Well, well, well... if I look at this forum, I´d say on a scale from 1-10 European related themes rank 0, whereas "sexually motivated crimes" do 100. (If done by a colleague, double.) But this is just England, isn´t it?.
So, I have to make myself more interesting it seems, poke you a little.
Trouble is I don´t have any books to offer except the H2G2-Sequel, which is not authorised and this, though uploaded for free on my website, is not even edited, let alone what I have scribbled about on my blog. So, all I can offer to give you a little first glimpse of me are the first two (unedited) chapters of my book-to-be about my time in England!
PS: Do the TX-4´s still go up in flames?
Chapter 1 ("Peaceful little German writer with four rabbits in bulldog-country", working title, Copyright 2009, Jochen Lembke)
Mai, 2008
My first passenger is a cat.
Obviously she's trained on cabs, as soon as she sees me, she jumps into the open window and wants to be cuddled. Yet as she's not able to pay, I throw her out again. (Joking, it's just that I'm allergic to cats - they sense that, that's why they love me, cruel things)
No, my first passenger actually is Gem and his little daughter, but he does this only because he knows I will mention my first passenger in my book (and that he doesn't have to pay). Well, Gem, you have a nice and secure place in my book, for sure, a whole chapter, don't you know, you hadn't had to worry about it at that point in time.
No, my first passenger actually isn't anyone. It's a "no job", (one of many, many I will have in the next nine months, just another Brighton-aspect, that you can't really count on people here). For the battery is low on my car the screen crashes. I have to call the office by phone, by that time the passenger is gone. As if he/she would have known. (But this is nothing, later in the week I will have a blank screen with no job-details, but for some odd reasons the gods are mocking me about for, I push at the screen with my fingers randomly and the call-back takes place - leaving me with the passenger out waiting on the street somewhere I don't have a clue about where, actually.)
No, my first passenger really is as amazingly unspectacular, given the amount of anticipation, as it is just businesslike. I've spent that much thought on my first real paying customer, if I should dedicate my first book written about England to him or her, but she's late, she's in a hurry and she want's to stop at a cash-point on our way (which about wraps it up for female passengers in England). I tell her she's the first but maybe she has heard that from many men before and it doesn't impress her much. I tell my second passenger about it and he replies: "Oh, I'm not your first time", he's giving off a rather gay impression, "but they say it always gets better with the second time..!" Well, maybe when she reads this here...
Oh, the excitement, it was all so exciting, back then! Writing this here, nine months later, for me now it's just another businesswoman that made me pull up somewhere at Clock-Tower, amidst of traffic, but at that time!
My first passenger in a foreign country!
In a foreign town I don't have much of a clue about! Paying me in a foreign currency, with one of those 10-pound-notes of which so many, many more will follow, a fare on a strange meter I set for the first time - oh, the magic of that day!
Oh, the magic of that first week...
Very soon I have the first boozer, he is too drunk to tell me where to go properly, short-changes me, gives me instead of £5.60 only 5 and says, "you should be thankful, I was teaching you the way" and, to that I'd been a cab-driver before in Germany, "but not in this [edited by admin] country!" No, I reply obediently, but all smiles inside, "not in this "[edited by admin]" country". But, then again, it's all so exciting, isn't it, to be abused in a foreign language, I don't know how many times I've been abused in my own country, in my own language, but this! I don't really care about it, I don't let it get to me, I'm in Brighton, as a cab-driver and yes! Embrace all this, it comes with the job, I just smile and let him go on.
Yes, you drunken English lout, abuse me!
What do you know about me, I am going to make it big here, abuse is my sujet, is what I write about, hit me hard. But don't hit me so hard I can't hold the pen later on.
"Woman in labour, would someone please..", is on the display, two days later or so. As if, I think, I don't want any more stress on top of all the stress I just can't handle, and, of course, avoid this. Half an hour later, I of all, first week, don't know nothing, don't know how, don't know why I should begin with, at the end of the first long day, do the dreaded among all cab-drivers "bite-umbilical-cord-"congrats-you-have-a-boy"-mother-happily-smiles-cab-full-of-amniotic-liquor"-tour. It's a mixed couple, the father, quite shaken up, is black. What about prejudices, how about showing there is nothing to it, by acting as a responsible, caring father who has it all under control - and putting a blanket under her before she sits?
So, this is what I have, a lot of stress, a lot of hectic, please could you hurry and, yeah, right it's your first week, but see, my wife is about to give birth - and a nice little stain of amniotic liquor. How sweet.
Oh, yes, It is the end of Mai 2007 - it is my first week as a Brighton cabbie.
"It's just not plausible", but I'm here. And that's what I am doing.
Chapter 2
September, 2007
"It's just not plausible", the man at Newhaven custom is saying, repeatedly, shaking his head. "You are telling me you want to come to this country to drive a cab? And you don't have a licence, you don't have a permanent address, you don't have a place to stay and you don't even have booked a hotel in advance? Now, you're coming here, with four rabbits and a mattress and you want to drive a cab in Brighton? It's just not plausible."
He looks at me, he looks at my four rabbits and looks at me again. This time he also shakes his head, again. "It's just not plausibe", he says for the umpteenth time. "We've never seen anything so weird as someone bringing four rabbits to this country". (Well, fodder for the British bulldog, I would say now, a year and a half later. Of course they check, the same as French custom did, if it's legal to bring four rabbits anyway, someone does the accordant call, of course they are being told the same as I checked in the Internet before, up to five were okay when from Western Europe, six and more would have to be quarantined for half a year. A good thing now, long afterwards, that I had had to mourn the death of two of my beloved little critters, two and four years ago, otherwise I would have been in serious trouble now.) He turns and asks my brother, "what do you think of that?" My brother, who is a wee bit older than me, old enough to having thought of him as being my older brother since when we were kids, a habit older brother are never likely to put off again, says something like "oh, well, he's old enough" and "well, he doesn't listen to me, why, he basically never listens to anybody" and looks away. "You know", the man says, "we've never ever had someting like that before, that's why." Oh, that's why you are holding me up, that's why you are searching me for drugs, for an hour solid now and you just don't want to stop, I get the impression. You have searched and searched, made me get everything I have spent so much effort to throw in the boot in the first place out again, you have turned everything inside out, even opened the mattress to have a look in the inside, yes, even to poke with a flash-light into the little holes that there are in those latex matresses, you have let come a Citroen specialist, who arrived 15 minutes later, to have a look at the car from beneath. You had you even given my rabbits a dirty look as if I would be some evil dope pusher not even shrinking back from abusing cute innocent little furry creatures for my sinister purposes, stuffing them out and butchering them then cold-bloodedly later, with no witnesses around. I love my rabbits, you silly sod! "You won't find accomodation with four rabbits in this country. No one will put you up." Why, in this country, what do point this out so much for? "Have you had a look, have you called some hotels up? What are you going to do, just go to Brighton now, drive around and look?"
"Yes." I say, firmly.
"But you won't find anything."
Kind Sir, don't you think it's a little late for pessimistic thoughts like this? Why don't you let me go, then, you are holding me up, it's getting later and later!
They have opened now all my bags and bundles, on which I, admittedly, have not spent that much care on packing neatly, the whole contain of the car's inside looks a lot like a gypsy would have packed it (on second thoughts, let's not insult the gypsys...) They leaf through everything they can find, bank slips, personal notes, little scruffy sheets of paper I have scribbled important things on, in a genius-like fashion, right now they focus on finding something that would give proof to my story, which they believe is just a sloppy cover-up-story a drug-courier would come up with, if caught unexpectedly by the ferry-custom, after having had a wild champaign-loadened celebration party throughout the channel trip, toasting to each other about how nicely they would spent the money soon and how stupid custom officers genuinely are. And why don't I have an address to stay, not even a hotel reservation? Because I'm a scatter-brained slob, a chaotic artist who fled from the mess he left behind in Germany? Simply didn't have the time, find it awfully exhausting to look for a room in England (which I did, oh yes) whilst still being in Germany anyway, just relied on my luck I will find something?
"You won't find anything with four rabbits, no one will take you, not in a hotel-room, nor will you be able to find a room generally in this country, not with four rabbits." (Yeah, right fits nicely in their thesis I will then butcher the stuffed-out-with-coke-bunnies, sell it and go back to Germany, for more)
It's running late and my brother, who drove me in his car, had to be back at work on the next day, I somehow want to get this point through to them that they are actually holding me up!
"Here", I say, pointing at the bundle of sheet of A-4 papers he just holds in his hands, which is basically the whole info-package the Hackney Carriage Office sends to you when requested for, "this is all about the licence, now, why don't you believe me?" I don't tell them about my books, no, don't know why, it would give a better explanation why someone would come of all to this country for the very reason to get the taxi-licence and drive, which is unusual, I admit, the normal way would be to come here, get a job, get to know the town and then apply for a licence, years later. I know, but I am unusual anyway, am I not? No, it just seems to not really making things easier for me, at the moment and that's why I don't do it. (Today I wouldn't hesitate a sec, that's how much I've changed in this time.)
They now actually start asking me questions about roads in Brighton, where is this road and where is that road, do you know the road the comes after... you know, at the station, when you turn left... My dilemma is, I've begun with the knowledge almost a year ago and did a nice chunk of it already, but then there were other things, a fifteen pages written declaration about my Hasenschnecke that would go to court, for example (and then didn't, in the end, for some reason). And I've had an awful amount of stress behind me, had to move out and didn't make it in time, with all things piling up, it was all quite awful and messy, I was just so glad when I finally had all my belongings in my brother's car and we could drive off, the whole day through France to Dieppe, where we had to stay the night, for the ferry leaving that night was booked out, so we took the 8 o'clock ferry the next morning. Right now I'm stressed and tired and annoyed, I can't remember a single road of Brighton, everything is clouded in my mind, all I want is to be in a hotel room with my rabbits and open up a can of beer.
"You know", a female officer now says, (there were about six people occupied with this case, the biggest drug find ever in the history of Newhaven, so they think), "a friend of mine drives a cab." I will find out later that almost everybody knows someone in person who drives a cab, for there are so many of them in Brighton. "And how do think you can manage the knowledge, if you just come here and have not ever lived in Brighton before? Because it's very, very tough." I already know that, because I'm smart enough to draw conclusions from the roads I can see on the map and the requirements the office asks for, it won't be easy, I know that, very well (although I still didn't know half of it at that time), but what good would all this pessimism do me, now?
They even call a phone number I have on some paper slip from the buddhist woman I have stayed in May this year, on a pay-per-day basis, to have a final look at Brighton, before I definitely would come here. I had the thought then if anything happens, I would ask her if I could stay for a week or so, but I will later on learn that she is not in any way interested to be my free guide to this country, not in any way more then anybody else, for that matter.
There is only the answering mashine on, so they carry on leafing through my stuff.
I grow more and more impatient, my brother has to hold me back, otherwise I would get myself in even more trouble, I sometimes have a knack for that. I have even thoughts of calling the police. My sense of justice tells me that. However I have enough common sense left that tells me that that would do me no end of good. (Do they even come in those situations or is custom here the only law enforcement in question?)
Then the officer who is handling their phone, on which they've already informed themselves about the fact that one can bring up to five rabbits to this country, asked for pointers on what do to do about such a vile creature that abuses innocent creatures and called for back-up, does one last call, maybe to the Minister of Internal Affairs.
Yet probably the minister has said, "Well, if you don't find anything after one hour, why don't you let the poor bugger go, then?" because he comes along and calls of the dogs. Finally the hunt is over, I can go.
"Thank you for the warm welcome to this country!" I say, not smiling at all, which turns into a pathetic little bit of back-striking. You know, when you make a movie or write a book, you always look for a little kicky something, with which you can end the scene or the chapter.
They are all standing there, a bit dissapointed they came up with nothing and before I get in the car I turn to them and exclaim: "Well, if you ever come to Germany..." I sort of let this hang in the air for a theatralic little while and they all look, apprehensively, "good luck with German custom."
Heck, I know it's pathetic and the minute I've said it I feel embarrassed enough, but that's just the kind of thing you say after what has been, isn't it. My brother looks accusingly.
"Just shut up", he says.
Yeah, he's right, isn't he?
We enter Newhaven, my brother is busy enough with driving in the correct lane, but I look around. Everything is grey and miserable. I feel as if I would have just arrived in a foreign country, I'm homesick already, lovesick anyway.
"Let's turn, Peter", I say to my brother, "drive me back."
"Sure", he says, "I can always drive you back, but then..." He says something like, you then have to face the consequences or such and, of course, I was only joking, there is just no way back for me now, except when I have completed the mission I came here for. The fact that I am lovesick doesn't mean much anyway, that, I have been for the whole past year, without ever being able to come to the source of it and saying "hi, source of my lovesickness, now, how about you and me are having a nice little chat, which will result then in the fact that there would be no reason for me being lovesick anymore, for I am now happily unified with you, the girl that I love!" Moreover this being one of the reasons why I'm here to put some distance between me and the source of my lovesickness (who has an injunction up against me to exactly prevent this kind of talk), there surely isn't much sense in that anyway.
We drive into Brighton and there isn't actually going to be a problem in finding a hotel room, (although I am close to say to my brother that he should drop me off under the nearest bridge, with my comfy mattress and my rabbit-cage, for we are so late.) "It's just not plausible" is a running joke now between my brother and me.
English people tend to be mistrusting and pessimistic, from that first day on this impression had been underlied with proof for so many times!
The third hotel already, we stop and ask, the Kingsway Hotel opposite the King Alfred's on Kingsway, is rabbit-friendly and the manager, a Romanian, is a really nice and helpful man, he patches me up with a room and doesn't mind the rabbit-cage in it. Great, I have a room for myself!
My brother and I part, I have the impression he's quite happy he can leave me here, he has been edgy all the time, being so close to me and my antics (or is it more his antics?) The fact that I've borrowed money from him and others to come here, the fact that he had to help me a bit, has culminated in him screaming at me for just simply shutting the door of his car, I would have slammed it, which I haven't. Or accusing me of screaming at him, when he got in the wrong lane, I could have been more gentle about it. Yeah, right, so how about: "Erm, the weather is depressing, isn't it... and by the way, Peter, if you don't mind, you have just entered the road the wrong way... erm, which has just gotten as killed in a nasty road-accident, by the way", instead of just screaming: "Left! Leeeft!"
So, the grieve is within limits.
Two secs later he knocks on my door and hands me a parking ticket, for he had parked on the pavement, which I will pay in the next days for him. He then drives back, avoiding Newhaven - and will have to pay a fortune for the train back through the Eurotunnel!
Later on, I open up a can of beer and put my feet up. The room is nice. My rabbits are doing well. The look over the gardens down is beautiful, there are some bits of Brighton in the background, promising and tempting. The air has a friendly quality, a gentle breeze is blowing, coming from the sea, background noises add up to a soothing murmur.
I am as happy as can be. I have arrived, I have finally made it.
I am in England, I am in Brighton. (End of chapter)
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