The Kicker of St. John’s Wood — Chapter 1
By Gary Wolf
What was simply extraordinary about that field goal with two seconds left on the clock was not the distance, as one might have expected. I had kicked several shots that season from over fifty yards, clearing the uprights with room to spare. No, it was rather a mental image, clear as the light of day. It was my grandfather’s face; his kind, serene countenance, almost as vivid as if he were there in person. “Jayesh, my boy,” I recalled him saying, “to accomplish anything in life, you must realize that success depends greatly on relaxation and concentration, and the two go hand in hand.” Years of similar enlightenment from his lips had prepared me for that stressful moment, enabling me to maintain total calm despite the roar of seventy thousand fans and the fact that the outcome of the game now depended on the angle and thrust of five toes connecting with a piece of leather.
My arms dangling loosely at my sides, my back arched forward, I awaited the snap of the ball. Gonzales the holder barked the count, enunciating several decoy words before uttering the decisive hut that brought the pigskin flying toward him. I launched myself into the two-step that resulted in my right leg pounding away with full force, lifting me briefly off the ground. It was not necessary to see the ball’s flight, for my eyes merely confirmed an inner sense that the kick was perfect, gloriously splitting the uprights from fifty-six yards out.
What happened next came so fast that all I remember is seeing the tight end Barton shrieking from behind his face mask as he leaped in the air, and then it seemed that in the same moment I was on the ground covered by a pile of bodies, writhing every which way like worms released from a can. It would be egotistical of me to claim that such an outburst of joy could result from my having broken the record for most consecutive field goals. It certainly boosted the celebratory energy, but the primary cause was that we had just won the last game of the regular season and had clinched the division.
Much as I shared the common sentiment of the moment, I was soon having trouble breathing, which somewhat dampened my enthusiasm. Luckily, Hubbard, one of our big offensive tackles, sensed the danger and began pulling bodies from the pile. The second I saw the sky, I was being hoisted in the air, and found myself perched on Hubbard’s huge shoulders. I’m no midget, six foot one, a hundred and ninety pounds, but next to this man-mountain I always felt like a toddler accidentally running into someone’s leg. I inclined forward and said thank you, though I doubt if he heard it, what with the noise of the crowd, compounded by fireworks and electronic explosions emanating from the stadium loudspeakers.
A pulsating human throng, with me at its center, gravitated toward the tunnel at the corner of the end zone. Prominent in my memory is one woman, with green and orange war paint on her face, leaning over the railing just above us, hollering to the point of pain, her upper lip curled back to her nose. Maybe I just imagined it that way, but maybe not; the excitement of the occasion produced some remarkable contortions. It makes more sense when you consider that this was the first time that our team, the New Mexico Coyotes, had made it into the playoffs. After five long and miserable years, the young NFL franchise finally pulled itself together. During that season, 2019, everything functioned like clockwork.
Not that we didn’t have some quality players from the outset. When the team was established, agents scoured the country looking for talent. They brought in some good material, including several players who were still with the Coyotes: the starting quarterback, Burt Stanwell; Thomas Hubbard, whom you already met; wide receiver Bill Harrison; and Thelonius Brown, the strong safety.
Brown had many laudable character traits, but he was drastically extroverted, at times quite over the top. He was proving it once again in the showers after the game. “Hey, Ja-hesh,” he said, deliberately mispronouncing my name. “What’s your secret? Do you pour curry oil all over your foot before you go out on the field”?
What good would it do to explain to him one more time that my only connection to India, aside from my first name, is that it happens to be my mother’s native land. I never lived there, I don’t speak any of the dialects, I’m not a Hindu, and we never ate curry at my house while I was growing up (my father hated it). But Brown was on a roll, his bravado exacerbated by the interception he returned for a touchdown in the third quarter.
Hubbard stepped into the shower between Brown and myself, effectively shielding me from further aggravation. This was a typical move on his part. From that very first season we played together six years previously, he had appointed himself my guardian angel. For all his three hundred and forty pounds, he was one of the gentlest human beings I have ever known. On the field, he hurled himself into the opposing players with a force that could damage a pickup truck. On the street, he would feel remorse for accidentally stepping on an ant.
I soaped and rinsed with great haste, grabbed a towel, and dried myself en route to my locker. This was one of my least favorite moments of football life. The sight of enormous, sweaty naked men, together with a stench that defies description, left me with a morose, sinking feeling, a sort of emotional claustrophobia. I hurriedly dressed myself and flew out of that malodorous swamp.
Upon exiting the locker room my path was blocked by the special teams coach, Joe Gramercy, who had an attractive young lady at his side. “Jayesh,” he said, “I’d like you to meet Marcy Huddlewell, senior correspondent for the women’s sports magazine Breast of Iron. Marcy, this is Jayesh Blackstone, our champion field-goal kicker.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Could you spend a couple of minutes with Marcy in the press lounge”? asked Gramercy, knowing that I could hardly refuse.
Long experience had taught me that a couple of minutes with a reporter means at least half an hour. Well, I thought, at least it might save me from the crowd of autograph-seekers that inevitably congregated around the players’ exit after a game. Gramercy escorted the two of us up to the lounge, located on the middle level of the stadium, next to the press boxes. We took the elevator, which deposited us a few steps from our destination. The coach opened the door and led us inside. The place was empty, aside from the bartender and two or three cleaning personnel.
I marveled at the swanky decor, so out of tune with the rest of the rather threadbare facility. Above our heads were huge, crystal-laden chandeliers; spread across the floor was a plush carpet. The seats in the booths were covered with a soft, luxurious leather, and the table-tops were a highly shellacked, golden-colored oak in which the rings of the tree were visible. Huddlewell and I parked ourselves in one of those booths. Gramercy went to the bar to order drinks for myself and the lady, and then quietly slipped out the door.
I was all alone with the Breast of Iron writer. She had fluffy blond hair, about shoulder length, and a nicely shaped figure. Despite the cool temperature, she was wearing a tank top, exposing her thin but muscular arms. Her left bicep featured a tattoo of a woman curling a barbell. As Huddlewell spread her papers and recording equipment on the table, she flashed a devious smile. I braced myself, knowing full well that there were only two types of journalist in the world: the sympathetic and the hostile. In the former case, they bend the story to make you look good; in the latter, they bend it to make you look bad.
“So, Jayesh,” said Huddlewell, lifting her chin and sniffling quite audibly, “how does it feel to break the all-time consecutive field-goal record”?
“It feels good,” I said, “and I could do it only because of the great players on the team, who clear the way for me, and of course our special teams coach, Joe Gramercy.” I finally said it just the way our director of public relations had instructed me.
The sportswriter displayed an acerbic little pout. “That’s really nice, Jayesh. Tell us a bit about yourself. Not the usual stuff that everyone knows. Something different.”
The bartender arrived with our drinks. “I’m not sure what you’re looking for,” I said, taking a sip of my soda. “Could you be more specific”?
“Okay then, Mr. Blackstone, let’s start with your life stats, and then we’ll dig out something juicy. When exactly did you come here from India”?
“Uhh…I didn’t come from India. I came from England, in the year 2000.”
She looked perplexed. Her reaction was nothing I hadn’t seen before. It’s understandable, because I so look the part. I rectified the misunderstanding by reciting my standard biographical speech: “I was born and raised in London. My father is American, he was on assignment there for an American company when he met my mother, who comes from India. I am named after my mother’s brother, who died just before I was born. I lived in the St. John’s Wood section, I went to the American School, and then did my bachelor’s degree in philosophy and English literature at Yale. I am now, and have always been, an American citizen.”
“You never lived in India”?
“No. In fact, I visited only once, for about a week. My relatives there are quite distant. Most of my mother’s family lives in Europe or the U.S.”
“I see,” said Huddlewell, looking disappointed. She shuffled some papers. “How does it feel to be the first star Indian player in American football”?
I felt blood rush to my head, and I almost took the bait. But, drawing upon my grandfather’s priceless lessons, I imposed a state of relaxation on my body. “I wouldn’t know,” I answered, without displaying emotion.
“Okay,” she said, in a tone of voice laced with impatience. “Now a question that will especially interest our readers. What would you say is your sexiest body part”?
“My toenail,” I declared, surprising myself with the speed and alacrity of the response, something that doesn’t occur with great regularity.
She sniffled, eyeing me up and down. “Would you agree that you have a cute little butt”?
I responded with an icy silence. Huddlewell’s face settled into a smirk. I looked at my watch. She asked a few more football-related questions, trying to demonstrate technical knowledge. I answered with the necessary level of detail. We parted coldly but in a civil manner.
I found my way downstairs to the exit, and hurried across the players’ parking lot. Dusk had begun to descend. A cool wind was blowing, bringing with it the refreshing scent of New Mexico’s desert terrain. I breathed in deeply, feeling my overall level of tension decline a notch. As I was about to open the door of my car, I heard “Jayesh,” and turned around to see our PR director, Hank Hannibal, half-run half-stumble his way toward me. His collar was soiled by the band of sweat and grit around his neck.
“Jayesh, I had to see you before you go,” he said.
“Sure, Hank, what is it”?
“What did Marcy Huddlewell have to say”?
“How did you find out about that”?
“How long have you been playing on this team”? he countered. “You know that nothing happens with the media that I’m not aware of. So how was it”?
I was distracted by Hannibal’s chin and forehead, which both protruded noticeably, giving his head a half-moon shape. “The interview was okay,” I said. “I gave her your line about being indebted to the team and the coach. Things got a little tense, though, when she asked me about body parts.”
“What do you expect”? said Hannibal, wearing a wry grin. “She’s writing for her audience. Anyway, that’s not what I came to discuss. Big things are happening for you, kiddo. I mean big things.”
“How big”? I asked in a sarcastic manner, my mind wandering to the hot tub that awaited me at home.
“The White House,” said Hannibal, dropping his grin and retracting the entire half-moon down into his collarbone. “That’s how big.”
“The White House”?
“Oh, now we’re impressed,” he said, taking a step back and waving his finger. “Nothing less than being a personal guest of President Vesica Malpomme.”
“President Malpomme”? I said, not believing my ears. “I didn’t think she was such a big football fan.”
“What difference does it make? They’re having a reception for Asian people…for Asian…oh what the hell is it…” Hannibal extracted a sheet of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket. “Oh yeah, here it is. Disadvantaged Asians in Sports and Entertainment. I had to pull a few strings to get you in there, Jayesh, don’t think it was easy.”
“But I’m not disadvantaged and I’m not Asian,” I protested.
“Oh, come on,” he moaned, giving me a pat on the shoulder. “Play along. Be Asian. What do you care? For God’s sake, Jayesh, you look like Mahatma Gandhi on steroids. Anyway, the reception’s not until late March. With you breaking that field goal record, and who knows what’ll happen in the playoffs, you might be front and center in this event. The exposure is tremendous. Are you aware what this is worth in TV commercials alone? You can write your own ticket.”
Hannibal looked so enthusiastic, so genuinely pleased on my behalf, that I didn’t have the heart to tell him what I really felt. “Okay, thanks Hank,” I said. “We’ll talk more about it later, I’m sure.” We shook hands, and I stepped into my car.
I needed to decompress. Fortunately, my fully-loaded 2015 Salzburger sedan had a mood panel. I set it to “mellow evening” as I rolled toward the gate. Quite promptly the appropriate mix of smell, temperature, humidity, light, and music were combined for a relaxing cruise. I left the stadium grounds, and was soon heading south on the freeway toward the city.
The stadium was located in the far northern reaches of the Albuquerque metropolitan area, on land that had been purchased from an Indian tribe. On my right stretched the valley that led down to the Rio Grande. On the horizon was a crisp and fiery sky, typical of a winter dusk in New Mexico. On my left were the Sandia Mountains, rising majestically to a height of over ten thousand feet. The light of the setting sun bathed them in a deep orange glow, an effect I always savored, knowing that it was inevitably short-lived. I exited the freeway onto a secondary road that took me into the Far Northeast Heights, arriving within minutes at my residence. It was located within a gated, heavily-secured compound that was one of the most desirable addresses in Albuquerque.
I quite liked my house. It was, to quote a former girlfriend, an “adobe palace.” Palace was a stretch, but I certainly did spend a lot of money on it. The most alluring feature was the indoor/outdoor spa. There was a sauna, a Jacuzzi, a swimming pool, and a training room. The furnishings and decorative objects were all of the Southwestern/Native American style—with the exception of a painting by Pissarro.
Although Pissarro is my favorite painter, I am ashamed to admit that I spent half my annual salary on a single work of art. It was at an auction in Monte Carlo in the spring of 2015. That purchase marked the culmination of a week-long shopping spree in which I acted the part of jet-set celebrity. It’s a week that I would gladly expunge from my memory. I threw money around, buying my Salzburger sedan, the Pissarro, designer clothes, Rolex watches, women, you name it. It was one of the most sickening displays of arrogance that has ever befallen me. The only beneficial aspect of the experience is that it alerted me to the dangers of sudden wealth. When you earn more in one year than most men earn in a lifetime, it has its side effects. I still can’t get over the fact that I’m paid obscene amounts of money to kick a ball between two poles. It makes me dizzy.
What’s more, I’m not overly athletic. Sure, I always played sports, and did well. But what really matters is that from a tender age, I had an uncanny ability to place-kick a football, in perfect end-over-end fashion, to any spot I chose. I clearly remember my awakening: In London, when I was eleven years old, I went to Regent’s Park to play football with some of my classmates from the American School. It was fourth down. We couldn’t decide, first if it were even possible to kick a field goal without goal posts, and then whether anyone could attempt it. We stretched an imaginary line, starting from the branch of a tree, across the “end zone” of our little field. For some reason, I volunteered for this job that nobody wanted. I shuddered when I gauged the distance, probably no more than twenty yards, though it appeared to me then as a chasm. Something possessed me as the ball was snapped and held. My foot seemed to lift into the air of its own accord, hitting the ball at the perfect spot and the perfect angle. It gracefully sailed away, arriving at exactly the destination I intended. From that time on, I was able to out-perform any other field-goal kicker of my age group.
It wasn’t long after arriving at the adobe palace that I settled my weary bones into the Jacuzzi. I desperately needed that therapeutic bath. As always, it turned me into a sloth, and I had to dig deeply for energy with which to drag my poor body to bed. I certainly don’t want to overstate the case, as if I were a “real” football player, bruised and battered from the gridiron; that would be pretentious. I’m one of those people on the field whose uniform is usually as clean at the end of a game as it is at the beginning. But I will say this: The tension I feel is enormous, and it can be deadly. Some players fall ill from it, without ever being called off the bench. In some ways the really physical guys have it better. At least they have an outlet for their nervous energy.
The next day was Monday, our precious post-game day off. A more appropriate venue for the occasion could hardly be found than the home of my friend and holder, Steve Gonzales. Nestled in the foothills of the Sandia range, it was a sprawling twenty-acre wooded retreat. Everything about it was relaxing: the patios, the stables, the wood-burning fireplaces, the massive leather couches into which one sagged like a sack of potatoes. I headed there for lunch, as Steve and I had planned while chatting on the sidelines during the game.
I should tell you a bit about Steve before I recount the visit. In addition to being my holder, he was the second-string quarterback of the Coyotes. Back in college days, as star quarterback at the University of New Mexico, Steve was the closest thing to God. Handsome, from a wealthy and prominent family, a fine athlete, he lacked nothing. When you saw him, with that dignified, dark Spanish look, he took your breath away. And he was six-four, two hundred and thirty-five pounds, without an ounce of fat. He didn’t need to open his mouth. Just a glance from his piercing black eyes was enough to confound anyone.
But there’s a sad side to the story. Steve never made it big in the pros. Sure, he had some impressive plays to his credit, but it was clear from the beginning that he would never be the starting quarterback. Over the years, he spent most of the time warming the bench. The most reliable employment he had was to set the ball on the ground and hold it, awaiting the swing of my leg. Steve could still draw attention whenever he set foot in an Albuquerque restaurant, but it was that respectful, somewhat reserved admiration for past achievements, and not the spontaneous eruption of excitement for an individual who is breaking new ground.
He was married to the lovely Rebecca, a girl he had known since high school. She was his female counterpart, matching him in beauty and heritage. They had a little boy, Mario, barely a year old.
Steve and I took a stroll through the woods. It was a crisp day under the cloudless New Mexico sky, chilly but not too cold. Steve was dressed casually, in what I call his “mountain attire”: cowboy boots, a checkered flannel shirt, and blue jeans adorned with a turquoise-studded belt buckle. Something was bugging him, I could tell. For most people, and for myself at first, Steve was hard to read. He always maintained that sang froid suited to his station in life, a quality inculcated in him since childhood. But when you work with a man as a team, a duo, as closely as we did, you learn to decipher the subtleties. It was somewhat akin in this respect to a pair of policemen in their patrol car.
After talking for a few minutes about the game, I changed the subject. “Is everything okay with you, Steve”? I asked.
“Well, not really, Jayesh,” he replied. He bent over to pick up a small branch, which he proceeded to fiddle with absent-mindedly. “I can’t discuss it with you, I’m afraid. It’s a personal matter.”
“All right,” I said. “If that changes, let me know.”
“I certainly will,” he said, with his understated smile. “By the way, I saw you go off with the lovely Miss Huddlewell.”
I chuckled. “It’s true, I did. So you’ve tangled with her”?
“Oh, yes.”
“You never mentioned it.”
Steve snapped a twig from the branch. “It was a couple of years ago. She interviewed me in a pub down on Central Avenue. The whole time she only wanted to know about my Mexican roots and what I thought about the Separatista movement. I told her five times that I have nothing to do with any such organization. I also tried to explain that my ancestors are from Spain. We’re not Mexican. It was just like that guy from the TV station, the one I told you about last week. It happens all the time.”
We returned to the house. Rebecca called us to the dining room, where the Guatemalan maid was just beginning to serve lunch. That room always fascinated me. There was a long table made from a ponderous old slab of exotic dark wood, supported by equally imposing posts that rested on lion’s feet. On the wall behind the head of the table was a coat of arms. Against the adjoining wall was a huge breakfront, made of the same wood as the table. Its shelves held numerous utensils, including a set of antique pewter plates and mugs. Whenever I entered that room, I expected the Knights of the Round Table to join us for some eating, drinking, and merriment.
Lunch was pleasant. Rebecca did most of the talking, giving me an update on Mario and on assorted domestic goings-on. This was fine by me, since I was never quite sure what to say at the Gonzales home. Aside from the football connection, we really don’t have much in common.
After the meal, Steve accompanied me to the Salzburger. I repeated my willingness to listen to any problems he wished to share. He smiled and thanked me, assuring me that everything would work out just fine.
The next day, Tuesday, the team resumed its practice sessions. The practice complex, which also housed the executive offices of the Coyotes, was located about a quarter of a mile from the edge of the stadium compound. The original plan was to build everything together in a cluster, but agreement could not be secured from the association that managed the buffalo herds, which grazed on an eighty-acre strip of land that ran through the center of the parcel. In the end, the buffalo remained, and the practice complex was split off from the stadium.
Our field conjured up images of gladiators in ancient Rome, preparing themselves for combat. Scattered about were machines of the most ingenious design. One of my favorites was the Charger, half a dozen vertical pads, seven feet high and three feet apart, meant to simulate a wall of linemen. Each pad was held in place by a shaft that protruded from an engine about fifteen feet to the rear. The machine could be programmed so that the pads resisted with a given amount of force, and at variable rates. The pads also moved in different directions. It was quite a spectacle to watch six human rhinoceroses hurl themselves into the pads, which more often than not outsmarted and outpushed the players, thrusting them onto their backsides.
The equipment that Steve and I used for kicking practice was more refined. There was a hiking machine that snapped the ball at a preset rate or by voice command. We also had cameras and sensory devices that generated films and diagrams of the ball’s trajectory. This provided us with all sorts of information that enabled us to adjust and hone our routine.
In practice that day, Steve looked distracted. Several times I had to repeat myself when he failed to absorb my words on the first go. Then, something happened that was unprecedented: He dropped the ball twice in a row as it was fired at him from the hiking machine. After the second drop, he excused himself for a short break and ran over to the main building.
After watching Steve recede from view, I put a tee on the grass, intending to practice kickoffs until his return. After the first kick, I had a vague perception of eyes at my back, and turned around to see Ramirez, the groundskeeper, leaning against the post that held one of our cameras. A cigarette was hanging out of his unshaven face. “Hey, Jayesh,” he said, with his thick Mexican accent. “What do you think about your amigo”?
“Something’s bothering him,” I said, not sure how to state the obvious.
“Yeah, I know.”
“You know”?
Ramirez detached himself from the post and waddled over. He took a deep drag on the cigarette, flicked it onto the ground, and stomped it out. “Your friend Gonzales, he has, well…maybe someone else gonna hold for you.”
“Someone else”? I blurted. “What are you talking about”?
He was shaking his head. “I’m not telling you anything, okay”?
I was familiar with this standard disclaimer of his, recited before spilling a morsel of gossip. “Okay, then” I said. “You’re not telling me anything.”
Ramirez looked to each side before speaking. “Listen, he still gonna be the regular holder. But they want a special thing, someone come in once or twice, for the newspapers.”
I looked at him in disbelief. The frightening thing was that he was quite reliable, always a purveyor of solid information. Something was most certainly transpiring, but getting to the bottom of it was no simple matter. “When is this going to happen? Who’s going to replace him”? I asked.
“That’s all I know, Jayesh,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. He started to walk away, leaving me alone with the hiking machine.
Steve returned, and we continued our kicking exercises. His concentration was still not a hundred percent, but it was adequate. Several times I was about to say something, but each time I desisted, not sure how to compose my words. It did not seem reasonable that he would be so upset by the prospect of being temporarily replaced as my holder. After all, there was no glory in it, except for the fake field-goal play we ran once per season (and which had rarely been successful).
Steve went to join a group of players, as quarterback, for some “real” football, while I continued to practice my kicking. A bit later, I had a general workout: running, weight lifting, and calisthenics. Then I went to Moe, our masseur, for a rubdown of my legs. I did this every day to prevent cramps in those crucial muscles that constitute the Jayesh Blackstone field-goal machine.
I cornered Steve as he was getting dressed in the locker room. This time I didn’t pause to formulate my speech. “I heard they want to bring in someone else to hold for me.”
He was buttoning his shirt. “Yes,” he said, remaining calm.
“When is this supposed to happen”? I asked. “And why”?
“It’s only for the Super Bowl, in case we get there. And just for one field goal or extra point. One kick, that’s all.” Steve sat down to put on his shoes.
“I don’t get it.”
He looked up at me with his piercing black eyes. “You’ll get it when you see her.”
“Her?” I exclaimed.
“Yes, her. A woman. If we win the conference, she’ll come to practice with us.”
“What if we don’t get to the Super Bowl”?
Steve finished tying his laces and stood up to his full height. “Then she’ll play on one of the competing teams. The thing is, they prefer that she hold for you.”
“Me? Is this a joke”? My blood was boiling, and my grandfather’s face was nowhere in sight. “A woman holding for me? What’s this all about? Let’s go see Coach Gramercy.”
Steve shut his locker. “Jayesh, calm down. Let’s take a little walk to the parking lot.” We left the locker room, walked down a short hallway, and emerged from the building. Steve resumed his recitation of the story. “No one is supposed to know about this, it’s not public yet. So we have to keep a lid on it.”
“Okay,” I said. “How did you find out”?
“Some people I know in the back office. The main idea is to have the first woman ever to play in a professional football game, and do it in a big way. We both know that the pressure on the league has been tremendous.”
“Who’s the woman”?
“That I don’t know.”
We paused at the spot where we needed to go separate ways to our cars. “This is crazy,” I said. “A woman in pro football? And I might be the one the whole world sees, etched forever into the record books? No way, I won’t do it.”
“I feel exactly as you do, Jayesh, but it’s not so simple. Would you toss away a Super Bowl victory? Could you do that to everyone on the team”?
I took a deep breath. Steve had framed all too well the dilemma looming on the horizon.
“Anyway,” he continued, “let’s see what happens when we play the wild card team, Nebraska, on Sunday. You remember how they beat us in the regular season. We’re not very likely to win.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, trying to swallow the bitter pill. “Now I know why you were upset.”
He smiled. “We’ll pull through this together. Let’s take a couple of days to think about it, okay”?
I nodded, and said goodbye.
This time around, in my Salzburger, I forgot to set the mood panel, and paid no attention to the setting sun. My mind was elsewhere. I felt indignant that the team’s coaching staff would undertake such a move without consulting me, or at least notifying me of their decision. After all, an historic moment was about to occur, and it would forever mark my career.
At home that evening, I was still agitated by the events of the day. I had a fleeting impulse to run away, to a place where I would not be aggravated by the dilemmas that faced me. This of course was not practical, so I turned my thoughts to a possible trip in mid February, safely beyond post-season play. I parked myself at the computer, and began to check destinations and packages.
High on the list was London. I didn’t relish the thought of visiting the city in winter, but the trip was long overdue. My parents had been living in the U.S. for some time (in Houston, where my father’s company was located), but there were still many people dear to me in London: my sister Julie, my grandfather, various relatives, and some friends with whom I kept in contact.
My mind wandered to childhood days. I pictured myself strolling along the high street in St. John’s Wood, peering into the windows of its shops and specialty boutiques. Then there was the family house on Hamilton Terrace, nestled among stately apartment buildings and grand old mansions. In those days, there were still quite a few streets that preserved the traditional English charm. It was a backdrop that could never be replaced. I enjoyed living in America, including New Mexico, but from time to time I would sink into a melancholy mood as nostalgia for Old London overtook me.
I snapped out of my torpor. Refocusing my attention on the computer, I accessed the online version of Breast of Iron, to see whether Marcy Huddlewell had managed to cobble together a story from our disjointed interview. “Cobble” is an understatement. She wrote of “the arrogant Jayesh Blackstone, an Asian who fancies himself as an upper-class British snob, a classic white-male wannabe rejecting his Third World roots. He came to America to show the natives how to kick a ball. When complimented on his good looks, he unleashed a torrent of insults that demonstrates exactly how much class he really has.”
