A tall woman in a black raincoat, belted at the waist, steps forward, hands in her pockets, she stares at him, amused:
“So, you’re Subutex?”
She proffers her hand.
“People call me the Hyena. You don’t look your best.”
Instinctively, Vernon shakes her hand and her palm is warm and reassuring—he would like to keep it pressed against his own for a long time, and from the look she gives him, he has the illusion that she understands and regrets the fact that she has to greet the others. Her entrance cast a pall over the assembled company. All eyes are on her.
“It really is me…”
Then Patrice grins and, clearly smitten, says: “But you don’t look anything like Françoise Hardy.”
Émilie is annoyed and, determined that everyone should know it, says in a loud, somewhat affected tone:
“You broke into my apartment, now, I am not going to report you to the police because—”
“I’m sorry. But I was hired to track down the tapes first.”
“That’s not the issue, I really must insist that you—”
“You insist, you insist, you insist … If you don’t mind me giving you a piece of advice, quit while you’re ahead. The real miracle is not that someone went into your apartment—anyone could just walk right in—it’s that I’m here to suggest that you watch the tapes. So you say thanks and dial it down a notch, darling…”
Vernon has no idea what is going on. A waitress comes over and taps him on the shoulder—hey, remember me? He knows he has seen her before. But the memory eludes him. He smiles at her like a loon. She gives him a wink. She seems so gentle that Vernon suddenly feels the urge to burst into tears. The waitress goes back to her work. Then the memory comes back, a blinding flash: he was dog-sitting for Xavier and ran into her in the park, she was the daughter of one of his regulars at Revolver. No sooner has he thought this than his mind disengages again: the sounds and colors all around become a blurred confusion. On his bench up on the hill, when he felt himself losing his marbles, he didn’t give a shit whether it lasted two minutes or two hours, it made no difference … This time, he would like to take control and focus on the present situation, which seems quite pleasant. The conversations carry on, a distant murmuring, figures lean closer, stand up, pull up a chair, throw their heads back and laugh, these faces have names, but they call to mind nothing in particular. He feels a stab of fear. They belong to a world he has left behind. He longs to get to his feet, walk in the park on his own. He is terrified that someone will ask a question, that he will say the wrong thing, that things will turn nasty. People are talking to him, he feels his lips tighten in a feeble smile that will not go away. You sure you don’t want to eat something, it’s amazing having you here today, you know you can crash at my place, how are you feeling, we’ve been searching for you everywhere. It’s amazing you showing up like this, it’s like a sign, huh? You sure you’re okay, you look pale, want another beer? He hears these distant comments, but his mind is elsewhere, he cannot bring himself to focus. It is Laurent who comes over and helps him to his feet when the group decide to move on somewhere, he leans close to Vernon: “When we get there, at least try to eat something, you’ve had too much to drink, you’re in no fit state. It’s a shame, you’re lucky, they’re being nice to you. Make an effort or they’re going to think that you’ve totally lost it.”
As they walk, Pamela Kant slips her arm through Vernon’s and tries again to recap the story of the videotapes. Her words are evanescent, joining the dots of her story requires an effort he cannot sustain. It is dark now. They make a strange procession, their shadows flickering on the glistening street. Vernon does not recognize the sullen teenager in the group who has not said a word to anyone. Feeling his eyes on her, she growls: “I don’t know what I’m doing here, I don’t know any of these people, the Hyena called and told me to come.” “I’ve no idea what I’m doing here either,” Vernon says. She has no desire to talk to him. This is the first sentence he has managed to articulate, but the teenage girl in the hijab is not interested. They walk silently side by side. From around them, here and there, come clusters of words. They continue to stream past, a waltz in monotone. “Oh for fuck’s sake get over it already” “Your little prank cost me a new lock I’ll have you know” “I bet they’ll be boring as fuck” “Yeah, like anything you’ve spent too long anticipating” “I hope they’re not going to be too depressing” “I’m really excited that I’m going to get to see Alex again” “Would you quit sulking, I’ll pay for the fucking lock.”
They take the métro, Vernon finds it hard to deal with the deafening racket, he is no longer accustomed to cramped spaces, they emerge on the banks of the Seine and, when they reach the Hyena’s apartment, he is relieved to be able to collapse onto a sofa. He still cannot get used to the noise. Too many voices, too many walls, too much ceiling, not enough open windows … Patrice immediately puts a fistful of almonds into his cupped hands and waits, watching until he has eaten them, before saying: “Do you want to take a shower? It’ll perk you up, you’re looking a little off-color.” The Hyena comes over, looks Vernon up and down with a mixture of concern and exasperation, before finally guiding him to the bathroom: “Clean towels are on your left as you go in, help yourself.” Vernon balks. He is taken aback. How can he have forgotten how to negotiate walls and doors so quickly? When he sees himself in the mirror, he is dumbstruck: Who is this stranger? What is most surprising is that he finds him handsome. He caught his reflection in the mirror before he recognized himself and had time to think—he’s got the most amazing eyes, the poor fuck. The Hyena pushes the door closed with her foot. She talks to him calmly: “Do you feel all right? You’re whiter than the sink there. Don’t you want to take a shower? Frankly, you smell like a rotting corpse. The others are too polite to say it, but it’s disgusting. Would it really hurt you to wash yourself? Or maybe you think I’m being a clean freak.” Vernon feels dawning panic: not only can he not bring himself to answer, but nothing comes, he can hear her, but not a single word passes his lips, he is drained, unable to make the slightest gesture, even if only to reassure her so that she will leave him in peace. This time, it is categorical: he is completely insane, like the walking dead, he can stand, he seems to function, but he cannot speak, and his thoughts are unhinged. She locks the door behind them. “Okay. Just let me do it.” She undresses him. Her movements are those of a nurse. “Don’t panic, everything is going to be all right. I’m sure you’ll come around. I don’t have a degree in batshit crazy, but I think yours is just temporary. You’re going to take a shower. I’ll lend you a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. I think we’re about the same size. You’re not particularly heavyset and neither am I. We’ll put your things in the wash, dry them, so if you really want to, you’ll be able to leave tonight wearing your own clothes, okay? I should even have a pair of boxers somewhere.” It is the soothing monotone of someone who is reliable, reassuring, who will take care of everything, he allows himself to be manhandled, relieved that she is behaving as though there is nothing terrible or grotesque about the situation. She removes his shoes, peels off his socks. “Jesus, you haven’t changed your clothes in fucking ages, have you … It’s not just that they stink, have you seen the state of your feet?” She chuckles as she snaps the buttons of his jeans. “I can’t say I’m an old hand at this. And you’re not likely to make me regret it. The state of your pants, what a nightmare.”
Then, seeing that he has still not moved, she takes him by the shoulders, spins him around, and guides him into the shower stall. Stoically, she gets undressed, keeping on her white underwear, and, to Vernon, she looks like a nurse. Checking the temperature of the water on the inside of her wrist, she adjusts the thermostat, talking without wondering whether he is listening, “I knew I was getting myself into deep shit when I phoned a bunch of people instead of just doing the job I was paid for, but I have to say, I didn’t think it would come to this … Don’t worry, jus
t relax … You cracked up … happens to a lot of us … You’ll get used to it. I know you know what I’m saying. You’ll be back. You won’t be like you were before, but you’ll come out of this blank daze … At least, I hope so…” The feel of water against his skin brings him pleasantly back to the present, to the shower stall, hands soap his back, his shoulders, massage the knots, there is a searing pain followed immediately by profuse relief, and Vernon feels himself relax. She kneads his head, takes her time rinsing the soap away. She massages his ankles and he feels exhaustion draining from him, she runs the water over his feet, as though she can tell what he is feeling—she relieves his burden. Suddenly, without warning, and before he realizes it, he’s got a raging hard-on. He feels a rush of energy. When she notices, she is unfazed, she smiles and apologizes, “Don’t take this the wrong way, it’s for your own good,” and with a brusque movement, she turns the thermostat and, like a slap, the freezing jet of water jolts him back to reality. He protests and she lets out a loud laugh, “You see, it worked, you’re feeling better already.” She slips on a robe and leaves him in the shower. “Take your time, dry yourself properly, I’ll come back with clean clothes. Are we good?”
He is himself again. He feels exhausted. He longs to sleep. He has no desire to go next door and be forced to make conversation; he knows more or less what has happened, the scraps of information gleaned here and there while he was delirious begin to connect. But he would rather not face up to all that. He is troubled by his reflection in the misted mirror. He has lost a lot of weight. The beard suits him, it changes his appearance. His cheeks are so sunken that it looks as though he is pursing his lips into a pout.
When he emerges from the bathroom, he realizes that everyone is concerned, but has no idea how to behave in this situation. They treat him like an invalid, bring him bread and honey, smile benignly, make no sudden gestures. He takes a sip of coffee, he has not drunk coffee in a long time. He had forgotten that it tastes revolting. Everyone settles down, the lights are turned off, gradually a silence falls and the living room is filled with the sound of Alex’s voice. On the laptop screen, Vernon recognizes his old apartment. He waits for the sudden wave of emotion it should provoke, now that his thoughts are once again linear. But he feels only a pang of bitterness. He was so miserable there, though he never admitted it to himself. He does not regret what has happened. Then Alex’s face swims into frame and Vernon feels an invisible hand lift him up—he remembers back when Alex was still here, a rush of images ebb and flow of things they used to do together. What was he thinking, back then, that stopped him from talking to his last friend when there was still time to grab his arm, shake him hard, and say, let’s make the most of it, man, let’s make the most of it while we’re still alive.
WE ENTERED INTO ROCK MUSIC the way you enter a cathedral, remember, Vernon, and our story was a spaceship. There were so many saints everywhere we didn’t know who to worship. We knew that as soon as they pulled out the jack plugs, musicians were human beings just like everyone else, people who went for a shit and blew their noses when they caught a cold. We didn’t give a fuck about heroes, all we cared about was that sound. It transfixed us, floored us, blew our minds. It existed, we all felt the same way in the beginning, Jesus fuck this thing exists? It was too big to be contained within our bodies. Tearing through our youth, we didn’t have a fucking clue how lucky we were … I remember the guy who first showed me the three chords of “Louie Louie” on the fret board and that night I realized that with those three chords you could play almost all the classics. The first time you had calluses on your fingertips was like getting a diploma. The first song I learned to play all the way through was “She’s Calling You.” Took me all summer. We were fighting a war. A war against half-heartedness. We dreamed up the lives we want to live and there was no fucking killjoy there to tell us that, in the end, we’d give up. When I was sixteen, no one could have convinced me that I wasn’t right where I was supposed to be. Sitting on the spare wheel in the back of a pickup truck, freezing my balls off with six buddies, not knowing if we’d remember to put enough gas in the tank to get home, but not one of us had the slightest doubt. This was “the last adventure of the civilized world.” As for the rest—you remember how it was—nothing was taboo, we weren’t pissed off with anyone or anything: the rest of the world simply didn’t exist. We lived our youth in armor-plated steel bubbles. There were alchemies of enthusiasm, things we didn’t know yet had a downside, we gave ourselves nicknames, everything was fascinating, even the dumbest fucking shit. “We gigging tomorrow?” that was the only question I ever asked myself. We were living in the feedback of open mics, the hiss of a jack plugged into an amp, the heat of the spotlights, playing support to Les Thugs and believing that comp drinks vouchers were the most important part of our adventure, and it was fulfilling. Between the ages of sixteen and twenty-three, I haven’t got a single memory of a TV show, we didn’t have time, we were out on the town, we were listening to music, I have no memory of going to a mainstream movie, or watching a video by Madonna or Michael Jackson, lamestream culture just wasn’t part of our scene. No one even talked about it. I didn’t know that it wouldn’t last. We called it the network, anyone with an answering machine was a total pro, those who had a fax machine were at the bleeding edge of communications. None of us ever thought about buying meat, or going on vacation, only surf rats gave a shit about going to the beach, we hung out in the city, where there were gigs. There was no sacrifice involved—we didn’t give a fuck about anything else.
The scene was the only thing that mattered. And we were right. Weekdays were spent putting up posters, weekends we were gigging somewhere, there were always just enough people so it didn’t feel like a rehearsal, we pressed records, we made no major declarations, there were no interruptions, there was no world outside our own. We set up nonprofit associations, we were treasurers, presidents, we were community workers. We toured from Italy to Germany, to Switzerland and Hungary and Spain, to England and Sweden in beat-up vans, we were kings of the world. Later we had a rock star appointed minister of culture, suddenly there was talk of music grants, we watched venues like lavish youth clubs opening up, the scene was flooded with suits who could put together a grant application, they had mastered establishment-speak, they were more articulate, more astute. We started filling out application forms. CDs replaced vinyl. The single disappeared. We hardly noticed. We knew it was happening and we didn’t know. Taken individually, each change was trivial. We didn’t see the bigger picture. And before we knew it the dream we held sacred had been turned into a piss factory. It was a Cinderella story—our fairy fuzz pedal turned our pumpkins into carriages, and now the chimes had struck midnight. We were back in rags and tatters. Nothing belonged to us anymore. We all had clients now. Rock music was a useful adjunct to the official language of capitalism, the language of marketing: slogans, pleasure, individualism, sounds that could manipulate you without your consent. We hadn’t realized that the magic beans in our hands were pure diamonds. A treasure in the hands of a bunch of misfits. Not one of us had a career path. We didn’t even know such a thing existed. That was what saved us. We may have lost everything. But we’ll never talk to those who never succeeded in living their dream as equals. These days, I come across kids who, by the age of twenty, have learned everything about competitiveness at school, or about marketing in business, who try to convince me they had the same youth that I did. I don’t say anything. Forget it, dude, just forget it. My aristocracy is my biography: I’ve been stripped of everything I had, but I experienced a world that we tailor-made to our own specifications, a world where I didn’t get up in the morning thinking, let’s go conform.
The 1990s. The time had come to sing the praises of pragmatism. Ethical considerations were no longer allowed to get in the way of profit. That was old school. Anyone who didn’t run with the pack was a retard. Everything we loved was ransacked. Destroying things is easy, anyone can do it. Faster, faster, another fu
ll-page ad, another grant, a couple of sponsorships, and maybe throw in a little partnership agreement, could you make it as restrictive as possible so I feel the tug on the leash when I try to run? It was glorious, this brave new world, you had to be an asshole not to believe. And the politicians we counted among our number were no more responsive. They carried on spouting hoary old clichés as though they were sacred texts. The prospect of thinking in real time didn’t interest them—the more time passed, the more they loved the Commune. That massacre became our descent from the cross. We weren’t going to get very far.
You asleep, Vernon? You’re not even listening, are you? You asleep? C’mon, bro, wake up, how can you fucking sleep, you’ve put three grams up your nose! You’ll always be a mystery to me—you never do what people expect, but in the end, we always think, thank God he did what he did. It’s something I’ve noticed about you—you tend to throw a little chaos into the best-laid plans. You can’t fucking imagine what Revolver meant to me, man. How happy I was when I stepped into your shop. Often, you’d put something on the turntable that I didn’t immediately find particularly interesting. A fluke. Something that would really take me forward later. I’d never have been able to make so many different records if you hadn’t opened so many doors for me. You were a mentor. People really like you. You had no idea. The shop was always heaving. You did everything you could to keep the place afloat. I always respected you for that. When people stopped buying records, I still came to see you. It was weird, seeing you perched on your stool. You’d start going on about your accounts. Something you’d never done. I realized you were going to have to close up shop. No one was interested anymore. I remember the last two weeks, when you sold off the stock. Everyone came back for the sale. You greeted them like royalty. But you were the king. I watched you, at the time, there wasn’t a flicker of bitterness in your joy at seeing all these people who had left you high and dry.
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