Surfing the Urban Wave

By Richard Segal

Anyone can change the world, we were out to fix it. Four years removed from a successful campaign to steer the United States in a new, more equitable direction, it was time to shake Europes entrenched establishment and bring forth leaders for the people, starting with London, and with a foreign-born leader no less.

However, in departing at the American apex, not only left behind were co-collaborators, co-workers and friends unaware of his secret political activities, he betrayed and deserted some of them. We were hiding behind a Big Smokescreen as well, he feared. It may take more than one mea culpa dance to rake over the past, but does it matter the source of true inspiration and determination?

Surfing the Urban Wave combines pragmatic solutions to municipal drift with antidotes to the throw-away society and confronts one of the most open and democratic public elections with scarcely an opinion poll in sight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Sep 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496991393

Richard Segal

Richard Segal, an American citizen, resides in London, England, and works as an economic and financial consultant. He has written widely about matters relating to global public policy over the years. His most recent novel was The Man Who Knew the Answer.

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Surfing the Urban Wave

Richard Segal

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AuthorHouse™ UK Ltd.

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Bloomington, IN 47403 USA

www.authorhouse.co.uk

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© 2014 Richard Segal. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/16/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-9138-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-9139-3 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Quiz Night?

Roomful of Remorse

To Grandmother’s House We Go

My Way or the Highway

All Aboard

Hey Rube

Persepolis

Narsepolis

Conversations with Various Pen Pals Named John, Juan, Ioannis, or Ian

Archbishop Weekend

Calypso

The Following Takes Place Between 10 and 11 AM

Load a Dross

Going Downing Street

Now That Tastes Good

It’s Not Official Until it’s Denied

Progress

Pump up the Jam

Scream and Shout, and Get the Vote Out

Card Clash

Let a Game Begin

Who Was that Person?

Dear Rosemarie, or, Etiquette on a Bicyclette

Long Road Home to Salvation

An Escape Clause?

The Players

Positively 3rd Street

The Humble Beginning of Big Pharma

The Candidate

Mangez Des Pommes

Great, I Start Monday?

Do One and Work the Balance

Tails from the Trail

The Nice Piano

One for the Price of Two

The Home Stretch

Surfing the Urban Wave, by Richard Segal, is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, and actual events, organizations or locations, are intended purely to provide a sense of context or reference point. All remaining characters, places, names, incidents, dialogue and opinions are wholly fictional and their resemblance, if any, to real life counterparts is entirely coincidental. No inferences or assumptions about any personal opinions should be drawn from the material enclosed herein, and no such representations should be made.

To the chefs

Fly, butterfly, fly

A Dixieland jazz band played in the foreground as I skimmed a headline over a shoulder: The Wisdom of Crowds. Mobs braying for murder, masses yearning for handouts from the public purse, whipped into a fervour by their conductor, afraid to cross this picket line by the usual way. I study the assembly and conclude: no angels of anyone’s nature as far as my eye can see.

Time, gentleman, it is for me to call time on this nonesense. I had faded into the woodwork for far too long and was aching for a fight, in another country, another city, no less. Can I gather a small group to try and fix it?

When in doubt, join a debating circle. Mine was the Polemicists for a Day. If you want to beat them, be them? Heck no, just think like them. Let’s think. Turn on the radio and imagine some facts, to begin some arguments, the short lived American talk radio was WLTF, as in Where Live the Facts, and as in four years ago. It was the best of times, it was the best of times, if you were young or idealistic, and your side was winning. But that was then.

One of my group of four was attending a conference near the government center of town and hence we convened at an old fashioned Westminster pub, of the breed I traditionally talked down after I first relocated, because of what I considered their standard of offering. In New York’s post-war period, city managers concluded it was advisable to put the brakes on soaring habitation costs by imposing a tiered system of rent controls, which over time has the impact of creating artificial shortages and dissuading maintenance investment, leading stabilized apartments to become run down, so they can be vacated more quickly and fully remodelled, and therefore fetch the market price. The quality of the housing stock ebbed and flowed, but never quite normalized. However, in this section of London it was forever too expensive to leave a property vacant: a renovation pound that went out the door was an expense-account customer that doesn’t walk in the door. Did anyone else notice, I wondered?

It was a busy location, being handy for government workers, tourists and conference attendees and thus the chairs were at capacity, including a few for shopping bags and ‘gym stuff.’ We found an upright table on which to rest our beakers. By coincidence, a couple was just leaving. I didn’t take much notice of them, except that she was quite short and he very tall, a little on the slovenly side, but otherwise unplaceable. She had an air of intelligence about her, and moved quickly, as he shuffled behind.

We began discussing our topics, when AC noticed a purse she left on the table, so naturally he began to tap on the leather as if this was the container for a collection of worry beads. In his mind’s eye, this wasn’t a purse left behind, but an adult plaything, an object for twiddling in place of a nervous habit. Take a pen out of your pocket and you’re a table baton twirler, link a braid of your hair if you’re an in-house mailroom wanderer who likes a lite beer now and again and fiddle with that braid, or twiddle with the purse that’s been innocently left behind. If this is a common occurrence of yours, though, don’t consider the purse, as in the figurative or physical form of the word, as a receptacle of value. Don’t leave your keys in it. Your plastic glasses case with floral microfiber cleaner, perhaps, but definitely not your travelcard. A few minutes later, AC noticed the purse had become his nervous habit object and dropped it suddenly on the table, then realizing he shouldn’t have done this either and shuffled it carefully to one side, near the salt and pepper shakers, until it was perpendicular to them, as if he had OCD, as if this would make amends for dropping it earlier, as if a disturbed clamshell of foundation would accept this apology.

Nevertheless, this was the appropriate course of behavior, because a few minutes later, she returned, flustered and embarrassed, as if this wasn’t a regular occurrence to her, with her husband trailing behind her. They couldn’t have gone far and half the minutes of their short lived walk to the District Line must have been filled with words such but it could be anywhere and maybe I left it … and so on, you know the drill, and he repeating to himself that hopefully she’ll be more careful next time. However, she won’t, she will become more absent minded as the months roll along. Not the wholly preoccupied absent minded, but rather the run of the mill absent minded. She’s always chasing something she’s lost, he says to himself, and I’m always chasing after her, he says. But that’s what you signed up for, I’d inform him, and neither of you has an alternative. You try to declutter, cabinets or her busy life, for example, to make her life easier, but this will be operative for all of about five minutes and before you next detect, the cabinet will be full of crap again. You’re as likely to finally spring for laser surgery so that you won’t forever be pushing your glasses into your forehead Clark Kent style.

You’ll keep following the same pattern, just because, and before you know it, there’s been a lifetime of chasing behind her, trying to catch whatever has fallen out of her mind before it hits the floor. It’s no use, leave the cabinets full of clutter. Don’t worry if it doesn’t worry her, but keep a spare set of keys and know how to cancel her credit cards and order new ones in the event of emergency. Don’t ask if she’d like this, don’t tell her you’re going to do this, she doesn’t want anyone to think she’s absent minded, just do it for the sake of you both. Virtue may be its own virtue, but it’s not the only virtue. I’ll thank you for knowing it’s part of her charm and for doing these little things without being asked and without expecting gratitude in return, for the little things are all that matter, especially when they’re carried out unconditionally.

Me, I content myself with carrying a pen in my inside pocket even though I rarely write by hand any more, just in case someone else does and wants to borrow one, because of the few occasions I wish this habit preceded me and it hadn’t. This was insurance I wouldn’t use, which I wish I’d bought earlier. They left, in a hectic but uncorrelated state, and something told me this incident wasn’t quite over, because this couple wasn’t the type you meet only twice, you have this feeling, and perhaps in his preoccupation to keep tabs on her, he’d forgotten something himself, not valuable but a nuisance to replace if lost.

I walked to the bar to take my turn ordering a round and to my amusement, the pourer informed me that three of the ‘normal’ beers were out of stock, and it got me thinking that the word ‘normal’ means something else to him, because to him it’s synonymous with ‘regular’ or ‘standard,’ whereas to me it’s the opposite of abnormal. I quickly was sidetracked, because I realized he didn’t say ‘out of stock’ or they’d ‘run out,’ or someone would have to go downstairs and change the tap, but rather that three varieties were out of action, as if they were toy soldiers with an arm missing and he couldn’t forcibly be returned to the field of battle, mano a mano in the living room war theatre, brother versus brother, without placing him at an unfair disadvantage. I felt like laughing a silent ‘you’re funny big man’ in his presence for both of our benefits, at the absurdity, but contented myself with ordering four of whatever seemed cold enough, balanced them carefully and brought them back to the table.

Did I miss anything while I was away? I asked innocently.

Everything seems to be in order, Mr. Bond, AC replied, nodding at the beers.

We were finishing the small talk a few minutes later when the couple returned again, as if on cue, and the woman approached me shyly, peering at me curiously and without inhibition, as if we were long lost acquaintances, because we were.

Is that you? she asked, in a small voice.

Me, I responded, a little curious myself.

It’s me, Janet, she continued.

A hesitation later I recalled which Janet, and smiled on the outside, but felt mixed emotions inside. She looked different, but she hadn’t changed. This must have been her husband Carlos, the Spanish Clark Kent without the capacity for pirouetting into Superman. If he was Spanish, he should have been half Welsh and half Italian, with the Welsh features most showing through. The Welsh and the Italians are unalike and if you put them together you get something else completely poles apart, something like a polite Spaniard, but somehow it works.

I’d heard about Carlos, but this was years ago. The last time I saw her was at a dinner party she hosted, when her then boyfriend simply sat at the table without speaking, as if there were a visible ghost standing between him and anything anyone else wanted to accomplish, and that although we were freely invited to this dinner party, at the end of the evening it would be only the two of them left, so therefore don’t try to get too close. No one else had designs on her and Silentino shouldn’t have been there if he was going to be that way, but there was no going around him, this visible ghost detectable to half the guests less one.

She’s a big girl and can take care of herself, let her talk to others if she wants, I wanted to say, but then my resentment would have shone through. No one else in the room would have been that person, because if a Janet was his, he’d have been secure enough to let her be her own person, and thank goodness the demure Carlos arrived years later. He was almost passive aggressive in his silent manner, but not so much that one could sneer at him, not even silently. If it had been the case that he was acting as if in a stupor because he was suffering from a super duper hangover fourteen hours and counting, then points to him, and if his subsequent only words were a nonchalant ‘Hieronymous Bosch,’ then double gravitas, but this seemed to be his situation normal.

I’ve seen this passive aggressiveness before, a variation on a theme, when someone butts in when I’m waiting patiently to talk to someone, a presenter or panellist, at a seminar. Not quite a bigwig, not a VIP, but someone with information. If he observes a line of delegates waiting in turn to ask questions, he must be a little important, but patient himself. Can’t you see I’ve been waiting and it’s my turn, not yours? I mouthed silently to the imposter. Back off ten feet and see what happens. I checked out the chancer later and it’s obvious why he butts in, he’s afraid to look in the mirror, he’ll see insecurities he masks by pretending, that he won’t address. The BMOC doesn’t pretend, he doesn’t have to, I had questions to ask, but what I really noticed was his taste in clothes, clearly expensive but well fitting and understated, accidentally like a sartyr, clothes for the occasion. A mental list of David vs. Goliath, no, David’s annoying neighbour with his weapons of mass distraction.

‘Let Janet make up her own mind,’ I wanted to say, but I couldn’t say that either, because that could only have been with a motive, or impetuously childish. Therefore I half sneered and shrugged to myself, hoping only I would see and get the message, as if this imagery was all that ruled, as if I didn’t realize that all would someday come to pass and that someday it would be years later.

I was quiet myself, during this seminal dinner party, and for several reasons. First, Janet had invited Gail, the Gail who doesn’t stop talking, albeit not in attention seeking fashion. If she’d been able to keep going several conversations at once, like Janet at the peak of her powers, then so be it, and she could at that. On the opposite side was Rob, Janet’s replacement and changer of games, quite shy at the time, although unknown to the gathered visitors this reflected his busy internal manoeuvrings toward making a name for himself. Janet I suspect sensed the quiet Machiavellian machinations in motion.

Also at the table was Tina, and she was quite a wheel herself in the business world, but she could hardly get in a word. However, I was sitting next to her and these inside jokes were contentment enough for the two of us. Rob would before long become renowned for breaking provocative scoops that could make or save the world, but it was often his voice that was the story. He could turn an overcast morning into a page turner of a day, simply by voicing the forecast.

Part of my temp routine had been to recap for Janet the day’s events, but after her promotion the torch was passed to this Dante’s Centaur of a Rob. It wasn’t the same with Rob and I decoded from the beginning he and I weren’t going to have a working relationship, let alone a friendship, and clearly he had to conserve his voice for the benefit of future generations. If he hosted dinner parties, it would be for the chroniclers of the rich and famous, but more likely he was the invitee, for his sparse but worthy profundities. Had I known he would become super famous, no scratch that uber famous I probably would have conducted myself no differently, even though he could have been an unwitting mouthpiece for a predecessor test version of the Original Movement. Who could forget his financial services paralyses and ‘Sixth Man of Europe’ series? Well he was 6’2" and played club basketball.

Yet, Janet and I had put the world to rights on so many occasions, during these months I was passing through that many years ago, but not in a scheming or a military sense, or in the what can ya do style of a jolly cash register jockey at a small city antiques store, bonding for social justice like a rebel without a cause, and no one to signal the applause. Janet progressed toward pragmatism and I presume more promotions in the government part of town, whereas I stuck to the idealism, forever idealism. Her task for the dinner party evening though, was to keep the conversation on track and the parlour games in the drawers, where they belonged, and let others worry about good words put in the next day, this seminal gathering of ambitious young Brits and passing through Americans, when a lot more occurred and was remembered than Gail’s expressive monologue.

Quiz Night?

How was I to enlighten my three potentially explosive colleagues, and equally co-conspirateurs, that this forgetful woman was an old acquaintance of mine and actually quite intelligent, if not quite a so fine old friend? Paradise lost, paradise found, so many good contacts dead and buried in the ground. If I’d known I would one day return to London and for the reason I was back, well for sure I’d have planted a lot of seeds, individuals for future recruiting, and hopefully I’d have behaved.

No, I’ll let Janet do the talking, which she did, by offering to buy us a round for the good fortune of recognizing me after all these years, and exchanging business cards of my normal job, and to thank AC for safeguarding her purse. What would he substitute for the worry beads instead, I wondered, for the rest of the evening? Yes, Janet and I caught up for a post mortem of the good times, but she was late, and by that time I was more interested in the dynamic of the foreign workers and guests, and how they interacted. Well educated but working class Lithuanians serving aristocratic Poles and what was their common language, who speaks the better English? I forgot to thank Janet for her references when I was ‘passing through,’ she once was the decadent one before she went conventional. Now why would someone change like that, a person with the bravado to show death stares to pedestrians who certainly were in the right, but now permits the youngsters to close the