On (or rather off) the Ways of the Bandaloop

I finished my second read through Tom Robbin’s Jitterbug Perfume while sitting in Faneuil Hall chop-sticking my way through a vegetable-deficient chicken-tumored stir-fry. I had a good seat at a table for four around the atrium’s opening on the second floor (a prime spot during the lunch rush with its sparrow-eyed view of the first floor) and directly in the upward path of the many warm aromas drifting from the various vendors -- their collective cuisine as varied as a UN potluck. So despite the inappropriate grub I felt that I was in a fitting place to indulge in the final arcane suggestions of one of my favorite books.
That is until a murder of adolescents ascended the stairs. If only they were crows. In the wake of their cackling came a few haggard teachers or chaperones whose only duty seemed to be to tell the rabble to keep their feet on the floor lest they lean to far over the railing and learn the lessons of gravity for themselves. It was plenty clear that not one of them was interested in telling the pimply individual that usurped a seat and the other half of my table that I was nose deep in an ethereal experience.
The last time (and first time) I finished reading Jitterbug Perfume I was sitting in the loft of a tranquil Alaskan log cabin. The most determined sunlight I have ever encountered came through the windows to rest on the pages. In front of me was half a bottle of Merlot; one of thirty from the first case of wine I ever purchased (nostalgia anyone?). The rest were waiting in the cabin’s basement like a gospel choir waiting in the wings. Outside was Alaska’s alpine jungle with its Devil’s Club blossoming oxymoronical. I had just descended from the mountains that morning surrounded by plant life whispering “prehistoric” (amongst which I imagined there were more than two barn swallows frantically copulating) and was comfortably giddy (led about the dance floor by the wine perhaps) with self-reflection finding myself open to a new concept of possibility.
Sigh.
One of the writhing fashion conscious brood tried to wrestle something out of the seated one's hands. The seated one was not only the pimpliest but also the biggest and retained his trinket easily. The exchange (or lack there of) yanked me out of my romantic memory. Resolved then to deal with the situation myself I decided to say “hello” to this kid who plopped into my company without so much as a nod. He glanced up for about as long as it takes a byte to bite off whatever it is that it chews then went back to staring into the blue screen of the trinket like a chronic into the void thumb typing all the while. I considered smacking (gently like the big wolf’s teeth against the little wolf’s heels) his Red Sox hat (holographic sticker still in place the way the big boys wear them) off his head but resisted in fear that his vacant automatonistic overseers would spark to life at the opportunity to stand for something. Is it not a greater crime to let children grow up retarded (for the inanely politically correct this term is not to be confused with an actual mental handicap)?
While I wondered about this and the time that I saw the director of the school I worked for in Korea karate kick two misbehaving students in the backpacks (he had instructed them to hold the backpacks over their child bellies) I found myself reading the words, “Indigo. Indigoing. Indigone.” Finished, I folded the wings of the book disappointed the words did not take flight with the same spirit that I remembered when I was surrounded by that now distant wilderness. Figures, I guess. These days, in the old concrete jungle with its rigid unidirectional view of progress, I have been getting the feeling that my wild duck flying backwards is locked in the crosshairs on the verge of a sidelong plummet back to the stagnant swamp.