back, he added, "It's joosta y'in the wrong place f'er that. London's what y'want. This is
joosta lit'l country pub."
"London, huh. I gotta go to London if I wanna get laid?"
"But get it y'will."
"I appreciate your confidence in me!"
"Ha! It's just that you Yanks gen'rilly do quite well with our birds---spesh'ly you
bloody-dark lads, I reckon they must find you a trifle exotic, what-what!"
"My mother's Italian," I explained. Christ, I thought, if some of you Brit guys would just get out in the sun once in awhile and pick up half a tan, maybe then you could actually compete with us Americans for your own friggin' women! But it's funny. Funny how I hadn't even thought about it since I arrived in the country, but just talking about it, just talking about it with some strange thick-armed skinny guy with wavy black hair and a moustache and a permanent grin on his face was enough to make me hornier than hell: "You got any particular spot in mind?" I went on.
"Not necess'ry, m'friend. Any'll do. The birds are quite willin', all y'got do is chat 'em up a bit. London's what y'want."
"London...." I remember moaning.
"So where is it y'stayin'?"
Finally he pulled his face away and started toweling off the bar.
"Down at Frieda Mannheim's place," I said nonchalantly, like a man who knows the lay of the land, and then, glancing at the old louts in the corner, "you know---'top of the hill, overlooking the Bignor Roman Villa?"
You would've thought I'd just cracked the funniest damn joke of the century:
"Miss Mannheim, I b'lieve!"
"Y'mean Fraulein Mannheim, don'ya lad?"
"Haw!"
"She is a little eccentric," I admitted, looking back at Delby (which was the only real
option since he was right back in my face again), and then, remembering, "She says you two know each other."
Delby Basingstoke, like a great many slap-happy Englishmen, liked to talk and grin at the same time: "Fair comment, m'friend, fair comment!" he spat out enthusiastically. Didn't drop the grin, though. "The ol' gal's 'art is in the right place, I reckon. She's 'ad a tough go."
"Tell us where you know 'er, Delby, y'ol ruttin' sod!" one of the old duffs shouted over.
Suddenly, the innkeeper's face was, amazingly, even closer to mine than before, still grinning, and when he started whispering in an urgent whisper that I knew was supposed to be fake-urgent, the sour aroma of his own trade was hot in my nostrils: "I reckon business is pretty bad at Frieda's of late, right Yank? Why, wouldn' be surprised 'fyou were 'er only guest!" (What I mean is he'd been drinking.)
"Right now I am, but she said she expects to be full up soon....howdja know?"
And then everybody started laughing again. Alcohol abuse, evidently, is a worldwide
problem. But I didn't mind. And since during the laughter I'd just come to the end of my
beer, I figured the coincidence might've been some sort of an omen for me to split. I think I'll break in THE BADGER gradually, I thought.
"How much I owe ya, Delby?"
"First one's free, Yank. I'll make me-piece on you in future trade!"
Free beer, I thought, and for no good reason....how terribly civilized....
"Right on, man. Thanks."
"It'd be dark soon. Better get up 'the A-3 while you can see y'way. Pubs close at eleven ove' 'ere y'know, an' the birds won't wait for you! London's the choppy seas y'want, m'friend. Sussex is pure old folks. Still waters!"
As I was heading out the open door I said, "Maybe I'll be in tomorrow," and Delby
replied, as I crunched across the gravel parking lot, almost out of earshot, "Then I'll look
'fyou roight afta' Glorious Goodwood!"
I almost went back inside to have him translate.
* * *
My maiden voyage in THE BADGER completed, I hopped back in my waiting red MG and we sped eagerly northward on the A-285, for the Orbital, in the direction of what I hoped would be a "roight good time" sailing through, what I'm sure Delby would've termed, "some roight turbulent waters".
And so this might be a right good time (whenever it is) to say a little something about my personal philosophy of good writing.*
[following 17 pages deleted; *ed. note]
---You know something? It just occurred to me that this is probably a stupid time to feed you this. Chronologically, I mean. I mean here I promised you some juicy details of that first "eventful" evening in England, you're probably in as big a hurry to get up into London as I was, and then I go and start prattling on and on for a frickin' hour like some friggin' college lit professor. Sorry. Lecture's over. Tell you what, though; acting on the assumption that you've enjoyed reading these last five or six pages as much as I've enjoyed writing them, I will, at some later date, jot down and mail off a thrilling essay for you on some've my favorite and least favorite writers. I'll mail it in with this other neat essay I've just finished up, 37 juicy pages on the finer points of basketball. I'll let my brilliant editor decide where to put them. But for now, let's hop back on the A-285---because I know how anxious you must be to get the hell on with the freaking story.
(Just one more quick thing about writers, though, before I forget. No matter how good they are, they always wind up annoying the crap out've me. Take an old-time writer, this clown I just mentioned, Fitzgerald. Now most everybody would say Fitz was a pretty darn good writer, right? Maybe so, but if there's one thing I can't stand it's a writer that won't come out and say what he means. For instance, Fitz fans, ever notice that when he wants to say "tit" he says "pap"? Pap, for godsake! I mean I friggin' can't stand it when I'm reading one of his books, cruising right along like a penguin body-surfing on ice, and all of a sudden he goes and says something like "sucking the pap of life"---my italics---man it drives me crazy. Now I know if you pick up a dictionary and look up pap it will say tit; or actually it will say "teat", which shows you how screwed up and repressed our society truly is; but if there's one thing I'm an expert on it's tits, and "pap" is no way to describe the object of one of my favorite hobbies. Does any word truly capture the smooth, soft/hard, slightly wicked essence of a woman's naked breast quite like tit? Of course not. But he's afraid to say it. Could be the reason for his being tentative on the tit issue stems from the fact that he---I read this somewhere---that he was totally inhibited and self-conscious about his own sexuality, and I guess it got to the point where one time, and I guess this proves it, he and his pal Hemingway once dropped their pants together in an empty hotel bathroom so shy old Fitz could show Mister Macho Ernie how small his dong was. And we can't blame it on the mention that American guy in the 30's who got in trouble for writing all the dirty books, I can't remember his name.
Pap. Good grief. It's a shame, too. Most of the time Fitz does a real good job. Knee-jerk natural, just like all those other guys I just mentioned. It's like having a good 20-foot
jumper, you can't teach it. Your shots either fall or they never will.
Anyway, for the time being that's all I have to say about it.)
So anyway, even though it was almost eight o'clock when I left THE BADGER it was
still incredibly light out, no traffic and no slowing down, and it took me less than an hour to get up to the Orbital.
I know you're probably thinking how I promised myself not to re-penetrate the Orbital if I could possibly help it, and I don't blame you. But I think you'll agree it was Delby's fault as much as mine. He was the one who put it in my mind to sample the joys of English womanhood, I was committed to this course he charted for me, and if he'd kept his mouth shut I might've just stayed at THE BADGER and taken my chances. He was right, though. Stands to reason that a guy's likelier to get lucky in the big city than out in the middle of nowhere. Suffice to say that I'm as vulnerable to the charms of Human Frailty as the next guy, and so when my MG and I, hurtling northeast on the A-3, pierced the M-25 at the village Cobham and kept right on going, I didn't even
give it a second thought.
Ergo, it might be easier for you to think of my genuine reluctance to pierce the Orbital as a symbol of reluctance, rather than a hard-and-fast rule.
The problem was that I had no idea where I was going. Sure, I had my Great Britain Touring Atlas lying right there on the passenger seat to my left, opened to suburban London of course, but when you make a wrong turn on one of the complicated, ill-marked, tree-lined roads that make up the dense, vast network of "capillary junctions" that confuse and criss-cross and weave their way around and thus effectively guard The City from stupid tourists, there isn't a map in the world that can help you. I was lost. After about half an hour, I wound up on something called the B-2043, commonly called New Malden Road, and when I came upon the intersection of the B-2043 and the A-24 I had to stop. On the southwest corner was a bar. A distinctly American-looking bar. The sign on the front spelled out one word, CHEERS.
Cheers. For those of you reading this a thousand years hence, we had this thing back in the 20th century called television. (Television was an especially big problem in America.) Briefly, then, this television was an exceedingly ill-conceived mode of video entertainment, depending chiefly on the sheep-like allegiance of 20th-century humans to the weekly hijinks and travails of various troubled pathetic characters in what came to be grotesquely labeled "situation comedies". Cheers was the clever name of one of these so-called situation comedies. It was a weekly show about a bunch of losers who fritter away every free hour of every day and night in a bar (cleverly called CHEERS) in downtown Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Additionally, of course, "cheers" has for centuries been an oft-used, multi-dimensional greeting and salutation, that can mean anything from "hello" to "how's it goin'?" to "thanks for the beer" to "down the hatch" to "good-bye". The greeting "cheers" was especially in vogue in 20th-century England.
So when I saw the sign I stopped. I couldn't help it. Y'see, I used to watch the show all the time. But don't jump to conclusions. Cheers was simply the type of show that always seemed to come on right after a game, re-runs especially, while I would be sucking on a cold beer. So when I saw the sign it made me comfortable, and I stopped. And that's the God's truth. Like I said, I suppose sometimes I'm as frail as even the worst kind of loser; when you get right down to it.
But I was horny so I swallowed my pride.
Inside, it wasn't much different than any bar I was used to. I suppose I should've felt right at home. It was dark and stuffy, with a long bar in the front room and a shorter bar in the back room where the dance floor was. And crowded. And so goddam loud with rock music that you could barely hear yourself think. In other words, an authentic "American-style" bar. The beer was lousy, too. All bottled stuff, carbonated pisswater, none of the good rich draft beer (excuse me, lager) that they pump out at the country pubs. In other words, authentically American. CHEERS was clearly a place for young men who were in a hurry and wanted to get drunk fast and who made no apologies to the ladies as to why they were there. (As to the ladies' point of view, you'll have to ask them.)
In no hurry to compete with the smallish local lads---who were doubtless better equipped to maneuver in the louder, more-crowded back room---I found a seat at the front-room bar, ordered a Budweiser, and began to scope out what talent was available. There were plenty of willing-looking young girls in the 17-to-25-year-old range milling around (drinking-age laws here are as lax and virtually non-existent as the traffic laws), and I wasn't in a hurry. I believe that there is no good reason, no excuse, for a guy to leave a singles bar alone, after all that's what they're there for and both sides know it, the chicks enter with their eyes just as open as those of the dudes. It's really all a matter of patience and confidence. In my case, it had been several weeks since I'd gotten good'n laid, several months since I'd had the benefits of a steady lay, and I was severely in need of "corporeal enjoyment" and so I didn't much care about the quality. Lucky for me. English women happen to be far sweeter and more sincere than their American sisters, which is great and everything, and I love 'em to death, but as far as flat-out looks are concerned it's no contest. The Colonials win it in a runaway. I have a theory that it has something to do with how cold climate combines with massive chocolate consumption. Face, body, hair, clothes....maybe I should be more specific and say that it's the L.A. woman who dwarfs her English counterpart in any and every aspect of "female pulchritude". The L.A. woman can be a characterless thing, and she will drive you crazy if you let her, but looks? Yeah.
"Hi...."
Now I don't want to spend too much time on this, nobody wants to hear about how some strange guy went about picking up some less-than-awesome-looking chick, and since I'm not ordinarily in the habit of hanging around less-than-awesome-looking chicks I realize this fact as well as anyone, so don't worry. The what is more important than the how anyway, since telling you about meeting her is obviously the best way to get Jane into the story. That's her name, Jane. The girl I picked up in CHEERS. Just a simple English girl, this Jane. You couldn't pick her out of a crowd of ten thousand or ten. And it's just Jane, J-a-n-e, not Jayne with a y or Jay-Anne or Jainne or Jainie or one of those sickening made-up spellings you find with L.A. women's names. Unpretentious and sincere; that's the English woman for you, and that was my Jane.
But she was sure nothing special to look at. In fact, she looked a lot like just about every other girl in the place; straight brown hair, slim but curveless body, and a face....well it wasn't technically a bad face, it wouldn't be fair to say it was bad; and it was a long way away from ugly, believe me....it just wasn't a face that grabs a guy, y'know? Typically English. Round, plain, pasty-white. Ordinary. I never met a better girl, though. It's not fair.
"Howya doin', babe?"
"I don't quite know yet...."
She smiled the way only an experienced woman can. You've probably figured out by
now who seduced who.
"Beer?"
"I'm not a drinker!" She was smiling again.
"What do you do?"
"Oh! American, aren't we!"
"It shows, huh...."
"I can handle it. As long as you don't have any other....major deficiencies."
Her accent wasn't nearly as sharp as Frieda's. Not nearly. That was the first thing I
noticed about her, after what she looked like. She hardly ever dropped her h's or
indiscriminately squashed words together.
The next thing I couldn't help but notice was how unabashedly affectionate she was. In no time at all she was smack up against me, not in any lewd or clumsy-touchy-feely way, but natural; like we'd friggin' known each other for years! She leaned against me as we talked, risked an occasional exploratory kiss or two, nothing wet or slobbery, I mean she knew just how and where to touch to get me going and still keep it from becoming an overwhelming thing. And in between fondlings we managed to talk about a whole bunch of stuff. She said she worked in a delicatessen as sort of a combination waitress/delivery girl, that she wanted to go to college someday but couldn't afford to right now and tried to make up for it by reading everything she could get her hands on. I didn't tell her I was writing something. Didn't want to make her feel self-conscious about anything (some women can be phony enough as it is). I just let her go ahead and talk about herself as if nothing was going on. We talked a lot about me, too. She couldn't get enough of my basketball career. I could tell she was genuinely interested because she asked a lot of questions. Most of those questions were about my "feelings" about all the things that've happened lately, rather than things like how I perfected my jump shot or what my highest point total was or something important, but I didn't mind. Women....god love 'em. The point is we got along great, right from the get-go. I bet we hadn't known each other ten lousy minutes when I knew it was okay to make my move:
"Do you consider yourself a spontaneous person?" I remember asking.
"I usually know about a bloke within five minutes of when I meet him," she said flatly.
"It's noisy in here," I said.
"I live down Sutton way, right down the bloody road!"
Without going into too much detail, we drove down to her place on Oldfields Road in the nearby London suburb of Sutton, wasted no time in moving into the bedroom, and I think it's fair to say that each of us spent one of the more delightful evenings either of us had spent in some time. And afterwards, even though she had to be friggin' exhausted, she then proceeded to give me a half-hour-long back rub, followed by a foot massage, after which she whipped up a blender full of banana dacqeries which we sat in bed and drank until she finally fell asleep. If you can believe that.
* * *
I decided not to stay with Jane the whole night. I just didn't think it was in my best interests to actually wake up with her. For one thing, I wasn't sure about the rules at B&B's. I got to worrying that if I didn't show up at some point in the evening Frieda might give my room away, or at least be within her rights to throw me out if she had a sudden call for rooms. And that made me worry that one of these new guests might sneak in there and rip off my clothes or something (I know; pretty stupid.). But those weren't the main reasons. I've been around the block enough times to know that a girl changes when she wakes up and sees you lying next to her. They think they own you.
The Basketball Expatriate Page 8