Melissa rumpled my hair good-naturedly. “Let’s go to bed and plot how we’re going to kill your ex-therapists.” She took my hand and led me upstairs.
TRACK 46 Return of the Rat
Once I touched Chrissie Hynde’s boot with my right forefinger. The last time I’d seen the Pretenders, it had been at a really small venue. As I clung to the stage, Chrissie kicked her leg up right over my head. She danced. She told meat eaters they would get what they deserved. I was in reach of her and sublimely happy. I never wanted to impinge on Chrissie Hynde’s personal space. I remembered an article I’d read in a music paper once about Chrissie Hynde kicking out the windows of a police car with the quotation, “I don’t like to be touched.” Very gently, so she wouldn’t notice, I touched the toe of her boot.
I was telling Melissa about it. “It was blue fake suede and very soft. I can still feel it in my mind whenever I want to. I can make love to you with this finger,” I said slyly, and Melissa blushed. “Chrissie Hynde once wrote me a letter, you know.”
“Chrissie Hynde wrote you a letter?”
“Yes, when I lived outside DC. She was in town for a PETA benefit at the Willard, a fancy hotel near the White House. I like the name because the film Willard is about rats. I tried to sneak in. I’d taken a photo of the Firestone Tire factory in Akron, Ohio, where Chrissie Hynde is from when I went there on a pilgrimage and put it in an envelope with a note about how her album packed! was released on May 21, 1990, the same day I was arrested at the big ACT UP demonstration at the National Institutes of Health. While I was waiting in the holding cell all day, I thought about how much I wanted to get that album. How I was in here, stuck in that cell, and it was out there, in the record shops. How knowing that made me feel peace of mind.”
“When did you get out?”
“Later that evening.”
“So you were released on the same day,” Melissa said.
“What do you mean?”
“You were released the same day the Pretenders album was released. You had the same release date.”
I smiled because I’d never thought of that. “I do consider it our album. All the PETA people were dressed in tuxedos and evening gowns. I was wearing an ACT UP T-shirt and decided if anyone asked I’d say it stood for the Animal Coalition To Unleash Pets. Chrissie Hynde was already inside, and I couldn’t get in. But the security guard, Joe Turner, let me speak to a PETA representative. I gave him the envelope and asked him to give it to Chrissie Hynde, but I didn’t think he would.
“About three months later, a blue envelope fell through the mail slot in my front door with a London postmark. I didn’t know anyone in London at the time, and I couldn’t make out the name ‘Hynde’ scrawled on the back. It smelled good. Like the perfume of chilly London air. It was a three-page, handwritten letter from Chrissie Hynde. She had written:
I’m glad to hear you’ve enjoyed the music and that it’s been cheering you up since 1979—It’s been bumming me out since 1979!! (Not really.)
Thank you for the “lovely” picture of Firestone Rubber Co. The place just ain’t what it used to be—it’s not blue collar any more . . . I’m afraid you must be a misguided youth to make a pilgrimage to Akron for any reason, let alone because of me, but I’ll try to take it as a compliment & leave it at that.
“And she’d signed it, ‘love Chrissie.’ I could have swooned.”
I remembered when my best mates and I had driven back to Exeter from Plymouth. We’d stopped at a motorway café for a cup of tea, and we bunged all our 20p coins into the jukebox. The new Pretenders single “Message of Love” had just come out, and we punched in the buttons to make it play repeatedly. We danced to it and the other patrons left after it came on for about the twentieth time. That memory made me feel warm and safe.
Thinking about Chrissie Hynde and PETA reminded me of the pet rat I’d had after graduate school, how she used to jump on my head to wake me up and take showers with me. I showed Melissa my favorite photograph of her sitting on my red Stratocaster, looking into the camera with a soulful expression.
Melissa said, “You can see her soul pouring out through her eyes. Like there’s so much of it, it won’t all fit inside. Do you want another pet rat? Why didn’t you say? We can get you one.”
“I’m not ready.”
“There’s some wicked graffiti I’ve got to show you.” Melissa threw my denim jacket at me. It had badges from my Exeter days on the front: “The Clash” against a graphic of blue policemen, “Gays Against Nazis,” “How Dare You Presume that I’m a Heterosexual?” and a black-and-white one of Chrissie Hynde’s head.
I wrapped my green-and-white Exeter scarf around my neck. “Graffiti?”
Melissa put on a green anorak. “There’s a graffiti artist called Banksy—he works mostly in South Bank and the East End—who has loads of rat art.”
“No,” I said. “Not rat graffiti?”
Melissa took my hand as we walked to her car in the brief, cold sunshine.
We got into Melissa’s dark-green MG and motored across the bridge to South London, the Zombies blasting on the car stereo. Melissa found a stenciled picture of rats putting up a flag and taking over the city. “I’m not sure it’s meant to be complimentary, but I thought you’d enjoy it.” She took me through the East End. On Brick Lane, “No War” was the caption, in red, for a picture of a rat holding an umbrella to protect herself from a falling bomb. Then Melissa showed me something spectacular on an overpass above Old Street in Shoreditch. A row of riot police with yellow smiley faces stretched all the way across the red-painted metal bridge with the caption, “Wrong War.” Under the arches, posters lined the walls as we sped alongside the black taxis that reminded me of water bugs.
I put on Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love.” It started raining, and everything had a metallic, silver glint. I asked Melissa if we could just drive around for a while.
When we got home, I sat in the front room near the window idly watching the rain and playing “She’s So High” by Blur on my unplugged Gibson while Melissa caught up on some reading. She sat in the back room, which doubled as her study, with the current issue of the BMJ, a medical journal of evidence-based medicine. She’d explained the difference between evidence-based and experience-based medicine to me and shown me a site on the Internet she used called “BestBETs,” Best Evidence Topics. I liked to listen to her talk about medicine. I thought it was dead cool and sexy. “That’s why I went to medical school,” Melissa had said when I’d told her that.
I had finished my CD of songs about Afghanistan for RAWA and mailed it to Pakistan. Now I was working on an antiwar CD. The phone rang as I was plucking out “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult. It was Nick. She was excited about the demo CD I’d given her with some rough versions of a few new songs. She said she was going to play it for the women at Gingerbeer to see if she could get me a gig playing on the Battersea Barge for Gingerbeer’s monthly Lyrical Lounge. I started panicking immediately. “You’re my new manager,” I said.
When Nick arrived, she asked, “Where’s Melissa?” She hung up her wet coat and scarf.
“She’s in the back reading doctor stuff,” I said. “Come over.”
Nick pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket. “I made a list of pubs and other places that do open mics.”
“But I don’t have a band,” I protested.
“Solo,” she said firmly. “I’ll go with you everywhere you play.”
Later the three of us watched news on the telly. “There’s something to be proud of,” I said as the BBC reported the Americans had bombed a children’s hospital in Iraq. “That’s something you won’t hear on the American news. There’s a media blackout on reporting anything critical of our wars. You might as well be in North Korea reading about how the Great Leader invented the toaster.”
TRACK 47 Treat Me Well
Melissa was spending more time in her studio painting and jokingly said that post-traumatic stress was an over-achieving muse. She was using acrylics, and her dark paintings reminded me of Vincent Van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters because she used so much texture, and because the subject matter she selected elevated things that we weren’t supposed to find culturally significant. This was especially true of her somber representations of women. When I saw The Potato Eaters, Van Gogh’s original painting, for the first time, I realized how important it can be to see a painting in person. When I stood up close and to one side, I could see each brush stroke, the thickness and the movement of the painting.
Nick dragged me around London with my guitar. I took the battered old Hiwatt bass amp out of Jake’s wardrobe, cleaned it up and finally persuaded her to practice with the bass and play with me in private. She was studying two of our favorite bass players, Bruce Foxton from the Jam and Paul Simonon from the Clash. We also listened to a pre-FM concert by the Police in Chicago, 1979 that Melissa had found because it was mad good quality and Sting was an awesome bass player. And of course we listened to Paul McCartney and the Pretenders with the original line-up.
When Nick and I rehearsed in the flat, Melissa often shut herself in her studio to paint. Lately she’d been keeping to herself more, preoccupied by a series of paintings she was working on about women and rape. I knew Nick was disconcerted by Melissa’s silences and abrupt disappearances. “She’s got a lot on her mind,” I said, hoping to prevent Nick from taking Melissa’s uncommunicative mood personally.
When we got into bed after Melissa had been working on some charcoal sketches later than usual, I asked, “Are you sure?” as she started kissing me in a sexual way. “I can just hold you.”
“I appreciate the way you always treat me with such care.” Melissa pulled my T-shirt over my head. “Stop looking at me like I’m going to fall apart. I’m not that fragile. I’m not gonna break. You have to stop seeing me as a victim. I don’t think of you as a victim of your mental—uniqueness. I think of you as you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I do see you as you. I know I’m working out my own issues of feeling helpless when it comes to protecting you.”
“You are not responsible for something painful in my past. You can’t control everything that happens. I know your OCD wants you to believe you can, and you confuse that with being a good person, but really, it’s okay.” She held my hands. As she kissed me gently on the mouth, loud pounding downstairs startled us.
“What the fuck is that?” I turned away abruptly. “Is someone at the door?” It had just gone half past twelve. The banging grew more insistent. Someone called Melissa’s name.
“Fuck me, is that Nick?” Melissa jumped out of bed and threw on her dressing gown, tying it round her waist as she rushed down the stairs. I found my T-shirt on the floor and followed her. “Nick?” Melissa opened the front door and Nick practically fell inside. She was shaking so hard Melissa made her sit down on the floor. “What’s happened? Are you hurt?” Melissa knelt beside her. The belt of her dressing gown loosened, and I could see her lush breasts, pale and smooth as driftwood caressed by the sea, as she bent forward.
Nick was almost hyperventilating but was physically unharmed. We helped her up and sat her on the bed in her room. She said that Atom had been waiting in front of her flat when she’d come home from her local at closing time.
“That fucking gobshite,” Melissa said fiercely. “I’m not having this. You’re moving in here till this is sorted. We’ll get your gear over the weekend.”
Nick protested, “I’ll be in the way. I’ll be intruding.”
“No,” Melissa said firmly, “you’re family. And the three of us get on so well that having you here never feels like a strain. It’s lovely having you here. I know I’ve been distracted lately.” Melissa made up the bed with clean sheets. “But you belong here with us. There.” She put a fresh pillowcase on Nick’s favorite pillow. “You’ll feel better now. Alright?”
After Nick had calmed down and we went back upstairs, I asked, “Are you alright?”
Melissa took off her dressing gown and got into bed. “What do you mean?”
“Uh—I don’t know, a bloke stalking Nick, the threat of violence—didn’t that upset you? Doesn’t that bring things up for you?”
“Of course it bloody well upsets me.” Melissa wrapped her arms around me. “But she’s safe now, and we’ll sort it out later.”
“Melissa, I know you’re more comfortable taking care of someone else, but I want to take care of you.”
“What did I just finish telling you?” Melissa kissed me, sucking on my lower lip and running her hand seductively over my body.
I cupped my hand over her breast, gently stroking the alluring brown disc of her nipple. “Are you sure—?” I began again.
“Mmm,” she murmured, “your concern is not what I need right now.”
Her voice made my knees go weak even though I was lying down. I whispered, “What if Nick hears us?”
“She can’t hear us downstairs at the other end of the house no matter how loud we are.”
I pressed my body into hers, resting my hand between her legs. “Remember the old days when we never made love without music?”
“Oh God, yes,” Melissa laughed. “How many times have I been fucked to ‘White Riot’?”
“We could make love to Heart,” I suggested shyly.
“Want to?” Melissa said conspiratorially.
“Yes,” I said, and we both laughed.
“Which album?” Melissa asked.
“Oh, Little Queen. Definitely.”
“Anything before or after the corporate rock period when Ann and Nancy lost their minds and had really big hair,” Melissa said. I ran downstairs and brought up the first four Heart CDs.
A smile graced Melissa lips. “It’s just a Little Queen kind of night.” It was Friday, and Melissa didn’t have to get up in the morning. “Mmm, that’s perfect,” she said as the CD played and I slid in next to her again. She kissed me and moved my legs apart with her hand. I felt myself relaxing into her touch.
“You don’t have to feel like making love all the time, you know,” I said, checking in with her one more time as “Love Alive” was playing, and everything was dead romantic.
“Amanda,” Melissa shook me, “you’re going to drive me to drink. You don’t understand. I do feel like making love with you all the time. I get so turned on when I’m near you, or just thinking about you.”
“Same here,” I confessed, wondering if that was why my most intrusive OCD thought was having my hands come off. Because that’s how I showed tenderness. Touching Melissa, playing guitar, typing out lyrics. I used my hands to express that side of myself, the part that felt divine.
As Ann started singing “Dream of the Archer,” Melissa gave me a lingering kiss that made my whole body ache for her so much I thought I would dissolve. Kissing her shoulders, I gradually moved my hands and lips lower. She sighed deeply as she rolled over and I put my mouth on her ass and slipped my hands underneath her. “You’re so lovely,” I whispered.
“I want to feel you inside me, love.”
Gently I slid a finger inside her as I kissed and caressed her. Her cries were as exciting and beautiful as hearing the Clash for the first time. Slowly rolling her over, I nuzzled her pubic hair and separated the lips of her labia softly with my fingers. Very lightly, I touched the tip of my tongue to her clitoris. “Oh, sweetie,” she moaned.
I ran my tongue along her grooves, slowly sliding my finger back inside her as she spread her legs wider, groaning. I felt her legs quiver, and she shuddered against me with a wail. I slid another finger inside her and rocked her as her orgasms became more intense. Then I gently removed my fingers and sucked on her lightly, stroking her inner thighs until her breathing quickened again. I couldn’t get
enough of her. I reached my hands up to squeeze and caress her hard nipples. As I sucked her harder she exploded against me, and I felt myself coming just from feeling her pleasure.
“Oh my God,” she whimpered, as I slipped a finger inside her again. “Sweetie. Oh, Jesus.” She shivered with another wave of pleasure. I stayed inside her until she reached out both hands to pull me up next to her. “Mmmm,” she sighed, trembling with an aftershock. Then she gripped me tightly as another spasm overtook her. She opened her eyes, and they were wet. She began kissing me passionately, and I felt her hot tears on my face.
“Oh, baby, I love you so much,” I murmured, feeling her hands all over me like she was a Hindu Goddess with eight arms.
When we lay quietly together, I whispered in her ear, “I fancied you from the moment we first met.”
She smiled. “No, you didn’t. You didn’t fancy me then.”
“I did.”
“You didn’t. You were in shock anyway,” she protested. “And you got knocked in the head, which is surely not the best time to know if you fancy someone.”
“You looked like an angel,” I said. “And when you held my hands, I didn’t want you to let go.”
“We held hands?”
“Well, you held my hands to see if anything was broken. And the next night, when I slept on your sofa, you had me grip your hands as hard as I could.”
Melissa laughed. “I was checking to see if you were concussed, you git. Did you really like me then?”
“Oh, aye. You descended upon my bedsit and rescued us. You rubbed my head when I felt ill.”
At five in the morning we went downstairs to check on Nick. We saw light from under the door, and Melissa rapped softly. “Can’t sleep?” she asked, finding Nick awake, disheveled, and reading a paperback with exhausted-looking eyes. Melissa sat next to her. “Come lie down in our bed.”
“That is ridiculous,” Nick said. “Then I really will be intruding.”
“Don’t be silly,” Melissa said. “There’s nothing wrong with needing to feel safe.”
Pissing in a River Page 25