Sailing Beyond the Sunset by Mark Cole
/Sailing Beyond the Sunset by Mark Cole
On occasion in high school, Vickie would suddenly answer
Only to Victoria and respond only in a
Masterpiece Theater accent to our delight and astonishment.
Not that we watched that show, or any other show, on channel 3.
Real TV of course was found on channels 2, 6 and 8 out of Amarillo.
Channel 7 (out of Albuquerque) was a Mountain Time
Reprise of Channel 8 from the hour before:
One of the benefits of living in that tenacious, brown and barbed hinterland of the
Texas Panhandle, that twilight region on the edge of time and precipitation zones
And reality itself.
Vickie once kissed a guy (who really was named Rocky) in the One-Act Play. On the lips.
Some of us hooted from our seats in that unairconditioned auditorium.
Others feigned sophistication and acted like that was normal.
(Probably the same people who pretended to watch Channel 3).
She moved to New Mexico later that year.
Across a time zone.
Not as far away as England and the world of Oxford and the
Theatre and everything literary, cultured, elite and gourmet.
Everything cool, foggy and elusive
But far enough and close enough to incite longing.
All things English on Channel 3 seemed to be spoken in a familiar if heavily accented tongue.
The words we understood easily but not the sentences.
Not exactly glamorous: that would be rhinestones.
Definitely not exciting: that would be anything else.
But exotic and distant, yet accessible with effort and even faintly desirable.
Striking: but not overpowering.
England’s mountains green, England’s green and pleasant land.
***
As it turned out, Walt was also from a sparsely populated
Farming town with thin, dusty air in the Texas Panhandle.
But for a time he spoke with an English accent and regaled us with yarns
From the home land.
He once asked my mom – who had been to London in the ‘50’s – if
She had ever been to “Nottinem”.
Good thing she hadn’t (she stopped off on her way to Norway by steamer, waved at the queen at
Buckingham Palace and kept moving).
His house of cards thus stood, if only for a moment longer.
“Folks round here do all sorts of strange things.”
His confession to fabricating his English persona came as a surprise to us, but not a shock.
Let not the sun go down on your wrath. We held no grudge.
He left the prison he had created, but sort of dipped below the horizon after that.
When will the glory fade?
O the wild charge he made!
All the world wonder’d.
***
Lord Alfred, he was called. It occurred to me only later
(LAW 4354: Comparative Constitutional Law)
That a professional wrestler jobbing in America
Would be unable to fulfill his legislative duties conscientiously in the upper chamber in
Parliament.
So maybe he was just Al Hayes.
Still, the accent was legit.
We could sniff that out now: knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
Born in London, he died in Texas, but never lost a touch of the exotic in his grappling
Performances.
He used judo, after all, and he had the strength of ten and did not yield.
But he was a heel.
(Abdullah also used judo. He was not from Africa, but was a Canadian named Larry).
It is said that Lord Alfred Tennyson
Didn’t particularly care for the House of Lords, but it was a necessity for him at least.
And the title was real.
Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame, Class of 2014.
***
Her accent was legit.
Her heart was pure.
She would say things like Praise the Lord!
Out loud.
For a time, I thought that was called speaking in tongues, but if not that
At least charismatic, but if not that
At least exotic.
She endured the old order and the War in England
But that changed and yielded place to the New.
She met an American soldier and sailed to America.
She became a farmer’s wife in the Texas Panhandle
Bought candles at Christmas, endured the dust
Prayed out loud and took the American farmer’s German last name which meant in English
Cold water
‘Tis better to have loved…
‘Tis better to have loved…
‘Tis better to have loved…
***
Heathrow, fall ’90.
History is now and England.
Lords and ladies, princes and paupers
Knights and legends, bards and poets
The arch of experience
The world traveled and untravell’d
Fading margins.
To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.