Escape From London

November 2005
London, England
A Kebab Shop

I luxuriously slipped away from my studies abroad in Toulouse to join my beloved roommates Alana and Jack for a restorative weekend in London. The day had been crisp but sun-soaked as we glided from Harrod’s to Hyde Park, clinging to each other, drinking in our familiarity in order to purge some of the toxic strangeness that had accumulated over the semester. By dark we were full of decadent food and toothsome relief.

My joy was magnified as we tubed our way to meet Tom, another dear friend of mine who was then studying at RADA. Alana, Jack, and I gradually seeped into Tom’s surroundings as his acerbic roommate prepared to go to a midnight Madonna concert, and assorted entitled American girls slouched on each other convincing each other that giggled names were original thoughts.

With skills newly acquired from a sheepish kind of apprenticeship with his father, Jack used scissors, ruler and deft, boney fingers to role an excellent joint. Then we were out on the town, puffing away like dandies, tenuously clutching the glowing thing with a bobby pin. It was lost before Alana and Jack got it into their heads.

Tom and I meandered through the shinny cobblestone streets of foggy London town yammering in herbal intoxication, Alana and Jack trudged soberly behind us. Feet in dustbins, lost loves bemoaned and Bob Dylan sung! We unanimously decided we were hungry.


A New Yorker born and raised, Tom has been cause and witness to the my few instances of complete NYC disorientation. He once got us so lost in the Financial District that I was certain we would never again see the light of day. Taking into consideration the command of geography in his hometown, stoned London was no better. Tom led us deep into Anglo wilderness until we found ourselves at a little clearing, complete with another pub and kebab shop.

In accordance with the rules of a miraculous small world, Alana quickly spied people she went to high school with at the pub while Tom and I continued our trek to the kebab shop. We ordered kebabs and fries and sat at a counter that was situated in front of the panoramic front window of the shop. As we blissfully munched, some old, pickled Londoners slurred about the new set of pub laws enacted that week. Traditionally, pubs would close around midnight, forcing Londoners, bent on maximizing to binge drink from five till close, becoming so drunk that there would be no choice but to stick skewers in each others’ eyeballs. Now, an evening could be more leisurely, drinking slower, drinking in different environments, with less desire to rip the face off your fellow man.

As our faces glistened from kebab grease, we watched a peculiar crowd gather outside the kebab shop in front of the panoramic window. It was a group of about six, dressed in lavish formal wear, blitzed out of their minds. I had no choice but to name them. To the far right, stood Nelda, a woman in her late twenties, sour, butch and smoking, held her post as apathetic sentinel over the central proceedings. In the middle was Randal, a skinny man in his early thirties, with long, stringy hair and frightened eyes. On the far left, was Clive, an enormous, cranky butcher in a tux. In the middle, some pretty girls, drunker than kindergarten Scotch-testers, tottered to and fro. Randal was confronting Clive about the girls. He thrashed his hands nervously about and poked his finger hard into Clive’s chest. Clive—a stony monster—stood perfectly still, while Randal continued his drunken tirade. Randal was clearly a douche bag, foolishly trying to be the tough guy in the face of an impossible adversary. He was up in Clive’s face, yelling and spitting, commanding him to leave his pretty girls alone.

Clive punched Randal square in the nose. In a perfect moment of cinematic synchronicity, one of the blonde slutty girls instantly sprawled backwards, arms flailing, into the street. Randal’s face was oozing blood. He was completely emasculated, defeated, put in his place. Thus, like any stupid, drunk, weak-minded man, he kept on fighting. Back in Clive’s face he went, jumping around like a man with spiders in his hair. The slutty girls were sobbing, while Nelda kept on smoking with an air of utter boredom. He threatened Randal, dodging and diving under Clive’s stoic, meaty gaze. Randal gradually inflated, gaining real confidence from illusory bravado. Then Clive clocked him a second time.

With that, Clive vanished. The slutty girls tottered toward Randal’s aid on their high heels, more off their feet than on. Nelda munched haughtily on chips, still smoking and aloof.

Back in the kebab shop, we were all completely agape. My hands rubbed my face in disbelief and Tom kept smacking my shoulder to see if what he had just witnessed was real. A slumped Randal slowly rose and caught a glimpse of us, framed in this panoramic window. He slowly rose and limped toward us, his face covered with blood and rage.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! His fist slammed into the glass of the kebab shop window. He pointed directly at Tom. He then dragged his finger across his throat.

Randal had decided that Tom’s life was over. “Guys!” Tom hissed like the condemned man he was. “We need to get the FUCK out of here.” He then dictated an elaborate escape route. “You three go out first to create a diversion and then I’ll run out and we’ll all scatter!” We all somberly agreed. Breathing as one, we discarded our trash and exited the kebab shop. No one even noticed us leaving, not even Randal. We were safe.

We laughed off Tom’s death sentence and clapped each other on the backs for a diversion well played. It was very late and Jack, Alana and I wanted to get back to the hotel. “Tom, can you tell us a good place to hail a cab?” I asked. He lead us to a spot were cabs passed every few minutes. After an hour and half of waiting in the cold, a cabbie took pity on us and we were off.

“You’re Americans!” he exclaimed after we gave him directions in our Yankee dialect. “I’ve been all over America. I’ve taken my family to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota and to Disney World. Fantastic place. You know I can’t really stand those Arab chaps those. And their women! All covered up like that. I took one of them in my cab here and I says to him, ‘How do you know it’s not a bloke under all that!”

“Haha,” I said. “I don’t know.”