Landing in Vancouver and farting

I landed in Vancouver around 11 in the morning and made my way to passport control. Waiting in line for immigration is always a nervy affair for me: when you’ve been deported from the US three times, and had one or two run ins with Canada also, it’s bound to be.

Well, I say “deported three times” – it was actually one deportation and two refused entries, but, for sake of simplicity, I usually lump them all together. It amounts to much the same thing.

The first one was in 1998. I was 22 years-old and spending a glorious summer thumbing it around the western US, hiking through deserts, camping in wild Utah canyon country, whooping it up with drunk Indians, the works. A couple of months of that and I was in heaven – so, naturally, I figured a next logical step would be to jump on a freight train and ride it clear across the Rockies from Montana plains to Seattle fog. I’d ridden one before, earlier in the summer, a five hundred-mile journey all through the night winding up and over the Continental Divide near Helena. It was wonderful, seeing that train curve around the mountain switchbacks as it crossed rickety old high wooden bridges hundreds of feet above crystal clear rushing pine tree creeks, me and the train crew the only souls for dozens of miles, the roads nowhere to be seen, and my youthful feet dangling over the edge and loving every lovely second of it, a dream come true.

You can’t blame a boy for wanting more of that. And so I waited three days to catch a ride out of Havre, up there in the plains not so far from the Canadian border, and once on it, so delirious was I at the joy of the whole thing, I danced and sang and waved at the traffic passing by on parallel US-2 – and probably waved at some off-duty cop, some cop on his way to work, some busybody citizen.

They were waiting for me when we slowed down and shuddered through Shelby, barely a hundred miles into the trip.

They hauled me off and charged me with criminal trespass. Called the nearby border agents. And they told me, being as I’d very clearly overstayed my three-month tourist visa – I’d been there almost two and a half years by then – that I would be on my way home and wouldn’t be allowed back for a minimum of five years.

It wasn’t so bad: a free British Airways flight from Seattle, pissed out of my mind on multiple free booze; and, in any case, I was back in the US just a few months later – OJ was right: back then there simply wasn’t much in the way of linked up computers nor record keeping. I’d flown into Vancouver, decided to take a chance at the border, and the nice officer there, after disappearing with my replacement, differently numbered passport for a good fifteen minutes, had returned with a spanking shining new three-month visa and I was back in the US once more.

I stayed another fifteen months, punctuated and re-legitimised by a couple of trips into Mexico.

It was another groovy, good time. Great friends and great travels. All those people and places I hadn’t seen for such a long time – getting on for eighteen years now.

I’d tried, though – hence the twenty-year ban. I’d flown into Boston back in 2000 – and been shipped back the next day, my five-year ban now doubled.

Airports, I figured, must be more on the ball. So the next year, while on a trip to Canada, I headed once more down to that familiar border south of Vancouver where I’d had my earlier success – but had no such luck this time, post-9/11. An eight-hour interrogation by American officials. A whole load of hassle getting back into Canada. And my ban doubled once more.

This was 2001. Now it’s 2017. Not that long to go. But the itch growing too strong to wait. And the urge for adventure, for doing something outrageous, much more appealing than boring old bureaucracy and shelling out money and waiting in lines and doing what I’m told.

Also, a year ago I’d told a bunch of American friends that, in the completely unlikely scenario that mad-headed Donald Trump would be getting into power, I’d definitely 100% do it, just to piss him off, knowing how much he hates illegals and wants to keep those borders tight.

A flip comment. And no way a supposedly developed nation could contain enough dumb bastard people to vote in a lunatic like that. But they did. And not that I was on that plane to fulfil an off-the-cuff promise to do something crazy because of Trump – and yet…my own urges, that Trump idea, and now OJ and all the visions and dreams…it was all adding up to something I could only describe as “meant to be”.

‘Trump’, by the way, means ‘fart’ where I come from. As in: ‘to trump’ (verb) or ‘did you do a trump?’ (noun) or ‘it smelled like someone had trumped’ (past participle) (I think; never was much good at grammar).

That always makes me chuckle, and I think it’s a shame more people aren’t aware of the true meaning of his name – as it’s also a shame that he isn’t called Peter, like the rabbit, rather than Donald, like the duck.

‘Peter’, you see, is the French verb meaning ‘to fart’.

And, as if by magic – or, rather, so I can manufacture something of a segue – right there in that slowly shambling queue of weary travellers full of airplane food and airplane movies (both of which I love) I felt my arse cheeks parting and a steady gasp of air gently making its way into the outside world, innocent and fresh as a new born babe.

I shuffled away from it. I looked around and wrinkled my nose. I did my best impression of a man who had picked up the scent of another man’s fart and was trying to figure out where it had come from, grimacing disapprovingly that someone would have the audacity and lack of shame to release such a stink in such tight and public quarters.

Raisins, it smelled of. Chewed up raisins and curry. Which was about right, I figured, given I’d eaten half a kilo of Sainsbury’s Basics raisins that morning, and enjoyed a lovely piping hot microwaved airplane vegetarian lentil curry on the flight.

I wondered if it would still be there, lingering and waiting for me, when the queue snaked back around.

It was.

Oh, those poor people! Did any of them suspect? Did any of them know it was me?

But, how could they? There were hundreds of us: it could have been anybody’s anus hole that had opened and squeaked its mystery into existence.

“Trump,” it had said – and then moved on, leaving behind its stink, for the rest of the world to inhale.

I approached a lady sitting in her little immigration booth. She was small, but hot: something about all that uniform and padding and weapons that really does it for me.

The hottest women in the world, of course, are Israeli women soldiers: their ill-fitting pea green uniforms still unable to disguise the loveliness of shapely young bodies; groups of them hanging out at bus stations ready for their weekend leave, masses of lovely Jewish hair flowing like the Jordan; a latté in one hand, a mobile in the other – and, strung across their backs, casual as you like, a massive, beefy submachine gun, all black and oiled and dripping with potential. She stands there laughing and chatting with her friends. She seems so beautiful and sweet. But you just know that she could kick your ass any time she felt like it: throw you like a ragdoll to the ground and stamp her heavy Israeli boot across your throat. Then she’d point that gun in your face – shove its nozzle in your mouth, even – and, uttering guttural Hebrew indecipherables that may well be threats, may well be pleasantries – it’s impossible to tell – give you the biggest boner of your life.

Hot, I tells ya. Incomprehensibly lovely.

But that’s Israel, and that’s a whole other story. This is North America, where immigration officials are generally considered the most unpleasant people on earth, and you’d better tread carefully, lest you find yourself deported, as I invariably do.

She takes my passport and places it facedown on her little scanner. I would give anything to know what information is flashing up on her screen, find out what I need to lie about, where I can be truthful.

“Purpose of visit?” she says.

Probably this is one of the places where I need to tell some lies: probably it’s not so smart to tell her I’ve come to Canada so I can break into America and go visit OJ Simpson because he wants me to write a book about how he and George Bush and some space lizards and Martha Stewart masterminded the whole shebang of 9/11.

Or – who knows? – maybe it is one of those places where honesty is the best policy. Maybe it’ll be like one of those moments in the movies where the cornered protagonist is forced to blurt out the truth and the truth is so ridiculous that all the baddies just laugh and send them on their way.

“Yeah, right,” she’ll say, “good one” – and stamp me in. She’ll wipe a tear from her eye and seek to compose her chortles just in time to pretend to be badass for the next person in line, which won’t be quite quickly enough – which will then cause that person to think they can make a joke, mistakenly, and that’ll lead to them getting into a whole host of shit, deported or jailed or maybe even tasered and left writhing on the floor in having multiple heart attacks and then dead, all because an immigration official for one moment failed to suppress her smile.

Such are the fine lines, the seemingly inconsequential moments of decision, between life and death.

I think better of it. I tell her I’m there to visit some friends, see a bit of the country.

“Can I see your return ticket?” she says.

I reach into my back pocket. I’m all prepared. Those twenty-four hours between buying the flight and getting on board have allowed me to get up to all kinds of innocent deviousness: for when you’ve travelled as much as I have, in the way that I have, you’ve learned a few tricks.

Number one, they like you to have a ticket out of their country. Not only do they not want you staying and, I don’t know, picking fruit or something, but they also don’t understand the idea of freewheeling, of making it up as you go. They, like most people, live in a world of concrete plans and dates that are fixed well into the future. They can’t conceive of a man like me, who lives one day at a time, just like their beloved spiritual leaders long ago told them to do.

I’d go into a travel agents – well, back in the day when I used to go into a travel agents, before I forgot that it was possible to buy things from another human being, face-to-face, rather than clickety-click on a machine – and I wouldn’t know what to say when they asked me the question, “and when do you want to come back?”

What I really wanted to say was: “How should I know? I haven’t even gotten there yet. I don’t know if I’ll like it. I don’t know who I’ll meet, what opportunities might arise. What if I meet the woman of my dreams and want to marry her? What if I get offered a job? What if I bump into someone I hit it off with and decide to go with them to a neighbouring country? Or what if I’m impossibly bored and immediately realise that I’d rather be home in my own comfortable English bed watching the cricket and sipping tea with my pinky raised and godblessing the queen?”

Oh, for the day when we live in a world where you can just rock up to an airport – or a train station, even – and buy a one-way ticket to where you want to go, and it isn’t a three times as expensive as buying one a month in advance, and I’d never have to plan ahead ever again.

But, then again, I don’t do so bad, what with miracle tickets like this one: it does seem that, whenever I need to be somewhere, the ticket is there waiting for me.

Plus, there are always ways around it.

I pull out a piece of paper. It’s a real genuine paid-for airplane ticket for an Air Canada flight from Vancouver to Mexico City, departing in a month.

It’s got my genuine name on it. There’s nothing bogus about it. It’s not like one of those photoshopped tickets I sometimes knock up for the megabus, when I’ve left it too long to buy one for a reasonable price.

She checks it out. She’s satisfied by it, and so she should be: like I say, it’s absolutely legit.

But, at the same time, there’s no way I’ll be getting on that plane. You see…

Here’s what you do: Canada wants to see a return flight, but you don’t want to buy one. Except there’s a loophole: for, in Canadian law, you can 100% refund any plane ticket within 24 hours of purchase. So, the morning of your flight, you buy your ticket outta there. It doesn’t matter how much it costs, nor where it’s to – hell, buy a first class ticket to Monte Carlo if you want to feel momentarily Rockefeller – ‘cos you’ll be getting all your money back anyway. Then you land. Then you show it to them and they accept it. Then, when you’re through the other side, you cancel it and – voila – you’re in the nation, on a one-way, free from any obligation to be anywhere in particular on any particular date, when you might much rather be some place else. Just as it should be.

Number two, they sometimes want to see how much cash you have – just to ensure that, once again, you won’t be scampering off straight from the airport to a fruit farm somewhere to earn minimal wage putting peaches into barrels and keeping the economy afloat. So, also in my back pocket, I’ve got a nice printout of my very healthy bank statement, which shows that I’m a moderately well-off white guy just here on a trip to visit his friends and no danger to the fruit-picking industry whatsoever.

Only thing is, it’s totally bogus: after buying this plane ticket out here, I’ve only around three hundred dollars (US) in the bank. But I’m good with photoshop. And it’s easy cutting and pasting numbers, moving a few digits here and there, cranking up the balance till it’s enough to satisfy one of them there ‘normal human beings’ who can’t conceive of being in a foreign country and living on less than a hundred bucks a day with all your hotels and excursions lined up, and a big giant safety net woven from money ready to catch you should anything go amiss.

Those things – thanks to my hitch-hiking youth spent sleeping by the side of the road and existing for months purely on faith and trust and the kindness of strangers – aren’t a problem for me. I’m lucky in some ways. And unlucky in others.

But that, like what happened to me in Israel with those gorgeous Israeli women soldiers, is a whole other story.

“Enjoy your stay,” she says, her eyes already moving onto the person behind me.

Is it just my imagination, or is he grimacing, scrunching up his nose, looking for all the world like a man who’s been walking – nay, wading – through a cloud of invisible brown-green gas these past ten minutes?

Have I been silently trumping more, and not noticing, so focused was I on this final barrier into the great, grand nation?

I stop for a moment and take a whiff. Glance at the guy now standing in front of my tiny lovely woman, and at the people standing behind him.

And, judging by the looks on their faces, it seems that I have.

A vision

You might think I’d have been more surprised, asked a few questions about OJ’s suggestions – or chucked it right out the window – but, truth is, I’d been expecting it. The past four or five years I’d had this growing, insistent hankering for getting back to America, and rich girl whose uncle works in immigration fantasies aside, I’d figured a hike across a trans-border wilderness would be the way to go.

I’d been researching it. I’d been reading of people who had tried and failed; gotten an insight into the technology they were using (helicopters, infrared and laser sensors, triggers in the ground, drones and planes, border guards on horseback, cameras in trees, etc); and scoured satellite images of forests and mountains that straddled that imaginary line along the 49th parallel.

It wasn’t going to be easy. All the stories, naturally, were of people who had been caught – drug smugglers, immigrants, criminals, all further increasing security – not people who had made it and who had rushed online to advertise the route they’d taken and tell others, “go here, this is the one, you can just waltz right in.”

I couldn’t help but smile at the irony: that it was 9/11 that had caused all this American border paranoia, and now here I was, at the behest of the man behind the whole thing, needing to circumvent all these increased measures in order to arrive at the truth of that day.

I had thought, in all those weeks and months of research, and in my simple boyish longing for adventure, that it was nothing more than a desire for old friends, and to see once again places that had been important in my youth, that was driving my irrational quest to break into America. Each of the past five summers I had put it on the table before me – “do it; do the mad thing,” I’d tell myself, “you don’t want to be on your deathbed not having done it, for the sake of security and not taking a risk, just choosing the safe option like everybody else” – and every year something would stop me. A job offer or a bad dream. A lost passport or a weird ‘sign’ from some passing stranger in the street – seriously, two years before, when I was thinking of it stronger than ever, some drunk guy near Peckham had screamed in my face, “try it, lad, and you’ll end up in jail: you don’t fuck with America” – and so I’d let it slide, all the time thinking (and hoping) that there would be a right time and that right time would reveal itself to me.

Well, I figured, I guess the time was now.

Though after so many previous occasions when I’d felt it was the right time, I tried not to rush into it. Resolved to sleep on it. Left myself open to mysterious stinky tramps screaming the answer to my future on random streets in the middle of the day.

In the event, the answer came in a much more pleasant way than that.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m one of those guys who has visions and dreams. Maybe you picked up on that, the way I didn’t freak out when I had that vision in the sky during OJ’s first phone call, that he somehow weirdly knew about, and was maybe even directing (I’ll tell you more about it later).

Thing is – maybe it’s a bit odd to be talking about this – whenever I’m about to do something potentially life-changing, or desperately need an answer to a question, some clue as to how to make a decision, I either have a dream or, on rarer occasions, a full blown genuine real ‘vision’.

It’s pretty groovy, to be honest: I fair loves ‘em. And many is the morning when I wake up disappointed at just having had ‘standard dreams’, when I’d figured something special was a-brewin’.

But, whenever I need ‘em, they come: and this time was no exception.

I slept early that night, and was sleeping good, when I was suddenly awakened at around 5am.

I opened my eyes. I was in my room – could see the outline of the bedroom furniture, a little crack of dawn’s early light shining around the curtains, and my covers, the pillow, my hands – but I could also see…something else. I was, at the same time, elsewhere. It was as though another reality was being superimposed over my usual surroundings.

I closed my eyes. The ‘superimposed reality’ became everything. I was in it as realistically as I am sitting here now typing at this computer.

I was sort of floating around a town, a disembodied spirit, gently swooping down streets, turning corners, following roads.

Everything was in perfect detail. The cars, the hedges and fences around the houses, the trees and lawns and mail boxes.

It wasn’t England, that was for sure: it was North America.

I opened my eyes. Once again, I could see both realities. I was entirely conscious of being a body in a cosy bed in Leeds, and also of being a man who was right smack bang in the middle of a real, genuine vision. One that seemed useful. One that seemed like it might be an answer to the question of whether I should embark on this mad scheme to break into America or not.

I closed my eyes again. I went deeper into it, satisfied that I knew what was going on, that this weren’t no mere hallucination or waking dream or hypnagogic state.

I carried on floating down streets, investigating my surroundings, looking more closely at things.

I could zoom right in on the fences and the houses. See chips in paint, screw heads in numbers on doors.

It was pretty ecstatic, the feeling of it: to be consciously aware of what was going on, and to be that disembodied spirit so calmly and casually cruising around this other reality.

After a little while I thought to ask a question: okay, I’m in North America – but where exactly?

A few seconds later, I turned a corner. Went past a few buildings. And saw in front of a whole bunch of flagpoles, with flags fluttering atop them.

The flags were Canadian. There were four tall ones in the middle of a circle of around a dozen smaller flagpoles.

I had my answer. I knew in that instant I would be buying a ticket to Canada, and soon.

Like, as soon as I woke up.

I opened my eyes. I felt incredibly happy.

I went back to sleep.

And when I awoke again, some three hours later, I got immediately online, noticed a weirdly cheap one-way ticket to Vancouver, departing the next day – really, honestly, bizarrely cheap given that it was the middle of summer and I was flying at such short notice – and it was as simple as: click, click, buy.

OJ has a suggestion

“It wasn’t always supposed to be what it turned out to be,” said OJ. “Right in the beginning, when I first had the idea, all I really wanted to do was to destroy those documents. Back then, of course, there wasn’t much in the way of computers, no internet. Companies kept everything on paper. If a man owed several million dollars in tax debt, for example, the only record of that would probably be in just one or two files, stored in one drawer of an office. Perhaps in some cases they might have made a copy, but that was the exception rather than the rule. If you could get at those documents, somehow make them disappear, then – whoosh! – your debt would disappear too.

“So my first plan was something a little more ‘small scale’. Maybe assemble a team of crack commandos who had been incarcerated for a crime they didn’t commit. I figured they could go into the office undercover, maybe as post-boys, coffee slaves, or something, and one could get at the files while the others created a diversion by hanging from a window, starting a fire, or maybe shooting up the water cooler. I dunno: I guess I just let my imagination run away with me. Next thing I knew I was envisioning Arabs, airplanes, secret CIA plots, and the whole building in rubble.

“Somewhere in that pile of rubble would be my documents – hopefully shredded and singed beyond repair – and the image of it fair made my lips get licked, to think of that weight off my mind.

“You ever been in debt?” he said. “It’s awful. It’ll drive a man to extremes. I did what I had to do. I guess I’ve always done what I had to do. That’s what made me the greatest running back the NFL has ever seen. First player to rush two thousand yards in a season. Highest average yards per game. You gots to do what you gots to do in this world. There ain’t no crime in that.”

“What about the rumours,” I said, “that they were also storing all the documents and evidence relating to that, uh, court case you were involved in back in ’94? You remember?”

“Sure I remember,” he said, “hard to forget a thing like that, no matter how much you try. You think being a few million dollars in debt is tough – try being on the stand for something you hadn’t done, with some bitch lawyer looking to nail you to her cross and have you burn. But the glove didn’t fit, man – and that’s the whole case right there. No way I could’ve done it: they tried to stick it on me and the damn thing didn’t fit: it barely even went over my fingers. Idiots,” he chuckled, “trying to stick that glove on me, right there in court. But the whole world saw: I ain’t no small-handed motherfucker, like Trump.”

OJ was silent for a while. He’d been getting himself riled up with talk of his debts and the murders he’d so astonishingly been found innocent of. Now he tried to calm himself down.

“Listen,” he said quietly, almost whispering, “don’t you ever wonder…if the glove didn’t fit me, and would only fit a guy with smaller hands, then where is that guy? Who was it who actually did the crime?

“One thing you got to ask yourself is: where was Trump the night of those murders? How would the glove have fitted him, if they’d had him on the stand, as I tried to get Cochran to do?

“But it was all a plot, man: these things go deeper than even I know, and I’m in pretty deep. At least, I think I am, the shit I’m gonna tell you. CIA. Alien reptilians. The goddamn queen of England. And Osama bin Laden? That motherfucker weren’t no Saudi prince or whatever they said he was: nigger was a goddamn ROBOT.

“Why’d you think it took them so long to kill him? I’ll tells you why: there were like SEVEN of him, all the goddamn same. You ever seen Stingray or Captain Scarlet or goddamn Thunderbirds? You watch an episode of that where they’ve got some dancin’ little Arab puppet playing the bad guy and tell me you don’t see a resemblance. The clues are right there in your face: they love to do that, to make a mockery of people. Gives them a kick, stickin’ references in TV shows and movies where anyone can see them: you just gotta watch a few Disney films to know what I’m talking about. And, believe me, I seen ‘em ALL.”

“But listen,” he said, growing quiet again, “I’m saying too much. I gots to get this off my chest, wipe the slate clean before I face my Lord – but I get the feeling the phone’s not the best place to do it. They probably got this thing bugged. Probably listening to every word we say. I shouldn’t have called you in the first place: I’m sorry, bro, but your life’s most likely in danger. CIA are motherfuckers, believe me: if they can knock down JFK like that, what are they gonna do to a nobody like you?

“I mean, I know I’m safe – I’m The Juice! And any CIA guy wants to take out The Juice he’s gonna have a riot on his hands. They wouldn’t even dream of it: the whole country’d be in flames – but for somebody like you…who’s gonna notice when you’re gone? Who’s gonna raise a stink? Who’s gonna bring attention to the fact that it weren’t no ‘natural causes’, that you got two damn bullet holes in the back of your head.

“Listen,” he says, “I got an idea. I think you should come out here. Come visit me and we’ll do some talking face to face. By the time I get out of here – just eight sweet weeks – probably you’ll have the whole book done and dusted and we’ll be ready to go into print. Then you can come stay at mine. I got a sweet crib, man. Pool, chandeliers, a twelve-foot tall statue of me in the garden. Bar stocking anything you want. Bitches and hos left right and center, suckin’ on whatever hole you tell ‘em to. You’ll love it.”

“Ah,” I said, “there might be a problem with that.”

“Say what?” he shouted. “Don’t you be holding out on OJ. Why the fuck not? What, you don’t like bitches? You don’t wanna stay in no palace, ungrateful motherfucker?”

“It ain’t that,” I said – and then corrected myself. “It’s not that,” I said, “it’s that…I’m not actually allowed into America. I got banned, back when I was in my early-twenties. Got deported, like three times, and they banned me for twenty years. Still got three years left till it’s cleared. And even then, I don’t know if I’ll get in.”

“Ho ho ho,” said OJ, chuckling away, “you one bad motherfucker. What did you do? Punch some bitch in the face? Rob a liquor store?”

“OJ,” I said, “can you do me a favour?”

“Sure, man: you name it.”

“Can you stop saying the word ‘bitch’. I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel good.”

“Bro,” he said, and then he went quiet. I could hear him breathing. And then maybe sobbing a little.

He sniffed.

“You’re right, man; I’m sorry. I just…I been watching too many TV shows and movies where homeboys be talking like that, be saying ‘bitch’ and ‘nigger’ and shit. I guess it sort of leeched into me, and particularly today: I like totally binge-watched the entire first series of The Wire.

“The other thing,” he said, sniffing a little, “is…I just miss her, you know. I wish she was still here. That I could see her again. And I guess not having her around makes me weirdly angry, and I take it out on womenfolk in general, and that’s not fair.”

“Nicole?” I said.

“Who?” he said.

“Your ex-wife,” I said, “the one you…were married to.”

“Shit,” he said, “not her. Fuck her. I’m glad she’s…but, no, not her: my mom. I miss her. I only ever wanted her to notice me, to make her proud. And she was proud, I know. Even in my down times, the times I went wrong, she was still proud of me. But…I dunno: I just wanted more. She wasn’t there enough, you know? I can’t even explain it. But I guess I been acting that out with women all my life.”

He went quiet again. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. Seemed like the right thing to do, to just leave a bit of space there. Let him ponder. Let him let the words he had spoken sink in a little, settle in his brain.

Seemed like there might be something of a realisation there; a breakthrough, even, if he could only –

“In any case,” he said, “fuck that shit. It’s just a word, man, and if you got a problem with that word – with any word – then it’s you you need to be looking at, not me. Words don’t mean anything, right? Apart from in the head of the listener – and the way you respond to them is your responsibility, ya feel me? If you want to react, that’s your choice. But there ain’t no inherent feeling in words, it’s just your conditioning that makes you react so. So man up; you know what I’m saying?”

“But it does feel bad,” I said, “and certain words do grate, do seem loaded with a certain vibration, or, at least, to express something of the mind or the sentiment of the speaker, and that does sometimes feel unpleasant, in the ears and the being of the listener – ie, me.”

“Like ‘fuck’, for example?”

“Yeah, I’d say that’s true. Sometimes I hear someone saying that word over and over and it’s like being jabbed in the ribs, like a little dagger in the brain.”

“Okay,” he says, “but what about when you hear someone say ‘fuck’ in some other language? In goddamn French or Spanish or something? Whadda they say? ‘Puta’? ‘Merde’? ‘Pinchi’ something or other? Does that ‘feel bad’? Or does it…well, here’s what it does for me: it makes me laugh. Seems like some child’s word. Literally don’t mean a thing.”

I thought about this. It seemed like he had a point. To hear people swearing in another language…he was right! There weren’t no ‘bad vibrations’. It just made me giggle.

And yet…there does seem something there when I hear some guy effin’ and jeffin’ in English. Particularly “bitch” and “cunt” and “fuck”.

I needed some more time to think about this.

Also, I thought we might be getting slightly off topic.

“But, hey,” said OJ, chuckling again, “if you don’t like it, I’ll try and keep it to a minimum. I want us to get on, you know? You seem like an okay guy. I’d like it if we could be friends. I can’t promise I won’t never say no ‘bitch’ again – but I’ll do my best. Fair?”

“Fair,” I said.

He was surprising me. He was full of surprises.

And I wondered what it said about me that I was more surprised that OJ Simpson had made me rethink a long held belief I’d had about communication and language, and that I’d seen him demonstrate some sensitivity with regard to human interaction, than the fact that he was actually, genuinely the mastermind behind the destruction of the World Trade Center.

“So what was I saying?” said OJ. “Something about…oh yeah, so the thing is, some time in about 1997 they moved a bunch of those court records over to WTC7, and that complicated matters somewhat. Also…”

“Why didn’t you just get someone to go in there and destroy those particular records?” I said.

“What?”

“Rather than having this incredibly complex scheme to destroy the entire World Trade Center, involving aeroplanes and terrorists and secret government plots and space lizards, why didn’t you just get someone to go in and, I dunno, one night maybe just steal the records and be done with it. Sort of like Watergate. But better.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said OJ, “I hear ya, and I thought of that, but…well, as you said, that sort of thing didn’t go so well for Nixon, did it? And, more than that, even, things started to snowball somewhat once George got involved. It weren’t just about my documents anymore. We were gonna kill all kinds of birds with them two stones – slash – planes. George took my original scheme and made it into something else. Something that was supposed to not just get rid of my debts, but bring in a whole load of money. Enough that I’d never have to do an after dinner speech or armed robbery ever again.”

“George Bush?” I said. “W or Senior?”

“Sh,” he said, “let’s just leave it at that. But, listen. I’m gonna work on that little deportation problem of yours. I’ll talk to some people. I wanna get you over here And soon.

“Leave it to OJ, man,” he said, “Orenthal James’ll fix it for you.”

He put the phone down. Or, rather, he touched the place on the screen that ends the call.

No one puts the phone down anymore, do they? All that would do would leave the other person able to hear what they did next, what they said.

Probably bad mouth the person they’d just been talking to. Or fart or something; maybe sing a silly song, out of tune, or talk to themselves.

“La-di-da-di-da” – that sort of thing.

An hour later, OJ rang back.

“I got it fixed,” he said – and now this was exciting news. After all these years of being banned from the US, of fantasising about meeting some rich girl, some lawyer, some official with their fingers in all the pies who would pull some strings, throw some money at the issue, and have me once more able to waltz through an American airport without skulking afraid like the dog what’s shit in his master’s slippers, my passport all gleaming and new, and a visa granting me ‘access all areas’ ‘cos, friends in high places, and enough money, you can make any problem disappear.

God bless you OJ!

“Are you ready?” he said. “Here’s what you’re gonna do. Number one, get a flight to Canada: Vancouver or somewhere out west. Two: make your way to the mountains. Three: walk through the mountains over the border and my man AC’ll be there the other side in my Bronco to pick you up. Then he’ll drive you down here to Nevada and bring you out to see me. He’ll have a room booked for you at the Lovelock Inn. They got free wifi, free donuts and brownies for breakfast. You can stay there a month or so – we’ve arranged a special rate – but after that…well,” he said, “funds only stretch so far.”

“But don’t worry about money,” he said, “I got plenty more on its way. I just need to…free up a few loose ends.”

“Don’t you mean ‘tie up’?” I said.

“Tie up. Yeah. Tie up some obstructions and get the cash flow a-flowin’ once more.

“That sound good to you?”

“Walking through the mountains across the US border?”

“Right,” he said.

“Sure,” I sighed. “Why not?”

OJ calls again

I had a strange, strong dream this morning. I was back in Baja with some old acquaintances and friends. We were hanging out and I was telling them the story of the time I ate mushrooms in 2014, right down to the detail of when I felt, during the beginning stage of the trip, that the mushrooms were instructing me to “let go of concepts, and even the concept of concepts; let go of ideas, and even the idea of ideas.” People were into it, and as a result the main man started heading to take over and reassert his authority. He never did like it when people listened to me rather than him.

Still, I didn’t mind: I was back in the vicinity, and that was the main thing.

“Back where I belong,” I said in the dream.

And in the real world, I woke up, and smilingly pondered, and wondered what it meant.

And then I noticed I’d woken up because the dog had come into my room.

“Good morning,” I said.

It was 5 a.m., and sort of weird, because the dog never, ever comes into my room, and actually I don’t think he even comes upstairs; probably he’s been trained to think he’s not allowed.

I thought maybe he was having some sort of toilet emergency, but he showed no interest in being let out when I went and opened the front door for him.

My brain being what it is, it naturally considered the possibility that the dog had entered the room to wake me up and ensure that I remembered the dream.

Maybe it was a sign. An instruction for where to venture next. The sort of thing I’m always hankering for.

We’ll see.

Also, in case you’re wondering: the above is all real – actually happened in the real world (the world you and I spend most of our time in) – and isn’t one of those made up scenarios I frequently post, that not everyone can tell is made up, much to my – and other people’s – bemusement.

When I woke up again, a couple of hours later, the phone was ringing.

“It’s OJ,” the by-now familiar voice said, “how’s it going?”

“It’s seven in the morning,” I said, “I was asleep.”

“Have you got anything?” he said. “I’m keen to get this thing going. I been buzzed about it ever since our last phone call. I can’t think of anything else.”

(I forgot to mention it, but we talked again about five days ago, and got started with the whole ghost writing project.)

“Okay,” I said, “hold on.”

I reached over for my computer, turned it on, threw my phone on the pillow, and went for a piss.

I didn’t bother getting dressed because I figured no one else would be up, and I was right.

The piss was a good one. Very satisfying. Remarkably clear.

Probably ‘cos of all the tea I’d been drinking the night before.

I flushed the toilet and thought about washing my hands. But then I thought, nah, waste of time – and no point, since I’d managed not to piss on them anyways, like the good boy that I am.

I just rubbed them on my arse and thighs, just in case, and got back into bed.

“You still there?” I said, tipping a mouthful of Bombay Mix into my mouth, and crunching it loudly down the phone.

“Goddamn,” said OJ, “what the hell is that?”

“Ongay Miffs,” I said, trying to swallow the spicy dry paste I had created.

“S’gone now,” I said, reaching once more for the bag, and then thinking better of it.

“You one strange cat,” OJ said.

“Yeah,” I said, “but at least I never…okay, here it is. You ready?”

“Go ahead,” he said.

“Ahem. Okay. ‘The mid-nineties were a bad time for me: there was a stretch there where, if something could go wrong, it did. I was short on dough. My car kept breaking down. They stuffed me with a Razzy for Naked Gun 3. They cancelled my favourite TV show, 'The Cosby Mysteries'. And the Bills kept getting beaten in the Super Bowl. Plus, my cat, Johnny Rotten, had to have his face amputated due to feline herpes.

‘The veterinary bills were astronomical: it was about the final straw. I tells ya, ‘round that time, if I’d fallen into a vat of prostitutes, I’d have come up sucking my thumb; that’s how bad my luck was in those days.

‘But, more than anything, it was the cash that was giving me headaches: I knew if only I had a few million dollars all my problems would be solved.

‘I racked my brains. I thought and I thought until steam literally blasted out of my ears. Then, one morning, while I was waiting for a Pop Tart to pop from a Dualit toaster my ex-wife had bought me for Christmas, it came: all I had to do was orchestrate the demolition of New York’s World Trade Center in such a way as to fool the unsuspecting public into believing terrible Arabs had done it and, due to the destruction of certain incriminating documents, plus canny investments I had made and information I would sell, I would be minted once again.

‘I knew instantly that I had found my solution. It was a genius idea. A moment of pure, God-given inspiration. But I also knew that pulling it off wouldn’t be as easy as it sounded.

‘This is the story of how I, Orthaniel Jane Simpson – aka, ‘The OJ’; aka, ‘The Juice’ (along with a little help from my friends) masterminded the biggest coup of the century: a scheme so audacious in its ambition and enormity, the world hasn’t stopped talking about it since.

‘This is the true story of the real mastermind behind 9/11.’”

I stopped there. I yawned. I felt my eyelids growing heavy and starting to close.

That always happens, when I listen to the sound of my own voice for any length of time.

“Go on,” said OJ, jerking me awake.

“That’s it,” I said. “That’s all I’ve got so far.”

“Humph,” he said, “I was hoping we’d have more than that by now.”

“I’ve been busy,” I said (I was lying; I'd mostly been watching skateboarding dog videos). “So what do you think?”

“Not bad,” he said. “Could use a little work, a little polishing.”

“Also,” he said, “my name’s not ‘Orthaniel’. And my middle name sure as shit ain't ‘Jane’.”

“Oops,” I said, “typo,” and laughed.

How had I not noticed that? How had I not noticed it, even when reading it?

Jane’s not a man’s name. Not even in America.

The brain’s a funny old thing sometimes.

“Still,” he said, “it’s…it’s not bad. It’s quite exciting. Gets me geed up for what’s to follow. Whatcha thinking next?”

“Oh, you know: a bit of back story, a bit of setting the scene. What you want is to get the reader on your side, get them to understand why you did what you did. It’s good if the main character is likeable.”

“Of course I’m likeable,” he shouted. “I’m The Juice! Everybody loves The Juice. America still loves The Juice. You should see the mail I get. Some of the pictures I get sent. Some of those honeys, man: girls younger than you’ll ever get. Spreading their legs. Showing me their panties. I’m gonna get me some serious poontang when I get outta here. Nine years of fuckin’ men’s asses! You better believe I’m ready to fuck some girl’s asses, aiii!”

I yawned again. Wondered how long this was going to go on for. Wondered if…

“Anyways,” he said, “it ain’t bad, but it needs work. It needs more pizzazz. Cut to the chase, you know. Start with the planes smashing into the buildings. Wham! Wham! Everybody knows that’s what’s coming: they’ll only be thinking about it, hankering after it, so get it out there nice and early.”

“Wham!” he said again. “Wham!”

“I dunno,” I said, “but…hey, I know we were going to talk about this later, but let me ask you about it now, since…I know what you mean: I can’t stop thinking about it either.”

“Thinking about what?”

“Well,” I said, “What was it? How’d you do it? You see all these theories about whether the planes were real, whether they were CGI, whether they had missiles, whether they were holograms, really piloted by Arabs, had passengers on them, whether explosives were already in the buildings, and all that…what’s the truth? It just don’t make no sense.”

OJ chuckled. Then laughed louder. Then laughed, like, REAL LOUD, until he was sort of howling, shrieking, whooping it up big style down the other end of the phone.

I could hear him echoing all 'round his cell, then all around the prison. Hear other prisoners sleepily and angrily yelling at him to shut the fuck up.

But he just kept right on laughing.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh boy.”

He was still chuckling softly to himself, and I pictured him wiping a tear from his eye.

“What if I told you,” he said, “what if I told you it was…ALL OF THE ABOVE. What would you say to that?”

Silence. Silence on my end of the phone, and silence on his.

I furrowed my brow. Tried to get my head around how that could possibly be.

“And don’t forget the chemtrails those planes were carrying,” he said. “You can’t imagine the stuff we put in them.”

Fuck me, I thought, this is getting sillier by the second. Next he’ll be telling me the lizard people were in on it.

“Plus,” he said – and I don’t even need to tell you what he said next.