Marmite Cowboy

By Johnny Alien

In 1960's England a lot of little boys grew up infatuated with America. Some of us dreamed of living there one day. It looked like "England on steroids"; bigger, wealthier, and lots more sunshine! Trudging through the rain soaked streets of my working class, medieval, Northern English village, dodging malevolent old 'Church Ladies' and pissed off Grebos, I fantasized about partying on the beach with The Monkees. Optimistic reverberations from Motown, drug fueled California Rock and the cartoons of Robert Crumb furthered my resolve to one day live there.
Most people mature, become more practical and grow out of such dreams, but my own uncertain progress through life has been unhindered by pragmatism. And so it was, during the winter of 1977, a man-child of nineteen, I headed for the promised land of New York City. Undeterred by the city's New World extravagances of size, sound and sleaze, even by deportation! I returned a few weeks later and set off, by Greyhound bus, to find America.
I became eagerly absorbed into the mysterious and mythological topography, populated by people of great generosity, drifters, gay vicars, prostitutes, imaginary Hell's Angels, a girl of my dreams, gangsters, aristocrats, and Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll. Ride with me, along the rudderless trail of a wannabe American lad.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Johnny Alien
• Release date: Apr 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301983056

Johnny Alien

I was born and raised in the medieval village of Tideswell in The Peak District of Derbyshire, Northern England. Never cared much for regular school but went to Art School in Chesterfield, Derbyshire and in Liverpool. Moved to New York City after extensive travels throughout North America, then to Northampton Massachusetts, where I ran a large music venue/nightclub for five years. I have lived in Northampton with my wife Beverley for more than 25 years and have fronted my band 'Big Bad Bollocks' for over twenty years, writing songs and performing throughout the North Eastern US. My wife and I have two teenage sons - Macklin and Roscoe. I currently teach art at an inner city high school in Springfield Ma.

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MARMITE COWBOY

The rudderless trail of a wannabe American Lad

By

Johnny Alien

(aka John Allen)

Corralled by Brian Turner

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

John Allen on Smashwords

Marmite Cowboy:

Copyright © 2011 by John Allen

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

Many of the names in this book have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals…

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Table of Contents

Co-Wranglers Preface

1.Chapter Bloody One

2.Tidza Saturdays

3.Lads Night

4.The Road To Oz

5.American Unwelcoming

6.Panic In Time Square

7.Home Life And Hard Graft

8.All Aboard

9.Gland Of Opportunity

10.Island In The Stürm

11.Hermaphrodite Cowboys

12.Gone Midwest

13.Sex (?), Guns (!), Disco (#@!%)

14.My Insatiable Greed

15.Among American Aristocracy

16.Tidza Uber Alles

17.At the Point of a Knife

18.In a Hidden Valley

19.Departures & Arrivals

20.Reckless Flights Of Fancy

21.Marriage of Unglued Minds

22.I, Booking Agent

The Epilogue – Orifice In The Undieworld

****

BLOODY BREAD/MARMITE ON TOAST

I sneaked in through the pantry door to pick at some grub

Thinkin' it were safe in there while me Dad were down the pub

I ate some cheese pork pie and cake I drank enough milk to fill a bloody lake

I were eatin' so quickly I were feelin' rather faint

Just the good stuff without the carbo's I could hardly see straight

I were rapidly consuming me taste buds fair blooming

When out from the kitchen came a shout

GET SOME BLOODY BREAD WI' THAT LAD YOU'LL BE 'UNGRY AGAIN IN HALF AN HOUR I SAID GET SOME BLOODY BREAD INSIDE YA YA'LL BE EATIN' BEFORE THE HOUR

Well I were caught with the evidence all over me gob

There were nowt ah could say it were a right rum job

Ah mumbled an' a stumbled as ah fumbled for a line

To excuse the greed of me secret feed an' still this heart o' mine

But Dad it's just a little snack I don't want very much

Well he bit his lip but he kept his grip as he shooed me from the fridge

Shouting

GET SOME BLOODY BREAD INSIDE YA Y'EAT MORE THAN A BLOODY 'ORSE

EAT SOME BLOODY BREAD WILL YA EETS GOOD WITH HP SAUCE

Well for years this were the pattern that me Dad'd try to fatten

Me ravenous boyhood frame wi' loads o' bread

But it weren't til ee discovered that toast wi' Marmite smothered

Was the one sure way to feed me the way he wanted

GET SOME BLOODY BREAD LAD HERE'S A NICE THICK CRUST

EAT SOME BLOODY BREAD WOULD YA I WISH A COULD FEED YEH SAWDUST.

****

CO-WRANGLER’S PREFACE

Young John Allen charges down Main Street, fists pumping, chin thrust out, head shaved. He hopes to sell advertising on the freshly revealed expanse of his head, thereby promoting products and services as he rushes about the streets of Northampton, Massachusetts, something he would have done anyway, so why not get paid?

A local attorney agrees to buy the space on John’s scalp. But in Northampton, a placid community, a secret does not stay secret for long. The attorney is overheard confiding that he intends to dose John with a hallucinogen, chain him inside a port-a-potty, transport him to New York City, where John’s agitated aura is to compete with the electronic billboards of Times Square. Such is the charisma of John Allen.

If I shaved my head and offered to sell advertising, I doubt I would have any takers. Either you have the spark or you don’t. Having known John for ages, having witnessed his triumphs and terrors, his purging and burgeoning, still, much of what he shares here is news, and I am shocked—shocked! Sex, drugs, sentimentality. Horny vicars, hermaphrodite cowboys, steadfast mates. A resilient family, a dotty millionaire, an AWOL legend of rhythm and blues. I can’t make up my mind, is this horrible or is it wonderful? Who cares? It’s a great story, and John’s a born story-teller.

I agreed to help John bring his unruly herd to market. I’ve had a blast diving into his balls-to-the-wall narrative, and the only question was how to corral the whole extravaganza into some cohesive form. He told me his stories, I asked questions to keep on track, and from my notes I drafted an outline. Now that John could see the trail ahead, he did the long, hard work of completing the first draft. Our later revisions went faster than we expected—it was as if each of us could smell the water. We tag-teamed some chapters more than others; on occasion I wrote passages in John’s voice based on shared memories. But I cannot claim to be John’s ghostwriter. I’m more of a trail guide who, when needed, got down in the dirt and trussed up stragglers and strays.

The highest compliment I can offer: Reading John Allen makes me want to sit down and write in my own voice, right now.

Brian Turner

****

CHAPTER BLOODY ONE

During the wee hours of Maundy Thursday, 1957, in a stone cottage in the shadow of our gothic church, my Mum and a squirmy little me, awash in amniotic fluid and blood, were manhandled through the birthing process by the drunken village doctor. In this endeavor he was assisted by the District Nurse, a no-nonsense northern woman of steady hand, one of a multitude of matriarchs who, together with my Mum, made me what I still am today, a Tidza-lad.

Tidza, short for Tideswell, the biggest village or smallest town in Derbyshire sits in a green basin atop a limestone plateau snaked with valleys and streams. The rocky hills, lush fields, and spongy moorlands carry on till the soot-blackened red-brick of Manchester in the west and Sheffield in the east. Upon approach, we feel our way through Pennine fog infused with coal-fire smoke, the odors of sheep shit, cow shit, the fumes of fish and chips. We emerge into a central artery of pubs, newsagents, butchers and sweet shops. Out of the thick cold air comes the clang of an anvil. In fields where sheep complain and cows shudder, all manner of creatures ruminate and eliminate, hence the pong.

Even among Englishmen the northernmost reaches of Derbyshire have inspired trepidation. In A tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain, published in 1724 by the dissenter Daniel De Foe, Derbyshire’s High Peaks are described as A howling wilderness inhabited by fearsome troglodytes. When I read that, my heart brims, but I am also reminded of the reasons why I’ve always dreamt of going some other place.

Yes, I was the dreamer in an otherwise well-grounded working-class family snug in our solid stone cottage tucked into our compact town. When growing up, I dreamed of going to America, a Land of Oz imagined from legends swapped with my best friend Nij, from TV shows, movies, comic books, even from Camel cigarette soft packs, an odd association, but one I will explain before long.

I was not born with the innate wish to escape Tideswell. On the contrary, I so loved the liberties of my childhood that, were it not for school and other traumas, I might never have left at all. I could not help but love a place that offered so much mad adventure, so many gruesome venues for play, which is why I wish to take you there, though I must guard you as we go.

Have a seat on the churchyard wall, as good spot as any to observe our local species. The village lasses sit here to smoke fags and gossip just like their mothers and grandmothers. The current crop wears miniskirts, overdone makeup, industrial-strength mascara – or was that the look their mothers affected? In a socio-economic Brigadoon such as this, styles once thought fashionable never fully disappear, creatures thought extinct continue to graze and irrigate.

Here comes a specimen now: Along the footpath, on her way to the shops, there straggles an old lady trussed up in a rain-mac, carried along on short, stocky legs encased like breakfast sausages inside thick nicotine-brown surgical stockings. Soon she is followed by more of her kind, their corsets creaking as they sway past with heavy shopping bags. They walk in step, these Old Bags with their bulging rheumy eyes. Each has a nose resembling a new potato, assorted wayward hairs sprouting like tuberous roots, the whole animated turnip sheathed in a headscarf, a plastic hood, or both.

If we remain where we are, as still as we’re able, we’ll see that Tideswell teems with human beasts and demon nutters. After the Old Bags come Codgers wearing flat caps, ill-fitting trousers, crusty jumpers. These superannuated pensioners look stunned by the accumulated burden of their years. Some belong to that dwindling company of World War II veterans, who, having survived Hitler, now find themselves struggling to remember the last time they felt fully alive, counting the days until remembering no longer matters. They wheeze at one end, toot from the other, fists clenched as they soldier on, fighting for their lives with every step.

Spilling forth onto Commercial Road, another species comes, the genus Northern British Elvisus-Wannabeasus (more commonly known as Short, Fat Elvis-Man). These lard-and-testosterone-laden lads emerge from the village chippy, holding yesterday’s newspapers awash with chips. They wear white nylon dress shirts open to the third button and sport enormous sideboards and pompadours. Now the time has come for each Elvis to display his plumage. In search of an audience he joins the pack.

The Workingmen’s Club is where many of these northern village fauna commingle, an oasis for old bags and short, fat Elvises to satiate their basic needs. Which in this case are booze and Bingo – topped off with a bit of beastly music provided by another species of northern fauna, sometimes locally bred, but more often visitors from nearby Sheffield. These might be classified as Warbling Lounge Eels or Polyester Humperdinks, adorned with a snazzy jumpsuit and seated at an electric organ, the type with cheesy rhythms and built-in Bossa Nova tunes.

Next to appear are Farmers, their knee-high rubber wellies caked with grime and mire. From out of the fields they clamber over dry stone walls, stepping down to the road into town. They form a company of big men, well-fed and strong from plentiful fresh food and relentless hard graft. The farmers speak in a dialect as impenetrable as the dung encrusted onto their farm machinery. They don’t think of shit as filth – for them it is an element of the periodic table, the essence of the land to which they belong, and through which they slog each season, mostly wet. If they make any money, they aren’t saying, but as they march along you hear them bleat about the difficulty of modern farming. They’ll plead poverty even though they’re the biggest landowners after the Duke.

Next come the chokers and pluckers of chickens, fresh from a shift at the poultry-works. To guard their clothes from the gizzard-spray, they don neck-to-thigh cowhide waistcoats, called jerkins. And behind the chicken workers come the butchers, their cleavers glinting in the Pennine gloom, their aprons smeared with the collateral of a day’s wet-work. They’ve sampled a few too many seared kidneys, these butchers. Their beef-red cheeks, suet-filled jowls would make a vegetarian weep.

After the butchers and chicken workers we see Yobbos, an ill-tempered lot of motorized scrappers, looking for someone to belabor with fist, head, or boot. These lads, trapped in low wage, menial work, compensate for their lack of prospects by climbing on to the loudest motorbikes they can afford and tearing along the Tidza streets. Let’s step behind this church wall till the Yobbo herd passes. Given their intake of keg-bitter, one’s likely to go down on his arse. For which he’d undoubtedly blame us.

Gainfully employed miners and limestone quarry workers come next – employed, that is, as long as they survive cave-ins and quarry-blasts. These somewhat stooped laborers band together and keep an eye out, wary of the next disaster. A miner’s glad if he emerges from the ground in one piece. Which may explain why he no longer worries about the long-term effects of the lead he’s ingested, insisting he’s right as rain. But Tideswell’s filled with nutters, so it’s difficult to tell.

What’s next, you wonder. The aroma of bubble-gummed kids precedes their arrival. The air is filled with the bouquet of fifty or sixty sugary, perfumed packs being masticated between tireless young jaws. When the noise catches up with the smell it sounds like heifers with their hooves stuck in a bog. And if a child spits up his cache of cud by accident, or because asphyxia is imminent, it’s as if he’s expectorating his brain onto the pavement.

And speaking of brain damage, here come the Publicans. It takes all kinds to pull a pint, but these brave men share a weariness of affect from having seen so many customers descend into boozy dreams night after night, as Tidza folk engage in piss-artistry of a very high order. It takes a few thousand drunken monologues before it happens, but a long-term publican has ears that bend ever so slightly forward, like a pair of plants growing toward the light, the better to take in the old jokes, the sorry tales, or the order for another round.

It makes sense that vicars, schoolmasters, and local politicians follow so close upon pub-owners, because all do their bit to sustain the social order. Tall and imposing, or fat and buffoonish, eyes blazing with expectation, hyper-alert to deviance – but what, I wonder, constitutes the norm? These Masters of Tideswell may affect a posh accent or give forth with foul oaths, but all stand ready to judge, to administer, to mete out punishment. You can see it in their cold eyes, the certainty they feel. Mind you, stick a Royal in front of them and they’ll fall to their faces in abasement, with the worst casting craven glances upward in search of Royal arse to kiss. Kiss up, kick down – a time-honored technique for clinging to modest power.

For the climax of this procession, we have not a Royal, for they are scarce in these parts, but rather a float to commemorate the murder of toll-keeper Hannah Oliver by Antony Lingard, the last man in England to be gibbeted – right here in the Parish of Tideswell, a matter that chuffs the locals. Hannah and Antony enact the dreadful event before a paper mache model of a metal cage opened in two parts, which, when closed, takes the shape of a human, in this instance Antony. The re-enactors do a dance in which he bashes her skull and she drops a pair of red shoes intended for her daughter. Antony takes the shoes for a local woman he fancies, which proves to be his undoing. Only a minute is required to enact this drama, ending when Antony steps into the gibbet and closes it. After that he emerges and, together with Hannah, takes his bows.

Is that it then? Has the procession come to its end?

Not quite – bringing up the rear is an assortment of eccentrics. Had I remained in Tideswell, I might well have thrown in with this lot. As you might expect, the eccentrics keep no formation. They scarcely acknowledge each other as they follow in the wake of the more cohesive tribes. The near-recluses, the village idiots, the tax-and-fee avoiders. The irrecoverably mad, the lost souls. Also beatniks, proto-hippies, and others of their kind. By God, there’s Peter Lamb! Peter springs into the streets like something off the set of The Monkees T.V. show or flown in from Haight Ashbury. Bedecked in tight, stripy hip-huggers, Nehru jacket, chiffon scarves, granny glasses and Winkle-pickers, like an escapee from a living museum dedicated to contemporary decorative arts. I remember him holding court around the jungle gym or the bus shelter in some new hat, or scarf, or a new pair of crazy looking oversized sunglasses telling us about his plans which usually began with, When I move down to London. Take away the clothes and the years, it might have been me talking.

So the denizens of my remembered world come forth from the fields and factories, having processed to the shops of High Street and Commercial Road, to the watering hole of the Workingmen’s Club—this is MY Tideswell. Indeed, MY England. Which is why I offer myself as your guide to the Green & Septic isle, and also offer my gentle protection. For you see, England has always been hostile to the uninvited. Each invasion, from the Iberians and Celts through to the campaigns of the Romans, Angles, Vikings, Saxons and Normans, has contributed to the scrappy little mongrel our island is. Kick it at your own risk.

Tideswell has been known to strike back. Most who have lived here can attest to the bracing effect of a kick in the balls, a punch in the face. At the northern end is Town Head, a cluster of windswept cottages and farms. I spent a lot of time Up Town Head, where my best friend Nij lived with his parents, a pair of Beatnik teachers, in a modern bungalow built in the corner of a field belonging to Nij’s granddad. The bungalow was right across from the Town Head recreation ground with its collection of industrial revolution inspired playthings. The most remarkable was The Swingboat, a huge iron and wood bench suspended by four long heavy iron poles from an axle atop two sturdy iron tripods. It swung with the force of a battering ram, especially when loaded up with eighteen or twenty kids. Cast iron seats protruded from each end, and the figurehead that often adorned these end seats was a howling, big-eared, Brylcreamed, short back and sided, snot-bubbling, age appropriately ugly village boy, hanging on for dear life.

It was quite a sight, like human flypaper festooned with boys (and a few sturdy girls). A pendulum of pleasure and pain imagined by its crew to be a Viking long ship, a British Man o' War, or even a space ship. A cause of missing teeth, torn limbs, and in my case a T.K.O. I was four or five years old at the time, and I ran excitedly towards it, rushing ahead of my best mate Nij, when an end seat clobbered me full-force in the middle of my forehead.

I sometimes wonder if the impact altered my consciousness. Had my brains been scrambled? If so, that might explain, upon shortly thereafter meeting Nij’s uncle Doug, the explosion of my life-long passion for all things American. The huge egg-shaped lump on my forehead was still fading through shades of blue/green when Doug visited from America. I was fascinated by this uncle from Ohio, with his exotic Camel cigarette packets, his toffee-colored skin. I was jealous that I didn't have an uncle who lived in America. He was tall and loud like John Wayne, but unlike John Wayne he used the word shit a lot. Although he was English, he didn't look it, sound it, or act it. He'd been in North America since World War Two. After surviving the sinking of British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal in the Atlantic in 1941 and having flown Spitfires in The Battle of Britain a year earlier, he'd been sent to Canada to train Royal Canadian Air Force pilots how to handle the solid little fighter planes that had defended Britain even when outnumbered three to one by the Luftwaffe.

Doug married a girl from Detroit. They ended up living on an island in the middle of Lake Erie where Doug flew an old Ford tri-motor passenger/cargo plane (until he was caught at the controls with a bottle of Jack Daniel's). He seemed larger than life, and I was captivated by his brightly colored plaid shirts, his khaki trousers (which he called pants). They were so different from the dark, heavy clothes my Dad and all the other men in my village wore. He seemed straight out of a TV show.

Doug’s Camel cigarette packets were different too. Not hard boxes but squishy packages with such an interesting design on them. I retrieved one from a wastebasket to keep as a treasured possession. Before long I became a dedicated collector of discarded cigarette packets. My mates joined me in this expense-free hobby, with the aim to acquire the most packets of different cigarette brands in the quickest time. It was healthier than our subsequent pastime of collecting dog-ends (discarded cigarette butts) from the village gutters. We emptied the rejected tobacco into a communal tin back at our gang hut where later we’d smoke it in cheap corn cob pipes. And if you think that was unhealthy, all the while that we sat around smoking, we wore our gang insignia around our sweaty necks on a piece of string: lead roofing washers taken from my Dad’s building supplies, a crude skull and crossed bones etched into their soft toxic surface.

Between the Swingboat’s mighty blow, the puffing upon dog-ends, and the lead washer necklace, it’s a wonder I didn’t end up like Big John, who lived with his seldom-seen mother next door to Nij. John, who was probably in his late forties or early fifties, was a giant of a farmhand with the mental acuity and spirit of a generous five year old, for he always shared his lemon drops with us playground kids. Now that I have lived in America, and have raised two boys, it occurs to me that John’s generosity to young ‘uns might very well be rewarded by a visit from the police. England often follows America’s lead, and in the zeal for surveillance and other forms of control, today’s England has many places that shun the likes of Big John. So it is just as well that John never left Tidza.

I’m not saying that everyone who remains in Tideswell is a mental child. But when I was a child, I thought as a child, and Tidza, fearsome troglodytes notwithstanding, was my paradise. The rest of my story concerns my reasons for leaving my valley, my reasons for going to another valley in America – and as you may have gathered, by reasons, I do not mean anything in the least bit reasonable.

America, I lusted for you.

America, now I’m busted for you.

America, these things I’ve come to see.

America, this is the tale of you and me.

****

TIDZA SATURDAYS

We Tidza-lads LOVED Saturday mornings.

Saturday sprawled like a wonderland, wide, lush, and wild as the valleys and moorlands around our village. Saturday felt like V.E. Day or like we'd just stormed the Bastille or just tossed boxes of tea into Boston Harbor, our day of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness!

Too often Saturday’s pursuits were obstructed by piano lessons or shopping for Mum. An otherwise cracking good Saturday was most often disturbed by a visit to the barber shop. The ritual enacted therein carried an importance that some cultures invest in circumcision, except that circumcision only happens once, if properly done.

Two Minute Jim's – otherwise known, as Jim Morris's – was the nemesis of all young village lads who wanted hair like The Beatles or The Dave Clarke Five. At the first signs of growth – approximately every two weeks in summer – we were dispatched to Two Minute Jim for a three-penny special short back and sides. The severe, utilitarian haircut often included a few nicks and cuts to the ears and neck as Jim raced around a boy’s skull with a huge set of clippers which seemed more suited to sheet-metal work. Upon completion of this mechanized assault, the victim’s freshly cropped nut was salved with a blob of Brylcream pumped into Jim's meaty hand from an onyx-black glass and chrome dispenser. He plopped the blob top centre, pressed it all across our recently violated cranial regions. Then he whipped a comb from his breast pocket. With a flourish peculiar to those in his trade he combed in every direction until the remains of the aching hair stood at attention in a kind of greasy Mohawk. He showed off his creation in the mirror just to see the look on our faces. Then he laughed and pretended to send us on our way. He laughed a second time as he interrupted us mid-dismount, whereupon he’d fold the slippery wedge to one side and flatten it with his comb.

Back on the street, happy to be our own men again, we hurried to one of the shops with our Saturday sixpence, calculating as we ran how much of it we'd spend there versus another sweetshop. Each shop had its specialty. Harold Bennett’s had a penny-tray, while Chapman’s were the purveyors of two-penny Lucky-Bags. The Lucky Bags always afforded excitement and anticipation because we never knew exactly what would be inside, usually a selection of cheap plastic Hong Kong toys, together with powdery little sweets that tasted like a mixture of perfume and antacid. On the outside of the bag was the Lone Ranger pictured with pistols drawn, mounted atop Silver, who reared up just like on the telly.

After the purchase of a lucky bag it was time to scour Harold Bennett’s penny-tray, a large, shallow wooden box compartmentalized to show the variety of items that could be purchased for one penny. There were