Last week I told you how in 1986 I was nearly burned
to death on a Californian summer camp and then travelled across the States before
being dumped alone in Miami with less than $100 and ten days before my flight
home.
My first hurdle was getting to New York. I headed to
the bus station where I discovered the ticket I needed would cost me over half
my money. And I still needed food and shelter. I had no credit card and I
didn’t want to have to call my parents and blub for help.
I fell into conversation with an English girl called
Sally. She had been sensible enough to take advantage of an offer where she’d
got a book of tickets which would allow her to travel anywhere in the States
for 10 dollars per day. She said she would sell me one of her spares. It would
get me as far as Washington DC, still leaving me adrift, but closer than I was
now.
Unfortunately the tickets were in her name and also
required presentation of a passport for proof of identification. But I was
desperate enough to try anything. I nonchalantly schmoozed up to the booth and
handed over the ticket. “One way to Washington please.”
As I’d hoped the man didn’t really check it, but asked
for ID.
“Ah, I left my passport in New York.”
For some reason the man was dubious but he told me
that any identification would do.
“I left all my documents in New York.” I tried to
bluff some reason why I’d do such a stupid thing.
The man checked my ticket more closely.
“And your name is Sally?”
“Yes,” I countered, my voice trembling. “In England,
Sally is a man’s name as well.”
It was a bold gambit but necessity is the mother of
invention. And gangster films are full of men called Sal, so it might have
worked. You know if the man facing me was a total idiot.
He pointed at a ticked box, “And you’re female too.”
The jig was up. I leveled with him, but he was
offended by my pathetic attempt to deceive him and confiscated the ticket. I
sloped back to my seat and still had to pay the real Sally for her lost ticket
so was another 10 dollars closer to disaster and I hadn’t got an inch closer to
home.
I must have looked like the broken child that I was,
because five minutes later the man called me back to his booth and said that he
shouldn’t be doing this and I must never tell anyone (sorry, I doubt he’ll lose
his job now), but he’d give me a ticket all the way to New York for ten
dollars, but if anyone challenged me I was on my own.
It was a nervy thirty-six hour bus ride, but I made
it.
Now I just needed to survive a week in one of the world’s most expensive cities on just ten
dollars a day. I found an impossibly cheap hostel and ate stranger’s leftovers in
cafes, made new friends and had the best
week of the entire trip.
When I got back to Heathrow I had less than ten pounds
and again couldn’t afford the bus fare, but the woman in the ticket booth told
me to pretend I was under 14 and gave me a half. I had two pounds left when I
walked through my front door.
It’s thirty years late, but thanks to those kind who took
pity on me. I might not be here without you.
A French rugby player called Haydn Peacock (was he named by
the Carry On team – “Hard on?” “No Haydn” etc) almost lost his tackle during a
tackle. He was pulled him down by the flesh baguette and required 11 stitches
to get it back on (show off). I’ve always said rugby is a game for tiny-penised
men. Those of us with huge low swinging
chariots can easily be caught by the tail.
