Aeneas in Virginia

Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc’d by fate,
And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate,
Expell’d and exil’d, left the Trojan shore.
Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,
And in the doubtful war, before he won
The Latian realm, and built the destin’d town;
His banish’d gods restor’d to rites divine,
And settled sure succession in his line,
From whence the race of Alban fathers come,
And the long glories of majestic Rome.

Virgil, The Aeneid

I wonder how many times in my life I have seen a sunset. No matter the number, the event never ceases to get my attention and hold it. I’ve seen old Sol dive into the Atlantic from the Scottish Highlands and into the Pacific from Washington to Mexico. I have watched him disappear into the skylines of Boston, Atlanta, New York, and Paris, and now I am watching him settle himself among the turning trees of Richmond, Virginia. For more than ten years, I have looked at the sun setting on the western horizon and always thought of a direction more than a place. West. Go west. Westward. Out west. The way west. Ten times I have traveled the open road across the country and followed old Sol as far as I could. On my first trip to LA, I kept a journal and remember writing that we chased the sun across the country and lost. I was in my mid-twenties then, and two decades later, the sun sets some three thousand miles west of where I have usually seen him. I live in the West. West is home. I have finally arrived.

So it was with some pause and reflection that I woke Penelope up early on Wednesday morning to head (west) to Ontario airport. I am flying “back east” to the warm embrace of St. Mary of Virginia, Lenny and Squiggy (the dynamic duo of poets), and a few pleasant surprises. St. Mary, in her ever-weaving web of influence, creativity, and camaraderie, had asked me a year or so ago to be a juror on a literary prize given by her university, where I also used to teach and first met the saint. I happily agreed and thought it would be a chance to read some new works and have a say in how good they are. I did that. Then St. Mary says to me a few months ago, “So can you come on November 1?” “Come where,” I said, “and for what?” It is sometimes the case with St. Mary that when you agree to do something, there are larger, more elaborate dimensions to your role. Again, think spider and web. “As the outside juror for the prize, you are expected to come here and introduce the winner.” My response was appropriate for a juror ruling on a distinguished literary prize: “Huh?” “Dude, you introduce the winner, and we pay your way out here. You’re coming,” she said. I had heard that tone before. Think spider and web and prey. “Okay,” I said, “what’s the date?” I begin to feel like Aeneas prodded by Venus to undertake a journey, but I will tell my Venus to her face that I’m not founding any new city. I don’t have time.

The flight to Atlanta was actually very good, if I can say that about a flight in the twenty-first century without sounding like I’m being ironic. I read and played InFlight Trivia, though I was a little disappointed that no one on the flight was playing with me. Had they heard about The Slayer and his dramatic wins a few months ago? Nevertheless, I played against myself and tried to best my previous scores. I was above fifty-percent on every game, and on the last I was on my way to a new record. We were descending into Atlanta, and I was having a hell of a game. If I could answer the last three questions correctly and quickly, I could possibly break 6000, a score I had never seen on InFlight Trivia. Amazingly, I answer the final question, obtain 500 points, see my score of 6250, and the game ends because we are on the ground. I had answered an unheard of sixteen of twenty questions correctly and quickly, and I would not be surprised if I get a call from the folks at InFlight Trivia to acknowledge my greatness and perhaps to fight any other champions they know of. 6250. I am The Slayer–or for this journey Aeneas. Trivia, and the man I sing.

Waiting in Atlanta for the flight to Richmond, I see a woman I think I know. I look at her, and she looks back at me uneasily then darts to a part of the waiting area where I can’t see her. But I’m sure I know her. We worked together in a computer lab at Coca-Cola University while we were doing our doctoral work. I check her face again as we board, and I know I am right. After all, I just scored 6250 on InFlight Trivia. How could I be wrong? We land, and I decide I will not bother her, preferring instead to know that I know I know her even if she doesn’t know that I know her, and she knows me. As I walk out to greet St. Mary and Tanner, I see my friend in front of me. I decide I cannot not let her know that I know I know her and that she knows that she knows me, no matter what she thinks she knows—or doesn’t. I put my hand on her shoulder and say, “Excuse me, but are you Dido?” She turns and looks, a little frightened, into my eyes and tries to register what is happening. Then something happens that will happen repeatedly over the next two days: a wave of recognition flows over her face, and she says, very loudly, “Aeneas?” We hug awkwardly, and I move her to the side so that we are not blocking the egress of important businessmen on their way to try to sell pipe or networks or car parts to their very important clients. We do the haven’t-seen-you-in-ages-dance and warmly embrace again. We are still talking animatedly when I approach St. Mary and Tanner, who think I’ve picked up a date on the plane. I hug my dear friends and introduce them to Dido, and Dido and I exchange cards and promise to stay in touch. If she sets fire to herself after I leave, I’m going to be really upset.

Tanner and St. Mary both look good, and I find myself dropping into my southern accent before we are out of Richmond. I have to be a bit rude and call Sancho back at Cool University. [Literary digression: I realize that I am now hopelessly lost in saints, literary characters, and real people and that Sancho belongs to another genre and period than Aeneas and Juno. But I cannot find a character in The Aeneid for Sancho because she is just so Sancho. I appreciate your forbearance.] I just need to check in, and then we can play in Virginia. Sancho’s not there, away from her desk for some reason, so I get Juno, the student worker. “What’s going on, Juno?” I say happily, waiting to hear that all is well, and I can do my juror thing without worrying about what’s happening 2500 miles away. “Oh, God, you wouldn’t believe it, “she says ominously. “What a fiasco!” Stunned, I say urgently, “What fiasco? What happened? Is everything okay?” Juno, taking her time to gather herself, or so I think, responds after a moment, “Oh I don’t really know.” “What? What do you mean you don’t know. What happened? What fiasco?” says a worried Director of the Buffalo Center, or Aeneas waiting for the next disaster to come down upon him. Unfazed, Juno says “Oh, it’s nothing.” “Juno,” I say with increasing irritation, “you can’t tell me there was a fiasco then say it was nothing. Tell me what happened.” Another pause. “Oh, that damn fax machine,” she says with exasperation, “we couldn’t get the paper in the right way.” Now there is a long pause on my end, and my exasperation shoots up to a satellite then down to Cool University. “Are you f*&%ing kidding me? That’s the fiasco?” Now Juno says with aplomb worthy of the goddess herself: “Aeneas, did you just say f*&%ing?” “Yes, Juno, I damn well did, and so did you by the way. You scared the hell out of me.” I had worried about leaving the Buffalo Center anyway, so I was really calling to have Sancho say “Don’t worry about anything; enjoy your friends.” Instead, Juno plays her goddess thing like I’m Aeneas and I exist just to be pushed around and messed with while I’m trying to get to this place no one has ever heard of. Then, as if to drive me over the edge, she laughs. She LAUGHS. So I start laughing too.

Finally, Sancho comes back into the room, and I ask Juno to put her on the phone. “What’s going on, Sancho?” “Nothing at all,” she says, in that tone that I love to hear because it means she is the mistress of all she surveys and has everything under control. “Don’t worry about anything; enjoy your friends.” Meanwhile, St. Mary, who has lived here for over four years, can’t figure out where to turn to find the two-lane road over to Farmville. “Right there, no not there, the next one,” I say, gesturing with one hand while holding the iPhone with the other. Sancho asks me why I’m telling her there is something there. “Where?” she asks, “and what?” “No, not you,” I say. This is getting ridiculous. I have to tell her that St. Mary knows a lot of things, but she doesn’t know her way home. “Why are you talking in a Southern accent?” Sancho asks innocently. “I’m not, and leave me alone. I’m in Virginia with St. Mary and Tanner, and Juno just scared the hell out of me.” “Yeah, she said you dropped the f-bomb.” “Ask her to tell you why I dropped the f-bomb,” I say to explain myself to Sancho who would never drop the f-bomb herself. I meant it as a rhetorical question, but I hear Sancho in the background saying to Juno, “Aeneas says for me to ask you why he dropped the f-bomb.” What ensues is, as you might imagine, an entire rehearsal of the exchange between me and Juno with Sancho mediating the dialogue: “Aeneas says . . . Juno says.” I feel like Homer Simpson working at the nuclear power plant in Springfield. We have great and mighty things to do at the Buffalo Center, serious endeavors in living and learning, and sophisticated theories and practices of academic innovation, but nothing so important that we can’t go over a conversation that happened two minutes ago in excruciating detail. In fact I feel like we’ll probably go over it again on Monday. Which is yet another reason I love the Buffalo Center and why Sancho can never leave me. We just work too well together, and we hold the ridiculous and the sublime in lovely relation.

I say goodbye to Juno and Sancho as the sun sets over Virginia and St. Mary winds her way home in the twilight. St. Mary and Tanner ask me what is wrong at the Buffalo Center. I rehearse the whole exchange, the one they just heard one side of, making it three times now this silly conversation has taken place, and we roll into Farmville, Virginia laughing and knowing there will be much more ridiculous and sublime ahead. And I realize that I am really not Aeneas because he never laughed. He was too weighed down by that goddess thing and the founding a city thing. But I laugh all the time because, unlike Aeneas, I f*&%ing love my life.

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