So, last night, wandering back to Miss Gibson's flat in the middle of Shoreditch, I threatened to beat someone up. Seriously. I've been walking constantly. I'd had four glasses of beer. I could barely walk, and I still can't lift my left leg. But I threatened to beat up someone in the middle of the street. And I think Miss Gibson was sorta impressed. Or scared.
She's here. I'll ask her now.
"I don't like violence," Miss Gibson says to me just now. "So I was alarmed that you were becoming enraged. But I was impressed by your chivalrous nature."
* * * * *
Anyway, to tell the story of how I tried to get into a London street brawl last night - while barely able to walk, I have to go back to the beginning of my day, I suppose. (Besides, this can remain a travelogue that way.)
Yesterday, I had Miss Gibson wake me up earlier in the morning, and I discovered as I tried to make my way around the apartment that my right leg wasn't as cramped as the day before. But I couldn't really move my left leg, and to try to do so involved big, big pain. (I keep complaining about it, too, but I don't know exactly what the hell to do about it, other than grab myself some ibuprofen.)
It took me a couple hours to get ready. Then it took me an hour to get back to Westminster. But I was there in time to walk the inside of the Abbey alongside this boorish group of Texan tourists.
"Pardon me, you're standing on Chaucer," I said to one of them.
I, of course, bugged the marshals there, wanting to know about the urn filled with bones of the princes that Richard III had murdered.
The on-duty chaplain was, when I was resting my legs in one of the chairs, being bothered by the Texans, asking the most appalling, predictable questions.
"Were these chairs used during Princess Diana's funeral?" one of the women asked him. "Because we want to tell people we were sitting in the same chairs as members of the royal family."
When I started talking to the chaplain, I asked him about God, and he blessed me.
"I get more questions about Princess Diana than you can IMAGINE," he said to me, flustered.
When I asked him about when you most feel the presence of God leading you, he told me, strangely, about the design of Westminster Abbey.
"Think about why the building was made, what the architects wanted to do with it," the chaplain said to me. "Clearly, they wanted to do their best work. Their most beautiful and impressive. And they wanted to do it, of course, in honor of God."
"But, beyond that," he continued, touching me on the shoulder and pointing to the columns. "Notice these columns. These magnificent, huge columns. Though the floor's stones are graves and remind you of the past, the windows and the columns always draw your attention upward. And whenever you look up, you notice these absolutely beautiful, massive designs all the way up to the ceilings. And, when you see them in all their beauty, it hits you. And you think, if only for a moment, 'Oh God ... take me in. Fill me. Make my life. Give it beauty.'"
So, filled, I tried walking out of Westminster, stopping at their snack bar and having a Kit Kat in a Lupo-inspired food moment. Then, afterward, I tried walking. And tried again. And again.
But it didn't work. So I sat. Then, I tried walking some more, and I managed to get short distances. But not without excruciating aches. Ones that throbbed. And remained unpredictable.
To keep myself going, I seriously taunted myself, "Yeah, well, you have a disability. But you always did. And it doesn't stop you. And it shouldn't. And, hey, having a disability didn't stop that blind ice skater in 'Ice Castles,' and, if she can do it, then so can you. Because you don't have any roses to trip over. Think about her. Think 'Ice Castles.'"
So I did. And it was painful. But I made it all the way back to St. James Park. Where really flexible people were doing yoga and jogging and playing rugby. I stood on the bridge, having a chocolate ice cream cone, and I looked out over the water at Buckingham Palace again.
(What this all has to do with me almost starting a street brawl, you're wondering, is that it illustrates how ill-equipped I was to actually be in a street brawl.)
Anyway, I limped my way to Piccadilly Square. I limped my way to the drugstore. I bought some ibuprofen at the Boots there, and I took it. Since they told me that it would take nearly half an hour to take effect, I sat in the dental office that they had there. And I smiled at the clerks, who brought me water for my ibuprofen, and asked if I could ask them a stupid question.
"And I'm an American tourist, so you can go ahead and blame me for everything," I said to the assistants in the dentists' office. "But I promise you, I didn't vote for him. Most of the country didn't, in fact."
I thought I was rambling until one of the assistants asked me to explain how, if President Bush didn't get most of the votes, he won the election. So I explained the electoral college to them.
Then, I felt justified in asking them my stupid question.
"What's the truth about British dentistry?" I asked.
Other people in the waiting room laughed. The assistant asked me to clarify what I meant.
"Well, I've heard that it doesn't actually exist," I said.
I received a blank stare.
"You're in a dentists' office in a drugstore," the assistant said to me. "It exists."
"Well, yes, but what about its reputation?" I persisted. "Is it really that bad?"
"Is the reputation bad?" the assistant asked. (I've heard jokes about British dentistry on the BBC. Obviously, this assistant was completely naive.) "Why is that?"
"Bad teeth, I believe," I said to her. "One of the marshals at Westminster Abbey today, for instance, had horrible green fungus in his teeth."
Everyone cringed.
"Yeah," another assistant said. "Sitting on the tube sometimes, I feel like I should hand out our cards."
At that, we laughed.
Then, the assistant looked at me and gave me this ultimate public relations answer to my question. In its own way, it was kinda excellent.
"Well, if the reputation of British dentistry is that bad, we here at Boots Pharmacy have 54 dental offices nationwide," she said. "And we're working to change all that."
(Related to the street brawl, you should see that I was being both obnoxious and confrontational.)
Feeling more able to move, at least for a moment, I moved outside to the phone booth, where I called Miss Gibson. First, I told her that I'd been in her room using her computer, but then I told her that I hadn't tried on any of her clothes. (I don't know why I said that. It just fit with what I was saying to her, I guess.)
She told me that I was meeting her and her new bloke for dinner. The new bloke, whom she calls "Mr. History" in e-mails to me, will be called "CK Dexter" in this blog, even though he looks nothing like Cary Grant in "The Philadelphia Story." (I'm calling him CK Dexter because, in "The Philadelphia Story" metaphor echoed later in this story, I am, of course, the blustering, drunken, overly chatty Jimmy Stewart. You'll see what I mean later.)
I made it to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery for a moment before heading back on the tube to meet them. (On the tube, I met a woman who had cerebral palsy on her right side. I have it on my left side. She was leaning on one rail on the escalator. I was leaning on the other. When we said goodbye, she said to me, "Don't let them beat you." I told her to think about the blind ice skater in "Ice Castles." And she and her husband smiled at me.)
So I met Miss Gibson and CK Dexter outside the Old Street Station, and CK was all floppy-haired, flappable and history-professor tweedish, even though he's 30. I immediately liked him. He's smart. He's funny. He's cute. He's got dark, mildly mussed hair. He's skinny. And he lived, for a time, in New York. And he got his Ph. D. from Oxford. And, well, he thought I was funny, too. He laughed at my jokes. And he's nice to Miss Gibson. And she seems keen on him. And she's studying in his field now. So I figured that's how they met. But he told me that he started talking to her because she was really, really cute. Which she is.
So we have some beers and food at this tapas-style restaurant called The Real Greek in Shoreditch, which is Miss Gibson's current neighborhood.
And CK Dexter listens to me talk about what Miss Gibson was like in college. How she was the first person to serve me beer. And she's the only one who ever got me so drunk off gin-and-tonics at a party that I got sick.
And they heard me do a Jersey accent. And a Midwestern one. And we played "You Make the Call!" about the date of another couple in the restaurant.
"They're fighting," Miss Gibson said. "She's messing with her hair, and she looks upset."
"No, they're about to kiss," I said. "Look at the way they're keeping eye contact, and they keep moving closer."
"First kiss?" CK Dexter asked me.
"No, this is a going to be a deep one," I said.
And then the couple kissed. Really, really kissed.
And I high-fived CK Dexter. (I still don't know if the couple saw us. But whatever.)
So we kept talking. And we kept drinking. And Miss Gibson wasn't drinking. But CK Dexter and I were having a great time.
When Miss Gibson got up to go to the toilet, I looked CK Dexter in the eye and said to him.
"I like you, but I love her," I said. "And, if you hurt her, I'll beat the crap out of you."
He paused and smiled.
"I thought that's what you were going to say to me," CK Dexter said, feeling honored - I think - that I thought enough of him to threaten him.
(From this, related to the street brawl I've promised that this story is coming too, you should determine that I was being mildly belligerent.)
When Miss Gibson returned to the table, we chatted some more. Talking about sex. And the blog. And Lupo. And Ian McEwan books. And books with really great beginnings, like Don DeLillo's "Underworld." And Kacoon. And what I'd done on my trip.
I was dominating the conversation, and they were holding hands. When I apologized for dominating the conversation, they said it was fine, that they preferred it that way. And they kept holding hands. She had red nail polish. He was wearing a red-and-brown sweater.
"He is coming home with us, isn't he?" I asked Miss Gibson, smiling.
"Um, yeah," she said.
Finally, we left the restaurant.
And, on the way back to the flat, I was singing Miss Gibson a showtune at her request.
I was doing my version of "Luck Be A Lady," actually.
She said it was good that I could hold a note.
Anyway, Miss Gibson and I found out that CK Dexter hadn't seen "The Philadelphia Story" and "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut." So I told him that I had to be present when he finally watched them.
Then, after that, we started talking about how Americans tend to bring their own culture to places, rather than examining the culture of others.
And THAT was the start of the almost street brawl. Because this big, ugly, drunken wanker came out of a pub we wandered past and yelled out, "AMERICANS??? ARE YOU AMERICANS???"
And he walked up to us and told us, in an accent I'll consider Cockney, he was from Florida.
And he kept yelling.
And he crowded up to Miss Gibson and asked her where she was from. And I got alarmed.
"Georgia," she said, amusing him. She wasn't alarmed.
"Oh REALLY???" he asked. "Well, let me tell you where you should GO ... while you're here."
And he sidled up to her even more.
And, at that, I'd had enough. Because you don't stand next to Miss Gibson. Not on my watch.
"I'll tell you where you can GO," I said to him, hobbling quickly next to Miss Gibson.
"OH ..." he mocked me. "ARE YOU THE BULLY?"
And I stayed next to Miss Gibson, moving us faster.
And I think I said, "GO TO HELL, FUCKER."
I know I said "fucker." I don't know how he reacted because that's when I realized that I was unprepared to actually fight with anyone. So I kept walking as fast as I could.
But the guy let us be. Miss Gibson walked up next to me and grabbed my arm. CK Dexter was right behind us, probably ready to kick some ass at any moment.
And we got to the corner of a street near Miss Gibson's flat, and other drunken people attempted to accost us. I was in a blur.
One of them looked at Miss Gibson and asked her, "HEY ... DO YOU WANT TO BUY SOME ... STREET ... ART???"
We kept walking.
Then, I heard Miss Gibson say to CK Dexter, laughing, "Oh my God, only in Shoreditch ... I don't get offered drugs or anything. Someone offers to sell me street art."
As we reached the door, I apologized to everyone.
"I know I didn't escape being obnoxious tonight," I said to CK Dexter and Miss Gibson. "But please tell me that I was more good obnoxious than bad obnoxious."
"You were terrific," Miss Gibson said to me.
"Definitely good obnoxious," CK Dexter said to me.
