?_’ She daren’t speak. ‘_But why are you going so far, that’s another world?_’ 

I’m saddened by De-M’ma’ best intentions, her persistence to help me acquire my social rights. While I pleaded in silence. ‘_M’ma, you’re smothering me!_’ Felt weak and enmeshed, unable to forge my-own destiny. 

We left the large, heavy framed hunter on horseback painting, stepping toward the shaded baroque garden pictured through the rear portal. We crossed the doorstep to the perron. De-M’ma locks the door behind us. We descended the half-hexagonal wrapping stairs to reach the Polo. De-M’ma, by the folded forward backrest, climbed to the rear seat. While I heaved my luggage through the tailgate, then I returned to climb to the front passenger seat. 

Such as in late Spring, when De-P’pa drove me to Nivelle’s train station, bidding me a fleeing goodbye gaze as he dropped me off. The Polo distanced, as I stepped inside the hall, amidst the sparse and scattered travelers. Approaching the clerk behind the ticket counter, I requested. “[French] Paris, Please.” With a “[French] Thanks.” I pivot away toward the doors leading to the outdoors few platforms.

The train pulled in, shadowing the driver’s figure behind the flat-face windshield, the railway track vanishing beneath the coaches. Windows trundling past to a halt, opening doors. I boarded the train along the stationmaster, in the vestibule turned, to stack my calf-suitcase up the luggage rack, while I sought the nearest vacant seat to the facing benches. I heard the whistle, door - Clack - close. The station receded behind me, turned to gaze at the upcoming landscapes changing the - clack - persisted until the clack hammered a nail in my head. While in symbiosis, the genie of my Warthog finding crucial, taking the lead on my adventuring Gemini spirit, to finding a job. As I rode the omnibus train, with stopovers at quaint village stations across Wallonia’s thigh knitted fields to farmhouses. Crossing the border into France, passing through expansive wild countryside, with stopovers in towns’ yellowed houses adorned with flowering window boxes. 

In a somber twilight, I sought a hotel, passing an elaborate stone sculpture portal, arching sealed wooden doors, obliged to seek the opposite corner, after the majestic classic stone building extended wrapping the block — echoed the latent Louvre Museum. I stepped across the side street. When I rounded the corner, drawn to an eye-catching light, spill to the sidewalk. Until an overhead facade shadow revealed a prodding translucent vertical sign spelling out ‘Hotel.’ The crack up the wall widened to reveal a luminescent interior gleaming marble, I pressed the plate-glass doors’ right leaf, step across the floor. Approaching the young man behind the reception desk, inquiring. “[French] Can I rent a room by the month?”

I registered, handed my passport, and retrieved my room key. walked alongside the reception desk to the elevator. Doors - Hiss - close and stood still in the cabin - Hiss - open. I stepped out into a short corridor, around left, unlocked the first door, crossed the room to kick the door closing. deposited my calf-suitcase. In a few strides I reached the French doors  with a grand opening pulled both opening, a pace up to the wrought-iron faux-balcony. In the shade of a waning sunlight beam, the bus shelter poster’s luminescence smiled at me, reflective street lanterns, with a greeting from the bright boutique displays. 

In the mornings, I stepped out of the hotel-boardinghouse, as Parisian streets stirred on working days. I caught the express, RER train, which stopovers expanded to ants’ nests of people, as we traversed out of the underground. The platforms quietened. I rode through the city outskirts, I disembarked alone, walked away from the leading tracks, zigzagged a few blocks. Until I reached the arms and ammunition manufacturer’s security gates. At task, mix half water and half Gypsum in the tub. I splashed blobs of paste on the bare condemned factory brick walls. Pulled, sliding off a plasterboard from a pallet stack, raised in front of me, stretched my neck, glanced around the plasterboard’s edge my way. I planted the gypsum plasterboard glue to the dabs. I grabbed the wooden ‘2x4 stud.’ as a straightedge’s soft stamping the board. Through the weeks, transforming the space into office accommodation, I trowel gypsum past smooth, over the joints, ready for the painters.

At the end of the week, I returned to catch the metro, and riding the underground train, I surfaced to the evening bustling sidewalks. on my way to my employment agent, submitting my timesheet, discussing potential follow-up work opportunities. The youthful French Virgo woman, while chatting, I stepped into her car. She drives for the nightlife district. She wove through narrow streets. Car windows down. Until she yielded at a wild crossing, a driver cut her off, shouted insults. She responded cutely, swore charmingly like a construction man.

With my recent arrival from South African, undergoing a cultural lapse, my enthusiasm French’ising waned. My hotel bill payable in French francs came due, and I indulged a month in street Crêpes, and market salads, to a sense of financial uneasiness. I stopped by temporary work agencies, scrutinized window displays rates, far from able to save money, fueled the thoughts onto my open flight ticket to New York. At the end of the week, I settled the month’s Hotel bill, turned in the key, with regret. After a metro ride to the North Station, I stood at the railway ticket counter, asking. “[French] Nivelle, in Belgium, Please.” Walked away to the hangar’s wide range of rail tracks, and stationed trains. I embarked with my calf-suitcase, heard the whistle, the station regressed. Prepared for the long ride’s through stopovers, across the border. Crossed Mons, found my orientation, and disembarked in Nivelle, where De-P’pa waited to drive me back to the castle.

From a distance on the concourse floor, De-M’ma watched as I checked-in my calf-suitcase to the conveyor belt, her eyes reflecting. ‘_Why are you going on such an eccentric adventure?_’ De-P’pa refrained from exerting his authoritarian demeanor around De-M’ma. I noticed when he invited me to join Mrs. Geyser, and further invited me to the exhibition hall. He seemed to accept my being, with pride. He left to converse with people amidst the stamp collectors. My first, with a wandering gaze engaging an exhibition path. I passed Japanese folding screens, to panels plastered with white sheets checkered with the same mid-tone of stamps. ‘_Surely valuable!_’ I thought._’ With time to waste, I glanced at the hinged back panel, trying in vain to find interesting stamps. Until I reached the captivating panels. the first in a series depicting vibrant animals and plants, promoting South African. De-P’pa came to fetch me, his expression asking. ‘_Did you enjoy what you saw? _’ 

I stood up to the check-in counter’s ground hostess’ fresh expression, as she tagged my suitcase, returned my boarding pass, slipped into my passport, and slapped atop the cover with my flight ticket. I edged away, leading De-M’ma and P’pa toward the rear of Brussels’ Zaventem departure concourse, mingling among passengers. Reached a single line before a peak cap and uniform bust to a barrier of vacant booths in a row. At my turn, the officer’s spider-fingers rifled through my passport pages, after a glance matching my boarding pass. With a handing-back gesture, the officer waves me round the glass cubicle. Glancing back, I left De-M’ma saddened and De-P’pa’s symbiotic Capricorn demeanor melted, to wonder if our combined Warthog isn’t the character De-P’pa sees in himself, shielding his pigheadedness.

The coastline appeared, while Helios stood still, flying across the Atlantic Ocean. Nestled in my seat, air hostesses traversed the aisles on both ends of the wide-body cabin. growing inquisitive, with the approaching air hostess, posing questions along both sides of the aisle’ and deep among passengers. She bends deep in the row of passengers, until the row of passengers in front, allowing me to eavesdrop on interactions. Until the air hostess locked eyes with me, repeated her question in a querying tone, “Foreign passport?” I had no choice, but nod and take the form, as she instructed. “You have to fill out, and hand in with your passport at the passport control.” Her words linger in my mind, I’m avoiding to raise my anxiety, left holding the form, reassuring myself. ‘_There’s still plenty of time._’ 

My seat kicked in our descent, to a floating sensation, to gaze at the ocean’s surfs along the coastline. I raised my questionnaire to my seat table, rising anticipation. After filling my passport number and preliminaries, I scrutinized further the form, fearing my adventure, to a new life, projecting from my experience after Hilton Rogoff’s rogue takeover of my company in South Africa. But, I’m stuck on the question. “The purpose of your visit? — Provide an address during your stay?” 

Gliding over, the latent flattened expanse of Long Island, the city cubism rising from the dark earthy hue by the streets’ grid. The aircraft touchdown’s pneumatic bound, engaging brakes and flaps - whoosh - breaking through the air reverberated rippling through the cabin, I’m propelled forward from my seat. Appeasing to my seat, taxiing, I peer through my porthole the terminal approach and pass by, rotating out of view, taxiing further, restless passengers rising from their seats, to a pneumatic jolt. Followed the intercom, announcing, “… Seat Belts. . .” - CLICK, CLICK, CLICK. . . - to a flurry of passengers ensuing to stand. I’m in no rush among the few remaining seated, waiting for the chaos to subside. 

Among passengers in need to stretch my legs, I move with a jet lag’s dissonance. I’ll have to hold on tight,  my spirit searching for its displaced body and languid mind. Meanwhile, I’m pulling my handbags from the overhead bin. I advance with the sticky line, hands flurry clearing bins, in the choking aisle. as the last passengers descend the staircase, from the Jumbo’s upper deck. We creep past Sabena’s distinguish air crew exchanging greetings. I step across the aircraft’s threshold, trailing a stretching space among passengers tunneling the boarding ramp. With the passengers, I veered to walk down the endless corridor, baffled entering a hall. A crowd’s backwash from the widespread glazed-booth barrier. my Gemini resigns, my shrewd Warthog rises. Inching closer, the same passengers snaking by. Passengers slip by the booths, until my fate in the white uniform busts scattered across a few glazed booths. I’m standing behind a passenger, before my turn to face an officer’s stern gazes. 

I hand over my passport with the completed form. The controller’s eyes flick up meeting, prompting me to rein in my foolish thoughts. With nimble fingers, he rifles through the pages, from my passport’s cover to my picture, overlaying my facial features. As he unfolds the white slip of paper, the genie of my Warthog, defensive tusks, moving in front of my Gemini. Fearless, as the officer bashes me. “What’s the purpose of your visit? Where are you going to stay?” The officer hands back my passport, nods me on my way, I stumble away, the officer already eyeing the person behind me to advance. 

I’m stepping through the booths to the rear, to disbelief creeping inside me. To search my way, hanging my eyesight on the passengers’ trickling away. I follow the passengers toward the crack edging up a far wall, in my approach opening to a tunnel corridor. while I’m walking, recuperating my senses through the corridor until I’m distracted emerging into a wide-ranging entrepot.

I’m turning toward passengers herding around a far carousel, under the gazes on the first trail of suitcases circling around. I’m seeking far back, catching my suitcase early, resting my gaze in front of me. Passengers push out from the crowd, heave their suitcases, retrieving to load on a trolley, trundling out the crowd. When I see my brown canvas, calf-bulging, the carousel’s crow had thinned. I step up, to swipe, but I’m pulled forward, to take a firm stance, to heave my suitcase, with a leading eyesight to figures pushing a trolley along the far facing wall for an opening to a hallway.

I’m directed by fellow passengers, and crossing the hall, I’m arriving in tow trundling my suitcase, I turn the corner skeptic of the authoritarian stern intimidating eyeballs of two custom officers. Steer my eyes through the middle on the gleaming floor, pacing through the efflorescent corridor. Eager to escape the soldiers’ stance in white uniforms. I creep forward, eager to reach the end, opening doors for the figures and snap close to disappear. In my strides, wing doors - SWISH - clearing a greeting crowd, I’m invisible, to their regards. There isn’t a familiar face to welcome me, I’m jumping a notch, thinking. ‘_Still early. . . And now, it’s up to you?_’ 

Beyond the herded greeting crowds, the concourse’s gleams wash up to a pinch, narrowing across a ceiling squeezing Helios’ glowing slit, the same time I left Brussels earlier. A silhouette figures heading for the exit, another person follows, leading me. I approach the rising glazed curtain, press a shoulder against the plate-glass door, to a hip hold, trundle my suitcase past to the sidewalk. 

As I ponder my next challenge, two figures circle the Yellow Taxi’s rear fenders, the trunk springs open, luggage lifted, to press the lid shut. Driver and passenger diverge, Each climbing the taxi, closing doors from different angles to pull away. Feet at the curb, marking my next priority facing New York's distant skyline, and in retrieve to the gray cityscape mellows the glimmer out of me. Meanwhile, a cosmic resonance orchestrates a melodious tune in my mind. ‘_. . .It’s up to you. New York, New York…_’ 

As the next yellow cab pulls up, to claim the front of the line, a figure in fluttering pants and sleeves seized my suitcase, bewildering eyes, saying. “I drive you — ten dollars to the city.”

Chauffeured by pampered by an illegal taxi-driver, amid the familiar backdrop of my family’s poultry farm in Kyalami, and since my eighteenth, as a building contractor in Johannesburg. I was surrounded by illegal tireless maneuver wheelbarrows laden with concrete from a mixer to trenches. The illegals scooped mortar to board, beside stacked bricks, I embedded with a mechanical rhythm from dawn until dusk.

Such as these men from tribes in neighboring countries, seeking work in the city. I had rules: I turned inside out my pockets in front of beggars for all the crew to see, saying. “[Afrikaans] Sorry, but I have no money.” While I didn’t feel the driver could scam me, the illegal taxi-driver grabbed my suitcase, headed across the driveway. The taxi-driver stows my suitcase in the trunk pulls the lid closed. He steps in behind the steering wheel, as I climb in the opposing door, to settle in the rear compartment. The dusk complexion, throws back a glance, asking “Where to?” in return, I ask. “Do you know of a hotel?” 

The taxi-driver frisky responds. “Sure, I’ll take you there.” He uncoils in his seat, turns the ignition, and drives away. As we leave the airport buildings behind, I sink into my seat, observing the curdled cityscape along the leading highway, suburbs emerging against the rising jagged skyline. We pass through suburban houses, neighborhood, transitioning to townhouses. The towers rise taller and the rooftops disappear through the taxi’s peripheral window. Chauffeured through the grids of streets, until, by a redbrick corner, the taxi stops. Without a glance, the driver, stiff in his seat, states, “Ten dollars.”

I shift onto my left hip, while my eyesight runs along the redbrick wall along windows’ cracks. Before the distancing side street, a protruding translucent sign reading “HOTEL” above the doorway. With flicks of my wrist, my Seven-Star flaps open, and behind my mini diary, in the purse, I flip a green Dollar bill, left a glimpse behind the leading “1. . .” at the trailing “0...” I lean forward to hand over the money, passing the Stoic driver fixated in the deserted lane as traffic streams past on One-Way street. Anticipating my change, I wait. Not forthcoming. “Where is my change?” I inquired. The taxi-driver asserts, “No, you gave me ten dollars.” While the Hydra of my mind reasoning through my next steps, contemplating the sidewalk, the taxi-driver’s aggressive voice, startles me back to the present, eye fixation on the driver’s head. 

As doubt creeps in, my mind flashes back to the depth of my purse to the elusive zeros unsettling me. The taxi driver, contrary to his graceful welcome earlier, stone-cold demeanor, urges me to step out. I open the door, step onto the asphalt, confront the taxi-driver around the fender, lifting the trunk with a handhold. I lift my suitcase. Angry wells up within me for not paying closer attention, We moved away in opposite directions. I’m passing the parked car’s bumper. The taxi-pulls away, at my stride the distancing car meddling in the traffic trickle. I step to the curb. Walk a blotch of uncertainty hovering between ‘_ 100. . . or 10. . ._’  Irritated, I focused on the crack opening underneath the “Hotel” sign, to step the long doorsteps ashlars arched classic entrance. 

Beneath the Hotel sign, I grapple with the taxi driver’s scam, but his scam continues to haunt my thoughts at every stride. Pushing open the door, I cross the doorstep at my pace, brushing past the swing leaf. Stepping into the glittering lobby, I cross over to the cornered young attendant behind the box front desk. As I approach, the attendant’s finger sprawls to stand and spider walk the open ledger. Pivoting, indicating, ‘_Register._’ Various handwriting style detailing previous guests, on the next blank line, I scribbled my name, date, and last address. The attendant mechanical, hands from a keyboard behind, a room key. Leaves at my discretion the maroon sheen elevator door in the opposing deep corner. At my strides, I tally the cost in mind. ‘_Sixty-eight dollars a day. How long can I survive?_’ In a relapse wisp to escape my adventure. ‘_Its imperative to get out within the week._’ 

I dare not dwell further, stepping out of the elevator on the upper floor, to the door matching my key number. Entering the room, cast a glance at the blatant brick facade depicted in the window. Setting my calf-suitcase down, stealing a glance at my wristwatch. ‘_Ten O’clock!_’ I gather courage, after a momentary relapse to sink on the edge of the bed to ruminate. I turn away, for the exit door. Retracing my steps back to the elevator. Stepping into the lobby, I approach the young attendant behind the front desk. My ego is tall and sturdy daren’t insinuate. ‘_I’m looking for a job._’ Facing the young man, I’m asking. “Where can I buy a newspaper?” The attendant’s right arm twist around him, extending a hand, pointing an index into the corner. “Thanks,” I respond, turning around, toward the plate-glass doors to the side street. 

turn the corner, scanning the concrete sidewalk, along a Sunday’s trickling traffic, by the craggy wall’s doorways and storefronts' cracks. Among rambling easels’ signs emerging from the blurry busy sidewalk. I approach, a resemblance and grew assertive colorful magazine’s front page. I step into the narrow store, past racks of magazines to reach the storekeeper in the depth seated behind a flourishing counter. shying behind my ego, I inquire. “Which newspaper is the most popular for Classified Smalls?”

The Aloof storekeeper, expresses. ’_Take it or leave it._’ Saying, ”The New York Times.” Pointing eyes over the front counter. Stepping back, I scan the spread stacked newspapers on the front counter shelf. I pick a ‘The New York Times,’ pose on the busy counte
rtop. Realizing I didn’t have coins, reaching in my rear pocket, I pull out my wallet, flip-flop the flaps open my purses. With a fingers’ flick, I’m handing the storekeeper a hundred dollar bill. I verified the zeros and again, ascertain the green dollar bill before handing over, turned away, counting and tucking back in my purse to my wallet, and coins in my pocket, having change with some relief from another costly blunder. 

With the New York Times newspaper tucking under my arm, and my wallet snug in my back pocket, I emerged from the store. As I walk back, I stifle the resurgence of the taxi scammer. Rounding the corner, I enter the hotel lobby, passing by the front desk attendant, off to the side as I head toward the elevator door. Stepping into the cabin, I then enter my hotel room, unfurling the newspaper, and spread on the bed. Glancing at a few titles, I stifle distractions from lagging in my task, to side saddling on the edge of the bed.

My fingers pinch the corner of the newspaper, rushing over the front page headings, crinkling as I waved a page over to spread wide. To scorn myself, diverging. reminiscing Johannesburg’s The Star. I ought to start from the back of the newspaper to the classified Smalls. I flip the pages faster, my curiosity lingering on the passing heading, to scold myself. “That’s not why you came here!” - crinkle, crinkle, crinkle. . ._’ Until I reach the mind-confusing jumble of block adverts. Reminding myself. ‘_On the job!_’ 

I turn the page, to where I need to be, scanning the row of category headings flashing across columns. ‘To-let, Sale, Purchase of Property to Vehicles, Goods,’ so forth. anchoring despite unfamiliar heading flashing through my mind across the top of the adjacent next page, I didn’t spare a pause. But then my demeanor is too strict, my eyesight leaps across columns. Dismissive to the next page, I scold myself. ‘_Slow down. Remain focused! You can’t afford to miss even a single opportunity._’

Moving toward the middle of the following spread page. I navigate to familiar rubrics. ‘Electricians, plumbers,. . .’ setting a rule to glance at each published advertisement. I trail a finger through rubrics’ headings, through articles. Leaving an occasional red marker lock. I jump up to the following columns, reading ink on paper scrawling words to a potential job. A fear arouses of losing myself among the red locks, becoming more scrupulous, re-absorbing what jobs entail, before circling a potential certainty. 

I read, and re-read, a brief description for an estimator position, raising a tailored warmth wrap, from the creator’s mindset outreach. To underline the contact number, and again, fearing losing the emplacement among the red lock spread across the pages. With a flip-flop, my wallet flaps clear my Seven-Star diary. I note the phone number, verifying the digits backward. 

For a finality, I continued scrutinizing headings reached the Education section, missing person, Tour and Travels rubrics. waving the last page over, fold the newspaper in half. I rise from the bed, to pace over to the night table, assured myself I exhausted all possibilities for a Sunday morning. Glancing at the window’s noon sunbeam breaking through scattered clouds, and down towering rooftops, I’m called into the street. Walking along the sidewalk, I’m amazed by the Lipstick Tower, at becoming the landmark near my hotel.