I was in Cambridge, England and I had to pee.
I had no idea where the bathroom might be in this huge old English mansion, now housing the genii of the University.
There were perhaps fifteen people sitting around in a ragged circle. A Charles Ives-like discourse was in progress, as if a flock of pigeons suddenly took flight, the air filled with the strange English accents of the Yorkshire coal miners, Martin Heidegger, the chick who worked at the French restaurant down the street, and perhaps Saudi Arabian soccer . . .
This was David's house, and he was the only person I knew there.
“I gotta pee, David,” I managed to interject between the dive-bombing, word-crashing conversations. The facial muscles between his cheeks and lips undulated into the faintest of grins. Here it comes, I think . . .
“So you’re looking for the loo, Lew?”
It is true that I did not know they called it a “loo” when I first met David in Paris several months earlier. He seemed to find the pun irresistible and I mentally calculated how many times this made. Five, maybe six . . .
The unspoken dynamic between two human beings forming a friendship is often predictive. Within a half-second, David's faux-stern expression turned to clownish goofiness and he laughed.
And then I laughed, too. I was growing up too quickly. Her name was Becky and she was an English girl working in a French restaurant. There was a plaque on the wall. “May you be in heaven a half hour before the Devil knows you're dead.” The food was great and the sex even better.
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