Showing it to Charlotte

SHOWING IT TO CHARLOTTE

A Christmas Odyssey

By Shaun Costello

My friend John has a comfort-level problem with the Holiday Season. A lifetime of frosty Christmas mornings in Boston seems a distant memory now since John, fulfilling his long-standing commitment to never touch another snow shovel, moved his family to Florida, just a few years ago. The sappy scent of a real tree, usually a Blue Spruce or a White Pine, standing in the corner of his New England living room, covered with holiday ornamentation, some of which were family heirlooms inherited from his grandparents, has been replaced by a plastic palm from Walmart with built-in flashing lights. His kids didn’t seem to mind, but for John, it just wasn’t the same. It didn’t feel much like Christmas. But this isn’t the only reason John is uneasy this season. Each Yuletide he relives his ultimate horror. It was the day before Christmas, several years ago, when John traveled three thousand miles in an attempt to show his penis to an unsuspecting Charlotte Rampling.

For some time now John has harbored a dark secret, something not even his closest friends suspect. He suffers from a ZARDOZ fixation. Growing up a sexually repressed Catholic in a working class Irish neighborhood in Boston, John spent more than his share of time in the balconies of porno theaters, and found this degenerate atmosphere to be a comforting refuge from the daily drudgery of his blue-collar life. But all good things eventually come to an end and, with the advent of the video cassette, the days of the “Adult Theater” were numbered. So one day John, who had set aside several hours for some serious balcony time watching some of his fave smut flicks, was astonished to find that the theater had changed it’s policy. No more porn. Instead, the theater was showing Vintage Sci-fi Movies, starting off with a twin bill of, “This Island Earth” with Rex Reason and Faith Domergue, and “Zardoz” with Sean Connery and Charlotte Rampling. “Well”, thought a shattered John, his fiver still in his hand, “Better than nothing”. So he paid the five bucks, bought his popcorn, and settled in for an afternoon of ray guns and slippery logic.

As the plot of Zardoz began to reveal itself John liked what he saw. An Amazonian civilization where men were unknown and women ruled with an iron fist in a velvet glove. He began fantasizing about this little community as a vacation destination, where he might mingle with clusters of innocent, scantily clad, sexually curious maidens, who had never seen a man and were impossible to disappoint. Then came the scene where a naked Sean Connery stood before the Amazonian Senate. Curious about his anatomy, they showed him Charlotte Rampling’s naked breasts, just to see if they would have an effect on him. Not knowing how to react to Sean Connery’s now very erect penis, the nervous Senate chamber was filled with giggles and then laughter. But not from Charlotte Rampling, who knew a good thing when she saw one. She stared at Connery’s hard penis with the expectation of limitless possibilities.

John couldn’t sleep that night, not from nervousness over his Latin final the next day, but from that look on Charlotte Rampling’s face. The look that said, here was a woman who knew a good thing when she saw one. John had never seen that look on any woman’s face before. Certainly not on the face of Mary Alice Dowd, or any of the other girls at Our Lady of Perpetual Conception. He swore to himself that, one day, he would see that look in person. So he sat down and made a plan.

Through very thorough research, John found out that Charlotte Rampling lived in Dorset, on England’s southwest coast, in the village of Lyme Regis, about a three-hour train ride from London. He made up a story for his parents about going skiing in Vermont, packed his bags, and headed out to Logan Airport where he boarded British Airways flight 1181, and began the journey to England, and his date with destiny. It was cold and sleeting when he landed at Heathrow, but John was warmed by an inner fire and impervious to the weather. After sorting out the luggage/customs ritual, he took a cab for London. 

 At Charing Cross he boarded the Dover train, and got off at Waterloo Station, the first stop on the line. Within ten minutes he boarded the Weymouth train, which would take him to the coast. He sat in the club car, ordered a glass of Porter, and watched the towns and villages of southern England parading by his train window, all decked out in their Christmas finery, a spectacle to see. And he began to wonder, “What if she’s not home? What if she’s away on holiday?” But then he remembered having read an interview she had given to some movie magazine where she said, “There’s no place like Dorset for the Holidays”. He smiled, knowing that this year he would spend Christmas Eve like he had spent no other. This year he would spend Christmas Eve showing it to Charlotte.

Icy darkness descended on Weymouth, as John’s train reached its destination. He lugged his bags onto the Station platform, and wondered to himself why he had packed so much stuff? “Maybe”, he thought, “just maybe, once she had seen his goods, she would invite him to stay the night”. After all, that’s what happened with Sean Connery.

The cab ride from Weymouth to Lyme Regis took about thirty minutes. Not wanting to drag his luggage around with him he asked the driver to take him to the best Hotel. The desk clerk at The Royal Lion told him they were full up, and suggested The Mariner Hotel, just down the Street. The Mariner was booked solid for the Holidays, as was The Swallow’s Eaves, The Orchard Country, The Kersbrook, and The Dower House. The irony of “no room at the inn” on Christmas Eve did not escape our hero as he continued his search for a place to stay. Finally he gave the desk clerk at the totally booked Channel House a few pounds to watch his bags, sat down to a nice cup of tea and contemplated his next move.

He looked at the address on the crumpled piece of paper that he took from his pocket. Number 15 Blue Dolphin Way. This was the address. Her address. Charlotte Rampling’s address. He asked directions outside the Channel House and was told it was a short walk up the hill and to the right. John’s journey was nearly at its end, as he began the climb. The rain and sleet came down harder now, but our rain soaked hero was still warmed by that inner fire that made weather irrelevant. He passed a few sign posts on his climb. Tattersall Way, then Judith’s Close, and finally here it was, Blue Dolphin Way. And right there on the mailbox, just under the number ‘15’, were the initials C. R. He was home. Her Home. Charlotte Rampling’s Home. And home she was indeed. The house was adorned with hundreds of Christmas lights and decorations of all sorts. John could see movement through the first floor window, and there, to his overwhelming joy, was Charlotte Rampling, decorating her tree. He was unprepared as to what to do next. Should he remove his clothes and simply knock on her door? Should he expose himself to her through the window? He hadn’t really thought this through. When he first saw her mailbox he had noticed that the flag was up. She had not gone out to fetch her mail today. Maybe it was just raining too hard. Maybe she simply forgot. At any rate he felt certain that, sooner or later, she would make the trek to the mailbox, and that’s when he would confront her. That would be his moment of triumph.

As he watched through her window, she walked over to the front door and took a yellow slicker of its hook. This was it. The moment was here. She was going to fetch her mail, and our hero was up to the task at hand. He raced back out to the gate, tearing off articles of clothing as he ran and, naked as the day he was born, stood next to her mailbox, proud, and tall, and all hers. He could hear the front door to the house open and close, and the sound of a distant voice singing. She was singing. As the sound of her footsteps approached he could barely make out the words and melody. “Some day……my prince….will come”. She was singing “Someday My Prince Will Come”, from Snow White, and her prince he was indeed. Standing there in the driving rain and sleet, naked as a Jaybird was our John, the sexually repressed Irish Catholic kid from Boston who, once upon a time saw Sean Connery standing naked and tall in front of this very same Charlotte Rampling, the result of which was the beginning of a whole new civilization of little Seans and Charlottes to populate a brave new world filled with hope for the future, and Sean Connery’s endless erection. And here she was approaching her mailbox right next to her naked, soggy prince who traveled all these countless miles to fulfill a destiny that they both surely shared here in the driving English rain. And they stood there, together for that one endless moment, until she reached down, grabbed her mail, spun around and, still singing, walked back to the house.

It’s hard to tell just how long John stood there, naked in the driving winter rain, before he realized that she hadn’t noticed him. Or had she? He will never really know for sure. On the train heading back to London John wondered whether or not this was the dumbest thing he had ever done. No, it wasn’t. He had done much dumber things than this, without one tenth the satisfaction he got from standing there naked with Charlotte Rampling on that rainy Christmas Eve in Dorset, totally prepared to populate a brave new world with little Johns and Charlottes, if only she had noticed him standing there. John prefers to think that she did notice him. Maybe she really did notice him, but was just too polite to say anything. And if she had said something, what would it have been? As his plane began its final approach to Logan Airport, John realized exactly what she would have said. As he stood there, naked and cold, in the driving Dorset rain, she would have looked at him and smiled, and said, “Merry Christmas John”. The English are like that.

 *

 © 2006 Shaun Costello