In November 2018 my partner, Tiki, and I were driving along route 64, Desert View Drive, from the Grand Canyon (too darn sublime to mention here) to Cameron Trading Post, AZ. We stopped at a roadside canyon where a Navajo man, who introduced himself as “Kenneth,” was selling jewelry. He asked me if I was English and was I familiar with the cartoon ‘Andy Capp?’ Kenneth went on to tell me that he had enjoyed the cartoon, published in the British tabloid The Daily Mirror, while serving as a U.S. soldier in Vietnam. A British Newsagent shop deep in the Vietnamese jungle sprung to mind…silly boy. 

I knew all about Andy Capp, as my Grandfather, who was also a U.S. army veteran, of WW2, used to read the Mirror. As a child I often stayed with ‘Grampy’ and he would let me cut out the cartoons and play around coloring and reordering the frames, which I glued to separate sheets of paper. I mentioned to Kenneth that I loved the simplicity of line and the fact that the reader never saw Andy’s eyes, the eponymous character always had a flat cap pulled down over his peepers… his “handicap/Andy Capp” I suppose was an inability to see the world. 

Usually a half burnt cigarette would be hanging from Andy’s bottom lip, as if on a hinge, defying the laws of physics but not of the cartoon. I shared these thoughts with Kenneth while purchasing a few items of turquoise jewelry. Kenneth smiled and told me he knew what I meant, adding that he sympathized with Andy’s long suffering wife, as I struggled to remember her name Kenneth clarified: “Flo.” 

While name-checking the road to Kenneth, I scrutinize the map and ponder if he’s down there now. Strange things happen in the desert, and that day the Andy Capp cartoon felt like a conduit between two unfamiliar souls, I’d love to know Kenneth’s Navajo name though.