Brinkton Fartentuaht

(The Art of Accents)

       In the spring of 1994, my sophomore year in college, I had a classmate who went by the name Brinkton. Brinkton claimed to be British, he spoke with a Cockney accent that at the time was new to me. In those days, in the melting pot of Los Angeles, there were a lot of students from Latin America and at the university level there was an even bigger diversity.
        Brinkton was the first chap I had met who was from England. I had made friends with people from Russia, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Egypt, Cameroon, and even one from South Africa. I began to learn a lot of different cultures. However Brinkton was a tough lad to connect with. He seemed a bit snooty, although he was always proper with us, his attitude just seemed to be uppity and snobbish at times. It was just the way he used to say things that seemed a bit…harsh. He always dressed nice, sometimes wearing a neatly pressed button down blue oxford and khakis, it made him look like a grad student.
        I used to like hearing him speak. One time when I said something about his “English” accent to which he responded with “Accent, what accent?”  Another time during class, as the professor was going over some formulas, Brinkton interrupted the professor in that pleasant yet presumptuous voice and proceeded to correct the professor in finding derivatives in “much more simplistic way.” The professor looked at him a bit perplexed, it was the very first time he had spoken out loud in class, the professor looked at the formula on the board, nodded and continued with the lecture without really addressing the fellow.

        Brinkton lived on west side, near Beverly Hills. He said his mom was Banker and his dad was an investor and they had moved to Los Angeles about three years ago from just outside of London (imagine all that in a Cockney accent that sometimes sounded a little exaggerated). However I began to have my suspicions.
        See, even to an L.A. kid accents were a thing. Go to the valley, you get the valley accents – “like oh my god, gag with a spoon”. Go to east L.A. and you get another accent – “hey homes let’s go get some tacos”. Go down to Crenshaw and Slauson and you get another accent from the brothas (but I won’t touch that one). Yet somehow after three years, Brinkton hadn’t picked up any accent at all.  Still I had my suspicions.

        One day, I was sitting down at a table in the Business & Economics building courtyard with my friend Gonzalo (from Argentina) and we were talking about fútbol. Gonzalo was excited because Argentina would be playing at the World Cup later that summer. At that time there was no major league in the States, so you either watched games from the Mexican league or La Liga games from Spain or Premier League matches. Over the years I had become a fan Barcelona and Manchester United and an up and coming young star by the name of Beckham. As Gonzalo and I chatted Brinkton walked by, he heard us talking about a Man U. game from a month ago, when Brinkton asked “what’s man you?”
        This fart and twat has been lying all this time, I said to myself.
        “David Beckham! Dude’s got skills and he’s only like nineteen and he’s already with Man. U” Gonzalo said in his Argentinian accent.
        “Sorry I don’t quite follow” Brinkton added.
        Fuckin’ fart and twat, I said to myself. Football is like a religion all over Europe and this dude doesn’t know what Man U. is? I decided to put him to the ultimate test.
        “I forgot you were from London. So are you an Arsenal or Chelsea fan?”
        Brinkton froze for a second. “Oh you mean soccer?”
        Busted!
        “No Brit in his right mind would call it soccer!” I said standing up out loud pointing at him. My voice echoed against the walls and windows of the building around the courtyard.
        “Sorry, sorry” he said in a mid-western accent. Then “Brinkton” finally spilled the beans.
        Turns out Brian Brinks was from Columbus Ohio. Brinkton was the name of a street he used to cross on his way to school. When he was fifteen, his family went to England on vacation for a week and he fell in love with the accent. They moved to L.A. about a year later when his mom got a job in a firm downtown. Brian created a new image for himself just to impress the girls.