Free Download - Taylor Tales - A collection of twenty true life stories.
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It was 1992, I was in America, and I had run out of money.
I had been working for Camp America deep in the Bear Mountains of upstate New York. My six weeks as camp counsellor looking after the kids of the Bronx was over and I felt extremely privileged and fortunate to have worked there.
After another three months travelling the east coast of the US, I was back in New York and had four days before returning to England.
Four days to survive with no money and no way of getting any.
This was not strictly true, I did have one dollar and twenty-five cents kept safely in my back pocket, which was the exact amount I needed for a bus to get from Penn Station to JFK Airport.
And I did have an Amtrak Train Pass that entitled me to unlimited free travel across the width and breadth of the east coast.
So for four days, Amtrak Trains were my hotels.
I travelled overnight journeys just to have somewhere safe and warm to sleep.
I lived off complementary peanuts placed on the tables in the buffet car, supplemented by a box of cheerio cereal I had bought previously.
I would travel to Washington, then take the overnight train to Chicago; the following night from Chicago to Montreal. It didn’t matter where.
The Amtrak Pass had cost £250. I saw it advertised on a Camp America leaflet, the ‘Do's and Don'ts of Traveling in the USA’. It was ideal for my three month’s travelling, but I couldn’t afford it.
Instead I took a risk, I had nothing to lose. I wrote out a cheque for £250 against my empty bank balance, and sent it away.
It was a long shot, and I had no real expectations of receiving anything back.
Incredibly two weeks later an Amtrak Pass arrived in the post.
Closely followed by a letter from the management of Camp America, informing me that the cheque had bounced, and that if it wasn't paid in full by return of post, my return flight back to England would be cancelled.
I had to do something, but the one thing I should have done, was the one thing I couldn't do.
I didn’t have the money to pay.
As a last resort and banking on good will, I wrote back enclosing a £50 postal order, attached to a begging letter promising that as soon as I returned to England, I'd repay the remaining £200.
I left the Camp before I received their reply, not knowing for sure whether I had a flight back home or not.
It was the day before my flight was due and I’d spent the day sightseeing in Washington DC, filling in time before catching the overnight train to Buffalo.
Walking along the street, I felt the need to release what I thought was a tiny, innocent fart.
The consequences of letting loose such an irrelevant little innocent fart, never crossed my mind. (I'd been letting them loose all my life without any problems.)
Oh, how wrong was I, and how guilty the fart. And considering that at this stage, I had been eating nothing else but peanuts and cheerios, what was about to happen should really have been predicted.
To my absolute horror, the little innocent fart was really a bucket full of diarrhoea which flooded into my underpants, spoiling my pants beyond all repair.
A classic ‘Follow Through’.
With my buttocks squelching against each other, with the smell of shit hammering against my scent glands, paranoia stabbing daggers into me each time I passed another person, I walked on with my head held high, my mind in turmoil desperately wondering what the hell to do.
I had to do something and I had to do it fast.
I made a feeble attempt at wrapping my jumper around my waist to hide the smell, though it didn’t make a damn bit of difference.
It was just at this point I was walking past the J. Edgar Hoover Building, otherwise known as the F.B.I. Building.
A solution sprung to mind.
Walking into the foyer, I approached the metal detector entrance gates guarded by five huge black security guards, arms folded, watching me suspiciously. I summoned the nerve and asked, ‘Good morning gentlemen, would you mind if I could use your toilets please?’ followed by the best smile I could muster, under the circumstances.
Now, I don't know whether they could smell what kind of trouble I was in, or whether it was my British charm, but either way they let me in.
Once in the privacy of the toilet, I stripped, removed the spoiled underpants and stuffed them behind the toilet's cistern, cleaned myself up, regained my composure and left the building.
‘Thank you gentlemen, I really needed that,’ I said as I walked past.
‘You're welcome, have a nice day now,’ they replied in unison.
My relief was indescribable as I made my getaway.
The next day I was back in New York and with my dollar and twenty five cents I made it to JFK airport.
I was still unsure whether I would be allowed onto the plane considering the threat of Camp America, though praise be to God, they let me through the gates and onto the plane.
I eventually made it back to England and, after begging a free lift in the cargo hold of a British rail train, I arrived home.
Alas, I must confess, Camp America never got their £200.
I am more than ashamed.
