It's on the Meter

by Paul Archer

  There she stood – a bright-yellow New York taxi with an advert board on the roof advertising 'Skinny margaritas – iced low-calorie margarita mix'. We pulled up and Jon headed out to make the deal as I clutched my tyre iron. There were four men standing next to the cab, looking pretty intimidating in their best leisurewear, but it all seemed legit so I went out and said hello. They seemed uptight as they showed us the car, and I wasn't getting good vibes off them. Jon went and drove it around the block while I stayed as collateral. I nervously tried to make small talk while we waited, which they responded to with unimpressed grunts. Then I casually dropped into conversation that I was in Yerevan the year before.

  'You've been to Armenia?' they exclaimed, incredulous smiles transforming their faces. 'NO WAY! We're all Armenian! How did you like our country?'

  When Jon came back I can only think how surprised he must have been to find me and the four tough gangsters catching up like old friends.

  The car was a Ford Crown Victoria that had been a police squad car for ten years before being converted into a taxi. On the road back, I quickly discovered a few of its quirks. The back seats were separated from the front by a thick plate and criminal-proof PVC screen. The taxi radio was still in place and there was even a mount for a shotgun. It also turned out that the lights had been linked up to the old police siren – a fact we discovered when we pulled into a gas station to replace a headlight bulb. I went to get back in the car to find a way of stopping the siren only to discover the automatic locking must have clicked on, and we had no way of getting back into Jon's new steed.

  After 15 minutes of trying everything to no avail, we were just about to break a window when a man came over and asked if he could help. He just happened to be a highway support mechanic, who had his truck and all his gear just down the road. He had us back in the car in no time.

  He asked what the story was with the yellow taxi so we told him.

  'That's you guys? Oh. My. God!'

  He called his girlfriend out of the petrol station.

  'Remember those guys we saw on the news who were driving around the world in a taxi? This is them!'

  He decided to waive the extortionate fee he normally charged for people who lock their keys in their car in return for becoming friends on Facebook.

  I walked into the dorm room in our hostel approximately 30 hours after I'd left for LA.

  'Alright.'

  Leigh looked up from the film on his laptop.

  'Get the car?'

  'Yep.'

  He returned his attention to Zombie Brain Smashers in Space 4.

  'Cool.'

  CHAPTER 46

  CHIMICHANGAS, FORTIES AND WRENCHES

  We finally got word to head to a yard in Oakland to collect Hannah almost two weeks after arriving. Even though we had been told it would never happen, customs had 'unusually' found nothing wrong with the paperwork. We'd got the car through over 40 borders to this point, so although we could be complete idiots with many things, border paperwork was not one of them. Frustratingly, it seemed like we had wasted precious time and money just to be told, 'Yes lads, you did everything correctly, well done, now give us a few grand for us to tell you this.' Fortunately it was now GetTaxi's money, but a cap had been set on our budget and the importing process had already eaten most of the contingency buffer we had agreed on.

  While Leigh and some mechanics at the yard attempted to bump-start our beloved old girl by pushing her along with a forklift truck, I filled out the remaining paperwork in the office and was handed a piece of paper that clearly said: 'Amount owed: $0.00'. I blinked a few times, checked they were our Hannah's details, and stared at the amount again. It seemed like we were back in luck! I signed the papers quickly, exchanged a cheeky, 'Let's get out of here' expression with Leigh and we headed off in a triumphant clatter of metal.

  It later transpired that, of course, it had been a mistake and we really should have been fined a couple of thousand dollars. However, we were of the opinion that if it was their mistake they obviously couldn't have wanted the money that badly in the first place.

  Before we could set off across America, Hannah had to be rebuilt from the bottom up. A friend of a friend put us in contact with a specialist British classic car restoration business called On the Road Again, an hour or so south of San Francisco. The owner kindly agreed to give us full use of his garage after usual business hours, and Dane, one of the mechanics, offered to put us up on his sofas during our stay. The workshop was filled with the most beautiful vintage cars I have ever seen: MGs, Austin-Healeys, E-types… and Hannah.

  We worked like demons over the next few days to get Hannah back up to speed and before long she had a new gearbox and fixed brakes, and was generally ready to tackle the hills of San Francisco and beyond. On our final night, Dane and his wife set about making us some authentic American food. We had discovered that far from the stereotypical steaks and double cheeseburgers, the best food in California was basically Mexican style but with more meat and cheese.

  Huge 'forties' – 1.5-pint cans of beer – were pressed into our hands and the feast began with a completely new culinary experience: chimichangas, a sort of deep-fried burrito stuffed with meat that had been marinated in Sunny Delight and Dr Pepper. It sounds like a disgusting combination but they were utterly delicious. It finally felt like we were seeing the real America.

  CHAPTER 47

  'YOUR GUYSES TAXI IS SICK'

  Being back on the road was always a great feeling for us, especially after all the delays and false starts of the past two weeks. Now we were a gang of six, the original three, plus Texans Jon and his friend Drew, and our long-term passenger from the China leg, Matt. He was over in America visiting his new girlfriend, a girl he had met a few months earlier in Laos while tubing down the river with us. The scruffy yellow cab and the even scruffier Hannah, now rebranded a lovely GetTaxi yellow, must have presented a strange sight as we convoyed down Highway One, the supremely beautiful southern California coast road. Still, the sight of a London cab pulling up and offering a lift didn't seem to faze a group of unwashed hitchhikers we picked up halfway along the route. Initially I just saw one guy, standing next to what I thought was a pile of rubble, but on closer inspection we saw that two more men were snoozing under a filthy blanket, along with a mangy dog. Having raised their hopes we felt like we couldn't now abandon them so we squeezed them in and had a slow, spaced-out conversation about nothing for most of the way south.

  Our new hitcher friends smelt. They smelt so bad that they made Hannah – after 30,000 miles and a year of sweaty boys on top of a lifetime of drunken revellers and kebab wrappers – smell fresh in comparison. We dropped them off as soon as we could.

  Our destination for the night was the college town of Santa Barbara, 100 miles along the coast from Los Angeles. Matt had visited here in his younger years and vaguely knew someone connected to one of the frat houses, so we soon found ourselves knocking on their door, cap-in-hand, and asking if we could sleep on their floor.

  We were shown around the huge mansion, although it was more like a run-down nightclub. The entire stock of furniture in the downstairs communal areas amounted to a stripper pole on a small stage and a torn-up pool table. The place was filthy and the stinking toilet was caked in dried vomit.

  Still, we cracked open some beers and learned about our new hosts. All of our previous knowledge about the fraternity system came from Hollywood movies and from what we gathered from these frat boys it was pretty much spot on. Male undergraduates are selected to join a frat after applying in Rush Week, a sort of US Freshers' Week, and undergoing various initiations, often of questionable moral standing.

  Once someone had joined a frat they were expected to socialise only with members of their frat. Rivalries were high and it was highly frowned upon to hang out with people from other frats. Each frat also had a corresponding sorority house, the female equivalent with whom they partied and socialised in a somewhat inbred system.

/>   'Hey, is that your guys' taxi out there?' babbled the bubbly Valley Girl who had just strutted through the door. 'That's sickasfuck! Do you wanna come see the sorority house?'

  As we were led over the road to another large mansion we were assured that this was not normally allowed but as we were British things would be OK. We walked through the door and immediately the difference from the frat house was staggering. This place looked like a Beverly Hills mansion. It was spotless and furnished with mammoth sofas, fluffy rugs and enough scatter cushions to keep a small Chinese upholstery factory in full employment. Wandering around were scores of model-like girls in various stages of undress from full catwalk regalia to those wrapped up in towels the size of a duvet. I blinked in disbelief.

  'Hullo,' announced Matt in his hammiest accent, 'we're British!'

  The tour round the stately home and the introductions to the sea of giggling college girls led to a swift invitation to a frat party that night: our ultimate goal.

  'You're technically not allowed as you're not in the frat,' explained the self-appointed head-girl, 'but it's OK; you're British.'

  If you've ever seen a generic American coming-of-age movie you'll have seen those crazy college parties that you think are just the stuff of Hollywood legend. The ones where huge houses are completely trashed and jammed full of drunken college students doing keg-stands while a supercool DJ spins an unfeasibly loud soundsystem. The place is totally banging; red cups of 'liquor' are being passed around like water and there are unfathomably hot girls wearing next to nothing and people doing crazy shit everywhere. They do exist and this was one of those parties.

  We had heard about the power of the British accent second hand but this was the place where we realised it was all actually true. Even just asking someone the way to the bathroom resulted in an instant crowd of cheering girls swooning.

  'Wait a minute,' one of the swooners suddenly asked me, feigning flirty suspicion, 'you're not really British, you're just a frat guy pretending so you can chat up girls!'

  We all woke in various strange places; Leigh in the back of the cab and Paul was covered in paint and wrapped up in a tarpaulin underneath the frat-house pool table. Once we had regrouped we hit the glorious beach that lay just behind the college.

  'I just can't believe that this is their university.'

  'I know mate, we went to the derelict centre of Birmingham and they live on the Pacific coast in southern California.'

  'Let's stay another night.'

  We had been in LA on the day of the Oscars, which unexpectedly meant the whole city was completely dead, but we cruised around pretending to be Brad Pitt, got the picture of the taxis below the Hollywood sign at dusk and then got on the road.

  Driving late into the night, we eventually stopped in a tiny town on the foothills of Mount Whitney. Leigh, Matt and Johno crammed into the town's only available room and Drew, Jon and I drove for a few miles into the desert in the dark and parked up to camp. We awoke in the cold and beautiful hills, the high peaks of the Sierra Nevada shrouded in cloud and the rolling dusty foothills spread out below. Most importantly, given our run-in with the Iranian secret police, our view contained no police officers. We breakfasted on a slice o' pie from a proper local diner before saddling up and heading east.

  We stopped again at a tiny rest stop on the edge of the Death Valley National Park and I ran into a store to find something to sate my thirst. The shelves were stacked with bottle after bottle of bright, sugary beverages, but to my surprise a simple bottle of plain water was nowhere to be seen.

  Eventually I found the next best thing – a bottle of crimson Vitamin Water – and took it up to the counter where the cashier rung up a completely different price to the one on the label. We had found that most American shops had the confusing practice of only adding sales tax, which varied in each state, once you got to the checkout, meaning that you never knew exactly what you'd end up paying until the last minute.

  I peered at the pile of change in my hand as I counted out the coins and apologised profusely as I tried to make sense of the quarters, dimes and nickels.

  'There's nothing to be sorry for,' grinned the clerk sincerely, looking around his completely empty shop with a look of utter contentment, 'I have all the time in the world.'

  CHAPTER 48

  PORN STARS AND BURGERS

  'Guys, wake up, I've been robbed!'

  We all stirred slowly. Leigh was frantically searching around the room.

  'Someone has pickpocketed my phone!'

  I started chuckling involuntarily, 'Leigh, you were hammered last night and then you texted me at 5 a.m. trying to get me to go with you to buy another bottle of rum. I'm pretty sure you probably just lost it after that.'

  The previous day we had arranged to meet 'John' from the Vegas chapter of the Ferrari Club of America for a grand drive down the Vegas strip. His recommended meeting place was Sheri's Ranch – a fully functioning, legal brothel. None of our group had any intention of using the services available, but that didn't mean we weren't intrigued. John told us we could get a tour, 'and more… if you know what I mean'.

  It was slightly awkward. We were quite clearly not the type to go in for prostitutes, but John kept dropping hints. It got to the point where we told him not to let us stop him and that we would wait in the bar.

  'Oh guys, don't worry about me, I got here three hours ago. I am… shall we say… a, err… happy man… if you know what I mean.'

  Even the inanimate furniture in the room knew what he meant.

  Our guides, a brunette with a friendly demeanour and physique that didn't lend itself to the corset she was wearing, and a blonde approaching her twilight years, tottered around on inordinately high heels.

  'Gentlemen, my name is JR and this is our menu.'

  She presented a specials board in the atrium, faux-antique chaise longues and ornately framed prints of baroque paintings hung from the wall and gave the room the air of a period hotel lobby. Except, instead of announcing the breakfast times, the board outlined a list of sexual deeds in ornate gold leaf.

  'So this area is the ranch. You can see the special private rooms over there. You hire those for the night and get unlimited champagne, steak, lobster and sex. That's the pool, for you know, pool parties…'

  The audience of awkward Texans and Englishmen nodded and murmured their approval. The whole process was more like an estate agent showing us around a flat than a guided tour of a house of sex. More baroque fittings surrounded a table made up for two with pressed napkins and sparkling silverware. The only thing to remind us that we weren't in a premium restaurant was the helpful notice on the side: 'Please use condoms'.

  Johno whispered as we were led into the next room. 'I know her, the blonde. I think she's a porn star. I think I've seen… um, I think I recognise her, um, face.'

  'And next, we have the Budweiser Jacuzzi room.'

  'Budweiser sponsors a room in a brothel?'

  'Oh we have all sorts of corporate clients. We have a very normal company name so they can just put 'entertainment' on their expense account. We also do a lot of divorce parties.'

  'Divorce parties?'

  'Yeah – they're like bachelor parties, but you're celebrating your freedom.'

  As it became clear that we genuinely meant it when we told them we just wanted to have a look around and nothing else, they quickly started to lose patience.

  Our 12 hours in Vegas were an experience. As none of us had been there before, it should have been dazzling and glittery, but we found that, seeing as none of us were big gamblers and £25 a day doesn't go very far in Vegas, it quickly lost some of its allure. The casinos were filled with kids in shirts, blowing their minimumwage pay cheques on bottles of champagne in an attempt to live like Jay Z for one night; mortgage payments placed on roulette tables to impress mercenary girls in short skirts; people buying expensive liquors in an attempt to convey some semblance of class, but only achieving the opposite.

  We found
a corner of a casino that did karaoke and had a bar that had a twister board with various drinks on. Every half an hour they would spin the wheel and the drink it landed on would be $1 for the next 30 minutes. The only gambling any of us did was Johno, who discovered that if he fed change into a blackjack machine on the bar, then he would get free drinks, drinking $15 worth of beer for the $8 he put in.

  We decided to eat off our hangovers in true Las Vegas style, by completely overindulging.

  The Heart Attack Grill is a burger joint in the seedier area of the city that especially prides itself on being particularly unhealthy. Fries are cooked in pure lard, salad is specifically excluded and diet sodas are not allowed. The chefs are dressed as doctors and the (remarkably slim) waitresses as nurses who rather unconvincingly swear that they eat the speciality burgers on a regular basis. What's more, anyone over the weight of 350 lbs (25 stone) eats for free and an industrial-sized weighing scale is placed in pride of place in the centre of seating area.