Norfolk Terrace, Day 20. [2:23 in the morning of Day 21.] On The Quiet Streets of Norwich
“I’m just going to see if this works. Here.” I handed my student ID to the doorman at the club Carnival. I was the last of my friends in the queue. The guy looked it over, checking my face with the picture. Then he scanned the card, backwards and forwards, looking for something.
“No date of birth on the card. Do you have any other form of ID? Driver’s license, passport—?”
“No.”
These next four words determined my next two hours:
“We cannot accept this.” There. Thinking I could be clever and simply bring my ID and a bit of money, without the burden of my whole wallet, I had grabbed the wrong ID card. I had come in a taxi with everyone else—well, Michael and a girl whose name I am forgetting; there were four taxis that took everyone from Anna’s floor in Suffolk Terrace where we celebrated Briar’s 22nd birthday—but I would be the only one to attempt what I did next.
At this point, forgetting to buy/bring alcohol to the birthday bash and resorting to sips of friends’ drinks, I was completely sober. I simply breathed in the night air and before I knew it, I just walked. Getting a taxi home crossed my mind as a waste of money and almost a surrender to my stupid mistake. But then again, I didn’t really mind not getting into the club. Michael and Cameron and I were going to skip out after an hour anyway and hit a nearby bar, but there was no point in me waiting anywhere. My feet wanted to keep moving.
After walking three blocks, passing the closed shops, clocks with roman numeral-clad faces displaying 12:20, and small clusters of people, I stopped and realized something. There was a square of taxis adjacent to locked-up flee market-style shops all in one concentrated cube. And a little more to the left was the spire of St. Peter Mancroft Church. I knew where I was. That stupid scavenger hunt I had condemned earlier had some use after all.
For the next fifteen minutes, I traced out the steps my group took on that hunt—just backwards. I found the main shopping mall and, like everything else, it was disguised in the veil of darkness. The letters “House of Fraser” were no longer lit up, but seeing the name “Fraser”, albeit misspelled from the way I know it best, warmed my heart a little on my quiet quest. Next, I found the main road and the roundabout, but I realized that I still had an inkling where I was, this time bringing up the memory of walking from The White Lion to the club Project last Friday. Everything was quiet. I almost appreciated the few fellow pedestrians, giving me the sign that life still existed in Norwich after the street lights go on. I plowed my way onwards and eventually came to another crossroads dilemma. Again this occurred at another roundabout, but I spotted the Norwich Cathedral and knew from my trips on the bus that the Cathedral was always on the right of the bus on the way back to campus. I kept walking.
I chanced going one way, but eventually I looked back and saw a double-decker bus stopped at the light. I waited and saw the bus turn right. Since all buses at this hour either headed to UEA campus or to the city centre, I deduced the probable direction of the university. I made my way all right for a longer bit of time, helped by bus stop signs and the occasional taxi and bus, and the farther I got, the more explicit the signs to UEA were. Finally, a blue logo with a white backlight shone as the centerpiece on a tall, cubed rock: UEA. Yes! I could not believe that I had trusted to do this at this ungodly hour, but Norwich is considered one of the safest cities in all of the UK, and this thought gave me some confidence too.
Earlier that night I had talked a bit to Vinny’s and Joe’s friend Ross, finding out that he was probably going to stay in that night while the rest of us went out. But as I entered campus, I saw a familiar figure walking toward me and who was it but Ross, slightly out of it but in good spirits. We both explained how we had come to that spot and the time that had passed since the birthday party. Apparently, there was some psychedelic venue at the LCR tonight and the stage performers were throwing bits of bread into the audience. The reason for it was beyond Ross. We parted ways.
I walked the last stretch to Norfolk Terrace and glanced at my watch: 2:40. I had literally walked for an hour and a half. First thing I did, after a much needed bathroom trip, was sit in the kitchen. The radio had been left on, so I turned the knob to off. The blue sports-direct.com playing cards were scattered all over the table and onto the floor, as if it was a spilled liquid. Empty bottles, wine glasses, and cider cans lay clumped together in an odd way that resembled a 3-D model of a metropolitan area’s skyscrapers and other buildings. I sat down with a banana and candy, looking out the opened window to the pitch black fields.
In the next moment, wrapped in a ream of smoke, the face of Stephen appeared just outside the window. He looked in, eyes dilated, and after flicking the remnants of his cigarette into the blackness, he hopped through the window and into the kitchen. We talked a bit and eventually said good night. He was higher than I had ever seen him. One of the things he asked me, though, as he does on most nights, was “Have you written in your blog today?” I told him I would soon. “Good,” he replied. “I want to read it.” Backing up a bit, the night that he tried to kiss me was merely an attempt to be on the blog for that night, fifteen minutes (or in this case, words) of fame, as the saying goes. Well, you made it on here yet again, Stephen. Cheers.
Now backing up to the day overall, I found my morning Romanticism seminar a little stifling. The discussion glossed over intensive close readings, incorporating broader themes and historical context that, although fascinating, was brought up in the seminar in a way that silences were awkward after questions were asked that did not correspond to my thought process in the discussion. Anyway, I was tired from less hours of sleep than desired.
Vinny and I, after a failed attempt at eating at Zest (there was a 30-minute wait for it to open for lunch), headed to Steff’s room in Norfolk Terrace block B, a neighboring block. In the room were Steff, Dan, and Jenny’s friend who is visiting this week, all around Steff’s laptop screen watching the semi-finals of the Australian Open: Murray v. Djokovic. I had never before been into watching tennis as I was this afternoon, literally watching from the third set until the final minutes literally two hours later. One of the scores toward the end was utterly incredible: 2 sets Murray - 2 sets Djokovic, 5 games M - 5 Games D, and 40 – 40 within the current game. Dead even. In the next five minutes, Djokovic snatched two more victories and so with 7 games to Murray’s 5, he won the final set and the match. He literally sat prone on the floor of the court and made victory gestures. That has gotta be one of the most endurance-required sports I have ever watched. Yes, there are Iron Mans, but this constant psychological struggle to stay in the game, to not give up, to pull out of defeatist notions and make good serves and hits all made for an understanding that a victory is made up of a margin more success than all the failure that goes along with it too. And that victory is also in playing the game ‘til the end. Even Murray was not a loser in the sense that this match highlighted some of his best playing that fans had ever seen him do. He certainly gained my respect, as I rooted for him the whole time after realizing that whenever he was winning, there were wicked rallies (and whenever Djokovic was winning, there were excessive power serves and disjointed playing). Pizza came in at some point; Stephen and I split the ground beef pizza.
I next dropped down for a nap in my room for 90 minutes, went for a muddy run that helped clear my mind a little, and got ready for tonight. I shaved, showered, cooked tortellini in a nice tomato sauce, and sang and played guitar a little. In the kitchen, Alvin impressed everyone with his new time on completing the Rubik's Twist from a line to a ball: 33.34 seconds. As for the birthday party at Anna's flat, it wasn’t bad—I got a little bored but still had fun seeing a large amount of my international friendship group (from the Cambridge tour and before).
You know the rest. The night ends in the glory of warm and weary calves, strengthened by a walk that I knew would be more of an adventure than simply taking a taxi back. Plus, the walk was free.
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