Epilogue: “Goodbye To Old Tat…?”

From the journals of Jett Stryker, Rio de Janeiro, Summer, 2014

As the cable-cart creaked its way up through the glorious midmorning smog of downtown Rio, I leant my weary head against the swaying windowpane and slowly smoked the last of my cigarettes. Before me lay Sugarloaf Mountain, a small landing strip and a chartered flight back to Blighty; behind me lay the ragged scraps of yet another International World Soccer Cup Tournament; and below: the terrible city that had been home these last few weeks.

Goddamn.

Just take a look. There it was: all of Rio, with the semi-finals of the World Soccer Cup just going on and on and on while here I was: suspended in a cage and gazing down upon all like that spooky dame, the goddamn Sybil of Cumae. From here I could just make out the small square rectangle of Estado Vargas – where the Argentinians appeared to have just conceded another free-kick to a, frankly under-performing, home side. There were still another thirty minutes left to play and I had a sneakin’ sus’ that things were due to turn nasty right about now. It was between the South Americans. Dirty business. Best look away now, kids.

And suddenly I was sick of that whole rotten crowd. And tearing my eyes away from that godless game to the West, I moved across to the other side of the ‘cart and gazed East: to that shimmerin’ stretch of golden sand, and to the unlimited horizon of the Ocean beyond.

And suddenly I felt the full weight of my fifty-seven years and was possessed by a mad, desperate urge to tear the tracksuit from my body, prise open that tiny window and, for perhaps the first time in my life, take a goddamn dive! down, down, down to the beckoning waves below!

And there… O! to frolic amongst those foamy crests! To plough and churn against the current! To allow myself to be taken and tossed and ultimately washed up upon that shingled strip of beach, like some kinda freaky piece of erotic driftwood!

And then! And then! O! to stroll naked and proud among all that bronzed, bikini’d, be-thonged flesh! To tongue a fist-sized globe of rum ‘n’ raison-flavored ice cream! To thumb a greasy pearl of Factor 15 into the small of a sunworshipin’ back!

To be free of that goddamn bulldog and all its bull’!

And that goddamn lion and all its lies!

And just to bum about and bathe and be; and to quietly burn beneath the noonday sun.

But then a great South American sigh floated up from the Estado Vargas. It found me in my little tin can high above the world and as I recoiled in disgust at the unintelligible din, I realized, with a throb of patriotism for What Coulda Been, that I was inexorably cleaved to that ignorant rabble, and no matter how far I ran there would always be One More Game, One More Game, One More Game, just waitin’ to be played…

‘Cause I guess at the end of the day, this crazy life of ours is just a game of two halves and it don’t matter which end we start at – sooner or later that half-time whistle is gonna blow and one quick bowel movement and a couple of cocktails later we’re all of us just gonna be back out there under the floods, tryin’ to work that ball back from where we’ve just came from.

Only in this second half maybe we’ll run faster, stretch our legs further… And one fine morning –

So we dribble on, forwards against the defence, borne back ceaselessly into our own halves.

 

Fin.

 

Chapter 15: “The Lost Generation!”

From the journals of Jett Stryker, Rio de Janerio, Summer 2014

I ain’t exactly sure what time I took my leave of Spanish Charlie and came stumblin’ out of the subterranean gloom of the Ya Ya House for the remorseless heat of the favela but I guess it must’ve been early ‘cause when I got to Miguel’s the shutters were still closed and it was only after a lot of banging and shouting on my part that the sleepy-eyed proprietor finally came downstairs and yawningly let me in.

Sure, I probably shoulda been a good boy and headed back to the hotel for a bit of shut-eye and a quick shower and a shave before this afternoon’s fixture against Nero Rossetti and his glorified crew of organ grinders, but truth be told I’d had one or two drinks more than planned at the Ya Ya and I figured quitin’ now wouldn’t be the wisest of tactics. It’s always a good idea to be a little tight before a big show.

And besides, what with all the crazy stuff reelin’ ‘round my head after my sit down with Spanish, there was no way I would be gettin’ any sleep any time soon. And as I slowly smoked the last of my cigarettes, I wondered how much of it could possibly be true.

The low-down on Marion and McCarthy and The Count had seemed wild enough, but when that loose-lipped linesman had started bean spillin’ on my father and my father’s boots, well, that’s when things really took a turn down Queer Street and I figured we’d be needin’ more than a few drinks under our belts to get to the end of it. ‘Cause according to ol’ S.C. the Strykers have had a black sheep quietly grazin’ away in the shade of a particularly gnarly ol’ root of our family tree all this time. Namely, my father’s father: a certain unmentioned grandpa of mine who signed his IOU’s Brecht Strüker.

Never heard of the guy? Go check your history books. Ah, now ya got him, pal. That’s right: that Brecht Strüker. By all accounts the most feared and fearless attacker on the Western Front. He was the guy who pushed his squad of Kaiserites up over the top for a pulverising Christmas Eve kick about against a hand-picked squad of Blighty’s Finest which saw the Doughty Balham Boys go down fightin’ for a 4-1 defeat that very nearly cost ’em the whole damn war. Well, turns out those boots of my father’s that I’ve been haulin’ halfway ’round the world on more International Campaigns than I care to remember – guardin’ with my goddamn life and ruinin’ a few others in the process – well, turns out they’re actually my father’s father’s boots – Ol’ Brecht Strüker’s – and about as British as sauerkraut soup. And that stuff caked in between the studs that I always took for Whitechapel doggy do? Well, get this: it’s actually the mud and the blood of the goddamn Somme. Ain’t that a scream? Ain’t that jus’ the funniest? Someone go call me a doctor, ’cause I think my sides are splittin’.

Or is it just my heart?

Is it just my goddamn half-Brit, half-Fritz heart?

Anyways, to bring us back to the here and now, these very same boots – courtesy of our very good friend The Count, y’understand? – are currently headin’ down river and deep into the dark heart of the Amazonian rainforest, where, in the ruins of some kinda ancient underground temple, Baron von Krumplehiemer, the current Kraut cap, is waitin’ for ’em with open arms. God only knows what blasphemous rites are gonna be performed in that godless ruin, but if I don’t get to ’em first this whole goddamn International World Soccer Cup Tournament is as good as –

“How ya doin’, kid?”

“Eliot. Are you a sight for. Sit down. I’m buyin’.”

The old man put a hand on my shoulder. He shook his head.

“Come on, kid. Let’s go.”

I checked my watch. “Relax, Eliot. We still got an hour before the big K.O.”

“Two weeks ago we did, sure.”

I frowned. Suddenly I wasn’t feelin’ too good. “What’s the gag?”

“No gag, kid. Just the saddest story ever heard. I’ll tell it to you on the flight home.”

“I think I must’ve missed a memo, Eliot, ‘cause you’re not makin’ a whole lotta sense.”

“You’ve missed more than just a memo, kid. You’ve been AWOL these past two weeks, already. And, to look at the state of, I think I know who ya been AWOLin’ with. Well, I hope your little fact finding spree with Spanish Charlie was worth the trouble, Jett my boy, ‘cause guess what: we blew it.”

I closed my eyes and buried my face in my hands. Eliot’s voice just kept on keepin’ on:

“It’s over, kid. It’s over. We’re out. It’s over. It’s over. It’s over.”

To Be Concluded… 

 

Chapter 14: “A Man Called Spanish!”

From the journals of Jett Stryker, Rio de Janeiro, Summer 2014

Once upon a time Spanish Charlie had been one of the most respected linesman in the whole of International Soccer. A whirling dervish of semaphoric accuracy and off-side know-how, all eyes would be glued to his inspired St. Vitus Dance as he twitched and spun on the side-lines like some kinda genius marionette. They say Spanish Charlie dispensed fair play like it was going out of fashion – which, in a funny kinda way, I guess it kinda was. And so, when Spanish Charlie fell he had further to fall than most. And when he picked himself up and found himself in the Ya Ya House, I guess he must’ve liked the look of the place ‘cause he decided to make himself comfortable and stick around.

Of course, the Strykers weren’t exactly boss-eyed virgins when it came to the dubious delights of the Ya Ya House. I knew from my father’s best-selling memoir – …And Some Boots To Kick With –  that he and Eliot had been regulars in their youth – tearing the joint a fresh one whenever they had cobwebs that needed blowin’ and their usual East End drinking dens just didn’t have the puff. Hell, for a few sad seasons toward the ass-end of the ’80’s I’d been known to come crawling out of the place myself. It had been after I received that Red Card in Paris that I’d headed into South America and to the only joint that would still take my greens. Sure, everyone knew I was a patsy, but let me tell ya: scarlet can be one damn hard stain to shift. And I guess the Ya Ya House must be colorblind ’cause it welcomed me like I was the goddamn Prodigal. Which, in a funny kinda way, I guess I kinda was. But I was younger then, and bouncing back from a dive like Ya Ya’s came easy.

It was a considerably flimsier board I balanced on today.

Leaving the casual violence and unfettered livestock of the favela behind, I ducked under a string of washing and descended a set of narrow stone steps into the rank underbelly of the Ya Ya House. At the bottom of the steps an unconscious wretch was stretched out upon a filthy mattress. As I stepped over him he writhed and giggled and clutched at my ankles as if reliving some terrible fudged save from some terrible lost game from some terrible misspent youth. I watched in silent revulsion as he gently patted my Crocks-clad feet before rolling over to return to whatever terrible replay was loopin’ its way ’round some foul recess of his mind.

Around a large wooden table, playing cards with an infamous ex-referee, sat a group of Cypriot reserves. I was surprised to notice that the ex-ref’ was still wearing The Whistle: it hung ’round his neck like the rosary ’round the neck of a defrocked priest; and a small wet dog – some fallen mascot – danced yapping at his feet. Against the far wall two bearded Nigerian centre-halves were tenderly making love by the light from the fruit-machine; while behind the makeshift bar an ancient painted whore rubbed her groin and whistled a lewd sea-shanty, her eyes glazed over in a narcotic bliss.

Welcome to the Ya Ya House, folks. Welcome one ‘n’ all.

At the rear of the joint sat a skinny-lookin’ bum with bad skin, bad teeth and a posture so bad it’d give a physio nightmares. His shoulder-length hair was dyed a dirty blonde and tucked neatly behind each of his pierced ears was an opium-tipped cigarette. He was muttering to himself in a distracted kinda way and every now and then he’d laugh a shrill half-laugh. It was the kinda laugh that gets snagged on the corners of a broken heart and never quite makes it out in one piece.

“Hello, Spanish Charlie,” I said.

Spanish Charlie looked up at me and frowned. Then recognition crept into his eyes like the last rays of the setting sun striking the broken windows of a condemned wreck of a house. A smile flickered upon his cracked lips.

“Why, hallo stranger!” he drawled, patting the vacant seat beside him a twitch of the wrist that had once made an entire stadium sigh with aesthetic pleasure. “If it isn’t the bad penny I always knew’d come rollin’ back.”

“Don’t look too pleased to see me, Spanish. This ain’t no social call. I’m here on International Soccer business.”

“Hmmm. You always did come straight to the point, Jetty Boy,” sighed Spanish Charlie wistfully. “That’s what always made you so damn refreshing.”

I planted my ass and said nothing when Spanish Charlie’s hand dipped inside my tracksuit bottoms, groped ‘round ‘til it found my packet and fingered itself out a couple of cigarettes. He placed one of them between his smirking lips. I lit the thing for him.

“Merci,” he drawled in near-perfect French. He took a good long drag. “So,” he asked, “what have I done to deserve this visit?”

“Information,” I said simply. “You’ve got it, and I want it.”

“Well, I know you’re playing those Italian brutes in a few hours.” He gave a theatrical little shiver.

“Nice knowledge. But the beans I need spillin’ ain’t got nothing to do with no Ice Cream vendors.”

Spanish Charlie raised a sceptical eyebrow. “Oh, really?” he crowed. “Well, well, well.” He smiled his smile and patted me on the knee. “I think I’ll be judge of that, handsome.”

“Word on the turf says you and The Count have had a falling out,” I told him. “You don’t look too cut up about it, though.”

“Oh, Jett,” he whispered, laying a limp hand on my arm before launching into a frail, broken falsetto: “people say I’m the life of the party…”

The back of my hand caught him clean across his face. It sent the cigarette flying from his lips and sent his hands fluttering up like a pair of pale moths to the bloody mess I had made of his nose.

“Now, you gonna start talkin’ or do I need to start finding other parts of your body to play around with?”

He looked at me across the table, tears of shame and hurt in his eyes. “Jesus, Jett. You only had to ask. You know that.”

I offered him my hanky. “I’m sorry Spanish. I don’t have the time for the usual fun and games. All I came here for is the facts.”

Spanish Charlie wiped away his tears and sighed. “So I see, so I see.” He finished his whisky, sniffed, composed himself, then continued heroically. “Truth is Jett, me and The Count went our separate ways a month ago or so. He was making some new friends and let’s just say we didn’t exactly see eye to eye on certain pressing issues. Now, I’m as liberal minded as the next gal, but,” and here he leant forward and whispered in a conspiratorial tone, “let me tell you: some of the stuff that was going on in that training camp…well!” He raised his eyebrows and gave me a dirty kinda wink. Then he smiled and said, “Know what, Jett? My throat’s a little dry. Guess it must be all this yappin’.”

“Sure, Spanish,” I said, relenting a little. “The usual?”

“The usual,” said Spanish Charlie. “And you will be joining me won’t you? For old time’s sake?” Again: that wink.

“Sure I will, Spanish. Sure I will. One little drink never did no one no harm.” I rose to my feet and made for the bar. No, one little drink never did do no one no harm. And truth was, I was gettin’ a thirst on.

Somewhere over Rio, a blood-red sun was starting to rise…

To Be Continued in tomorrow’s thrilling instalment: “The Lost Generation!”

 

Chapter 13: “O! Lord! Wash These Sins Away!”

From the journals of Jett Stryker, Rio de Janeiro, Summer 2014

Eliot didn’t say a word to me about the loss of my father’s boots. He stayed his usual taciturn self all through the next day’s drinking session and he was subdued over whiskies in the evening. I knew his style, though. In my father’s day the back pages had called him The Percolator: Eliot would keep it all in, let it bubble up inside, and some poor unsuspecting sap would get the whole damn lot the showers afterwards.

And here it came.

In spades.

Oh, and that poor unsuspecting sap? Why, you’re lookin’ at him.

“What were ya thinkin’, Jett?” exploded Eliot through his foam beard, jabbing at my chest with his dripping loofah.

“I guess I wasn’t doin’ a whole lotta thinkin’, Eliot.”

“Not with the thing between your ears you weren’t! Christ, Jett, I thought you was wise!”

“Christ, Eliot, you remember Marion!”

That crack put a damper on his rage and a wistful leer crept across Eliot’s ancient face. He sighed. “That I do, kid. That I do. Marion and The Count though? I just don’t see it. I mean, I knows Marion’s Marion, and that’s one helluva temptin’ package an’ all, but Spanish Charlie was always The Count’s blue-eyed boy. If that handsome Romanian left-back has started to get a taste for the other, we all of us bachelors might as well put away our dancin’ shoes, go shave our heads and sign ourselves up for a goddamn monastery.”

We laughed mirthlessly together beneath the scalding jets. And for a moment it was as if all those useless wasted decades were being washed clear away and the old camaraderie that had pulled us through many an uninspired season had decided to stage a last minute come-back.

“Jokin’ aside, kid,” said Eliot with a helpless shrug, “this is the last thing we need. We’re barrel-scapin’ as is and them boots is priceless.”

“Well, I guess we just go to the authorities. There’s fair play and there’s fair play, but coitus interruptus is strictly below the belt.”

“Christ, Jett, what good’ya think that’ll do? The Count and ‘Doc’ de Silva go way back. You’ll be laughed off the side-lines. And even if The Count didn’t keep the ‘Doc’ in his back pocket like so many nickels and dimes, it’d just be your word against his. Times have changed, kid. You’ve been out of the game too long.”

“Red Cards have been issued for less, Eliot.

“Once upon a time, maybe.”

“In my father’s time, definitely.”

Both of us instinctively glanced down at my bare wet feet.

“Look, kid, The Count’ll have to break cover come Thursday. It’s Romania vs. Paraguay.”

“Yeah, and meantime we’re playing the Italians tomorrow.”

“Well, what can we do? The trail’s dead, Jett. It’s a pea-souper.”

“Not necessarily. If The Count has shacked up with Marion, there’s a certain ex-Linesman who ain’t exactly going to be puttin’ out the buntin’.”

Eliot snorted derisively. “Get real, Jett. Spanish Charlie’s yesterday’s Sportin’ Supplement. If The Count’s given him the brush off for a taste of strange he’ll have really let himself go. And Spanish Charlie was barely holding it together in the first place.”

“Well, it’s the only lead we’ve got right now. Think he still drink’s up at the Ya Ya House?”

“Whasamatta Jett – ya got soap suds in ya brain?!” spluttered Eliot. His wrinkled old man’s dugs trembled with impotent rage. “We’re playing the Italian’s tomorrow at noon and you want to go traipsing off to the Ya Ya House? The most infamous drinking den in the most infamous favela in the most infamous host city in whole of International Soccer?!”

“Don’t you worry about me, Eliot. I’m a big boy. I can look after myself. And I can certainly handle Spanish Charlie.” I began to slowly work my own loofah across the expansive planes of my shoulder-blades; dipped into the inviting dell at the small of my back; hurried through the dark forbidding brush-land of my inner-thighs. “I’ll be back in time for kick off tomorrow or I ain’t Bert Styker’s son. Now pass me my shampoo-conditioner and body scrub. If Spanish Charlie’s got any beans we need spillin’ I’d best be sure to be lookin’ my best…”

To Be Continued…

 

Chapter 12: “Ménage à Terreur!”

From the journals of Jett Stryker, Rio de Janeiro, Summer 2014

“The boots!” commanded The Count as I swung the full weight of my nakedness round to face the gaunt Romanian left-back. His revolver flashed back at me in the moonlight. “The boots!” he repeated in an urgent whisper. “Remove your father’s boots immediately!”

“These old things?” I said, gesturing down past the shaggy mane of my three lions, to the dirty leather boots below. “Sorry to disappoint ya, The Count, but these are just a pair of imitations I like to slip on every now again to give the gals something to get all gooey-eyed over.” At this I treated Marion to a surreptitious wink of reassurance, before continuing. “As for the genuine articles: I sold those babies a long time ago. There were some bad debts on my tail and some of them were starting to look about as ugly as a wall of East European reserves.”

The Count smiled. It was one of those rare smiles that had the quality of eternal damnation about it. If you were lucky you’d only come across such a smile maybe once or twice in your life. As Great England cap’ I’d come across ‘em more times than I cared to remember. But The Count’s own particular brand of curled-lip depravity knocked the rest into a cocked hat and sent ’em home for Christmas.

“You never were a good liar, Jett,” said The Count with a dry chuckle like the sound of autumn leaves blowing down an empty gravel driveway at midnight. “Not like your father.”

“Careful what you say, The Count. My father was a good man.”

“Oh yesssss?” purred The Count with a sound like a stick being dragged along the iron railings of a graveyard by a stumbling shoeless child. “Oh, the things I could tell you about your father. Take it from me: Bert Stryker wasn’t quite the man he said he was. In fact, you could even say that not even the great Bert Stryker was capable of filling his own boots!” And The Count chuckled at his enigmatic witticism, like the sound of a couple of bone-hewn die being cast to decide the outcome of some awful wager.

I guess it was round about now I started to see red.

“Listen up, and listen good, The Count,” I murmured, “’cause I’m only gonna say this the once. You’re right, dammit. These are my father’s boots. And let me tell ya something about my father and about his boots that ya might wanna write down for future reference. These are the very same boots that once chased a pig-skin up and down the cobbled side-streets of Old Whitechapel Row, while the Blitz thundered all around and the doodlebugs rained down from the gruel-gray East London skies. These are the very same boots I watched my father’s nicotine-stained fingers lace and relace at our kitchen table, while the candles guttered and their wavering flames threw strange shadows about the room.  These are the very same boots I learnt to walk in, goddammit  – clip clopping across the daisy-strewn lawn towards my father’s huge, brawny, outstretched arms, while mother – poor mother – stood silently by. watching us both from the upstairs window. My old man died in these goddamn boots, The Count.  That’s right. The bulldog inside his chest bayed its last during that fatal penalty shoot-out in ’74. They’re not much to look at now, sure, but I’ll be damned if I’ll take them off for you. No, if you wanna get your claws on these sweet honeys you’ll have to get down on your goddamn knees, untie the double-knots yourself and then shoe-horn them off my cold dead feet.”

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” said The Count. “Why, thank you… my dear.”

“I’m sorry, Jett,” said Marion, rising up before me like some grotesquely-erotic jack-in-the-box, my father’s boots cradled between those powerful breasts. “You couldn’t possibly understand.”

“Oh, Marion. How sharper than a serpent’s tooth…”

“Silence!” barked The Count. “I declare this conference over.” And keeping the .45 trained just above my heart The Count took hold of my beautiful Marion’s lightly-tanned arm and backed away towards the edge of the mountaintop. He enveloped her shivering voluptuousness in his black velvet cape. “You might as well go home, Stryker. Your Tournament is as good as over.” And with that, he stepped off into space.

I stood there naked beneath the shadow of Cristo Redentor, smoking the last of my cigarettes, and watching helplessly as that terrible black cape floated away into the milky dawn, *T*H*E* *C*O*U*N*T* winking up at me in a thousand tiny glittering sequins…

To Be Continued…

 

Chapter 11: “Enter the WAG!”

From the journals of Jett Stryker, Rio de Janeiro, Summer 2014

With the red tip of my cigarette guiding me through the darkness, I pounded up all 220 stone steps toward the widespread limbs that awaited me at the top of  of Corcovado Mountain.

There, in the shadow of Our Lord, I was born again.

“Hallo, Jett,” said Marion, coolly.

Marion.

Ma-ri-on. Light of my life, fire of my loins; the beam in my eye, the spanner in my works.

Marion.

Adam’s Rib with fries on the side and one big dollop of sauce.

Marion.

The human playground where I’d grazed many a knee and sprained many a muscle in reckless, breathless sport.

Marion.

Marion, Marion, Marion.

Goddamn.

‘Cause let me tell, ya, brother: it was still all going on: that ebony hair, that scarlet pout, those endless legs and that impossible dream of a bosom – all bustin’ out of the same gorgeous pink rag of a negligee they’d first crammed themselves into all those years ago – that wet ‘n’ wild afternoon back in Blighty, when, on some flimsy pretext or other, she’d paid a surprise visit to my Thames-side apartment, and, afterwards, spent, spooked and stricken with guilt, had buried her beautiful mussed-up face in my priceless collection of silk shorts and cried and cried to beat the band. “I’ve never seen such – such beautiful shorts,” she’d wept then as I’d stood achingly by, silently calculating the cost of the dry-cleaning.

She wasn’t weeping now.

“Whatsamatter, Jett?” this older, wiser Marion asked with coy slattern charm. “Want me go fetch a bucket for your eyeballs?”

“Marion,” I whispered. “Veni, Vedi – ”

The slap came out of nowhere, knocking the cigarette from my lips and sending it spiralling down into that torrid Rio night.

I panted in approval.

“You’ve got some nerve, Jett!” she whispered. And then we were wrapped ‘round one another like a couple of rookie Camaroon centre-forwards celebrating a particularly hard-earned goal. The lost decades came bubbling right back in our frantic embrace. Eventually one of us broke for air. It could’ve been her. It could’ve been me. Right then, I don’t think either of us could’ve said for sure.

“Marion, I was a damn fool ever to – ”

“Shhh. Don’t,” she whispered, and placed a glittering nail on my lips. Then she pulled away and glanced down with the kind of faux-shyness that palls pretty damn quickly when peddled by your average Sally-Anne, but, when it’s a top-end piece like Marion doin’ all the eye-lash battin’, well, let’s just say it never fails to charm and delight. “Haven’t you got something for me too?” she asked.

“You know I have, babe.”

The thumb and index finger of one of Marion’s hands found the zipper of my tracksuit top while the four fingers and single thumb of her other hand coolly slid beneath the elasticated waistband of my bottoms.

“In that case, why don’t you slip out of this sweaty old thing and slip into something more comfortable?”

And the both of us looked down to the leather hold-all sitting there between our feet – where my father’s boots were impatiently waiting to be brought into play…

It was just as I’d finished folding away my clothes, just as I’d made sure the laces of my father’s boots were double-knotted and there was very little chance of slippage, just as I risen to stand there in all my Blighty glory, good and proud and throbbin’ at the gate, that I felt the cold nozzle of a .45 press between my hairy shoulder blades and heard a horribly familiar voice purr in a thick Romanian accent: “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Bert Stryker’s little boy all grown up. We meet again. And I see you’ve been kind enough to bring along his boots…”

Goddamn! It was The Count! Reputedly the wickedest defender in all of Europe! And I knew he’d be playing for keeps!

To Be Continued…

 

Chapter 10: “Through a Glass Darkly!”

From the journals of Jett Stryker, Rio de Janeiro, Summer 2014

“To the victors the spoils!” sang an already-drunken Joyce, honking the prodigious endowments of a passing waitress and earning a playful slap round the chops for his trouble.

“I’ll drink to that,” I muttered, throwing a handful of travellers’ checks on the bar. “Hell, right now I’ll drink to anything.”

“Senhor Stryker, please: we no want no trouble here, yes?” crowed Miguel nervously. He ran his bandaged fingers through the singed and thinning remains of his hair. It was obvious the memory of the exploding inflatable Christ the Redeemer was still fresh in the proprietor’s mind and I felt something very close to pity for getting his subservient ass mixed up in this dirty World Soccer Cup Tournament.

“Trouble, Miguel? Ain’tcha heard? Ain’t no one had the courtesy to tell ya? Trouble? Why, it’s practically my goddamn middle name. Now, you just keep ’em comin’. I’m tying on a big fat one over here. I’ve got me some serious forgettin’  to do…”

Of course, Eliot was there, sobbing into my chest and quoting Yeats and covering my bruises in pale damp kisses; Churchill, the Good Kid, eyes wide in bashful admiration, a hundred probing questions dancing on his lips; Spicer and Blue taking over the old piano in the corner and making us all homesick with their foul and bawdy East End sing-a-longs; Jackson, bald as horse and twice as tight, punching a paralytic Hathaway on the nose and rubbing gin into his red hair; and McCarthy? Oh, that McCarthy. McCarthy – with a crown of vine leaves on his head…

Through the alcoholic fug, I watched him holding court over a table of awe-struck reserves. His bag of tricks was wide open, its hideous contents spread out before him as he babbled on about The Curse, jabbing his nicotine-stained fingers in the air at things only he could see. The poor sap. It was clear that as far as he was concerned Marion was back in Blighty with all the other gals – doing their own little bit for the Tournament in their own little Sphinxish ways. Even if I did tell him the truth he’d never believe me. Yeah, McCarthy was a dab hand at self-deception. I guess when you’d been out in midfield for as long as he had, turning a blind eye became second nature.

Especially when a certain raven-haired creature who happened to answer to the name of Marion was concerned.

It had been almost thirty years now since McCarthy and I had last visited this godforsaken land. We’d spent a cocktail-drenched month or two at the Copacabana in the mid-Eighties, drifting from one party to the next between fixtures. All those games had been Friendlies back then, with no goddamn World Soccer Cup Tournament Twenty Fourteen to get in the way of us having a good time. Why he had insisted on dragging Marion along for the ride, I’ll never know. I guess even then he had been driven half mad with jealousy, and I’d begged him to reconsider. “Be it on your own head, McCarthy,” I’d warned prophetically. “You know I love you like a brother but we ain’t in Blighty no more and the sun can make mad dogs of us all.” Yeah, sure, the sun had its part to play – bearing down on us all like some great red-cheeked round-faced pimp – but it can’t take all the blame. No, not with the Cachaça flowing like water, the goats and burros rutting in the streets, and the endless beating of those infernal drums – all night every night, their erotic samba rhythms finding us deep in the heart of our insomnia, making sleep a country impossible to reach without resorting to the most tawdry of means.

I tell ya: Give us a prick and we all of us start spurtin’, pal.

And when the sun and the booze and the drums and the goats had finally gotten just too, too much, and Marion and I had finally succumbed to our baser, animal, more-urgent instincts, we had tried to temper our furtive little carnaval-para-dois by holding it within the shadow of that great all-forgivin’ – of course!

Around me, the obscene celebrations raged on, and no one noticed as I prised an unconscious Eliot from my legs, zipped up my tracksuit top, slid off my barstool, and slank out of Miguel’s into that hot Rio night, like a horny ol’ tom’ who’d grown bored with his scratchin’ post and was looking for something soft and furry and mewling to play with…

To Be Continued… 

 

Chapter 9: “Crime ‘n’ Punishment!”

From the Journals of Jett Stryker, Rio de Janeiro, Summer 2014

“This,” thundered an incandescent Molotov Tchaikovsky, wringing his foul black beard and pacing up and down the halfway line, “is an absolute outrage!” He gestured fiercely to the side of the pitch where the Brazilian referee and his sinister World Soccer Cup 2014 Linesmen were huddled together conversing in low Esperanto. “What in the name of Daždbog have those damn fools got to discuss? Five goals to nil. Five goalskis to nilski! There is nothing to discuss!”

“Don’t get your beard in a twist, Molotov,” I cautioned recklessly, as a couple of Russian subs quickly moved in to restrain the ranting Red skip’ from going gulag on my ass.

While Molotov was placated with vodka and cigars, a team of ragged Brazilian ball-boys set about clearing the debris from the sudden and violent fiesta that had broken out in those final thirty seconds of play. I’d happened to notice that the conga-line around the outside of the pitch was gettin’ out of hand, and it hadn’t taken much encouragement from a good lookin’ kid like Churchill to convince those drug-crazed hedonists to take their party back onto the turf and to sink to new depths of depravity. Now, I could only wait and pray my hunch had paid off.

Churchill, The Good Kid himself, limped over to where I stood and shyly offered me a slug from his hip. He had taken the brunt of the bacchanalia and his face was a bloody mess of glitter and sequins. He’d have to sit out the next few seasons, sure, but he’d live. He’d live.

“That were blinkin’ quick thinking, Jett,” he gushed. “But I dunno. It don’t seem right somehow. On them Reds, I mean…”

During that half-minute of madness my wounds from McCarthy’s exploding Christ the Redeemer inflatable had opened again. Beneath the grey hairs of my chest they now glistened and dripped like streams of molten lava. “And where do you think these beauties came from?” I asked with grim rhetoricalism. “It sure as hell weren’t from out of no rulebook. Got a light?”

As I smoked the last of my cigarettes, the referee broke with his shadowy superiors and jogged back out to the centre half. Molotov and I went to meet him, our respective squads trailing close behind and eyeing each other warily across the half-way line. Up in the stands, Russian peasant and Blighty pleb alike were watching this latest drama unfold in stunned disbelief. The air hummed with their questioning murmurs and my heart went out to each and every one of the poor ignorant devils.

“What is the meaning of this insult?” demanded Molotov, gnashing his teeth and rolling his eyes. “Glory belongs to us, not to this ridiculous dinosaur and his rabble of British scumski!”

He sure was a swell guy.

“I am sorry, senhor,” said the referee with a brief shake of his head, “but ancient Carioca proverb say: when chaos gives you her teat it is rude to not start sucking.” He shrugged helplessly. “Is Carnaval, senhor. Saturnalia. The Lord of Misrule. The Last Rites of the Monkey Pig God. You see? The rich man washes the poor man’s undergarments. The child scolds the papa. The King dances for the Fool. The winners are the losers, and the losers,” he looked nervously from Molotov to me, “the losers, senhor, are the winners. Is an unfortunate loophole. Unprecedented! Unprecedented! Tomorrow we sort, tomorrow. But for now, Senhor Tchaikovsky, I offer you my sincere congratulations for your five nil victory.” He took hold of Molotov’s hand and gave it a firm shake, before adding, nervously: “And my most sincere apologies.”

Then the ref’ hoisted my arm aloft for all to see as Molotov’s spluttering face turned red with fury beneath those thick black Commie bristles. “Final score,” he called out to the disbelieving masses, “five Russian goals to nil! Three full points to Stryker’s Boys!”

As the entire audience exploded into wild unrestrained applause, borne upon the wings of the Glorious Aesthetic Moment, I gazed with paternal pride into that cheering stamping baying mob; into the base tabloid heart of My People. Then – like a gardener spying a single red rose in a garden choked by dull gray weeds – I glanced high into the gods and straight into the face of my beloved Marion, a brave little smile playing across those plump, pouting, painted lips.

Goddamn. This was one game I didn’t know how to win!

To Be Continued…

 

Chapter 8: “Turf Wars!”

From the journals of Jett Stryker, Rio de Janeiro, Summer, 2014

Let me tell ya, there’s a lot can happen in the dying moments of injury time during an International World Soccer Cup Tournament Soccer Match. Those final few seconds when the game goes into a kinda loose-limbed free-fallin’ free-for-all and a lot of damn crazy ideas decide to come crawlin’ out of the woodwork, stick their gorgeous heads up over the parapet and dare to ask a simpering, Hey, but, what if…? The kind of damn crazy ideas you wouldn’t even give the time of day just before the flip, but cometh the last few minutes of injury time, cometh anygoddamnthing. And the nearer that goddamn whistle gets to that goddamn marshal’s lips – well, as the fat lady warbles: anything goes.  Am I mixing my metaphors? Am I playing fast n loose with my tenses? Am I making any goddamn sense at all? To be honest, I’m not entirely sure. We’re in injury time, bub. Sloppy word-play should be the least of your worries.

And let me put my cards on the table right now: I’ve seen a few hair-curlers over the decades, but whatever it was the near-capacity audience of the Estado do Vargas had expected to witness during the closing minutes of Group B’s debut display between Great England and the Mighty ol’ USS of R I got the distinct feeling that the sight of a bare-chested, glitter-smeared supposedly-ex Pro leading a samba-line of brightly-feathered drum-beating Cariocas out onto that floodlit pitch would have been pretty low down on the goddamn list.

“Thanks for the work-out, doll,” I murmured into my dancing partner’s thick mop of sweat-drenched hair as she nuzzled the nape of my neck and begged me in her mixture of crude pidgin English and even-cruder body language not to leave. “Another time, another place, and who knows, maybe I coulda learnt ya to jitterbug. But right now these little piggies of mine need to twinkle elsewhere.” With a final flourish of fancy footwork and one last suggestive thrust of the groin I untangled myself from the weeping lovesick and turned to survey the state of.

It sure wasn’t the greatest scene.

Huddled on the left-wing were Spicer, Jackson and Blue – the last of the Carnaby Street Irregulars – that notorious band of street toughs who’d scandalized London with their deliberate flaunting of Soccer convention: to that casual crew, offside had been the only side, handballs de rigueur, goal-hanging simply a way of life. Now, a lone bottle of whisky was being passed silently between them. And a carpet of cigarette butts smouldered beneath their feet. Joyce was in goal, of course – when had he ain’t been? – but that hopeless junky had peaked too soon and was nodding out the last few seconds of play in a narcotic-induced fug. And there was McCarthy: drunk as a monkey at Thanksgiving, wheeling round the midfield desperately trying to keep possession of a ball only his own deranged mind could see. He & I’d have our pow wow, sure. But right now, I needed to find the real ball.

And there it was: way, way over in the other half – being leisurely passed from one sniggering Ruskie to the next while Hathaway and Crawley made asses of themselves, chasin’ that greasy leather orb like they were a couple of sailors on shore-leave and it was the only floozy in town.

“Cor bloody blimey, Mr. Stryker, sir, are you a sight for sore eyes!”

Goddamn! It was Churchill, The Good Kid! Officially he was down as McCarthy’s wing-man, but right now McCarthy was spinnin’ out there all on his lonesome and Churchill wasn’t one to stand by twiddlin’ his thumbs.

“Drop the Mr, Kid. And while you’re at the garbage you can toss in the Sir too. We ain’t got time to stand on no ceremonies. Out here on the astro’ I’m strictly Jett. Capisce?”

“Sorry, Sir – I mean, sorry, Mr – I mean – sorry… Jett.” My name sat uneasily on the poor kid’s tongue. And a shy blush crept across his young downy cheeks. No doubt Churchill had grown up in some godforsaken council-flat with posters of yours’ truly doublin’ as wallpaper. And now here I was: the Blighty Dream made flesh. No wonder he couldn’t believe his hazels. If I gave him a twirl he’d probably expect to find a wad of blue-tac on my fanny.

As I smoked the last of my cigarettes I looked with something like envy at the still-partying Cariocas. They had been cleared off the pitch in double quick time and had instinctively re-grouped around the perimeter in a wild and hedonistic congo. What did they care if we were 5-0 down with only seconds left to play and here I was all tuckered out, and sans my father’s boots? They sure were having themselves a ball. Then it hit me.

“Hey, kid,” I whispered to Churchill. “Go rally the troops. I think I may have an idea…”

To Be Continued… 

 

 

 

Chapter 7: “The Hardest Mile!”

From the journals of Jett Stryker, Rio de Janeiro, Summer, 2014

Hunched over the wheel of his beat-up jalopy, squinting through the cracked and grime-streaked windshield, Eliot honked and cursed his way through the teeming streets toward the Estadio do Vargas. Startled chickens and gun-toting infants scattered before us, their awful games interrupted by our desperate need for fortune and glory and the Great Blighty Way.

A toothless old crone, washing her shawls in a barrel of rainwater, spat at us as we careened past. “El soccio bastardo Englais!” she screeched in demotic Portuguese, a scrawny hand clawing the air in a crude evocation of the Evil Eye. “Rotta el Casa Diablo!”

“Save your breath, sister,” I murmured from the backseat, writhing on that scalding black leather as I attempted to pull my tight-fitting shorts up over my powerfully muscular thighs. “Ain’t ya heard the news? I was damned a long time ago. That’s right, lady. The flotsam and jetsam of the four corners are drawn to International Soccer like moths to a flame, each and every one of us a goddamn Icarus in shorts and studs – and let me tell ya this for nothing: my wax wings melted a long, long  – Goddamn!”

At the end of my hairy, unguarded shins, my bare feet wriggled up at me like a pair of naked puppets.

“Eliot! My father’s boots! They’re back in the Hotel Lagarto! If they were to fall into the wrong hands…”

“I knows, kid, I knows. We just don’t have the time. Goddamn!”

Slamming on the brakes, Eliot gestured helplessly through the windshield. An impromptu Carnaval had broken out in the streets ahead and a procession of brightly colored Bandas now strutted and samba’d between us and the Stadium.

“Ol’ Sparky’ll never make it through,” said Eliot, striking the steering wheel in frustration. “I guess this is one game you’re just gonna have to sit out, kid.”

“Gimmie a moment, will ya,” I commanded as I finished the last of my cigarettes and squinted into that dreadful fiesta of sequins and feathers and grotesquely over-sized papier mâché heads. “I’m trying to think.”

Just beyond this pagan rabble loomed the imposing silhouette of Estadia do Vargas. It was barely a mile away but it might as well have been on the other side of the moon.

Just then, the infernal drumming of the blocos was drowned out by a huge Communist roar rising up from within those flag-draped walls.

The hapless Joyce had let another one slip through his fingers.

Christ only knew why Eliot kept that goddamn degenerate twixt the posts. The guy had fumbled more saves than I’d had eel pies, but I guess the Beautiful Game can make strange bedfellows of us all and Eliot wasn’t one to kiss and tell. Still, glancing down, I realized Joyce’s error had done some good after all: suddenly there was a bulldog snarling in my pants, and it was hungry for a bite of red commie meat!

“Looks like I’m dancin’ barefoot from here on in,” I said with grim relish, springing from the car, grabbing hold of the closest bikini-clad Carioca within reach and engaging her in an erotically-charged lambada. “I’ll see ya on the other side, Eliot. And make mine a double. I’ve a feeling I’m gonna be needing it…”

I just had time to hear Eliot croak out a faint “good luck, kid!” before my head was filled by the beating of those drums, the shrill cry of those whistles, the frank and obscene whispers of the dusky beauty pirouetting in my arms, and I was swallowed up by that heaving, heathen, goddless throng and I began to dance like I’d never danced before…

To Be Continued… in tomorrow’s thrilling instalment: “Turf Wars!”