But for whatever reason, I persisted.
And this is when something utterly remarkable happened.
Remarkable to me, at any rate. I can only hope you feel the same.
Because I chose a pile at random.
And I knelt down.
And then I chose a T-shirt at random.
And I pulled it halfway out.
And I couldn’t quite believe it.
Because I could see the word “Loughborough.”
I froze, slightly, in disbelief.
Was there a Loughborough in America?
But that was only half of what was so remarkable.
I lifted the T-shirts above it and pulled it out the whole way.
And this is what it said…
4th Anniversary
McDonald’s
Loughborough
1987–1991
And I just stared at it.
And I was stunned.
Absolutely, totally stunned.
4th anniversary? McDonald’s? Loughborough? My Loughborough? My McDonald’s? A T-shirt celebrating my McDonald’s?
A wise man once told me that coincidences do not exist. And in this moment, I couldn’t help but think he might be right. I mean… what were the chances? What were the chances that the McDonald’s of my childhood—the McDonald’s which we’d been so excited about, the McDonald’s I’d visited so many times with Mikey and Anil and Simon, the McDonald’s which had caused me and Andy Clements to hug so ferociously on hearing of its arrival in our little town… what were the chances of that even being on a T-shirt? Much less being on a T-shirt I’m drawn to out of a thousand in a shop I hadn’t planned on visiting in a city so far from home?
But, more importantly, there were other questions…
4th anniversary? Who celebrates a 4th anniversary? And who makes a T-shirt to celebrate it? Why don’t you wait till the 5th? And who’s keeping T-shirts celebrating the 4th anniversaries of regional fast-food outlets? Why did Loughborough’s McDonald’s—out of the 31,000 of them in the world—decide to make them? Have you ever seen any other McDonald’s celebrate four years of burger mayhem? And how in God’s name did it get from Loughborough to here?
Was this a sign? A sign that what I was doing was… right, somehow? Was this just a billion-to-one coincidence… or was it something else?
I looked at the price tag. $58.
To me it seemed priceless.
The cab driver seemed very friendly, but I wasn’t looking at him. I was still staring at my T-shirt.
“So why are you over here?” he said. “Holiday?”
“Kind of,” I said.
4th anniversary! Why 4th?!
“I’m here to surprise an old friend who thinks I’m an animal.”
“Cool,” said the driver. “That’s cool.”
I’d asked to be taken to the seaside, and we’d set off, driving down the Sunset Strip, with its bars and billboards and clubs. We passed the Chinese Theater, where I saw a man dressed as Spiderman having an argument with a man dressed as Charlie Chaplin, while Freddy Krueger smiled for the cameras and waved at passing children.
It was exciting being in LA. Just five minutes in a cab, and I’d already seen three celebrities—two of them fictional and one of them dead!
Finally, in the hot and battering sun, I arrived at Venice Beach, with its palm trees and sand and ocean sprawling out in front of me. I put the T-shirt away, got out and took in the view. It was the perfect LA cliché: there were people on rollerskates, a mass of cyclists, kids playing streetball. There were punks, and a Japanese rock band, and artists and psychics plying their trade. A little further down, a lone, pensionable muscleman lifted weights far above his head in front of astonished children and a German with a camera. It suddenly dawned on me I’d been seeing these images since I was a kid. This was just a newer generation of the same people I’d been watching doing the same things since childhood, on the same beach that had been featured on CHiPs, or The A-Team, or—during those difficult teenage years—on Baywatch. I looked up to see a row of joggers approaching, sweat pouring out of them like they were being squeezed from the inside. I’ve never really understood jogging. And never really understood why anyone would jog in this kind of heat. What were they running from? But this was LA. And just as America would always be New York skyscrapers and hot dogs and steam billowing from manhole covers and shoot-outs in pool halls, it’d also be sun, and palm trees, and Venice Beach. I wondered if Ben Ives had felt the same when he’d first walked on this beach. I wondered how he’d ended up in America. What brought him here? A girl? The job? Or maybe as a kid he’d been just as impressed with the States as I was. Maybe this had been his dream. Maybe this had—
“WHOAREYOU WHATISTHIS?”
Eh?
I didn’t quite know what to say. The old woman moved forwards, closer, and shouted it again.
“WHOAREYOU WHATISTHIS?”
And this time, only marginally less startled, I was able to say, “Wha?”
“THISISIT HERE!” she said, pointing at the floor, her long purple cloak swishing slightly as she did so.
Sometimes there is nothing more terrifying than a mad old woman in a long purple cloak.
“Is it?” I said, trying to remain polite in the face of some quite confusing information.
“THISISIT HERE!” she said, as if I hadn’t understood her, which was fine, because it was true.
“Yup,” I said, attempting to sidle off. I had never sidled before, and didn’t even know if I’d know how to sidle, but I turned out to be a natural and talented sidler.
“WHATISTHIS?” she shouted after me.
I shrugged and simply pointed at the floor.
“That’s it there,” I said, still sidling.
She stared at me, looking very annoyed indeed.
I ditched the sidle and broke into a jog.
An hour later, feeling I’d exhausted all the points of interest to be had at Venice Beach—and mainly because I was a little scared I might bump into that old woman again—I found myself a cab, conveniently parked up on a pavement nearby.
I opened the door and stepped in to find a slightly thuggish-looking man sipping a can of Mountain Dew.
“Yeah, where you like?” he said, and I told him the name of my hotel.
The cab started up and we began to cruise down the street. American cabs have always impressed me. As wide as a train and as smooth as a slide. I was about to ask a very interesting question about the width of the cab to my driver, but noticed he’d just dialed a number on his phone…
“Yeah, I need you to do me a favor,” he said, into the phone, in a heavy Russian accent. “Huh? I say I need you to do me a favor…”
Out of politeness, I pretended I couldn’t hear him, but it was quite difficult, really, because he’d started to shout.
“I SAY I NEED YOU TO DO ME A FAVOR”—he looked at me in the mirror apologetically—“Yeah… I need you to call Central Casting.”
Central Casting?
“Central Casting, yes! Call Central Casting. Ask them if they need someone like me…”
The person on the other end must’ve asked what on earth that meant. Was he phoning on the off-chance that they’d need a cab? It seemed a laborious way of doing business.
“I mean, do they need like Mafia, criminal, someone like that…”
Eh?
“Yeah… no, you call them, you tell them how I look, you say I am non-union… NON-UNION… tell them I have limo they can use too… Okay… bye.”
He hung up and shook his head.
“Are you an actor?” I asked, but what the subtitle in a film would’ve read is: “Please say you’re not in the Mafia.”
“I do little acting,” he said. “I went into Beverly Hills drama course and learn to act emotions. I get diploma. I am in films.”
“Wow,” I said. “What kind of films?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I usually play driver. Or bad guy. Mafia,
criminal, something like this. Sometimes cab driver, sometimes limo driver. I have limo, and I let film use it, if he can let me drive this. I meet many people who help me.”
“Really?” I said.
“Salma Hayek,” he said. “She was very good with me. She is a nice lady. Ice T was also very nice man, but tall.”
I made a face which suggested sympathy towards the situation of meeting someone who was nice but tall.
“Worst one I have ever met… Hip-hop legend Rakim.”
“Hip-hop legend Rakim?” I repeated, wondering if that was his actual name, or just the way the newspapers described him. “What was wrong with Hip-hop legend Rakim?”
“Ach,” he said, waving the question away. “Ach.”
Oleg—for that was the name on his ID—didn’t seem to want to discuss Hip-hop legend Rakim anymore, which was a pity, because I was quite enjoying saying “Hip-hop legend Rakim.” I made a mental note to warn Tarek about him next time I saw him. Oleg’s phone rang. It was his friend, saying that Central Casting didn’t need anyone like him today. Oleg looked annoyed.
“Here, look with this,” said Oleg, fiddling with his phone. We nearly hit the back of a truck while he turned to hand it to me.
“That is photo of me in my acting,” he said, and I looked at it. He looked exactly the same. There was literally no point in showing me this photo. He might as well have just pointed at his face and said, “This is what my face looks like.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to sound impressed.
“Press for next one.”
I scrolled on to the next photo.
“That is also photo of me in my acting.”
He was wearing exactly the same clothes in this photo, too, except now he had a hat on.
“It’s good, yes?”
“Yes,” I said, not really knowing what else to say. “You look like a very good actor.”
To be honest, he looked like a cab driver with a hat on.
“I’m going to be in a film soon,” he said, and I sat forward to listen attentively, but suddenly and with a jolt he jammed on the brakes and raised his hands and yelled… My hand had slammed onto the back of his seat and I looked up to see a cyclist with a shocked face… he’d been innocently trying to cross the road but had wrongly assumed Oleg had seen him—Oleg had been too busy putting his phone away…
“Hey!” the cyclist had shouted, almost against his will.
“WHAT!” shouted Oleg, getting into character—the character in this case being an extremely angry cabbie. All he was missing was a hat. “WHAT YOU SAY! WHY YOU HAVE BIKE? NO ONE HAVE BIKE IN THIS CITY!”
Uh-oh! I tried to make apologetic eye contact with the cyclist in my best and finest British way, but he was having none of it. I was just as much to blame for this travesty of traffic-based justice as Oleg. I didn’t know what to do. Oleg did. He made a quick and rude gesture with his hand and stepped on the gas.
“Anyway, what I say?” asked Oleg, as we moved forward.
“Oh,” I said, a little shaken, “you were saying you were going to be in a film, or something…”
“Yeah. B’dmutha.”
“B’dmutha?” I said.
“B’dmutha is name of film. About drug dealer. He is name of D’B’dmutha…”
“Oh!” I said, delighted. “The Bad Mutha!”
“Badmutha, yes!” said Oleg. “D’B’dmutha!”
“Are you the Bad Mutha in the film?” I asked.
“No,” said Oleg. “I am the driver.”
The lights ahead turned red.
“Bad Mutha!” I said, as we slowed down. “You know, that’s quite a good name for a film. What’s the—”
And then, through my window, and out of nowhere…
“ASSHOLE! WATCH YOUR DRIVING, MAN!”
It was the cyclist! He was back! Wild-eyed and curly-haired! He had a sweaty face, as red and round as a tiny Mars. Where had he come from? We’d left him back at the last set of lights!
“AH, GO LOSE YOURSELF!” shouted Oleg, obviously thinking he spoke for both of us, which I supported by maintaining a dignified silence. “GO LOSE YOURSELF NOW!”
The cyclist was about to come back with something, but the lights were changing and Oleg stepped on it before he had a chance. I turned round and saw with horror that the cyclist hadn’t decided to let this one go just yet.
“He’s coming!” I shouted, worried. “Oleg, he’s coming after us!”
“Is fine!” said Oleg, his eyes darting between his mirror and the road. “Is fine.”
“He’s chasing us!” I said.
Oh my God. He was chasing us. This was a car chase! A car chase through the streets of LA! How much more textbook could my LA visit be? Spiderman, a mad woman, an actor and a car chase!
“We lose him, is fine,” said Oleg, but then, up ahead, I could see the lights changing to red again. We slowed to an embarrassing, painful halt and an agonizing five seconds later the cyclist was at the window again.
“LEARN TO DRIVE, GUY!”
“LOSE YOURSELF!” said Oleg, looking straight ahead.
“YOU DRIVE LIKE SHIT!”
“YOU SHIT! YOU SHIT!”
I didn’t quite know what to do with myself at this point. Usually in car chases, the drivers don’t come face to face every couple of minutes. It can be a little embarrassing, especially if they’ve not actually got all that much to say to one another.
“FUCK YOU, MAN!”
“YEAH! YEAH! FUCK YOU! YOU LOSE YOURSELF!”
I didn’t think I could really carry on the conversation about Bad Mutha! with Oleg at this point, given he was now engaged in his own conversation with the cyclist, so I was pleased to notice an advert on the seat beside me, for a carpet sale which seemed to have ended the previous week. I suddenly decided it was the most interesting thing I could possibly have found.
Big time, once-only supersaver sale!!
“SHUT UP!”
“YOU SHUT UP! SHUT UP!”
Up to 25% off all carpet and laminate floors!!!
“YOU DRIVE LIKE SHIT, MAN!”
Vinyl floors!!
“HA! YOU LOSE! YOU SHIT!”
Natural stone!!
“YOU’RE A MORON!”
Oh my word, this was awful. I ran out of words to read, looked up and noticed something.
“Green light, Oleg! Go! Go!”
“BYE BYE!”
The wheels might well have spun and plumes of smoke risen from the tires, such was the speed Oleg managed to gather in just a second or two…
I turned in my seat and looked round, behind us.
“You should’ve just said you were sorry, Oleg! He’s going mad!”
“I do nothing wrong. He is mad. He is very mad.”
“Maybe you should stop telling him he’s a shit and so on…”
“He is a shit! He is a terrible shit!”
I didn’t want to agree with Oleg in case somehow the cyclist could lip-read or something, but he was getting smaller by the second, despite pedaling furiously…
“We have to lose him!” I said. “He’s still tailing us!”
“We lose him,” said Oleg, calmly. “This is no problem. He go now.”
“He’s still behind us!”
“Where?” said Oleg, his eyes scanning the mirror.
“By that sports shop!”
“What sport shop?”
“That one! The Merchant of Tennis! But now he’s by the bank! He’s gaining!”
“Because I have to stop…”
No! We were slowing down! More lights! This was terrible!
“YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST DRIVE OFF, MAN?” shouted our ruby-faced and nearly breathless friend.
“YOU THINK YOU CAN BICYCLE FOREVER? THIS IS A BIG CITY!”
“I’LL KEEP COMING, MAN, TILL YOU LEARN HOW TO DRIVE!”
The two men stared at each other, then looked away. I coughed politely in the back seat. There were a few seconds of silence, as both of them tried to thin
k of something clever to say. There was nothing clever to say.
“So,” said Oleg, quietly. “Why you in LA? Holiday?”
The cyclist was still there, still looking at us.
“I’m here to surprise an old friend who thinks I’m an animal,” I said.
“Oh,” said Oleg.
He didn’t seem to think this was quite as cool as the last driver had.
The lights changed. We shot off again.
“Oleg, we have to turn off or something. He’ll follow me all the way back to London if we don’t.”
“We not turn off. I take you to hotel.”
“But we’re taking him to my hotel as well!”
“We soon be fine. We soon be fine. We soon be fine.”
He’d started to say this under his breath, as if he was trying to convince himself as much as me.
The next set of lights were green, and we almost had to stop ourselves from cheering, united in our small victory over our cycle-stalker… but up ahead, cars were slowing right down…
“NO!” shouted Oleg. “IT’S A BUSTY TOUR!”
I blinked a few times, confused.
I looked around. I could see no busty tour. Surely I would have noticed a busty tour. What the hell was a busty tour, anyway?
“A busty tour?” I said.
“Yeah,” said Oleg. “They detour some bus.”
We slowed, annoyed and anxious, to a halt. A small fat boy looked at us from the window of one of the buses. We simply looked back at him, preparing for the inevitable.
It took the cyclist a little longer this time, but when he finally made it, he seemed a little more subdued. His hair was lank with sweat and he tried to catch his breath.
“I’ll… just keep… coming, man…”
Oleg looked worried. I decided to take action.
“Um… excuse me,” I said.
“This is nothing to do with you, guy…” said the cyclist, putting up his hand and waving it a bit.
“But it is! You’re chasing us, and that means you’re chasing me home! Back to my hotel. And I’d rather you didn’t, if that’s all right by you.”
Friends Like These: My Worldwide Quest to Find My Best Childhood Friends, Knock on Their Doors, and Ask Them to Come Out and Play Page 26