I felt incredibly sorry for Joinee Whitby. He reminded me of a puppy no one was playing with any more. It broke my heart to do it, but I still didn’t reply. I had to be strong. I had to be cruel to be kind. At least this way his family might get him back for a bit.
Either way, it was for the best.
* * *
‘He might start stalking you,’ said Ian, over a quick drink at the Horse & Groom. ‘Maybe he’ll kill you.’
‘That’s a cheery thought,’ I said. ‘Thank you very much. And he’s not going to start stalking me. Or killing me. He’s not the type. He’s a good-hearted man who likes a challenge, that’s all. Something about Join Me must really appeal to him. And why would he kill a stranger, anyway? Particularly one he calls “the Leader”?’
‘It’s worrying, Dan. He’s the most obsessed joinee you have, and you’re taking his favourite toy away from him. If you keep ignoring him, who knows what he’ll do?’
‘He won’t do anything. He’ll just calm it down a bit. I don’t want to be responsible for this man’s breakdown. I don’t want him to be hiring badge-making machines and trying to paint small children’s faces when he should really be doing the washing up or pressing some buttons on his computer.’
‘I’m warning you, Dan. He won’t let it lie. I’ve seen things like this before. You’re not moving fast enough for him, are you? Have you told him you’re after 1000 so you can get that pint?’
‘I’m not doing it for the pint. Stop going on about the pint. This has nothing to do with pints. And anyway, if I tell him that he’ll go mental. He’ll be unstoppable. Think of the man’s family!’
‘But you’re not letting him in on the secrets, Dan. He used to feel intrigued. Now he feels lost. And I know what his next move will be.’
‘What are you on about? What do you mean, “his next move”?’
‘He’s going to steal Join Me away from you.’
I put my tea down.
‘Bollocks. He couldn’t. And he wouldn’t.’
‘You just wait, my friend,’ said Ian. ‘You just wait.’
* * *
I left Ian – whose childish insistence not to join me and refer to me as his Leader still grated on me somewhat – and returned home to be surprised by a delivery driver sitting outside my flat. My leaflets and stickers had arrived from the printers. Marvellous.
I ripped open the packaging and took some delight in what I found. My leaflets were the business. My stickers beautiful. And this was just the type of thing I needed to get Whitby and his cohorts off my back. He’d said he was being driven mad by a lack of information. Well, these Join Me leaflets would surely keep him sane . . . even though there was barely any information on them whatsoever, and what little there was was hardly relevant to Join Me. But, by sending out these leaflets and stickers to my loyal joinees, I’d be sending out a message of confidence. I’d be sending out a message which said ‘Trust me! Things are happening! Look – have some stickers! Don’t go off with Whitby, please! Does he have stickers? No! He doesn’t have any stickers at all! Just some poorly made badges! Therefore I am best!’ Or words to that effect.
I jogged down to the corner shop and bought myself some suitable envelopes and as many first-class stamps as I could afford with the change I had on me. Back upstairs, I hurriedly scribbled out various joinee addresses onto the envelopes, shoved some leaflets and stickers into them, and left them by the door to be posted. I wanted to start the official awareness campaign in the big cities, before moving on to the towns and villages, so I chose to send the first batch of paraphernalia to joinees in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Nottingham and Bristol. I figured that it would be only fitting for me to get the ball rolling in London myself. Starting with my flat.
It didn’t take long. I put a sticker on my bedroom door and one on the vacuum cleaner. In no time, the word was spread right the way around my flat. But that wouldn’t get me another 900 joinees, so I decided to move the operation to the wider world. This would take a little longer.
I took some leaflets and a few hundred stickers and wandered around the East End . . . I stickered lampposts, phone boxes, bollards, and a group of small children. I stuck stickers on the pavement, in case any elderly people, who often have a penchant for a stoop, decided to waddle on by. I stuck stickers on road signs, on a burnt-out Fiesta on the edge of the estate near Victoria Park, and on railings, roadworks and gutters.
I felt naughty. But I felt justified in my naughtiness. I was spreading the word, after all, and what a lovely day for it; sunny, warm, breezy and calm. I bought myself an ice cream as reward for my efforts. And what efforts they were. I walked the length of Roman Road, through to Bethnal Green, and on to Shoreditch. In Shoreditch, I placed my stickers between those advertising club nights and art exhibitions, and watched as two lads with mullets took note of its simple message. Join Me. I felt sure they would. I carried on to Hoxton Square, where I had a cup of tea, then walked back through Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, back down Roman Road, and back to my flat, stickering the opposite side of each street as I did so. I was satisfied. So satisfied, in fact, that I just wasn’t satisfied. I wanted to feel even more satisfied. I couldn’t allow the Join Me message simply to remain in the East End . . . I would conquer the West End today, as well! I decided to take the stickering campaign to central London. I could hop on a tube to Mile End, and then sticker the entire Central Line, right the way to Oxford Circus.
Except I didn’t get that far.
I got as far as my local tube station.
I’d decided to wander down Bow Road, a wide and busy, rough-as-you-like road, with very little to recommend it, unless all-night garages are your thing, or you quite enjoy muggers and the mugged. Annoyingly, I’d actually thought it was quite a nice road at one stage, when I first moved there. I used to walk to the tube station every morning and pass queues of smartly-dressed young men, suited and booted, with their hair gelled down, quietly studying their shined-up shoes. It wasn’t until I looked up one morning, and saw that they were queuing up outside a building marked ‘Youth Court’ that I’d started to realise what kind of area I’d moved into. To get to the tube, you also have to pass a school which must be famed throughout the world for having the hardest kids you’ve ever seen in it. Some mornings you’re not sure whether the uniformed thugs wandering towards you are a Year Seven geography class, or a troupe of midget bouncers. You just hope you can leap the river of saliva they inevitably leave swirling on the pavements behind them (but you never can).
It’s also necessary to pass Bow Road police station on your journey to the tube, and it was here that I hit trouble.
I knew that what I was doing was naughty. I didn’t know what I was doing was illegal.
‘What’s that?’ said a voice, immediately behind me. On reflection, I should have skipped stickering the bulletin board outside the police station, because my doing so attracted the attention of a man in a policeman’s uniform, who I think may have been a policeman, and whom I certainly took as such.
‘It’s . . . a sticker,’ I said, suddenly and overwhelmingly feeling more guilty than I’d ever felt before. Authority figures do that to me. I could have stamped on a badger and not felt more guilty than I felt right now. Put someone slightly taller than me in a hat and I’ll do whatever they ask.
‘And what does it say?’
I read it, just in case I’d accidentally had one printed that said ‘Coppers are Tosspots’. I was relieved to find that I hadn’t.
‘It says: Join Me.’
‘What’s that? A club?’
‘Kind of.’
‘Where?’
‘Well . . . it’s . . . nowhere, really. And yet everywhere, I suppose.’
‘Where is it specifically?’
‘Um, well . . . at the moment, it’s a kind of club of the mind . . .’
I wiped what must have been quite a wistful look off my face. The policeman looked at me very, very s
eriously.
‘A club of the mind?’
‘Yes.’
‘What kind of music?’
‘Eh?’
‘What kind of music is it?’
‘There’s no music involved,’ I said. ‘But that’s not a bad idea. Might get a few more people joining me. I need 1000, and—’
‘A club without music? Sounds very new wave. You from Shoreditch?’
‘No, no, not a nightclub. Or a club night. A . . . you know . . . a club. Like the Tufty Club. Or Griffin Savers. Or—’
‘Like a rambling club?’
‘Well, more like a rambling club than a hardcore drum ‘n’ bass club.’
‘So it’s a rambling club?’
‘No, it’s a . . . well . . . it’s hard to explain. I just want people to join me.’
‘For what? A ramble?’
‘It’s not a rambling club. Look, officer, have I actually done anything wrong?’
‘How many of these stickers have you put up?’
‘It’s hard to say. I’ve had quite a lot done, so—’
‘Because you’re aware that guerrilla marketing campaigns are illegal, aren’t you? London’s clamping down, my friend. You can be fined for each and every one of these.’
‘Oh.’ I didn’t like the sound of this. ‘How much?’
‘Potentially . . .’ he paused, making sure I was looking in his eyes, ‘. . . £1000 per sticker.’
I physically felt my hairline recede a quarter of an inch.
‘£1000! Per sticker?’
I looked at the sticker I’d just stuck on the bulletin board. Was that worth £1000? Would it really encourage dozens of policemen to Join Me as they left work that evening, or arrived the next morning? I suddenly wasn’t sure it would.
‘How many stickers have you stuck up?’
‘Er . . . well . . . I’m not sure. I’ve sent some to friends around the country. I’ve had 3000 printed.’
‘Three thousand? For a rambling club?’
‘It’s not a rambling club. And yes, 3000.’
‘Three thousand . . . right. Multiplied by 1000. So that’s . . .’
He raised his eyes to the skies and did the maths.
‘. . . that’s a fine of £3 million you’re looking at.’
My eyes were as big as a giant squid’s.
‘£3 million! For these? That’s more than I earn in an entire year! I can’t pay £3 million!’
‘Better take them down, then . . .’ said the policeman, starting to walk away. ‘And I’m glad you’ve got a web address on there, just so we know how to contact you if we see any more of them.’
Curses. I felt like a schoolboy, caught apple scrumping in the vicar’s garden. The policeman may as well have clipped me round the ear and taken me home to be spanked with a slipper by my mum.
Thankfully, my joinees were doing rather better. A couple of days later emails started to arrive telling me of the efforts and lengths to which joinees were going in order to spread the word. They’d taken on board just how vitally important it was to raise awareness of Join Me, and had been flyering hard and stickering away since their packages had arrived.
I sent more leaflets and stickers out to any joinee who requested them, and many who did not. Joinees in every major UK city were doing their bit, as well as those in many dozens of towns and villages up and down the country. New joinees were starting to send their passport photos in as a result. The leaflets – handed out in the streets, left in libraries, stuck up on walls – seemed to be working. Several people emailed me after being handed them, reading leaflets over people’s shoulders, or even overhearing people read them to their friends. ‘I overheard two gay guys chatting about Join Me on a flight to Cyprus,’ wrote someone called Sarah. ‘Is it about uniting the world? Count me in!’
And I did.
A lady called Jane wrote, ‘So after overhearing a conversation between two people reading a flyer on the Victoria Line (they got off at Seven Sisters), I was intrigued enough to check out the website where apparently I could find out how to join up. I have done, and will be joining in the next day or so!’
And she did.
Dozens more people were reacting positively to this national campaign and signing up. My trip to the letterbox became the highlight of each morning, as I slowly and steadily racked up passport photo after passport photo from kind-hearted joinees all over the UK.
I hoped that Joinee Jade of Durham would be finding the leaflets and stickers of use.
Nope.
Dear Leader
Thanks for all the leaflets and stickers you sent me in the post the other day. I have been trying to use them and people seem a little more interested but to be honest it’s not really what I’m after. I have read and re-read the leaflet and I still do not know what the point of Join Me is. I don’t really know if I want to be involved in this any more so I will be leaving Join Me. Sorry.
Thanks for everything
Joinee Jade (ex)
Durham
No!
I had lost a joinee! Disaster! Having thousands of leaflets and stickers printed just hadn’t been enough for Joinee Jade. She actually wanted to know what the point of what she was doing was.
I shuddered. More leavers would surely follow. I headed for the website to see if news of Joinee Jade’s departure from Join Me had made it to the other joinees.
My blood ran cold when I reached the forum. There was a message from Joinee Whitby. The same Joinee Whitby that Ian had warned me would try and steal Join Me away from me . . .
Joinees! We can play this one of two ways. We can passively sit back and wait for answers from the ‘person in charge’, or we can actively try and figure out what this is all about. What kind of ‘collective’ are we? Fellow joinees . . . we need not just wait. What do we want to do as a group? Can we make decisions about our future without anyone taking overall control? Maybe! Come, fellow joinees . . . will you all decide to act?
Oh my God. Mutiny! This was precisely what Ian had been talking about – this was the desperate call to arms of a dissatisfied joinee. It was a passionate speech. A speech designed to inspire, and unite. How could I compete with that? How could I compete with those well-chosen words of revolution?
Well, I couldn’t. So to buy myself some time I deleted it from the forum and made a cup of tea while I thought about what to do.
My phone rang. It was Ian.
‘Dan, I’ve been looking at this bloke Whitby’s website,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘Well, that’s the first thing. Why does it exist? Why does your official site need a rival? Isn’t this whole scheme about joining you? Not setting up on your own?’
‘I suppose so . . . but I’ve been busy, and I haven’t had time to update my site much, so it stands to reason that . . .’
‘And then there’s Whitby’s invitation to other people to join. He says if they want to join, they should click on a certain button. But when they do, it sends an email to him, not you. And I can’t find any links to your website, or even any mention that there’s a Leader involved . . .’
Ian’s voice sounded grave now.
‘Danny . . . I think Whitby’s out to get you.’
‘Not only that, Ian . . . one of my joinees has left. It’s all going wrong.’
‘Whitby. He must have had a hand in that. Watch your back, Dan. Watch your back.’
I bowed my head, said goodbye, and solemnly put the phone down. It seems that for the first time in my short life, I had found myself a nemesis. Or, more accurately, my nemesis had found me. How many more joinee minds would he poison? How many more would leave my collective and join forces with the dark side? I imagined Whitby and Jade laughing together, as they made their own leaflets and stickers, and poked fun at me for being a rubbish Leader with stupid glasses and bad shoes.
The leaflets clearly hadn’t been enough. I’d been a fool to think that they’d buy me time while I decided what to do. More join
ees would surely become disillusioned or bored, and I’d never reach my desired target, never complete my quest, never get Gallus his people. I knew I had to stop them from leaving. Stop them, before they ditched me, and Whitby snapped them up for whatever devious plans he was currently concocting.
I knew what I had to do. There was only one solution.
It was time to find a point to the pointlessness.
Happy Old Man Raymond Price accepts his train fare home.
CHAPTER 8
POEM FOR THE JOINEE
Oh how we blindly join
This strange but fun collective
We’re ready and we’re eager
To follow each directive
In our strong and silent leader
We firmly place our trust
But as for his identity
Anonymity seems a must
And so for our tasks
We all must calmly wait
Until the man in charge
Decides our final fate
by Joinee Whitby (age 30)
PRESSURE ON ME to reveal the purpose behind Join Me was growing. Rapidly. And not only through the hard-hitting medium of poetry. I had already lost one joinee, and I was worried that, with the likes of my newfound nemesis Joinee Whitby on my back, I’d soon be facing a bigger mutiny of sorts. It surely wouldn’t be long before news of Joinee Jade’s departure did the rounds, and more joinees jumped ship or legged it. Depending on whether you think of Join Me as a ship, or a more land-based collective. It’d be no good legging it from a ship. Not unless it was a ship that had run aground, anyway, and that’s a metaphor I’m none too happy with, thank you very much.
I didn’t know what to do. It was all my fault, this growing dissatisfaction. I began to feel like maybe I’d done all this backwards. It seems that if you’re going to start some kind of collective like mine, you should really have a clear purpose before recruiting like-minded members. Otherwise you won’t even know if they’re like-minded or not. They’ll just be members. And there’s a joke there that I’m not going to do.
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