Look at me I'm David Eggers (standard:Creative non-fiction, 1335 words)
Author: Jourdan Aldredge	Added: Oct 29 2009	Views/Reads: 3709/2066	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A young boy's trip to London with his grandfather

Look at me I'm David Eggers 

I remember how I would pretend I was a running back, weaving and juking
through a crowded London street as my grandfather gave worried chase 
behind me. It was my dream to be the running back on the 6th grade 
Redskins football team. Literally, it was my dream. It was gone by 7th 
grade and Junior High locker rooms, but on those London streets, I was 
fucking Emmitt Smith, or a traded for Barry Saunders in split back with 
pixilated Cowboys Blue and stone silver. My grandfather would often be 
running and out of breath when we reached the next crosswalk; I was 
warned of how his longed framed mountain climber's walk would be far 
too much trouble for me to catch up with, I still won every race, and 
once I even hopped off the subway just as the door shut on last 
warning, leaving my grandfather speechlessly yelling for me to stay put 
as he disappeared down the tube. A tour guide told us Charles Dickenson 
committed suicide by hopping in front of an incoming car, and I all I 
could think about was Neo fighting Agent Smith and smashing the walls. 

I don't remember any of the circumstances leading up to the week and a
half trip, besides my mom surprised on the phone telling me I gave Papa 
the idea when I had said I wanted to travel the world. I can't think of 
a thing that my Grandfather and I could have had in common up to that 
point, his passions for church and a Hank Hillian hard work attitude, 
and my endeavors to join limp bizkit on bass and to find friends that 
wouldn't tell me to go home when I showed up at their houses. So I 
guess I was already feeling left out at that age, but the trip was a 
huge undertaking. Papa was an experienced traveler, and found last 
moment airfare and hotel a few weeks out, he was semi-retired I think 
at that time, with a company in his name being driven to the ground by 
his replacement. 

We left in the evening and flew through night arriving in the morning.
Our hotel was an old interestingly shaped authentic experience, with 
dummy waiters and the washroom at the end of the hall. We shared an 
uncomfortably small bed in a room where the small bed had to be folded 
up to open drawers. I remember sleeping for marathon records on that 
trip, highlighted by the sleeping from daylight today till daylight 
tomorrow first night (day). 

Fanny pack and walking cane Papa and I made amazingly efficient work of
the sights and tours. Papa curtly asking American's to take pictures of 
us standing together, hat on, arm on my shoulder. One time the sun was 
setting painfully over the horizon as we were walking around some 
castles walls, I couldn't put my hand up during the pose so I just shut 
my eyes until it was over. You can't even tell in the picture. I hardly 
remember any of the other stops: looking at Royal Jewels, art work, 
long hall ways, lots of cathedrals, a huge green hedge maze Papa showed 
great enthusiasm for puzzles; and math equations, both hobbies of his. 
Madame Tussards was by far the most entertaining, it had a long line to 
get in when we got there, probably just before opening. 

I had never been to a wax museum before, and never since come to think
of it, but I can't exactly remember how the museum worked. But I think 
it was organized as a ride format, where you follow a path and see 
little shows around each corner, and sports players dunking on 
ex-presidents. Somewhere along the normal path though, the show ended 
and offered an exit or an optional entrance to something called the 
London Dungeon, which I just looked up online, and it is supposed to be 
child friendly, but in a really fucked up British way were reviews of 
the event says children with nervous dispositions were known to cry 
uncontrollably. Or, as British reviewers like to say, too spooked! 

I felt suddenly aware of the deep thumping heartbeat in the dark room's
soundtrack of screams and pitfalls. A T-2 inspired ring-around-the-rosy 
circle was frozen with off-tune sing-song nursery rhymes on rat-plagued 
stone streets, a guillotine repeatedly chopped off a stiff's head, to 
recreate the last official guillotine execution of the French 
Revolution, the 'rides length' on the website runs around 90 minutes. I 
can try to search my memory, but my grandfather's face eludes me, 
hauntingly so. The ground was my only friend, for some reason escape 
out or way back was impossible; secretly I was just as scared of Chucky 
from Child's play as my younger brother was when we saw it on Halloween 
a few years back, my brother was made fun of for it, mostly by me I 
would think, but he slept in mine or my parents rooms for at least 6 
months. He got over it when he decided he made friends with the birds 


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