Friends Like These: My Worldwide Quest to Find My Best Childhood Friends, Knock on Their Doors, and Ask Them to Come Out and Play (37 page)

But instantly, I knew it hadn’t been Ben Ives. Because at that moment, another man walked in. And I could tell, almost just
from his stature, and the way he walked, and the fact that he had just nervously glanced around the bar and spotted me, that
this man was Ben Ives.

I stared straight ahead of me. Then pulled up my paper a little too quickly and pretended to read.

A moment later I heard the soft shuffle of damp and nervous feet.

This was it!

A polite cough from somewhere next to me, and then, quietly, a man’s voice…

“Uh… hi?”

I put my paper down, and looked at him.

For a split second, we were just a man and a giant rabbit, staring at each other in a bar, just as thousands of other men
and giant rabbits were doing at that precise moment, all over the world. Through the mesh of my rabbit eyes, I could see it
was unmistakably Ben. Older. Bigger. But Ben. I paused as I took him in—not a big pause, a tiny pause, a paus
ette
—but it was enough for Ben to lose confidence, and become slightly embarrassed and unsure of himself, like maybe he’d got
the details wrong and he was in the wrong bar with the wrong rabbit…

It was just a flinch of embarrassment, a scrap of a moment brushed across his eyes, but it was enough—enough to remind me
of
my
embarrassment at
his
hands—enough to remind me
I had never got him back
—enough to remind me that
this
was why I was here…

He was still standing there, still looking at me, looking less certain by the microsecond. The hushed word “hi?” hung tight
in the air… I should have put him at his ease. I’d
wanted
to put him at his ease. To stand up, and rip my mask off, and shake his hand, and take my revenge by laughing in his face
and saying, “YES! I AM MANGRIFF THE BEAST WARRIOR!”

But I didn’t.

I didn’t do that.

I just looked at him. Something was forming in my head. An
idea.

He cleared his throat.

“Um… I’m Ben… are you ‘ManGriff’?” he asked.

His eyes tried to find my own, somewhere behind the mask. He looked like a little boy—younger, even, than when I’d known him—and
I crossed my legs and looked him full in the face.

“Am I ManGriff?” I said.

“Yes,” he said, nodding.

I shook my massive head.

“Nope,” I said, and went back to reading my paper.

In some ways, of course, I wish I could have left it at that. That would have been a
real
prank. A
better
prank. To have forced Ben to go to a bar to meet a man who enjoyed dressing up as animals, and then make him think he’d ended
up apparently meeting the
wrong
man who enjoyed dressing up as animals. Part of me wanted to let him walk out the door, and return to his colleagues with
his face a picture of confusion and embarrassment… but I couldn’t. He was there. He was right
there
in front of me.

A moment has passed since I’d said “nope.” All Ben had managed in reply was an “oh.” And then, when it looked like he was
about to turn around and walk away, I let out a small laugh, and I tore off my rabbit head, and I looked at him and I said,
“All right?”

And he looked at me, and he blinked a couple of times, and then a mixture of relief and happiness and annoyance flushed his
face and buckled his knees, and he gave me a hug and he called me a wanker.

T
he homecoming was
superb.
Lizzie and Ian met me at the pub and I talked them through the whole thing.

“I think that’s brilliant,” said Ian. “You taught him a valuable lesson there.”

“It’s a bit of a
strange
lesson,” said Lizzie.

“It’s the type of lesson money can’t buy,” said Ian. “If you accuse someone of having had genital exfoliation, you should
be prepared for them to turn up at a bar fifteen years later dressed as a rabbit.”

“Exactly!” I said. “Exactly!”

“How do you spell ‘genital exfoliation’?” asked Lizzie.

“Shut up! I am an
excellent
speller!” I said. “But check this out!”

I unraveled the T-shirt I’d brought out with me.

Ian and Lizzie stared at it.

“It’s a T-shirt celebrating four years of McDonald’s in Loughborough,” said Ian, flatly.

“Yup!” I said.

I don’t think I need to tell you how proud I was. But they didn’t really say much after that. Sometimes they don’t understand
me like you do.

“So anyway,” said Ian, “how many’s that you’ve met?”

I counted them up.

“With Peter Gibson, who I’ll meet next week, that’s seven in the bag. Plus, I’m in touch with Akira’s family, I’ve written
to every Chris Guirrean in the land, and I’m hoping my letters to Andy are being forwarded on to him, wherever he now lives.”

“Yeah…” said Lizzie. “Ah.”

“Ah?”
I said.

Back at home, there they all were.

Bundled together with a red rubber band. My letters to Andy. Each of them returned, seemingly on the same day. Each of them
with
Not known at this address
written on the front in dark blue biro.

I sighed.

This was a real setback. Just when I thought I was making such progress, with all the pieces starting to fall into place,
I’d taken a large step back.

I’d just kind of assumed that with Loughborough being quite a small town, if Andy was still there, whoever was now living
at his house would have forwarded it on. Or at least known where he was. Given me a clue; a tip-off;
anything.

But no. They’d simply sent them all back.

I was back at square one with him. He didn’t know I was looking for him. Didn’t know I’d been replying to his letters. Didn’t
know the friendship was still there, if only he’d let me find him.

And the disappointing news didn’t stop there.

I’d made myself a cup of tea and logged on. I was momentarily distracted by a bird apparently trying to fight itself in a
tree outside, and when I turned back to the screen, I saw it. An email.

An email from Tom.

Tom, who I’d played football with. Tom, who I’d swapped Action Men with. Tom, who reckoned his dad had invented the Sprite
logo, and who I’d emailed in a fit of excitement, proposing a meeting and demanding an audience.

It was a short email, but it wasn’t sweet.

Hullo. Meeting up would be a bit weird! No thanks mate. Hope your well. Tom.

I stared at it.

In a sense it was quite friendly. He said hello. He called me mate. He said he hoped I was well.

But he was still saying no.

No matter how I read it, no matter how many ways I tried to make it sound better, he was
still
saying
no!

The
bastard!

But… why?

Had I been too forward? Did he always secretly hate me? I remembered lending him 20p so he could buy some Garbage Pail Kid
stickers! I gave him my Koosh ball and we’d talked excitedly about the Chunnel, which no one
ever
calls the Chunnel anymore! For his eleventh birthday, I’d bought him a fanny pack! Fanny packs don’t grow on trees, you know!
They grow in expensive Chinese sweatshops!

I couldn’t work out what I’d done wrong. I went back and checked the email I’d sent him. It seemed
fine.
I wasn’t being over-bearing, or overly keen, or a mad-eyed stalkerish freak… I was just saying it’d be great to see him!
That I’d been revisiting my childhood! That I wanted to update my address book! That we should meet up, hang out, finally
get together! That I’d love to see him! I even said I hoped I wasn’t coming on too strong!

Ah.

Finally get together.

Love to see him.

Coming on too strong.

I suddenly realized that, perhaps, in the cold light of day, and for a man not sharing my mood at the time, this may well
have come across as a missive from someone attempting to realize their childhood crush. And I did
not
have a childhood crush on Tom. If anything, I thought he had a strange walk and weird ears.

But what if he’d read my first-ever Friends Reunited entry? The one I’d been banned for? The one that said I’d been obsessed
with the reader since school and was now standing behind them?

No. I was being paranoid. And anyway, so what if he did think that? I’m a metrosexual. I have a tub of moisturizer I got for
Christmas in 2005. I always make sure my socks basically match.

What if, though, that was stopping him? What if he thought I was…
after
him?

I fired off an email, and tried to sound as casual as I could.

Hi again. Just to let you know, I’m not a gay man who’s trying to come on to you. Not that that would be a bad thing if one
did. You might be gay too. Anyway, I understand if you don’t want to meet. Nice to hear from you.

I pressed Send.

I was disappointed at the brutally short email I’d had back from him. But annoyingly, most of me
did
understand why Tom didn’t want to meet up. Maybe this
was
a bit weird for some people. Maybe I couldn’t expect everyone to react in the same way. But part of me
couldn’t
understand. The part of me that had so enjoyed meeting up again with rappers, and chiefs, and witches. I wanted to know what
Tom was up to. I wanted to hang out, and remember times gone by. I wanted to be his
friend
again.

But Tom hadn’t been on the same journey as me. He was probably very happy as he was. He probably had too
many
friends, and a hugely fulfilling job, and an ever-growing family. The
last
thing he needed was another drain on his time. Some bloke he used to know turning up and wasting his day.

But oh well. Maybe he’d write back, and say, “Oh dear, I do apologize, I just thought it might get awkward if indeed you did
have a crush on me, let’s meet up!”

I’d just have to wait and see. I reread the email I’d just sent to make sure it was all as calm and understanding as I was
beginning to feel again, and it certainly seemed to be… until my eyes stopped on a certain word.

Too.

Too?

I’d written “you might be gay
too.
”

What I’d been trying to do was imply my indifference to sexuality—the fact that he might very well be gay, and that this would
be as normal as the world can be… but somehow I’d managed to suggest that while I would initially
deny
my gayness, I would suddenly imply quite forcefully that I
was
…

I wanted to write to him again. I wanted to write, “When I said you might be gay too, I meant as well as the fictional gay
man coming on to you in the scenario which I outlined in my email, not as well as
me
—not that there would be anything wrong with that—but I am not and probably neither are you—but if you are then well done,
that’s great!”

And then I realized that might well make things worse.

How confused would Tom think I was? And what could I do now?

I decided the best thing I could do was wait.

He probably didn’t think I was gay, anyway.

*   *   *

“Of
course
he thought you were gay!” said Hanne, with her latte in her hand. We were in the café near the radio station she works at.
“You said you wanted to finally get together with him! You asked if you were coming on too strong! I’m surprised more people
haven’t said they can’t meet up with you.”

I thought about Akira. What had I written to him? Had I come on too strong there, too? Why hadn’t
he
replied?

“Anyway,” continued Hanne, “why do you have to
meet
them? If you’d just gone on Facebook, you could have done things more slowly, built something up first…”

“Why do you suddenly love Facebook so much? You’re
obsessed!
”

“I have told you, it is a handy business tool!” she said.

“Yeah, right, you Facebook… face.”

As insults go, it wasn’t brilliant.

“And anyway, that takes all the effort out.”

“And why is that a
bad
thing?” said Hanne, and I had to admit, she had a point. “You wouldn’t have had to go all the way to LA just to dress as
a badger if you’d done things on Facebook.”

“A rabbit. And I’m just saying, there’s something really special about rekindling the old flame of friendship. About looking
into the eyes of an old friend. About…”

“You see?” she said, pointing her finger in the air. “This is why Tom thought you were gay!”

“But what I’m doing is so much better than Facebook! I’m meeting face to face! I’ve invented Face-to-Facebook! And anyway,
these are
real
friends! How many Facebook friends do you have?”

“About 142.”

“
142?
I bet you don’t even know their names!”

“They are mainly business associates. Everyone in radio is on Facebook. And I’m not meeting these people. I’m… networking.
You’re
meeting
them!”