The Anglophile (11 page)

Kevin is sure of his sympathy. “My girlfriend's screwing me over, that's what's fucking happening.” He looks at me once more, eyes full of hatred, and then stomps away toward the horizon.

Kit, cigarette quickly rolled and lit, mulls over this unseemly development. He drags deeply on his cigarette before his verdict. “I didn't want that.” It's hard to hear his incensed voice with all of the traffic. “I'm a bloody tosspot for—”

I'm not thinking straight, but I also didn't pick him as a man to instantly flee my side, even in this mess. “You weren't so angry a second ago when you were doling out gentleman's tips for gorilla piss stories.”

“Don't give me that tone. You had a serious bloke in New York and you kept that from me.”

“Please. We didn't discuss anything. For all I know you have a wife.”

He takes a few seconds to answer. “Well, I don't.”

Kit scurries ahead of me to the park, to a bench near the Hare Krishna elm.

“Wait! Wait, Kit, please,” I say to the winter air. He's across the street and sitting down on a bench, head in his hands. I notice my feet for the first time, when Kevin entered the room I was in the yellow furry duck slippers with orange beaks he bought me as a gag gift since my feet are always cold.

“Won't you let me talk?” I say a minute later after I waddle across Tompkins Square Park to sit down next
to him. I can feel a few pebbles wedged into the synthetic nonslip soles of my slippers.

He's staring straight ahead as I begin to sob.

“His mother died. It's not an easy story.” Even if Kit's not going to listen, I'm telling. The saga of the unwanted
I love yous
tumbles out of me. “Add that stress on to my missteps with my master's—I'm sorry, Kit. It wasn't working with Kevin, but I wasn't strong enough to break up with him.”

He's still not biting. It would be easier to draw emotion from a medieval knight in armor.

I clutch his arm as I plead. “Haven't you ever stayed with someone out of guilt?”

Kit stares at my hand. “Is there anything else you're keeping from me?” he says finally.

“No. What about you? Is there someone back home?”

Kit doesn't answer. We sit in silence. I pluck a leaf from a bush next to my bench and strip it along its veins.

An elderly white man across from us brushes his bald scalp to relieve an itch. He violently spits. Pleased with his creation, the man lowers his glance to consider it.

A pigeon picks at half of a sandwich thrown out by a young woman with frizzy hair.

Another old-timer calls to the pigeon. But the bird has other things on his agenda, like eating, for one.

Kit surprises me with a quiet question. “Did you ever go to fairgrounds in the country?”

I'm very confused by his first choice of words. But if this is his olive branch, I'll take it. “Not really. Am I missing out?”

“This is a sad story.”

Has he forgiven me? “Yes?” I say cautiously.

“I was seventeen. I would not lose my virginity for another six months.”

“To who?”

There's the faintest smile on his lips. “All you need to know here is that I am a seventeen-year-old virgin, and that the ultimate embarrassment at a carnival is to be one of two seventeen-year-old virgins tagging along with a carload of couples. You're trapped, as a carnival is built for couples. Young teen couples. Everything you do you do with your girlfriend. Everything a man does in a proper working teen couple is designed to lead up to possible sex. Everything an unattached straight male did, just leads to humiliation.”

“This does sound sad already.”

“Ian, the other virgin, was my de facto date. We went on the Ferris wheel, the swinging pirate ship—actually I got some relief with that one, that one seated a lot of people in the row. Then the water flume, which has a machine that actually took an instant souvenir picture of you when you went down, which for some stupid reason Ian paid five quid for. I told him to destroy it.”

I laugh. It really feels good to laugh.

“But it was the bloody Zipper which ruined me.”

“Not the Zipper!”

“You've heard of it?'

“They had that ride at Coney Island once, but from the look of it I steered clear.”

“Good thing that.” He stares at me with a fixed grin. “More story?” he says finally.

“More story,” I say softly.

He tamps down a bit of unearthed soil at the base of our park bench before he continues. “To compound the humiliation, he screamed. I actually thought he was going to try and hold my hand as our basket started to rise over the air. The basket goes upside down and you think, okay this is pretty bloody scary, because there's another basket of upside-down terrified people you can see clearly in front of you if you can stand to look. I quickly grabbed hold of the bars in front of me, and pressed my face against them, and tensed my whole body, I said nothing as it was running on its track.”

“Does this get worse?”

“The individual carriages start to swing—”

“Oh, God—”

“You're feeling like you'll lose your lunch, it can't get any worse—”

“It does?”

“It does. Everyone on the thing is spun as fast as socks in a spin dryer.”

“What happened next?”

“Ian blubbers out that he is gay and in love with me. That was a bit of crimp in my afternoon, as I was already nauseous. I'm a straight virgin spending all day on stomach-churning rides with a gay virgin. I'm nauseous. I'm humiliated.”

I bravely reach for his hand and he allows me to take it. “Why are you telling me this?”

“It's not funny?”

“It's very funny, but—”

“Humiliation. That's the theme here.”

“Aha.”

At least we're inching toward some form of resolution. We sit in silence again as an overjoyed squirrel feasts on the goodies at our feet, a rotting apple core and half of a blueberry bagel.

The sparse clouds a few blocks away drift over to right above our heads and promptly veil the silver three-quarter moon.

Kit extends his other hand. I turn it over and I rest my chin in his palm like it's an optician's chin rest. He tilts my face up and gives me a long look. He doesn't have to tell me that we're still together. I have to admit, I feel sorry for Kevin, and I'm swollen with guilt. But when I thought I'd lost Kit, my heart almost stopped. I run a finger along the weathered crags of his face.

He rises. “Let's go back to your flat.”

“Yes.” I can feel my pulse again.

How will Kevin ever expunge his hatred caused by my betrayal? I will try to call him in the morning, and if he doesn't pick up, I'll send him an e-mail. I will plead with him to forgive me, it took me three decades, but
I'm finally falling in love
. That has to be what I'm experiencing. Well maybe I won't say that exactly. I will, however, explain once again how dear Kevin is to me, and that circumstance and deep “like” stretched our commitment out, not love. I know Kevin cannot not read his e-mail; he is of that generation, my generation.

Did I want to drop a boyfriend so carelessly? Never. But I've finally stepped inside the decompression chamber, and the relief I feel is monumental.

A
pparently Kevin
can
not read his e-mail: since we are both America On Line subscribers I can tell his AOL e-mail has not been opened yet. He won't answer his phone, or his door, despite my pounding for half an hour.

When I return home from Kevin's building, defeated, Kit rubs my back. “You're so tense. You have a huge knot.”

“Oh, man, that feels great.”

“What else can I do for you?”

Kevin may be shunning me as if I were the plague, but at least Kit has forgiven me. Kit and I were supposed to leave for England tomorrow, but there's no sign of my expedited passport. “Terrorism delay,” was all our issuing service would say. “No one's speeding through unless there's a family death.”

Kit and I need to discuss options on how to pass the days until the passport arrives.

“This might sound weird, but we can go to my uncle's Second World War meeting,” is my first suggestion. “He's getting an award from his group in Westchester. My mom's been pleading for me to go since she has a doctor's appointment she can't break. I was going to take a train there—”

“That actually sounds quite interesting. What unit?”

“The Ninth. He was a ski-trooper or something”

“Ski-trooper. You have to mean The Tenth Mountain Division. They're legendary worldwide.”

“They are?”

“I just finished reading a book about them. They were the elite force. They were all Harvard or Yale ski bums, adventure hounds. After the war a bunch of them launched the U.S. ski industry, and I'm pretty sure one of them went on to start Nike.”

“Are you sure? The last I checked, my uncle never went to college.”

Kit looks genuinely surprised at that fact.

 

“Does your uncle have a wife I need to remember?” Kit says, as I drive our rented Chevy down the F.D.R. I've never owned a car, but I'd take my sorry driving over someone used to the other side of the road. Kris, the third of my Chrisses in Binghamton taught me, and I've kept up the license for ID.

I shake my head. “Divorced years ago. No kids.”

“Are you close to your uncle?”

“I never ask him that much, but he gives me hugs, we get along fine. He invited me to this event after all.”

“I bet he has superb stories to tell. The Tenth
Mountain! Do you even understand what that means?”

“No,” I say truthfully. “Just what you told me yesterday.”

“They are supposed to have the highest IQ of any group of soldiers ever.”

“Really? I told you—I don't think my uncle ever went to college.”

“There's a story right there. If your uncle wasn't Ivy League, he must have been frightfully talented in some arena to gain admission to their ranks.”

“I'm not sure. I've never really asked. He's street-smart, but we vote differently every presidential election. I'm scared of engaging him in conversation.”

“Ask. Before it's too late.” He hesitates a second. “There is so much I would ask my father if I had the chance.”

I wish I could look at him instead of the road. “I'm sorry he's gone.”

“We didn't talk much, but my mother loved him. He was a good old British stodge.”

“What does that mean?”

“He was a very private man.”

“Like someone else I know?” I tease as carefully as possible.

“It didn't help that at school I was the squib on the line, the little guy 'til forever. He was born with a defined torso. He didn't really have compassion for what I was going through, and I resented him for that and hardly conversed with him.”

“I cannot imagine you short, ever.”

“Before my growth spurt I was Piggy from
Lord of the Flies.
”

There's a backup before the Willis Avenue Bridge that crosses Harlem River, connecting uppermost Manhattan to the Bronx. I touch Kit's smooth-shaven chin during a red light. “I've seen your belly button. You're naturally cut.”

“Hardly. I was short and fat for one year but it seriously ruined me. I had to get into rowing to get my self-esteem back. I worked out in private for a year.”

“What about Nigel?”

But this private man with a quick leak of emotion has morphed back to unreadable. My question is left hanging as a teenage driver passes us with a subwoofer so loud that neither of us can speak.

“My ears are still ringing from that bloody car,” Kit says when we are safely on the Interstate Eighty-seven towards Nyack.

“Nothing like that in London?”

“No,” Kit says.

“That's a thing here.”

“What's a thing? A bass that reverberates to Jupiter is a thing?”

“I think there are guys who genuinely get a kick out of setting off car alarms.”

“Sometimes your country is harebrained.”

“Do you want to talk about your father?”

“When the time is right. All right?”

“Kit, of course that's all right.”

Apparently I have to go gentle here.

 

When we enter the Best Western Hotel in Tarrytown seeking out my uncle Sam's meeting, there's no one behind the reception desk. We call out to no avail, do some exploring past an indoor fountain with water gurgling over rocks, and find ourselves in front of a mural of a headless horseman.

“Is this something to do with The Headless Horseman?”

“We're in Tarrytown.”

“The Ichabod Crane Headless Horseman? Set in this town?”

“Is there another Headless Horseman?”

“But wasn't it in—” he struggles for a second or two “—Sleepy Hollow?”

“Next town over. They named it that to get some tourist dollars. But this is the place.”

“How bloody amazing! That was Nigel's favorite story. He used to scare the bejesus out of me running around the house—”

Even before he takes a photo, and writes in his pad, I can tell he's not being sarcastic. I've been to Tarrytown a zillion times to visit Sam but I never thought much of it. I guess it would be kind of cool to see a town a favorite novel from childhood was set in. I'd pinch myself if I were ever ambling around the real secret garden.

“By the way, how hilarious is it that you have an Uncle Sam who was in the military?”

I look around the corner, smile and point my thumb. Kit stops his commentary when he has a look: there's a roomful of octogenarians chatting up a storm. Sure
enough, there is an easel set up with plastic event letters. Tenth Mountain Veterans. I catch sight of my uncle in full uniform; he's thin like my mother, but much shorter. He looks weighted down by his impressive slew of badges and medals. I've never seen Sam in uniform before. He gives me a big bear hug, and I introduce him to Kit.

“I thought his name was Kevin,” Sam says gruffly.

“No, that was—Kevin and I broke up,” I say uncomfortably. “Kit and I are a recent development.”

“It's an honor to meet you, sir,” Kit says quickly. “You were part of a legendary outfit.”

Sam beams. “We have some boys in Afghanistan now. So the tradition continues.”

A seventy-year-old man with a full head of it's-got-to-be-dyed black hair slaps Sam on his back. “Who are these young things?”

“My niece. Shari, this is the infamous Frank Alvarez from Yonkers.”

“Sam's niece, what do you do?” says Frank Alvarez from Yonkers.

“I'm a linguist.”

“Hear that, Gladys?” he says to a woman with long white hair standing a few feet away with an open makeup case to her eye. He beckons her over with a finger and a yell. “Sam's niece!”

She obliges.

“This is Gladys. Seventy-five years old. Doesn't she look great? A former professional tap-dancer.”

“You're giving away my age, Frank? Thanks a lot.”

“Hi,” I say. “I'm Shari.”

“She's a linguist.”

“Very nice to meet you,” Gladys says. Then, to Kit: “And you. Who are you?”

“I'm Shari's friend Kit. I'm a linguist, too, I'm afraid.”

Frank calls out to Uncle Sam, “So you got some intellectualism in your genes, Blum?” He turns to us. “Me, I'm still in gutters. Someone has to sell them.”

“No shame there,” Kit says. “My uncle made his name in dung. Lives well.”

“Buys a lot of gongs,” I say. Kit secretly pinches my hip.

Franks smiles broadly. “So you know the value of a niche. Why retire? My job plus these meetings keeps the old noggin cooking.”

“Tell him about the mushrooms, Frank,” Gladys pipes in.

“I'm not going to bother this young fellow about that. We just met a second ago.”

“I'd love to hear about the mushrooms,” Kit says.

“Just that some fellow talked me into buying cheap carpet for my van—with all the moisture after a rainy day, before you knew it a big long spindly toadstool and three little mushrooms were growing back there.”

“The creepiest thing I have ever seen,” Gladys says.

The food will be served momentarily; we've inadvertently timed our entrance well. The president of the chapter pleads with the chatting veterans to find their seat.

Uncle Sam makes sure we sit next to him. He hands me a large gift in purple tissue paper to unwrap. Sam is very, very big on giving gifts. (He scored a wholesalers card years ago and goes to the Seventh Avenue stores and buys “fun” things by the dozen.) I open it up: a George Foreman four-hamburger minigrill.

“Hey, thanks,” I say sincerely. I can actually use his present this time.

“Knocks the fat out,” Gladys imitates the infomercial pitch as she takes her seat next to Frank. “I don't even cook in my regular oven anymore.”

“You got the George Foreman?” a soldier at a neighboring table asks. “That's one of the better things Sam has in the duffel. He must love you.”

“I have a gift for you, too,” Sam says to Kit.

“Me? But you don't know me—”

“The nut has backup gifts for every occasion,” Frank says. “Take it, it might be a watch. The one he gave me last year is still working.”

Kit opens a small gift wrapped in red tissue paper that Sam hands him from a small duffel bag full of tissue-wrapped gifts.

It's a two-inch plastic bird.

“Thank you,” Kit says with notable confusion.

“It balances on your finger,” Gladys says. “I got one from Sam the first time I met him, too.” She places the beak of the bird on Kit's forefinger, and whaddaya know, it balances and the rest of its body flies above his hand.

Kit grins at the physics show.

“Grab one of the big ones, too,” Sam demands.

Kit opens a square box wrapped in blue tissue paper. “A Yankees wall clock,” he announces to the table.

Sam smiles, and addresses me: “I invited your brothers, but they didn't call back.”

“Gene never comes to anything, and Alan is…well—”

“Alan,” Uncle Sam answers for me. Since Alan never listens to anything Gene says anymore, Sam was the one my mother sent to try to talk Alan off the sandal commune. He failed just as miserably as the rest of us.

Sam was indignant when he called my mother. “Alan wants us to understand that anarchy is the only way to gain back our country.”

“Maybe you shouldn't have reached out to Alan through a Second World War veteran,” I'd said when Mom relayed the pitiful report to me.

She had cried. “I was desperate. I want my son back.”

The outlook has not improved in the year that's passed. Alan only occasionally takes my calls to make sure everyone is still alive.

 

The lunch orders for the meeting arrive.

“Who had the medium beef?”

“You did,” I say to Kit.

“Oh, you did, too, Frank,” Gladys says.

“Go ahead and take it,” Kit says emphatically. “I think veterans should get their beef before me.”

“Listen to this fellow. This is how American youth should be. Respectful. None of this government bashing.”

I poke at the not-so-nice mushrooms on my salad as Kit says to Frank, “How long have you and Gladys been together?”

“Oh, we're not together.”

“I'm his event buddy, but this cat's got a young girlfriend.” Gladys speaks after a bit of her lunch goes down her hatch. “His wife didn't cook. That doesn't fly with
Puerto Ricans. If you don't cook for your man, all the women in your husband's family talk about you.”

“My ex said the hell with
Love
and
Obey,
” Frank says after a nod.

“How did you get to serve in the American military if you're Puerto Rican?” Kit asks.

I quickly interject, “Puerto Ricans are American.”

“Puerto Ricans got the vote in 1917—” Frank says.

“I thought you weren't a commonwealth until 1952,” Uncle Sam says.

“But we have a relationship with the mainland back to the Spanish Civil War, Sam.”

“So Puerto Rico is rather like Australia to Britain?” Kit asks Frank.

“No kangaroos, though,” Gladys says kindly. She steers the conversation back to the previous subject. “His girlfriend is a young one, darling.”

Frank shrugs. “I wouldn't bring her here. I know these dogs from the war. I don't want them drooling over my little lady.”

Uncle Sam laughs knowingly.

“How young can she be?” Kit says.

“You don't want to know,” Gladys assures him.

“All I'll tell you is I go dancing with her every week at the Pittsburgh Center in Yonkers. Boy does she come from
moonyan.
” He rubs his fingers together. “Yeesh, yeah, big money. No need to get married. I'm happy. She's happy. All she wants to do is sleep, eat, fuck and dance.”

“Hey, curb the potty mouth,” an ex-soldier calls out from across the table. “My wife is here.”

“You two married yet?” Frank says to Kit.