by Dillon Khan
‘Where is he?’ asked Pritz.
‘I think he’s still driving,’ I said, unsure.
‘Driving? That means by the time he parks up and gets here, it could be another twenty or thirty minutes.’
‘Yeah, I suppose …’ I said.
‘Let’s try and get in ourselves. I’ll blag us in. Once we’re downstairs, text him.’
I didn’t fancy standing in the cold and rain another minute so was open to ‘Plan P’ – sending in Pritz as last resort. He always rose to any challenge, thinking he could accomplish it with ease like he was The Wolf from Pulp Fiction. But his calm assurance now left me more worried than reassured.
We headed in the direction of the small guest-list queue, which was currently empty. Pritz walked with an air of confidence like his dad owned the club and not two dental practices in north-west London. I walked in his shadow like I was a fraudster going to claim benefits while working cash-in-hand.
The doorgirl with the clipboard had her back to us as we got there.
‘Hi there, we’re on the guest list,’ said Pritz in an unwavering and steely voice.
She turned around, looked him up and down. ‘What list?’ she bellowed for the street to hear.
‘Lehman Brothers. We’ve got a table here,’ Pritz said equally loudly, whipping out his business card.
She looked on her clipboard, turned several pages over and scanned up and down it. ‘Nope, nothing here,’ she replied as people started to look round at us.
‘Really, can you check one more time? My boss definitely got a table today. Short fat guy, laughs a lot, mainly at his own jokes. You must have seen him?’
‘There’ve been lots of those types today,’ she said, unimpressed.
‘Of course.’ Pritz laughed nervously, realizing he wasn’t getting through to her. The silence between them was deafening.
My hands got sweaty and I knew she was going to turf us humiliatingly from the queue. I was about to turn around and disappear into the shadows when Pritz got another idea.
‘OK, can you look for The Beat please?’
What the hell was he doing? Stop, stop! I thought. Too late.
‘The Beat? You said you worked at Lehman Brothers,’ she pointed out with obvious suspicion.
‘Yeah, I do, but my boy here works at The Beat,’ he said, like he’d just played his trump card.
By now the paparazzi were looking at us too. I couldn’t believe it, we could have all walked away from this perfectly unharmed yet Pritz had to go out in a blaze of glory. That’s the risk you take with a ‘Plan P’ – on the trading floor or outside, he just didn’t know when to stop gambling.
The woman peered around Pritz as he moved to the side so she could get a better look at me. I had my hands in my pockets and stood hunched, wearing the liquorice allsorts outfit I had hurriedly thrown on in a rush that morning.
She looked me up and down and sniggered, ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Yes, he does.’ Pritz turned to me. ‘Go on, show her your pass.’
I froze.
‘Go on,’ he egged me on again.
Eventually I went to my back pocket. This really isn’t going to make a difference to this woman, I thought to myself but I didn’t want to get in the way of Pritz’s persistence. I got my multicoloured Benetton acrylic wallet out and undid the Velcro strap, which opened with the loudest noise, taking about ten years off my age. The paps were nudging each other and now we had an audience ready to laugh at our failed attempt to get in. Horror gripped me like I was watching The Blair Witch Project. I couldn’t find my pass.
I searched frantically then looked up at Pritz, holding out the wallet in despair, horrified I’d let him down. He stared back with a look that said: You had one line in this play, and you just fluffed it.
The doorgirl had a look of happiness on her face like she’d solved the crime of the century. But, before she could even throw us shamefully out of the queue, the paps were clicking and their flashes engulfed the street.
Everyone was looking towards the club as two people carriers with tinted windows pulled up in front. Paps jockeyed for position and ran on to the road to slow the vehicles down so they could get ready for whoever stepped out. There were enough flashes to cause an epileptic fit as the door slid open on the first Mercedes.
Seconds later a big bouncer wearing a XXXL Rocawear T-shirt stepped out, towering over everyone at the door. He quickly huddled Jay-Z past the lifted velvet rope and straight in, followed by his entourage and several girls with short skirts, all trying to avoid the falling rain.
Pritz turned round to me as I looked on equally energized.
‘We’ve definitely gotta get in now. I wanna party with S Dot Carter.’ He began to sing the incorrect words to a Jay-Z song and jig without a beat.
The other Mercedes was offloading the rest of Jay-Z’s entourage and some more girls. Among them I saw two figures I recognized. One was the TV promotions plugger for Jay-Z’s record label who I’d met in The Beat studios earlier that day, and the other was Max. So that’s where the cheeky bugger had been – in a car full of girls. They stepped out and I smiled at them, but, with the flashing cameras going off and all the bouncers in front of me, they didn’t see me. Before I could even call out his name he had gone inside.
I turned to Pritz. ‘That was Max at the end.’
‘Really? Max, your boss at The Beat?’ Pritz asked, straight-faced.
‘Yes,’ I replied.
‘Well, what are we still doing outside then? I see you’re both reeeal tight. He’s gone in and left you out here?’
‘He probably didn’t see me,’ I said, trying to defend him.
‘Call him then,’ Pritz challenged.
‘OK, I will.’ I got my phone out and dialled. It went straight to the answer machine. I was so embarrassed at being forgotten. I’d waited for what seemed like hours, standing in the rain with my friend who was now questioning if I really worked at The Beat or not. I was wet and wanted to get out of there. I turned to leave and started walking when a voice behind me shouted out.
‘Oi, where do you think you’re going, holmes?’ I turned round. It was Max. ‘I told you to wait, didn’t I?’
‘Yeah, but I –’
‘No buts, get in here. It’s about to go down,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘Bring your girlfriend too.’ He ushered Pritz over, who for once wisely kept his mouth shut but couldn’t resist flashing a wink at the clipboard queen on his way in.
Max put his arm round my shoulder and squeezed. ‘Laura darlin’, this is Jay. He’s part of The Beat family.’
After years of waiting in queues, not getting in because we didn’t have any girls with us, not knowing the head of security and generally being unknowns on the outside, the velvet rope had been lifted for us.
8
Bicycle Race
I felt like shit. In the last seventy-two hours I had slept a total of twelve hours and every minute of those was restless. Either I was anxious about my first day, paranoid about getting scripts completed or so drunk that I slept one eye up. I went to bed at four a.m. and had to be at work by eight to ensure Max’s edit was ready and that he had everything he needed. The flat I left behind increasingly resembled a squat.
I got to the office still slightly drunk and with a headache from hell. The first floor was as empty as Harrods on Christmas Day. As I walked over to my desk, I passed a brand-new BMX parked neatly next to someone’s desk. I turned back round and took a closer look at the bike. There was a Post-it note on the saddle, which said ‘c/o Mr Brian Haw, competition prize’. It was the kind of bike I’d wanted as a child but could never afford. It was the kind of bike I’d seen on cereal boxes and wanted to win but needed a thousand coupons to enter. It was the kind of bike I fell in love with having seen ET wheelie away from the FBI in a hoodie.
I walked towards my desk with a nagging voice
in my head as I sat down and logged in.
Go on, you know you want to, said the voice in my head. It was Robbie Williams.
No, I can’t, I’m at work, I replied.
No one’s here! he exclaimed.
Yeah, but still …
Oh, go on. You have free run of the entire track.
No, I have a script to write in less than an hour.
This will take a few minutes. One quick lap! Ride or die!
I can’t.
It will relax you and put you in a creative mood, like a five-knuckle shuffle.
I can’t.
Perhaps the five-knuckle shuffle then? Robbie-in-my-head laughed.
I can’t.
Pussy!
His final argument was conclusive. I got up, walked over to the bike and got on. I gripped the handlebars tight, pushed the bike back and forth to check the brakes and then pushed off with my feet. Smooth. The floorboards shifted and thudded underneath the carpet as I rode over them. I peddled past the meeting rooms to the land of folders that was Ad Sales, the merchandise heaven of Marketing, finally taking a right towards the CD-loaded Talent & Artist department, a.k.a. T.A.D. A quick left and I was at full pelt as I went past the office of the head of The Beat Europe – otherwise known as Darth Vader – past all the flashy Apple Macs of On-Air Graphics, round the back towards the toilets and down to the hush of ER – European Regions. Some carpet tiles came loose as I took the hairpin to the left past the music programmers’ neat desks and back towards the mess of the UK Production department. Looking at my watch, it had taken me one minute and fifteen seconds.
Beat it, said Robbie Williams, all excited.
We agreed one lap though, I replied internally.
Yeah, but I didn’t expect you to be that quick, he said, egging me on.
I was quick, wasn’t I? I wasn’t even trying. Even though I knew the conversation wasn’t real, I actually felt proud.
This time go faster and get it to sub one minute, said Robbie Williams.
Yeah, why not, no one’s here. Sub one? No problem, I thought.
This time I knew the route and could peg it much quicker, so I really went for it. Soon I was on the final straight and moving the bike side to side to get extra speed, emulating the Tour de France sprints of Lance Armstrong in my head. Except I was less talented. The front wheel clipped the edge of a cardboard box, pushing me and the bike into carefully stacked tapes on someone’s desk. They fell everywhere like a deck of cards, the noise of which echoed across the top floor. I lay still for a second.
‘Oh shit,’ I said aloud.
Luckily no one was around to see my embarrassing drop. I got up, took a sigh of relief that the bike was unharmed. I rested the BMX back against the desk, crouched down and began to pick up the tapes from the floor. I heard footsteps approaching and quickly gathered as many as possible and began stacking them.
‘Impressive,’ said a German voice as it went past my shoulder and continued walking. I stood up and saw Darth Vader heading towards his office.
I sobered up in an instant. Fuck. I’m fired, I thought.
No you’re not, said Robbie Williams, rejoining the conversation in my mind. It was just a few tapes.
That’s not the point. This isn’t a playground, I responded angrily, imagining the words HR would use.
Oh relax, it’s fine. More importantly, was that an impressed ‘impressive’ or an unimpressed ‘impressive’? Maybe the former. It was hard to tell, said Robbie Williams.
Who cares? That’s the last time I listen to you, I said.
(Pause.)
Do you wish you’d gone for that five-knuckle shuffle instead? he said, before departing.
At the cafeteria I ordered an extra-strong coffee and grabbed a packet of Jaffa Cakes. I didn’t know why, but they always made a hangover a lot less painful. I struggled to get back up the stairs and wondered how great it would be if we had Oompa-Loompas to carry us up instead, or at least an escalator.
By ten a.m. the Production department, the self-appointed ‘centre of the universe’, was in full swing and the infectious energy of the place had me up and running. The department contained most of the creativity of the company, and deserved its lofty title. We had talented film-makers, aspiring musicians, inebriated writers, wannabe artists, failed actors, nerdy graphics bods and everything in between.
Max called from his edit with instructions to ‘be ready by the phone if I need you, and go and speak to the different departments about content for the shows’. I felt awkward at the prospect. All these important people working on important things with me interrupting them. Great. Approaching people unannounced wasn’t my forte, and I felt as fearful as Oliver going to ask for more.
Clutching my coffee, Jaffa Cakes and diary, I ventured out, using a tip Max had given the day before on how to find my way around the place. ‘Do what every man in an office does. Use the fit women as markers for each department. For example, wanna get to the toilets from Production? Easy, take a left by the hot blonde in Ad Sales, straight past the busty brunette in Programme Scheduling, a right past the ginger in Marketing and you’re there,’ he’d said in a matter-of-fact way.
Problem was there were lots of fit women; which one went where?
For a while I walked around aimlessly, unsure of who I should be speaking to. It soon became apparent that the Jaffa Cakes were coming in handy not just for my splitting hangover but for making friends, as various people called me over with bulging eyes.
The T.A.D. girls, who were responsible for dealing with all the record labels, showered me with CDs and concert tickets in exchange for half a packet. A three-minute report about the latest fashions from the hot girls at The Beat Italy, who produced The Style Guide, cost me four cakes. Bargain! I’d run out by the time I finished meeting the team from The Beat Movies, who provided me with premiere tickets to see John Cusack in High Fidelity.
It wasn’t the conventional way of making friends and influencing people, but I’d figured out a way in – food. More importantly, chocolate! It was available in the canteen on the floor below but a combination of guilt and laziness stopped people from going after it. So back to the canteen I went for more Beat currency. Holding a fresh box of Jaffa Cakes, I continued working through lunch in my search for new friends and suppliers of content for the shows. I was like a fiend, sniffing out my supply lines.
Time had flown when I made it back to my desk and I still had lots to do. At this rate, I wouldn’t make it back home before midnight. I’d miss watching my first show of Defm8. My work phone rang as I sat down for a split second to catch my breath.
‘Yello, Jay here,’ I said joyfully.
‘Why are you handing out Jaffa Cakes?’ asked Max.
‘What?’ I said, sitting up and looking round for him.
‘You’re making us look stupid,’ he barked.
‘What? No, I was just making friends like you told me to …’ I said.
‘No, I said to get content for next week’s show. If you want to make friends, do it in the pub, not while you’re meant to be working,’ he snapped.
‘Yeah but –’ I wanted to tell him I’d got two weeks’ worth of content.
‘The show’s almost made, get down here now,’ he said.
‘OK. Do you need –’
‘Chop-chop, yalla-yalla,’ he said as he put the phone down and introduced me to his friend Tone. Dial Tone.
Before leaving, I quickly went through my emails checking for anything important and saw a heap of messages from the people I’d met, with various subject lines, from ‘Bienvenido!’ and ‘Where my Jaffa Cakes at, biatch?’ to ‘Hanover Grand tonight?’ and ‘Party invite for Saturday’. Finally I had some recognizable names in my inbox and not just random group emails with subject matter like ‘Clear away rubbish’ or ‘Flat to rent’. The office seemed a little less i
ntimidating now my circle of friends had grown, along with my confidence about getting things done in such a huge organization. But most importantly I needed the emails because I had forgotten how to spell some of the names, especially the European lot. No way I could remember Rochefoucauld or De Cerventes! I finally felt like the next six months might be as fun as I’d always envisaged. I had five months, three weeks and two more days to find out.
9
The Choice is Yours
The formation in the seven-seater cab was based on seniority, with Max up front. I’d met ‘Max’s mates’ during my work experience and had got to know them when they sat at the logging machine next to me, nicking my Jelly Baby sweets.
In the seat behind Max was Stuart ‘Stuey’ Johns, producer of The News Feed. He was a North London boy, well spoken but often combining the odd bit of street talk for comic effect and irony. He was a real camera whizz and had directed several short films.
Next to him was Oliver ‘Oli’ Horwood, assistant producer for D.A.N.C.E. I wasn’t sure where he was from but he was known for his huge tongue, small mouth and resulting lisp. Which didn’t stop him from being a right gobby git.
Next to Oli was his partner in crime, Hugh Williams, assistant producer on iWant. A posh boy from Newcastle, he’d played three instruments to Grade Eight by the age of eleven. Eclipsing that success, he was now the ’99/’00 holder of the golden beer mug for being the best drinker in the department.
Finally, squeezed at the back with me, was the assistant producer for Life & Rhymes, Milly Brown. Born in the UK, she had moved around Europe with her hippie parents and returned as an adult, speaking four languages fluently. I don’t know if this contributed to the fact that her voice sounded like she was permanently turned on.
It was Thursday, just after six p.m. and we were late. We meandered slowly through Soho in rush-hour traffic in our Addison Lee cab. It was affectionately known by some as ‘Uncle Lee’ because The Beat had an account with the taxi service and it came in useful particularly for those needing rescue in moments of ‘emergency’ – most often drink- or shopping-related.