Prick continues his journey in the USA. Travelling in Beryl, a land yacht of a Cadillac from NY to Seattle.
What will become of him this time?
Transcript
Gangrenous Road Stumps- Prick on the Road USA Part 2
Reggie Fortescue-Sholto’s Bronx flat is, to put it mildly, a time capsule of cheap, smoke stained British taste circa 1976. The walls are adorned with a floral wallpaper so aggressively cheerful it has induced depression in Timmy Mallet. Think swirling patterns of mustard yellow, avocado green, and a particularly unsettling shade of burnt orange vomited up by an octogenarian smurf. Framed photographs of Reggie in his soap opera heyday – sporting truly magnificent sideburns and an array of questionable knitwear in all shades of checks and spots – as he lies in landscapes featuring perpetually sunny depictions of the Blackpool Promenade, with young versions of himself draped around Marti Caine, Bernard Manning, John Inman, Breznev, Ronnie Corbett and Hattie Jacques.
His floral sofa, where I had so damply awoke, is flanked by a mismatched armchair upholstered in a crusty velvety brown velour. A wobbly three wheeled Formica coffee table, its surface scarred by countless mugs of lukewarm tea, hold a precarious stack of TV guides dating back to the early 80s and a collection of ceramic figurines of a vaguely nautical theme.
Lighting is provided by a single, rather dim standard lamp with a fringed shade, casting the entire room in a perpetual twilight. The air is thick with the cloying, aroma of lavender potpourri, stale biscuits, and a faint, lingering hint of something vaguely medicinal.
The pièce de résistance, however, has to be his “entertainment centre” – a hulking teak unit that houses a vintage Betamax player -presumably still in working order, though one shudders to think what evidence of his, and many minor British TV and film and of course my past lives his collection of tapes might contain-, a temperamental record player perpetually stuck on a Val Doonican album, and a small, flickering television set that looks like it had almost witnessed the invention of colour.
In short, Reggie’s flat is a glorious, dusty, and less than charming testament to poverty of thought. Its a place where time has stood still, a bizarrely uneasy haven of British eccentricity nestled amidst the urban grit of the Bronx.
Like a Ken Dodd sample in a Drake track.
It was also, as I discovered the morning after our rather spirited Manhattan “knees-up,” remarkably difficult to navigate with a fucking raging hangover.
Reggie, bless his suspenders and fatty liver, was already humming some jaunty theme tune from his soap opera days while frying up what he optimistically called “breakfast” – a greasy concoction involving kippers and something oddly fluorescent. Chuck, however, was a coiled spring of righteous fury, muttering about the “sheeple” and Trump’s latest pronouncements on the existential threat posed by black LGBT Ukrainian Organic kale farmers who he would of course tariff out of existence.
Our Escape from the Bronx commenced with “Beryl,” Reggie’s land yacht Cadillac, lumbering onto the highway like a very constipated brontosaurus. A bottle of the ginger lady, procured in a swap for an extremely stuffed joint from a chap Reggie knew “from the toilets in the exhilarating Purple Tammy’s,” sat nestled between our driver Chuck’s knees. Beside it lay a rather colourful assortment of pills and powders that looked as if they would just about keep my fluttering heart from trembling to a sober halt. I knew we had to pull out of the hangover crash and rise again into the soaring skies of a story of America the mainstream media will never fuck with. That was our job. We need to see who is out there. We need to see the resistance through the clarity of a boot full of chemicals. Who were battering this Presidency in the balls? Who were the Doge dodgers, the RFK kickers, the Tulsi torpedoes? Chuck felt he needed to spark the resistance, and a joint.
“Right then,” he declared, unscrewing the ginger lady and taking a hearty swig. “Operation Liberation Seattle is a go!”
The first few hours on the road were a blur of questionable navigation, punctuated by Chuck’s increasingly impassioned outbursts. Every time we passed a group of pedestrians, cyclists or open top cars he’d lean out of the window, bellowing, “You fools! You complicit bloody fools! Don’t you see? Trump is leading you all to your own self-hating, consuming demise!”
“Fuck you!” Seemed to be the chorus chasing us down the freeway.
Reggie, meanwhile, was happily popping what he described as “uppers” – small, bright yellow pills that seemed to fuel his endless anecdotes about his time on “Coronation Street.” He’d drift in and out of lucidity, one minute reminiscing about a dramatic storyline involving Albert Tatlock’s stolen tankard, the next offering profound philosophical insights like, “Life, Richard Knobinson, is like the ever-ready condom on my cock. Full of air and mostly disappointing.”
His depressing banter led to an unfortunate incident with a bag of what Reggie vaguely referred to as “Purgatory powder.” Let’s just say pissing at the side of a truck stop became the most hilarious “point of view” I had ever witnessed, and my attempts to explain the intricacies of the principle of Political Equality to a traffic cop was probably not my finest judgement call. Luckily Chuck held it together enough to explain that I was just weird and very old British bastard he charitable accompanied on trips from an old people’s home.
As the day wore on, the landscape blurred into a psychedelic tapestry of highway signs and roadside attractions that usually involved food. Chuck’s anti-Trump tirades became more frequent and more inventive, incorporating lines from Bruce Springsteen songs alongside arguing about conspiracy theories involving genetically modified pizza, chem trails, Marjorie Taylor Greene and subliminal messages in elevator music, with some unnamed secretary at the other end of his phonecall.
Americana, I love your heaving, self loathing, honest- YES HONEST- arse.
Another bathroom break at a gas station turned into a lengthy debate with the attendant about the merits of anarcho-syndicalism, fueled by Chuck’s fervent pronouncements and Reggie’s surprisingly detailed knowledge of 19th-century revolutionary pamphlets. Lunch at a roadside diner ended with Reggie attempting to pay with a signed headshot from his Palladium days, much to the exasperation of a waitress.
By late afternoon, the effects of our various chemical explorations had reached a crescendo. Chuck was convinced that the radio was broadcasting coded messages from the resistance, Reggie was attempting to teach Beryl to do tricks, and I was engaged in a deeply meaningful conversation with a particularly philosophical-looking cigarette butt.
Around 8.30pm, we entered the isolated bar that looked like it had once been something more salubrious, like a slaughterhouse. The owner, a beautiful man with a handlebar moustache and a parallel frown, took one look at our dishevelled trio and Beryl’s erratic parking job and seemed to take it against us.
Predictably, Chuck, fueled by a potent cocktail of indignation and whatever colourful concoction he’d last ingested, took umbrage at a framed photograph of President Trump hanging prominently behind the bar.
“You… you propagator of fascist filth!” he roared, pointing a shaky finger at the picture. “Don’t you understand the bloody circus of killer clown tyranny you’re endorsing?”
The buff bar owner, whose name we learned was Tarquin, was not amused. “Please exit,” he squeaked, with a voice like Mickey Mouse sucking helium. “Please take your liberal, woke asses out of my establishment.”
The ensuing argument was a glorious symphony of slurred insults, misinterpreted U2 lyrics, and Reggie’s surprisingly agile attempts to diffuse the situation with anecdotes about backstage squabbles involving Jimmy Tarbuck and Ringo Starr. It ended, inevitably, with Tarquin and his clientele physically wrestling us, Beryl, and our assorted chemical paraphernalia back onto the deserted highway.
And so, we found ourselves spending a night in the cramped confines of the Cadillac. Reggie, always chipper despite everything, unscrewed his legs at the knee, and was attempting to fashion a makeshift pillow out of his floral tracksuit top.
Chuck, muttering darkly about “That Trump sucking jagoff Tarquin’s willfully violent stupidity,” was finally succumbing to a drug-induced slumber, his head lolling against the window, the last remaining drops of the ginger lady glugging onto the crotch of his oat coloured chinos.
As for me, I lay in the back seat, staring up at the indifferent stars, a strange mix of exhilaration and utter exhaustion washing over me. This “liberation road trip” was proving to be less a strategic retreat from New York and more a realisation of the current American chaos. And somehow, amidst the snoring and the lingering, rotting scent of Reggie’s gangrenous leg stumps, I felt parts of the resistance were only beginning… but had not yet found each other. The euphony of change was at present a cacophony. But there IS at least, sound.
Seattle, we are coming, even if ICE are on our tail (I thrive on the paranoia of a good reefer).
A resistance. A… a jolly good… uprising. With… with banners. And… and perhaps some rather strongly worded letters to The Scottish National. Yes. That’ll show the fuckers. Show… show Trump and his… his fucking… orange head… We’ll… we’ll… [hiccup]… we’ll… all… all… [INAUDIBLE MUMBLE] … terribly… [SNORE]… together… for… for… good old U… S…of… A…
