Bushranger |
1. noun (Australian): a robber or escaped convict who lives in the outback. |
|
2. noun (US): a backwoodsman, someone who lives away from civilisation. |
Doublespeak |
noun: evasive or deliberately ambiguous language, often associated with bureaucracy. |
Packing for Columbus was difficult because it wasn’t just a trip to Columbus. Beyond that it was a journey into the unknown. If Ken found me a new googlewhack – and I hoped he would – then the chain would continue and so would my travels. I had no way of knowing how long I would be away or what climate I would be meeting so how could I know what clothes to pack? Or how many?
Eventually I decided to leave my suitcase on top of the wardrobe and take a small backpack that I could carry on board in its stead. I packed a few shirts, a pullover and three or four days’ worth of underwear. If I was away for any length of time I would simply have to wash things by hand or buy new clothes along the way. In most cities in the world it’s cheaper to buy a new pair of socks than it is to pay a hotel laundry to clean them.
Besides, my earlier, less planned, luggage-free jaunt to the States had taught me the huge benefits of travelling light. If you don’t have a suitcase you can afford to check in later than normal and when your flight lands you can waltz straight through the airport at the other end. I reckon washing your own smalls is a small price to pay for that kind of convenience.
I threw in a toothbrush, a couple of good books and music in the form of my iPod. I was about to put my mobile phone in too when I had second thoughts. My phone would be a way for Jake to get in touch with me and I really didn’t want that.
I flew to Columbus via Cleveland and once there I headed to the one hotel I knew for some more cut-price luxury. I’d arranged to meet Ken for lunch the day after my arrival so I had an evening to spare. My mind and body craved sleep but I knew if I was to conquer jetlag I had to stay up for a few hours at least. I called Jerry.
‘Hello?’ asked a woman’s voice.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Is Jerry there?’
‘I’ll just get him,’ she said. ‘Who can I say is calling?’
‘Dave Gorman.’
There was a pause, the sound of a palm on a mouthpiece, some distant mumbles and then the 10,000-volt voice.
‘Hey, Dave!’
Yep, that was Jerry.
‘So you got my googlewhacks, right?’ he asked excitedly.
‘I sure did,’ I said. ‘Unfortunately they were both dead ends.’
‘Both?’ asked Jerry, ‘What about the third one?’
I didn’t really want to explain the two ’whack rule again so I just ignored the question and carried on.
‘But … while they were both dead ends I started a new chain and—’
‘Cool! Hey, where’d it take you?’
‘To Wales.’
‘No shit!’ he said.
Jerry was so surprised by this development he managed to climb several octaves in only two syllables. I shouldn’t think anyone’s ever been that surprised by Wales before.
‘And then,’ I continued, ‘the Welsh googlewhack also found one—’
‘So where you heading to next?’ asked Jerry champing at the bit.
‘I’m already there?’
‘Where?’
‘Columbus.’
‘No shit!!’
This was clearly much more surprising than my Welsh news and Jerry’s pitch scaled new heights accordingly. If I had a greater surprise up my sleeve I think glassware would shatter and only Jerry’s neighbourhood dogs would be able to hear him. Mind you, I expect they’d be confused by the strange voice in their heads telling them not to shit.
When Jerry’s voice returned to its normal register he invited me to join him and his wife for dinner at theirs.
‘I’d love to,’ I said, reaching for a biro. ‘Where do you live?’
‘Are you kidding?’ he replied. ‘I’m comin’ to pick you up!’
*
I was surprised by just how normal Jerry’s apartment was. I was expecting to find a shrine to space rock, all lava lamps, incense and psychedelia but instead I found myself in a modern, spacious, elegantly decorated front room. It could have been a show home if it wasn’t for the reassuring presence of a few family photos dotted about the place and boxes of toys for visiting nephews and nieces.
‘Hi, I’m Debbie,’ said Jerry’s wife with a smile, ‘would you like a beer?’
‘That’d be great,’ I said, although I could feel tiredness taking me already.
We sat down at the dining table and tucked in to a gorgeous casserole.
My eye was drawn to a framed poster on the wall beside us; the one nod to space rock in the whole room. It featured a sort of pot-bellied alien in an ethereal landscape and it was advertising a gig by a band called Mr Quimby’s Beard.
‘I helped promote that show!’ said Jerry with pride. ‘Have you heard of them?’
‘Heard of them?’ I chuckled. ‘I’m sorry, Jerry, I’m not a space rock aficionado.’
‘You should look them up!’ said Jerry. ‘They’re from England!’
‘Mr Quimby’s Beard?’ I asked incredulously.
‘Oh yeah!’ said Jerry. ‘They’re from Sunderland!’
He said ‘Sunderland’ as if it might be the crucial fact required to trigger my memory, as if it was possible to forget the name Mr Quimby’s Beard, but remember where they came from. Maybe there’s a Middlesbrough band called Mr Beardby’s Quim and people sometimes get the two confused. Excuse my language.
‘I’m afraid I’ve never heard of them,’ I said.
‘They used to be a punk band called S.A.D!’ said Jerry, still hoping to jog my memory. ‘Then they discovered Hawkwind, Pink Floyd and drugs and became 21st Century Module… obviously that was a few years ago before it was the twenty-first century!’
‘Obviously.’
‘Then they became The Amazing Professor Tribbly And His Awesome Filling Machine …’
‘I expect they’d discovered some more drugs around then …’ I said.
‘Probably!’ agreed Jerry. ‘And then finally they became Mr Quimby’s Beard!’
‘That’s amazing,’ I said, shaking my head, as amazed by Jerry’s power of recall as I was by the band’s ever-changing name.
‘They’re great!’ said Jerry. ‘They played a really long show too. Really long!’
‘But they were still called Mr Quimby’s Beard when they finished,’ added Debbie with a wry smile.
‘I’m really glad they came over!’ said Jerry clearly relishing the memory. ‘Sometimes you need to educate an audience, show them what’s out there!’
I wondered if Debbie was one of the people Jerry was trying to educate. I guessed she had to be either a space rock fan or a space rock widow.
‘I like some of it,’ she said brightly. ‘The festivals are fun.’
‘Oh, you’d love Prog-Day!’ said Jerry growing more animated by the second. ‘We drive up to North Carolina for the Labor Day weekend; there are loads of bands on and hundreds of prog rock fans; it’s heaven!’
‘I don’t know my American geography,’ I confessed. ‘How far is North Carolina?’
‘Oh … it’s about … a nine-hour drive!’ said Jerry. ‘But it’s worth it!’
I looked at Debbie, expecting to find a more cynical point of view.
‘It is great fun,’ she said with a smile.
‘It seems an awfully long way to travel to see some music,’ I said.
‘Yeah …’ Jerry scoffed, ‘… and that’s coming from a man who’s travelled all the way to Columbus, Ohio to meet a googlewhack!’
I was a little stung and started to defend myself.
‘Yeah but—’
‘Twice!’ said Jerry making the case against me watertight.
‘Well … it’s complicated,’ I said pathetically.
Jerry just laughed. Debbie laughed. I knew my behaviour was ridiculous so I laughed too.
Debbie raised her glass and proposed a toast.
‘To googlewhacking.’
The three of us clinked our glasses.
‘To googlewhacking!’ Jerry and I said in unison.
We all took a sip of cold lager and began laughing again but I had a toast to propose too.
‘To space rock!’
‘To space rock!
*
I woke up late.
My mind was fuzzy from oversleep and last night’s beer so the hotel room wasn’t immediately familiar to me and I experienced a tiny moment of heart-stopping where-am-I panic before it all made sense. I lay back, relaxed in the gargantuan bed and picked up the remote control.
On the TV, one of the many American talkshow hosts that fill the moral vacuum between Oprah Winfrey and Jerry Springer was holding court. The theme of the show was something along the lines of Help! I Get Teased about my Wild and Crazy Hair! I sat, dumbstruck, watching a high school girl whose hair was certainly both wild and crazy in that there was more of it than there was of her.
She explained, through floods of tears, how her hair made her a target for bullies and was ruining her life but she just didn’t – sob – know what to do – wheeze – about – hyperventilate, sob, wheeze – it.
Once she’d cried enough, the sensitive, caring host offered her the remarkable solution of – wait for it – a haircut! She was whisked away but returned after the break with a new hairstyle that is probably best described as tame and sane. There were more tears but this time they were tears of joy. She declared all her troubles over and promised that she would now aim to ‘get good grades and get in to college’. The studio audience whooped and hollered their approval. I didn’t share their sense of joy. If someone can so spectacularly fail the multi-choice question:
If you don’t like your hair should you call:
A: A hairdresser or B: A TV show
I don’t hold out much hope for them on the exam front.
The phone rang.
‘Mr Gorman?’ said the receptionist. I had no way of knowing, but I was sure he had a mullet. ‘I have a … Ken Bushranger Doublespeak Fussichen waiting in reception for you?’
Lord only knows what code he thought Ken and I were using, but it made me chuckle and when someone makes you chuckle before you meet them, it’s normally a good sign.
Ken was a big man. A very big man. He had a dark moustache flecked with grey to keep his smile warm and, while he was wearing a baseball cap, there was no sign of a mullet. He looked slightly dishevelled but in that comfortable way, like when a favourite cushion bursts but you prefer it that way.
‘So, where do you wanna go eat?’ he asked.
‘This is your town, I’m in your hands,’ I said. ‘I’ll go wherever you like.’
‘OK … well … I think we should head out of the city centre because what I like most of all is free parking,’ said Ken with a laugh.
He had a big laugh to suit his big frame, a hearty, head thrown back, hyuk hyuk of a laugh.
We climbed into Ken’s big four-wheel-drive with a Stars and Stripes flag flying from the back and started to drive out of the city. The landscape was sprawling, flat and featureless. We passed industrial estates, parking lots, small clusters of retail outlets and not much else. Here I was, alone in the company of another stranger, driving into the unknown once more, but this time the situation held no fear. I’d given up on the idea of being frightened when I’d committed myself to this challenge. I wasn’t frightened of strangers any more, least of all my googlewhacks. I wasn’t frightened of anything or anyone. Except Jake.
When we pulled up we were in a car park shared by several identical, modern, low-rise buildings, each offering something cheap and cheerful to eat. As far as I could tell there was nothing else for miles around this wasn’t a place to grab a bite while you were shopping, say. No, as odd as it seemed, this was supposed to be a destination in itself. Ken selected the Chinese restaurant because he reckoned their buffet was second to none.
Inside there were several counters, each containing maybe twenty, stainless-steel trays loaded up with one Chinese dish or another. We piled our plates high, filled enormous paper cups with syrupy cola and sat down. The food looked the way it does in commercials. The broccoli was the most vibrant green, the peppers the purest red and the mushrooms were bigger and more symmetrical than they should naturally be. Odd. If I was drawing up a list of desirable qualities for foodstuffs, I’d probably put ‘natural’ above ‘symmetrical’. Not that it stopped me tucking in.
‘So, what do you want to know about me?’ asked Ken.
The honest answer would have been ‘I want to know if you can find me two googlewhacks’ but it didn’t seem polite to bring it up just yet. That’d be like asking a girl to sleep with you on a first date. The start of a first date. Before the wine list. Honestly, darling, I want to get to know you for who you are. I’m not just interested in you for your googlewhacks!
‘Well,’ I said, ‘just tell me about yourself. Fussichen’s an interesting name … do you know where it comes from?’
Every American I’ve ever met knows where their family hails from so I figured this was a subject he’d be happy to run with. I wasn’t wrong.
‘It comes from Southern Austria originally,’ said Ken, ‘although I know my grandfather spent some time chasing pretty girls in Italy, hyuk, hyuk; he came to the States in 1920.
‘I was born and raised in New York,’ he continued, ‘but I’ve been kicked out of a few states. It’s a family tradition. Hyuk, hyuk. The Fussichens have been kicked out of a lot of countries in our time.’
I liked hearing Ken talk; it was strangely hypnotic. Like so many New Yorkers he has the non-stop, scattergun delivery of a sassy stand-up comic and the turn of phrase to match. To be honest it didn’t really matter what he was saying, I would have been happy just to sit back and let the rhythm and the tone hit me. Bada-boom-bada-boom-bada-boom … hyuk, hyuk, hyuk.
‘One thing I’ve learnt along the way, Dave, is that God has quite a sense of humour. You think you’re doing OK then He says, “So let’s see how you handle this”, and then He sits back laughing: Ha ha ha ha!’
Ken mimicked a big, boomy cartoon-God laugh that melted into his own genuine laughter.
‘Really?’ I asked, wanting him to expand mainly because I preferred the sound of Ken’s voice to my own.
‘Oh yeah!’ said Ken. ‘Take me for example. I’ve got more personal life than anyone knows about … hyuk, hyuk.’
I paused, chopsticks poised at my open mouth. Ken was laughing but I had an uneasy feeling about where the conversation was going. Maybe as an Englishman I’m just genetically programmed to tense up at the mere mention of a personal life, but what did he mean by having more of one? Was he about to confess to having an affair?
‘Really?’ I asked nervously, ‘… wh-wh-what do you mean?’
‘I mean I have nine kids,’ said Ken.
Once again the chopsticks remained frozen in mid-delivery. Nine kids! My imagination was running wild but I didn’t want to know how many wives, girlfriends or significant others were involved!
‘I shouldn’t be asking these kind of questions, Ken,’ I said hurriedly. ‘You don’t owe me any kind of explanation …’
‘’s OK,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Originally we planned to have four. Two biological and two adopted. So we had a kid, Matthew. When he was young he got ill … quite ill … and the upshot is that he’s severely disabled.’
Oh. I put my imagination on hold and listened to the words instead. The ‘hyuk hyuk’s had stopped but I looked into Ken’s dark eyes and they were positively shining. I put the chopsticks down.
‘He’s a good kid,’ Ken continued, then corrected himself. ‘He’s a great kid. It’s all going on up top, it’s just physical. Then we had another boy, David, then two girls. They’re all grown-up now, David has a great job and the girls are at Ohio State University.’
‘You must be really proud,’ I said, and we were only four kids in to a nine-kid story.
‘I am,’ said Ken, his chest swelling, ‘but the thing is, when they moved out, Matthew started to lose some of his lustre. You see, he lives vicariously through others. When David came home from school and said he’d made the football team, that’s what made Matthew come to life. And all of a sudden he didn’t have that any more.
‘We didn’t know what was wrong for a while, but we missed having the kids around the whole time too, so after a while my wife and I started thinking; “What about Plan A? What about adopting?”
‘The long and the short of it is: we adopted twin boys. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we’re perfect people. I know I’m not. I’ve made mistakes and I know I’ll make some more, but I gotta lot of love.
‘Anyway, when the twins were the right age, we’d go out and tell them, “Matthew’s in charge”, and they all know there’s nothing Matthew can really do, but they all get along, and everyone understands the situation and that boy, that boy, just started to blossom again. He just came back to life.
‘And we’ve adopted three more. Nine kids and let me tell you, we’re one real big, happy family.’
‘What can I say?’ I said, because it was the only thing I could say.
‘I’ll be honest,’ said Ken, leaning forwards, ‘there was a time when I thought I was the world’s greatest dad. Now I know I’m not. I learn more from my kids than I can ever teach them … the only reason I have nine is because I’m a slow learner, hyuk, hyuk, hyuk.’
All of a sudden, for a brief moment, the conversation was back bada-boom-bada-boom-bada-booming along.
I’d never met anyone like Ken before. I’m not sure there are that many people like Ken out there to meet. Not only was I impressed by what he’d said, but also by the fact that he’d said it. There’s a vulnerability that goes with a story like that and it’s not often I find myself in a Chinese restaurant with a vulnerable giant of a stranger.
Suddenly the idea of introducing googlewhacks into the conversation seemed somewhat crass. Ken seemed to be working on a higher plane to me. Now it would be like asking a girl to sleep with me on a first date when she’s just told me how she’s raising money for sick puppies with a charity celibate-athon. How could I expect Ken to find my need for two googlewhacks important?
But it was important. It was the only reason I’d come to Columbus so I had to ask him. But it couldn’t come from nowhere. I had to find a way to steer the conversation towards the trivial.
We cracked open our fortune cookies.
‘What you got?’ I asked.
Ken looked at his fortune.
‘You achieve great peace of mind when you talk to an old friend,’ he said. ‘Ha, I’d say it looks like the fortune cookies have promoted you to “old friend”! What about yours?’
I looked at my fortune and read it silently to myself. ‘Be calm when confronting an emergency crisis.’
‘It says, “Don’t be afraid to ask a stranger for a favour”,’ I lied.
‘So I guess you’ll be wanting me to give you a ride back to the hotel?’ laughed Ken.
‘Yes please,’ I smiled. This was my chance. I’d just go for it. I’d ask a man with a full life to waste his time putting random words into a search engine.
‘Ken … you know how you’re Bushranger Doublespeak …’
‘Oh yeah; the googlewhack thing, I was wondering when you were gonna bring that up.’
‘Do you think you could find me two new googlewhacks?’
‘Sure!’ he said. ‘I’ll have a go. Could be fun.’
It was as easy as that.
On the way back into the city I explained the googlewhacking rules and Ken seemed confident that he’d find what I needed.
‘D’y’know, I don’t have a job right now,’ he said as we pulled up outside the hotel, ‘and in American society that makes me a loser. We live in a society that values material things, Dave, but I know there are more important things.’
We shook hands.
‘I can think of nine,’ I said, although I waited until Ken had driven round the corner before I said it.
At the start of our meeting I think I was guilty of prejudging Ken. My English sensibilities saw he was a flag-flying, cap-wearing, ’tache-sporting, four-wheel-drive-driving, man-of-a-certain-size and I thought I had him pegged as a particular kind of American. Probably the kind of American you see hollering in the audience of a Help! I Get Teased about my Wild and Crazy Hair! TV show. But I was wrong. Ken wasn’t one of the crowd. He was no more an American stereotype than I was an English stereotype.
I went up to my room and made a nice cup of tea.
*
I’d only been back at the hotel for a couple of hours but I couldn’t resist the temptation to get online and check my email. After all, in the time that had passed Ken could easily have found me a ’whack by now.
There was no email from Ken. But there was another email from Kelvin.
From: Kelvin (work)
To: Dave Gorman
Hi Dave,
I hope things have worked out with Bushranger Doublespeak. You said that every googlewhack could find you two others so I figure I still owe you one more. Here it is: Hippocampi Wallpaper.
All the best from all of the Welsh Rarebits … or as you probably call us, the Rarebit Nutters.
Kelvin