The Basketball Expatriate

by C. Bradford Eastland

  dumb thing to say, but I couldn't stop myself in time.

  Her red-on-white cheeks puffed up chipmunk-like in a smile, and I remember cringing

  when she replied, "Bu' all Yanks go' money, an' all most Yanks go' is bloomin' money--

  now ain't that so, luv....", even though I knew she didn't mean it.

  "So can I see the room? I mean first."

  "Like t'see? Alright, then. Come on, now, ducks. Follow on." You've probably

  figured out she liked to call me ducks. She was harmless.

  She then led me up the stairs of this old country house, the old wooden steps creaking with age and no doubt memories (I figured) of much younger footsteps. "The children, they all growed'n moved out," she volunteered, as if reading my mind.

  "Good for business," I said.

  At the top of the stairs the hall fork-split in two directions. We took the right prong. "Them's me-private quarters," she said, flicking her head back to the left. There was a note of unashamed suggestiveness in her voice. It was pretty obvious that an out-of-the-way place like hers didn't attract many young, good-looking Americans, because she sure wasn't used to them. Before I could say anything, she added, "I 'spose y'thinkin' I'm a bit ove'weight f'er a still-young woman," again reading my thoughts.

  "I hadn't thought about it," I said flatly. (When I said earlier she was old what I meant

  was she was probably in her forties.)

  "Don' let me-weight queer ya! They's many a man go' a roight bit pleasure from this

  plump ol' body!"

  "Oh, I have no doubt of it."

  "They's a thing or two I could teach you, 'fi 'ad 'aff a-mind to!"

  I had no answer for that one. It's amazing how the English will talk to you about whatever's on their minds. Even the women.

  We stopped at the last door in the hall. "Me-daughter. Nicole. This was 'er room." She threw open the door for me to enter first, and I ducked my head and stepped into a bedroom not a great deal larger than my walk-in closet back home in Beverly Hills. The room was perfectly square, with a sink at one end and glass-paned doors at the other, leading out to a balcony. It sure didn't look like a little girl's room; the walls were white paint, bare, no cutesy-pie wallpaper with elves or rocking horses or stupid flowers or anything. In fact, the walls looked to me to be distinctly unsmooth, as if wallpapering had begun and then stopped, or old wallpaper had been painted over. There were no books on the shelves. (Of course my lying travel agent did promise me that all the B&B's had shelves full of children's books.) No evidence that a little kid ever lived there, at least any kid who liked to read. There was even a huge, adult-sized rocker next to the bed. But as for the bed itself, she was true to her word. It was designed with only two-thirds of me in mind.

  "The balcony's the best part," she said proudly, leading me through the glass doors. I have to admit it affected me right away, standing there. Remember, I'd just climbed out of a dry, stuffy airplane. The sun was gentle-warm without being hot-warm, and my dried-up nose was immediately grateful for the moistness the air dispatched to saturate the inside of it. I couldn't hear a thing, not even birds, and god it sounded great. And the view was indeed the best part; it was truly nothing short of Olympian. There was no back yard, the house seemed truly to be balancing on the very crown of the ridge, and maybe it was due to the descending backyard slope falling out from under us that made it feel like the house must be resting on a cloud. We looked down on The Downs, upon acres of the inevitable green wheat, surrounded by a picture-like border of the high, close-together trees that enclosed our Earthly kingdom. It was like we were a couple of bored, curious gods---I the God Of Basketball, she the Goddess Of Overweight Chipmunks, perhaps---observing our frail subjects, looking for telltale signs of inadequacy in their performance. (I know, I'm getting a little carried away, but I'm having fun for a change so chill, I'm almost finished.) In the middle of our view was a parking lot full of cars, next to some modest-looking, old-looking, indeed falling-apart-looking one-story buildings. Thick masses of these ant-sized mortals flowed purposefully back and forth between these buildings.

  "Y'been down 'the villa?"

  "The what?...oh. No, not yet," I replied, remembering the Bignor : Roman Villa turn-off sign.

  "Can y'imagine!" she suddenly exclaimed. "We lookin' down on precisely where those Roman blokes walked about! Makes a body feel bloody-humble, ducks. Ove' there," she said, pointing to an old square building off to the right not much bigger than this bedroom we looked down from, "is wha' they call the frigidarium room, where those Roman blokes took their cold baths after their saunas. And ove' there," she continued proudly, pointing to a long, corridor-like structure off to the left that looked clearly newer than the rest, "is kept the longest continuous undamaged Roman floor tapestry in England---ove' eighty bloody feet long!"

  "Bitchin'-ass!" I said, trying to match her enthusiasm.

  "Is it alright then?"

  "Which, the tapestry or the frigidarium."

  "The accommodations, luv-ducks! I 'afta ask these things, y'know....Are they alright?"

  Standing next to and towering over her on the balcony, in the vicious naked light of my first English afternoon, my down-cast eyes accepted my first really clear look at this sweet, squat woman who I had already decided would be my English landlady. Her curly red hair was so violently red and curly it looked phony, not a like wig, but like it had been drawn on with a crayon. I had to look twice, so to speak, to pick out the little circles of tired gray at the fringes. It fell shoulder-length in back, with a half moon of front curls framing the round face. The face was practically the only skin she allowed show, long-sleeved blouse and floor-length skirt, and I don't get me wrong I loved the face, but the skin itself, though smooth and far from inoffensive, was the white-blotched-with-red that seems to distinguish the English face from the rest of the world. It was obviously a climate thing, the most conspicuous fallout of this "oft-sunless" land. I could swear that I could see the minuscule little blood vessels in her cheeks swell and glow red with each passionate heartbeat! A Land Of Albinos? Now there's a title....As for that "plump ol' body", the best way to describe it might be to say that she was shaped like a pear; normal upper half, spreading and tapering out to a bulbous butt and thick thighs that even the long denim skirt could not completely hide. But I loved the face. Like I said earlier, her cute little cheeks bunched up like acorns in a chipmunk's mouth whenever she smiled, which I got the feeling right away was often. I could tell she was pretty, underneath the fat. You know what I mean. All you have to do is mentally carve away the excess layers of flab from a fat person's face and figure, thinning and keeping the best parts, and the imagination can usually arrive at a reasonably-gorgeous result from the shell of even the most grotesquely-obese creature. It's like there's a whole other person in there. We've all done it. (Well I don't know about you ladies, but there's no such thing as a guy who hasn't mentally carved up a cute-faced fat chick or two in his time.) Fortunately, I've got a pretty fair imagination to work with, and I've always had a fair interest in women, and it wasn't much problem for me to successfully slice away the huge needless portions of her face and anatomy, do a little creative body-shaping in the process, and by the time I was done sculpting this fantasy I found myself sort of wishing it was real; so that I might take her up on her "teach me a thing or two" offer. Either way, she was an adorable old thing.

  "With so lovely and charming a hostess to tempt me, I must confess to being helpless," I said, unleashing my best killer smile. Embarrassed, the smooth white face blotched pink.

  "Luv'ly. Luv'ly, then. 'Member, breakfast any time 'fore 'aff-nine. We' a bit out 'the

  way 'ere, so you're currently me-only guest."

  I'd made my escape from Heathrow so quickly that I hadn't had time to change my

  travellers cheques into pounds:

  "Would it be alright if I gave you the money tomorrow? I haven't had time to---"

  "They's banks up in Pet
worth---an' y'don' afta pay me anythin' now. No' a penny, no' till y'ave t'go. Won' 'ear of it. Settle up at the end, luv."

  "Really? No quidding?"

  "Sorry?"

  Women. Sometimes humor goes right over their heads.

  "What I'm saying is thank you," I said. "We'll settle up at the end."

  "Smashing...Oh, an' by the way, me-name's Frieda. Frieda Mannheim."

  "Frieda?"

  "You don' like it?"

  "Oh no---I mean yes, it's just---"

  "It's German!" she said with great pride.

  "Well of course it is!" I agreed stupidly. I'd just started to remember how tired I was.

  "You may call me Frieda or Miss Mannheim....or even Fraulein Mannheim, if y'like!"

  "I guess I'll start unpacking," I said, in desperate need of a late-afternoon nap.

  "So 'ow long y'stayin', luv-ducks?"

  It was a question that caught me unprepared. I hadn't thought about it. I really hadn't

  planned anything.

  "I don't know...does it matter? Few days, a week. Depends."

  "Fair comment. I'm no' expectin' a big rush, unless a big crowd comes down f'er the Glorious Goodwood Meeting. Stay 'slong as y'like, luv. Just let me know when y'thinkin'

  of leavin'."

  I was too tired to ask her about "Frieda", or what a "Glorious Goodwood Meeting" was.

  "Thanks," I probably said.

  I had already started down the stairs for my car, in a hurry to unpack, settle in, and just lie down and finally relax, when that sweet, girlish, high-pitched voice that I would come to love (but in this case, frankly, kind've pissed me off) spun me back around:

  "Can y'imagine!" she bubbled. "A big good-lookin' bloke like you travellin' 'round

  alone!"

  It only took me about fifteen minutes to unpack, running up and down the stairs two or three times. Weird. It was weird checking into a vacation hotel by myself. I didn't bother to hang anything up right away, frankly I'm not used to hanging up my own stuff, so I just made a pile of clothes on the floor. I can remember never remembering being so tired. I mean I was just plain drained. And my knee was killing me. I undressed (you have to sleep naked in the U.K. because they got these things they use for blankets called "duvets" which are giant pillow cases stuffed with goose feathers, and if you try to sleep under one of those things wearing anything at all you can wind up sweating and stinking like a locker room full of///////you can roast to death), curled up in the kid's bed, and tried to go to sleep. But I couldn't sleep. As tired as I was I just couldn't sleep. And you know what else? Well, for some goddam reason, and I suppose I'm still a little embarrassed about it, I started crying. Like a baby. No kidding, right out've the blue. Can you believe it? No sooner do I get rid of my upset stomach then I freak out like a little kid. I mean I know it must be obvious I was a little depressed and all, I had plenty of reason to be depressed after what the Clippers pulled on me, that's the whole point of this stupid thing, but to just suddenly start crying out loud like that, like some silly overemotional woman? It's bloody humiliating. But pretty soon I was blubbering to beat the band, and if there were any other guests in the house they would've heard it sure. But I wouldn't've cared about that. Who cares what a bunch of idiot tourists think, anyway. But it did bother me, though, it still does, that I couldn't then and can't now figure out why a perfectly well-adjusted, 27-year-old man would just up and freak out like that. I've got a couple theories, but nothing I want to go into in too much detail.

  After all, this thing isn't about men who cry or about Romans or about women or even about fat little old English landladies named Frieda. It's about basketball, goddammit.

  Three

  My first full day in England was, surprisingly, quite eventful. Especially after the sun went down.

  But before I get to that, get this. I woke up kind've late and immediately washed my tired face in the sink, absentmindedly pulled on a pair of jeans, like I've done probably about a million times before, and was about to wander out into the hall in search of the bathroom to take my traditional wake-up piss, when, just as I was thinking (oh so very naturally) about what a relief it would be to purge a whole night's accumulation of liquid waste matter from my system, I found myself staring with wonder at the wash basin I had just used. I watched the last of the water slurp quietly down the drain. I was suddenly struck by how out of place this lone bathroom fixture was, here lost in my little room; no other porcelain to keep it company, no toilet, no tub, no shower, just a sink. Just a sink. Just a sink? Suddenly I couldn't take my friggin' eyes off it. It was as if the mouth of the drain was talking to me. Suddenly the cold, uncertain domain of the hall took on the personality of a house of horrors, a corridor of terror, filled with untold dangers, invisible demons, anonymous but real threats to my personal well-being (hang on, I'm almost done), and what, then, if I were to venture out into this "tubular abyss", and could not even find the bathroom in time? My eyes returned to the sink. When I started to laugh I knew I would go through with it. Maybe it was being in a foreign country, I don't know. Maybe it was my state of mind. Maybe. But I just didn't care. I thought of how a shorter man wouldn't've been able to pull it off, and I felt fortunate to be tall. I thought of how, were I a woman, I would be structurally ill-designed to take advantage, and I felt fortunate to be a man. It was destiny.

  To make a long paragraph short, all've a sudden the most sensible thing in the world was for me to step right up to that sink, get up on my tip-toes, drop my jeans a few inches, and deliver into this convenient yawning basin what it seemed to be crying out for. And damned if that isn't exactly what I did. I felt like a common ghetto criminal, but man was it exhilarating. (I'm telling you, I sure wish the grungy place I'm in now had a sink!) There was even some convenient "floral-scented" liquid soap on the counter, as if placed there by some benevolent B&B guardian angel for the sole purpose of destroying the evidence. That made sense too. So I squirted a bunch in the sink, ran some water, sloshed everything around, and that was that.

  I guess the point is that sometimes it's just goddam great to be a man.

  I finished dressing in nothing flat, because my intention was merely to go downstairs to let Fraulein Frieda Mannheim know I wasn't hungry and was very tired and that I was just going to go right back to sleep and try and get rid of my jet lag. I figured she'd be happy to save the time and expense of preparing breakfast.

  But when I saw the table she'd set for her one and only guest, I knew I would have to eat something.

  You would've thought that I was the American Ambassador to the United Kingdom, and that this quaint little B&B was the private chateau that the President had commissioned for my stay! I'll start with the place-setting; a veritable window display of painted china plates and cups and saucers, extra little plates for toast and condiments, they were all embroidered with hand-painted sweeping swirling designs suggesting some pastoral country estate, it was awesome, easily the most elaborate display of eating finery I have ever seen laid out for one person. At the time, you understand, I couldn't even remember the last time I'd eaten off china. But that wasn't all. Jars of honey, jelly, jam, butter, and chutney. Pitchers of orange juice, pineapple juice, tomato juice, milk, and genuine English "clotted" cream. I whisper-counted to myself: two spoons two forks three knives four colors of napkins. And it wasn't just the table setting. Against the wall stood a huge walnut sideboard, featuring an imposing line-up of "cereals of the world", from local names like WEETABIX and MUESLI to American favorites such as Frosted Flakes and Rice Crispies, and even a couple granolas with German-looking names I couldn't pronounce then and can't remember now. The tangy aroma of many English sausages (called "bangers") wiggled in from the kitchen, alerting me to the crackle of their wonderful ordeal in the pan. I was sure I could smell the coffee as well, but there was something soft and foreign in the liquidy scent. Soon a powerful singing voice--- some sort of stupid opera, I recall thinking---rose above the soft accompaniment of
the sausages. And finally I saw the paper, a neatly-folded copy of USA TODAY, only two days old, resting in its own tiny little wooden newspaper rack right next to my plate, the headline bathing in the flickering light of a single candle growing out of a candlestick stuck smack in the center of the table. Man. What in hell does she do when the house is full? I thought. My stomach went weak with pleasure, and it felt like there were twin hypos injecting fresh saliva into my mouth....

  "Good mornin', luv! Sleep well, dint'cha?"

  She burst into the room wearing the same floor-length, blue denim skirt she was wearing the night before.

  "Not so well---but a very good morning to you too, Fraulein Mannheim."

  "I've decided you should call me Frieda."

  "I'm glad," I said.

  "Didja rilly no' sleep well?"

  "Nobody's fault. Air foil."

  Her face said she didn't understand but she smiled anyway, and the smiling face made me smile I'm sure. I always wanted to smile when I was around Frieda. But what manwouldn't smile with a feast like this staring him in the face?