The Upgrade: A Cautionary Tale of a Life Without Reservations (32 page)

Apart from my book, I was allowed to bring no other entertainment devices, and certainly nothing electronic. No iPod, or phone, or laptop—the embassy even bans electronic car key fobs. The man in front of me in the line apparently hadn’t got the memo; not only was he listening to an iPod, with the ear bud tucked into just one ear, but he was also managing to talk loudly on his cell phone, which was pressed against his other ear. He must have felt like he was permanently on hold.

“Yeah, mate, I’m just at the embassy, innit?” he said—or maybe asked—at the top of his voice.

“Nah, should be done soon. Just got to get this fucking visa for Florida, innit?” The poor fellow was crippled by uncertainty.

I weighed up whether or not to say something. Part of me wanted
to do the decent human thing and tell him about the no-electronic-devices rule. He was still far enough back in the line that he could run to one of the nearby cafes that offer property lockers for embassy visitors and make it back without missing his appointment time. If he got all the way to the front and then was turned away, he’d have wasted his whole day.

Another part of me, though, couldn’t help but think “this guy sounds like a total dick.” And, anyway, why should the rest of us have taken the time to read the instructions and spent a whole week panicking about our visas when he clearly couldn’t give a shit?

No, I decided: him being a dick shouldn’t stop me being a Good Samaritan. Moral high ground and all that. Frankly, I needed all the karmic help I could get.

“Excuse me,” I said once he got off his phone. He turned around a little too quickly, as if I’d punched him in the back of the neck. He was obviously someone for whom the words “excuse me” were usually followed by “can you stop shouting into your phone, you dick.”

“What?”

“Sorry,” I said, because I’m British, “just thought you should know that you’re not supposed to bring electronic items into the …”

“Yeah, they don’t mean phones, innit,” he said, with far more aggression than I’d anticipated. “Mind your own business, mate.”

He turned around and put the other iPod ear bud into his other ear.

I was about to tap him on the shoulder, and point out that, not only do they explicitly say that they do mean phones, but that the iPod he was now listening to wasn’t a fucking phone. But he’d had his chance; and, anyway, he was a dick.

“Ignorant dick,” I said to his back.

He spun around again. “What did you say?”

Now, I have to say, ordinarily I wouldn’t have been so belligerent.
He was a big guy, and could almost certainly have killed me, like those people you read about being stabbed on London buses because they asked a teenager to turn their music down.

But on this occasion I was emboldened by my environment: the outside of the American embassy is one of the most highly policed areas in London. No more than two feet away from us was a policeman carrying a machine gun. A few feet away from him were five more policemen, all heavily armed. Sure, iPod man might get the first punch in, but at least I’d have the satisfaction of watching him being brought down in a hail of automatic gunfire.

He looked at me, then he looked at the policeman, and at the gun. He knew it, I knew it. “I said you’re an ignorant diiiiick.” Slowly and with relish this time.

One more glance at the policeman: he was looking back at us now. The dick turned back around. I felt a small jolt of victory—despite being the equivalent of the kid who pulls faces at the bully from behind teacher’s back.

Still, for the next half-hour, as the queue slowly shuffled toward the first of several security checkpoints, I was at least distracted from my visa panic by the impending joy of watching him be turned away.

When the moment came it was even more satisfying than I’d expected.

“You what, mate?” he shouted at the security guard. “That’s fucking well out of order, innit.”

A policeman edged closer.

“Fuck this,” said the man, eventually, and stormed off across the square. I handed the security guard my paperwork, he glanced at it casually and, satisfied that everything was in order, ushered me towards the metal detectors.

Here we go.

The ACPO certificate had indeed contained the truth about my laughably unsordid criminal past—my recent caution was listed, along with the arrest date and police station—but not the whole truth; my first arrest was missing.

According to the ACPO website, that was because the certificate only shows convictions and cautions, and the previous arrest had resulted in neither.

The difference between convictions and cautions was my only possible savior; by accepting the caution I’d been forced to admit guilt, but because I hadn’t gone to court it wasn’t a conviction. Most of the advice I’d found online suggested that the Americans only cared about convictions, not things you’d been cautioned over, but some self-styled legal experts still insisted that cautions were “taken into account.”

I wouldn’t have to wait long to find out.

After passing through the metal detector, I ended up in a large waiting area that looked much like every government waiting area you’ve ever been in.

I was given a printed ticket with a number on it and asked to wait to be called. Having been told to expect long delays, I settled down with my book. No more than ten minutes later, I heard my number being called. I was being fast-tracked!

No I wasn’t.

The first call simply took me to a glass window where I handed over my paperwork so the embassy staff could begin their background checks. Up until then I hadn’t even been in the system. Now the real waiting could start. And so I waited.

And I waited.

And waited.

Two hours passed—it was approaching noon and I was making significant headway through Bill Bryson’s folksy tales of regional post offices and the perils of taking children on long car journeys. But the numbers on the huge digital display seemed to be moving quickly enough: I was number 373 and I’d just seem numbers 350 and 351 be called. I estimated maybe another half-hour at most.

Half an hour passed.

Then four more half an hours.

It was 2:30 p.m. Numbers 372 and 374 had been called over an hour ago, and now they were calling people in the high 400s. Had I missed my number? I was sure I hadn’t: I’d been sure to look up every time a number was called.

I decided that all was probably lost. Obviously they’d looked at my police record and had spent the past four hours deciding the best way to break the news to me that I’d never be allowed to travel to the US again.

They’d probably called up all my American ex-girlfriends and asked them to come down and help them do it, perhaps in the form of a song. This was the moment the entire American nation took its revenge.

And then.

Buzzzzzzz.

“Number 373.”

I don’t know what I was expecting—a special interview room, I think. One with a door and a table with an interviewer on one side and me on the other.

Ironically, I think I was imagining something like the interview room at a police station. That’s not what visa interviews are like.

Instead, I was directed to a row of windows made of what looked to be bulletproof—or at least incredibly thick—glass. In front of each window was a low plastic chair, and behind each sheet of bulletproof glass sat a man or woman in a US Embassy uniform.

“Take a seat, Mr. Carr,” said the first American voice I’d heard in my whole time at the embassy.

Everyone up until that point—the security guards, the policemen, the people who took my forms and who directed me to take a seat—had been British.

“So …” began the interviewer.

I glanced down at his name badge: Charles Dickens. I started to smile but stopped myself. This was surely a man who spent his entire day hearing people say, “Oh, wow, your name is Charles Dickens.” Adding to their numbers would not help my case.

It was an enormous challenge, but I returned my focus to the interview. Charles Dickens—ha!—launched into his questions. Why did I want the visa? What would I be doing in the US? Did I have family there; friends—a girlfriend? I answered truthfully, except for a tiny white lie about how, sadly, I worked too hard to have time for girls. No sense in making him think I was on the hunt for a green card.

He seemed happy with my answers, and we even shared a joke about my use of the visa waiver. I can’t remember what it was, though. I was running entirely on panic and adrenaline.

And then came the moment.

He’d worked through all the forms I’d filled in, and put them neatly to one side in a tray. Just one remained. The ACPO certificate.

“Now,” he said, with a definite sigh, “tell me about this.”

I could sense the sick feeling making its way up my throat.

“Ah, yes,” I said, “an embarrassing story, actually.”

And I told the whole story—every embarrassing detail, about my most recent arrest and caution. The fact that I’d had too much to drink, the fact that the police had kicked down the door and—yes—the fact that it was the second time it had happened.

“It’s not on the certificate,” I said, “but I want to be entirely honest with you.”

“I appreciate that,” he replied, not smiling.

Once I was done, Charles Dickens—hee!—was frowning. This was not good news.

“Right,” he said, “that’s all I need. You’ll need to leave your passport at the courier table by the door and we’ll have it back to you in a few days.”

He reached for a large stamp and punched some red ink onto my form. I couldn’t read what it said. I sat there, waiting for him to continue. He stared back through the bulletproof glass.

“You’re all set,” he said.

I stayed sitting.

Finally he spoke again.

“Do you have any questions?”

“Um … when you say ‘I’m all set’ …”

He laughed.

“I mean, that’s all fine. Your passport and your visa will be returned to you in a few days. Enjoy the United States.”

“Uh—I—OK … thank you.”

I couldn’t believe it. I had so prepared myself for disappointment, so psyched myself up to be banned from America for ten years, or the rest of my life, that I simply couldn’t process the idea of being approved for the visa. I’d told the truth and everything had turned out fine.

I had to get out of there before they changed their mind. Clearly this was some kind of hideous administrative error.

I walked slowly to the courier desk, got the receipt for my passport
and walked, still slowly, to the door. I walked out of the building, back through security and across Grosvenor Square.

I didn’t look back—just kept walking. I felt like I’d just committed the perfect heist. I stood calmly on the escalator down into Bond Street tube station and onto the waiting train, heading towards my hotel.

Only when the doors slid closed did I smile. And then I laughed and laughed and laughed.

I looked like a lunatic, but I didn’t give a shit. I was moving to America.

The two weeks since my visa arrived had passed with significantly less chaos than would normally accompany a move to a new country.

To move to a new country, one would ordinarily have to move
from
somewhere else. Not me. I wasn’t packing up an old house and arranging for things to be shipped to a new one, I didn’t have to say goodbye to friends or leave a job or any of that crap—I’d done that more than a year earlier.

Really, my arrival at San Francisco International would be no different from the half-dozen other ones I’d made in the previous twelve months, except that, instead of filling out the green visa waiver card on the plane, I’d be carrying a five-year visa in my passport.

I was even checking into my usual hotel. When I told friends that I was moving to San Francisco, most of them assumed it meant the end of my living in hotels. They couldn’t have been more wrong: if the rates offered by hotels when you stay for a month are impressive, then the discount for a three- or six-month stay is insane.

My first stop would be the Vertigo while I got my bearings—they were offering a rate of $65 a night if I stayed over a month—but I’d also sent emails to the reservations departments of all of the other decent independent hotels in San Francisco and my inbox was full of replies.

The global economic downturn was my friend. According to the San Francisco convention and visitors bureau, the average San Francisco hotel room rate in March 2009—including everything from no-star hovels to five-star palaces—was $160.25 a night. The Steinhart Hotel next door to the Vertigo (averaging 4.5 stars out of 5
on TripAdvisor, with 91 percent of guests recommending it) offered me a suite for $55 a night—$1650 a month—while the brilliantly named “Gaylord Suites” down the road (averaging 4 out of 5 stars, 83 percent recommendation) was willing to go even lower. None of which would incur any additional tax, of course, because I’d be staying more than thirty days.

Those rates would include Wi-Fi, maid service, heat, light, power and all other amenities in a city where the average downtown rent was a little over $2000 a month, before amenities. Given those numbers, I’d be an idiot not to keep living in hotels.

All the visa really meant was that I would be free to spend a few uninterrupted months in my favorite city, getting to know the place even better and, more importantly, making a start on writing my book about living in hotels.

After the usual negotiations over advances and royalties and delivery dates, the contract with W&N was finally signed. My agent had pitched the book as a sort of blagger’s guide—telling the stories of life in hotels, but also giving tips on scoring cheap rooms, getting into parties through—well, lying—and all the other things I’d learned in the previous year.