I once came across a swarthy gentleman wearing a sign around his neck emblazoned with the words, “The Secret of Happiness.” Obviously a palmed pound coin could loosen the red rascal’s lips.
Even if the “secret” was passed down generation to generation by word of mouth within a Da Vinci Code-like secret society as a smokescreen, I wanted to know what was up. Even with the pound coin in hand, the gentleman, a relic of a faraway outpost of the waning British Empire, seemed reluctant to part with the secret.
I might have to haggle for hidden secrets of the heart.
With startling clarity, I realized this Empire gentleman should have been sporting a pith helmet. “Come on, what’s the secret of happiness then,” I egged him on, par for the course on how to expertly heckle prophets of any ilk at London’s famed free-speech forum: “Speakers’ Corner.”
At last the too-tan gentleman glumly admitted, “Uh, take a cold shower!”
“That’s it?!”
Unfortunately it was.
Wandering under the slate-gray sky I felt like I was in the London of The Clash, filled with mohawked squatters stomping around in Doc Martins. When you think you have this city down cold, it comes back with a clever James Bond quip and makes you feel like a monkey’s uncle.
What do you expect in a city with the worst food in the world, unless you’re a fan of greasy “fryups” (leave the blood pudding alone), bangers and mash, bubbles and squeak, fried Mars bars, and “meat” curries.” (There is, at least, master chef Gordon Ramsey on the forefront of introducing to the pale-faced finger-sandwich-chewing English public at least fresh vegetables).
“I thought all vegetables came in a can, “ my British friend Andy deadpanned. This particular kind of English reticence often masquerades as ignorance. Andy once took a long weekend in Paris, and overdid it at a series of “boits de nuits” (night boxes). Upon returning to his chamber he was unsure what the bidet was for. So he ended up throwing up in it—and the owner insisted he clean it up. Hence, Andy suffered the indignity of walking around hungover in Paris, handling a Hefty bag full of his own heave!
My second favorite story about him (possibly apocrophyl) was when he once left his luggage unattended in Victoria Station, and upon return happened upon British bobbies who proceeded to cordon off and explode his luggage!
The only bag I was carrying around in London, though, was my Jansport daypack, crammed with nonessentials. Hey, that awesome statue I saw out of nowhere was actually King George III, not George Washington, I realized, feeling a little like a traitor: Was I like Benedict Arnold (still a hero here) watching the Changing of the Guard and scarfing down scones and tea at Eliza Doolittle’s Covent Garden?
Big Ben bummed me out. The Parliament building seemed past its prime. St. Paul’s paled in comparison to St. Peter’s. And who isn’t disappointed when they find out that Piccadilly Circus is not a circus at all and that London Bridge never fell down–it was moved long ago piece by piece to the United States, on a whim of an eccentric American millionaire.
Since one of my ancestors was a Revolutionary War hero, Mad Anthony Wayne–who stole cows from the British during the long winter at Valley Forge, PA, to feed his starving troops–I liked to affect a healthy Yankee skepticism about the “Redcoats” with their Weetabix, Watney’s Red Barrel, and Royal “We’s.” Still, I felt flat out inferior in Jolly Olde England, my elongated vowels mangling the Mother Tongue. With their posh RP British accents, Londoners just sounded so darn smart.
I really believe the Bard wrote all of them plays himself. Back at my accommodation I really knew I was on Shakespeare’s “sceptr’d isle” when the dignified-looking concierge (a dead ringer for Alfred on “Batman”) told me I’d gotten a message in a smart RP accent: “Your friends will be at Cowgirl in the Sand at half past eight and”–he adjusted his spectacles–“Fungus Mungus at ten.” He deadpanned these titular extravagancies as if he were narrating “Masterpiece Theater.”
As a somewhat soul-searching Anglo-Celt American influenced by English literature (check out Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner–all the best writers are buried there), I couldn’t shake the feeling that the Secret of Happiness bloke hadn’t actually come clean with the goods. Certainly the secret of happiness was something more along the lines of “My Fair Lady”?! I decided to return to Hyde Park to interrogate the coffee-complected soothsayer again and take him to account.
Stopping at a red phone box along the way to make a quick call to Andy (who had recently had an amusing scare when a Caribbean colonist drop-kicked him, like Link from “The Mod Squad,” with the salvo, “You do not respect the black man!”), I noticed a powerfully built Londoner standing at the bus stop waiting for a doubledecker.
As I jingled and jangled the unfamiliar coins and fumbled with the phone box, the Londoner kept looking verily askance at me, shuffling around edgily on his feet.
Aha! A Cockney, I thought.
As I watched casually, I noticed the Cockney surreptitiously put one glove on his right hand. Why only one glove? I wondered absentmindedly, until I realized, with shades of OJ on my mind, that it might be one weighted glove to give yours truly a drubbing.
I walked briskly away from the phone box down the street, pretending to whistle. Unfortunately, Conan the Glovearian was close at my heels. I took up jogging. Looking back over my shoulder there was Tar Heels Jack running two blocks behind, ripping up the pavement, waving at me with his one gloved hand.
Finally I found an open Indian grocery and popped inside. Conan stopped outside the shop, briefly looked in. Then after a quick doubletake, the muscle-bound Brit bounded off down the street.
“Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun!” I sang to myself silently, feeling more cowardly than Noel Coward, and without the umlaut. Strangely, up close Conan looked more scared of me than I of him. Plus, he looked familiar. His expression resembled that of someone who had recognized an old friend in a crowd and chased him down.
Maybe I had him all wrong.
Maybe he just wanted to ask me a question or steer me toward the right sights.
Perhaps he was a distant relative who just wanted to say hello.
I had gotten away all too easily. He hadn’t put enough effort into it. The Clockwork Orangey Cockney, peradventure sort of unsatisfied with his brick-laying or chimney-sweeping job, had switched to a life of crime on a lark. An Agatha Christie enthusiast might have speculated that he was hired by the tourist bureau so I’d have a story to tell back home in my local bar.
In London, even attempted muggings make good theater, I guess? But I was secretly thrilled to have so easily evaded a dangerous “sitch.”
I wondered if Conan was a real live “football hooligan,” written about so memorably in Bill Buford’s Among the Thugs. Almost getting mugged in England seemed a relatively safe experience compared to getting rolled in the ex-Colonies, since none of the criminals carry guns. One thwack by a bobbie’s club and a dastardly villain would be laid low. Still, I admit I was a little shaken up, so I consoled myself by sucking down a bottle of Fuller’s London Pride, one of the best recent lagers on the market.
It was almost like my stroll through Hyde Park, in search of the secret of happiness, had been a setup of sorts. Indeed, the sun never sets on this British island of intrigue and adventure. At least, almost getting rolled, robbed, and clobbered by an aggro Cockney, for an enthusiastic “East Enders” fan, warranted an excited phone call home to the States.
Collect.