Wicked and Weird

by Rich Terfry

But that night, she said she wanted me to meet her friends. We ended up at a house party with the last people in the world I wanted to know. I saw that she had traded in everything that was beautiful about her for the lost cause advanced by this crowd. It was a tragic thing to behold. As the night wore on, it was clear that her memory of me had faded, even though I was right there beside her.

  Once I realized that we had fully disappeared over each other’s horizons, I got up to leave. I was on the street outside, trying to get my bearings, when she came careening after me.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I can’t do this.”

  Negotiation was impossible. We had become strangers. I couldn’t make her understand that I had already escaped hell and that I couldn’t go back. She certainly couldn’t convince me that hell might be heaven. In her condition she could barely tell time.

  “Save me,” she said.

  “I can’t.”

  My curse must have done something to whatever unwounded parts of her were left. She started to fight. She became a tornado of sorrow and rage. She sobbed and attacked with equal violence. I let her get it out of her system and took everything she could dish out. She burned brightly for about twenty seconds. When the storm was over, I was bloodied and bruised and she had passed out. I gathered her up and carried her back into the house.

  Careful not to bump her head, I navigated the darkness until I found a couch to set her down upon. I searched her face for beauty one last time and started to make my way out again. As I was walking down the hall toward the door, I heard the other junkies barking at me in languages I didn’t understand. I paid no mind and was just about to go through the door, when I felt a tight blow to the middle of my back. The thud of the impact was followed closely by the sound of a hard object hitting the floor. I looked down and saw that a large knife had hit me—handle first, luckily. I kept walking.

  Outside, I wandered aimlessly until I found a park. I spent the rest of the night on a bench, in and out of troubled sleep.

  The next morning, I walked until I found a shop where I could buy a notebook and a pen. I returned to the park, sat on the same bench and wrote this song:

  Young and attractive. Quote unquote “old soul.”

  Down in a cold hole. Playing my controlled role

  The world is mine, good and bad. I never sleep. Odd charms.

  Fire trucks and squad cars. Struggling in god’s arms.

  Tempted and restless. Blood in my arteries.

  Floods in the armouries. Drugs are a part of me.

  Circus and fun time. The surface is sunshine.

  Brush your teeth. Stunned police. So much darkness underneath.

  Parties and funerals. Nurseries and graveyards.

  Lotteries and robberies. An old couple plays cards.

  Company and visitors. A frequent surprise on

  Weekends. A sequence of secrets and lies.

  Oddities and prodigies. Fireworks and parades bore me.

  Same story. All of my decisions are made for me.

  Reading from loose leaf. Misleading. Seduce me.

  I’m so full of love I’m bleeding profusely …

  Concrete and steel. I remember these drums.

  A chill in the air. In September she comes.

  Pretty and sad. Trying not to cry.

  Trying not to cry. So pretty and so sad.

  These are my telephone poles, my dark trenches,

  My broken windows, my park benches.

  Raccoons and back rooms. Giants and small children.

  Glittering traffic. The outlines of tall buildings.

  Still, in self-defence I kill. Yes, I will.

  They make me do things against my will.

  Some make fun of what I wear. They cut my hair.

  Goblins and problems—I’ve got my share.

  And I bitch and complain. I admit that it’s strange.

  Parts of myself that I wish I could change.

  Insecurities and complexes. Xs for marking spots.

  Complicated beauty of abandoned buildings and parking lots.

  Sparking thoughts and impulses. Rebellion and upheaval.

  Tribal. Indescribable pleasure and such evil.

  Review the proof—crime is going through the roof.

  Accuse the youth. You’d puke if you knew the truth.

  Concrete and steel. I remember these drums.

  A chill in the air. In September she comes.

  Pretty and sad. Trying not to cry.

  Trying not to cry. So pretty and so sad.

  That song went onto a pile and didn’t see the light of day for several years. It eventually turned up on an album called Situation, my third for Warner. But first came Talkin’ Honky Blues, a collection of songs born of my new life in Paris. I wrote about the Seine and the Métro and being a stranger. I also wrote about the life I had left behind in Nova Scotia: baseball and dirt roads and the dark woods. I had wanted to pay tribute to my grandfather Charlie and his beloved record collection. I made Talkin’ Honky Blues an album I thought he’d like to listen to.

  The lingering Radiohead-endorsement buzz meant there was high anticipation for the album. When it was released, the reviews were almost universally positive and people seemed quite excited about it. They wrote that they had never heard anything quite like its combination of old-timey folk and blues with electronic sounds and hip hop.

  The summer following the release of the album, my name was on the bill for just about every major music festival in the world. In late June I played the Glastonbury Festival in England. I was too much in awe to act as if I belonged there. Backstage, I had my photograph taken with the biggest names of the moment, living legends and supermodels. Festival volunteers waited on me hand and foot. Reps from companies sponsoring the event plied me with free stuff: jeans, shoes, gadgets, you name it. I sang my crooked little songs about Mount Uniacke and Stella Kuhn and baseball and death, sang them for thousands of people who somehow knew all the words.

  Afterwards, still sweaty and drunk on adrenaline, I was escorted to a tent filled with journalists who were waiting for me with notepads and lists of questions. Writers from around the world had incredibly flattering things to say about work I was doing and were curious to know about where I came from and what my interests and opinions were. I was on top of the world until a writer from a magazine called Clank brandished his microphone. Our conversation went like this:

  “First of all, let me say that I’ve been following your career for a while now and became a fan the first moment I heard your music.”

  “Oh wow! Thanks!”

  “So my first question is this—why have you sold out?”

  “Whoa. Huh?”

  “You signed to a big label, changed your sound and this new album sucks.”

  “Jeez. I’m sorry you feel that way.”

  “It’s garbage. You’re working with live musicians. Banjos and guitars. That’s not hip hop.”

  I was caught off guard. I was also offended. As a kid I had risked my life at the top of a tree to listen to hip hop on the radio, and now this guy was calling my credibility into question. How dare he? I forgot about his microphone and tape recorder (and by extension, the audience that would later read his article) and fought back, falling into the trap he was laying for me.

  “So you’re the authority? You’re the one who decides what’s permitted?”

  “Hip hop has rules. You, of all people, should know that.”

  “I piss on your rule book.”

  “So you admit you’re purposely degrading the legacies of Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash—the founding fathers of the movement?”

  “I’m saying fuck you.”

  “It’s snobbery. By working with these musicians from outside the genre, you’re sending a message that the essential tools of hip hop music—the mixer and turntables—are too primitive for you. They’re beneath you. You’re too good for hip hop now. Is that it?”

  “Yeah, whateve
r you say, Boss.”

  That was all he needed to write a scathing article that, when published, did some serious damage to my career. He painted me as a hip hop Judas. The headline read “Redneck Rapper Says ‘Fuck You’ to Hip Hop.” Things only got worse from there. Many of my peers were offended and a legion of self-appointed hip hop purists called for me to be burned at the stake.

  The last interview of my press gauntlet that day was with a woman who wrote for a Russian magazine.

  “Your music is beautiful. It is not like anything we have heard before. How do you explain it?”

  “Well, I don’t. I don’t want to explain it. I hope it explains itself. I’m influenced by the art I like, same as anyone else, I guess. But my only real aim is to express my experiences honestly and to be true to where I come from—Mount Uniacke, Nova Scotia.”

  At that moment, my festival escort interrupted and explained that things had gone over schedule and that I had to be taken away to fulfill another commitment.

  “Oh, but I had many more question!”

  “Oh gosh. I’m sorry. I know it’s not ideal, but if you like, we could do the rest by phone.”

  “Yes. This is fine. I give you my phone number.”

  “Great. I’ll be in touch in the next few days.”

  The Russian journalist tore of piece of paper from her notebook, wrote her contact info on it and handed it to me. I folded it, put it in my pocket and forgot all about it—not realizing that, soon enough, it would be my undoing.

  •

  The following weekend I was in a town called Belfort, near the French border where Germany and Switzerland converge. I was there to play a festival called Les Eurockéennes. Wandering the festival grounds before my set, I heard someone shout a Frenchified version of my name. I turned to see a dusty-bearded festivalgoer waving his arms to get my attention. Radiating from his group of friends was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I waved at the group and they smiled and gestured back. The door was open: here was my chance to make sure this woman wasn’t a hallucination brought on by heat, lack of sleep and loneliness.

  I approached the tribe. My French was still weak, but I compensated for my mispronunciations by miming every verb and some of my nouns and adverbs. “Hello, my friends,” I said. “Will you be here to see the show later?”

  “Ah—bien sûr,” said the group’s unshaven de facto leader, before performing introductions. The last thing I remember him saying before he vanished into thin air was “And this is Claire …”

  Claire. To my amazement, she was more beautiful up close than from a hundred feet away, despite being caked in two days of festival grime, having her hair hurricaned and not wearing a lick of makeup.

  Claire. The storm of her eyes is what strikes you first. They’re the coldest blue I’ve ever seen—so cold they look painful. Everything else about her is warm: her Mediterranean skin, un-tampered eyebrows and almost-black hair.

  Claire. She appears at once wise and naive. She betrays a sense of wonder and sadness about everything. She looks like a wild animal. Gazing at her, I felt the same sensation as I had when making eye contact with a jungle cat in a zoo. I was mesmerized.

  Claire. She doesn’t know she’s beautiful. She has no time for such a concern—not when there’s so much to know: so much art, so many stories, so much pain and war too. Her beauty calls no attention to itself. It’s not corrupted by ego or insecurity.

  I turned to her, and making the correct assumption that she spoke little to no English, I was deliberate with my question: “Will … you … marry … me?” Her friends suddenly rematerialized and she looked at them with a confused expression. One of them cupped a hand over her ear and whispered into it.

  Then: “I wheel … sink about eat,” she said. Her smile shattered my heart.

  The Beard assured me they’d be watching the show from the front row, so I ran off to prepare, confident I’d be able to find Claire again when my work was done.

  After my set, several people were excited to report to me that French music legend Alain Bashung had watched the whole thing from the side of the stage. But I couldn’t hear their voices. I hadn’t seen Mr. Bashung or any of the thousands of people in the crowd before me; I had only seen Claire. For an hour I had cut myself open and bled, just for her.

  Then everything went black. There was no blood left in me. There was no music. No stage. No France. No Claire … When my senses returned, I was lying on a bed, fully clothed, in a tiny hotel room with noisy wallpaper, and it was tomorrow. My instruction for the day was to drive to another city for another festival. But I couldn’t leave Belfort without seeing Claire again. No way.

  I returned to the festival site with the assignment of finding one face in a swirling mass of two hundred fifty thousand. It should have been impossible and the prospect should have filled me with panic. But I set to my task with a clear-minded calm. It took less than ten minutes. It was as if some kind of signal had drawn me directly to her—a bonfire, an alarm bell, a gravitational pull. After we exchanged smiles and hellos, I cut to the chase.

  “I want to take you around the world,” I said. Her eyes blazed. In the distance, Blonde Redhead was playing “In Particular,” as if to help my case. Claire didn’t say anything with her voice, but her eyes asked how she would find me again. I gave her my phone number and negotiated a promise that she would contact me. Then I walked away. I felt like I was fleeing a crime scene. I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of my heart worrying. I knew that my life was about to change.

  •

  For the next two weeks, Claire didn’t call. I was inconsolable. I rolled around on the floor and moaned, demented. I had made up my mind: she was the woman I was destined to be with. And now she was a vanishing mirage. I didn’t know where she lived. I didn’t even know her last name. How would I ever find her again? I couldn’t sleep, was plagued by terrible visions of ships passing in the night. Finally, on a Thursday afternoon before a show in New Orleans, I surrendered hope and resolved to get on with my life. And that was when the phone rang.

  —Allô? Rich?

  —Yes! Oui?

  —C’est moi. C’est Claire! Vous vous souvenez de moi?

  —Bien sûr! Claire! Dieu merci! Dites-moi, où habitez-vous?

  —À Paris …

  —Écoutez, voulez-vous me rencontrer prés de la fontaine Saint-Michel … ce samedi?

  —Pourquoi pas. À quelle heure?

  —À midi!

  —OK. Pas de problème.

  —Super! J’y serai! Ce samedi!

  —À midi!

  —Parfait. À bientôt!

  —À bientôt!

  —Au revoir, Claire!

  —Au revoir, Rich.

  I had wasted no time. I had asked her to meet me at a popular meeting place in the Latin Quarter, and she’d agreed to meet me in front of the fountain at the northern end of Boulevard Saint-Michel the following Saturday at noon. I hung up the phone, took a few deep breaths to slow my heart rate and booked a flight on the red-eye the next night.

  When I got off the plane in Paris, I fought my way through the hell on earth that is the Charles de Gaulle airport to the platform for the RER train that would take me into the city. I took the Métro home, fixed myself up and made for our meeting place. It was a beautiful July day and the statue of the Archangel Michael himself was not so busy wrestling the devil that he couldn’t admire the large crowd assembled before him. Buskers busked, lovers argued, and I radared the scene for Claire. Noon came and went. No sign. I began to despair. Still, I decided I would wait until the end of time. Twenty minutes later, I was blinded by the radiation that had first hit me in Belfort a few weeks earlier. The archangel’s audience faded; there stood magnificent Claire.

  “Where do you want to go?” and “Follow me” were the only sentences spoken between us for the next hour and a half. When conversation resumed, Claire was sitting on the windowsill in my bedroom, naked. She was smoking a cigarette and gazing out
at the passing traffic, only partially covered by the curtain. I was on the bed, sweaty and tousled.

  “I have a boyfriend,” she said to the distant horizon.

  “Are you happy?”

  “Non.”

  I was already in love. Raked fore and aft, as they used to say back home. Claire was Wonder Woman: the black hair, the blue eyes, the superhero boobs. It was hard to believe she was real. I wanted to know everything about her.

  “What is your … nom de famille?” I asked.

  “Picabia.”

  “Wait. You mean like—”

  “Yes. In fact, Francis Picabia was my great-grandfather.”

  Good lord, her great-grandfather had been one of the most famous painters and poets of the Dadaist and surrealist movements! He’d been pals with Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp and Guillaume Apollinaire and Erik Satie! She told me a bit about Picabia—how he was a great artist but had not been a great family man, and that for this reason she harboured mixed feelings about him. She went on to tell me that another relative of hers had played a role in the Buñuel film Un Chien Andalou, that her parents used to be radical communists and had taken her to see Eisenstein films when she was five years old, that she held a master’s degree in French literature. I then spent twenty minutes trying to explain what a hick and what a nerd were, but her profound French-ness prevented her from grasping either concept. I was outclassed in every way, but she was in the room and she was naked, so I figured I should keep going while I could.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked.

  “Write. Maybe be a teacher.”

  “I mean now. Next week. Next month …”

  “I need change. I want to leave—my asshole boyfriend, Paris, everything—at least for a while.”

  “Where would you like to live if you could live anywhere?”

  “Perhaps New York. I have never been there. It seems like such an interesting place, but …”

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Come with me to New York. I will find a place. Let’s go live there for a while. See what it’s like. We’ll write. And you can be my teacher. What do you say?”