Join Me

by Danny Wallace

  Well. It sounded better than ‘two’. To be honest, though, I was starting to scare myself. I had started to speak out loud as I typed, in a big, booming, Brian Blessed-style voice. But people were reacting well to my replies. The more confident I appeared to be, the more open they seemed to be to my rather vague and rubbish answers.

  And then it happened.

  Saskia agreed to join me.

  ‘I will trust you,’ she wrote. ‘I will send you my passport photo tomorrow.’

  My head nearly fell off with delight.

  ‘You will not regret this,’ I replied, hiding my happiness behind mock-mysterious overtones. ‘Now Spread The Word. Tell your friends to join me. Together we will make a difference.’

  ‘I will,’ she replied, minutes later. ‘I will do that now.’

  I continued to tell the Internet about www.joinme.info late into the night, every so often receiving an email about one of the posts I’d made earlier in the day, and replying to it instantly. Someone posted on the message forum, saying ‘How strange to have a forum populated by people whose only known commonality is their total lack of ideas about what is going on . . .’

  I smiled, then laughed, then switched my computer off and stumbled into bed. It was 4am, and my eyes were burning, but I was finally certain of one thing.

  It was beginning. It was really beginning.

  Joinee Gaz

  CHAPTER 5

  5. And it came to pass in an eveningtide that Daniel walked upon the great path of wisdom and understanding.

  6. And beside the path he laid a stone tablet whereupon he wrote his covenant.

  7. And a great multitude saw his words and were delivered unto him.

  IT WAS 8AM. My phone was ringing. What kind of society do we live in, where someone can make your phone ring at 8am? There should be rules.

  ‘Hello?’ I croaked.

  ‘Well, thanks a lot for last night,’ said Hanne.

  ‘Eh? But I didn’t see you last night.’

  ‘No, I know you didn’t. We waited forty minutes for you on Brick Lane.’

  Argh. Shit. Brick Lane. It had completely slipped my mind.

  ‘You should have called me!’ I said.

  ‘We did. Again and again. Your mobile was off and your home phone was constantly engaged. All evening you were on the phone. Who the hell were you talking to all night?’

  ‘I was online,’ I said. ‘For hours and hours. I’m so sorry. Jon came round and we made a website and then I stayed online all evening and I forgot about going out.’

  ‘You made a website?’ Hanne said. ‘What kind of website?’

  ‘Just . . . y’know. A website. I’m so sorry . . . how were the others?’

  ‘It was embarrassing, Danny. Knowing that you were just sitting there on the phone while we waited. Well, we had a very good night in the end, just so you know. We went to the Vibe bar and it was packed and it was great.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Thank God you had a good night.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t a good night, actually, I was just saying that. It was a shit night. The place was empty. I was angry at you, and Espen and Cecilie were angry, too.’

  ‘Were they?’

  ‘Well, no, they didn’t mind. But I was so embarrassed. I felt like a raspberry.’

  ‘A gooseberry?’

  ‘Don’t correct my English.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘So you felt like a raspberry . . .’

  ‘Yes. And you did that to me. I reminded you yesterday morning, you know.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I’ll buy you dinner. We’ll go out. When are you free?’

  ‘I’ll let you know,’ she said, ‘I have to go back to work now. We’re going back on air.’

  And she hung up.

  I lay, shamefaced and embarrassed, in my bed. Which is a deeply unusual place for me to feel shamefaced and embarrassed, and anyone who says otherwise is a bloody liar.

  I felt terrible for having forgotten I’d agreed to meet with Hanne and the others. It’s not something I’d normally do, and it would’ve been nice to have been out and about last night. All I can say in my defence is I got carried away. I was enjoying myself. I had been fascinated by the responses I was getting. In fact, I’d been asleep for four hours. Surely there’d be more?

  I stumbled to my computer in my boxers and switched it on. Minutes later, I was overwhelmed by the incredibly positive responses my efforts had garnered. I’d received over forty emails from inquisitive people around the country . . . much of my activity the night before had been on UK websites and forums, and I was now reaping the rewards. Some said they were up for joining me, others simply wanted to know more, and I set about answering their queries and encouraging them to sign up in the best way I could. If even ten of these people joined me, not only would I have beaten Gallus’s record, but I would be taking my collective up to a whopping twelve . . . equal to the number of disciples Jesus had. Not that this was about making me seem important, or setting me up as some kind of rival to the big man. No. Not at all. This was in honour of Gallus, remember. But I was energised by the interest, and my guilt for accidentally standing Hanne up all but disappeared.

  I checked the forum next. There were various messages from various confused people.

  I think it is so dumb to have a website about joining where all you do is talk about joining but you don’t know what you are joining. I would still like to join though. Please email me.

  I want to join but there are no details of how to do so. Also, what am I joining?

  I was hoping there’d be answers here too. Guess not. Who’s running this thing anyway?

  Who are you guys and what did you join? Can I join?

  This was great. Complete and utter strangers were willing to Join Me for no other reason than other complete and utter strangers were doing it. I set up a proper PO Box address for Join Me in order to make myself seem a bit more professional, and then set about adding a little more information to the website; all of it vague and non-commital – in fact ‘information’ doesn’t seem the right word – but all of it designed to urge and excite people into joining.

  As people started to mention it on other websites, or forward my web address to their friends, more emails arrived throughout the day. And the day after that. And the day after that. People all over the country – teachers, students, lawyers, estate agents, even a vet – were all suddenly promising that they’d join me, and only later bringing up the rather serious question of what it was I was asking them to join.

  I saved up all the offers, and at the end of the week sent one, mass email to those kind-hearted people who had agreed.

  Dear Joinee,

  Thank you. And very well done.

  You are a very special person, as proved by agreeing to Join Me.

  You are ace. I want you to know that.

  And do not worry. You have joined nothing bad, or even slightly dodgy. This is not a cult, and will involve no space travel of any kind. Mass suicides are also positively frowned upon.

  But this *is* a collective.

  You, and many dozens of others like you, should be proud. Proud to have helped me start doing something that will ultimately make my gran smile for many months to come. Proud to be part of this wonderful brother-and-sisterhood.

  And below that, I asked them to send me their passport photos, stressing that only then would they truly be my joinees.

  I sat back and waited. But even I wasn’t expecting, two days later, to receive, in the post, fourteen separate envelopes, all addressed to JOIN ME.

  Fourteen.

  All. At. Once!

  Fourteen!

  Imagine the delight that was spread over my face that morning as I stooped to pick up my post. Imagine the delight, and excitement, and pure undiluted joy. I had overtaken Gallus’s record in a little under a week! With Jonesy and Cobbett on board, I’d actually more than quadrupled it! Fair enough, I was asking these people to send me a
passport photo, not live on a farm in Switzerland with me, but I think it’s a fair comparison nevertheless, and I think Gallus would doubtless feel the same.

  I couldn’t believe it. Fourteen separate people had taken it upon themselves to send me – a perfect, anonymous stranger – a passport photo. How wonderful was this? That strangers would reach out to someone they’d never even met in this way. That they’d be interested or intrigued or open-minded enough to actually follow through on a whimsical promise to join someone. And what did they think they were joining, anyway?

  It didn’t matter, because I was on the tube, now, cruising on the Central Line towards the centre of town, opening the first of my envelopes. I’d had to sneak them out of the flat, because Hanne had been round, but here, on the tube, I could open them with no fear or embarrassment.

  I tore the first one open. I found a photo of a lady, in her mid-thirties, by the name of Sarah Teller. Or Joinee Teller, as she would be known from now on. She was a dental assistant from Shepshed, and her hobbies included musicals, videos and swimming (twice a week). Why she’d taken it upon herself to lavish these extra details on me I’ve no idea, but I liked her for it and for some reason committed them to memory. I couldn’t dwell too much on Joinee Teller, though – I had more joinees to meet. I opened the next envelope. Another woman, this one in her late teens. Joinee Webster. She enjoys pubs, clubs, and the band Idlewild. Apparently, she had a pierced tongue, though you wouldn’t know it from her photo. Unless that was the reason for what appeared to be a small piece of dribble on her chin. But that didn’t matter to me. It was joinee dribble, and thus a wonderful thing indeed.

  I opened the next one. It was a man. His name was Gaz. He had sent me two photos of himself, both Blu-tacked to a letter. One, passport-sized and perfectly acceptable for his Join Me application. And another, in which he appeared to be dressed from head to toe as a Care Bear.

  ‘It was for a bet,’ he wrote in his letter. ‘Someone bet me I couldn’t fit into it. And I thought that I could. I offer you this photo as proof of my victory.’ I laughed. And then I noticed that the person in the seat next to me was laughing too. He’d been taking a great deal of interest in what I’d been doing while sat next to him. It seems he’d thought I was opening that morning’s responses to some kind of lonely hearts column, and while he’d approved of both the dental assistant and the girl with the pierced tongue, he rather thought I was scraping the bottom of the barrel with some bloke from Oxford called Gaz who likes dressing up as a Care Bear. Still, he can’t have thought I was very fussy about who I go on dates with . . . appearing, as it did, that I go for women, men, or fictional cartoon characters from the early 80s.

  And while his interest was welcome – y’never know, he may join – I elected to take the rest of my envelopes elsewhere in order to enjoy them. I ordered a cup of tea and sat down at the Starbucks on Regent Street to study them properly.

  My other eleven joinees that morning comprised seven men and four women, living right around the country and undertaking a number of jobs. Their ages, by the looks of them, ranged from teens to early forties, and each had a warmth about them that I found hard to explain. I suppose it was because I felt such warmth towards them myself Or maybe it’s because it’s always quite warm in Starbucks, and I was still wearing my parka.

  I wanted to get to know a little more about these people, though. I decided that later on in the day, I’d compile and send out a detailed questionnaire. That way, not only would I be able to work out terribly interesting statistics like the average height and age of my joinees, but I’d be able to find out why they joined; what it was about Join Me that appealed to them. Maybe I’d arrange a get-together after I’d done that. Maybe I’d actually meet some of these people, just as I’d met Joinee Jones.

  As it turned out, it wouldn’t be me who suggested a meeting. It would be Joinee Haman, aka Gaz, aka the Care Bear Man.

  Writing on the website forum while slightly under the influence, he said:

  OK, well nothing ventured, nothing gained . . . (and when better to take a risk than when drunk eh?) . . .

  I’ll be making my way home through London next weekend with time to kill. If there are any fellow joinees or people who want to join who fancy a pint, I’ll meet you in the top bar at the Chandos pub off Leicester Square at 2pm on Sunday next.

  I’ll be the bloke reading a book trying not to look like I have no friends.

  Gaz

  I put the date in my diary. Maybe I’d go along. It would be nice to meet with my people.

  In the meantime, my most important task was upping the number of joinees I had. No more envelopes had arrived in the post since that first batch of fourteen joinees, which I found rather disappointing. I suppose from that moment on I’d figured every day would be like that. But Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday passed by without even a sniff of a new joinee. Sure, people were saying they’d join me, and promising to send their photos off, but not one of them seemed to have done so.

  I was in danger of becoming demoralised again. Especially when one person, who’d seen the advert in Loot, sent me a one-word, handwritten note. Still, it was the first time I’d actually seen the word ‘Wanker’ written in crayon, so that was nice.

  Another day passed and still no passport photos arrived, even when there was a dramatic and unexpected rise in the number of emails I was getting. It all became clear when I was tipped off and told to buy that day’s copy of the Daily Mirror. Tucked away in a small box halfway through the paper, in a column written by a lady named Amy Vickers, I was excited to find this . . .

  Carrying the strapline ‘It’s not a cult – it’s a collective’, the bizarre Join Me website is signing up members by the bucketload. But nobody knows who’s behind it or what it’s trying to achieve . . . except for The Mirror and a few choice members.

  Rest assured, it’s not a scary religious cult, but don’t be surprised if it ends up in lights!

  How had Amy Vickers found out about the website? And how did she know who was behind it? I’d never met her, to the best of my knowledge, and I’d certainly told no one about what I was doing. She even hinted she knew what I was trying to achieve. Well, that was more than I did. I only wished that she’d been correct in what she’d said. Apparently I was signing up new members by the bucketload, and in a way I suppose I was, given that you can’t really fit anyone into a bucket these days.

  But still no passport photos arrived. I thought it hugely strange that fourteen should arrive all at once and then nothing at all after that.

  And then . . . bang.

  It seems that when I’d set up the PO Box address and started to send that out to my joinees, I hadn’t realised that quite often the Post Office hangs on to the letters until there are enough of them to warrant a delivery. I’d assumed they’d arrive at my house in the order they were sent . . . but no.

  Consequently, you can picture my utter delight when a large bundle of letters, held together by no less than two industrial-strength elastic bands, found its way through my letterbox late one morning.

  Twenty-six letters. Twenty-six passport photos. Twenty-six new joinees.

  Oh, joy!

  A joinee from Manchester. A joinee from Durham. A joinee from Huddersfield. A joinee from Bristol. Joinees from towns and villages in Hampshire, Surrey, Oxfordshire, Aberdeenshire, and Somerset. Male joinees. Female joinees. Young joinees, middle-aged joinees and at least two who I’m sure wouldn’t mind me describing them as very old joinees. And each and every one of them a brilliant joinee.

  I now had forty-two joinees in total. Forty-two! I was nearly halfway through my own quest, and I’d hardly even done anything! But rather than please me, this actually rather worried me. Halfway. Halfway with almost no effort whatsoever. Halfway, just when I was starting to enjoy myself.

  I told myself not to be stupid; to cheer up. Halfway was good. It meant that soon I’d have my hundred, and I could stop. My collective would be complete, and I c
ould set about dismantling it. I would’ve reached my target – reached Gallus’s target – and could then get on with the very serious business of living my life just as I had done before. Playing videogames. Watching films. In my pants.

  Sigh.

  * * *

  Sunday was soon upon me, and with it the promise of meeting one of my joinees. I knew Joinee Gaz would be sitting in that central London pub, at 2pm, waiting for fellow joinees to show their joinee faces. He’d posted again on the forum, telling people how they could recognise him, and a few people had replied, saying that as they lived in London or could get to it easily, they’d pop in at two o’clock to say hello.

  At five to two I was standing outside the Chandos pub, slightly nervous. Inside could be any number of joinees, each of them full of hope and ideas and plans for the future of Join Me. What if I disappointed them? What if I wasn’t what they were looking for? What if they’d imagined this was all going to be a lot slicker and more professional than it was? Should I pretend to be just a normal joinee? Should I hide the fact that I was the bloke setting it all up? All these thoughts flashed through my mind as I climbed the second staircase, up to the top bar, to find whatever lay ahead.

  And there, sitting at a table in the corner, reading a book, trying not to look like he had no friends, was Gaz. Joinee Haman. The Care Bear Warrior.

  ‘Er . . . join me?’ I tried.

  ‘Hello!’ said Gaz, cheerily. ‘I was wondering whether anyone was going to turn up! I mean, a few people have said they will, but you never know, do you? Pint?’

  At which point Joinee Haman, in what was fast becoming a traditional gesture, bought me a pint.

  * * *

  Now I had secretly hoped that by revealing that I was no ordinary joinee but Danny, the founder of Join Me, I would stir up some kind of excitement in Gaz. But no. He’d simply nodded, and said ‘right’, and then asked me whether I’d read the book he was halfway through reading. I hadn’t. He said I should, it was a really good read. I said I would, next chance I got.