A/N: For the record, simple words that J.G. would have heard before and knows are written in their original script. Everything else is written phonetically, as if he does not understand it, J.G. would not know the script. :3
I ain't never been on a flight longer'n two and a half hours, and there's a lotta security things we gotta go through. We got to the International airport at New York from Colombia, and I'm gonna go buy some food, at least, until Nat grabs me by my arm.
"We are almost first in line. You can eat after we get tickets." She says. I start to walk away again, sayin',
"You cain't tell me what to do."
She grabs my arm again and holds on this time.
"I will not lose place in line just because you want greasy overpriced garbage to shove into your hole. You can eat after we get tickets." She says, and I can tell she means it. One thing about Nat is she ain't good at wakin' up, and when she's tired, she ain't to be messed with. 'Nother thing is how she always means what she says no matter what when she says that tone. Women, I swear. Even thinkin' that, I still just stand where I am and cross my arms.
"If I pass out 'cuz I ain't got nothin' to eat, 's yer fault."
She sighs. "I think I can handle guilt of that."
Soon, we're at the front of the line and bein' searched as is the new policy for gettin' on planes after 2001. The security man starts with wavin' this wand thing over me and when it beeps he asks me to put all my metal stuff in this tray, includin' change and stuff. I got a handful of silver coins, my knife, which he asks fer a permit for and I show, and the metal buckle on my belt, which I got as a sorta present from France ("so you can stop wearing those horrid suspenders"). Nat's got her knife and permit too, and some change, and the housekeys, which I'm glad she got 'cuz I fergot to grab 'em, and then we're bein' put through to the rest of the flight.
We're soon on the plane and the stewardess comes and asks us if we'll have refreshments.
"Got any ice tea, Miss?" I ask.
"Of course, sir. Sweet, lemon or plain?" She says, smilin' at me and Nat holdin' hands there.
"Sweet, 'o course." I say.
"Alright, anything else?" The stewardess asks of us.
"Water, and maybe some of your macaroni and cheese meal for us each. We have not had breakfast." Nat tells the lady who writes it down.
"Mmm, mac 'n cheese." I say. "Got any fried chicken to go with that?"
"Alas, no, sir. We do however serve a meat dish for dinner around five." She says, smilin' at me still. I think she's gotta smile or she'll lose her job. Or she just finds me real pleasant to talk to. That done, she goes off to fetch our food.
"J.G.," Nat starts, and I look over, "for someone who likes so much to make fun of stereotype, you really are one yourself."
"Is this about that one time I said that thing to that one guy? I told you I'm pretty sure that I-talian is in the mob, the way he was lookin' at me!" I say, lookin' back to the handheld game I got in my hands.
"If Feliciano is indeed in the mob, even then he cannot possibly harm you." Nat says, goin' back to her book. It's a simple one, in English, 'cuz she wants to learn better. She's got some Russian ones in her bag.
Soon, we get the food, and Nat tells me to be civilized in my eatin' so's to not be emberassin'. I can do it just fine, since I did go to a school for teachin' boys how to be gentlemen. I gently pick up the plastic fork and gently scoop some of the gooey stuff onto it and gently put it in my mouth, and gently chew it up. It ain't half-bad for yankee airplane food. Nat, who had been watchin' my gentle-ness with the plate just sighs.
"I said don't make a mess and use manners, not 'eat like you are making love to it.'"
I was (gently) sippin' my ice tea as she said that and I just start laughin' at the image of someone havin' a romantic night with a plate of mac n' cheese and end up snortin' ice tea in my nose and coughin'. Nat sighs again and whacks me on the back and then uses her napkin to wipe my face off.
"Honestly, J.G., you are like child sometimes."
"Yer the one that made me laugh!" I say back to that. Nat just sighs and does her half-smile thing.
Eventually even my video game is boring, and it's still a few hours 'til we hit Moscow, where we get the flight to Minsk. I try lookin' out the window and there's nothin' but water and sky. I find that a bit startlin' havin' never been to the ocean before. I don't do much. I'm mostly happy with things the way they are.
"Nat, lookit! You cain't even see the land anymore!" I say, pointin'.
"That is right. You have never been across water before, have you?" She asks.
"Nope. I ain't never left the US." I tell her.
"Well, once you are done there, there is a movie you may watch if you like. It is Spider-Man, somethink an overly excited Am-err-i-ken might enjoy more than me." She offers me the headset.
So, I entertain myself fer a while longer. Sittin' still has never been my thing, ever. Even on the plantation I used to swing my legs one in front of the other when I was made to sit in one place and I'd fidget terribly at my desk at school, which always ended in a ruler's hard sting on the back of my hand. But now I'm an adult who can sit still fer a while and I do it and as per Nat's request so we ain't jet-lagged when we get there, we go to sleep a bit after supper. Nat don't understand why I say supper instead of dinner, but she don't really understand a lotta things I say. So, with our seats back and her wearin' a mask over her eyes to block the light, we go on to Minsk.
We're landed in Moscow now and it's real scary, I think, when yer stomach lurches right as the plane goes up or down. Moscow is cloudy and a lil' bit chilly and I can't read any of the signs 'cuz they're all in Russian. I stand in line fer a while to get somethin' to eat and maybe drink, since I ain't had anything since supper four hours ago, and when I get to the front the man looks at me and asks,
"schtorbobohi-nonyet, sir?"
"What?" I say.
"Soshana-prrosh-memnezeleh, shto? What you buy? Eat. Food. Drink?" He says. I see a picher of some good-lookin' meat-on-a-stick up there so I point it out, sayin,
"That there thing, please. And sweet tea."
"Chicken stick and the cold tea? Okay. 203 ruble." He says, settin' the thing in front of me.
"I only got dollars." I say.
"That good. You give. Five."
I'm about to hand him the money when Nat comes over, and grabs my arm. "J.G., stop! He is tryink to cheat you. Ruble is worth only half a dollar right now. You owe this ogah-nogava only three dollars."
I ain't got the slightest idea of what a "ogah-nogava" is, but it makes the store owner mad and he starts yellin' in Russian at her and she starts shoutin' back and I just take my cup and my tray of chicken sticks and leave the money on the counter before walkin' away from it. Soon, Nat joins me and slaps the money down on the table in front of me.
"I made him give it to you for free and apologize for tryink to take advantage of an ignorant tourist."
It might be because she still looks pretty ticked off, or because my mouth is full of chicken, but I don't fight her on it. This one time, I'll let my greedy nature get the better of me. It ain't a bad thing for them that deserve it to lose money, after all.
The flight to Minsk is a lil' bit less long, and soon, after a whole day of travel, we're unpackin' in the room of the leader's house. Nat stays here when she's on business and she got the government here to pay our travel costs by sayin' she'd do some nation-stuff as well as have fun with me, and ain't it okay fer a girl to bring her husband to visit her country?
The bed's got a nice, smooth dark green comforter with silky dark red sheets and pillowcovers. The room itself is kinda plain-lookin', but that's alright as Nat ain't ever here anymore. I set the beat-up suitcase down and look at Nat. She's unpackin'. I do the same, and she just sighs at some of the clothes I got.
"J.G., you are lucky nobody here cares for Am-err-i-ken politics or you might be shot for those clothes. I do not know how you haven't been."
"What'dya mean?" I say, lookin' at her in real confusion.
"Even I know that the symbol- the one with the blue X and the stars, is offensive to Am-err-i-kens." She says.
"It ain't offensive, I'm just showin' my pride fer my poor lost nation!" I say back.
"Your 'poor lost nation' was built on the backs of those you deemed as below you." She says, rasin' her eyebrow.
"Well... Maybe it was, but that don't mean I ain't allowed to be proud of the fight we put up fer our rights." I say, smilin' at her. Nat and I get into arguments like this a lot. She thinks my showin' of my country's flag is just as bad as if people in hers showed the communist hammer and sickle. I always just tell her that we Southerners sure ain't communists, so it ain't the same at all. She just sighs at that every single time. Just now, she does it again.
"J.G., I love you, but you say stupidest things sometimes."
"I ain't stupid. Just proud." I tell her.
"Whatever. I am exhausted after long flight. Want to go to bed?" She asks.
"Yeah, I'm tired too." I agree.
So, under the silky sheets of the bed in Minsk, we sleep, ready to do tourist things.
We're goin' to the Minsk Zoo, 'cuz back when I was in New York we didn't get to go, and I still wanna see a zoo. I'm the first one up, and I'm gonna find the bathroom all on my own, 'cuz ain't I a strong independent Southern man?
First, I look down the hallway of closed doors. I don't wanna get in trouble for openin' up doors I ain't s'posed to be in, so I give up on the findin' it on my own thing. Then I ask a passin' maid girl if she knows.
"yemay-gula-oop-almgleskay." She says. I look at her blankly. I wish more people knew English. It's real bad. How else am I to communicate with people and learn other culture if they don't speak my language?
"Bath-room! The shower? That place?" I say, as she looks more and more confused. Then Nat shows up and looks to me, then to the scared girl, then says somethin' in Russian and the girl nods.
"Tahm." she says, pointin' at a door.
"Thanks, I guess." I tell her, headin' that way. I swear I would'a gotten it eventually if Nat had let me keep tryin'. I swear it.
We're at the Minsk Zoo now, and I'm as excited as any lil' kid. It's kinda chilly, I think, so I'm wearin' a jacket. Nat ain't, sayin' it's summer, so it's warm. It was warm back in Allan. It ain't warm here. It's like winter in Allan here. Freezin'.
I let Nat buy the tickets and everything because she's the one who can speak Russian. There's a lil' kid yellin' at his mom in the language and playin' with a balloon. Childish as it is, I'm thinkin', I wanna balloon...
"Alright, J.G., we have our tickets now. We go here. This word means 'Entry' in English I believe." Nat says, pointin' out the green sign with a bunch of letters I don't know on it.
"Why ain't anything in English?" I ask.
"Because we are in Belarus and not America." She says like I oughta know it already.
"Yeah, but don't they know they got tourists from America?"
"They do. But in a nation, the signs are goink to be written in the language of the nation. You would not expect to see Spanish signs in America because Am-err-i-ken speak English. In Belarus, we speak Russian. It would seem silly to have English signs." She explains as if I'm a lil' kid she's bein' real slow and patient with.
"I still think you oughta write 'em in English. They'll learn." I say to that.
"I suppose one thing people can say of you is you are stubborn about your opinion." She says to that, "Even when that opinion has just been proved wrong."
With that, we walk off towards the gate.
"J.G., it is only a lion." Nat says, sighin' at me as I get up on the first rail of the fence to see closer like any child.
"But I ain't never seen nothin' like it!" I say. "Only pichers!"
"And you like to brag about how you are a mature adult." She says, doin' her half-smile.
It's been like this since we got to the zoo. I get excited about everything, and Nat just follows along. I bet she's been to this zoo a million times. Well I ain't, and I'm havin' fun, so she's gonna deal with it. So, we see lions and tigers and monkeys and everything. We even go to the pettin' zoo, which is really just fer lil' kids, but I don't care, and bein' a farmboy, it feels nice to get to pet the goats and pigs. Feels like home.
Soon, we're goin' to the Belarus Grand Cafe, which is a fancy restaurant. It means I gotta dress up in that stupid-lookin' suit again, but I do it, and Nat wears a really nice silky-lookin' dress and we sit down in the seats with the fancy white tablecloth. Nat knows I can't read Russian, so she reads the menu to me, pointin' out stuff I might like. It's mostly I-talian food, but that's alright by me. I ain't never been a picky one.
I get some stuffed pastas and Nat orders some champagne, and they don't even card us. I ask her what's up with that, and she laughs and tells me that the legal drinkin' age here is only 18, 'stead of 21. I think that's pretty strange, but what else can you 'spect from a country that don't speak English?
I'm way outta place here, in this fancy Russian restaurant, a lil' farmboy who's too far from home. I smile at the waiter-girl when she sets down the plate of food, but I dunno 'thank you, miss' in Russian. I ask Nat, 'cuz I'm gonna say it a lot.
"spah-see-bah, mees. Is how you pronounce it." She says, sayin' the words slow so I can do it.
"spuh-see-bah, miss." I repeat. "Spuhseebah."
"You have a very obvious accent, but it will do." Nat says, in what I think she means to be a helpful way.
The waitress soon comes to give us our drinks, and I take the opportunity to say, "Spahseebah, miss." She giggles a bit and looks at Nat.
"Am-err-i-kanyess." She says simply. The waitress smiles at me and it makes me feel like she's pityin' me 'cuz I can't talk like her. I don't like it, and so I just nod at her.
Minsk is fun, but I ain't overly sad to be headin' home, when our week-long honeymoon vacation is over. I always did like to stay at home more than travel.