Hey, it's not like I'm the first guy that thought of any of this.
I read this short-story once (well I haven't actually read it yet, but I heard about it) that talked all about multiple mates, written by this guy I'd never heard of; his name was Northlake or Eastgate or something like that. Anyway, the way I heard it told, the guy in this story is sitting in this bar somewhere (drinking straight tequila, which I could never forget because the thought of it is so thoroughly nauseating) talking to this other guy who he'd never met before, and he tells this guy who he'd never met before and who is the only other person in the whole bar (or in the whole story, for that matter) that he has this air-tight theory that there are exactly 50 women in the world for every man and exactly 50 men in the world for every woman. He explains to the other guy at the bar (they were just bums, but they were both smart) how people actually wind up getting married to the particular people they wind up getting married to. Especially in regard to how so many people steadfastly claim that they have miraculously located "Mr. or Mrs. Right", even though most people meet their spouse either in school or within twenty miles of where they live and work. He goes on to explain---from the male point of view---that these 50 women are spread out conveniently around the globe, so that if a guy goes on vacation or on a business trip or something he'll stand a very good chance of bumping into one of the 50 who doesn't happen to be living in his home town at the time. That, he contends, explains why American servicemen always seem to be marrying German and Korean and Japanese girls all the time when they're overseas. He goes on to tell the other drunk that no matter where a guy goes his designated 50 women are continually "gravitating" toward him, geographically that is, in this dynamic principle of "flow" and "human socio-emotional physics" or something, so that he is always near enough to at least a few of these perfect babes that it's practically a cinch that he'll bump into a "total stranger" and have her turn out to be "the girl of his dreams". It's really a very good story. Made me think, anyway. As for the significance of the number 50, that was easily explained away by the smart tequila-drinking bum; it was a purely arbitrary figure, since there is no way for a mere mortal man to know exactly how many women are assigned to him. Fifty just becomes a convenient, likely round number. "They's fifty states, ain't they?" the philosopher-drunk says, and then, "They's fifty cents to the half-dollar, ain't that so?" I think he must be a black guy.
Whatever, the reason I bring up this story is that that's the way I felt about Jane. There was no doubt that she was one of the 50. I mean I hadn't been in England long enough to change my shorts, and right away I find her just waiting for me like that in CHEERS. She'd gravitated to me, just like that story said! And I've already told you all about the chemistry we had together, the way we got along, the great sex, let's face it; it's just the way it was the other three or four times I felt myself starting to get hung up on a girl. So why, then, after a couple weeks of pure joy, do I suddenly get this hollow feeling in my chest that makes me just want to get the hell away from her?!? Doesn't make sense, I agree. The only explanation is temporary insanity, from my career being on the verge of being flushed down the toilet.
At first I felt kind of funny about it. Guys are always giving chicks a hard time over this kind of emotion, the kind where they like you but you can't get them to do anything or think anything logical. Now the shoe was on the other foot. I figured maybe all I needed was some time off by myself (which is exactly what I promised my esteemed editor to do in the first place).
So one night, at her place in Sutton, while we were just lying there under the covers, afterwards, I told her:
"You know, I may be headin' north one of these days. Soon."
"Hmmm...."
"Uh, if I do, what will you do?"
"I'll pick up your mail in Petworth. I know all the girls that work behind the counter."
"I'm serious, Jane."
"Me too, poppet. You can trust me with your bloomin' mail, y'know."
"What if I....don't come back?"
"Then I'll read it!"
"Come on, Jane."
Then she just hugged my arm and hugged my leg between her legs. Then she rubbed her warm feet playfully up and down my cold feet (And tell me that didn't bring back memories!). I felt about two inches tall. Finally, after a long thinking silence, she said, "I know you have to go. I've known it for a long while."
"And you don’t care?”
“course I care....”
“I probably just need some time, babe. Sort things out. I’m sorry for being so weird. I didn’t expect to get involved like this. So soon, I mean.”
“But you will come back....”
“Sure,”I said reassuringly. “I’ll be back.” Even if I wasn’t coming back, folks, there was no way in the friggin’ world, at that moment at least, I couldn’ve said anything different.
“Then I’ll wait," she said, and gave a little hug. I'm telling you, she was too damn good to be true.
"Jane, I want you to know....I mean....what I want to say is how much I appreciate your understanding about this. Most girls....most women, that is, wouldn't be so cool about it."
"I just can't stand to see you in so much pain," she said.
Funny thing is, my knee hadn't really bothered me since Goodwood.
"G'night, ol' girl."
"Oh no you don't!" she said.
We then had, by far, our longest and hardest and softest and slowest and generally the most magnificent best sex we ever had, and---though the next morning I was both sluggish and extremely irritable---I was gone before she was awake.
* * *
{ MISC. ENTRY: [no date]
Incidentally. You probably noticed in previously submitted copy that Jane, my Sussex girlfriend, had an unusual term of endearment for me. Poppet. I know, I know---it finally got me curious too. Through extensive research, I finally found out that POPPETS are a very popular candy over there. Very chewy, very fruity. Very well-fancied at all the corner sweet shops. I remember a little bag costing about 40p (p for pence, 100th of a pound), which at the time was about 62 cents. They were bloody good, though. I sort've got hooked on them. The bad luck is that you just can't get them in America. I've tried, believe me. It's depressing.}
Five
Now we come to the part where I tell you about the weirdest sheep in all of Britain.
First things first. I left Jane's place before the sun was up, took the Orbital west, which soon bent north, clockwise, I was soon curving my way north-by-northeast like the tip of a second hand making its rounds, and by six a.m. I'd already made the "Watford Gap" just north of London which, at roughly eleven o'clock on the Orbital's clockface, is the unofficial gateway to and from The City. At the Gap I hopped on the M-1 heading north and was on my way.
Destination: Scotland. Always wanted to go. True, my main reason for hitting the road was to put some quick distance between me and Jane, crazy as that probably sounds, but I didn't want to just drive aimlessly up and down the U.K. without any particular place in mind. In other words, I'm the kind've guy that has to at least be able to convince himself he's going somewhere....even if he's going nowhere. If you follow me. Frankly, since I was coming from The South, and since Scotland happens to be the northernmost outpost of "The Empire", it was the only logical choice.
And after sitting through all've Nigel's stories about growing up there, the "auld coontry" had become (I succeeded in deluding myself) strangely comfortable and familiar.
I took the usual route up. North on the M-1, straight up and smack through the very heart of merry old England. And I didn't waste any friggin' time along the way, either. Life's too short to waste time, that's what I always say. And my loyal little MG had no difficulty doing 115 for me on the straightaways. What a feeling; no worries, no hassles, no female ball and chain....god damn, it's great to be free! But just because I didn't stop along the way doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the drive. Driving and just looking around is one've the best kinds've vacations there i
s, dude. And the names of the towns along the way read like pages out of a history book. Northampton, Leicester, Nottingham (yes, that Nottingham), Derby, Sheffield, Doncaster, York. I tell you, being an American it's a weird feeling to be able to drive the length of a whole country in one damn day. Mighty convenient, though. I was sort've in a hurry to reach Scotland, so naturally I didn't stop and waste time with a lot of useless sightseeing. In fact, the most eventful thing that happened the whole drive up was that the phone rang. Once. It had to be Jane, so I had to just go and let it ring.
(Okay, wait a minute. I'm not gonna lie about this. I should tell you that thee most eventful thing that happened driving up happened in a town not too far from Doncaster. I'd been on the road all day and I was tired, so I pulled off the main highway near Sheffield and headed east on a little road called the A-631, in the general direction of Doncaster but really all I was looking for was a little motel or something to crash at. Anyway, the road took me right through this cute little village, I don't remember the name of it, and in fact it ran right by this quaint little bar, which is to say an authentic South Yorkshire "pub", and like I say I was tired and hungry and so I stopped. It was a little after six p.m., so the pub was just opening its doors for the night. I walked in. Wouldn't'cha know that the only one in the place besides the bartender was this girl. And not just any girl. Not hardly. She was blonde and built and had beautiful milky white skin, and she hit me just right for some reason, so I walked over to where she was sitting at a little corner table and introduced myself. She looked up and her face was flushed; sort of like she'd been crying. She did smile right away, though. So right away I asked her if she knew of a place where I could stay. She asked me to sit down, which kind of surprised me, but man if a primo chick asks me to sit down I sit down, so I sat down.
Well, we had three or four beers together and then she invites me to dinner at her place and I was feeling no pain and so I said what the hell and so that's where we wound up. I guess you could safely say she was "attracted" to me. We never did get to the dinner part. She was all over me, in a really sweet, gentle, "I love you" sort of strange way, but all over me just the same. And I don't think I disappointed her. Funny thing is I fell asleep right after, and when I woke up a couple hours later she was gone. Left me a note saying she had to go to work, but she'd be home around midnight and of course I could stay the night and maybe she could help me do a little sightseeing tomorrow, etc. etc. Well, it didn't take a genius to see where she was headed! I beat it out of there straight away. "No entangling alliances", that's my motto. What a strange experience, though. With all that super strong English-type beer in my head, the whole night seemed like kind of a blur. Made me kind've wonder if the whole thing happened at all. But I remember it, so I guess it must've happened just like I said.
Anyway, that was my most eventful....well, you know. What did you think, that just because Jane and I had a few laughs that I was suddenly going to become a monk?)
I wound up staying the night in North Yorkshire, in a place called Scotch Corner, at the Scotch Corner Hotel. The Scotch Corner Hotel is what they call a "bed & breakfast hotel", which means that by giving you breakfast and sticking the word "hotel" in their name they can get away with charging you 45 pounds a night instead of the usual twelve. Watch out for bed & breakfast hotels. One've the few rip-offs the U.K. has to offer. And the breakfast itself, while being reasonably okay, wasn't even in the same zip code as one of Frieda's. Fact is, about the most memorable thing about my night in the Scotch Corner Hotel was watching a re-run of that stupid show Lou Grant on English T.V. Television. Doesn't matter where you went in the 80's, my futuristic friends, you could not get away from it.
The next morning, immediately after my reasonably okay breakfast, I jumped right back on the M-1. From Scotch Corner the M-1 veers a little northeast, through Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and finally edges over onto the coast. The M-1 has by this time become the A-1, don't ask me why. With the North Sea vast and peaceful to my right, we charged resolutely up the A-1 for Edinburgh. The Scotland border is just north of Newcastle, but amazingly there isn't any sign to commemorate the crossing. Or at least I didn't see it. One minute you're in goddam England, the next you're in friggin' Scotland, it's that simple. No fanfare at all. It's probably because they're both in the U.K., or should I say because England owns Scotland. But compared to crossing into Scotland, crossing from, say, California into Oregon is probably like going from West to East Berlin. And California and Oregon aren't even different goddam countries for godsake!---although you could never convince an Oregonian of that.
Anyway, that last north-by-northwest section of the A-1, that final push into Edinburgh, wound up being sort've difficult for me. For one thing, I'd developed this annoying dull pain somewhere between my stomach and chest. It's a little hard to pinpoint the location exactly. Somewhere deep, that's all I know. I don't know what was causing it. I've always been the picture of health. I don't smoke, no drugs, not too much booze, and of course I'm a professional athlete so I'm always in peak physical condition, particularly with regard to my heart and lungs. Admittedly I haven't been doing much running lately, but it's hard to maintain a daily regimen of roadwork when you know there's not going to be any game to play that day, and hell, it's only been a year. But the fact remains that I was having these pains. They'd come without warning. They'd come and go. Thank God lately they don't show up for days, even weeks at a time. On the way to Edinburgh, though, just so happens they flared up a little.
The second lousy thing was the drive itself. It was awful beautiful. More to the point, it was reminiscent of the many beautiful drives old Sam and I used to take up and down the California/Oregon coast. Sam is this girl I used to go out with. I'm sure I've mentioned her a couple times before, but like I say I don't have any way of knowing exactly what you're getting, which I've already said I'm sorry for, and who knows maybe my editor just decided she wasn't that important and who would blame him. Anyhow. Sam is short for Samantha, (last names aren't important) and ol' Samantha just loved to go driving! It was our favorite way to spend the weekend. In fact, the stretch of the A-1 I'm talking about, running just north of Berwick-upon-Tweed, smack up against the North Sea, well it's amazingly similar to that stretch of US-101 just below Big Sur, just above San Luis Obispo, on the Pacific Ocean. Not too far from Monterey and Carmel, you know where I mean? Yeah. Flat, endless, peaceful. It was our favorite spot....well anyway. The resemblance sort've got me thinking. I guess it put me in a pretty foul mood. This whole thing with the Clippers and my knee and everything wouldn't've been so bad if old Sam had just been....well, been Sam....
{ ENTRY [random submission, date withheld---*ed. note]
Can't stop thinking about Sam. Three nights in a row now. I can't even believe this horseshit! Wish I could just turn my god damn brain off unfair, it's just so fucking un///////////pretty pathetic world sometimes. But why me? I'm serious, man. I'm a good guy, I pay my taxes, I'll pet a dog or help an old bat across the street when the situation calls for it. Why now, of all the times she could've picked, why now. No justice, man. You'd think since this thing is her fault that there'd at least be some good old-fashioned guilt going down, and that she'd be the one with a major case of the bedtime shakes. Women.
And when I think how easily the whole goddam thing could've been avoided!
I mean all I had to do was hang up the fuckin' phone. That's it. That's all I had to do. It goes back to when I met her at that UCLA sorority party during the football season, Fall of '79 it would have to be. Yeah, that's right. We were sophomores. After a home football game it was natural for all the sororities all along Hilgard Street to throw their wild little social debutante- type parties, try and lure all the unattached primo athletes in, so the girls could begin the serious business of lining up their main squeezes for the year; or should I say for their precious social calendars (not to mention their rarely-empty beds). I had nothing special to do after this particular home game, and I knew I
wouldn't have this kind of leisure time available come basketball season, and so, encouraged by a few beers at one of our favorite Westwood Village bars, me and my basketball mates made a raid on this one what you might call "friendly" little sorority, looking, admittedly, for a little action.
I remember how crowded it was in that damn sorority house. I also remember thinking, standing in the doorway, what a great party it was shaping up to be; loud music, lots of free beer, women everywhere. Funny how much I used to like crowds....And I hadn't been there ten minutes when I first saw her.
The Basketball Expatriate Page 13