Yes Man

by Danny Wallace

  “I’m just saying that yes is as good a word to say as no,” I said. “When a chance comes up, I mean. When anything comes up.”

  “That’s the problem,” said Jason, still staring into his glass. “I spend all my time saying no, and it’s depressing. I say no at work and no at home. I tell people they can’t come into the country. And why? Because of a set of rules. I tell them they can’t start a new life here. I crush people’s hope. Even the ones who are lying or who don’t deserve to be here or are probably complete and utter bastards in their own countries. I even crush their hopes. And then I take that home with me.”

  I thought about leaving at that point. About walking away. But I didn’t. I had a sudden urge to just tell Jason the truth. Explain the real reason why I’d travelled so far to go to a party and would only be staying one hour. It didn’t really compare with the kind of decisions he had to make, but it might mean something. I wanted to tell him about all the things I’d said yes to … and all the things that had happened as a result. The good things and the bad things. I wouldn’t leave the bad things out. They were just as important. I would leave Jason under no illusions, but I would show him … well … that he had a choice. He could do like Thom was doing and walk away and leave his job and sell his car and find a new life. He could do like I was doing. He could say yes if he wanted. Yes to himself.

  He could say yes more.

  “Listen, you’ll probably think that what I’m about to tell you is stupid. Or pointless. Or childish. But I want you to hear me out, because it’s something that’s become quite important to me. But at the same time, when I tell you, you can’t use this against me, okay?”

  “I’m not agreeing to anything, mate….”

  “No, seriously. If I tell you this, you can’t tell anyone. You could ruin my life. If Thom finds out, and he tells someone who was at the party the other night, and they tell someone else, I could be in a lot of trouble. So keep it between us’ yeah?”

  Jason raised his eyebrows and considered it. And then he nodded.

  And so I told a complete stranger what I was up to and what I’d done from the start and where it had led me and where I hoped it would lead me in the misguided belief that it would somehow help him.

  And when I finished, that complete stranger stood up, swore at me, and walked off toward the bar.

  * * *

  “Thom … that mate of yours,” I said. “Jason.”

  “Oh, yes. Jase. Sorry about him,” said Thom. “He’s, well, he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders.”

  “Why can’t he give up? Do something else?”

  “He feels like he’s responsible for everything. And that makes him feel like there’s no way out. It’s no use talking to him. He won’t listen. I think he’s jealous that I’m in a position to leave, and he’s not.”

  “I guess he’s got the kind of job he can’t really walk away from.”

  Thom nodded. And then looked at his watch.

  “Hadn’t you …”

  Shit. It was 7:24.

  “Yes. I better had.”

  The journey home was an odd one.

  I’d wanted to stay at the party, make things all right again with Jason. Explain myself and make it all much clearer. But I knew the rules. I’d said yes to something. I had to go.

  And the worse thing was, I couldn’t really help but feel that Jason had a point. I was naive. And stupid. I needed to grow up. What was I doing with my life? I mean, really? What was the point in all this? To waste six hours of my day on a train?’ To wake up confused and bewildered in a Dutch hotel room? To severely annoy my ex-girlfriend? What was I gaining from this? Apart from a car and some mild abuse? Yeah, so I was keeping myself busy and going out more and having new experiences, but I’d learnt my lesson now. Maybe I didn’t have to be quite so religious about my Yeses. Maybe I could just calm it down a bit, come clean to Ian, accept his punishment with good grace but know that I had given it a go.

  I got home to a cold and empty flat. There was no milk left to make tea. I didn’t bother checking my e-mails.

  I just went to bed.

  The following morning I lay there, staring at the ceiling. I’d slept long and hard, and my spirits were lifted only slightly when I saw it was a very sunny day indeed. For a moment I considered just staying in bed, convincing myself I was ill. But I’d agreed to go to a meeting. I didn’t want to let people down.

  I was at the offices of Cactus TV in Kennington not too long after. I had driven (yes, driven!) the simple six-mile journey in the Yesmobile in just ninety short minutes meaning I was getting a lot better at this driving lark. Soon I’d be able to drive to places like Liverpool again in little less than a day! Things have really come on smce the horse and cart.

  Gareth met me at the gate.

  “Come through,” he said. “We’re going to be meeting with Dan, one of the producers here. Would you like a drink? Tea or something?”

  “Yes, please,” I said, because even without this whole Yes thing, I’d never turn down a cup of tea.

  We walked through a production office packed with busy, young, stylish people, setting up shoots, booking guests, researching subjects, and looking all busy and young and stylish. The carpet was bright green, and there was a cactus on every corner.

  I sat down in the office, and Gareth popped off to get the tea. I hadn’t been told too much about why I’d been asked to come in, but that was okay, because, hey, free tea.

  “Danny I’m Dan,” said a tall man, striding into the office. I stood to shake his hand. His handshake was firmer than mine, and I tried to make up for that by squeezing harder, but I’d done it too late, and I think he thought I’d just liked holding his hand and didn’t want to let go.

  Gareth was next in with the teas, and Dan shuffled his notes.

  “Right, so …,» said Gareth. “The reason we got you in was … We’re coming up with a few new features for the show, and … well … we’re always on the lookout for new people to join the team, and … Look … have you ever thought about being a TV presenter?”

  Eh?

  “Eh?” I said.

  “Because we’re possibly going to do a slot that may or may not be right for you”

  What? Was I being asked to … what was I being asked to do?

  “I mean first of all there was that cult you started. But all the stuff you were telling me the other night, about Jesus on Brick Lane, and the pyramids stuff and the whole—you know—corking theory … It fits in with something we’ve been thinking of doing for quite a while.”

  Dan took over.

  “Basically we want to do a slot about enlightened thoughts and spiritualism. And when Gareth told me you believed that aliens built the pyramids …”

  “Er, hang on, it’s not that I believe …”

  “And you think that men can have babies …”

  “Um no, I’m just saying …”

  “And that you think you met Jesus on a bus …”

  “Okay, yeah, that might be true….”

  “Well … we thought you might be right for this. We needed to find someone who already knows about that side of life, and we were stuck for presenters. So we’d like to possibly take a risk on you.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. Good lord! I was being asked if I’d ever thought about being a TV presenter! And I hadn’t-I was someone who was quite happy being behind the camera, making notes and holding a clipboard and trying to look busy. I was a TV producer—not a TV presenter!

  “Look, this may or may not happen,” said Gareth, “and if it does it won’t be for a while, but what we might want to do is take you on a couple of spiritualist weekends. Get you to do some Vortex Healing, maybe hug some trees, tap into your psychic powers and try to heal a flower; that sort of thing.”

  “Like E.T. does in that film.”

  “Sort of” said Dan. “We thought we could call it Danny’s Path to Enlightenment. We’ve already run it past Richard and Judy, and the
y’re going to think about it, because Richard said … What was it?”

  “You were odd,” Gareth told me.

  “In a good way,” Dan added.

  “Yes,” said Gareth. “He said you were odd in a good way.”

  “Well” I said. “I’m not sure I’d be any use at it, but …”

  “We can work wonders in an edit, don’t worry about that. But the important thing is: If we decide to go ahead with it, are you up for it?”

  They were both looking at me intently.

  I shrugged.

  “Yeah”

  Blimey! I was going to be a television presenter! On a national show! A national teatime show! A world of housewives and students awaited me!

  “Great!” said Dan. “Well, I guess we’ll be in touch!”

  That night the drinks were on me.

  I met up with Wag and Ian at the Yorkshire Grey, and I told them my good news. I mean, fair enough—it would probably never happen. But even so, things were looking up. My recent spate of slight misfortunes seemed over. The randomness of maybe being recruited onto the Richard & Judy team to do a glamorous job like TV presenting—something I had never done before and doubtless never would’ve had it not been for Yes. It had given me a real lift and a genuine boost.

  I was enjoying the ride again.

  Wag, however, looked troubled by life. He’d just returned from his trip to Germany, but he didn’t seem at all relaxed or rested by it. If anything, he seemed … stressed. Very stressed. It didn’t help that his phone kept going off.

  Every time it did, Ian and I fell silent, allowing Wag to answer it. But he didn’t. He just looked at the screen, cursed, and ignored them by not answering.

  “Wag,” said Ian. “Are you in some sort of … trouble?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  It went off again.

  “Answer it, Wag.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Who’s calling you?”

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

  It stopped ringing, and we each took a sip of our pints. We sat in silence. We knew the next call wouldn’t be far away.

  We started to talk about football before realising that none of us really knows anything about football, and the phone rang again, which was quite good timing, really, because it meant we preserved an air of masculinity.

  “Okay … I’m going to answer it,” said Wag, and he did.

  Ian and I waited in silence, pretending not to listen.

  “No,” said Wag with some degree of force, and hung up.

  “Who was it?” asked Ian. “What’s going on?”

  “I know. It won’t bloody stop,” said Wag. “I’ll turn it off.”

  “But who was it?” I said.

  “No one. Never mind. It’s nothing.”

  “Come on, Wag,” said Ian. “Who was it? Who keeps ringing you?”

  The phone rang again. Wag stared at it, furious.

  “It. Won’t. Shut. Up,” he said through gritted teeth. “It just keeps ringing!”

  “That means someone’s calling you,” I said.

  Perhaps Wag hadn’t worked out this whole mobile phone thing yet. Perhaps he thought that when it rang, it meant it needed feeding.

  “Hang on a second …”

  Wag answered the call, said another loud and forceful no to whoever was on the other end, and hung up.

  “Jesus, this is terrible,” he said. “I can’t relax. It’s been ringing since I got back. Every other bloody minute. It won’t stop ringing. They won’t stop ringing me.”

  “Who?” said Ian.

  Wag took a deep breath. “The Germans,” he said.

  I took a good hard look at Wag. It seemed he was in the early stages of some kind of paranoid attack. Ian and I made concerned eye contact.

  “The Germans won’t leave me alone,” he said as if that explained all

  I made a sympathetic face and tried some slow and comforting words.

  “Yes, they will, Wag. The Germans will leave you alone.”

  He frowned.

  “Why are you looking at me like I’m mental? Why are you stroking my arm?”

  “Why don’t you tell us why you think the Germans are after you?” said Ian.

  “They’re not after me. They just won’t stop calling me.”

  “Why?!” I said in desperate unison with Ian.

  Wag took another deep breath. He was clearly at some kind of turning point in his life. And there seemed to be something he needed to say.

  “Because the Germans think I’m Busted.”

  The words hung in the air. Ian and I blinked at each other a couple of times, and then we both blinked at Wag, and then we blinked at each other again.

  “The Germans think you’re busted? As in broken?”

  “Worse.”

  What could be worse than being broken?

  Oh …

  “No!” I said in shock. “Do they think you’re Busted as in … the charttopping teenage boy band?”

  Wag bit his lip, rolled his eyes upward, and nodded his head silently. His phone rang again. Ian covered his mouth with both hands in horror.

  “God,” he said. “Look …”

  He showed me the phone. A number was flashing up on the screen. And not a British number, either.

  “Another one!” said Wag. “Another German!”

  Wag answered the phone, shouted “Nein!”, and hung up again.

  “Listen” I said, “we may have to backtrack here. Why are Germans phoning you, under the impression that you’re a three-man teenage boy band? Because I’ve known you for a while, now, and you are nothing like a three-man teenage boy band …”

  “I’ve been working with Busted lately, right? I’ve been helping out on a couple of tracks. We got on, the four of us. Or I thought we did. They’re lovely lads. But they’ve been on tour lately, and one night”—he took a sip of his pint to steady his nerves—“one night they were doing an interview for a German TV show, right?”

  “Right,” I said.

  “I was backstage setting up some of the technical stuff. And one of them decided it would be funny to give out my mobile number, live, on air.”

  I tried to suppress a smile. So did Ian. We both failed.

  “They said it was their phone number and that their fans should feel free to phone up with their thoughts and questions at any time of day or night.”

  His phone beeped.

  “Excuse me,” he said, picking the phone up once more, studying it, and then slamming it onto the table.

  “They’ve started bloody texting me now.”

  Ian started giggling. Wag was clearly deeply affected by this.

  “I try telling them I’m not in Busted, but they don’t believe me. They say ‘Is that Charlie?’ And I say, ‘No, it’s Wag,’ and they say, ‘Is that you, Charlie?’ And I say, ‘No, it is Wag speaking,’ and they say, ‘Charlie? Charlie?’ I need this phone’ Its my work phone! I have to keep it on! Which means I’m being harassed by these people twenty-four hours a day!”

  “Look,” I said. “It’s bound to wind down sometime. How long have Busted got left in them? Five, maybe six years?”

  “I can’t go about being accused of being in Busted for the next six years, DanThis is a modern-day nightmare! My phone number is all over Germany’ People are even telling me they’ve found it on the Internet!”

  I started to laugh rather loudly

  “Shut up! This isn’t funny!”

  “It bloody is, Charlie!” said Ian.

  “It bloody isn’t.”

  Wag’s face went bright red, and he set me off again.

  “See how you like it, then, Dan. What’s your number?”

  “Eh? You’re not giving my number to random German teenagers!”

  “Yes, I am. Why don’t you see how you like it, when everyone in the world thinks you’re in Busted?”

  I started to feel unwell. My laughter suddenly stopped. Was t
hat a suggestion? Was that a Yes moment? Ian’s face lit up as he realised the same thing. But Wag hadn’t finished.

  “Why don’t we give your number out to everyone in the world, then?” said Wag. “See how you like it, eh?”

  He started to type my number into his phone. He was preparing a text message.

  “Wait … What are you …”

  “I am about to send your number to a bunch of Germans, Dan, to tell them that your number is the new number for the International Fans of Busted club, and that they should feel free to call you whenever the mood takes them …”

  “Wait …,” I said. “Just wait a second …”

  “Not so funny now, is it?” he said. “Let’s see how you like being at the centre of a teenage phenomenon. Let’s see how you respond to being constantly phoned up by people you don’t even know, hounding you, wanting to meet up with you, thinking you’re in a boy band …”

  He held the phone up in front of me and showed me his message.

  “I’ll bloody do it, Danny…. If you’ve anything to say, any apology to make …”

  I went quite pale. I couldn’t work out what to do. I read the message.

  CALL ME. I AM NEW BUSTED NUMBER. CALL ANYTIME. 0044 7802 *** ***

  Oh, Jesus.

  Should I stop him? Would that be going against my new way of life? Or should I treat it as an opportunity?

  “No apology?” he said. “Fine. Then the question we face is this: Shall I press Send, or do you want to do it?”

  Shit. Two Yeses. Which do I choose? What do I do now? I shrugged, helplessly.

  Wag leaned forward, slightly intimidatingly.

  “Dan … do you really want to give your number out to everyone in the world?”

  Oh, God. That was it. That was the proper Yes moment. I looked at Ian, who was smirking and slowly nodding and carrying in his eyes the fact that he knew exactly what I was going to have to do next. Wag continued to stare at me.

  “Well, do you, Dan?”

  I took the phone from Wag, and—maintaining steady eye contact—pressed Send.