11. And Daniel said, Peradventure shall Join Me be called instead Join Him.
FOUR WEEKS LATER, on a cold December afternoon, I was standing at the bottom of Oxford Street, in a light rain, awaiting my joinees.
I had called a meeting.
Our first.
A Join Me-et, if you will.
Or ‘Karmageddon 1’, if you won’t.
At 2pm precisely, I raised a sign above my head. I wonder if you can guess what it said.
I had no real idea of who would turn up that day; of who would brave the weather just to come along and say hello to some bloke most of them had never met; the bloke they’d called their Leader.
I soon would.
‘Hello Danny,’ said a voice to my right. I turned around. All seven of the Newcastle boys had turned up. Each wore their ‘Join Us’ T-shirts, and a smile. Their Greek tans had faded somewhat, and they were soaked through, but here they were! After a seven-hour journey! I was touched.
‘Hey!’ I said, delighted. ‘You came!’
‘Wouldn’t have missed it, mate,’ said Patrick, and I wanted to hug him, but I didn’t get the chance. Joinees Jonesy and Cobbett were suddenly there. Then Joinee Gaz arrived, fresh off the coach from Oxford. Joinee Glanville followed moments after, with his mum, who’d brought a passport photo and wanted to join too. Then Joinee Whitby turned up, with Joinees Jess and Jenni. The Vis à Vis boys jumped off a bus to be there, and soon I was utterly surrounded by joinees, new and old.
I was tap-tapped on the shoulder and turned around.
‘Hello, Danny,’ said a man with a goatee beard and an accent. ‘I’m Wilfried. I got the email you sent out. I came from Belgium to be here.’
My God. A man I’d never met before – a perfect stranger – had travelled all the way from Belgium just to say hello to his fellow joinees.
‘And you said in your invite that you would buy everyone a beer, too,’ he said.
Bloody Belgians.
Soon more joinees were upon us. Joinees from Devon. Two from Scotland. Three from Manchester. Dozens of others.
Thrilled, I led my people on a march up Oxford Street, spreading good karma, handing out fliers, and doing random good deeds for complete strangers, until Great Portland Street, where we found the Horse & Groom, in many ways the spiritual home of Join Me. I’d booked the function room, put some money behind the bar, and within an hour there were fifty of us, laughing, joking, making new friends.
‘Someone’s just told me this is some kind of cult thing,’ said the worried-looking woman responsible for hiring me the room. I’d grown weary of calling Join Me a collective by now. I reasoned it was time to call a cult a cult.
‘Yes, it is,’ I said. ‘In fact, it’s a suicide cult. This will be our first and, indeed, our last meeting.’
At 4pm, the Vis à Vis boys, wearing two ‘Official Join Me Band’ T-shirts I’d had made for them, got their instruments out, and I sang, quite badly, the official Join Me song. The barman, Mark, looked very confused by what he was now witnessing. I cleared my throat, welcomed my joinees . . . and then prepared to tell them the news. The news I’d spent the last few weeks deliberating over.
‘My joinees . . .’ I said. ‘My people. My proud and noble warriors of goodness.’
I looked around the room. Happy faces, crowded around pub tables.
‘I . . . have something to tell you. It’s not an easy thing for me to say, and I wish I didn’t feel I had to say it, but believe me . . . I feel I do. It concerns the future of Join Me . . . and . . . well . . . my place in it . . .’
A few of the happy faces had slowly turned into strangely serious ones. I noticed Joinee Jones swap a concerned glance with one of the Newcastle lads, but I continued . . .
‘The Karma Army has exceeded my expectations in so many ways. It took over my life for a while, and that was a wonderful thing, but on this day, the day of our first-ever meeting, well . . . I . . .’
There was total silence. I took a deep breath, looked to the ceiling, and said it . . .
‘I am resigning as Leader of Join Me.’
Gasps. A shocked, shouted whisper of ‘What?’ Even Mark the barman looked surprised.
‘The thing is,’ I said, ‘I never asked to be Leader. It was never a title I earned. You lot just started calling me that. And I suppose I got carried away with the power. I let it take over my world. But think about it . . . this has been a dictatorship all along. I was never elected Leader. I never deserved to be Leader. And you know what? There’s someone here today who does deserve it. He deserves to be Leader far more than I do . . .’
The joinees looked around. They looked confused. Who was I talking about?
‘I’m talking about Joinee Whitby.’
Joinee Whitby – once my most feared nemesis – was shocked and pale. All eyes were suddenly upon him. He didn’t know what to say. But I did.
‘Joinee Whitby is a good man. A man willing to put the effort in. When I feared he was out to take Join Me away from me, I was spurred on to greater things. Without my having to ask him, he made badges, and posters, and he even tried to paint a small child’s face with the words “Join Me”. All while I faffed around, not really knowing what I was doing or where I was headed. I want to give Join Me to him. I want him to lead you. But I also understand that by doing that, this will still be a dictatorship of sorts. So . . . I’ve prepared ballot papers . . .’
As I said this, ballot papers and pens were handed out among my still stunned joinees.
‘. . . I want you to think very carefully, joinees, and vote for who you think should be the Leader . . . I know you know less about him than you do me, but seriously. Joinee Whitby is a good person. You’re all good people. You put your trust in something that most of you knew nothing about. You took pleasure in doing your random acts of kindness. There are now just over 1000 of us . . . that’s 1000 random good deeds each and every week that would probably never have happened . . . 52,000 of them a year, and growing, and just because of us!’
It was precisely what they needed to hear. They let out a huge cheer, and broke into applause, and glasses were clinked, and a few people slapped each other on the back. The warmth in the room was now amazing. Maybe it was because I was standing right in front of the fireplace. Or maybe it was because these people – my people – exuded it. As the applause died down, I spoke, quietly . . .
‘The one thing I’ve learnt from this whole adventure is that people in general are essentially good. They’re nice. It’s not like it seems in the papers. Everyone talks about improving the world, and how we could make it a better place. But really . . . this is a good world, and maybe all we’ve got to do to make it a better place is realise that.’
Maybe I’d pushed it too far with that last bit, because one or two faces in the crowd had started to turn green, so I decided to ditch the Dawson’s Creek-isms and get on with the real business of the day . . .
‘Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say. Think about this carefully. The Karma Army lives on, all around the world. But it’s up to you how it does that.’
I looked in as many eyes as I could.
‘Cast your votes now . . .’
On cue, the band started to play the theme tune from Countdown, and I sat down on one of the large leather sofas next to the fireplace, slightly nervous. I looked up to see Joinee Whitby, leaning against the wall, looking just as nervous. We smiled at each other, and I gave him a little thumbs-up.
In my last official act as Leader that afternoon, I had asked Joinee Bond to be the official ballot security, as he had once been a security guard at a Tesco supermarket in Preston, and was thus the closest thing we had to a policeman.
I had given my joinees the chance to vote me out and start afresh. To begin again, with a new, exciting Leader; one who actually looked like he knew what he was doing. It would give Join Me a new direction. A new sense of momentum. And it would give me a little time, to recall Hanne’s words, to ‘stop acting like a fucking nutjob’. It was a chance I thought my joinees deserved. I hadn’t made the decision lightly. After I’d returned from Switzerland, people had continued to join me, and I realised I had to make a choice. Continue with Join Me, or continue with the rest of my life.
‘Good luck,’ said Joinee Jonesy. ‘I voted for you.’
‘Thanks,’ I said.
I looked into my pint. Part of me still really wanted to be involved in all this, no matter how much work it’d be. Part of me still really wanted to be able to make decisions. To lead the people who’d joined me. To always be The Leader. But in my heart I knew I had to do this. Ten minutes later, Joinee Bond was back with the results.
‘The votes have been counted,’ he announced, with incredible Mancunian gravitas. ‘It has been a very close-run election.’
Close-run. Jeez. I felt a pang of emotion. Was this right? What was I doing? Did I really want to give this away? This is mine . . . this was mine . . .
‘I have counted the votes myself, and they have also been counted by an independent body – Mark, the barman.’
I looked over at Mark the barman. His eyes were giving nothing away. He wasn’t even looking at me. Had I lost? Had I given my collective away? Had I made what I would come to see as a terrible mistake? Had I worked to get 1000 joinees just so I could take my place among them? Was this really for the best . . .?
‘With the largest share of the vote . . .’
Uh-oh . . .
‘I am proud to say . . .’
Deep breath.
‘Your Leader is . . .’