New York, Dallas, San Diego, Seattle – an odyssey across Trumpamerica – no responses
Beaten into submission, they wait to board the BA flight 175 to New York and so do I. The hum of talk is soft, the lines are long. I will be amongst the last to board.
There is something so civilised about my fellow passengers. I am used to the San Diego flight with its holidaymakers – Brits wittering with fury at the confiscation of their suntan lotion or plastic bottles of water by Security, as if they couldn’t read the flashing warning signs, all of them in very plain English. But this lot look business, or academic. Conservative or Libdem voters if British, or socialists of the Champagne sort, Islington dwellers. Democrats if American. A load of liberals.
I feel at home with this lot. Should the plane crash we will all retain our dignity and no-one would be as sexist as to expect women and children to deplane first.
I am going to be severely pressured to abandon my dignity on this trip, certainly in the second quartile. The trip is like Gaul divided into four parts:
Part 1 NY; part 2 Dallas; Part 3 San Diego; part 4 Seattle.then back to San Diego and fly home.
An Odyssey across Trump’s America. An exploration of its contradictions through cousin (NY) then Dallas, to a wedding of an Asian to a white American (yes, in Texas!) then Mother in SD with her slow, sure Alzheimer’s, then brother in Seattle with his disturbing, brilliant son. I will post blogs from each experience and I can promise a helluva ride for both of us.
Part 1: A Cousin in NY
(this is likely to be the tame, civilised chapter so that I can give you a false sense of security. If it’s too tame, catch up later. )
E is more like a brother than a cousin. A few months younger than me, we grew up together, went to the same school, suffered so many growing pains together. I had many more of those than he did, as he will admit. In Ruggerbugger High (King Edward VII school, Johannesburg) I was mercilessly bullied by the jocks and racists who ran the place – both students and teachers. I was seen by them as an effeminate kaffirlover. Because my parents were political and opposed Apartheid, as did I. And perhaps I was effeminate. I was certainly a sport-hating book loving type, more interested in acting and reading than the average boneheaded racist student. And E shared many of my interests. But got away with it! He probably had the right friends, insiders, the academic elite, who, more brains than beef, had the grudging respect of the cave men.
My friends were outsiders like me. The Fat Boy, the Snob Antisemite, unpleasant characters. So, probably, was I.
School finished, adventures started, the Army intervened. Conscription, 9 months of uniforms and petty posturing, pretending to be soldiers. We went different ways – he to the State President’s Guard because he was clever and about to study medicine. Me to the Army Band because I was stoned and likely to be a hippie. Then…well adventures, many of them lied about in my first two novels, Umfasn’s Heroes and Laszlo’s Millions.
Heathrow No Go
A few days ago I made a brief appearance on TV to protest against the proposed third runway at Heathrow and here I am in seat 49A of this fat-bodied particulate-spewing environment-eating 747 on the runway. Having just had a remarkably easy snake-experience, slithered theough all the demeaning hoops of check in, shoes and belt temporary bereavement, navigating through acres of fancy stores with their wallet – magnets (taxiing) and smoothly via transit to the gate.
1.9km walk. Altogether, from arrival at Heathrow to stepping into the plane.
A breeze.
But that’s not the point!!! My convenience comes at a massive price to my city and the environment ( take off!!!) (even the take off wasn’t dramatic) and seriously if I have to use Gatwick in future, I’ll just get up a little earlier.
Ok back to E. Years passed. E became a doctor, I became a hippie. Married. Stuff. E moved to London.
So did I. E doctored, I hippied. E lived on Sloane Avenue, very expensive in a flat the kitchen of which was the size of an American fridge. I lived in World’s End, not far from him, but my dwelling was indeed at the end of the world. Gangsters whores thieves hippies. We saw each-other occasionally and one day discovered our secrets. Another story. When you’re old enough, I’ll tell you.
Years passed. I got a job and a lover and moved to Chiswick. E upscaled to an attic in Cheyne Row. Beyond posh. And a kitchen the size of two American fridges.
E got a job in New York and asked me to manage his flat for rental. Very fine. Amazing tenants. The purple American. The corporate pig people. Then, for some reason, the supply of tenants dried up just when I had a cataclysmic row with partner, and so I became the tenant.
Oh Oh Cheyne Row
With a Sage below
And Albert Bridge
At dark aglow
And a kitchen the size of a fridge!
I loved the flat. And eventually, when I could afford it I offered to buy half and E agreed.
More years passed. I wrote my novels, became a teacher. E progressed up ladders from job to job across America. From NY to Philadelphia, then Washington then Omaha Nebraska and back to NY. Mostly as a paediatric haematologist, but later doing research for pharma companies. He just lost the will to watch children die. Instead he developed some amazingly efficacious drugs for cancer treatment. There are people alive today who wouldn’t be, if it wasn’t for E.
I think I visited him in each of those. And here I go again, the first time in years.
Eventually when he needed the money I had to sell. Broke my heart but there was no choice and besides, walking up and down those stairs to the fourth floor had wrecked my knees. So it was a good thing. And the proceeds of the sale of expensive Cheyne Row set us both up to buy damn good apartments, his in New York and mine inChelsea.
Coming in to land now over the plastic-spotted sea
Poughkeepsie ahead here beneath me
a bay into which a trident-shaped pier intrudes
a motorboat
yacht
cruise liners
Brooklyn bridge at last
buildings carved from shit and glass
crusted streets, moving bugs
there at last Manhattan in fog
fingers pointing accusingly to god
somewhere out if sight Liberty stands bereft
Almost dowwwwn
Jfk
Bump! Decelerate! Sway!
Slowwww