Excerpt from the chapter A Surreal Run-in on El Camino Real
Roger Milla knew that his team was staying not very far from Stanford Stadium and decided to take a walk to the campus to see how things looked there. He didn’t ask team management for permission, as he knew it would be denied because of security concerns. He was no longer a total unknown as he had been when he landed in Italy four years earlier, and many football fans still remembered his face. He simply walked out after taking directions from the hotel concierge. He found the behavior of Americans to be strange, as they didn’t pay much attention to players even if they were identified as members of the Cameroon team. He didn’t know whether it was because Americans were not friendly, or because they didn’t like football, or because they respected the privacy of others; he could move around the hotel without being bothered by anyone. That was not the situation he usually encountered in Europe or Africa. Ever since his two goals against Romania in the 1990 World Cup, people who recognized him had tried to connect with him somehow. He loved their adoration—something he missed in America, even though the relative anonymity allowed him to move around easily.
When he turned onto University Avenue from the small street where the hotel was located, he saw a large, busy road choked with cars, with people going home after watching the Brazil vs. Russia match. When he walked up to that road, El Camino Real, Roger Milla did not understand any of its historical importance in building modern California by Spanish missionaries. Of course, none of those details were written anywhere, nor did the road have anything majestic about it, and it looked like any unremarkable multi-lane street in an American town. Roger Milla saw a lot of people milling around, and he tried making eye contact with riders in those slow-moving cars and with those walking on the closed part of the road, curious whether anyone would identify him at all. He received some suspicious stares, but none of that resulted in an exclaiming shout-out of “Roger Milla!” or fans walking on the street rushing toward him.
When Roger Milla’s hopes of getting some sort of acknowledgment from a random fan diminished, he started looking at the fine cars that were slowly moving in either direction on El Camino Real. They were made in countries all over the world and represented major brands, and the models indicated that they were owned by people who had serious money. Roger Milla was awakened from his random thoughts about cars when someone tapped him on the shoulder and feebly asked, “Are you Roger Milla?”
When Thomas asked that question to a rather old-looking man on the street whose face resembled that of Roger Milla, which he had seen numerous times on television screens and in newspapers, he wondered whether he was completely biased by his experience of watching a World Cup match in person for the first time, which he had just accomplished at Stanford Stadium. He suspected he had started looking at everything through the prism of the World Cup, complete with characters coming out of it. Roger Milla felt good that someone had finally recognized him on the street, and he turned around and simply hugged Thomas. Thomas couldn’t believe the constant parade of his luck. He began to suspect that he might be in an extended dream where only such things happen, and he was prepared to be woken up to the commonplaceness of his everyday life at any moment.