The Rising Tide by Tom Bamforth

Author:Tom Bamforth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Hardie Grant Publishing
Published: 2019-05-19T16:00:00+00:00

*

In the hotel the next day, the curtains had been drawn against another brilliant day in Majuro. A group of Americans and Marshallese gathered expectantly for the Superbowl involving the New England Patriots verses the Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles, as the commentators put it, were the underdogs. There were two televisions turned up to maximum volume and there was an air of tense excitement in the bar whose crowd of yachties, regulars, hangers-on and the generally homesick gathered to worship the ritual of American football.

While I was watching the Superbowl, Hugh Laurie’s impersonation of Bruce Springsteen came to mind. Laurie, wearing a bandana and plaid lumber jack shirt, sings an interminable song whose only words are ‘America, America, America, America’ until Stephen Fry arrives on stage and hits him over the head with a brick. But this was real. Each of the players appeared on screen, announcing their names and the university sports program that had given them a scholarship in Steroid Studies. ‘Rick Hauer, Virginia Tech’, ‘John Jones, Alabama’ ‘Leroy Smith, RU’ they grunted as they appeared on air before the growing excitement of the crowd. A first singer poured out his heart with the moving words ‘America, America, from sea to shining sea. America, America, from sea to shining sea’. This was swiftly followed by a singer calling herself Pink, with a rendition of ‘America the Brave’ followed by the US national anthem. One was beginning to get the point and, looking around, I discovered there was a distinct absence of bricks.

But it did not end here. The flags of the five main divisions of the armed forces were unfurled as a group of veterans gathered in the middle of the field and one was selected to toss the coin. These were no ordinary veterans of the sort I’d seen in Pearl Habour sporting baseball caps with an image of a medal and the word veteran written clearly on the front to invite the obligatory ‘thank you for your service’ from a Filipino ticket attendant. These veterans were recipients of the Medal of Honour, bestowed for displaying the highest degree of valour in action against ‘the enemy’ (which enemy was left undefined). Herschel ‘Loony’ Wilson (now known by his Superbowl title as ‘Flipper Wilson’), a hero of Iwo Jima, tossed the coin. The crowd and the lines of pompom girls went wild with Midwestern glamour as the teams in their crash helmets and tight trousers ran out and started punching the air to psych themselves up. ‘Beautiful baby’ murmured some of the salty viewers who were now packing the bar and gulping down quantities of iced tea and Bud Light Platinum.

Nearby, two Australian patrol boat operators were having an ethical discussion under the din of the Superbowl. ‘There are a lot of differences between us’, said one, talking about his local girlfriend. ‘She’s really poor and everything but in the end she gets what she wants and I get what I want.’

‘Yeah’ grunted his drinking partner before turning to the woman behind the bar and ordering two more beers.

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