Me and Pat

Cool me I'm cool, see? So here I am sitting on a cushion thinking about a spoon. What were when who why how, Kipling said, so ‘ere we go. What? A party. Were? New York, Upper West Side. When? Christmas 1977. Who? Me from good ol’ London town, and soon this bird called Pat. Why? Why what? Why was I at a party? Dunno, really. Don’t like parties which is why I was sitting on a cush ignoring everybody. Why New York? Had to be there – my employer insisted. No complaints but. How? Now you got me there. So no how. All clear then? So, I'm in New York, it’s nearly Christmas, and these two guys I know – one I worked with, the other looked like a young Robert Redford but preferred the guy I worked with – were having a party. Not a piss-up mind, a real party. Formal dinner suits and bow-ties for the hosts, everybody else was casual – it was NY – catering done by another friend from Boston, also gay. Had a few G&Ts, chatted with a few people but didn’t know anybody apart from my friend the host, and I'm no good at chat, so wandered around the flat a bit. Oh, sorry, apartment. Ruddy big too, must have cost a fortune in the city but they always had plenty of cash, goes with the gay territory. Anyway, in a second enormous room it was quieter, the music and chat, and in the middle of the floor was this big cushion. Or pillow. Huge it was, like 4 feet a side, with some other smaller ones. Lovely, I says to meself, a sit down, so I did. Always drink too much at parties, me. Gotta do something with yer hands, ain't ya? And when I've had a few, I don’t get sort of aggressive like a lot of blokes, I get all maudlin and sad and quiet. Which I did. And I was resting there ignoring the world thinking about this spoon I had at home. A dessert spoon, it’s called. Bigger than the one you stir your tea with, smaller than the one posh folks use to dole out their veg. Anyway this spoon, I was thinking, was a lovely shape. Sort of spoon-shape, but with extras. What was it I heard somebody say? Quintessential. Fancy word for very nice. There’s a few things like that that I like. Can’t think of ‘em now, but you know what I mean. It was about midnight, I think. Another thing about me and grog – when I've had a couple – that’s more than 2, usually about 6 – and I'm maudlin all over the place, the next thing I want to do is to sleep. Not the done thing at parties, sleeping, least not this early, so I'm lying there real comfortable thinking how do I get out of here now? It’s rude to rush off, and I don’t like to be the first to leave. Well I do, coz I don’t like parties like I said, but it’s sort of rude innit to be the first one out the door. Oh blimey, I thought. I’ll just have one more, make sure it’s well past midnight, then I can bugger off. Nobody’ll miss me anyway. I don’t know anybody apart from Ted and Simon, that's mein hosts. Then I hears a voice in my ear saying hello. Well what can you do? I turn to see who it is and it’s this bird with short dark hair on top of a short dark body. Not black though that would have been very acceptable too. Sort of brown. Genuine brown, I mean, not like you get from a sun lamp or even a holiday. A nice brown. Her name was Patty. Turned out she was from Puerto Rico (I think that's how you spell it) and lived in the Bronx. Well her

parents did. She lived Downtown – sound like a local, dunn I? – in a loft, she said. Oh I said trying to imagine living right under a roof having to bend down all the time. And where do you see a roof like that in NY anyway. What she meant was she lived in a warehouse floor. Weird but she had plenty of room to dance. She loved to dance. Not like me, did you guess? Anyway, back to the plot, as they say. Hello she said, then some usual stuff like what's your name, oh you're English, the usual guff you have to come out with at parties. I started to tell her about this spoon, see, cos I've had a few and don’t care what I say to someone I never met and probly wouldn’t meet again. But she was interested – she said – so course I went on and on about this spoon and the other things I can’t remember like I said. And she said I want to see you again. I was v surprised but pleased – I can’t chat up women to save me life – so I got her phone number and felt the evening had become a success and now I could leave cos I had pulled. I thought. No, it was true, I had pulled, but didn’t know it then. So I left, got a cab (note: not a taxi, not in The City) and went home happy and content, as they say. Give it a couple of days, I thought, then we’ll call her, see if she remembers. So I did, I did, and she did. We arranged to have dinner – thoughtfully romantic, wann I? – and off I went to her loft. Only I left her phone number at home (no mobiles then remember) and also her address. All I could remember was East 11th Street. So ‘ere I am, wandering up and down East 11th, not having a clue which building might be hers, or even which block. What a twat, I'm saying to myself. Now you'll have to go back to your flat, call her, tell her what you've done and then get back down ‘ere. Just as I was about to give up trying to remember what I didn’t know, when all of a sudden there she is out in the street looking for me. Magic! Heaving a sigh of relief like those people in stories like that, we went into her loft. The lift – elevator, I mean – delivered us to the floor and right into the loft. It was bloody enormous! The three girls who lived there – Pat and two others – had a sort of corner, the rest of the place was pretty much empty. Good for dancing, like I said, but otherwise just weird to live there. She was one of them super-active types, you know? Couldn’t sit still, wants to be out and about doing stuff, not like me at all. I was happy enough to be with her, except I had to slow her down. So the more she rushed about, the more I didn’t. It took a few weeks but it worked. Anyway we went for dinner at a place called the Horn of Plenty down in The Village. Greenwich village, that is, real trendy and the place to be etc. We ate. Lots. Horn of Plenty, see? While I was struggling over my steak, don’t know what she had now, we chatted mostly about London, me rattling on about the Tube, and bits of the history that I could remember. Then she says I’d like to come home with you. Now here you can call me an utter wally if you like and you'd be right. I says To London? No, stupid, or something similar she says, your apartment. Oh, I says, ok then. And off we went in a cab (again) driven by who was a driver back then? Emerson Fittipaldi? Whoever, he drove at about 90 miles an hour and I'm sure some of the wheels left the ground as he flew us over the cross streets. I’d have been scared if I’d had any sense. So we got back and got on with things. Then she says – with pleasure, I am happy to say – Wear dew you learn to fuck like that? I read a lot, I says, and gets back to it. She thought I was real cool. I know cos she told me. Esp when she turned up one evening and I was all ready for her, know what I mean. I was on her as soon as she came in, right by the door. Stop it, she says, quietly like, a whisper, but urgent. What’s up, I says. I think, she says, the super’s son listens outside the door. (In case you don’t know, the super is the building superintendent – janitor we’d call him.) So what, I says. If that's how he gets his kicks let's give him something to listen to. And we did. See, I was cool.