Yes Man (16 page)

“I thought it was unusual, yes, but optimism is …”

“Unusual?
Danny, they’re all claiming to be billionaires, and yet they write their own bloody e-mails, and they use bloody Hotmail!”

I made a grumpy face. What was it about me that Ian thought sultans, emirs, and kings wouldn’t want a part of?

“Listen,” I said. “When Omar, son of the murdered sultan, comes good and hands me my share of forty million dollars—”

“Who have you sent your details to?”

“No one yet—I’m thinking of doing a mass mailing …”

“You’re not!”

“I am! But Omar was first. He should—”

“Dan. Just tell me. What’s this Omar’s e-mail address?”

He was looking at me, sternly. I tried to say something but he raised his finger at me, and for some reason I found it a bit frightening.

“If you’re saying you can’t get out of this, Dan, then maybe I should do it for you—before you get beaten up by a couple of sultans in a Dutch hotel room …”

I nodded, silently. Ian put his finger back down again.

“So … what’s the address?”

To : Omar

From: Ian

Subject: Bad News

Dear Ornar,

I take the pleasure to get associated with you and desire to introduce myself, requesting for your expert advises and immediate line of action.

I am Ian, friend of Danny.

This morning Danny was arrested for a crime he did not commit and is now in a big jail. Before they took him away, he talked of you with great affection and trust.

He has entrusted me with his affairs, and I have noticed that he has over £1,000 in his bank account. It is my opinion that his mum will try and take this off him as she has access to his bank account details too.

I wish to flee the country and move to somewhere like Oman, where I could live with you in your Sultanate.

If you help me move this £1,000 into a safe foreign bank account then for your troubles I am prepared to give you 25% (£250).

It may be necessary for you to travel to Holland to present gifts to some of Danny’s mates. They’re not fussy; buy them a Toblerone at the airport or something. It is God’s will, etc.

Please my brother we must move quickly. His mum is closing in.

Send me your bank details. I trust you 100%.

Ian

P.S. This is not an e-mail scam.

And that, my friends, is how Ian bloody Collins lost me ten million dollars.

And not just ten million dollars. But the share of one hundred and twenty million
dollars that the shaik had offered me. And the eighty-seven million dollars worth of gold that the king had waved my way. And nearly two hundred million dollars more from other assorted dignitaries in apparent need of a little of the Wallace magic.

Ian had come around that night and, after e-mailing Omar (who I hope wasn’t too annoyed and was indeed fibbing about the whole murder plot thing) set me up with a powerful junk-mail filter. Now, he said, I wouldn’t have to worry about spam anymore. I could concentrate on the
proper
Yes opportunities, he said. Like going to the pub and lending him tenners.

Omar never wrote back. But I was grateful to Ian. Grateful that he’d been willing to turn a blind eye to an opportunity to see me go bankrupt. And grateful to him for saving me an airfare to Holland. Because that’s where he’d proved to me they operate from.

“Look at these,” he said, clicking from Web site to Web site. “These show you the stories behind the scams. People fall for them every day. Some of them are lucky and just lose a few grand after paying ridiculous ‘set-up’ costs that don’t exist. Others are unluckier. Some of them end up heading off to Holland where they’re told they’ll be able to pick up their money. They’re met by a representative of the king or the emir or the bloody sultan, fleeced for all their money, and in some cases beaten to a pulp.”

“But I thought Holland was so laid back!” I said. “Why are they beating people to a pulp? It doesn’t seem right, somehow.”

“It’s the European capital of scams, Dan. And of big men who beat you up.”

“But who are they?”

“Thugs, mainly. I mean, many of them are harmless. But some are gangs. Drug gangs, linked to organised crime.”

I shuddered.

“That could have happened to me! Omar asked me if going to Holland would have been possible! I would’ve gone! I would’ve been beaten up by a burly drug gang!”

“That’s why I’m saying, Dan … Look, maybe this Yes thing has gone far enough already. You know? Maybe it’s time to call it off? It all seems a little … pointless. What are you learning here? What have you done so far of worth?”

I was confused. But I shook my head.

“No, Ian. That Yes happened for a reason. And you were there to ward it off. You saved me. And anyway, it won’t happen again, will it?”

“It shouldn’t. The junk-mail filter is on maximum. Just avoid the bloody Internet, Danny. You’ll get stuck in a rut. Y}u’ll be falling for scams and buying penis patches and
saying yes to any old nut job who can find your address. Avoid your bloody e-mails.”

I nodded.

“Fine.”

“And remember—one no is all I need to unleash the full and terrifying power of … the Punishment!”

I looked him in the eye.

“You haven’t thought of a punishment yet, have you?”

He shook his head.

“No.”

Ian was right. I had to avoid my computer. It was nothing but a world of risky Yeses in a neat little box. That wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted safety. Security. Comfort. A world without risk or challenge.

So I drank my tea, and I stayed in the kitchen, and I vowed to not look at my computer once.

And then I walked into the living room, switched it on, and checked my e-mails. There were two: one from Tom at the BBC, reminding me of the next day’s development meeting, for which I should bring plenty of ideas and energy. And the other from Brian the Starburster:

Danny,

I have some interesting information for you…. Are you free to meet me at the New Clifton Bengali Restaurant on Whitechapel Road tomorrow night at 6 p.m.? Just next to Aldgate Tube. Do say yes …

Brian

Oh, bollocks. Ian had been right. Now I’d have to spend another entire evening talking about aliens and pyramids again. Maybe all this
was
pointless.

I thought about what to write back. But then I noticed that Brian hadn’t quite finished his e-mail.

I scrolled down.

And I was intrigued.

P.S. It concerns your man on the bus.

I didn’t know precisely what Brian wanted to tell me about the man on the bus. It seemed strange to me that he had anything to tell at all. The man on the bus was, after all, just a man on a bus. But I’d written back to Brian almost immediately, and told him that, yes, I would meet him at the curryhouse in order to hear his very important information. It was an odd Yes to be saying, but that was fine by me. Odd Yeses still counted—they all did, whatever their level
.

Because yes, Yeses come on levels. There are, in fact, several levels of Yes. Perhaps you yourself have unwittingly been at the mercy of one of them today. Perhaps that’s how you ended up at the shops, or treated yourself to that elaborate coffee—maybe that’s even how you ended up holding this book. The Yes levels (yevels) are everywhere (yeverywhere), and they do their best to help us along in our everyday lives. And if, as I suspect is the case, you have bought this book as some kind of rudimentary self-help manual, you may wish to take note of the following.

The Five Levels of Yes

Level One

The easy level
. This is saying yes to questions such as “Would you like some free money?,” “How about one for the road?,” “Would you like to see a picture of a pony?,” and “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?”

Level Two

The still-quite-easy level
. Level two is only slightly trickier. It’s saying yes to doing that hilarious impression you do. Saying yeah, okay, I’ll tape that thing on BBC2 tonight for you. It’s saying yes, of course I’ll make you a cup of coffee, and what’s more, I don’t necessarily expect a coffee back one day, either.

Level Three

The making-an-effort level
. It’s level three, and things are getting harder. But not so hard that you’d want to make a fuss about them—that’s the beauty of level
three. It’s saying yes to the party you don’t really want to go to—and then actually going to it. It’s saying yes to going for a drink after work, when really, what you want to do is watch
The Weakest Link
and eat a sarnosa. It’s saying yes to anything that requires a journey of more than forty minutes, and/or more than one change of bus. It’s agreeing to accompany an elderly aunt to the toilet and not running off when she shouts, “I’m finished!”

Level Four

The too-much-effort level
. Ah, level four. Our old enemy. This is saying yes to attending a Christening—
any
Christening. Yes to anything that involves modern dance or having to make and bring your own canapés. It’s saying yes to something you know will feel awkward doing; it’s saying yes when what you really want to say is absolutely not.

Level Five

The forget-it level
. Most of us never attain level five status. This is saying yes to attending a wedding. In Mozambique. It’s saying yes to going to a terrible dinner party on the other side of town that you know you’re not welcome at because the last time you were there you insulted someone’s wife and were sick in the hostess’s shoes. And it’s fancy dress. And Claire Sweeney will be there. It’s anything involving planes. Anything involving pains. Anything that you totally, utterly, wholeheartedly can’t, won’t, or mustn’t say yes to.
That
, my friend, is level five.

I reasoned that so far, in my adventure, I’d been hovering pretty much around level three … and that was fine by me. Like I’d said to Ian, this was still early days. December 31 was still months away. But things were chugging along quite nicely. I was making an effort. Getting back out there. Saying yes to things I usually just couldn’t be arsed to do. It was all pretty much level three stuff, but level three was where I was happiest. It just felt right, and I felt better. Other people, too, were remarking upon the sudden change they’d seen in me.

Wag was delighted that I was out and about more now. He’d begun to realise that all he’d have to do was pick up the phone, and I’d be there, in a flash and a jiffy, unless, of course, I’d said yes to being somewhere else … but rules are rules: a little bit of effort, and I’d usually be able to swing both. Wag was touched, and I wasn’t going to disillusion him. I’d also been able to catch up with friends I hadn’t seen in ages—just because I was now usually in town on an evening and
could get pretty much anywhere, quickly. And so I caught up with Carl and Stefan and Nerys and Nathan and Dara and Nina and Noel and more.

Things were good. Things were fine. Everything was under control.

It was 4 p.m., and I was walking out of BBC Television Centre with something of a spring in my step. My second development meeting had gone incredibly well.

I mean,
ridiculously
well.

Fair enough; most of my ideas had been poo-poohed before I’d even finished saying the tides, and after a couple of them I’d sensed a few people in the room actually struggling not to boo, but as far as I was concerned, I’d managed to say yes to almost everything I was asked about, and as such, I deemed the meeting an outright success. Plus quite a few mediocre ideas and at least three awful ones had been saved from the dustbin thanks to a little bit of blind positivity. If you pay your license fee, you should be quite grateful to me at this point.

I’m paraphrasing, but after the meeting Tom had told me he liked me. I was fresh, he said. And not cynical and jaundiced like most of the people who came to these things. I wasn’t dismissive. In fact—and I’m still paraphrasing here—I was the opposite! I was a
nurturer
of ideas. I was
positive
.

“You
understand,”
he said. “That no idea is a bad idea. And even bad ones can lead to a good one. That’s what development is all about.”

I was smiling rather widely. All I’d done was approach things in an incredibly positive manner and look what was happening: I was being lavished with praise by an authority figure!

“Just out of curiosity,” said Tom, “what kind of contract have you got with the radio department?”

“A couple of days a week at the moment … just while I’m looking for new projects, so …”

“And what do you do the rest of the week?”

I drink tea, Tom, and I write to sultans.

“Oh, you know … this and that.”

“Have you ever thought about working over here for a while?”

“Sorry?”

“We’ve got a space on one of our teams. We need someone like you, I think. Someone who can come in and bring a sense of positive energy to the room.”

Wow! Positive energy!