Key Lime Pie and Custard
Chapter Two
By Drew Hunt
"Fuck!"
I stormed out of the hotel's bar, my fists clenched in anger. "Stupid uptight bloody
Yanks!"
For the second
time since I'd begun my coach tour of
Marching into the
hotel lobby, I couldn't be arsed waiting for the lift, or elevator as the damn
Yanks called it, so I decided to use the stairs. Pushing open the heavy fire door, I wondered
why they just couldn't call the lift a lift.
"Oh hi,
Graham, you don't look too happy, is there anything we can help you
with?" Mrs Peachtree asked in her
down home country voice.
"Oh, err,
hello Mrs Peachtree." I tried to calm down, she was a nice old girl, her and her husband had kind of taken me under their wings
when they saw that I was travelling alone.
Although the first time I'd bumped into them, I had to grit my teeth as
Mrs P went all gushy at my 'cute English accent'. I wanted to tell her that she was the one
with the accent, but managed to stop myself at the last second.
"Is something
wrong dear? Anything George or I can
help you with?"
I sighed. "I've just been in the bar, but they won't
serve me."
"Well, you’re
not old enough to drink," George piped up.
"Well, err
no, not here in the States, but I can at home, they let us drink at eighteen
there."
George pulled a face;
I hoped he wasn't going to go into another of his rambling monologues about
when he was stationed in
"If you like,
dear, you could come and sit with us a spell, and George could go up to the bar
for you."
The Peachtrees were
okay, well as far as old people go, but what 19 year old would wanna sit with
people of their grandparent's age on a Saturday night? "It’s okay, Mrs
P, I'll just go up to my room and have an early night."
"Okay,
dear. But I wish you'd call us Elma and
George. You English are always so prim
and proper."
I just smiled, biting
my tongue before turning to go up the stairs.
On reaching my
floor, I'd just turned into the corridor only to be ambushed by two more oldies
from the bus tour.
"Graham,
there you are, we wondered where you'd escaped to."
"Oh?" What
did the two old biddies want?
"Yes,” Mamie,
the slightly shorter one said, "We were going out for an evening stroll
and wondered if you would accompany us.
We don't often have a nice young man on our arm, do we Dorothy?"
"No,
dear."
I closed my
eyes. 'Jesus, why did I come on this
tour? There was no one my own age and
everyone made it their business to check up on me all the time.’ "That's very kind Miss Mamie, Miss
Dorothy, but I've got a bit of a headache coming on, so I thought I'd just go
and have a lie down."
"Oh you poor
thing, I've got some Tylenol in my purse, would you like a couple?"
I had no idea what
this Tylo stuff was, didn't sound anything like what we had at the chemist's in
the UK. "Err, thank you, but I'll
manage."
"You
sure, dear? Maybe a walk would do you good, help clear
your head?" Dorothy said, still not giving up on the idea of getting me
alone with them.
I smiled, hoping
it wasn't too forced. "Honestly,
thanks. I think it's probably the time
difference catching up with me." I'd used this excuse for the past couple
of days. I thought I’d better think up
something else to be alone, cause that one was starting to wear thin. These Yanks were so nosey, So
different than people back home. The
'Getting To Know You' wine and cheese thing on our
first night was a buzz with people talking to one another. I thought that they all knew everyone else,
but I soon learned they were from different parts of the country. I thought I'd be able to melt into the
background, but oh no. Once they found
out that I was English I was fair game.
Actually most of them were harmless enough. Old and wrinkly, but sort
of charming in an old-fashioned sort of a way. I soon had them eating out of my hands. A few well placed please and thank yous went
a long way with this lot.
"All right,
honey, we'll let you rest then." Miss Mamie said taking hold of her
companion's arm.
"Thank you,
ladies." I smiled sweetly, sending the old dears into gushing
schoolgirls. If I were into bonking
old-folk, I'd be quids in on this holiday, but the idea of a sagging wrinkled
up woman was enough to make my dick shrivel up and hide.
"Now remember,
Graham," Miss Mamie said, "If you ever need anything, our room is
just across the hall. You can call on us
anytime, day or night."
"Thank you,
that's really kind." I kept my smile in place. 'Not bloody likely.' The thought of seeing those two old crones in
their nighties, hollow cheeked cause their falsies would be in a glass on their
bedside tables, was enough to give me nightmares.
Sliding the
key-card into the lock and seeing the little green light come on, I stepped into the safety of my room. Turning round to close the door, I saw Will standing at his own door just down the hall, his usual
expression of, dislike, hunger or was it sadness on his face. There was something about that bloke that unsettled
me. Okay, he was a poof, but that wasn't
it. Live and let live, that was always
my motto. So long as he didn't try to
pinch my arse or anything, I thought we'd get on okay. His glasses made him look like a nerd, but at
least he didn't have a pocket protector, though maybe he'd left it back at the
office.
Closing my room
door, I walked over to one of the beds, and flopped down on it and closed my
eyes. I wondered for the hundredth time
what I was doing here. If only I'd not
filled in that stupid card down at my local supermarket, I didn't even like the
tinned fruit they were offering samples of.
I never thought I'd win the first prize of an all expenses coach tour of
sunny Florida for two. But three weeks
later I got a phone call from this woman, telling me the tie-break slogan I'd
scribbled down about how you could taste the sunshine in every bite of their
god-awful fruit, impressed the judges so much, they had given me the top
prize. Shit, I'd have much rather won
one of the runners up prizes of a years worth of their cans. Still I thought I'd be able to take Amy with
me, she'd been bleating on about how we never did much together and how I spent
too much time with my mates down the rugby club. I hated it when she got all possessive and
controlling.
I never got a
chance to tell her about the holiday cause the stupid
cow went off on one when I stayed out all night after we'd beaten our arch
rivals earlier that day. What had the dozy
bitch wanted me to do? Tell my mates
that 'No, even though I'd been voted man of the match, I couldn't celebrate
with them cause my girlfriend wanted to go out and shop for new curtains or
some other crap?' Not fucking
likely.
When I turned up
at her place the next morning to apologise, box of chocolates in hand, the
bitch wouldn't even let me get inside the door before she went off on one. God was my head hurting that morning and the
last thing I wanted was to listen to her screaming at me. So I chucked the chocolates at her, told her
she was dumped, and went home.
Thinking back,
that hadn't been a good move. Her dad
was the boss at the bed factory where I worked, he called me into his office
the next morning and gave me my P45, telling me that they had to start laying
people off cause of 'a downturn in the market'.
Yeah, right. So with no job, no
bird, and fuck all else to do, I decided to go to Florida on my own. I thought there'd be loads of crumpet
knocking about, but I hadn't figured on everyone being loads older than me.
It'd grown chilly in
the room, so I got up and turned down - or was it up? - the
air conditioning, before flopping back on the bed. I didn't fancy the idea of watching the
telly, there are only so many times you can watch a load of morons shrieking
and waving their hands in the air when some dozy twat shows them how nothing
will stick to their particular brand of saucepan. I thought about ringing down to get them to
remove the block on the porn channels, but, I couldn't be arsed, plus I'd have
to pay for that out of my own pocket.
Getting off the
bed I wandered into the en-suite bathroom, it was kind of posh, some kind of
fancy coloured mosaic tiling on the floor, funny looking taps , sorry,
'faucets' on the Jacuzzi and shower.
It took me a bit
to work out how to turn the water on, but once I'd figured it out, the Jacuzzi
soon filled up. Tearing open the little
sachet of bubble bath, I gave it a sniff.
It was a bit pongee, all flowery and girly, but there wasn't anything
else.
Once I'd worked
out how to turn the jets on, I had a right good time. Turning onto my front, the bubbles started to
give me a boner. I wished we had one of
these things back home. It was a lot better than our scratched old enamel
bath.
Not wanting to
waste a good hard on, I decided to have a wank.
Grabbing hold of my prick, I ran my hand up and down its smooth
length. I was the biggest of all the
guys on the rugby team. Frank the little
half back did give me a run for my money, though mine was almost twice as thick
as his. I thought that it was all right to
check out the other bloke's equipment, so long as you didn't stare too long. That'd
be, well, queer.
Amy never had nothing to complain about when I slipped her a length. She was always begging for it. Well, almost always. Why did she always have to keep going on
about my breath smelling of beer when I fucked her? God, birds could be such a bloody pain.
The mental picture
of her face all twisted in anger caused my bone to wilt. I quickly tried to
think of something else. The warm water
whooshing all around me helped me to relax, and get me back in the mood.
Sinking lower in
the water, I pictured a few of the models in my stash of porno mags back at
home. My favourite was of a blonde bird
with big titties laying with her legs wide open. She was stroking her shaved clit with a long
painted fingernail, a come fuck me look on her open lips. But it just wasn't happening. I let my mind drift. It wasn't until I was
right on the edge of cumming that I realised what I'd been focusing on, but it
was too late, I was too close. My spunk
shot into the water, almost instantly disappearing into the churning
water. "Fuck, shit." I had to
get out, what I'd hoped would help relax me had got me worrying about things I
didn't want to think about. What the
hell made me picture the guys getting showered after a rugby game? Shit, I shouldn't have been thinking on stuff
like that.
Stepping out of
the tub, I leaned down and turned off the jets before pulling the plug. Reaching for one of the hotel's dressing
gowns, I put it on and dripped my way into the bedroom. I was too distracted by what had just
happened to enjoy the fact that I could slob around after having a bath, something
mum wouldn't let me do back at home.
Home, God, I wished I was there.
Apart from a week in
Knowing it was too
early to go to bed, I realised I had to fill my time somehow. I wished now I'd accepted the offer of going
out for a walk with the two old biddies.
Sighing, I reached
for the TV's remote control and began to flip through the channels. After about fifteen minutes of surfing
through sit-coms, dramas and other Yank shit, I was about to turn the set off
when I clicked on a channel that was showing an old episode of EastEnders. I'd never voluntarily watched it before, but
Amy never missed it, and I'd had to sit through it loads of times, waiting till
it finished before we could go out.
Knowing there would be little else on that I could stomach, I sat back
and watched as the residents of the square argued and bad mouthed one
another. I started to get into the plot,
though the addition of commercial breaks was something I wasn't used to, the
BBC not having such things back at home.
I was kind of bummed when the episode finished and they started showing
some artsy shit.
* * * * * *
Things seemed a lot
better by breakfast time the next morning.
I felt like I was ready to face whatever the tour company was going to
show us next. It wasn't such a bad
holiday really, we had loads of time to do our own thing, the old fogies could
sit on park benches and natter, while I could go round and do some
exploring. I couldn't remember where we
were heading off to next, was it
Having bathed the
night before, I just slipped into a pair of shorts, a T-shirt and my trainers,
and that was me dressed. I almost forgot the stupid name badge we were
told to wear, God, I hated wearing it.
All the old biddies knew who I was anyway, Christ, I was the only one
this side of forty. Well, no, Will was
in his late twenties or something, but. . . I didn't know what to make of him;
he was always so quiet, not like his fellow Americans at all.
Looking out of my
window, I saw that the sun was already brightly shining, loads different from
what it'd probably be like back at home.
For the first time the thought of home didn't make me feel sad.
I'd have to
remember to send Amy a postcard, but I doubted that they'd have any with 'I'm
glad you're not here' on them. That
brought an instant smile to my face, which soon fell when I heard a tapping at
my door.
"Graham? Graham, honey, you in
there?"
It was the dynamic
duo.
I thought about
not answering, but my stomach was beginning to rumble, telling me it needed filling.
"Coming,"
I called as I made my way to the door and opened it, revealing my two geriatric
pursuers smiling up at me.
"Oh good, we
wanted to catch you before you went down to breakfast," Mamie said.
"We wanted
you to come and sit with us," Dorothy added.
"Why thank
you, ladies. That would be lovely,"
I said, mustering up a smile. I was sort
of really touched by them coming to seek me out.
Locking my door, I
thought I'd make the old girls' day, so I bowed to them and offered my arms for
them to take. They giggled like
teenagers as they accepted. It was a bit
awkward all three of us getting into the lift at the same time, but we managed
it.
Just as the doors
were about to close, I saw Will approaching.
He held back, probably waiting to get the next lift.
"Will!"
Dorothy called out. She'd obviously seen him too. Reaching out with her free hand she stopped
the lift doors from closing. "Come
on in dear, there's plenty of room."
Will hesitated
before stepping into the lift. He kept his eyes firmly fixed to the front for
the whole ride down to the ground floor.
It looked like most
of the food was bread rolls, croissants, bagels and crap like that. Though near the end of the food line I
spotted sausage and bacon, but there weren't any fried eggs though. Once I'd gotten my food, with my female fan
club following close behind, I found an empty table and began to tuck in.
When I cut into
the bacon the pieces shattered and flew off in all directions. Shit, the stuff had been over cooked. 'It's not like the bacon I get back at home,'
I thought miserably.
I was brought out
of my funk when Mamie called out to Will to join us.
"No, it's okay, thanks," he said.
"Nonsense,
you can't eat by yourself."
Will sighed before
reluctantly sitting at the remaining space at our table. I smiled at him, he
smiled back, well sort of, before he dropped his eyes and concentrated on his
bagel.
"Well this is
cosy, isn't it Mamie?" Dorothy said trying to start conversation.
"Yes,
dear. Aren't we lucky to have the company of two
very nice young gentlemen?"
I wondered if they
were aware that Will batted for the other team.
I didn't think it was my place to say anything though.
"Will, Graham
was telling us that this is his first time in
"Um,
no. I'm from
"Where's
that?" I asked, mouth partly filled with food. "Sorry," I said once I'd swallowed.
"It's in
I still didn't
know, but decided not to show my ignorance.
"You'll have
come down here for some much needed sunshine, then." Dorothy said,
probably happy that the conversation had begun to flow.
"Yes, I
needed a break."
Just then, Jolly
Jim stood up and did his official tour guide stuff. He reminded me of a character from a sitcom I
used to watch as a kid, where this Welsh bird would get on the public address
system in the holiday resort and try and get the campers to join in with stuff
like the glamorous granny and knobbly knee contests.
"If I could
have everyone's attention," Jim said, I was disappointed that he didn't
open with 'Hello campers'. "The bus
will depart from the main car lot in one hour to take you to
"We've got
time for another cup of tea, Graham.
Mamie and I just love your English tea." Dorothy said rising to her
feet and going over to the food line.
She returned a moment later and asked which tea I wanted.
"Um,
the ordinary kind."
I decided it would probably be best if I got up to see what there was to choose
from.
There was a wooden
box to the side of this tea urn type thing.
The box had a pile of teabags in it.
I'd never seen an individually
wrapped teabag before; ours always came loose in boxes of eighty from the
supermarket. I looked at what they'd got,
they all had names like 'Lemon and orange rind', ‘Peppermint' and 'Red rose'. "Um," I said to Dorothy “I'll have
coffee instead. I don't think I'd like any of these."
"Just a
minute, dear, I'll ask if they've got something you'd like."
Before I could
tell her not to bother, she'd walked off, returning a minute later with a
somewhat harassed waiter.
"My friend
wants some English tea," she told him.
"Yes ma'am,
it's all here." He pointed to the box.
"All these
are fruit or herb teas." Dorothy said, pronouncing it as ‘erb.’
I squirmed; I
honestly wasn't bothered about tea anyway.
"What brand
of tea do you drink sir?" The bloke who was obviously used to dealing with
awkward customers asked.
"Well err, Typhoo,
PG Tips, Tetley.
You know, just ordinary tea."
There was a spark
of recognition on the waiter's face when I said Tetley,
hopefully the penny had finally dropped.
The bloke excused himself saying he thought they had some in the
kitchen.
Dorothy played
mother and filled up four small glass jug type things with hot water and took
them back to our table. I just followed,
guessing that the waiter would come to find us.
Back at the table
I eyed the glass jug thing suspiciously.
There wasn't a handle on it, it looked like you
had to pick it up by its rubber coated neck.
The waiter eventually
arrived, waving a single bag of Tetley.
I thanked him, pulled off the foil wrapping, dumped the bag in my cup,
it didn't seem to fit in the glass jug thingy, and then poured the water on top
of it.
"Would you like
the creamer, dear?" Dorothy asked.
I didn't much like
the idea of cream in my tea, but decided not to make any more of a fuss. "Yes
please, and sugar too."
She passed over what
looked like a milk jug as well as a bowl with some packets of sugar in it. Once I'd poured in the milk and emptied a
packet of sugar into the cup and given it a stir with a plastic paddle thingy,
I fished out my teabag, and took a sip. I
all but spat the stuff back into the cup.
As well as tasting like shit, it was lukewarm.
"I'm
afraid," Will said, "The fear of litigation if you were to scald
yourself prevents most establishments from serving boiling water, which as an
Englishman you will know is the only way to correctly infuse the tea
leaves,"
I nodded. I supposed
he was right. At home I just filled the
teapot straight from the kettle, never giving it much thought. I wanted to ask them why they called it
'English tea'. We didn't grow tea at home, we didn't
have the right sort of weather. As far
as I knew, tea came from
There was no way I
could drink the stuff. I put my cup in
the saucer and pushed it away, which made Will smile. I sort of got the idea that he hadn't done
much smiling lately. Apart from the few
words we'd said to one another at the 'getting together' bash, this was the
most I'd heard him say on the whole trip.
And us Brits were supposed to be the reserved ones.
* * * * * *
I was glad the
coach we travelled on was air conditioned, cause it
looked really warm out there and it was only mid morning. I soon got bored with the passing scenery. It
was just like the motorways back home, only wider, and of course the Yanks
drove on the wrong side of the road.
Everyone onboard seemed to be talking all the time, loads of 'em kept
passing by the double seat I was sitting in by myself, spending a few minutes
chatting to me. It was nice of 'em to
want to include me, but half the time we didn't have much to say.
A couple of hours
into the journey I realised I needed the loo.
There was one at the back of the bus, so after looking round to see if
there was a queue, I got up and approached it.
I hadn't noticed the little sign that said 'Occupied'. I was just about to go back to my seat when I
saw Will. He was sitting alone just like
me.
"Hi,
Graham, waiting for the bathroom?"
"Uh,
yeah." Judging by
the size of the cubicle I doubted there'd actually be a bath in there. I shrugged, putting it down to the Americans
just being strange.
As I stood
waiting, I felt a tingle go down my spine.
Turning quickly I was just in time to see Will lifting his gaze. He'd been scoping out my bum. He blushed, so I knew I'd been right.
'Oh
my God!' 'Will fancies me!' My first thought was, well, panic. I'd never been hit on by a bloke before. Not that he'd actually hit on me, but. . .
The toilet became
free, I got inside, made sure the door was locked
before unzipping. "Fuck, what do I
do now?" I said under my breath as I waited for my piss to start.
I tried to
remember if Will had ever said anything about if he had a boyfriend, husband or
whatever they call them, but what had just happened didn't let me think
straight. Shit, straight, I was
straight. Surely Will
knew that. I mean, he couldn't, wouldn't
wanna hit on me. I was, well. . . Shit,
my mind couldn't get round the thought that Will liked
me, in, um, that way. I know I'd told
him that I had gay friends back home, meaning I was cool with the whole gay
thing, but. . . Oh fuck! I must have
given him the wrong idea. When I told
him about my gay friends, I was sort of stretching the truth. The most I ever do is say 'hi' to a couple of
blokes who live down our street. I didn't
know 'em, I'd never been inside their house or
anything.
After flushing the
loo, I did my best to wash my hands in the tiny sink, then
I got out of there, not daring to see if Will was watching me.
I'd just got back
to my seat when Jolly Jim came on the bus's public address system. "Ladies and gentlemen, we'll shortly be
arriving in Fort Lauderdale where you'll be able to have lunch at the Bay View
restaurant. We'll stay here for an hour
and a half, which should leave you plenty of time to eat and relax. In order to arrive in good time in Key West,
please would everyone make sure they're back on the bus by 2pm, thank you."
As I waited for
those in front of me to get off the coach, I tried to collect my racing
thoughts. I decided it would be best if
I kept my distance from Will, not lead him on or anything. Yeah, I'd do that. I wasn't homophobic or anything, I just. . .
Well I'd just keep out of his way.
I wasn't very
hungry, so I thought I'd grab a seat in the shade somewhere and have a kip. 'Yeah,' I told myself as I stepped down from
the coach, 'It shouldn't be hard to keep out of Will's way. After all half the
time he was trying to avoid me anyway.
Jesus it was so bloody hot. How
the Americans coped with the heat I'd never know, and it was January for
Christ's sake.
"You will
have lunch with us, won't you Graham?" Mamie said, touching my arm. What was with all this touchy feely stuff? Since arriving in America I was always being touched. We'd never do that back at home.
Turning, I saw the
expectant faces of Dorothy and Mamie.
Shit, I hadn't figured on those two. "Um, well, I'm not that
hungry, I thought I'd just find somewhere quiet and. . ."
"A growing
young man like you needs to eat, and they serve a really nice lunch here, Mamie
and I came here a couple of years ago, didn't we, Mamie?"
"Yes, I
remember you went up for a second helping of the fried chicken."
"Did not,"
"Did
too." Mamie put
her hands on her hips.
We were still
standing at the foot of the bus's stairs.
The people behind us were starting to get impatient.
"Ladies, we
need to let the other people get off," I said.
"Sorry,"
both women said moving to one side.
"But we still
insist you come and have lunch with us," Mamie looked determined.
"Absolutely." Dorothy added.
I closed my eyes,
wishing I was somewhere else.
"Okay, if it will stop you two from arguing."
"We don't
argue." Mamie said.
"Well you do,
I. . ." Dorothy began.
I cleared my
throat, which thankfully made the two old biddies stop.
"Sorry, Graham,
you must think we're a couple of stupid old women." Dorothy said.
"No, not at
all," I lied.
By this point we'd
reached the entrance to the restaurant.
I must say the wide open spaces, high ceilings
and bright sunlight shining in through the windows made the place seem really
nice. The great smells coming from the
self-service lines made my appetite return.
They had lots of
stuff to choose from, some of it looked really weird. I wouldn't try it, despite Mamie and Dorothy
telling me it was good. They'd been
wrong about the tea this morning, so I wasn't gonna take any chances.
Once I'd reached
the end of the line, I glanced at what the oldies had chosen. Heck, I thought I'd loaded up, but they'd
really piled their plates.
"Won't they
feed us in Key West or something?" I joked.
"Mamie and I
have been on diets for the last six months, so we could let our hair down when
we came on vacation."
I shrugged. 'Women!'
We moved to a
table, I don't know why, but I rushed ahead and pulled the chairs out for the
old biddies. God I'm such a smarmy
bugger at times. But it paid off, the old dears were all a twitter at 'how gallant' I was
behaving. They actually made me blush.
We'd been eating
for a few minutes, and I had to say the grub wasn't half bad, when Dorothy
piped up. "Will, dear, over
here." She stood up and waved. Her
voice could really carry.
A startled Will
turned round to face us.
'Shit!' I wanted to avoid him, and judging by his
expression, he wanted to keep his distance from me, too.
Will finished
getting his food and tried to escape, but Dorothy wasn't having any. She got up from her seat and went over to
him, taking his elbow and guiding him to our table. The poor sod looked trapped. I was beginning to feel sorry for him.
"Now Will,
you weren't trying to hide from us were you?"
The fact he was
one of the last of our party to go through the food line would suggest he was
doing exactly that. "Uh, no,"
he said beginning to fidget.
I'd lost my
appetite. It wasn't that I didn't want
to sit next to Will, it was. . . I didn't know what exactly. I felt creeped out
that he fancied me. I was a good
looking bloke and all that, never had any problem pulling the birds, but. . .
"Oh isn't
this lovely?" Mamie said. "You
two young men ought to stick together, you're the only
unaccompanied people on the tour."
I choked on my
coke.
"You
okay?" Dorothy asked, standing up and moving behind me.
"I'm fine, it just went down the wrong way." I croaked.
I wish I could say
I enjoyed lunch, but the unspoken tension between Will and me spoiled it. Though I did go back for a second helping of
something called Key Lime pie, it was great.
Might have been better with some custard, but you couldn't have
everything.
Dorothy and Mamie
did their best to keep the conversation going, but with me feeling
uncomfortable, and Will being equally out of sorts, conversation didn't exactly
flow. I was relieved when we'd all
finished and we decided to go into the lounge area of the restaurant till it was
time to get back on the coach.
This didn't turn
out to be the relaxing time it should have been. As we approached the overstuffed leather
benches in the entranceway type place, I heard two members of our group
discussing Key West. "Of course you
know it'll be crawling with fags." At first I wondered what cigarettes had
to do with it, but seeing Will stiffen, I quickly
realised that to the Yanks a fag is a homosexual.
The speaker, a
bloke in his mid fifties, balding and overweight, turned to face us. To Will he said, "No doubt you'll feel
right at home with all them preverts.
Fucking homo-sex-u-als, you'll all burn in hell."
Will had gone white, not that his skin had looked all that tanned
before. I acted without thinking, what
had Will ever done to him? I got right
into the bloke's face. He was sitting
down and I was standing, so he had to look up at me. "Listen you narrow-minded piece of
shit. You better keep your filthy trap
shut around me and my friends; otherwise I'll shut it for you."
The veins on the
bloke's forehead bulged, his breathing got heavy, I
thought he was gonna have a stroke or something. "You must be one of 'em too, if you're
standing up for him." He pointed at Will.
I kept my gaze on
the weasel's face. "You better take
that back, pal. What I am or am not is
no fucking business of a pea-brained ignorant prat like you."
"You, you . .
." He was starting to froth at the mouth.
"Marvin, you're
causing a scene. Leave it alone, you've
said enough," his wife bleated as he tried to rise.
"Stay out of
this, Wilma. No snot-nosed limy kid is
gonna tell me what to do."
There was no way I
was going to back down. I'd never run from a fight in my life, and I wasn't
going to do it this time. Marvin even at his full height only came up to my
chin. "Sit down granddad before I
put you down."
The bloke's eyes
narrowed, I saw him clench his fist and draw it back.
His shrew of a
wife got hold of his hand and held it in a surprisingly firm grip. He spun round, directing his anger at
her. "I told you to stay out of
this, why don't you fucking listen, woman?"
I'd never seen such
a thing happen before, well not in real life anyway, but Wilma stood, and with
her free hand, she slapped her husband across the face. "I've had enough of you causing scenes
when we go out." She burst into tears and ran off.
The adrenaline was
still flowing in my veins and I was about to deck the twat, when I felt a hand
rest on my shoulder. I turned to see
Mamie, looking distressed up at me.
"He's not worth it, Graham.
Show him who the real man is and just walk away."
Letting out a
breath, I thought over what she'd said.
Did I really want to punch the bloke? He was seriously out of shape, loads older
than me, it wouldn't be a fair fight. Though there’d be plenty of witnesses who I
hoped would say I'd been provoked, this was a foreign country, the police would
probably believe the arsehole bigot over me.
"Yeah, Mamie,
you're right. The dick-head isn't worth
it." I faced the bloke again and
gave him what I hoped was a menacing stare before
turning away.
The room seemed to
sigh with relief as I went to see if Will was okay. I found him leaning up against a wall. "You
okay, mate?" I asked him, feeling suddenly tired.
"Why did you
do that, Graham?"
"I. . . Well
what he said wasn't right."
"I wish you
hadn't interfered. It was none of your
business. You've just made things worse." Shooting me an angry glare, he
pushed himself from the wall and walked off.
I turned to Mamie
and Dorothy, "What did I do wrong?
Did he expect me to just stand back and. .
." I shook my head, confused at Will's reaction. Did Will get off on
blokes walking all over him, treating him like something that had got stuck to
their shoe?
Dorothy
sighed. "I don't know, dear. Maybe he'll come round later and
apologise."
I wasn't sure I
was in the mood to accept his apology.
Just then Jim appeared, false smile at full brightness. "Hello, everyone. I hope you all had a good lunch." He
didn't wait for a response. "Are we
all ready?"
I followed along
with everyone else as we left the restaurant, the heat hitting me as soon as I
got outside. But Will's reaction, the
anger on his face kept running through my mind, making me barely aware of the
sweat pouring down my spine as I waited to board the bus.
I don't remember
much of the journey to Key West. There
seemed to be loads of sea, sand, palm trees, it all looked really
tropical. I didn't realise we'd have to
cross so many bridges. Dorothy leaned
forward at one point to tell me they were called causeways and they connected
the mainland and the various keys.
Finally, and it
seemed to take forever, the bus pulled up outside a small (well, small by
American standards) hotel. We were told
we could get out, stretch our legs and go and check in. All I wanted to do was go to my room, have a
long soak in the Jacuzzi, assuming there was one, and get drunk.