The One and Lonely

The Drama King holds court at The Royal Archer

It was an endless twilight of September 1990.

Standing on the overpass of the A617 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, imagine, dear reader, fifteen American scholars negotiating a grassy slope to The Royal Archer in Jesmond on Archbold Terrace.

The pub was nothing fancy. It was underneath a white office complex. From the outside, it looked like a modern strip-mall store. Small, rectangular windows. But inside, the Archer was warm and charming and traditionally British.

It had a mix of students and locals, but the two remained friendly, unlike deeper into Newcastle. It was hazardous to mix with the Geordies. Deeper into the semester, the hazards were just not warnings. Things got ugly — but I’ll get to that later.

The A617 divided the city.

A chilly drizzle persisted. My new consignment black overcoat protected my small journal. The coat still smells like British pubs and sorrow.

My master journal, a leather-bound, “Carpe Diem Europe” in gold lettering, remained in my flat where I shared space with good mates from Spain, China, Hong Kong, and Chester, England.

The journal was a gift from my friend Steve who inscribed, “The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.”

I was crippled around women, but I had loyal friends, even if I neglected them while chasing women. The weight of that journal served its purpose.

It’s full of so many stories.

My new friend, Alex Feldbaum, also from New Jersey, was slightly taller than me, about 5’8, with the sorrowful features that girls find attractive; the dark eyes, the brooding eyebrows, the mass of wavy black hair, and the thick lips. Alex was darker, edgier, and Jewish.

Although he never practiced, he knew about various religions. That’s one of the many things we shared. He was fit, but not thin, and definitely not the jock type.

He was also literary — more into poetry than I was — but two lit dudes are better than one dude lit. Alex had a cool dude factor. He wasn’t a “bad boy,” but he had that vibe.

For some reason, back then, I gravitated toward those guys. Insecurity? Sure. Vicarious thrill? Sure. Lessons about love and confidence, especially with women.

I admired Alex’s ability to engage strangers on the Newcastle Metro. I would record our chats with the Geordies. Did we understand anything? It was so much fun. We would head to the coast — to North Shields — and walk the boardwalk like back home in Ocean City, New Jersey.

Naturally shy then, which surprises people because I’m thought of as an extrovert now — I climbed aboard the Alex Train and took notes and enjoyed where his passport took me.

Alex had serious issues, including a few rounds of drugs in the past that landed him in rehab. My friend also wrote poetry, and over beers, Alex shared his musings. He wasn’t bad, actually.

I was mostly a prose writer. My thoughts needed at least 5,000 words — for the preface. Everyone knew I was a writer.

“I expect I’ll be reading something about myself in years to come,” Laura once told me in Paris. I traveled with Laura for almost three weeks.

We had been lounging under some “French” tree in the Champs de Mars by the Tour Eiffel, nibbling on baguettes and jam, waiting for the night train to take us to Zurich, Switzerland. If my notes are correct, we camped by a path called Allée Maurice Baumont. I wrote all afternoon, and wandered off to explore, while she rested.

She was always curious about what I was writing. Writers freak people out — like we’re stealing souls and stories — which we are. She read my Byronic love story “With Silence and Tears,” and said it was sad. It was hand-written in my journal, and I thought that meant progress — with Laura.

My literary prowess, after all, would eventually lead to hand-holding, kissing, and maybe even a breast or two. Was she impressed I won a college award for my short story “Ten Billion Footsteps?”

Would that lead to more — like love and — ?

“That’s nice,” she said.

The never-ending-saga-of-sad

I liked being alone with Alex, or with a group of buddies because it kept Alex away from Laura.

By now, by late September, three weeks into the fall semester at Newcastle where I was studying literature and history, I convinced myself that The Laura and Walter Saga was over. The Saga may have left the tarmac but crashed before takeoff. Even though everyone thought of us “together,” something starting with Alex made me crazy.

In the beginning, during meet and greet sessions with the other “International Students,” I knew Laura wanted me to introduce her. She had an eye for him — that I could tell.

Sexual jealousy was a deep well with me. Or was it more like an abyss? My best friend in England with a girl I had so thought I loved? It was selfish, I knew, but love is always selfish.

It would take years of therapy before I realized why I had so many obsessions and compulsions. Mostly, though, I just now fault my mental data chips for my undiagnosed Overfocused ADD — a real thing I have. How I was pre-wired?

One evening, early in the semester, maybe even the second day, the two of us, Alex and I, drinking buddies and chums and mates, stumbled upon the Royal Archer pub where the barkeep, Simon Snow, immediately took to the two lads from New Jersey.

He was lanky and friendly and smart with a bald head seemingly out of proportion with his body. He was a smiling giant. Simon eventually liked all the Americans who came to the Archer. He was sweet and good-natured and loved David Lynch films.

On Sunday evenings he invited the Americans to watch American football at his flat where they condensed a three-hour game into an hour. He was a barkeep but worked part-time as an animator for the BBC. Over the three weeks, Alex and I had been gaining a wider ring of followers. But maybe it was just Alex—

On this night Alex arranged for a fantasy stripper to surprise our Pakistani friend Jaz for his birthday. This notorious rake drank to excess. By evening’s end, Jaz’s turban was usually unraveled — dashing all stereotypes about Muslims. Was this a good or a bad thing?

The Pakis liked the Americans more than the British because the Americans were more open and welcoming to differences. We were not racists. His dad was fairly wealthy. He owned a car dealership in the area.

Most of our American friends were there; Texas Tom, the pretty girl from San Jose, the flirty Jill from Montclair College, the dipsy blonde with excessive make-up; Clive the soccer guy, the tidy and cute girl, Samantha, no one had a shot with because she was engaged and Christian; the lanky girl, the slim, shy guy who never spoke, and the sweet girl with the lip ring; and Greg, the surfer, into the Manchester “Shoe-gazer” sound. He’s one of the reasons I still listen to so much Brit Pop.

Oh, and Kimberly was there; she knew Laura from college, and they did not like each other. Kimberly, as I would find out later, had good reasons, and I never had a good reason for never getting together with Kim.

Laura had her flatmates there, too, from Sheffield, Bath, and Cornwall.

With The Happy Monday’s “Kinky Afro” playing in the background, Alex ordered a Strongbow cider for Laura and waved her five-pound note away. She thanked him and floated to a crowded table of girls in the corner.

Did I just see what I thought I saw? Didn’t I treat her to wine, too, in Paris and Venice and Rome?

Emotionally invested in a beer market: hold or sell?

“Look at that,” Alex said over the music with contempt, pointing to Professor Crosson who had cornered Montclair Jill by the bar. “I heard all about that creep. A friend of mine came to Newcastle last year, and the creep slept with her roommate from Rutgers.”

I couldn’t believe it; I liked Professor Crosson — I had two classes with him: the history of early Britons, the Anglo-Saxons, and a British History Colloquial course.

In his late fifties, Dr. Crosson had a massive head of hair, gray and black, and a large nose and an overbite. I enjoyed his lectures and the trips to Hadrian’s Wall, Holy Island, Alnwick, and Bamburgh Castle. I also read the 18th and 19th British Novels with two other professors — and all with British students.

Was the American Programme simply a way to prey on vulnerable American girls?

“What do we do?” I asked.

“I’ll fucking hit him if he tries anything,” Alex said.

One of the British girls I knew was there — Amy. She was short and had long straight, lovely blonde hair. She had a small, gold stud nose ring. The week before, I was dancing with her to The La’s “There She Goes” at the Student Union.

When I hear that song today, I’m still dancing with her— full of wonder and fun — especially since all thoughts of Laura vanished. I was kinda falling for Amy, but did I want to fall in love and then leave for the States?

Could I be one of those who “hooked up” during “Fuck a Fresher Week?”

Afterward, Amy and I had a Beatrice-Benedict repartee on the stairs about Anglo-American relations. It was our way of flirting, but I didn’t understand the motives of women interested in me. Alex nudged my elbow. “Go talk to her.”

“I’m not that type of guy.”

“What?” Alex exclaimed. “The type of guy who talks to girls?”

I shook my head while thinking, “No, the type who can manage two rods in the water.” I asked for another Newcastle Brown.

Perhaps the ale helped, but I still felt imprisoned — worried about my emotional security. Does everyone think I’m screwed up? All this tension — where is my outlet?

I was an obsessive drama king who weaved enchantments so thick it was impossible to unravel. Feelings of self-worth were enmeshed in the charm. Laura once told me that my “head was too full of facts and fantasies and that I had little common sense.”

It’s one of the truest things she ever told me.

But hoots of drunken laughter soon accompanied this husky woman as she cut a path through The Royal Archer with sawhorse shoulders. Dressed in a black cape, black leather boots, and a black bag, she brushed the crowd aside with her broom. Alex went up to her.

The witch cackled, “Wheear is t’ bfday lad?”

A circle developed around Jaz. After snuffing his cigarette butt on the floor, Jaz carried his almost empty pint, unbalanced and laughing, and called Alex “a fucking bastard.”

The witch directed Jaz to a seat. After taking off her black robe, she revealed a black leather halter with a garter and black lace stockings. Three waves of fat cascaded from her garter belt. She demanded that he take off his clothes. She squatted on his lap and unpacked a leather whip. Everyone now was yelling and shouting at the gangly, checker-boxered Jaz.

Professor Crosson placed his hand on my shoulder. “You Yanks know how to have a good time. Your friend looks good in boxers!”

The vibration in my ear made me shiver. He creeped me out.

The Witch, now straddling Jaz’s back, arched her back in simulated ecstasy, her hand cupping her breast, while she snapped a whip on the floor with the other hand. Jaz was bent over the chair, his hands and knees on the floor. She lightly slapped his ass, demanding a “thank you, ma’am.”

Why would Jaz humiliate himself? Was he really that smashed — tight — ?

“Let wee av roun’ o’ applause for Jaz for bein such eur spoarts,” the Witch said in a Yorkshire accent, the scowl evaporating.

Cheers and claps erupted as she presented Jaz a bottle of champagne. I clapped too, watching smiles — even the strangers.

There were many pretty girls in the pub that night, girls like Amy from Sheffield who were interested in my tales and my prose and my humor, but then I saw Laura kiss Alex. She wrapped her arms around his waist.

That was it. The night was over. Faces were alighted in laughter against me, bonded momentarily in a warped morality play. I swirled the remains of my Newcastle Brown, examined the logo, and toasted my vanity, “To the one and only.”

Spray from the champagne hit me as Jaz doused the pub in bubbly. “You fucking wankers!” Jaz shouted.

I silently agreed with Jaz.

A few minutes later, I wrote: “I loved you once in silence/ Now I grieve just the same/ Fools in love play many parts/ The worst is a foolish shame.”

Others were heading downtown for more frolicking. I crept up the grassy incline to Lovaine Flats #10, Room 3. I turned to George Eliot. After raunchy S&M, plus a kiss that broke my heart, the profane and the sacred, I needed the comfort, the decorum of the Victorians.

It was only September. Something just had to change — right? Or would I stick to my fantasy — or give up foolish desires and emotional investment? What about my friendship with Alex? Was I guarding and hoarding him, too? And what was up with that?

I didn’t know, then. But there was more drama on tap at The Royal Archer.

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