Ammonite |
1. noun: any extinct marine cephalopod mollusc of the order Ammonoidea (or the fossilised shell of the same). |
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2a. noun: an explosive, such as TNT, consisting mainly of ammonium nitrate. |
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2b. noun: a nitrogenous fertilizer made from animal wastes. |
Googolplex |
noun: a very large number that is written down as 1 followed by |
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10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, |
What can I tell you that will best sum up the city of Columbus? I could tell you that it is surrounded by miles and miles of rolling farmland. I could tell you that it’s Ohio’s largest city, state capital and home to the massive Ohio State University. Or I could tell you that, in spite of its size and importance, it somehow manages to feel small and homely. All of which is true. All of which, in some way, shaped my experience of the city. But somehow that doesn’t really sum it up. No, from my brief stay there, what sums it up is this: Columbus appears to be the Mullet Capital of the World.
From the moment I arrived at Port Columbus International Airport I was amazed by the abundance of short-on-top-long-at-the-back hairstyles on view. The airport was crawling with mullets. There were mullets arriving and mullets departing. Mullets were there to wave other mullets off and mullets were there to welcome other mullets back. And there were mullets working too. If you wanted to buy something, anything, be it food, drink, newspaper, book or fridge magnet the chances were you’d have to deal with a mullet. Officially there was no time difference between Boston and Columbus, but if the hairstyles were to be believed Columbus was at least seventeen years behind.
I had been a little worried about the standard of hotel I’d be staying in. The deal seemed too good to be true and seeing as it was true, I assumed that meant it must be too true to be good.
Warren had booked it online on my behalf and he’d assured me it would be comfortable enough. But, unless I’d misunderstood the exchange rate, it was going to cost me less than £30 a night so I really wasn’t expecting any great sense of luxury. Or a roof. But if my suspicions were correct and I’d travelled seventeen years back in time en route to Mulletland, Ohio, then I’d be looking at things a little differently. After all, at 1986 prices I reckon thirty quid would buy five-star, four-poster, jacuzzi-style splendour and probably an in-room stereo to boot. (Although, obviously, the in-room stereo would only play vinyl and cassettes.)
The truth was somewhere in between. My mulleted taxi driver dropped me at the hotel where a mulleted receptionist checked me in. I took the lift to the 15th floor and there I discovered the biggest hotel room I’ve ever seen.
It wasn’t a four-poster but the bed itself was bigger than my entire bedroom back in London. I lay down and stretched out as far as I could but no part of me could reach the edge of the bed in any direction. In this room, if there were ten in the bed and the little one said ‘roll over, roll over’, they’d all roll over and none would fall out.
I sat in the middle of the bed and flicked channels for a while, waiting for the hotel phone to ring. Jerry and I had arranged to go to a gig this evening, presumably to hear some space rock, and he was going to come by the hotel and pick me up when he’d finished work.
Eventually a phone rang. But it wasn’t the hotel phone, it was my mobile. The caller display gave me no clues as to who it was. My first thought was one of panic. What if it was Jake? That was a call I didn’t feel ready to deal with. I did some mental arithmetic and realised that, whatever year it was here, it was nearly ten o’clock in the evening back in London. It was long after office hours so I safely dismissed the possibility of an angry Jake and took the call.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Dave. It’s Jake.’
He sounded angry.
‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you for days,’ he continued. ‘Is everything … all right?’
‘Um …’ I knew that ‘everything’ included the novel which meant that everything was not all right. ‘Yeah,’ I lied.
‘So … er … Happy New Year, glad everything’s OK and …’ Jake paused, we both knew that the pleasantries were now over, we both knew what was coming next, ‘… and … well, I was wondering why you haven’t sent me any chapters yet?’
‘Chapters? By which you mean chapters … of the novel?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’ve … um … I’ve taken a slightly … different … approach … to the novel …’
I was floundering.
‘Dave. Have you written anything?’ asked Jake, sensing the chase and cutting to it.
‘No’
‘No?’
‘A bit.’
‘Really?’
‘No.’
I was the last to speak so I waited a while, expecting Jake to take his turn next. He didn’t seem keen. I heard him sigh awkwardly. Was that a turn? That’s not a turn is it? Sighing? I waited another couple of beats but no, it was definitely up to me to break the silence.
‘The thing is, Jake, I’m … I’m …’ What? What could I possibly tell him? ‘I’m … researching things?’
‘Dave, this is ridiculous! What do you mean? What are you doing? Where the hell are you?’
It was time to own up.
‘OK, Jake. I’m … in America.’
‘What?!’
He sounded furious. Maybe it wasn’t time to own up after all? If I wasn’t going to tell him the truth I needed to think of something good. And quick.
‘OK, Jake. You know the novel is about a new colour?’
Jake let out a suspicious, ‘Yeah …?’
‘Well, the thing is … I wanted to back it up with some real science, you know, make it seem convincing … so … I … went to Washington to visit a scientist from the American Physical Society …’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah,’ I said surprised at my own resourcefulness. Who’d have thought it? There I was preparing to tell a full-blown lie and instead a convenient half-truth just fell out of my mouth!
‘Isn’t there someone in England you could have spoken to?’ asked Jake making an annoyingly good point.
‘Er … they’re … not as good,’ I said pathetically.
‘So,’ said Jake testily, ‘what have you found out then?’
‘Well … you know I told you that the character goes in search of this colour?’ I said, trying to give myself time to think.
‘I remember it well,’ said Jake, ‘I wrote it down. You said he swims the deepest oceans, and penetrates the densest rain-forests in search of obscure flora and fauna, hoping to find his mysterious hue …’
‘Right. Well …’
I didn’t know where I was going with this. Oceans? Rain-forests? Obscure flora? And fauna? Yes! I had it. There was one example of obscure fauna I knew quite a lot about …
‘Well …’ I continued with growing confidence, ‘… this scientist told me about the coelacanth!’
‘The seal of what?’
‘The coelacanth. It’s a prehistoric fish. People thought it was extinct until one was caught off the coast of South Africa in 1938. So I thought our character could go to the same waters …’
‘Which are?’
‘The Indian Ocean, between Madagascar and Africa. He goes diving there to see if there might be another undiscovered species of fish … a new fish that might display this new colour.’
‘I like it …’
My recent bedtime and aeroplane reading had armed me with a whole host of coelacanth facts and I spared Jake none of them. The more detail I gave him, the more reassured he sounded. My prehistoric fish tale had him hook, line and sinker and before long the whole conversation was suffused with calm.
‘OK, Dave. I am disappointed that I haven’t got any writing to look at but I am impressed that you’re taking it so seriously,’ said Jake. ‘Just so long as you’re not ignoring it. You’d be amazed at what some authors are like!’
‘Really?’ I said, my half chuckle sounding half-hearted. ‘Amazing.’
‘Next time you want to go off on a research trip just let me know,’ said Jake. ‘Keep me in touch with what you’re doing.’
‘OK. Sorry, Jake.’
‘So … when do you get back from Washington?’
‘I’m flying back tomorrow.’
‘OK. I think we should have a meeting when you get back. I’m away from the office right now so I haven’t got my diary to hand but I’ll give you a ring tomorrow morning your time and set something up …’
‘Ah … the thing is, the battery on my mobile is almost dead …’
‘OK, just give me the number of the hotel.’
‘Ah …’
‘What?’
‘The thing is … I’m not in Washington any more … I’m … in Ohio …’
‘What? Why?’
‘Because I’m meeting …’
I didn’t know what to say. Why, in the name of research, would I be in Columbus, Ohio? I tried to think of something to say but my mind was blank.
‘I’m meeting … I’m … I’m meeting … a world expert in space rock …’ I said weakly.
I almost flinched as if I expected Jake’s palm to emerge from the phone and slap me. It didn’t happen. His reaction, however, certainly caught me by surprise.
‘Brilliant!’ said Jake with a squeal of excitement. ‘Space rock! Of course, if anything’s going to turn up with a brand new colour in it, it’s rock from outer space! Brilliant!’
‘Oh!’ I said and then tried to say it again without sounding quite so surprised. ‘Oh.’ (That was better.) ‘Thanks Jake. I’m glad you like where I’m going with it …’
I gave him the number of the hotel. I agreed that we would have a meeting on my return to the UK. I promised to show him my research notes, storylines and as much actual writing as I could. And I wondered how much it was possible to write on a flight from Washington to Heathrow.
*
A phone rang. This time it was the hotel phone. I assumed it would be Jake checking up on me, making sure I’d given him the right number. I picked up.
‘Hello?’
‘Hey, Dave! It’s Jerry!’ exclaimed Jerry.
Everything Jerry says comes with an exclamation mark.
‘I’m in reception!’
*
Jerry’s little jeep crept slowly through the streets of Columbus.
‘We’re gonna go to a great venue tonight!’ said Jerry.
‘So, what are we going to see?’ I asked. ‘Is it space rock?’
‘Hmmmmmmm? Well? Well? Weeeeellllll?’ said Jerry. When he thinks, it’s like he’s coiling up a spring, when he comes to his conclusion it gets released. ‘Not really!’
‘So it’s …?’
‘It’s kind of like an improvisational, experimental night!’ said Jerry, enunciating ev-ery sy-lla-ble. ‘It should be good!’
‘OK …’ I said, barely able to conceal my concern.
In the performer’s lexicon, improvisational and experimental are generally by-words for bad.
‘I mean there might be some space rock kind of stuff. You never know,’ said Jerry, and then, realising he hadn’t said it with his usual force, he said it again. ‘You never know!’
‘I certainly don’t,’ I said, which was at least honest. ‘So … what’s the venue?’
‘Little Brothers! It’s a great place! In a district known as the Short North! Used to be a red light district!’
‘Great!’ I said and realised that my Wandering Accent Syndrome was kicking in.
Jerry could make a fortune in advertising, his voice is perfect for sentences like ‘All stock must go!’ and ‘Hurry, hurry, hurry!’ but it does make it a very easy accent to slip in to. Very easy indeed!
The Short North is the cool, hip part of town. The further in to it we travelled, the fewer mullets there were to be seen. Here there were funky boutiques, secondhand record stores and individual little coffee shops.
We were a little early for the gig so Jerry took me to the Coffee Table first. He told me it was mainly known as a gay hangout, but it had a relaxed atmosphere, enormous windows, comfy wooden booths and great coffee which made it a fine place to chill out and kill some time. I suppose I should mention that there was one mullet on display but I’m not sure it really counts as it was being worn ironically by a lesbian. (Before anyone accuses me of jumping to conclusions I should point out that her T-shirt bore the legend, ‘Yes, I’m a lesbian. And?’)
Over coffee Jerry talked enthusiastically about Aural-Innovations.com. He’d started it as a paper fanzine but the cost of printing and posting it to people all over the world had proved prohibitively expensive. When he realised that more people were logging on to the associated website than subscribing to the ’zine he’d decided to make it into an entirely Web-based project instead.
Now, as well as editing (and largely writing) a monthly online magazine, Jerry also hosted his own space rock radio shows and these too are broadcast on the Web.
The more he talked, the more I understood Jerry’s passion and commitment to his website. I once saw a football referee interviewed and he was asked why he had taken up such a thankless profession. His answer, basically, was that he was a football fan who got to spend the whole 90 minutes of an FA Cup Final on the pitch at Wembley, a privilege that his limited playing abilities would never have afforded him. I think something similar can be said for Jerry. A fan of a particularly niche area of music, his site has put him close to the heart of that niche. As a result, he’s met and interviewed many of the artists involved. What more could a fan want?
‘ID?’
We were at the entrance to Little Brothers and the doorman was requesting some identification.
Jerry nonchalantly flashed his driver’s licence while I fumbled for my wallet. It was a pointless gesture. I didn’t have any ID on me. Why would I?
‘I’ve got a credit card …’ I offered weakly.
The doorman, a young, scrawny indie-kid, smirked.
‘You need picture ID,’ he said.
‘Why?’ I asked, genuinely confused. Did they need to know the names of everyone who attended?
‘To prove you’re over 21,’ came the matter-of-fact reply.
‘But I’m 31,’ I said, bemused. ‘I’m clearly over 21. Any idiot can see that.’
The doorman bristled.
‘Not that I’m calling you an idiot,’ I added hurriedly. ‘This guy’s an idiot!’ I whispered to Jerry.
‘Dave!’ said Jerry stepping in between us. ‘The show isn’t going to start for a while, I’ll give you a lift back to the hotel, you can get your passport and then we’ll come back. Yeah? We’ll come back!’
‘I’m not sure that’s wise,’ I said.
‘Why not?’ asked Jerry.
My mind flashed back to New Year’s Eve, the last time I got drunk in possession of my passport.
‘Oh, it’s a long story. I’ll explain it on the way back to the hotel.’
And that’s what I did. On the way to the hotel I told Jerry all about the email from Stevo, finding Marcus, my trip to France and, of course, New Year’s Eve. On the way back to Little Brothers I told him all about my time in Washington and Boston. Basically, I told him the whole googlewhacking story.
‘So, this is it, huh?’ he said as we got out of the jeep. ‘A little adventure to start the year, but tomorrow you head back to London and that’s that?’
At last! I was finally with someone who understood my peculiar situation, someone who wouldn’t be forcing a googlewhack agenda on me.
‘That’s right. It’s back to reality tomorrow,’ I said with a sigh. A sigh that gave me pause for thought. Was it a sigh of regret?
We flashed our ID at the doorman and this time he let us pass. There was a small cover charge to get in but instead of issuing tickets the venue used a rubber stamp to mark our hands. The doorman used the stamp on Jerry’s hand with a nice, gentle rolling action. I placed my hand on the desk in front of me expecting the same treatment but instead he brought it down with force. It was the kind of stamp a library book gets in the hands of a repressed and angry librarian.
The venue was huge and open-plan but divided into two defined spaces. The first was the bar area with a long bar running down one side of the room. There were odd artefacts attached to the wall here and there, an old-fashioned oil painting, a stuffed animal head and so on, but mainly the room was decorated with its own history. The walls were covered with posters for previous shows, all slapped on at different angles, overlapping each other and creating a rich tapestry of colours.
The other space was the performance area. There was a high and deep stage and enough space for a few hundred audience members. I looked around and I reckon there were less than twenty of us in that night. Oh well, I thought, I’m sure they can still perform for twenty people. If the rest of them are as enthusiastic as Jerry it’s probably equivalent to playing in front of 200 Brits.
The first performer stood up. Rather than take to the stage, which would have put a huge distance between her and the audience, the wise decision had been taken to perform at floor level. It felt more intimate that way, something the numbers demanded. I realised that the girl strumming her guitar on stage was one of the twenty people I’d assumed to be the audience. I looked around the ‘crowd’ again and saw a number of guitar cases propped up among the chairs. In my new estimate, the paying, non-performing audience probably numbered eight.
I was preparing myself for a difficult and embarrassing night out. But it never came. What could have been small and awkward became small and supportive instead, almost special.
Despite my initial misgivings regarding the improvisational and experimental nature of the evening, it has to be said the entertainment was good. Certainly good enough to make me forget the throbbing sensation in my recently stamped hand.
The music ranged in style from acoustic folk through to avant-garde electronica. There were thin and sallow young men with too many badges who looked at their feet while singing gently, and there were theatrical, over-the-top performances from strident and eccentrically dressed people of indeterminate sex.
The strangest group were saved for last. Two men stood with their backs to the audience while a third faced us but fixed his gaze on his own fingers. He played guitar, by which I mean he held the guitar and strummed it occasionally, while stubbornly refusing to let anything that resembled a tune escape. One of the other two was playing with a laptop while the other fiddled with a piece of electronic equipment that I didn’t recognise but strongly suspected was making the sound of an unhappy dolphin.
While this trio was on Jerry leaned in to speak. ‘What do you think then?’ he whispered.
‘I’ve really enjoyed it,’ I whispered back. ‘To be honest, this is the only act I’ve struggled with.’
‘Yeah. These guys are kind of challenging!’
‘It’s so wilfully odd and …’ I was struggling to find the words ‘… you can’t really tap your toes to it, if you know what I mean?’
‘Yeah!’ said Jerry, nodding his head.
He obviously didn’t agree with me; I looked down and saw that his toes were tapping.
*
In deep sleep that night I found myself in a strange and vivid dream. It took place in and around the Lincoln Memorial where, bizarrely, it was introduced by Martin Luther King.
‘I have a dream!’ he cried in familiar full flow. ‘You have a dream, we all have a dream, this dream is the dream of Dave Gorman.’
Given the impact the original ‘I have a dream’ speech has had on the modern world and the regard in which Martin Luther King’s legacy is so rightly held, it might seem offensive to take words of such import in vain. But, hey, it was my subconscious thinking and whatever you want to read in to it, I don’t think you can take it as any indication of my conscious thoughts. I once had a disturbing dream involving Princess Anne and a bridle and she’s never done a thing for me in real life.
As the dream went on I realised that what looked like the Lincoln Memorial had been transformed, in my dream, in to the David Gorman Monument. Not a tribute to me, but to David Gorman who lives in the South of France. The marble statue in the centre of the monument was no longer Lincoln sitting in an upright chair but a crude simulacrum of David on his sun-lounger. The Gettysburg Address wasn’t inscribed on these walls. Instead I read the words David had spoken to me that December day in Provence: If you personally find no more googlewhacks, but every googlewhack you meet finds you two more, I bet you can’t get ten googlewhacks in a row before your 32nd birthday.
I’m standing at Martin Luther King’s shoulder and looking out at the long reflecting pool. The masses haven’t assembled to hear him speak this time. No civil rights march has taken place earlier today in dreamland. Instead there’s a sparse crowd, a gathering of familiar faces. I walk down the steps and wander among them.
There’s Jerry, tapping his toes. There’s Warren and Ann and all of Ann’s family from the party. I wave at Janet and yell out some thanks for the Scotch but she can’t see or hear me. No one can. There’s David and Danielle. To be honest I’d have been disappointed if they weren’t here. It’s easy for them because the dream’s in Washington. Everyone else has travelled. Does Danielle have a dog on a leash? No … it’s a giant Teeny Christmas Google! That explains why Marcus is standing so calmly beside them. A woman and a dog might have set his pulse racing but a woman and a giant Teeny Christmas Google? Pah. And there’s David and Eillen. Is it big-headed of him? Coming to look at his own monument? There’s the girl I fancied on the flight to Washington and there are all my friends from New Year’s Eve and there’s Princess Anne … no … no, no, no she isn’t there, that’s better, it isn’t her, it’s Carlton, the man who wanted me to attack him here in Washington and … and why is Forrest Gump jumping in the pool?
Martin Luther King is introducing a band now. It’s the strange trio from Columbus. Two of them face the marble-Dave on his sun-lounger, the guitarist faces the crowd and they start making their tuneless, atonal noise. Jerry starts dancing. One of the trio is using a laptop and I can see the screen. He’s not using it to play music, he’s online, he’s looking at Google. The guitarist plucks a string but instead of a note, a word rings out.
‘Candelabra.’
The man with the electronic equipment I don’t recognise hits a button. Instead of the sound of an unhappy dolphin another word rings out.
‘Telescopic.’
The laptop man dances, types the words, hits the search button, shakes his head and the audience all ‘Ooo’ in shared disappointment.
‘Dave Gorman has a dream!’ sings Martin Luther King, who’s now doing unofficial backing vocals.
The trio repeat the process using different words:
‘Forensics.’
‘Tea towel.’
A shake of the head and the audience all ‘ooo’ as one.
‘Dave Gorman has a dream!’
‘Wainscoting.’
‘Conquistador.’
A shake of the head. ‘Ooo.’
‘Dave Gorman has a dream!’
‘Conch.’
‘Scintilla.’
A shake of the head. ‘Ooo.’
‘Dave Gorman has a dream!’
‘Francophile!’
‘Namesakes!’
The headshaker turns to the crowd but this time he’s nodding.
He yells, ‘We have a whack!’
Martin Luther King joins the celebration: ‘People, we have a whack!’
The audience roars their approval.
‘Whack! Whack! Whack!’ they chant, ‘Whack! Whack! Whack!’
‘Aaaaaaagggggghhhhhh!’ I woke with a start. The sheets were clammy. I looked at the clock. It was morning. Jake hadn’t yet called. It was time to check out.
*
I took a taxi to the airport and from there I flew to Washington DC. My plane landed at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport which, as the name suggests, isn’t where I needed to be for my international departure so I took a bus across town to Dulles International Airport where I checked in with plenty of time to spare. Plenty of time to relax, to think, to consider what had just happened to me.
I was sitting in the departure lounge, flicking through a free promotional airline magazine when I found myself looking at a map of the world. A series of red parabolas marked the different routes it was possible to fly and a chart gave the distances from city to city. I totted it up and worked out that, by the time I landed back in London, my round trip, including my jaunt to France in December, would total 10,364 miles! All that to meet Marcus, David, David, Warren and Jerry!
Five googlewhacks in a row and I hadn’t even been trying! It seemed to me that everyone else had done all the trying. Everyone else wanted me to meet the next one, everyone else wanted me to meet the ’whack they’d found. Now it was about to end. Now the journey was over. I found myself sighing again, the same sigh I’d sighed back in Columbus. It wasn’t a sigh of relief; it was a sigh of regret. There were times when I’d turned the next corner, made the next trip because I felt harassed, press-ganged even, by events. But now that outside pressure was evaporating I realised it left a part of me exposed. The part that wanted to do it. The part that realised five in a row was – gulp – half way.
I shook the temptation from me and focused on the reality of the situation. I had an eight-hour flight ahead of me and nothing to read. I went in search of the nearest bookstore.
As I browsed my mind continued to wander through my predicament. I knew when I got back to London I would have to meet up with Jake. I needed to explain myself which was going to be difficult because I didn’t have an explanation. He wanted a few chapters of a novel I hadn’t written, a novel I might not even be able to write. Failing that, he wanted to see some research notes on coelacanths and space rock – the wrong sort of space rock – based on meetings with experts I hadn’t met. If he found out the truth I was in trouble. More importantly, I was in breach of contract. If Jake wanted his money back, he had every right to it. But I’d already spent a fair chunk of the money and Rob, as my agent, had already taken 15%. He’d done his job; if I now failed to do mine that was no concern of his. I simply couldn’t afford to tell the truth and there simply wasn’t time to come up with enough work to back up my lies. I had to find a way to avoid that meeting.
Inspiration came when I found myself holding a copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I’d never read it before and thought it might be a good read for the flight. I started to read the inside jacket.
‘Mark Twain (real name Samuel L. Clemens) wrote most of his books in a cabin at his sister’s farm in upstate New York. His family were not allowed to disturb him here, giving him the peace he needed in order to write.’
Ah ha! If I told Jake I was going to a retreat to write I could buy myself some time without incurring his wrath. Of course if that was my story I really ought to actually go somewhere. No point being at home unless I wanted to be found out. But where should I go?
I had a plan. I picked up my mobile and scrolled through to the Js. Jake and Jerry’s numbers nestled side by side.
‘Hi!’
‘Hi, Jerry. It’s Dave. This is going to sound a bit odd. I need you to find me two googlewhacks.’
‘That is odd! I got in last night and I was thinking about this whole googlewhacking thing. I had a couple of drinks, got online and found three!’
‘That’s fantastic, Jerry. Drunk is clearly a good tactic. So, can you give me the first two?’
‘But … I found three …’ he said, his usual ebullience disappearing suddenly.
‘I know, Jerry, I heard you. But I just want the first two.’
‘I … found … three …’
The words of David Gorman echoed through my mind: If you personally find no more googlewhacks, but every googlewhack you meet finds you two more, I bet you can’t get ten googlewhacks in a row before your 32nd birthday.
‘Jerry,’ I said firmly, ‘I only want the first two—’
‘But I fou—’
‘You have to have rules, Jerry.’ I was getting short with him now. ‘Give me the first two.’
‘OK. OK. I need to go to my computer to find them—’
‘Look, I’m about to get on a flight to London so why don’t you email them to me? I’ll get them when I get back.’
‘OK!’
I would go wherever the next ’whack took me. Maybe I’d stay there and write the novel, actually use it as a retreat, try and catch up with the job. No, I was kidding myself. I knew the truth. I was going to carry on googlewhacking. I wanted to get ten in a row. After all, success was only five googlewhacks away. It hadn’t taken long to get to five in a row without trying, imagine how easy it would be to collect the next five if I actually tried. It shouldn’t take me more than a couple of weeks.
I wanted to do it. I wanted to prove David Gorman wrong. More importantly, I wanted to run away from Jake. From trouble. From responsibility. Just as the teenage mum who’s drowning in debt knows that signing up for another credit card is not the solution to her problems so I knew that I was getting myself deeper into trouble. But it put it off for now and it felt good.
I picked up the phone again.
‘Bonjour.’
‘Hi, David, it’s Dave,’ I said.
‘Hey, happy New Year namesake!’ said David G. ‘How’s it going?’
‘It’s going great. I’ve got five in a row!’ I gabbled.
‘What?’ asked David, clearly confused.
‘Five googlewhacks in a row. I’m going for it. Number five is sending me his two ’whacks right now. I’m going to get to ten.’
My heart was racing. I was excited. I knew that in making this call I was also making a commitment.
‘You’re kidding me?’
‘No!’
‘You’re kidding me?’
‘No!’
‘You’re kidding me?’
‘No!’
‘You’re not kidding, are you?’
‘No.’
‘Well … what can I say?’ he said. ‘Good luck to you.’
‘Thanks. I’ll let you know how I get on.’
‘You know … when I challenged you … I wasn’t … really …’
David paused uncomfortably.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Nothing. Good luck, Dave. And enjoy.’
*
I had less than an hour before my flight left for London. I felt buoyant and giddy, high on the recklessness of it all. I couldn’t wait to get home, check out Jerry’s email and find googlewhack number six. I tried to break Huck Finn’s spine but I was too excited to concentrate. I looked at the page but my eyes refused to focus on the words. There was something far more appealing to be seen out of the corner of my eye: a computer.
It was a laptop and it was sitting on top of a rather shapely lap but it wasn’t the lap that drew my attention. It was the fact that, in spite of no obvious connection to a phone system, the computer appeared to be connected to the internet.
There’s a well-known website called eBay that operates online auctions. Anything and everything is put up for sale and people from all over the world can take a look at the website and bid for the lots.
Well, the laptop that had caught my eye was currently connected to eBay. The laptop’s owner was an attractive but starchy looking businesswoman. She was in her early thirties, her hair was scraped back from her face, she wore the odd combination of pinstripe suit and sneakers: red Nikes with a white flash. Her red shoes suggested she was lively. She appeared to be bidding to buy a hairdryer fashioned in the shape of the cartoon dog, Snoopy. I was fascinated.
‘Excuse me,’ I said with a cough, ‘are you actually online?’
‘Uh huh,’ she said without looking away from the screen.
She was concentrating so hard her tongue was poking out. She looked like a child trying to colour in a picture without going over the outline.
‘But there’re no wires. How does it do that?’ I asked.
‘It’s Wi-Fi,’ she said tersely. I was obviously an unwelcome distraction.
‘Wi-Fi?’ I asked. ‘What does that mean?’
‘It means there are no wires,’ came the matter-of-fact response.
‘But then how does…’
‘This is a hotspot,’ she snapped.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Will you please just shut up for a minute,’ she said. ‘I’m in the middle of … here we go … and … yes!’
She punched the air with excitement.
‘What happened?’ I asked but she ignored me.
‘Come to Mommy!’ she said, speaking to no one in particular.
‘What?’
She looked up from the screen and for the first time our eyes met. She was weighing me up which is only reasonable seeing as she was a lone woman and my attentions were wholly uninvited. I tried my hardest to look reassuringly innocent. I smiled. I realised that my smile was probably a bit unsettling so naturally I stopped smiling. But I stopped too soon. I didn’t have a back-up expression ready, and now I didn’t know what to do with my face at all. I started to feel horribly self-conscious and became uncomfortably aware of a suddenly sweaty brow.
I think I probably ended up with the universal expression of guilt that takes every innocent man as he passes through customs but amazingly it was enough for me to pass muster.
‘Hi. My name’s Christa,’ she said offering her hand.
‘Dave,’ I said, shaking what had been offered.
‘I was in an online auction. It was about to end. I wanted to make sure I got it.’
‘It being a Snoopy hairdryer?’
‘Uh huh,’ said Christa, with a smile. ‘I love Snoopy.’
‘Really?’ I asked. ‘You don’t really look the sort.’
‘What does the sort look like?’ she asked sarcastically.
‘Like Charlie Brown,’ I said. ‘Y’know, yellow T-shirt, black zigzag stripe …’
She laughed. ‘He wouldn’t want a hairdryer,’ she said, ‘he’s only got one hair!’
I laughed. ‘Only one hair? That must be tough to deal with for someone so young,’ I said, keeping the rally going.
‘No wonder he’s always visiting the psychiatrist!’ said Christa, rewarding herself with a little chuckle.
I chuckled too. Then I realised that I didn’t understand the joke and had no idea what I was chuckling at.
‘I’m sorry,’ I owned up, ‘you’ve lost me there.’
‘You know; Lucy’s psychiatric booth? In the comic strips? No?’
‘No. Sorry. I’m not really a fan.’ I tried to look apologetic for the fact.
‘That’s OK,’ she said. ‘I do talk to people who don’t like Snoopy!’
‘Good,’ I said.
There was an awkward pause before I remembered what had drawn my attention in the first place.
‘So, your computer is able to connect to the internet without a phone line?’
‘Yeah. It’s Wi-Fi’ she said and then, seeing the look of confusion on my face, added, ‘It stands for wireless fidelity; it’s a high-speed, wireless connection.’
‘Technology is amazing, isn’t it?’
‘It sure is. And I’m using it to buy a hairdryer!’
‘I don’t want to be cheeky, but could I have a go?’
*
From: Jerry Kranitz
To: Dave Gorman
Subject: My googlewhacks!
Hey Dave,
I know you only wanted the first two, but number three is a doozy!
Alligator Peristyles.
Jeremiads Conifer.
Dingdong Larvas.
Best of luck, and remember, if you’re ever in Columbus…
Jerry
‘What the hell is that about?’ asked Christa, reading over my shoulder.
‘Googlewhacks’ I said staring intently at the screen. It was my turn to concentrate.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘Words,’ I said, which didn’t help her much but I was busy opening a new mail. My tongue was poking out.
From: Dave Gorman
To: Jake Lingwood
Subject: Hugh’s Hue.
Hi Jake,
I know you wanted to meet up soon but I’m not really going to be around for a while. London’s just so full of distractions so I’ve decided to get away from it all. That way I can really concentrate on the writing. In the meantime, I’ve attached a few documents for you to look at.
I’ll be in touch with more soon,
Dave
‘Ahem.’ It was Christa. ‘I know I’m reading your mail, but this is my computer. What documents were you thinking of attaching?’
‘Can I open a new Word document?’ I asked.
‘Sure. You just do?… this,’ she said, leaning over me and pressing a few buttons.
A big empty white page stared at me. I saved it and called it chapter1.doc. I saved another as storyline.doc and a third as notes.doc. Then I went back to the mail programme and attached all three documents to the mail.
‘Erm … those documents are blank. When this Jake character opens them, he’ll just get blank pages,’ said Christa, censoriously.
‘I know,’ I said, ‘I’m being very naughty. There won’t be anything there, but he’ll think there’s been a mistake. At least he’ll think the documents exist.’
‘I’m not sure I should let my computer be used for this kind of subterfuge!’
‘You don’t have a choice,’ I said, pressing send.
‘Have you finished now? I should be on my way,’ said Christa, looking at her watch.
‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘If I could just …’
I opened a new window and connected to Google.
‘You wanted to know what a googlewhack was?’ I asked.
‘Yeah.’
I typed in the words alligator and peristyles and hit the search button. Almost immediately the page came up with just the one hit.
‘That,’ I said, grandly, ‘is a googlewhack.’
‘What?’
‘One hit. Now, let’s take a look at this one.’
I clicked on the link and the home of the Alligator Peristyles ’whack opened up. It seemed to be the pages of something called East West Magazine. The website contained three volumes of the magazine all written between 1925 and 1928 so I’m guessing it wasn’t originally written for the Net.
The article containing the googlewhack was entitled ‘My Travels in India’. Most of the articles seemed to concern Buddhism, meditation and the Indian subcontinent although there were one or two on an Egyptian theme too. But I wasn’t interested in the content. I was interested in the author and on that subject there was precious little information. I could find no contact details on the site either for the author – who might well have passed on by now – or for the webmaster. It was a dead end. I wasn’t too concerned because, of course, I still had Jeremiads Conifer to save me. I returned to Google.
‘I’m sorry, but I really am going to need my computer back,’ said Christa with growing urgency.
I’d forgotten she was there. I typed in the words for Jerry’s second ’whack.
‘Where are you flying?’ I asked as I pressed the search button.
‘London,’ she said as the googlewhack appeared on her screen.
‘So am I,’ I said, clicking the link, ‘which flight?’
She showed me her boarding card. Business class.
‘You’re on the same flight as me,’ I said, ‘only nearer the front of the plane. Can I just have a few more seconds?’
She shrugged her shoulders.
I was looking at the website of Integrity USA, an organisation that bills itself as ‘A witness of God’s inclusive love to the Episcopal Church and the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community’.
I’m none of the above but it certainly gave the impression that they were a welcoming bunch so I was sure they’d be perfectly agreeable to the idea of a meeting.
I looked further around the site, seeing if I could find out in which part of the USA they practised their integrity.
‘Oh my God! Oh my all inclusive, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender God!’ I said.
‘What?’ asked Christa.
‘I might not be taking this flight,’ I said, my fingers darting around the keyboard, locating an email address.
‘What? Why not?’ asked Christa.
‘Because I might be staying in Washington!’ I explained. ‘I might be meeting someone from the Episcopal Church for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.’
‘You don’t look the sort.’
By the time she’d delivered her quip I’d already emailed Integrity USA.
‘Dave, I really do need my computer now.’
‘They haven’t called our flight yet! Please let me at least check this out. I need to know if I should stay or go!’
‘You’ve got one minute. Max.’
I looked at the screen. It was bad news.
‘I don’t need that long.’
I slid the computer round to show Christa the evidence for herself. My email had bounced straight back.
‘So I guess you are flying to London then?’ said Christa.
‘Yep,’ I said. I couldn’t see any other option.
I sat and stared at the screen. If Jeremiads Conifer was a dead end then the whole chain died with it. I wasn’t trying to meet any old ten googlewhacks; it had to be ten googlewhacks in a row. It had to be a chain, each googlewhack responsible for finding the next. Jerry – Ammonite Googolplex – was the fifth link in the chain. He’d found Alligator Peristyles and Jeremiads Conifer. If they went nowhere that was the end of that.
For a few moments I considered looking up Dingdong Larvas but deep down I knew there was no point. The rules were clear: every googlewhack I met could find me two more. If I followed up Jerry’s third find I’d be cheating and there could be no satisfaction there. Besides, Christa was starting to tut.
‘Tut,’ she tutted. See what I mean?
Was that it? Could my googlewhack adventure end that simply? Without trying I’d cruised to five in a row and then the moment I actually applied myself to the task I encountered nothing but failure. It didn’t seem just.
I couldn’t let it end now. I’d told David I was going for it. I’d made my excuses to Jake. I was committed. But if the chain was dead what else could I do?
I was shaken from these thoughts by Christa wresting her computer from my clammy palms.
‘I have to run,’ she said, deftly folding the computer up and slipping it into its carry case. ‘So I guess you need to do the same.’
I looked at my watch. I was supposed to be sitting on a plane. I looked up and saw that Christa was already several yards away. She was running. I started to run after her and my longer stride and lack of luggage meant that I caught up with her pretty quickly. As I was responsible for her lateness it seemed impolite to overtake.
‘I’m sorry,’ I panted.
‘You will be,’ she wheezed.
‘Do you want me to carry that bag?’ I said.
It’s quite hard to sound gallant when you’re sprinting.
‘No … you might stop and get online. You’re obsessed.’
That seemed a bit rich.
‘Snoopy lover!’ I said, the spirit of the playground alive and well.
‘Googlewhacker!’ came the retort.
Just then the airport PA system crackled into life.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we regret to announce the delayed departure …’
It was our flight. It was delayed by two hours. We stopped running. We looked at each other. We were ridiculous, panting, purple-faced wrecks. We started to laugh. It was a giggle at first but it grew rapidly, my laughter feeding on hers and vice versa and pretty soon we were, in the truest sense of the word, hysterical.
*
‘Well, obviously you need to try and pick up the chain part way through,’ said Christa sipping her cappuccino.
I call it a cappuccino but to be honest that isn’t what I heard her order. When she ordered it she must have employed twenty words I’ve never heard used in relation to coffee before. It might as well have been a skinny-mocha-choca-supa-cali-frag-ilistic-expiali-ccino as far as I was concerned but I’d said, ‘I’ll have the same please’, and mine looked, smelled and tasted pretty much like a cappuccino so that’s what I’m calling it.
We were killing the time together and I’d explained my situation. Most importantly I’d explained my distress at the chain falling apart after only five links.
Christa, who described herself as a business analyst, whatever that is, had immediately seen a way through the problem. As I’d explained the situation she sketched a diagram to show me the connections between the different googlewhacks. It showed not only the ’whacks I’d met, but the ‘spares’ along the way:
‘Your best-case scenario would be to meet Bamboozled Panfish,’ she said; ‘that way you’re meeting a number five. Failing that, Laser Pedestrianize gives you a four and Dauphin Gormandise, three. If none of them are possible you have to start again and find yourself a new first-place googlewhack.’
‘That’s against the rules,’ I said earnestly. ‘David made it very clear: If you personally find no more googlewhacks, but every googlewhack you meet finds you two more, I bet you can’t get ten googlewhacks in a row before your 32nd birthday.’
‘So, how many had you found before he said that?’ asked Christa.
I had no idea what a business analyst actually did for a living but on this evidence I suspected she was very good at it.
‘I found three others,’ I confessed. ‘In a crossword.’
‘Do you remember what they were?’ she asked.
‘Yep,’ I said. They were indelibly burnt into my memory. ‘Termagant Holbein, Varsities Bonnets and Rarebit Nutters.’
‘You’re very, very strange,’ she said, looking at me in disbelief.
I smiled back as ‘normally’ as possible.
‘Well, we need to take a look at all these spares and email them all. There’s no point waiting to discover you can’t meet Bamboozled Panfish; we need to attack on all fronts at all times, keep as many irons in the fire as we possibly can,’ said Christa, demonstrating exactly why her employer pays for her to fly business class.
In the time before our flight we made our way to a Wi-Fi hot spot, fired up the computer and went to work.
I emailed the Japanese Frank Zappa fan responsible for Bamboozled Panfish. I took another look at the minutes of a six-year-old local government meeting in Hong Kong but there was still no way of identifying or contacting Laser Pedestrianize. I revisited the site of the History professor from the Jesuit University in New York and even though I explained to Christa that my earlier email to that address had bounced she insisted I try it again just in case. I did. It bounced straight back. In pursuit of Termagant Holbein I emailed a Canadian school, chasing Varsities Bonnets I emailed a surfing-mad student in South Africa while the hunt for Rarebit Nutters led me to email a group of Mini fanatics based in North Wales.
‘If this was work I’d be charging you a $2000 consultancy fee,’ said Christa, packing the computer up once more.
‘I’m glad it isn’t work then,’ I smiled. ‘I’d love to buy you dinner in London if you like. As a thankyou.’
‘No thanks,’ she said. ‘It’s been fun, but when we board the plane, I’m turning left and you’re turning right and that will be that. I really don’t like beards.’
*
For the first time that year I was awake, sober and in my own living room. I checked my email, eager to see which of the googlewhacks had come back to me. The results weren’t good. Every single one of my requests for meetings had bounced back or been ignored.
But I was committed now. And I had a plan …