Honey Drank Fanta

I was standing on the steps of a cathedral in Madrid, watching the Spaniards pass, when two young men in Hawaiian shirts approached.

“Are you American?” one asked.

I said, “Pretty much. How could you tell?”

“The cameras,” he said.

I was carrying my wife’s photographic equipment, which is considerable.

“Only Americans or Japanese carry that many cameras,” the man said, “and you don’t look Japanese.”

“Ah, so,” I said.

“We’re from Memphis,” the man’s partner said. “How about you?”

“L.A.”

“How is it?” the partner asked. “We were thinking of visiting.”

“Rife with disease and violence,” I said.

“It was either L.A. or Orlando,” the first man said.

My wife, who had been photographing a statue, walked up.

“It isn’t full of disease and violence,” she said. “At least not disease. It’s very nice on certain days.”

The men thanked her and walked off.

“Why did you tell them that?” she asked.

“Because,” I said, “we do not need more people in aloha shirts overtaxing our facilities.”

“You’re a sweetheart,” she said. “The ambassador from hell.”

The incident occurred last month on vacation. I mention it to explain why Mayor Tom Bradley and a cluster of others are on a 13-day trip to Europe to promote tourism.

According to my wife, they have crossed the ocean to apologize for me.

I buy that. What else would justify sending half a dozen people around the world to accomplish what they could do by telephone?

I asked that question of Bill Chandler, the mayor’s press secretary. He was ready. “More than 48 million tourists came to L.A. last year,” he said. “They spent $12.8 billion. Good enough?”

When I asked how much the trip was costing, he said ask the Department of Airports, they’re paying. The department’s Tom Winfrey said he wouldn’t know until the trip was over.

I may not have been L.A.’s best spokesman, but at least I paid my own way and had some idea how much it would cost in the first place. Plenty.

We spent a month driving through Italy, France and Spain in a rented Ford Fiesta. Not being on a junket, we stayed in modest hotels and ate pasta laced with ribbons of skinny chicken.

You can bet your sister’s chastity that Bradley and his gang are not chugging around in compacts and chowing down on linguine. Try limos and ecrevisse de mer.

And they aren’t staying in hotels with a bathroom down the hall. Winfrey suggested noncommittally they are staying in nice places.

I mingled with the masses and discovered through chance encounters that Bradley’s trip to promote tourism is probably unnecessary. Everyone wants to come to L.A. anyhow. They have brothers here.

Italians especially have brothers here. I heard a dozen times in Florence, Venice and Milan, from both men and women, that their brothers live in L.A.

We spend all our time counting Mexicans while Italian brothers are sneaking in unnoticed.

Most of those I talked with felt kindly toward the city that Raymond Chandler said had the personality of a paper cup.

A Frenchman in Toulouse even tried to address me in typical Los Angeles speech patterns. He said, “Hey, brother!” and gave me a high five.

I explained that we all didn’t talk that way, it was a cultural trait limited mostly to black men over 7 feet tall.

He said, “Right on!”

Bradley will only mingle with heads of state and protocol officers. He will make speeches in London and Dublin and then relax in Madrid with the king of Spain.

I met the lumpen proletariat at sidewalk cafes. We drank espresso, cappuccino and Danziger Goldwasser. An elderly gentleman bought me a Goldwasser in Pisa. I didn’t even know what it was.

“I swear,” my wife said, “you’ll drink anything but the dog’s water.”

A couple from L.A. sat next to us.

“We’re from Burbank,” the man said. “Where you from?”

“I’m from Topanga,” my wife said, “and he’s from hell.”

The man ordered a beer for himself and a Fanta orange for his wife, Honey.

“No Fanta,” the waiter said. “Coca-Cola.”

“Honey don’t drink Coca-Cola,” Mr. Burbank said. “Honey drinks Fanta.”

Honey just kind of sat there, looking dim.

“No Fanta,” the waiter said, his voice rising. “Coca-Cola!”

My wife whispered, “Let’s go. I can’t take Honey and her man.”

“I bet the mayor gets Fanta if he wants it,” I said.

“Come on,” she said, “I’ll buy you a Goldwasser in Lourdes. Just don’t talk.”

It’s a deal.