Johnny Cash and the Tube

• Mimi Huelster

I was fortunate enough to have been bestowed parents who valued the gift of worldly travel. Having grown up in staunchly low to mid-middle class families, the farthest my mother and father ever traveled as children were the exotic villas of Florida and Iowa, respectively. Therefore, upon having younguns of their own, they resolved to make sure my siblings and I saw as much of the world as we could until my father convinced himself that if he had to sit in one more airplane, his legs would never move again due to extreme clottage.

The summer before my freshman year of high school we crammed ourselves into those plush blue pleather seats at the very back of the airplane, barely tolerating the scent of rehydrated chicken alfredo wafting behind us, and ventured off to London.

Our stay in the British man’s New York was quite pleasant. We stayed in Notting Hill, which my mother enthusiastically reminded us time and time again was the setting of the film Notting Hill. My siblings and I were mostly excited that we were staying two blocks away from Portobello Road, as featured in Disney’s Bedknobs and Broomsticks, hoping to see tantalizing choreographed dance numbers displaying the United Kingdom’s vast imperialistic and colonial reaches. Alas, all we found were £5 shirts that displayed the phrase “I AM COME FROM SPACE.” Needless to say, we were equally satisfied with our experience.

Another aspect of London I was especially excited for was public transportation. Nowhere else in the world has there been such an idolization of buses and trains. The New York subways are filthy, the San Franciscan railcars frail memories of antiquity, and the Parisian metro overrated, much like Parisians themselves. In the hierarchy of public transportation, London reigns supreme.

London’s trains are clean and well-managed. There are very few strange odors, spilled meals, or attempted gropings to bear witness to. While the absence of unpleasantries were nice, we quickly realized you cannot escape the candidness of our fellow man.

Halfway through our stay, we were riding the train back to our local Underground station and discussing where we would purchase dinner for that night.

A couple seats down stood a stoutly Englishman, sporting the traditional attire of offbrand Adidas track pants and a sweat stained T-shirt. The Englishman swung his way down the traincar toward my family much like the way a monkey would, one rung after the other, until he planted himself next to my father.

“Oi, are you lot American?” He brashly inquired, his accent forming a melodic tone to match the screech and squelch of the wheels beneath us.

“Yes, yes we are,” my father replied.

One thing I have noticed about my father over the years is that, when faced with the task of conferring with an unprompted stranger, he straightens yet arches his back, as if to show that, while he may appear to be a young, Indiana Jones-esque male, he has seen a couple tours around the sun for himself. He also widens his stance, pointing his feet outwards, as if to show the stranger he may run, lunge, or kick an incoming soccer ball at any moment. It was in a moment like this that he assumed his fighting stance.

“Where from? In the country, I mean,” pressed the Englishman.

“We’re from Minnesota,” said the lone defender of our nation.

“Minneapolis, Minnesota,” piped in my mother.

“Oh. Never ’eard of it,” replied the Englishman.

There was a noticeable pause, and then the Englishman promptly continued.

“Y’know, I’ve been to America a few times meself.” There was an air of pride he had which was undeserving of the phrase.

“Oh yeah? Whereabouts?” said my father. This is another characteristic my father develops as soon as strangers are involved — genuine interest in other people’s stories.

As that at the time of this encounter with the Englishman I was 14; I was already embarrassed to have anyone speaking to myself or my family at all, but having my father encourage this bizarre individual’s behavior mortified me. I shot a quick, pleading look at the patriarch, begging him to stop egging this man on.

This tactic of self-preservation was to no avail.

“Oh, y’know, I’ve been to Florida and Times Square and the like… Las Vegas is my favorite city of your’s, though.”

“Oh, really?” said my father, clearly amused. He thinks this is funny, I thought to myself. I was in a desperate state.

“Yeah, I love gamblin’, but the music was great, too.”

“Ah, yes.” I could see my father’s eyes twinkle. I wanted to strangle him.

“What kind of music do you like?” piped in my mother once more, realizing the effortless torturing of her children that was about to ensue. I began to make plans for emancipation.

“I love yer country music, I do,” the Englishman said, clearly happy to have an audience.

“Y’know, Johnny Cash and sorts.”

And then, with absolutely no prompting whatsoever, and to my horror, the man began to sing: “I fell in to a burning ring of fire…”

I was going to kill myself.

“I went down, down, down…”

The train was still moving. Maybe I could open a window and jump out. The fall might not kill me, but at least the rats could eat me alive.

“And the flames went higher…” to the Rat King and his family. That is, at least, until the Rat King dies from mysterious circumstances, and it is revealed in his little rat will I have been named the next Rat King instead of his eldest son, Ratthew. I graciously accept this shocking turn of events, but Ratthew is less inclined to follow. The Great Rat Civil War ensues, tearing the very fabric of ratkind until there is nothing left except me, Ratthew, and the Royal Rat Throne. Ratthew and I battle until I humbly concede, realizing this is not my place in the world. I gently pick up Ratthew’s bloodied body and lay him on the throne, where he regains his strength after I nurse him back to health. Once he is well enough to assume his role as King Ratthew IV, I climb a sewer ladder and enter the human world. Upon clambering out from the manhole, I am hit by a car, and dumped in the Thames, where my body floats out to the Atlantic Ocean.

Or maybe the train rats would accept me as their own. Over time, I’d grow closer 40.

“And it burns, burns, burns…

The ring of fire… The ring of fire.”

The Englishman had stopped. His performance was complete.

My siblings clapped enthusiastically, side-eyeing me with a look of pure evil. They knew what had just happened to me, and they sprung at the opportunity to rub salt into my cavernous psychic wound. My parents not so much cheered the man as gave him gentle words of approval. They had seen me suffer and loved every second of it.

And, with the final twist of the knife, the other passengers in the car clapped and cheered along with my family, giggling to themselves. I hated all of them. How dare they treat a guest in their own country this way. Xenophobia, that’s what it was.

The Englishman, feigning bashfulness, did a slight curtsey. I looked at him with sheer disbelief. How someone could possibly wave all sense of shame and talk, much less sing, to a troupe of strangers in a public, close-quartered train was beyond me. In some ways, I envied him.

The train lurched. We had arrived at the next stop, and it was time to get off. My family said goodbye to the Englishman, and I attempted a slight nod of acknowledgement, but the weakness of my knees prevented me from performing any more of such gestures.

I staunchly believe that English people get a bad rap. Not for the genocide, or colonialism, or inbred ceremonial icons, but for being rude people. Looking back, the Englishman had no intentions of being impolite whatsoever, and the same goes for the other English passengers on that train that day. He was simply being himself — a friendly man, who goes out of his way to make foreigners feel loved in a strange and unnatural landscape. And while I reacted with embarrassment and horror, I am glad he did what he did. At an age as vulnerable as 14, his unabashedness fueled my will to be, more or less, myself.