Utopia Avenue
Page 33
Formaggio came to see him before lunch. “Christ, you look terrible. Is it still…” He rapped his knuckles together three times.
Jasper nodded. Marshaling sentences was like trying to perform mental arithmetic while someone shouted random numbers into his face. “Telegraph my grandfather. If I get sectioned in an English hospital, I’ve got no guardian here to get me out.”
Formaggio nodded and went away. More hours limped on under heavy showers of hard knocks. They were getting louder. Jasper felt hairline splits crisscross his mind. The headmaster arrived with Dr. Bell from the town surgery to give Jasper a proper examination: Formaggio’s telegram had reached Grootvader Wim. Knock Knock fired off a cannonade of blows that brought tears to Jasper’s eyes. After testing Jasper’s pulse, reflexes, blood pressure, vision, and hearing, Dr. Bell ventured a diagnosis of “extreme nervous migraine” and prescribed sleeping pills and a mild opiate solution. Formaggio returned after supper, but speaking was now nearly impossible. “I don’t know if it’s demonic possession or madness or a brain tumor,” said Jasper, “but this is killing me.”
Formaggio asked Matron and the headmaster if Jasper could sleep in their dorm where Formaggio would be on hand if his friend’s condition worsened. The headmaster agreed, and Jasper took two sleeping pills before he lay down on his own bed. In lieu of counting sheep, he listed the ways a schoolboy in Swaffham House could kill himself: a noose made of his school tie; drowning in the River Ouse; slicing his veins with his Swiss Army knife; resting his head on the King’s Lynn–London railway line…
…Knock Knock jolted Jasper back to consciousness. His alarm clock said two. Formaggio was asleep. Jasper’s own body felt unfamiliar, as if his mind had been transplanted as he slept. The knocking was relentless, merciless…Some impulse prompted Jasper to get out of bed and check his reflection in the mirror in his wardrobe. A stranger’s eyes regarded him. The stranger within knocked his knuckles against the inside of the mirror and, for a split second of pain, revealed his true form: a man, older, shorter than Jasper, with East Asian eyes, in ceremonial robes. His head was shaven.
He was gone.
Of its own volition, Jasper’s knuckle struck the mirror again and the figure reappeared, possessed Jasper’s fist, and KNOCK-KNOCKknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockknockKNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK “De Zoet! De Zoet! De Zoet!”
Formaggio had hauled Jasper away from the mirror and was pinning him down on his bed. His knuckles were cut and bloody. “You were sleepwalking! You were dreaming!”
“No I wasn’t,” said Jasper.
* * *
—
UTOPIA AVENUE WALK down the gangplank at Hook of Holland. A chopped rainbow rises over the warehouses and wharves. Levon carries a suitcase in each hand. Jasper and Dean carry their guitars. Amps, keyboards, and drums will be provided at the TV studio and at the Paradiso, so Griff and Elf carry only their overnight bags. They enter the new customs area at Hook of Holland port. Jasper is reassured by the design of the place, by the fonts on the signs, by the sound of Dutch and the facial habits of the speakers. He reaches the front of the queue and hands over his Dutch passport. The heavyset officer studies Jasper’s photograph, then frowns at Jasper’s long hair. “But it says here you’re male.” He speaks with a Flemish accent.
A joke. The hair. “Yes, I get that quite a lot.”
The officer nods at Jasper’s guitar case. “Machine gun?”
Another joke? Jasper shows the man his Stratocaster.
The officer makes an unreadable face and looks behind Jasper to Elf, Griff, Dean, and Levon. “Is that your band?”
“Yes. The older one’s our manager.”
“Huh. Are you lot famous?”
“Not very. We might be soon.”
“What do you call yourselves?”
“Utopia Avenue.”
The officer double-checks Jasper’s name. “Are you related to the de Zoets of Middelburg? The shipping family?”
Experience has taught Jasper to be evasive. “Only distantly.”
* * *
—
THE CHANGING ROOM at AVRO TV boasts four chairs facing four mirrors lit by four naked lightbulbs, a coat stand, two squashed cockroaches on a floor of broken tiles, and a view of dustbins. “We’ve hit the big time now, baby,” mumbles Dean.
“At least it doesn’t smell of piss and beer,” says Elf.
“Relax here for twenty minutes,” says the assistant.
Jasper looks away from the mirrors. I doubt that.
“Here, you do preparation,” says the assistant. “Two minutes before your slot, I will deliver you to the studio stage. You will perform the songs ‘The Darkroom’ and ‘Mona Lisa Sings the Blues.’ After, Henk will conduct a short interview. Is there anything that you need in addition?”
“A ball of opium as big as my head,” says Dean. “Please.”
“This you may buy in the city. After the show.”
Applause washes down the corridor outside as Shocking Blue, a four-piece psychedelic band from The Hague, start the show.
“I will be back.” The assistant shuts the door behind him.
“Bloody Nora.” Dean turns to Jasper. “There’s no holding you wild Bohemian swinging Dutch freaks back, is there?”
Irony, sarcasm, or sincere? Jasper does an all-purpose shrug.
“I’d like a quick word with the Hollies’ manager.” Levon puts on his blue glasses. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”
“That gives us plenty of scope,” says Elf, as tradition dictates.
Jasper slips his jacket over a hanger, hooks the hanger over the mirror, sits down, and gets out his Rothmans.
“But why do mirrors give you the creeps?” asks Griff. “Granted, aye, you’re no oil painting, but you’re not that revolting.”
“They just creep me out.” Jasper avoids the specifics.
“Oooh, hark at Captain Mysterious,” says Griff.
“Phobias are irrational,” says Elf. “That’s the point.”
“The things I’m afraid of are all pretty sensible,” says Dean. “Bee-swarms. Atomic war. Surviving an atomic war.”
“The plague,” says Griff. “Elevator shafts. Elf?”
Elf thinks. “Forgetting lines onstage. Fluffing songs.”
“If that happens,” says Dean, “just sing in fake Hungarian and when people say, ‘What’s that?’ say, ‘It’s avant-garde.’ ”
“Avant-garde a clue,” says Griff. “I left my sunglasses in the makeup room. I’ll be right back.” He stands up to go.
“That old trick,” says Dean. “Yer just after Miss Makeup Artist’s number, yer old dog. I’ll come along. Want to cop yer face when she turns yer down.”
“I’d like to see Shocking Blue,” says Elf. “Coming, Jasper?”
Peace, quiet, and a cigarette are inviting. “I’ll stay here.”
* * *
—
THERE’S A KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK on the changing-room door.
It�
��s okay, Jasper assures himself. “Hello?”
A face with a square jaw, a restless stare, and brown hair. “Jasper de Zoet, I presume.” The visitor has a deep American voice.
Jasper knows him. He’s formerly of the Byrds. “Gene Clark.”
“Hi. Mind if I disturb you?”
“You’re welcome. Just mind the roaches.”
Gene Clark peers down to examine the squashed bugs. “There but for the grace of God.” Jasper’s unsure what a normal response might be so he shrugs and hopes for the best. The visitor is dressed in a fuchsia shirt, loose mauve string tie, green trousers, and gleaming Anello and Davide boots. He pulls a chair out. “Just wanted to say, I really dig your LP. Your guitar playing’s out of this world. Did you teach yourself?”
“I had a Brazilian teacher for a while. Mostly I taught myself. In a long continuum of rooms.”
The singer looks as if Jasper’s answer was strange. “You taught yourself good. When I heard ‘Darkroom,’ I thought, How in hell did Pink Floyd get Eric Clapton to play with ’em? It’s great.”
That’s a compliment, Jasper realizes. Give one back. “Thank you. The album you made with the Gosdin Brothers is a banquet. ‘Echoes’ is remarkable. That uphill F major seventh is ingenious.”
“So that’s an F major seventh?” Gene Clark taps ash. “I call it ‘F demented.’ I liked how the album turned out. Too bad it sold shit. It came out the same time as my old band released their Younger Than Yesterday LP and it vanished down a hole…”
Jasper guesses that it’s his turn to speak. “Are you touring?”
“Just a few dates, here in Holland and Belgium. They dig me here. Enough for a promoter to fly me over, anyway.”
“I thought you quit the Byrds because of a fear of flying?”
Gene Clark stubs out his cigarette. “I quit the Byrds ’cause I was tired of flying. Tired of that life, of the screams, of the faces, of the fame. So I quit. Fame molds itself onto your face. Then it molds your face. Fame brings you immunity from the usual rules. That’s why the law doesn’t like us. If a freak with a guitar doesn’t have to abide by the rules of the great and the good, why should anyone? Problem is, if fame is a drug, it’s hard to kick.”
“But you did kick it, Mr. Clark,” says Jasper. “You walked away from the American Beatles.”
Gene Clark examines the callus on his hand. “I did. And guess what? Now it’s gone, I want it back. How do I earn a living without fame? Playing coffee houses for beer money won’t cut it. I miss being someone. When I had fame, fame was killing me. Now it’s gone, anonymity is killing me.”
Shocking Blue’s “Lucy Brown Is Back in Town” wafts down the corridor. The saxophone solo’s great. The song itself is not.
“We’ll give you a home in Utopia Avenue,” says Jasper.
Gene Clark flashes his smile as if Jasper was joking. “Am I life’s greatest fool? Is all pop just a fad? Do we all get replaced by some new Johnny Thunder and the Thunderclaps after X many years? Or could we still be in this game when we’re sixty-four? Who can tell?”
“Time,” says Jasper.
* * *
—
THE LAST CHORDS of the recorded “Mona Lisa Sings the Blues” die away and the assistant producer holds up a Dutch sign saying APPLAUS. The audience obliges. Jasper recognizes Sam Verwey, his old busking partner and classmate at the art college. Verwey gives him a double thumbs-up. The band is ushered over to a sofa alongside Henk Teuling. The presenter of Fenklup is a walrus of a man dressed like a civil servant. Addressing the camera, he speaks scholarly Dutch as if to atone for the show’s hippie visuals. “The British band Utopia Avenue, playing ‘The Darkroom’ and ‘Mona Lisa Sings the Blues.’ Their guitarist Jasper de Zoet is ‘half Dutch’—and a scion of the famous de Zoet shipping family. Am I correct?”
“Mostly,” replies Jasper. “Shall we speak in English?”
“Naturally.” Henk Teuling gives a magnanimous smile and indicates Elf. “Why don’t you introduce this lovely lady first?”
“This is Elf,” says Jasper, “who wrote ‘Mona Lisa.’ ”
Elf gives a cool wave at the camera and makes a valiant stab at “Goodag, Nederlands.”
Members of the audience shout, “We love you, Elf!”
“So I must ask,” says the host, “why are you in a band with three guys? This is very unconventional. Did you apply to join the band? Or did the band invite you?”
“We…sort of auditioned each other,” says Elf.
“People suggest you were hired as a gimmick.”
Elf’s face becomes more complicated. “I’m hardly likely to say yes to that, am I? I mean—were you hired as a gimmick?”
“But an elf is a little magic person with pointy ears. Yet you are not little, not magic, and do not have pointy ears.”
“It’s a family nickname. My birth certificate names are ‘Elizabeth Frances.’ ‘El’ plus ‘F’ makes ‘Elf.’ ”
Henk Teuling takes this in. “I see. Do you dig Amsterdam?”
“I love it. It’s so…improbable. Yet here it is.”
“Precisely so.” Henk Teuling turns to Griff. “You are…”
Griff’s brow furrows. “I’m a fookin’ what?”
“You are the drummer of Utopia Avenue.”
Griff looks over at the drum kit, astonished. “Holy shit. You’re right. I am the drummer…”
“And tonight you make your international debut at the Paradiso, here in Amsterdam. What does this show mean to you?”
“It means I get to be interviewed by Henk Teuling.”
Henk Teuling nods as if considering a line of Immanuel Kant and turns to Dean. “You are Dean Moss. A bass guitarist. You wrote a song we did not hear just now entitled ‘Abandon Hope.’ It was released as a second single. It was a flop. Why?”
“One o’ them mysteries,” says Dean. “Like, who hired yer?”
Henk Teuling smiles illegibly. “The British sense of humor. I am an eminent music critic in the Netherlands, and well qualified to present this program. Which brings us to Utopia Avenue’s LP, Paradise Is the Road to Paradise.” He shows the camera a copy of their album. “Some people say this LP is schizophrenic. How do you respond? Anyone?”
“How can an LP be schizophrenic?” asks Dean. “That’s like saying, ‘Your helicopter is manic depressive.’ ”
“Yet, in fact, on this album we hear acid rock, folk with acid effects, R&B, folk interludes, passages of jazz. So ‘schizophrenic’ is, in fact, an apt adjective for such inconsistency of style.”
“Wouldn’t the adjective ‘eclectic’ be more apt?” asks Elf.
“But into which category of music,” Henk Teuling asks the three males, “can Utopia Avenue be located? Our viewers at home will be worrying about this question. The category.”
“Locate it in an eclectic category,” states Dean.
Jasper’s attention wanders off and finds Sam Verwey, who mimes hanging himself with a noose. A joke. Jasper mimes a smile. He finds he’s looking for Trix.
“You have a view on this issue, Jasper?” asks the eminent critic.
“You’re like a zoologist asking a platypus, ‘Are you a duck-like otter? Or an otter-like duck? Or an oviparous mammal?’ The platypus doesn’t care. The platypus is digging, swimming, hunting, eating, mating, sleeping. Like the platypus, I don’t care. We make music we like. We hope others like it too. That’s it.”
The producer is making a time’s-up gesture. Henk Teuling addresses the camera. “We will finish here. Some people will find the music by these four platypuses unfocused, confusing, and too loud. Some people may enjoy it. I will prejudice no one. Next up, making their third appearance on Fenklup with their newest hit, ‘Jennifer Eccles,’ I am proud to present a genuine British pop sensation—the Hollies!”
* * *
—
THE BLACK SINGEL Canal reflects the streetlamps spaced along its curving banks. Pale globes fragment, resolve, fragment, resolve. Jasper crosses the narrow bridge and enters Roomolenstraat, exactly the kind of street that foreigners picture when they think of Amsterdam: brick-paved, with lampposts, tall narrow houses with tall narrow windows, steep gables, and flower boxes. Halfway along its modest length, he finds the number he is searching for and a name-plaque atop the brass doorbell: GALAVAZI. Once Jasper’s thumb is on the doorbell, however, his resolve fragments. He’s no master of social etiquette, but he’s pretty sure that normal people telephone before turning up on a doorstep after five years. More than that, if you push this bell, Knock Knock’s return is official. Jasper senses the present bifurcate, right now. Or I could walk away and hope for the best.
A builder’s van rumbles up Roomolenstraat. Jasper has to stand on the doorstep to let the van pass. The van slows down, and both the driver and the passenger—a son?—give Jasper a lidded stare, as if memorizing his face for a police artist. I could have been you, Jasper thinks, looking at the son, easily—it’s all Y-junctions, from Alpha to Omega…His thumb is still on the doorbell. Just a little more pressure, and one future comes into being at the expense of another. No. The door opens anyway. Dr. Ignaz Galavazi addresses Jasper in his Frisian-flavored Dutch. “Ah, excellent timing, Jasper. In you come now, out of the cold. Dinner’s ready.”