by Paul Colize
The drummer was a rich kid with a brand-new Ludwig kit and no idea how to play it. His breaks were basic, his rolls repetitive and he made far too much use of the cymbal, the last resort of a dismal drummer. After playing for an hour, he was clearly in difficulty. He couldn’t keep time, and was holding up the show.
He asked the others for a break so he could rest and massage his wrists. Fifteen minutes later, he tried to get started again, but quickly dropped out.
After anxious discussions at the side of the rostrum, one of the organisers came to the mic and asked, to my great amusement, if there was a drummer in the room. Fingers were raised. I stared into the crowd, but couldn’t see who was being singled out. At last, I understood the fingers were pointing at me.
I turned scarlet. I shook my head, but the kids wanted a party and would hear none of it. They propelled me up onto the stage.
The solo guitarist’s name was Jean-Claude. He leaned over and whispered in my ear, thanking me and asking me to take things easy.
We began with ‘Blue Star’, a fairly slow piece. My hands were shaking, and I could barely hold my sticks. I did any old thing, easy stuff, like the rich kid. I was pouring sweat. Little by little, I found my bearings and a semblance of authority. I made it to the end of the piece, and was greeted with a ripple of applause. Jean-Claude told me I had done OK. He suggested we play a second, faster piece.
We did ‘Shadoogie’, and ‘Nivram’, and a couple more.
The more I played, the better I felt. I tried a few things, and pulled them off. I varied my playing, and at the end of each piece, it seemed the hall was warming up, and the applause was stronger.
After ten or so songs, I noticed that the bass player, Marc, had begun to wake up and Michel, the second guitar, wore a broad grin. Jean-Claude was having the time of his life. He clapped me on the back and said we would treat ourselves to ‘Little B’.
I shuddered. ‘Little B’ was a trick piece. It started sweetly enough, with some drum rolls and a nicely rounded guitar riff, but these were just the build-up to an extended drum solo.
On the Shadows’ album version of the song, the solo lasted five whole minutes. I never knew whether it was Tony Meehan or Brian Bennet on the recording. Unlike many, I wasn’t convinced by the solo. It was overly cyclical. But I never thought I would roll it out myself, and certainly not in front of my first live audience.
In the general euphoria, egged on by the beers I had drunk between pieces, I nodded. I added that I would do it my way, and it was sure to be a complete flop.
Jean-Claude and Michel played their hearts out. Marc was wide awake now. When the guitars fell silent I attacked the solo simply enough, cross-sticking on the snare drum and the Charleston.
Gradually, I let rip. Double stroke roll. I was somewhere else, lost in time and space. Buzz roll. I hit harder and harder, faster and faster. Flam rolls. My body vibrated to the beats. The beer had gone to my head, I was transported, out-of-body, communing directly with the gods of rock. I was enjoying myself like never before. I had twelve arms. Cross-stick, paradiddle and five stroke roll, single stroke, rim-shots, sticks on sticks, I threw in every technique I had ever taught myself in my cellar.
I played for almost half an hour. When I stopped, the applause thundered.
I looked up. I was soaked with sweat. The hall was packed, the audience had tripled. People were whistling, shouting, waving. The Drivers were applauding too. Even the rich kid spoke a few encouraging words.
I was on another planet.
I have no idea what came over me. I got to my feet, walked through the crowd and out of the school. I ran all the way home without stopping, shut myself in my room and threw myself onto the bed.
I buried my head in the pillow, and sobbed like a child.
20: DELIVERING VEGETABLES
The ambulance charged with X Midi’s transfer had exited Brussels’ peripheral expressway, the Ring, and was driving now along a narrow, winding, forest road, the only access route to the Derscheid Clinic.
Few people came to the institute, besides the clinical staff and visitors. Most of the sixty thousand motorists passing close by every day didn’t know it was there. The occasional hiker would stumble on it in surprise, hidden amongst the trees.
The hospital porter, a scruffy, recently qualified youth, looked doubtful and turned to the driver.
‘Sure it’s here?’
The driver rolled his eyes.
‘Yes, quite sure. Been here several times before.’
He was about fifty, and had driven for the ambulance company for twenty years. On this, their first outing together, the porter had made a disastrous impression with his piercings and snide tone of voice. But the sector was in crisis, and it was harder and harder to find qualified staff prepared to do the job.
They drove on for a few hundred metres, past an elegant Anglo-Norman villa, and reached the entrance to the clinic’s grounds.
An imposing four-storey building rose before them.
‘Grim old place! Doesn’t look like there’s anyone about, either.’
With its eerie silhouette, long conservatory and a bell tower topping the roof, the Pavillon Laennec looked like an abandoned hotel.
The driver sighed.
‘That’s not it. There’s nothing in there any more, they’re talking about demolishing it.’
The porter grinned.
‘What a waste! The perfect setting for a Belgian remake of The Shining.’
The driver gave a thin smile.
‘The buildings are all early twentieth century. It was a sanatorium to start with – the first in Belgium. Then a convalescent home, and a psychiatric hospital. The Pavillon Laennec was still in use a few months ago, but they transferred some of the patients to another centre just opened in Wavre.’
‘I get it. Keep all the crips and nutters dumped out here in the woods.’
They drove past what may have been a chapel, and reached their destination, at the far end of the grounds: a three-storey, ochre-coloured building in the same style as the lodge near the entrance.
The place looked deserted apart from a few cars, and a nurse smoking a cigarette in front of the main door.
The driver pulled up outside the ambulance entrance.
‘Here we are, the Pavillon Vésale. When the place was a sanatorium, this was the women’s wing. It was opened about ten years after the first section.’
‘Ha! Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen…’
The driver stared at him.
‘Watch your language and attitude, kid. I’m going to the office for the paperwork. Get the trolley ready.’
‘OK, chief!’
The driver climbed down from the vehicle and slammed the door.
As soon as he had gone, the porter climbed down, walked around to the back of the ambulance and let down the tailgate.
‘Here we are, mate. Journey’s end. Welcome to your new home.’
He considered the man’s face for a moment, then bent over him.
‘Don’t have much to say, do you? What happened, then? You a crip, or a nutter? Or a bit of both?’
The driver returned with two porters pushing a hospital bed. They slid the trolley out of the ambulance and transferred the patient to the bed. The driver signalled to the young man.
‘That’s it. We can go.’
They climbed into the front of the ambulance.
The porter sank into his seat and put his feet on the dashboard.
‘Think I’ll catch a nap. Wake me up when we’re there.’
The driver twisted around sharply, shoved the kid’s feet to the floor and held up a threatening finger.
‘You’re beginning to annoy me, you know that? What the hell do you think you’re doing here? Sure this is the right job for you?’
The porter winked.
‘I’m beginning to wonder. Thought I’d be saving lives. My girlfriend thinks I’m George Clooney, but I spend all fucking day delivering vegetables.’
The colours were brighter, the sky was a deeper blue, the air was clearer. The world has aged, but I recognise this place. I didn’t know it was populated with crips and nutters, I thought it was a retirement home, or some kind of hospice.
Her name was Sylvie, or Sylviane. Maybe Sylvia. We weren’t together long. A few weeks, a month or two at the most. It was just before I left.
I would pick her up on my Puch. She would wait outside the door, with a teasing smile on her lips. Then she’d climb aboard and wrap her arms around my waist.
In fine weather, we would come here, my scooter coughing and spluttering with the effort. We would come across old people walking along the tree-lined paths in the park, in their dressing gowns.
There were benches behind the building, on the edge of the forest. We would sit on the last one, Sylvia and I. It was peaceful. No one bothered us. She’d get out the tube of glue and the plastic bag.
Sylvia looked like a boy. She had blonde hair cut short, big blue eyes and tiny breasts. We would get fantastically drunk together, but she wanted more. She introduced me to powerful cough mixture and pills. We swallowed prodigious quantities of both, but they offered no particularly strong sensations. We would feel blurry-headed for a day or two. Nothing more. We could hardly even say we were high.
It was Humbrol 77. I remember. Model-making glue. I can still see the yellow and silver tube. She would squeeze out a small quantity, spread it on the inside of a matchbox, then drop it into the bottom of the plastic bag.
We would take it in turns to sink our faces into the bag and breathe the fumes.
She said the flash was as intense as LSD, even if the effects were short-lived.
But what did she know?
LSD was something else. LSD was the gates of heaven and a day trip to hell.
The colours were brighter, the sky was a deeper blue, the air was clearer, life was simpler. I came here from time to time.
When Sylvia came back to Earth, she would look deep into my eyes and ask me to caress her. She was kind of crazy, but I liked her a lot. That was before the men stole forty years of my life.
22: NO QUESTIONS
The Derscheid Clinic had become the Clinique de la Forêt des Soignes in 2009, but most people still called it by its old name. The new team had abandoned the outdated facilities in the Pavillon Laennec and modernised the Pavillon Vésale as the focus of all the centre’s activities.
The clinic was organised into four units. The main unit – the general psychiatry service – treated patients suffering from anxiety, depression or bipolar disorder. Older people with behavioural problems were grouped together in the geriatric psychiatry unit. The third unit cared for people suffering from alcohol- or substance-induced psychosis.
The fourth unit, known as the rehabilitation service for patients with cognitive disorders, was the smallest, with twelve beds. X Midi was admitted here on Thursday, April the eighth, 2010.
The next day, the chief consultant called a meeting of all staff to determine the treatment plan for the new admission. First, the team resolved to carry out a meticulous case review and a check-up to identify any psychopathological issues.
Next, they would see if any changes were needed to the current treatment. While waiting for the conclusions, they would continue to administer an anti-spasmodic, to prevent the muscles from stiffening, together with low doses of an antithrombotic, for improved circulation. Subcutaneous injections of an anticoagulant would also be continued.
The rest of the meeting was spent defining individual tasks and responsibilities. In total six individuals or groups were assigned to X Midi’s case.
They began by confirming the medical team’s mission. One psychiatrist, a general practitioner and an intern were put in charge of overseeing X Midi’s rehabilitation programme.
The care team, consisting of the nurses, care assistants and physios, were in charge of administering basic care twenty-four hours a day, and for liaison between the various agents involved in the treatment. The ergo-therapist would follow X Midi’s progress and offer specific activities depending on the evolution of his condition. The psychologist would maintain regular contact with the teams involved, across all disciplines. Given X Midi’s pathology, she faced a difficult and delicate task. The social worker would see to the paperwork required to regularise the patient’s administrative situation, and continue efforts to discover his identity.
Lastly, the physios would work with the patient on a daily basis, and up to three times a day as required.
X Midi would be placed in an individual room, to minimise the risk of hospital-acquired infection.
The meeting concluded with a read-through of the various decisions. There were no questions.
23: IN HER ARMS
They’ve brought me here because they don’t know who I am, or where I’m from. Their only clue is the address I wrote on the palm of my hand. Apart from that, I have ceased to exist.
Even if I’m released from this prison, I won’t remember a thing. Time has already erased the data. Perhaps it will reappear, like these images I thought were forgotten, but which resurface now.
I was about to turn eighteen. I had given up school and couldn’t postpone my military service any longer. I knew the papers would come that summer, sometime around my birthday.
I dreaded the impending date. I didn’t want to learn to kill, or to obey orders. I didn’t want to stop reading and playing the drums for fifteen months.
I comforted myself by deciding I would think about all that when the time came, that I would find a way out. There were rumours of ways to get yourself declared unfit.
A few weeks after the school dance, Jean-Claude came looking for me. Snow was falling. I was reading at the window, watching the neighbourhood children throw themselves into a snow fight.
I didn’t recognise him. Snowflakes had settled on his frizzy hair. In the school hall, I hadn’t noticed he was half-caste.
He wanted me to join The Drivers. He assured me he would come to an arrangement with the current drummer, who wasn’t good enough and was making no progress. He was particularly concerned that the band’s rehearsals were held in the rich kid’s cellar and they would need to find somewhere else.
Meantime Marc the bassist had started taking lessons, and Michel had left the group. Jean-Claude had found a guitarist and singer to replace him – Alex, an older guy who had already played in a few bands.
I accepted the offer. Jean-Claude had ousted the drummer, so we gathered in Marc’s cellar for our first rehearsal. He lived a few hundred metres down the road from me. The night before, I had moved my drum kit over piece by piece.
The cellar smelled of damp and the only light was a feeble bulb hanging from the ceiling. There were no electric sockets. We caught our feet in the assortment of cables snaking across the floor.
That was the day I met Alex. He showed up an hour late. He gave no explanation, and began tuning his guitar without once glancing around him.
He took his time. The wait was interminable. I watched him out of the corner of my eye. He had swept-back blonde hair and black glasses with thick lenses. He seemed distant, like someone who has known tragedy or had an extraordinary experience of some kind.
When he was ready, at last, he asked what we wanted to play. Jean-Claude wanted to stick with The Shadows, Marc wanted to play rock. As for me, I wanted very badly to cover the Beatles. Their second single, ‘Please Please Me’, had just been released, and was even better than the first.
Alex waited a moment, smiling. In a few seconds, he had the measure of the group.
He nodded and said he was going to teach us the blues. The Shadows were dead, the Beatles not quite born yet, and he couldn’t bear what he called ‘slicked quiff rock’. He preferred Memphis Slim or the pacy, electric blues of Jimmy Reed. Similarly, he thought ‘The Drivers’ was outdated and renamed us The Four Fours.
He picked up his guitar, cleared
his throat and intoned Reed’s song ‘You’ve Got me Dizzy’.
It turned out he could play, and sing in tune. Childishly, we all clapped when he’d finished. Next, he gave us precise instructions and left us to practise. That evening, we mastered a few numbers including ‘Down in Virginia’, and ‘Every Day I Have the Blues’.
From one Saturday to the next, we made steady progress. Our repertoire grew and I began to like the blues.
Despite our regular meetings, Alex remained a mystery to me. He seemed even-tempered, ready to listen, sure of himself and the things he said.
When we couldn’t follow or do what he wanted of us, he would stay calm, stop and smile. He would explain over again what he wanted, and we would take up where we had left off, encouraged to see him clicking his fingers and nodding in time.
No one knew what he did for a living. Jean-Claude said he didn’t work. He had travelled around and done various jobs. He knew a lot of people and was part of some sort of fraternity.
During one of our conversations, he discovered I liked to read.
There was a book that had made a big impression on him. He wanted to lend it to me. He suggested I come over to his place on Sunday afternoon.
He lived on the top floor of an old building with no lift, on a street parallel to Avenue Churchill. He shared an apartment with friends, splitting the cost.
I arrived mid-afternoon. He greeted me with his usual smile. The apartment was in semi-darkness. Long red net curtains filtered the daylight. Music was playing quietly in the background. A sweet smell floated on the air.
Two guys were talking in low voices in the living room, sitting cross-legged on the floor. There was almost no furniture. Mattresses had been thrown down. A girl lay stretched out on one of them, apparently asleep.
Alex saw me looking at her. Her name was Marianne. She was on a beautiful journey and would join us later.
We went into the kitchen. Alex offered me a beer and gave me the book, The Naked Lunch, by William Burroughs.