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The Nature Of Love Revealed
By Ross Eldridge
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"When you are round boys, you should
sit with your legs crossed so they don't see what you got."
These words-from a young girl dressed in her
middle school uniform and wearing a rhinestone-studded tiara-were addressed to
the television audience by way of a newsman and his camera crew. The girl's
teacher had just given an interview about an after-school programme that
encouraged young girls to be modest, ladylike, versed in etiquette, yet not shy
and retiring. The girl with the tiara had earned the highest grade, and was
presented to the viewing public as a role model for her peers. She had smiled
coyly at her fame, and was ready when asked what was the most important thing
she had learned. "When you are round boys."
I am sure that I could improve this little
story by describing what local news came before and after it, because news
generated here in Bermuda tends to be quaint, and usually funny. I must have
heard the preceding items, but after the girl's pronouncement I was laughing so
much that I forgot the earlier stories and missed the rest of the news, the
stock market indices, as well as the weather forecast for the Bermuda area. Oh!
Let it rain!
Certainly, this is a fine course of study for
young ladies seeking a life of deportment rather than vulgarity. The child
earned that tiara if just for her brilliant comment on the evening news. I'd
love to have seen interviews with some of the girls who didn't make the grade.
Of course, I'm British, and I always hope for stories involving bums, tits,
knickers and buggery.
I live across the road from a park called the Montpelier Arboretum, which has
been far less wooded since Hurricane Fabian blasted Bermuda last September 2003.
A year before that, visitors to the Arboretum started reporting sightings of a
naked male. Of course, these stories made the local newspaper, usually page
three, and the evening news on television.
As the stories spread, I noticed increased activity in the Arboretum, with
dozens driving to the park to eat their boxed lunches. To the best of my
knowledge, the "Arboretum Bandit" did not turn up for the lunch crowd.
I'm not sure if anyone was apprehended, or whether the flasher moved on.
Last summer, an American tourist went to the police and reported that as she
walked onto the Warwick Long Bay beach, on our South Shore, early one morning, a
naked man leapt out from behind a sand dune, apparently happy to see her. At
least he wasn't carrying a gun. The tourist actually walked on down the beach,
thinking the incident too silly to make a fuss over. Her eventual report to the
police continued. Farther down the beach, another naked man leapt out from
behind another sand dune. Clearly, the woman had a two-for-the-price-of-one
coupon. She registered her complaint.
And that should have been enough. However, even later in the season, someone
with one of those mobile phones that can take snapshots caught a flasher in
action on our spectacular Horseshoe Bay Beach. That one was on the front page of
the Royal Gazette, suitably blurred where it is supposed to count.
In July, Bermuda's finest arrested the first flasher of the 2004 season. Not at
the beach. This bloke was outside an apartment block wearing only sandals. The
news report said black sandals. Could that matter? Who would notice that?
About a year ago, my sister boasted to me that her son, then sixteen, had a
first girlfriend, and that the girl in question was a year ahead of him at
school. My sister cooed: "An older woman." My sister had convinced my
nephew to invite the girl over for dinner, and then added that the girl might
like to come over earlier and prepare their meal for them. I'm sure the girl had
no intention of cooking the meal; she'd have thought the invitation out to
dinner was an opportunity to enjoy her boyfriend's parents' fare. I asked what
food the dinner guest was being asked to provide. Spaghetti. I'll remark on
that.
I do not often eat at my sister's home, as she is actually worse at cooking than
our mother was. The house specialty at my sister's is spaghetti, with the
unheated pasta sauce in a jar on the table. No meatballs. No garlic toast. A
spoon for the sauce is all you get. She orders the same when they eat out, and
when she persuades a dinner guest to come over and make the meal.
A few days later, I telephoned my sister to hear how the evening with the first
sweetheart had gone. The girl had turned up, which shows she was reasonably
brave; and had made spaghetti, which went down well with the hosts; and had not
run away screaming. I can't explain how she managed to stay for the entire meal
and conversation. Would she have left saying: "Thanks for having me!"
while meaning it?
My sister told me she'd told the first girlfriend, as they ate spaghetti, that
she'd taken my nephew to the drugstore and made him buy condoms. My sister's
cheerful words to the girl on this first meeting: "So he won't get you
pregnant."
I'm sure the young woman was pleased to hear that, but it was not enough to keep
her interested in my nephew. The love boat had gone on the rocks as it left the
pier. Last I heard, my nephew was applying to join the Royal Navy.
A friend's mobile phone rang while I was talking with him and his wife as we
visited someone we all knew. The friend was trying to hold the telephone with
one hand, and his drink with the other, and the caller wanted him to write down
a message. He looked panicked and admitted defeat, so his wife grew another pair
of arms and took the phone from him. She juggled plates and the phone, held a
drink, took a message, carried on a few conversations and told a joke, all at
the same time. I believe she could have done all of that and more, talking in
sign language, if necessary. It was something to watch, I'll tell you.
"Men," said my friend's wife, "are no good at multitasking."
"What do you mean?" cried out her indignant husband.
"You are a great example of what I'm saying. The only time you can do any
multitasking is when you are fantasizing having sex with a pair of identical
twins."
"Oh!"
"And you still can't do it."
When you throw a wedding reception on the lawn outside your bed-sit apartment,
and your guests are eating, drinking, singing, dancing and carrying on, and a
weather-front roars in across the Great Sound, you need each guest to be a
sprinter, flexible, and not claustrophobic.
There were about forty of us-all but three or four were adults-holding plates of
food and odd bits of stereo equipment including a karaoke machine, as we crammed
into the little apartment. The whisper went out: "The rain won't last long.
Pass my plate into the kitchen for more chicken." And plates were passed
from person to person, refilled, and sent back. As there were dozens of
casseroles, pots, pans and heated servers, it was remarkable that those who
wanted spring rolls got them, and those that fancied a nice bit of squid got
that sent back.
I stood near the doorway, another half-dozen guests had arrived in the rain,
couldn't fit inside, so they stood outside under umbrellas while eating and
drinking. The whisper went out: "The rain won't last long. I hear the cake
is fabulous."
Next to me was a young lady who is somewhat less than five feet tall, even in
heels and with her hair up. As I passed plates to and from the kitchen, I looked
down. The young lady was looking up, or trying to. Her blouse was unbuttoned
somewhat lower than she wished and she smiled up at me and said: "I'd
better button this shirt, or Ross will look down and learn the nature of
love." She used the word "learn" and not "see".
I wondered why my short friend chose that expression to excuse her actions as
she adjusted her clothing. She could have said I might learn the chicken dance,
or Tagalog, or geriatric nursing. Happens I know she has experience of all
those. Apparently, there was more going on. The rule is: Don't let them see what
you got.
You can laugh in a jam-packed room, but it must be like the action of the
stadium "wave". In order to do it well, all must take part. And I
laughed and the laughter moved into the room, a little faster than a plate
looking for a third helping of kebabs. The Nature of Love? Indeed!
____________________
Ross Eldridge has a fantasy: He's sitting on a
wicker peacock chair, dressed in a white linen suit, cigarette in a holder, hair
slicked down, one leg crossed over the other, a red silk stocking revealed, a
black patent leather shoe pointed slightly down. In his fantasy, Ross says:
"Kak zamechatel'no! Eti doma takie vysokie, chto dazhe ptitsam nelegko
vzletet' do krysh." It's probably a good thing this is just a fantasy.
Where could you get a red silk stocking in 2004? Oh, Ross wants to write comedy.
You need that? REwriter@northrock.bm will get you there.
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