Back to the World Tour main page ð Back to the whole site's main page

It broke my heart, but I was called back to London from Edinburgh on urgent

business:



Family was coming.



If you've met my family, you'll know what I mean. Fear lurks in the hearts

of men.



I met them at Gatwick last Thursday morning, bearing the sign "COCHRAN.

YO!"  My father was leading the pack, followed by the mortal remains of his

original nuclear unit: my Aunt Ann (dossier: down-to-earth but prim,

preacher's wife), my Aunt Jean (dossier: Southern, never been outside the

U.S., mischievously silly, named her daughter Mitzi) and, plodding in tow,

my seventysomething grandma, Nana (dossier: lives in the hills of North

Carolina, had also never been out of America before, has the mystical

ability to relate any subject to the fudge they made at the county fair

last spring).  The Kettles in Old Blighty.



You can imagine the sort of week this made for me.  Me, who arrogantly

considers himself something of a cultural chameleon, traipsing down Oxford

Street with my Nana in her Wal-Mart duds.  Me, a paragon of discretion,

halting politely to allow Jean to photograph Ye Olde Fire Plug or various

and sundry civic structures. Me, Mr. Independence with a short fuse for

stragglers, crammed over the hump in the back seat trying to tell my father

where to turn for the Vauxhall Bridge.



Perhaps I should learn to alter my aura, because all Jean and Ann sensed

something I never said, and kept ribbing each other to announce -- at a

decibel level previously suited to lawn mowers and Red Sox games -- "I

think we're embarrassing him!" 

"Yeah, Jason, are we going to meet your British friends?" said Ann.

"Nope," my father said. "He thinks we'll embarrass him."

"Hell no, I WANT you to meet them," I said. "I want them to see what I've

risen above."



Actually, they didn't embarrass me, because I was careful to avoid public

situations with them. Instead, I was regaled (and alternately mortified) by

their solo tales of misadventure in London. During the Changing of the

Guard, for example, Aunt Jean all but made out with the soldier to get him

to smile.



"Cain't ya smal for me?" she cooed in her Georgia drawl. "Jist a little

smal? I promised m'grandson that Ah could git ya ta smal!"  She made fun of

his marching. She kissed his cheek. She grabbed his gun. She even fondled

him. I am not making this up!  My Aunt Jean molested an innocent soldier

for a Kodak moment.  These are my people.



On Monday, though, I couldn't escape.  That was the day my father booked us

all on the Eurostar -- first class, snarf! -- to Paris.  It was just the

five of us...all day.



My earliest memory of the morning, after the coffee kicked reality into

ugly gear, was Nana asking if the seats on the Channel train flipped over

to face the other way. We said they didn't; she'd have to face the way the

seat faced. "Well, they did on the streetcar," she said. First Class on the

Channel tunnel train, and it wasn't as good as the streetcar. That's what a

full life will get ya. Still, it was fun.  Jean and Nana were so excited

that it all seemed to be washing over them.  It's a treat to see things

anew through the eyes of others. (It wasn't the first time I've thought

that hanging out with my family must be what it's like to have children.)



Paris, though, was divine. Probably because, for once, someone else was

paying. A light rain in the morning, but it being August, the streets were

all but traffic-free, so we made a whirlwind tour of it.  You name it, we

slid past it in a shutter-clacking flurry: the Place Vendome, the Marais,

Saint-Michel, Diana's death spot 51 weeks after the crash. I must confess a

shudder of I-Can-Die-Now-Lord as I took a photo of the Jerry Springer half

of the family in front of the Eiffel Tower. 



I'd also wanted to reach my friend Oliver, who I'd met in Portugal

(remember Dispatch #2?) but I couldn't get him. So, in the afternoon, I

split off from the Fifes and went for my first-ever tour of the Opera House

(as in the Phantom), which was gobsmackingly nutty.  Gold, marble,

carvings, parquet. Structuralized madness, I say, made possible by abject

wealth. You must see it. It's like the Vatican, only without God.  Then I

took my textbook French shopping, spun round in the Metro, and stuffed

hazelnut-drenched chocolate pastry down my gulla. Finally! I understand why

people love Paris! They concentrate on all the beautiful parts and don't

have backpacks on their shoulders.



On the train ride back, the Cochrans got barmy. Free booze, and lots of it.

When my father laughs loud enough to make ears bleed, you know he's one

drunk American.  My Nana, who never drinks, went jellyfish pretty early in

the game. For a while, she insisted she was "just resting" until the spirit

of British lingo got into her and she declared: "Your grandma's pissed!"



The couple across the aisle from us didn't have much to drink at all. They

just glared at each other, praying for a quick death. Ours.



As befitting people raised in a barn, they wouldn't quit. Nana collapsed in

a giggling heap when she tried to get into the taxi ("My knees just give

out," she lied) and as we passed Buckingham Palace, my father announced

that the Queen looks like a horse. Back in the suite on Grosvenor Square,

room service furnished the hooch that fueled further hijinks. 



While I sat placidly in the corner on an upholstered chair, sipping my

Scotch whisky and deciding to adopt, my father and Aunt Jean woke everyone

in the Marriott with their boozed-up shrieking, jumping on the bed, and

tickling fights. Ann, as always, participated -- but with the best of

taste. Worse came to worse, and my father wound up with a bloody nose --

which he wiped all over Jean's strawberry-print p.j.s and Ann's pillow

cases. I considered collecting a sample -- for the DNA. 



There comes a point in everyone's life when the tables turn and you realize

YOU'RE the parent and your parents are the children. I guess mine came this

week, watching my father split his nose during a beer fight in a suite at

the London Marriott. "Hold the ice on it, Dad,"  I had to plead. "Did you

hear me?  HOLD it there. Dad! Keep it pressed!"



That night, listening to him snore, I understood even less of where I came

from and how I fit into this world.



I'm taking the piss, as they say here, but it was  very good to see them.

It felt good to see someone who's known me since forever, and to hear how

proud they are of me. Feedback like that is like food.



When it was over, and I'd escorted them safely back to Gatwick, I took the

train back to London and there was that pang again -- "I'm all alone now.

Disconnected from friends and family."



Didn't last long.  After getting my messages on Monday, Oliver from Paris

decided HE would come to London, and tonight he showed up with two friends

and his brother. He told me I was the main reason he decided to come up for

the weekend.  Do you know how that feels, to have someone do something like

that on your account?  Well, please tell me, because I was mostly stunned.



The bunch of us went drinking and dancing. Buzzed and praising serendipity,

I raised my arms over my head on the dance floor and tried to receive the

vibes of my last Saturday night in London, in this part of the world, with

this batch of friends. Ever had one of those endorphin-boosted nights?



First there was Mandy, the Paros waitress who resurfaced in Edinburgh.  Now

Oliver, my friend from Lagos, steps forward from the mists of experience to

volunteer his permanence in my life.  I travel under the illusion that the

people I meet are good only for that time and place, like social coupons,

or tools of the moment.  Oliver's trip to London assures me that it doesn't

have to be that way.



The only indignity I had to endure was Jeanne, a winsome and gorgeous

costuming student from Paris, beckoning me close to her French lips and

saying to me:



"Oo look like Woody Allen."



That's my cue to get a haircut. She's French. She meant it as a compliment.



...Anyway, like I said, I'm in my final hours in London.  By 3 p.m.

Tuesday, I'll be in Cape Town.  In the meantime, I'm cramming some quality

time with my London posse: Alan, Ian and Chris in Walthamstow threw a giant

social barbecue on Sunday (I brought my famous salsa).  I've also spent a

few nights over there this week. It's a shorter stagger from the pubs. 



The European portion of my extravaganza is over, exactly four months after

I left. On Day 124, I move to a new area on the globe, a new continent -- a

new hemisphere, even. A new season: Spring. 



I'm actually much more pensive about this milestone in my trip than I let

on.  I'll save that discussion, though, for my private journal. 



But from here on out my experiences are likely to be much hairier.  Am I

worried about my safety?  No.  I mustn't be.  First of all, the real Planet

Hollywood bombers haven't stepped forward. Two militant Muslim groups in CT

have declaimed responsibility.  For all we know -- and it's a real

possibility -- it was perpetrated by South Africans who are disgusted by

growing American corporate imperialism. Besides, the way I look at it, any

place where Planet Hollywoods are bombed is the place for me! These are my

people.  I wouldn't be caught dead in one of those anyway (unless, of

course, I was).



No, I think it's just as dangerous to be in New York City than someplace

like Cape Town -- if not more dangerous. New York City is ground zero. I

pray for all my friends who have stayed behind there. I don't know what the

news is like in America, but over here the international press is not

taking this lightly. The world does not think America has handled the air

strikes well.  Weapons of mass destruction will be used on an American

city, and sometime soon.



Today I went to the reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, across

from St Paul's in Southwark, and stood amongst the groundlings for a

matinee of "The Merchant of Venice."  (Here's a sign that I've got the

right friends: When the whole theatre was hissing the entrance of Shylock,

my anarchist friend Robin was the only one who cheered.) The whole Shylock

scenario (anti-Semitic as it is) reminded me of the current West vs. Muslim

extremists thing.  For years we've sold them our weapons, kept them at

economic disadvantage, and given them disrespect by treating them as spear

carriers on the world stage. Now we're surprised that they might use our

own weapons against us.  And, like Shylock, they've got something we need

-- oil -- it's convenient for us to feign disapproval at the idea before

the world's judges.



So here comes trouble. A new Russian leader could be the despot we've

feared, and use that country's nuclear weapons to claw back into global

power. Their financial meltdown could finally cause American markets to

deflate in response to the Asian crisis. Bin Laden could be the turbaned

antichrist that Nostradamos wrote about, and he could slaughter hundreds of

thousands of innocents in the name of God.  America could be stripped of

oil and be brought to its knees, ending its reign as World Leader.  Wow.  A

lot to consider.



But there are still beer fights in hotel rooms, and summer matinees of

Shakespeare under the flights of seagulls, and new friends who find

surprising ways to tell you that you matter.  So if I died on this trip --

however it might happen -- at least I'd have died doing what I wanted to

do.  I couldn't ask for more, could I?



From here on out, the Dispatches should get verrrrry interesting.



On to the next chapter,

Jason



Right now I'm in: East Ham, London

Day: 123  Countries: 13

...and counting!