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In the
Wyoming high country, the biting creatures were out and their
impending attack made me loopy. I used to imagine that if I
were ever in a situation that required grace under pressure,
like if I was cornered in the dojo of a pernicious aikido
master, I would address the challenge coolly, logically and
maybe boldly. The threat to Lynn and me, as we hiked in
Yellowstone National Park, was not grave, but it was a perfect
opportunity to test my mettle. Unfortunately, my response was
more than disappointing, it was—as I like to say—“darn right
embarrassing.” It did crystallize for me, however, the answer
to a question that I’d occasionally dwelled upon for the last
decade, namely, “Why didn’t I ever date Helena Bonham Carter?”
The crucible
that forged my revelation emerged about a mile into our hike,
when Lynn warned that a moth on my elbow was behaving
strangely. Most moths flutter away when brushed, but she
noticed that when I inadvertently pulled my elbow to my side, it
stayed put. I moved deliberately to brush it away, thinking
that it would fly off before being touched, but instead, my
gentle brush smashed it, covering my palm with blood. I looked
carefully for evidence of the moth, but there was none. The
moth ceased to exist. There was no mark on my elbow, no
bug-like remains, only the blood on my palm.
This
confused me and somehow that confusion triggered irrational
thoughts. Unless I’m mistaken, science hasn’t yet discovered a
vampire moth. There’s the busty woman that turns into a giant
blood-thirsty moth in the Peter Cushing movie The Blood
Beast Terror, but that’s a little different. As far as I
was concerned at the instant when I was attacked—is that too
strong a verb here?—moths were merely a minor nuisance,
particularly the ones—the size of small birds—that fly into your
face at San Diego Padres games. Of course, I knew that there
was nothing to worry about, but I was sick of our hike and
craved an excuse to stop, so I began to worry about moths
anyway.
We were at
the halfway point of an eight-day stay in Yellowstone, mentally
and physically in need of a brisk hike; in the past two weeks,
we’d seen some of America’s lushest habitats almost exclusively
from our car. In our first four days at Yellowstone, for
instance, we averaged about six hours in the car and about one
mile of walking, always on the heavily traveled trails next to
parking lots. On these trails, we strolled next to
great-grandmothers walking next to five-year-olds and
sidestepped morbidly obese families.
In
Yellowstone our hotel was close to 7,000 feet above sea level,
so we had an excuse for the first day, at least. Still, by Day
Four, our sloth embarrassed us. We’d driven over 150 miles a
day in the park, but during our entire road trip to that point,
we’d barely hiked ten miles, not counting strolls on city
streets. That’s not acceptable behavior for people who display
a Sierra Club emblem on their car. What would John Muir think
of this? He’d come to the same conclusion that we did: The
Lewises are soft, lazy, unworthy citizens. We needed to take
hikes, not little half mile loops from the parking lots, but
real hikes. Ones that would require us to take a bottle of
water, band aids for blisters and maybe even a map and compass.
I checked
with a ranger and read several publications, hoping to find a
suitable hike to break us in. The excellent Watching
Yellowstone and Grand Teton Wildlife by Todd Wilkinson
suggested several, including a promising one through Midway
Geyser Basin. It was a summer Saturday, which meant large
crowds at the park, so its description sounded great:
When
we choose to escape the huge crowds with our families, we head
to Midway Geyser Basin...Elk and bison are regularly seen here
as well as coyotes, and occasionally grizzlies and wolves.
Keep your eyes open for raptors and remember not to feed the
ravens.
Large
mammals, raptors, no crowds—that’s the hike for us.
As we pulled
into the parking lot, we couldn’t help but notice that the views
of Midway Geyser Basin were not particularly appealing, at least
by Yellowstone standards. It was flat, brown and
featureless—apart from a beige thermal pool that stank of
sulfur. The excuses for not taking this hike began to flow. I
wanted to see moose at dusk elsewhere in the park and we were
getting a late start. I didn’t bring a map of the area. It was
hot and we were low on water. We forgot to buy bug spray.
These were feeble excuses that we rightly ignored, at least
until the moth encounter.
As I
mentioned earlier, I welcomed any excuse to end this hike. Can
you think of a better excuse than a vampire moth bite? We kept
plodding along for about five minutes after the incident, but
for me there was nothing fun about it. The only animals we saw
on our walk were ravens and bugs. To take my mind off the heat,
bugs and smell of rotten eggs, I tried to remember the details
of a Philip K. Dick short story in which intelligent,
propane-torch-wielding moths stow away aboard a time machine in
order to destroy mankind. Thinking of this story only made me
more aware of the dive-bombing bugs, which seemed to be getting
more plentiful. Thankfully, it didn’t take much to persuade
Lynn to turn back because she was parched.
After the
initial moth attack, I made indifferent swats at bugs that
approached, similar to how I imagined a Bedouin would casually
flick his camel whip at flies, but as the bugs increased, my
flicks became vehement flails. Then, I began to walk very fast,
like a race-walker, but with a less pronounced hip wiggle. This
put me far ahead of my wife, so to avoid ditching her, I walked
in a zig-zag, from one side of the path to the other. That’s
vehement flails and a zig-zag race walk with a hip wiggle. I
was kinetic.
Lynn’s
response—after her hysterical laughter subsided—was to call me
Cecil, after Cecil Vyse, the Daniel Day-Lewis character in A
Room With a View. Cecil Vyse is a Victorian prig who
ineffectually woos Helena Bonham Carter’s character. She
prefers the virile George Emerson to the effete Cecil, who is
part Niles Crane, part Pee Wee Herman, but with the humor of Sam
the Eagle. A wife with a husband acting like Cecil Vyse is a
wife who wants to return immediately to the car.
The Cecil
comment started me thinking about Helena Bonham Carter, which
brought to mind the year I spent studying at the University of
Sheffield in northern England. When I set foot on English soil
in 1994, I held two unrealistic, irrational convictions. I
believed that, if luck were on my side, through a series of
unlikely events, I would date Helena Bonham Carter—she’s so
impetuous—and then later be fortuitously propelled into a career
as a professional soccer player. This was not a two-part plan.
I wouldn’t parlay my fame as a soccer player into a romance with
Helena. They would be separate lucky circumstances. I’d been
lucky of late, so, while improbable, this didn’t seem
impossible. I’d stumbled upon a full-ride scholarship, had won
routinely in poker games, football pools and in small bets at
the track. I had a blessed life and Fate would provide,
provided It overlooked my inarticulate speech around women and
dearth of soccer skills.
Of the two
convictions, a professional soccer career was the biggest
longshot because my soccer credentials do not point to a
professional career:
1980
I played a
season of youth soccer. Like almost all American youth soccer
leagues, ours played packball. Eight kids on each side ran
around in a cluster, chasing the ball and occasionally kicking
it towards one of the goals. Each team had a couple of meek
kids that stood next to their goalie and talked about either
Star Wars or horses. In soccer parlance, this is called
the 8-0-2 formation. I played mid-cluster.
1984-1986
During these
years, I lived in a soccer-playing country, or more
specifically, a country of fussballers. Our quaint German town
had a fussball field, where round-bellied men would play
five-on-five matches in the snow, with ski poles as goals.
Two German
kids from across the street sometimes would come over to play
fussball with us in our little yard. The oldest brother,
Marcus, was a couple of years younger than me, but was nearly my
size. My younger brothers would split up—one with Marcus, one
with me—and we’d play two-on-two. Marcus’s little brother,
Tinny, would nominally be on his team, but would spend the
entire game hiding in the bushes, stalking my youngest brother,
Brad. They were the same age and size and should have gotten
along well, but Tinny was a psychopath. He’d wait until Brad
wasn’t looking and jump out from behind a shrub and punch Brad
in the ear. If there was ice on the ground, he’d sometimes mix
things up and hit Brad in the face with an ice ball instead.
Every time this happened, we’d stop the game, dumbfounded, and
Marcus would try to punch Tinny, who’d be off like the Flash,
hightailing it for home.
Later that
night, my mom would explain to us that the kids were going
through a difficult phase because of their parents’ recent
divorce, so Brad would try to be nice to Tinny the next time we
saw them. Thankfully, they moved out after about a year, but to
this day, whenever I see a crime drama about a murderous,
psychopathic kid, I don’t think it’s too far-fetched.
In our third
year in Germany, I played on the junior varsity fussball team at
my American Armed Forces high school. I learned that two-on-two
fussball in a small yard with four kids and a young psychopath
doesn’t necessarily translate to the eleven-a-side game, but I
did get some playing time and even scored a goal in a scrimmage
against the girls’ squad. I paid handsomely for the goal,
though. The girls’ team was mean; we’d have cleat marks all
over our thighs, calves and chest to prove it.
I developed
my trademark soccer move during this time, which I call the
non-header. Because I’ve always disliked getting hit in the
head, I found it foolhardy to purposely stick my head in the
path of the ball. I particularly loathe blows to the nose,
which was usually where I connected. Even Pelé occasionally got
hit in the nose, so I didn’t see the viability of an improvement
in my heading technique. Rather, I decided to develop a method
that would eliminate bashed noses altogether.
The trick
was to make it appear like I was trying to head the ball, but
instead use leverage on my opponent so that we both missed the
ball. This was a neutral play that technically didn’t hurt my
team, but if the ball rebounded high in the air, I sometimes had
to do the non-header a second time, which looked a little
fishy. I ran into additional troubles when there was no
opponent nearby to lean on and the situation called for a header
instead of a chest trap. These instances always earned me an
extended stay on the bench.
1987-1988
We returned
to California for my junior year and I continued my soccer
career. During tryouts, I thought my pedigree (living in a
country of fussballers for three years) would more than make up
for the coach’s annoyance with my heading skills. I was not
surprised, therefore, when I made the varsity squad.
Playing for
the varsity was a great boon for a number of reasons. For one,
we usually played on fields without lights, so after daylight
savings time, the JV team—which had to play after the
varsity—only got in about a third of a game before it was too
dark to play. Also, the varsity team was filled with football
players that had aggression left over from their disappointing
football season so they picked fights or took cheap shots nearly
every game. Because a few of them were worse than bullies, it
was advisable to be on their side. Like Tinny, there was
something seriously wrong with them and when we scrimmaged the
JV squad, they would punch and kick the younger players. Once,
when the worst perpetrator clothes-lined a freshman standing
next to me, I halfheartedly challenged him in a nervous,
bumbling way: “That’s not a nice thing to do.” Normally, I
speak slowly in a dull baritone, but it came out pip-squeaky, so
he didn’t hear me, or pretended not to. “What?”, he said,
staring me down. I should have used this opportunity to devise
a better opening line, but instead, I tried to John Wayne it:
“That’s not a…nice…thing to do.” He stared at me a couple of
beats longer and then mocked my pipsqueak delivery: “That’s not
a nice thing to do!” he trilled, third-grade style, and ran off
down the field. What do you say to that? (Our coach was a kind
man, so I can only conclude that he wasn’t paying much attention
to our scrimmages or had poor vision.)
Part-way
through the season, I began to view my selection to the varsity
squad differently. I noticed that I was the only junior on the
team. There was one sophomore, but he was our best defender.
When I reevaluated my skills, I wasn’t really any better than
any of the other juniors. Other than my promising hard
knuckleball kick—useful only for shots on goal, which I never
took—I was unremarkable (if I knew how to harness the hard-knuckler,
it would be a different story: the US would have a poor-man’s
David Beckham on their hands).
I thought
back to the day when the coach made the final cuts. During
warm-ups, I was practicing the hard-knuckler and kicked the ball
way over the goal, off the field and into a row of trees. As I
started off to retrieve the ball, the coach blew his whistle to
signal the start of stretches. While I’d climbed off the field
into the trees, the coach announced the cuts, so that when I
returned with the ball to the stretching circle, only the
varsity team remained. The JV squad was off with the assistant
coach on another field. My thoughts were, “Great. Made the
varsity. Not surprised.”
Later,
though, I pieced together another scenario: While I was in the
trees, the coach told all of the non-seniors, save the one
sophomore, that they didn’t make the varsity side. I had been
lucky—not good—and both absent and oblivious. The coach
confirmed this theory during the last fifteen minutes of the
season finale, when he took out the starters and told all the
bench players to “finish off your last games as seniors.” When
I told him I was a junior, he looked at me blankly, unable to
process this information. Finally, he said, “Well, just finish
out the game.” The next year, I was back for another season of
headerless soccer.
1994
In San
Diego, I developed a severe case of World Cup Fever in the
summer of 1994. You may recall that the US hosted the World Cup
that year and if you paid attention, you probably remember that
the US had their best showing in over fifty years. For three
months, between June and August, the Fever spread among my
friends. Our primary symptom was a nearly maniacal drive to
schedule weekly soccer games. For the past several years, I’d
played in organized pick-up basketball games with these friends
at least once a week and I lobbied successfully to change these
to soccer games, even though half of the participants hadn’t
played since the packball years.
Each week
during the summer, my confidence increased. As one of the more
experienced players in our games, I had my fair share of goals
and I felt that at times, my no-look passes were spooky, they
were so good. It was like I had a supernatural grasp of the
game. Best of all, with no coach glaring from the sidelines,
there was no need to head the ball. I didn’t even need my
non-header.
I was a
little shaken, though, when I realized that my friend Ned was
better than me. He always dominated our basketball and
volleyball games, but since he hadn’t played soccer since
grammar school, I thought I’d have an edge. However, my
confidence soared when I scored a legitimate goal in a scrimmage
with a local soccer club. Granted, it was on a breakaway
and—because the goalie was a loaner from our team—he was only
moderately coordinated and didn’t know how to play goalie. I
nearly missed the empty net, but the important thing was that I
broke my eight-year drought. When I almost scored again later
in the match, my confidence was boundless.
The Fever
reached the breaking point when we played a pickup game on a
small field adjacent to a Spanish-language game. All but a few
of our players lacked skill and a couple kicked like Charlie
Brown, but we made up for that through team play. Our sister
game, on the other hand, was not a showcase for cooperation.
Players took turns trying to dribble through the defense single
handedly. Seeing this made me take pride in our humble
scrimmage because everyone in our game looked to pass instead of
dribble. We were practically Brazilians, the masters of the
crisp pass! I felt so giddy that the Brazilian battle cry
sprang from my lips: “Olé Olé Olé Olééé, Oléééé Oléééé, Olé Olé
Olé Olééé, Oléééé Oléééé.” The Spanish speakers, to a man, shot
me glances that I translated loosely as, “Dumbass.”
Our
collective Fever subsided when the World Cup Final ended in a
0-0 draw and was decided by penalty kicks. I could only manage
one lackluster “Olé” during the two hours of futility and by the
end, our spirit was broken, the Fever was done, the pick-up
games were no more.
Still, I had
the memories of those magical passes and that one goal to
reflect on. I was moving to England, winners of a World Cup,
and I thought that maybe I could play on a club team over
there. I know that it sounds far fetched, but if the right
coach were to see me play, one that could figure out how to
harness the hard-knuckler, maybe there was a place somewhere in
professional soccer for a free-kick specialist who didn’t need
to head the ball.
The sad
truth, though, is that there was no place for me, particularly
because I only played soccer two times during my year in
England. Pick-up games are not a part of their culture, like in
Germany or the US. Because I chose to play on the university
water polo team, I didn’t play soccer at all until midway
through the year, when my water polo team rented an Astroturf
pitch for a knockabout. We played like water polo players,
which means throwing each other to the ground, so nobody noticed
my latent talent.
Near the end
of the year, I finally found a pick-up game, on a hill near my
hall of residence. It wasn’t what I had in mind, though: it
was raining, we were playing across a five percent grade and I
was wearing two layers of cotton sweats, which soaked up at
least ten pounds of water. I impressed nobody, except maybe the
Spaniard who looked like a Muppet. She kept trying to tackle
me.
Too bad I
can’t say the same thing about Helena Bonham Carter. Dating her
was undeniably a long shot, but back in 1994 I’d been on that
lucky streak, although not necessarily with the ladies. It
seemed fairly conceivable that if I could figure out a way to
have Helena Bonham Carter see me brooding, she would fall madly
in love with me, partly because her characters always are
falling for the brooder and partly because I have a dimply-thing
in my chin when I brood, like Cary Grant, but less pronounced.
She seems like the type of woman that would appreciate a subtle
chin dimple. I’m not talking about a Kirk Douglas divot; that
would be different.
What I
needed was to be isolated with her for several hours, not in a
stalker type of way, but perhaps in the ruins of an Italian
cathedral after on earthquake or, even better, a beached ferry
in conditions that threatened to induce hypothermia. I would be
heroic and she would see past my bad glasses, sub-par small talk
(“I hand wash my pants.”), and inability to pronounce her name.
After the danger subsided and we were stuck waiting for rescue,
we’d cozy up and talk about this and that. We’d both be very
charming.
Of course,
this never happened, since I doubt we were ever within a hundred
miles of one another and even if we had been, there weren’t any
disasters. When I’d been concocting these scenarios, I didn’t
take into account the fact that E.M. Forster didn’t write much
about Sheffield. I’m not bitter, though. We wouldn’t have been
a good match, because I’m not an actor/director and, in
reviewing her period pieces, I now realize that the “wall of
hair” thing that she does is too big (anything over Julia Louis
Dreyfus circa 1992 is too much). But most of all, there’s just
too much Cecil in me.
Copyright Jeff Lewis, 2004. |
