Yes Man (14 page)

Dear Omar,

Is it really necessary for me to travel to Holland with cash gifts for your father’s associates? I mean, I’m essentially saying yes, but could you perhaps loan me a million or so for the time being and take it out of my final cut? I’ll pay for the flight and stuff and keep the receipts in a special envelope.

Cheers !

Danny

I pressed Send and hoped that my e-mail would at least find Omar well. He was probably just excited, poor chap. After all, he’d be moving house soon, and that’s quite an exciting thing. I suppose if worse came to worse, I could stump up for the cash gifts. I had a few grand I’d managed to save up due to basically never
leaving the house, and I could always use that. So long as it didn’t turn out to be one of those Nigerian e-mail scams you hear so much about.

Nah. I was just being cynical. And Yes was about not being that way.

The following morning there was no word from Omar. I decided not to worry about it. I had a few chores to do in town and so set off for the shops.

Now, you’d think that this would be quite a risky business, when you’ve decided to say yes to invitations, offers, and suggestions, but I’m pleased to tell you that the modern-day advertiser has missed a vital trick. It seems the more “sophisticated” they think they’ve gotten, the less direct questions they ask, and the fewer direct suggestions they make. In the old days, of course, I’d have been utterly surrounded by easy-to-follow instructions, such as “Drink milk” or “Buy bread,” and would have spent my days both drinking milk and buying bread. But nowadays, with their aspirational photo shoots and subliminal messages, they were missing out on the simpleton market—the people like me, who’d do as they say, if only they said it.

Ha. They’d never get me now, I thought as I walked out of the Virgin Megastore with my
BUY
2
GET
1
FREE
bag of DVDs, and started to cross the road toward Picadilly Circus.

I fancied another walk around London today, seeing where the wind took me and letting life lead the way. I crossed the road as a stiff wind cleaned the streets and battered the tourists, and noticed that up ahead of me there appeared to be a small group of leafletters. I suddenly felt a little wary; I’d already adopted two grannies. I didn’t need any more—unless I was thinking of starting up some kind of pensioner-creche facility. But nevertheless I continued to walk toward them, and, once I noted a total absence of green bibs or clipboards, took a leaflet from a girl in a summery dress and auburn hair.

SAY YES TO PEACE

I read it again. It still read,
SAY YES TO PEACE
. It seemed oddly appropriate. Like it was a sign of some kind. A sign that saying yes was the way ahead.

Come together
now!
Greet someone new today—smile, say hello, shake their hand, and let the peace begin…
.

*   *   *

Well, that was nice. And so I did what it said. I walked straight up to the person who had given it to me, I smiled, I said hello, I shook their hand, and I waited for the peace to begin.

“I’m Katherine,” she said.

“Danny,” I said.

And then I let life lead the way.

Katherine, Josh, and Mike are three people who share a love of peace.

“It’s all about making connections with people,” said Katherine. “If you can make people understand peace, you are quite literally giving them the world.”

Katherine is also someone who says “quite literally” a lot.

“It quite literally gets up my nose that people just walk around, when they could be making a difference.”

If they were quite literally getting up her nose when they were walking around, then I would suggest she’s probably standing a little too close to them.

“We believe in something called ‘social acupuncture,’” said Mike, the tallest of the three, and the man who’d printed out the leaflets. “You can make a difference with a single conversation.”

“It’s all about spreading a message,” added Josh, who was wearing quite a smart baseball cap and a Nike top and didn’t really look like he belonged there. “You can give people hope, if they know you can create peace.”

Katherine nodded. I got the sense that she was the driving force behind the team. We were standing near the Eros statue in the middle of Picadilly Circus, and I didn’t really know where things were heading. But I liked the three of them. They seemed genuinely committed to spreading peace through the considerate use of leaflets.

“What do you think of the war in Iraq?” said Josh, clearly testing me.

“Well … war is bad,” I said, and he and Mike nodded.

“Sometimes a simple message like that can be the most powerful,” said Katherine.

“Feel free to use it,” I said, hoping perhaps that “War Is Bad” might be the next “in” slogan.

“Thanks,” said Josh, and I realised that maybe it could.

“Would you be interested in helping us spread that message?”

It had all happened rather quickly, but now here I was standing in the middle of Picadilly Circus with a Virgin Megastore bag in one hand and my very own
bunch of
SAY YES TO PEACE
leaflets in the other. Bloody hell! I had left the house a normal man. I would return as a
peace activist!

Katherine, Josh, and Mike were clearly very pleased that their numbers had increased to the tune of one, and were enthusiastically showing me how it was done.

“Do you like peace, sir?” said Katherine, to one middle-aged man who simply strode past her, putting one hand up to bat away her leaflet.

“Say yes to peace,” said Josh to a lady holding a phone in one hand and a shopping bag in the other, and who didn’t really look like she wanted to stop and chat about bringing about world peace. I imagine that kind of attitude quite literally wound Katherine right up.

I managed to give a man a leaflet. I was quite pleased with myself and watched him walk away reading it, but then he stopped and turned around.

“What does this bit mean?” he said. He pointed it out to me, and I read it.

War is a state of the flickering human mind—fear breeding fear breeding fear, feeding back over and over throughout time, reinforcing myths of self-justification
.

I hmmed. The man looked at me. It wasn’t the snappiest of slogans. I read it again.

“To be honest I’m not really sure
what
that means,” I said. “I think it essentially means that … war is bad.”

He handed the leaflet back to me.

“Deep,” he said with more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice, and I felt terrible for letting Katherine and the others down. My slogan was obviously rubbish. So I looked at the leaflet, and said, “Be the change that you want to see in this world!” and smiled. I wasn’t sure if I was doing this social acupuncture thing very well. Judging by the look on the back of the man’s head, he wasn’t either.

“We’re going to chalk for peace in a bit,” said Katherine after ten minutes or so. “Up for it?”

“Yes!” I said. “What’s chalking for peace?”

“We get some chalk and write antiwar slogans all over the place,” said Josh.

“Like where?”

“Pavements, mainly,” said Katherine.

“Does it work? “I asked.

“Yes,” Katherine said matter-of-factly. “Of course it does.”

“Got the chalk,” said Mike, striding purposefully into the group. “Here you go …”

He handed out three pieces of chalk each. I got a red one, a white one, and a blue one. Perfect, I thought. The colours of the Union Jack
and
the Stars and Stripes. Now I could
really
let those governments know how I felt.

But what to write?

Katherine, Mike, and Josh were already hunched over or squatting or sitting down, letting the world have it.

“Katherine, what should I write?” I said, genuinely lost for inspiration.

“Write what you said earlier.”

“War Is Bad? I think it might be a bit
too
simple,” I said.

“Well … I like writing Our New World Order Is Love.’”

“Yes, that’s nice,” I said and then looked to see what the others were writing.

Mike was writing “Anti Breeds Anti,” which sounded a bit too close to incest for my liking, and Josh was writing “We Are All Responsible.”

“Just write what you feel,” said Katherine. “Look at the leaflet or something. We get a lot of our stuff from the Web site. We share our consciousness.”

“That’s quite good,” I said. “‘Share Your Consciousness!’”

Katherine didn’t look too sure.

I thought about it some more. Write what you feel? What did I
feel?

I decided to write
MAKE TEA, NOT WAR
.

It’d been
hours
since my last cup.

Katherine crept up behind me.

“That’s good,” she said. “’Make Tea, Not War.’ Tea is a conduit to conversation. It is a peaceful action. When we make tea, we make conversation and through conversation, we can stop war. Guys! Look what Danny’s written!”

Mike and Josh jogged over.

“‘Make Tea, Not War,’” said Mike.

“Tea …,” said Josh. “War.” And then he smiled and nodded. “It’s a bit like ‘Make Love, Not War,’ but with tea.”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s a more British version. A little less rude.”

“What made you think ofthat?” asked Mike.

“I … like making tea.” I shrugged. “And I don’t like … making war.”

I don’t think I’d been quite meaningful enough for them, so I tried harder.

“And also, tea is a conduit to conversation. And conversation … can stop wars.”

“Tea
is
a conduit to conversation,” said Josh. “Hence the tea ceremonies of ancient Japan or the tea gardens of seventeenth-century Holland.”

I nodded and pointed at him, like that was
exactly
what I’d meant.

Mike clapped his hands together a couple of times and said, “Brilliant,” and went straight off to write
MAKE TEA, NOT WAR
on the side of a wall. Katherine looked at me proudly. I suddenly felt like I was doing my bit.

“‘Make Tea, Not War,’” said Katherine. “You’re good.”

“I’m quite good with social campaigning,” I admitted. “I intend to one day write a song entitled ‘StOp the Mugging, Start the Hugging.’”

“That’s really
nice,”
said Katherine, who I think may have been falling in love with me slightly. “Could I take your details?”

Yep. She
definitely
was.

“Because my girlfriend and I run regular songwriting workshops.”

Oh.

Katherine had been very thorough when she’d taken my details. She’d wanted to know my home address, home telephone number, e-mail address, mobile number, and whether or not I had access to a fax machine. I told her what she wanted to know. I trusted her and Mike and Josh. They seemed good sorts. Out to change the world, but doing it quietly and with chalk. And anyway, it wasn’t as if she was likely to try and use my details to burgle me. She’d be more likely to break in and replace all my vegetables with organic ones.

“Thank you for your help today, Danny,” said Katherine.

“That’s okay. I enjoyed it.”

“You took to it very well. I suppose you’re always helping with things, are you?”

“Not really,” I said, shrugging. “But you asked, and so I thought I would. Oh … hang on, though. There’s another man I’m helping at the moment. A sultan. Well, the son of a sultan.”

The others looked impressed, and they were right to be.

“He wrote to me to ask for my help. He needs to get forty million dollars out of Oman before he is murdered by his late father’s political enemies.”

“Oh,” said Katherine, slowly.

“Internet scam, is it?” said Josh, and Mike elbowed him in the ribs.

“You’re always so bloody negative,” said Mike.

“It’s not an Internet scam, actually,” I said. “It is a cry for help.”

Mike put his hand on my shoulder and nodded sincerely.

We were now in a pub called the Goose, a moment away from the Brixton Tube station, having taken the “Say Yes to Peace” campaign as far as it could go in Picadilly. Both Katherine and Josh (who, as it turned out, were flatmates) lived not far from here, and Mike, who’d only met them a couple of months before in this very pub, was thinking of relocating.

“It’s too easy to say that the people in charge are morons,” Mike said, directing the conversation at me. “Too easy to say get out of government. Instead we say yes. To peace.”

Mike got a packet of fags out and offered them around. Both Katherine and Josh took one.

“It’s just the best way to do things,” said Katherine, topping off our glasses with a bottle of rather rough red wine. “Changing the world one person at a time.”

Mike offered me a cigarette. Instantly my hand went up to indicate I was fine, It was force of habit. But then I remembered who I was and what I was doing, and I said thanks and took one.

“And positivity is the stronger message. It works. It’s the only way to fight a battle, if you …”

She paused while Mike lit her cigarette, then Josh’s, and then mine.

I sucked hard at it. I’d seen enough smokers to know the drill.

“Anyway,” said Josh, cutting her off. “No is the most negative word you can say.”

“Literally,” said Katherine, happy for him to take over.

“And yes is the most
positive
word you can say. So we go from the doublenegative ‘No to War’ to the double-positive ‘Yes to Peace,’ and you can see how much better that sounds.”

I was trying to, but my throat was burning. I had, up until this point in my life, avoided cigarettes. I coughed and passed it off as an energetic nod.

“Yes, no … yes, no … I know which one
I
prefer,” said Josh.

“’No,’ probably,” said Mike, and Josh told him to shut it.

I pressed on with my cigarette, although I now wasn’t really inhaling the smoke. I was just sucking it in, holding it in my mouth, and blowing it straight
out again. Straight
at
people. As such I was creating an oddly smoky atmosphere. But I’ll tell you what—I felt strangely cool and grown-up. I probably looked a bit like James Dean, only with glasses and watery, weeping eyes.