Meet the American

Background: Daffy & Susan start a new year in College, looking after students as they arrive well before term starts. This is an excerpt from the chapter 'Cyclone Tammy' from the book DLC14.

I hate weekend day Duties. I don’t like weekend night Duties, & I’m no fan of weekday Duties, but those day Duties are the worst. They are soul destroying. There was a time when two senior students would be charged with looking after things, because apparently they find it less boring, or can more easily entertain themselves, but those halcyon days are gone. Now, all that’s left are fond memories & my hatred.

Susan & I did what we said we’d never do - sleep together during a Duty. To be precise, it was my fault - she had Saturday night & had to go on a field trip early on Sunday morning, & I had the day Duty (because I had lost her company anyway). It was a bad deal. We went to bed after midnight, then didn’t sleep for … a while. She woke up with an alarm, snuck out, opened the doors, came back & showered, had a quick breakfast, grabbed her backpack, kissed me on the cheek, then as an afterthought said “Tag, you’re it.”

I believe my response was “Pfft” because I got more bed & had already rolled into a Susan-shaped space. What I didn’t realise is that I was being tagged at eight. I continued to sleep until ten (in Susan’s bed), then realised that I had missed breakfast & she who claims she loves me was catching up on her sleep in a minibus headed for some limestone caves. I was hungry.

A quick raid of Susan’s ‘pantry’ provided me with a tea bag. Well, there were several, but I’m not greedy & hers are better than mine. If I leave this sanctuary, people might find me, & it becomes difficult to get back in - the Master key doesn’t open Tutor flats. Time to see if I have a pantry. 

Huzzah! Those corn flakes I had over Christmas are barely stale. I don’t have any milk, but I do have some juice - which I stole from Susan’s fridge last week. I have breakfast. Maybe I can phone a friend to get some lunch later. Things are looking up - apart from having a crappy breakfast, being alone, & having a sinking feeling that I’ve already reached the high point of my day.

I did at least think to change the sign at reception & redirect the phone. That was a mistake, because I’d barely started my tea when the phone rang. I knew it was an internal call by the special sound it makes, & unless someone like Tom has gotten a conscience, that can only mean someone’s at Reception being lazy.

Susan doesn’t unplug the phone outside Reception - it’s not her thing. All the time I thought she would be the first to skive from her Duties, I was seriously wrong - she’s almost a model Tutor, except for the fact that she won’t go beyond the minimum unless pressed. At that point she does a very good impression of Sergeant Schultz. I could learn a lesson there.

“Hi, this is (something totally forgettable) from Overseas Student Services. I have a student for you.”

It’s Sunday. I know these people aren’t paid overtime. I’m not the only one having a bad day. I wasn’t thinking so positively until after I’d hung up, but I was at least polite.

“Sure. I’ll come up.”

I should have looked in the books, but I haven’t had a chance - there’ll be a note to say ‘expect blah-blah to arrive’ or some such.

Too late now. They’re here.

There was a suit & an American. Guess which one I’ll be stuck with.

“Good morning, I’m …” you know this bit, she said it again, & I still have no idea who she was “... & this is Tammy.”

“Right you are. I’ll get the key.”

It’s funny how you never hear surnames for most of the students. You can look them up, or if there are multiples of a name you have to differentiate, but Americans in particular only go by one name. Often that’s the one they answer to.

“You look familiar …” & left it like that as I slammed the door on them & hid in Reception for a minute.

They were still there when I came out. That ploy was never going to work.

“Yeah! I was here with a group last year! I loved it! I couldn’t wait to become an exchange student!”

Oh God. She’s perky. Perky is a word invented for Americans just like Tammy. I can deal with morose, sarcastic, supercilious, scared, sunny, or even chipper, but I don’t like perky. Perky means that every sentence ends in multiple exclamation marks. I’m giving Tammy the benefit of the doubt while I’m in a foul mood, & I’m only giving her one for now.

“I remember you now!” & she pointed at my picture in the window as if that would explain anything. I checked. Yes, that was definitely my picture … from three years ago. Time flies when you’re dying slowly in College.

What did I do to deserve this? Susan, you owe me. A kiss on the cheek - & I don’t remember it! - is not sufficient payment for this day. It’s not even eleven.

The suit looked at me, looked at Tammy, looked at my picture in Reception’s window, & shrugged.

I handed Tammy the key, with only the vaguest notion that Tammy would be moving in near Susan & that would make her a para-neighbour of mine.

In the early afternoon, I was camped in the SCR - still having not found anyone who could provide food for a starving Tutor. The glass door was open (of course), & someone who I vaguely remember from the past stuck his head through from the walk-way.

“Hey, Daffy! ‘Ow ya bin?” 

“Couldn’t be better,” I mustered enough sarcasm to attempt.

“D’ya know where Tammy’s room is? She made it, right?”

“Hang on …”

Oh dear. In my desperate need for sustenance I had not bothered to carry anything inedible - such as the books that might tell me the room number.

“... sorry - but it has to be one of the low numbers on 4west, & I don’t think there’s anyone else down there.”

“Yeah, tanks. Catchyas.”

That got rid of him - some ghost from my past - but he was still a restless soul, because I happened to see him walking back out a minute or so later. Either I’d gotten the room wrong, or else she was sleeping through jet-lag … possibly sleeping elsewhere. Day one - benefit of the doubt.

An hour or so later, I could see Tammy going the long way to her room, so it was easy to stick my head out the glass door & call her over as she passed nearby again.

“Tammy! Your secret admirer was here looking for you.”

“Oh! Gee! I went out shopping! He’ll be back.”

Note - still perky, but not ‘after-a-long-flight-zonked’ perky, now just sloping down towards chipper. There’s hope that she won’t be as annoying as I feared. Either that, or I was getting more mellow as the day wore on & I starved to death.

“So, how are things?” she asked. It’s good to know that even perky Americans can ask inane questions.

“Fine.”

I wish I’d known you were going shopping. Why didn’t you mention it to me earlier?

That got rid of her, though … for half an hour. She came back & blithely sat down to watch TV with me. I was too emaciated to explain the rules of the SCR - even when John tracked me down to take the keys & I was free to go anywhere I liked. I couldn’t. I could barely raise an eyebrow.

“Oh! There you are!”

This is not perky, this is John being exasperated, which is kind of like watching a stage play where they don’t use microphones & have to project. I don’t know why he was feigning surprise, because I’m sure I’d made it clear at Reception exactly where I was - even if I’d disconnected the phone.

I waved half-heartedly at the stuff. I was too weak to lift it.

“Anything I should know?”

“Don’t read the Thomas Covenant series - it’s a complete waste of time.”

Tammy dragged her eyes from the TV & gave me a look of … I don’t know, bewilderment? As if she’d blacked out for five minutes of a conversation.

John left.

If I’m off Duty, then it’s only a matter of time before food will find me.

Sure enough, Tammy had an inner clock, too. She threw down a perfectly good trashy magazine & turned to me.

“Hey - you coming down to dinner?”

“Is a bear Catholic?”

“I don’t know … I thought the pope was.”

That’s why they send the Americans here: to broaden their horizons.

She walked down ahead of me as if she remembered her way around well enough.

“So, how many other exchange students are there?”

“You’re the first.”

“Really? That’s so cool.”

“Kind of like being the first ant at the picnic.”

I got caught up in the Servery because one of the kitchen staff was asking about Judy & assumed that I was her social secretary. Tammy had a seat & was headed back for liquid refreshment, which put her in my path for heading out to the courtyard to find some of the guys who just might provide less comic relief.

“Hey, you’re not going to let me eat alone, are you?”

“I just assumed you might know some of these …” & I swept my arm across a Dining Hall full of the ‘passing-through’ Americans - just like she’d been before.

“No! I’m all on my lonesome,” she frowned. Maybe she could do theatre, too.

Damsel in distress. Even on the point of considering to gnaw my leg off in hunger, I discover it’s the last bone of chivalry within me.

“So, why on earth would you want to come back here?” I asked cheerily as I turned to follow her back to her table. I know I’m going to regret being this nice later. I always do. I endured this for ten minutes before being saved from an unexpected quarter.

“John!”

It’s good to be this close to the Servery. I saw his eyes dart towards the courtyard with a ‘please may I escape into the wilderness with all the other deer’ look. No doing, bucko - you’re a Tutor now. Sure, it’s his first Duty & he was only appointed three days ago, but you have to learn the rough with the corrugated. Tammy’s pretty corrugated. It’ll be good for your soul.

Anyway, I have realised that I don’t really talk to John enough. He’s been here as long as I have, & our relationship is almost strictly Director-to-Actor, on the basis that he never needs help or causes trouble as a student. I think he’s a bit of an extrovert in the real sense - he needs the energy of the stage to come alive, & you don’t get that from me for free, because I’m sucking it up, too.

I don’t remember how it happened, but he & I found common ground - peppering our speech with Strine to acclimatise Tammy & bamboozle her, complete with outlandish explanations & diversions into foreign territory (for her), including Bananas in Pyjamas. I was proud of John for that reference.

“So, Daffy - look, this Duty roster has been a bit ad hoc & I need to know what plans I can make for next week …”

We’d been doing roster by rotation, inserting Tutors in as they arrived - thus John being on now. It must be time to sit down & make a plan.

“I was hoping there’d be enough of us around tonight to at least make a plan for the next week, but everyone’s all over the place. Maybe tomorrow night. Spread the word.”

I may not be FL, but I seem to be still the person that people turn to.

“So … “ Tammy injected into my thoughts “ … your name is ‘Daffy’?”

Only an American would treat you like a long lost friend without knowing your name. The English, of course, would refuse to speak to you until you’ve been properly introduced.

So, Tammy, perky, not ugly, underdressed because she’s from a cold climate in a Sydney summer, desperately in need of companionship, was a magnet to the lonely guys looking for females, foreigners or friends (in that order). Bruce was in lust. Maybe not - but he was trying to impress her with every opportunity he got.

I was having lunch with Bruce, Wolf (our latest German exchange student), & Tammy, when she nibbled at her sandwich & dropped it like a hot potato.

“Man! That is some hot mustard. We don’t have that in the States.”

She drank from her glass.

“Let me try,” Bruce offered. He almost puffed up his shoulders & said “Stand back, people!” or “Leave it to me!” like a superhero should, but it would have been a short-lived status.

He grabbed Tammy’s sandwich, folded it, & shoved it in his mouth. Eww! Girl germs! But Bruce is tough! Well … if you’ve ever had American mustard, it is just a flavouring, like tomato sauce, & they spread it liberally. English mustard doesn’t work like that. It works kind of like Bruce’s face is working about now - it makes your eyes water, your cheeks swell, your life flash before your eyes. It makes you grab napkins - anyone’s! - & spit out as much as possible. It makes you down glass after glass of water - again, anyone’s. It makes you forfeit any claim you might have had on superhero-dom.

“Jesusfuckingchrist. Anyone want a refill?” he asked, waving two empty glasses & heading back for more.

As he left, I turned to Tammy. Wolf was still too stunned to move.

“I do hope you’re impressed with this display of machismo.”

“Waddd’ya mean?”

She wasn’t kidding. She had no idea why Bruce did that. I mean, if I’d done it - & I don’t think I would have, having some idea about mustard - I would have just smiled through it as if we eat mustard like that all the time, regardless. It wouldn’t be to impress the girl, but to teach the foreigner that we’re tough! Wolf is almost convinced.

Maybe that’s what Bruce did wrong. He lost his focus.

The next day, she was on her own, so I took pity on her.

"Mind if I join you?"

"Of course not!"

After chatting for a while, I had to ask about her apparent abandonment.

"So, where's your fan club?"

"Huh?"

"Bruce - the guy who's been following you around like a lost puppy."

"He's not!"

"Oh, so the attempt to impress you with his mustard-eating abilities was wasted, was it?"

"That? No - that didn't mean anything, did it?"

I raised an eyebrow & left it at that. Maybe I’m reading it wrong. Maybe he’s just lonely.