Jim and June were the odd couple. Jim was a bantam weight cockney who despite over 20 years of living in the US still sounded like he came straight from the set of East Enders. He was as gorblimey guv as they came.June was a big boned woman from a more Home Counties patrician background who kept an immaculate 4 storey Victorian to house her collection of vintage of cookie jars. She was his bit of posh and he was her bit of rough. They had met in Brazil of all places where she was a dubutantish secretary at the British embassy in Sao Paulo and he was an expat art director at a multinational ad agency.How they came to meet I never heard and I think Jim could never remember. He described his time in Brazil as one constant hangover.He shared a house with a tribe of itinerant fellow expats and a
continuous stream of local black women.Black was Jim's delight so how he ended up with June I can't fathom.But with her he did indeed end up and she followed him to New York and then to New Jersey where they set up home. Now Jim for all his Kray twins accent was in fact the biggest lover of Americana I have ever come across. He was such an antidote to all the whining Brits I had met who didn't like the food here or the beer here or the telly here or just being here.He loved it,loved it ,loved it loved it.As his two sons grew up he adored going to little league games and would proudly display photographs of them at play.He had a great friend who was a photographer and every year the two of them would do a fear and loathing road trip not to Vegas but to Wyoming.There they would hunker down in a cabin in the middle of nowheresville and fish and drink and smoke their heads off.
Jim loved this place.He loved its eccentricities.For example the local Sheriff had been in power for over 20 years and nobody would run against him.Then came an edict from the state capital that this smelled of abuse of power and he would have to find one breathing life form to run against at the up-coming election.Not one citizen dared step up so the Sheriff put forward his dog. The dog won by a landslide but curiously enough and amazing for a dog it was able to swear in the now ex-sheriff as his deputy.
Jim and the new deputy became close friends and Jim confided in him that he loved coming out to
Wyoming partly because it gave him a break from June, who it's true did have a real ball-busting temper at times.The deputy thought about this long and hard and suggested that Jim might want to bring June out to Wyoming next year to which Jim being horrified at the idea asked why. `Well there's lots of
old mines out here' said the deputy.` you'd be surprised at how easy a wife could fall into one and never be seen again. I'm just saying...' June to her good fortune never did make that trip. Jim died of leukemia several years ago and I went to a gathering at that big house.Their kids were now young men. June hadn't aged a year.And all over the ground floor were examples of Jim's amazing art work.This was a Brit who found his true spiritual home in suburban New Jersey and was a real inspiration. Gawd bless yer mate!
