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#241 – London Journal #8 – Another Ted Forrest Misadventure, Part II – My Left Foot
It seemed a long walk along Park Lane to get to Marble Arch. I had bought a pair of Mephisto walking shoes before the trip for $250 but my feet were throbbing, especially my left foot, as we passed the Dorchester, a luxury auto dealer who offered bulletproofing, and the other tenants fronting Hyde Park, one of London’s richest and most exclusive areas.
Ted and Tibor both decided they needed a bathroom, and fast. They were about to cross into the Park and take their chances in the bushes when we saw a subway entrance that promised a bathroom. We trudged down the stairs and I realized this did not resemble a London Underground station.
We walked along a warren of twisting narrow corridors, punctuated by people sleeping on the ground, with the attendant nauseating smell.
My foot was pounding by now and for Ted and Tibor, the situation seemed dire. The hallways dead-ended into a mountainous stairway that led back out to the street. I later learned that this hovel is connected to an underground garage where the police tow cars.
When we emerged, we were near Marble Arch, by The Sportsman, but the casino was nowhere in sight. (Tony Holden had taken me by the place two days before and all I could remember was how poorly marked it was.)
More important, this neighborhood had nothing in common with the one we left on Park Lane. It seemed like a rough, dangerous area and we were very conspicuous.
It was at about this time I learned that Tibor was holding Ted’s craps bankroll. It was nothing big in Ted Forrest dollars – no more than he’d drop under the seat of his car – but it was probably more than all the money everyone was carrying combined at the Kentucky Fried Chicken where Ted and Tibor decamped for the toilets.
I waited in front of the restaurant, balancing on my usable leg. I worked at a KFC as a teenager but the smell of this place was overpowering. Every single person who walked by the entrance stared at me. And the guy next to me suddenly removed his prosthetic leg, unwound some bandages, and began applying some kind of spray to the raw-looking stump.
And yet somehow, I was the freak in this tableau.
All I could think was that this wasn’t actually happening. This was a glimpse into my future if I didn’t get these devil shoes removed from my now-cloven hooves.
My companions emerged, ready to find The Sportsman.
In the very first conversation I ever had with Ted Forrest – I was hallucinating from the pain by now, so in my mind, I was having the conversation in the present – he offered to reveal the secret of craps success: “Make sure to wear comfortable shoes because you never know how long you’ll be standing in one place.”
That was more than three years ago and I have followed Ted on many adventures and shared accounts of many more. But if he ever found The Sportsman – and I was ready to bet the Don’t – this was an adventure I would have to miss. I hailed the next cab I saw while Ted and Tibor continued to look for the casino, asking my cabbie for directions before I retreated for the safety of my hotel and steeled myself for a look at the condition of the bottoms of my feet.
My friends Jennifer Harman and Chris Ferguson made the final table without me. After several days of care, it appeared I would survive with my feet intact.
So it’s clear that everyone enjoyed a happy ending. I even learned that Ted and Tibor found the Promised Land (a craps table) and made it pay for the hell we had gone through to reach it. They never found The Sportsman, though, despite the directions of my driver. But they ran into the Victoria, which was also in the vicinity and had a craps table.
They made money betting against the dice. (Ted: “You could tell just by looking at the place that seven was going to come up a lot.” I think that means the place was a dump, which is the general consensus, though it has undergone a facelift and is actually quite presentable, compared with its former state of decrepitude.) Then, despite the experience of the journey to the casino – and Tibor, exhausted, having to excuse himself from the table to sit down – they walked all the way back to Mayfair, their pockets jangling with even more money than before.
“I was pretty sure two guys were following us through that neighborhood, so Tibor and I began walking very fast.” (N.B., If I had been along in my physical state at the time, they would have had to abandon me as a sacrifice.) “We passed these two pretty rough-looking characters and I heard one say to the other, ‘They’re scared of us.’ I wanted to tell him, ‘No, we’re scared of the guys behind you,’ but we were going too fast to say anything.”
I couldn’t resist asking why they didn’t take a cab back to the safety of the apartment where they bring you salt and pepper in a box if you ask and your biggest danger is the undercooked chicken.
“We could have taken a cab,” Ted confessed. “But where’s the adventure in that?”
