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god save the queen
and her fascist regime
she made you a moron
a potential h-bomb

            the sex pistols

the prince

Patrick Fealey

    why the prince? we needed the copy. an editor told us so. and there we were, inching our way across the newport bridge to the sounds of neil young’s broken arrow.
    while cooper explained that he was driving so slowly because a local police department had nailed him with a $275 ticket a few days before, newport lay stretched out before us, an assemblage of steeples and clapboards on land and yachts in the harbor. it seemed fitting that if the prince of wales was going to visit the united states it would be to a drinking town with a sailing problem, a town the british conquered 220 years ago (with some cooperation), the town america’s royalty chose for its chateaus with gold-plated ceilings, and the town which today boasted the distinction of having the lowest per-capita income in the state.
    prince charles. we were going to see him at the new york yacht club, where he was visiting to promote one of his favorite causes, that of the mary rose, a warship that belonged to his great-great-whatever-grandfather, king henry viii, which sank in the waters off portsmouth, england, in 1545. a group known as “the friends of the mary rose,” which had undertaken the excavation and restoration of the warship, was having a dinner to raise money for a museum. so far, they had raised $30 million. they needed $25 million more.
    cooper was a photographer who liked to embarrass celebrities. he took a shot of bob weir at fort adams in which weir’s penis was visible slinking out his shorts. weir’s girlfriend sat beside him. cooper had asked me if he could sell the shot to the glossies, but i didn’t know. his photo went beyond tabloid. i don’t know what he did with it, but i felt at ease having a proven penis-shooter on this gig.
    as we cruised down america’s cup avenue, toward the yacht club, i thought of questions for the prince.
    is there a more pressing issue to which you could lend your time and name to raise money?
    then there were the questions the people back at the office had suggested:
    how did you become such a big jerk in such a short time?
    do you give all your girlfriends platinum charge cards?
    the only other question i could come up with was: “what do you think about the sex pistols reunion?”

    “tom, you think i’m overdressed?” cooper said to me. he was wearing a green sportcoat and tie, the first time i had ever seen him wear such things.
    “how do you overdress for a prince?” i said.
    “that’s a good one to put in your story.”
    i jotted it down in my notebook. as for me, i had started to put on a suit but only made it half-way. brown marino wool pants matched to a plaid white and blue shirt i had bought at a thrift store. i wasn’t wearing a jacket and i never wore ties.
    “i want to catch him picking his nose” cooper said.
    “he’s probably got someone doing it for him.”
    cooper parked near an elementary school and we walked to harbor court, the summer home of the new york yacht club. i had never been there, but cooper knew someone in the kitchen. the word was security was very tight, following the recent ira bombings and the suspicions surrounding the crash of a twa jet the day before.
    we were greeted at the gate by security agents who asked our names, checked them against a list, then told us to go to the gatehouse, where we could check in.
    we walked through a large gate and into a courtyard, where sitting behind a table on which were stacked media passes, was a woman and a man. it was quiet. we were early because cooper’s friend in the kitchen was putting aside some food for us.
    they asked us for our photo ids. we handed them over. they looked at them and handed them back. they gave us each an “american friends of the mary rose” media badge to hang around our necks.
    “security will have to check your cameras,” the woman said.
    “where’s that?” cooper said.
    she raised her arm and stuck a finger out, pointing behind us. we turned. standing there all the while, silent and with arms crossed, were four men in suits, watching us.
    while they were checking cooper’s cameras for guns and explosives, i asked one of the men who the security was.
    he didn’t answer.
    “i heard the fbi and mi5 were here,” i said.
    “not that we know of,” another one of them said.
    we sat down to wait out the prince, who was at that moment returning from a two-hour sail aboard the shamrock v, one of the largest, most exquisite, most famous yachts in newport. and also, the most green. we were told we could not go to the kitchen to get our food because of security reasons. this upset cooper more than me because he was hungry. the woman who checked our press ids offered us some poland springs water, which was cooling in a nearby barrel.
    “i’m sorry we don’t have anything else to drink,” she said.
    “can we go out and come back onto the grounds?” i asked.
    “if you check in again,” she said. “and if you bring us back something to drink.”
    we took our two waters and sat down.
    “we should have brought some cards,” cooper said.
    the water was good.
    “he would have made us something good,” cooper said.
    “call him.”
    “i don’t want to eat in front of everybody.”
    from where we sat, we could see the lawn where the tables were. the scene was dappled with sunlight coming through the leaves of old trees, which hid harbor court, where the prince was resting and changing for dinner.
    “i’m going out for a couple bottles of whiskey,” i said. “we’ve got time. the people are thirsty.”
    a young guy laden with cameras, his face burned by the sun, walked through the gate. i went over and talked to him. his name was kuni takahashi and he was a photographer for the boston herald. he had been out on a boat all afternoon, chasing after the prince, who was protected by a flotilla of coast guard, harbormaster, and police boats. he was frazzled.
    “we couldn’t even spot him and we had an 800 millimeter lense,” takahashi said.
    “maybe he’s not really here,” i said.
    “maybe they bring out some dummy, just to raise money,” cooper said.
    a photographer wearing a black t-shirt and sandals came into the courtyard, his face more sunburnt than takahashi’s. i recognized him. his name was bill powers and i’d worked with him for the boston globe. he was an ace. he wore a sports illustrated cap, but he told me he was shooting for reuters. last time i’d seen him he was sea-sick from chasing sharks. the guy got around and for good reason. he was one of the best.
    powers said he had gotten a shot of the prince on shamrock v, as the yacht sailed into the east passage under a south wind, past hammersmith farm and fort adams. he said the prince was wearing a blue blazer and a white shirt. he spent his time aboard the boat socializing. he did not touch the helm or any lines. between 40 and 50 boats chased the shamrock v.

    powers and takahashi were called over by the silent security men. they wanted to check their cameras again. they had been checked earlier, before they went out on their boats, but now they were back and it was possible that a mermaid had sold them hand grenades. while they suffered another absurd inspection of their many cameras and lenses, i raised a camera to test the fuckers.
    one of the security men raised his arms and came toward me, telling me to stop.
    “i can’t take a picture?”
    “not with us in it,” he said.
    i sat down.
    a reporter from the sakonnet times walked over.
    “i wish they’d let us walk around,” she said. “it’s like we’re caged animals.”
    cooper was looking at the security men. “i remember seeing some of those guys blending in, watching us work.”
    “we haven’t done any work.”
    “they’re watching us wishing we were working.”
    with all the time we had to sit there being watched, it was natural for me to think about the holes in their net. they had checked the cameras, but they had not patted us down. maybe they could see through clothes or possessed concealed metal detectors or james bond x-ray machines in their belt buckles. our cameras were clean, but i could have carried a pistol or concealed a blow-gun with curare darts in my pant leg. one of the security men had grinned at the scotch i’d brought back in. there was nothing he could say. i wasn’t going to get the prince so drunk he died.
    a young blonde gentleman in a black tuxedo came out and addressed the press corps. in a very proper-sounding accent, this mr. christopher dobbs, who stressed to us that he had studied archeology at cambridge, the same program as the prince, though not at the same time, told us the history of the discovery of the mary rose and the subsequent excavation, during which he had the honor of scuba diving with the prince.
    “she’s in portsmouth,” dobbs said. “she was built in portsmouth and sank in portsmouth, so portsmouth is very much her home.”
    built between 1510 and 1511, the 700-ton warship, which had been sunk by an invading french fleet two kilometers from the entrance to portsmouth harbour, was found by divers in 45 feet of water in 1836. on october 11, 1982, she was raised. work to preserve her treasures is ongoing, including an effort to make them available for public viewing by placing one-half of the ship’s hull and other artifacts on display in a museum. the museum has 400,000 visitors a year. dobbs said they hope to make it 600,000.
    “we have not just the officers’ plates,” dobbs said. “but the wooden plates, spoons of the common man.”
    dobbs was wearing a houndstooth bow-tie and cracked his fingers while he spoke. he was able to talk to people and when asked a question, he answered fully while looking the questioner in the eye. he was alright. but while he spoke, i couldn’t help but think of this interest in the common man 450 years after he died. it seemed a little late. was he interested in what the common man was eating or not eating today? if mr. dobbs was aboard the mary rose in 1545, he would have been eating off the pewter plate, not the wooden plate he now championed. four-hundred years from now, would somebody be digging up the site that was once the new york yacht club, talking about how the common men of the press corps were once fed water under the gaze of the fbi and mi5 and state police while mr. dobbs and his friends dined on $500 brussels sprouts?

    someone asked dobbs about the prince’s interest in the mary rose.
    “i think it’s partly because of his ancestry,” dobbs said. “the mary rose was definitely one of the king’s ships.” by king, mr. dobbs was referring to henry viii. i did not know much about henry viii, but what i had heard did not leave me with a positive impression. i recalled a portrait in which he was decapitating his wife with a turkey leg.
    while i was thinking about the saliva and mead running down henry viii’s chin, mr. dobbs was explaining that the prince was also interested in the mary rose because he liked archaeology and he liked scuba diving.
    “to go scuba diving, when you’ve got fifty photographers and news reporters wanting you to slip up, takes a lot of courage,” dobbs said.
    i shook my head and took a pull. wanting him to slip up? some fucking media if it was true. my friend died scuba diving. she was 29. i didn’t want anybody to slip up. i didn’t appreciate dobbs’ assertion that i was sick and degenerate.

    the new york yacht club’s public relations woman, susan miles, introduced us to two more men in black tuxedos, a mr. russell reynolds of the american friends of the mary rose and a brit by the name of sir. david cooksey, who was in the company of his wife, whose name we were told was simply “lady cooksey.”
    somehow, who knows how, the subject of money came up. a reporter asked cooksey how much more money they needed for their museum exhibit.
    “twenty-five million,” he said.
    “i thought it was fifteen,” mr reynolds said.
    there was much laughter. it sounded like this: “hahahahahahahahahahahahaha” except with a british accent: “huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhu.”
    “has the prince given any of his own money toward the museum?” a reporter asked.
    “we’re not allowed to answer questions like that,” cooksey said.
    the reporter asked again and cooksey repeated his answer.
    that’s a no.
    cooksey and reynolds bantered about the prince: he had arrived at 4:30 p.m. at t.f. green airport. he had gotten to newport by limousine. he spent the day sailing aboard shamrock v. a reporter from the newport daily news asked where the prince was now, wasn’t he late? she was intense and didn’t let go of cooksey about this detail. cooksey admitted the prince was a half-hour late, but said “princes are never late. we are one-half hour early.”
    after the gentlemen cleared out to go drink cocktails in the tents on the lawn of harbor court, the press corps once again relaxed, dropping into chairs to wait.
    “i wouldn’t want to live like that,” cooper said.
    “i don’t think you have to worry.”
    “everybody waiting on your departure. i just like to get in the car and go to the beach.”
    susan miles addressed us. i dropped the scotch into my leather bag. she said the plans had been somewhat changed. we would be taken up to the house, where we would have three minutes with the prince in the courtyard, a little sooner than planned. she said they had to fit the press in before a ceremony known as “colors,” in which the flags were taken down the yardarm exactly at sunset to the accompaniment of a canon salute. the ceremony had to be done precisely at sunset, which was to occur sooner than sunset. it was a new york yacht club tradition and they wanted the prince present. flags. canons. princes. miles said that during our three minutes with the prince, we could not ask him any questions. we could only take his picture.
    “why can’t we talk to him?” i said.
    “he’s too wealthy,” cooper said. “the combined salaries of everyone in here is one-tenth his net worth.”
    “what is his net worth?”
    “i don’t know. does he own the castle?”
    “i think he has a mortgage on it.”
    “really?”
    “yeah, it’s called the english people.”
    “well they’re a bunch of suckers.”
    susan miles reappeared, smiling excitedly and waving some kind of folded paper.
    “do you want to see the dinner menu for tonight?” she said.
    nobody moved except a reporter from the providence journal. he went to take a look.
    “i don’t want to know,” said the girl from the sakonnet times. “if we’re not going.”

    i was annoyed. miles chatted with the providence journal guy about the menu. i got up and walked over to ask her why we couldn’t talk to the prince. she saw me standing there, waiting to talk to her.
    “hi tom! how are you doing?” she said, reading my name off the press i.d. hanging from my neck.
    “why can’t we talk to the prince?” i said.
    “it’s the way it is.”
    “protocol, or does he not want to talk to us?”
    “it’s a photo opportunity only,” she said. “that’s what they told me.”
    i returned to my seat. i was truly annoyed. i had taken time away from other stories to come here and now it was looking like a soft, bullshit story with no main character. i was going to write about a ship that sank in 1545 and a $500-a-plate dinner? the only real story i saw was the prince’s treatment of the media, us, me. his media relations would be less strained if he actually talked to us. we were not like the press in britain and there were no tabloids at harbor court. we did not hide in bushes. we did not hire spies to peep in windows.

    susan miles came back and addressed the press. there were about 17 reporters, from the associated press to local tv news.
    “are there any questions?” miles asked.
    i raised my hand, but she ignored me. she would not look at me. nobody else was asking her a question, so i spoke up. i wanted to get this down on everybody’s record.
    “i have a question,” i said. “why can’t we talk to him?”
    “he will not say anything and if you ask him a question that annoys him, it will spoil the event,” miles answered without looking at me. her tone changed to one of warning; it was an unveiled threat. “there are a lot of men who can take care of the situation,” she said.
    “they’ll have you getting thrown out, tom” cooper said.
    “thrown out of what? a tea party attended by mutes?”
    “i’d be careful,” he said. “if i get thrown out with you, we have no shot.”
    “his divorce just went through,” i said. “he’s paranoid. it was a messy split and his divorce just went through last week. the british press kicked his ass because everyone loves dianna. i don’t even care about his divorce. i wouldn’t have fucked that princess either.”

    we were led up the lawn to harbour court, a mansion which once belonged to john nicholas brown. i didn’t know who john nicholas brown was and felt i should. the bay was on the other side of the house. in the courtyard, water bubbled out of a cherubic sculpture. we were stopped by a green fence. we stood watching guests arrive. all the men wore black tuxedos and the women beautiful gowns. we watched 250 of them walk past toward the tents on the lawn. the prince would raise $125,000 tonight. if he needed $25 million, he’d be eating out a lot.
    i got into a conversation with leslie gervitz, the boston bureau editor for reuters. “if i knew you’d be here, it would have saved me the trip,” she said. (to her word, gervitz hired me two months later.)
    since she was reuters, she had experience with the royal family.
    “i had this for fergie, when she ‘wasn’t getting divorced,’” gervitz said. “they don’t talk. they’re royalty.”
    while we were standing there waiting for the prince to come out the back or front door, i became aware that the number of security men was increasing. they were surrounding us. they were different from the other ones. they wore heavy, loose jackets and had things stuck in their ears, with wires vanishing under their collars. most of them had mustaches. we watched them and they watched us while the birds sang in the tree overhead. cooper turned around and looked at the windows on the second and third floors.
    “all it would do,” i said, “is bestow a certain amount of fame and infamy on the assassin. all prince charles has is fame. and he got that simply by being born.”
    “do you think philanthropists are people who give away what they should give back?” there was a question that would ruin the event. given their low tolerance, it might get me kicked out. i didn’t care much for this story, but i didn’t want to get kicked out. the sex pistols question came back to me. the queen had had some run-ins with the absolutists in the 1970’s. surely he would have some thoughts on the punk-rockers’ reunion. it would be funny and that would fit the tone of the story, which was a joke. another question would be to ask him who his date was tonight.
    prince charles emerged from the doorway, walking beside mr. russel reynolds. the prince had come out the door talking and turned away from us to ask mr. reynolds a question. when he turned his profile toward us, cooper was shooting. he walked past us, ignoring us.
    “hello, how are you?” said a reporter from the newport daily news.
    he turned and looked at her. he said “pinching a pen.”
    “what do you think about the sex pistols reunion?”
    “they’re going to dig up sid vicious? he was bad enough.”
    he walked around the fountain and through an opening in the shrubs which led to the lawn where the tents were and he was gone in five seconds.
    “three minutes, my ass,” cooper said.
    “five seconds longer, his ass.”
    the prince had a self-conscious face. it was ruddy. it was suggestive of silence. he was tall, solid, and carried himself with confidence. his stupid comment to the reporter was delivered with a superiority which sounded like it had never been questioned, by him, by anyone around him. yet, in that silent face i glimpsed a man who could be alright. his life required him to be the asshole people said he was.
    as sir cooksley might have said, “the prince did not snub you. you were born with incompatible blood types.”
    when you put us together, we all start to feel ill.
    as we were escorted back to the gatehouse, we heard the canon shot as “colors” was observed. susan miles said, “that sure was not three minutes, but i had no control over that.”
    it had been five seconds.
    “king hussein was a lot better than that,” said the chick from the sakonnet times.
    on our way off the grounds of the new york yacht club, we passed the valets, who were dressed in white shirts and black pants. they had parked a variety of cars, from range rovers and mercedez benzes to beaters worth less than the price of the dinner.
    “i don’t even care to see the crown,” said a valet. “unless you’re going to give me a diamond out of it.”
    we were being tailed by the mustaches, who apparently wanted to be sure of our departure. i turned and walked into one’s face.
    i said, “if you are a government employee, you have to tell me.”
    “who told you that?”
    “give me one reason to shoot the prince.”
    “he’s useless,” the mustache said. then he smiled: “but he provides us both with work.”



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