Double trouble travelling Route 66

I ‘recognised’ him when he walked into the coffee shop. A somebody. But I struggled to place him.

We were in St Louis, just a few days into driving Route 66 with my friend Clare, east to west, Chicago to LA, many miles under our (seat) belt, having devoured pancakes and double shot coffees to fuel the mileage ahead.

Music was what kept us going during the long drives, one of the things we bonded over most. That and talking about doing a road trip across America one day. I never thought we would, that it would always be out of reach, but then I quit my job and Clare her plan to marry.

Driving to St Louis from Springfield we’d done what we did every day before and every day after: played the hell outta some kick-ass tunes. We’d spent yesterday listening to my music compilation. Technically, it was Clare’s turn, but driving misdemeanours meant you forfeited a day. Driving across a junction a day earlier she’d almost killed us; well, it was me a couple a feet closer to the oncoming cadillac (I’ve no idea if it was a caddy, but hey, we’re in America for this tale, so let’s ride with it). I’d go on to nearly knock a cyclist off the cliff edge driving Big Sur weeks later by ‘about an inch’ (her measurement). I'm not sure which of us exaggerated the most. Driving to St Louis, it was The National, The Gaslight Anthem, Bruce 'The Boss' and any number of awesome musicians who made up my soundtrack to this particular part of Route 66.

Getting as far as the iconic road nearly never happened. For me, at least. I’m gonna take a detour off the track of my main story, go down a side road if you like, to tell y’all about something stupid I did before the other stupid thing I'm writing about. A prologue. A passport prologue. Kinda funny now. Anything but back then. And, as for wincing, slash panicking about, whenever I think of it; I’ll tell it, then you decide how you'd react.

You hear stories, don’t ya? About someone losing their passport, or it being stolen, and you think, that’ll never happen to me. I’m one of those people who thought that and who it happened to. Twice! In just one month. Yes, seriosuly. Just look after the damn thing, it’s not hard I'd have said to them. Especially if, like me, you keep it in one place, a sacred spot it’ll never disappear from. No, not there, that would be uncomfortable, and unhygienic.

My mum gave me a small tanned zip folder from the time she went to Australia, a keepsake. Its beauty lies in its simple design: a kangaroo and boomerang on the front, but mainly because of who it’s from of course. It’s where I keep important stuff and where I went to on the day Clare asked me to send her my passport number so she could book our flight tickets. I do a lot of admin-type stuff from my sofa, in front of the TV, so I sat there and typed the number to her. Yes, men can multi-task. When we want to. Now, to cut this particular (soon to induce off-the-scale panic) story short, the day Clare’s due to arrive at mine (I’m in London, she’s in Scotland) I get around to packing, and head for the cupboard and the folder.

Hmmm, strange, it’s not there. On the panic scale we’re at about one at this point. Two when I rifle through my paperwork file on the kitchen table. Three when I go through it a second time. Four when it’s not among any of the ‘stuff’ I somehow accumulate in my apartment and only throw away periodically…Sunday papers, a couple of magazines, unimportant things, quite a small pile at the moment because I chucked a load out lately. Five when I shake out every goddamn one of those papers and realize that a far tinier set of paper sheets glued together, your passport around the world…six…could easily get caught up in this pile…seven…and that you…eight…threw…nine…in the recycling bin…WHEN? Ten…I’m halfway down the stairs at this stage. I live three floors up and descend them faster than Usain bloody Bolt. The minor consolation was that I was arm-deep in the recycling bin and not the bin where anything goes, so at least when I finished my forlorn search without a passport in my hands, they weren’t covered in a loada crap. Clare arrives in five hours; the plane leaves in about twenty.

*

We’re about to leave the St Louis coffee shop when I spotted him.

I grab Clare’s arm and tell her to wait a sec.

Forgotten something?

Yeah. The name of the guy now queuing. From one of my favourite bands, but for the life of me I can’t think which one.

Just go and ask him was not a useful thing for Clare to say when (a) breakfast threatened to come up I was that star struck, and (b) what was just as close to being on the tip of my tongue was his name.

Clare continued with her own approach to being helpful: I had hoped we’d reach Tulsa sometime this week.

I resisted saying we were only 24 hours away; I had no idea if that were true or not. Or which damn band he was in. I know what you’re thinking, call yourself a fan? Cut me some slack. I should know, course I should. I love my music and I love his band, whichever one it was. But his unkempt hair’s covering half his face, he’s wearing de rigueur rock star black, and like I said, I’m a little star struck.

What the hell, I’m gonna go for it.

And don’t.

*

Clare rocks up to my apartment and we turn it upside down desperately searching for the passport, which I know isn’t there on account of me recycling the damn thing. But we do it anyway. And again. I’d spent the afternoon frantically calling the official channels: I could get a replacement passport within two days if, if, my old one had expired and I still had it. Not if some clutz, that's me; not their vernacular, had chucked it in the bin. That would take seven days.

Come the morning, the sick feeling I’ve had nearly 24 hours now isn’t going anywhere fast. Nor am I, but Clare is, and I feel a whole lot sicker waving her off, setting off on my own journey into the unknown: Google. Mission: Find A Way To Get A New Passport Urgently.

I come across a site for The Passport Office. Not the passport office, not the one that would issue me a new one in seven days I didn’t have, but surely with a name like that it could help. I call the number – premium rate of course.

Thirty minutes later and thirty quid or more outta pocket, I’m still hanging on. I hang up soon after, spotting an email address, and fire off a cry for help.

I turn to plan B: filling out a new form ahead of queuing at the proper passport place on Monday morning and begging to get my hands on that magical maroon (this was pre Brexit) document that the next four weeks of my life depended on, faster than seven days. I get new photos taken, get a neighbor to verify they were ‘a reasonable likeness’ – I had aged ten years in two days!

Sunday morning, a miracle: The Passport Office calls in response to my email. For the princely price of three hundred pounds, they’ll collect my application paperwork and send me back a new passport – within two days. Just 48 hours…they had themselves a deal. I ask how they turn it around so fast; it’s a service used by diplomats, VIPs, and in my case a VSP: Very Stupid Person. I'd called myself a lot worse over the past two days. But, for the first time in 48 hours, I allow myself to relax.

*

Gotta be honest, not feeling too relaxed right now about approaching rock star dude. I needn’t be nervous, I could just leave. But what had I got to lose? Your dignity. And you know by now how skilled I am at losing things. There and then I was about to lose my window of opportunity. Coffee ordered, liquefying as rapidly as breakfast threatened to pass through me, he’d moved along the counter closer the exit, scrolling through his phone.

*

Expecting my passport to arrive tomorrow, Tuesday, I phone for a progress report, 24 hours since I spoke to the miracle worker slash life saver at The Passport Office. It’ll be 24 hours until someone picks up at this rate, this very expensive rate, the phone rings and rings…and rings. Too busy making me my shiny new passport? Or simply sitting back so I rack up a bill with as many noughts on as miles I'm away from where I wanna be?

Tuesday, my passport fails to turn up.

Turns out they operate to the same time frame for replying to emails as they do for issuing a passport, or not, in my case. For 48 hours I wait for a reply. On top of lord knows how many emails I’ve sent I can add a new emotion to the mix – to foolishness and panic I’ve got a growing sense of unease.

Several further attempts to call ends in predictable failure; you’d think I’d have learned that particular lesson. And not to keep rebooking my flight until my passport arrives. You can bet the bill for all this will arrive in good time.

Worried about Clare, four days on her own now? Don’t be, she’s settled into the Windy City, while the only turbulence I’m experiencing is worrying WHERE THE HELL MY PASSPORT IS! AND WHO EXACTLY ARE THE PASSPORT OFFICE. Scammers scaling the list I’ve put together in my head, now only behind international terrorists.

*

Inside the coffee shop, it’s now or never. It'll be less weird walking up to him than chasing him down the street. And so I do. Walk up to him that is.

Excuse me.

Well, I am British.

Are you in a band?

I sound so lame.

The Gaslight Anthem?

He smiled.

I relaxed.

Or was it a grimace?

No, I'm not.

Chuffing hell.

I’m in The National.

Double chuffing hell. Of course he was.

I, on the other hand, was an idiot.

I’m so sorry. I am a big fan of both.

And was praying the coffee arrived soon.

*

I didn’t need someone to answer my prayers; I needed The Passport Office to answer my goddamn calls, or at least my many, many emails.

I’ve been scammed; I must have been. Why else were they not responding?

I call my sister. She tells me to call American Express. But no money has been debited from my account, I say. Then call them quick and stop it before it is.

The sweetest operator, I wasn’t crying was I?, asks me if I wanted her to call them.

Only if you want to waste the next hour of your life, I don’t say, so she calls them. Two minutes, yes two, two I tell ya, she’s back.

Someone's in the office, she says.

Doing what: forging passports? Laundering money? For they sure as hell weren’t picking up the phone to me. She says they won’t go into specific applications, but it’s not a scam.

I’d have let out an almighty sigh of relief, lord knows it’s overdue, but until I get my hands on the damn thing, my internal organs will only stay in a state of imminent combustion.

*

They’d combusted in the coffee shop, but hey, I’ve been around, I know how to dig myself out of a hole. History will tell you I’ve had plenty of practice.

I said, Your brother’s in the band, too, right? One of you plays drums.

That would be the other set of brothers in the band. Jeez, Mark! The ones who aren’t twins and, as such, as effing recognisable as Aaron and Bryce Dessner. I was NOT about to guess which one he was. It was Aaron.

In my defence I’d only ever seen him, them, in situ. On stage. Surrounded by the others. Guitar in hand. Or at a keyboard?

Not, at a coffee counter. In the dark, a long way away... it's years since I was brave enough to venture inside the mosh pit.

How to get outta here? What was taking his darn coffee so long?

I asked him what he was doing there.

Grabbing coffee.

He was enjoying this. I wasn’t.

I meant in St Louis.

We’re playing here today.

They were? My desire to leave now driven less by embarrassment and more by...WE MUST BOOK TICKETS!

And with that I said goodbye, said sorry again, and we rushed back to our motel room and my laptop.

*

London, Tuesday morning, four days since I was due to go on my dream trip, I wake and wallow in the ongoing nightmare for a few minutes; it’s not like I’ve got somewhere to be, then open my laptop and check email, more out of routine than expectation that… what the f… Passport application. I click…please, please, pl… Your passport will be with you later this morning. My moment of euphoria’s tempered by a desire to scream: WHY COULD YOU NOT HAVE JUST SAID SO YESTERDAY!

If it were possible to descend the stairs faster than I did the day I rummaged round in the recycling, I reckon I managed it when the bell rang that Tuesday, never sprinting so fast for anything in my life. Nor held something in such reverence as I did my new passport. MY. NEW. PASSPORT. My lovely. New. Passport. I stop short of sleeping with it that night but it’s not far away, zipped inside my case – destined once again for Chicago, baby.

*

Within a week of me and Clare returning via New York, I was filling out another passport application. Yes, really.

I needed a new job, so I met with a recruiter one morning and took my prized passport into town to verify that I was indeed me. Zipped up tight of course, inside my backpack with my clothes for a tea dance later that Friday.

Slightly sweaty and tired from two hours dancing, I turn up late to join my friends at the pub after, throw my bag down by my feet and grab a beer. The chat flows as freely as the drinks and people start to leave, collecting their bags from the bundle on the shelf behind them. I reach for mine. Where the…? It’s bright blue, couldn’t be missed. Nor, you'd think, the toerag who, according to the pub CCTV, sat a few feet behind me on a bar stool and used his outstretched leg to prize my bag away from me.

Fast forward a few hours, circa 3am and I woke with a panic akin to the one I’d had only a few weeks before. My passport! I jump out of bed, more out of desperation than hope, and head for the cupboard and my Aussie folder. As barren then as it was pre-roadtrip.

Half expecting a call from someone in authority – two passport applications in six weeks, the call never came. The passport did, and has served me well since.

Clare and I did get tickets for The National gig. LouFest. So what if my face ended up a bit sunburnt. It couldn’t possibly have been as pink as it was in that coffee shop about 12 hours before.