I
had read the book. The cab collected me for the trip
to London Heathrow and my driver was Warren, an old
friend I last saw nearly 20 years ago, a pleasant surprise.
I told him what I was up to. He hadn’t read the book. He
hadn’t even heard of it. He told me about spending time
with family in the Caribbean and eating fresh mango
in the sunshine and we laughed about putting gravel
down Clive Evan’s underpants at school. Clive’s now
a second hand car salesman. The M1 was hell. The M25 was
hell. The Norwegian was waiting for me at Terminal 5 and we
checked in, did the passport thing and stuffed ourselves aboard
the American Airlines flight to Houston. Plastic bagged blankets
and crap coffee. The Norwegian hadn’t read the book either
but pretended to listen as I tried to expla in cultural revolution,
the quest for the American dream and the joy of a meandering
roadtrip. He brightened up at the bit about sex, drugs and
rock and roll. “This meal isn’t very big” he said. It looked like
microwaved rabbit foetus served with Prit-stick cheese and
cardboard crackers. Our Air Hostess was English, she poured the
coffee under the watchful eye of a senior colleague, “You don’t
want to drink this” she whispered. She was right.
George Bush Intercontinental airport offered queues, potatoshaped people in Polyester uniforms telling you where to stand
and a rental car so bland I didn’t even take a picture. Hotel.
Sleep. Wake up at 3am. Later we walked to the Waffle House. I
just wanted some porridge, orange juice made from an orange,
and a cup of tea with semi-skimmed milk and half a sugar.
A woman in a smock stretched over her space-hopper figure
looked really offended – “NO WAFFLES?!” her bug eyes nearly
popped out of her fat face. I had waffles with “city ham”. No, I’ve
no idea either. The Norwegian had the works. And my leftovers.
“Small portions,” he said. Who is paying for this? Not MotorPunk.
We listen to someone talk about wonky oil rigs for a bit and
someone else picks up the bill. Then – the pub. No aperitifs, just
3 or 4 pints of synthetic lager and a beautifully snarky barmaid.
Someone put Green Day on the juke box. She emptied her pot
of tips into his hand and asked him to leave. She knew the beer
was piss and gave us glasses of ‘Bald Knob’ Whiskey. It tastes
exactly like winky. I Imagine. The Norwegian was thoroughly ‘in
drink’ by now and had been cornered by a slightly-too-friendly
chap with a DIY haircut and an iPad who wanted to show us
pictures of his Lamborghini, yet only had pictures of his dog’s
infected stitches. We left the peanuts. The Norwegian mentioned
the American dream and was given precise instructions of
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