Scream

by Tama Janowitz

  They seemed somewhat surprised, but they obliged.

  At that time, being American in Britain was of interest. “I always wanted to know,” one of the band asked, “would you be so kind as to tell me: What is a ‘pastrami sandwich’? What’s a Colt .45?”

  There had been some American program on television there recently that used those mysterious phrases.

  Certainly I wasn’t interested in anything to do with the Sex Pistols. They seemed poor, uneducated, grubby. Scrawny. A life of baked beans on toast and chips. A mixture of embarrassed and scared. I had on a silvery satin silk shirt, and I had tied up the bottoms of my jeans with thick pinkish cloth strips from ankle to knee, and I had a pair of pointed, spike-heeled black ankle boots with little fins that flapped down as if the boots had collars. This was not what other American girls were doing on their year abroad.

  I always wanted to be a groupie, but there was no way I was going out with any of them, even though they seemed affable enough, even puppy-doggish. But I was hoping to move up on the social scale, or at least out of poverty, and there was no way these guys were ever going to play again, in my opinion, after tonight.

  The whole thing was so ridiculous, I started to giggle. After a short while the photographers didn’t want to take my picture anymore, because to be punk, you had to scowl. To be punk you were supposed to look disenfranchised, or it wouldn’t have any value as a trend.

  Somewhere out there are a whole bunch of photos of me with the Sex Pistols. I missed so many opportunities along the way because of my fears and shyness! If only I hadn’t thought the Sex Pistols were so untalented and unattractive, I could have ended up as Nancy Spungen.

  * John Lydon mentions this in his book Anger Is an Energy and says how the audience didn’t like them. I am sorry. The audience did like them. It was me, surly and superior, who didn’t. I like them now, though!

  a side trip to france

  Before I left for my junior year abroad, Mom and I both read Without Stopping, Paul Bowles’s autobiography, in which he wrote about being a young man—about the age I was then—deciding he would become a writer.

  So he wrote to a bunch of famous people, inviting himself to stay with them. He did not know the people, but most of them said yes, do come and stay with me. If I got a letter from a stranger, even though I’m not famous, I would not invite them to stay with me or even meet them for a cup of coffee. I am scared of people, even the ones I know.

  At nineteen, however, this did not stop me from imitating Paul Bowles. I wrote to him in Morocco and suggested he invite me to stay with him. He wrote back, “No.”

  But others did invite me for lunch, or for drinks. And now I have a great deal of gratitude toward them, for, if I were to receive such a request today, I would not be able to deal with it. I would copy Paul Bowles again and say, “No.”

  But, on receiving my letter, Lawrence Durrell invited me to visit.

  I had read The Alexandria Quartet, which I didn’t understand, mostly. This was exciting beyond belief, and when I wrote to my mother (we did not have enough money for transatlantic phone calls), she wrote back and said, “Yes, of course you should do this!” She scraped together enough money for me to take a plane from London to Paris, another flight from Paris to Montpellier, and from there to take a bus to Sommières.

  I wrote to Mr. Durrell again asking if I could visit soon, as it was my winter break. He didn’t answer. Perhaps he had gotten nervous about this lunatic writing and inviting herself to his home in France?

  So I gave him one last chance. I wrote to him again and said that I would be arriving on such-and-such a day and that if he did not want me to visit he should let me know, otherwise I would be there.

  He did not write back.

  I assumed this meant “Yes.” Otherwise he would have written back to me saying, “No.” Right?

  Although I had taken French all the way through high school, when I got to Paris I realized that I could not speak French. Being able to conjugate a verb and knowing vocabulary lists was not enough to communicate. Then there was the whole gender thing that was a killer.

  This was a race of people that assigned sex roles to books and plates and ice cubes, and if you didn’t get their identity correct you would get an F on the final. Many French people speak English now, but back then, even if they did speak English, they were not going to let me know. It was a matter of pride.

  In Paris I got another plane. In Montepellier, I left the airport and found a bus. I took that bus for a while and then I got another bus.

  How the heck did I do this? I didn’t speak French, nobody spoke English, and there wasn’t Mapquest or GPS or anything. There were no ATM cards, there were no cell phones. That nineteen-year-old—broke, scared, brave, adventurous—whatever you want to say about her, that person wasn’t me. I don’t know who took over Tama for that period, but whoever she was, wow.

  A bus dumped me out. I walked. I walked. It was getting dark. I don’t actually remember how I managed to complete the rest of my travel.

  It was evening by the time I arrived. All was gray. Dusty. Wintry. Not cold, but that sad time of the day, of the year. My ancient vinyl suitcase was small yet heavy, and it did not have wheels because in those days they did not make suitcases with wheels. On foot—from the bus station across the little bridge and down a winding road to Lawrence Durrell’s home.

  Yes, it was the correct address.

  The house was boarded up. Drifts of dead leaves covered the drive, and the garden was a tangled ruin, untended for a long time. On the huge wooden door was a note scrawled on a stiff white card that said, in French, FOR INQUIRIES GO TO THE AUBERGE AUX COCHONS ROUGES.

  Ha! I took the card from the door. I studied for a long time. I opened my French-English dictionary.

  An auberge was a traveler’s inn or a public house where one might stop for a rest after a long day’s journey by stagecoach (a calèche or diligence). Cochons Rouges—red pigs.

  Going to the Auburge aux Cochons Rouges in darkness, dragging my suitcase, back down the road and over the bridge and then another half mile or more down the lane. There it was: an inn or maybe restaurant, and I went in, holding up my stolen stiff placard from Durrell’s house with the nice writing on it.

  There was a small desk, I guess for people with reservations, but the place was empty. A woman appeared, surprised. Some of the time, inexplicably, I did speak French. Now I was able to inform her: I had come from London to see Mr. Durrell, who was not at home.

  She said Larry was traveling for an extended period.

  In that case. Avez-vous une chambre pour une personne pour la nuit avec une douche?

  She was puzzled. She said, at last, that this was a restaurant, but maybe I could get a bed a few blocks away, and she gave me the address.

  This town shut down pretty quick at night. Now there was nothing open. It was winter. The address was a shop, the one remaining shop open. I walked up the small flight of stairs dragging my suitcase. To the left was a waist-high refrigerator. There was a small room going back and in the room, a great many stalwart French peasant-farmer types were standing around arguing. I entered. A stunned silence fell.

  This terrified me. These rough men were a depraved lot! What if they were making terrible assumptions about me, that I was an itinerant prostitute wending my way through the small towns and villages of southern France? And even worse, what if they were laughing amongst themselves, saying, “That girl thinks she can be a prostitute? Who would want her! Zut alors! Fiche le camp!” (My French teacher had told me that meant “hit the road” and that it could be very useful.)

  Fortunately, the only other complete French phrases I remembered were about how to get a hotel room, a lesson available in almost all French-instruction books. “Do you have a room with a single bed and a shower?” was finally a very helpful phrase, but not if the answer didn’t conform to that in the chapter. The words came fluently, which was kind of a shame, because then it was general
ly assumed I could speak French. Apparently there were a few rooms upstairs. But now I was starving. I was too afraid to inquire if there was anything to eat. I looked around timidly. I was desperate. And in that waist-high refrigerator by the door, I espied large round local cheeses covered with herbs. Somehow, with the last of my courage, I removed a cheese and I paid for it and then I was shown to my room upstairs.

  You gotta remember, I was nineteen years old! In the 1970s there was no French cheese in small-town USA. I hadn’t eaten all day, and that big ball of local cheese was the only food for sale in the shop.

  My room was clean and quiet, except for the noise from the street just outside, for even though the town was shut for the night, the men who frequented the shop were loud and hung around in front for a long time. Since I was raised to believe that at any minute an attacker would burst in, I carefully moved all the furniture in front of the door before I attempted to eat my cheese ball. It had no particular flavor except chalk and dust, with a consistency somewhere between cream cheese and a roll of toilet tissue; it was impossible to swallow. Apparently the cheese ball had been formulated out of Elmer’s glue, for my esophagus was now pasted shut.

  Nor was there anything to drink.

  In the morning I went to the bus stop and took the two buses back to the airport. I was ashamed. I was embarrassed. I had traveled all that way using my mom’s money to go to a small town in the south of France to visit a man who wasn’t there.

  The plane to Paris was very small. It was crowded with people. This was my only chance. Maybe he—Lawrence Durrell—had actually been hiding out in his house and was now taking a plane to Paris? I thought so, because opposite me was a man who might be Lawrence Durrell.

  I didn’t really know what Lawrence Durrell looked like, but I was certain that he was this man. Why he would have been flying to Paris today if he hadn’t been at his home the day before did occur to me, but I just assumed that when I had first come to his door he was hiding someplace and had gotten the woman at the auberge to inform any groupies that he was away on a trip.

  I could not take my eyes off this man as I tried to will him into saying something to me. If he spoke English I could ask him his name, and somehow, I thought, on meeting me, Lawrence Durrell would see the error of his ways.

  I kept looking at him like he was the most handsome creature I had ever seen in my life. He was fat, kind of bald except for gray frizz on the sides, with super ugly glasses and the lower half of a gray beard. It was a short flight, so I had to use all my most seductive powers to get him to speak to me.

  At first he seemed nervous, even apprehensive. Then slowly a light flickered in his eyes. Yes, he was indeed a handsome and devastating Casanova kind of guy. He had forgotten how often this happened to him, that nineteen-year-old girls could not stop staring at him with adoration.

  At last, he spoke to me. I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. He spoke French! I asked if he spoke English, and he shook his head. Finally, it was time. I asked him: “Monsieur, are you Lawrence Durrell?”

  “Quoi?” He seemed surprised.

  What? He wasn’t Lawrence Durrell?

  With that I let him know what I actually thought of him—again, with the eyes. What a jerk, zut alors.

  Plus, once we landed in Paris, he had someone who looked like a wife waiting for him, a female version of himself. What a cad. I had half a mind to tell his wife her husband was an old letch, trying to pick up young girls on an airplane.

  I got the last available seat on the next plane to London. It was a short flight, and you could sit wherever you wanted. Everyone was very noisy and rowdy, had had quite a lot to drink already, and was dressed in colorful hipper-than-ordinary outfits. I asked someone on line ahead of me what was going on. He explained that a clothing manufacturer’s convention had just taken place in Paris, and these were the English press and manufacturers who had come over for the trade fair and fashion shows. The passengers ambled on, all of them trying to find seats next to their buddies. A man took a seat and began gesticulating to his friends to come and sit next to him.

  Not so fast, buddy! I was right behind him, and even though I could have kept going, and he really wasn’t my type at all, I grinned and took the empty seat beside him.

  He was old, very old, maybe thirty-five. He had curly strawberry hair. I had always liked the looks of Harpo Marx, but this guy would not have been my first choice for a pickup. Still, I had to make use of whatever was available. And he was the only man on his own in the near vicinity with an empty seat next to him.

  Before he knew what had happened, he was trapped. I did offer to move, but, embarrassed, he said no, it was fine. He was a manufacturer who made cheap clothing for Top Shop, which was at that time cheap but not particularly trendy.

  His name was Bartholomew Stubbins. By the time the plane landed he had agreed to give me a ride to my dormitory outside London, although he said, “Would you mind if we stop first at my house so I can check on my dog?” His neighbor had come in to feed and walk the dog over the past few days, but he was anxious to get home to see her.

  “What kind of dog do you have?” I said.

  “It’s a rescue greyhound,” he said.

  I figured any man with a rescue greyhound was probably not a serial killer. And besides, he knew many people in the crowd emerging from the plane. And he was too pink and hairless, a virtual newborn, to scare me.

  “Sure,” I said.

  Even though Durrell hadn’t been home, I was still having adventures. So I went home with that man. He did not want to have sex with me. He wanted to wash my hair for me, in the sink. That was not a problem, if that was what he was into, although, in those days, there were no handheld blow dryers in homes.

  See, here’s what I mean about times changing. It’s like, I saw some stupid Woody Allen movie, set in Paris in the twenties, and there were two guys walking down the street and they were not wearing hats. No. In those days, all men wore hats on the street. If you ever go to a movie set in the 1970s in England and somebody goes to someone’s house and the man washes her hair for her, in the sink, and gets out a blow dryer, you’d better just walk out of that movie. It is wrong.

  That guy, over the next six months, took me on a few dates. He took me to his office, where he had really bad clothing on racks, but to me, it was fabulous expensive clothing, it was new clothing, and after much cajoling he gave me a cheap velvet jacket and a few other items. That’s the kind of hustler I was. I really was.

  back in london

  Back in London, I didn’t hang out at World’s End, the pub not far from where I did hang out—the Queen’s Elm—because everybody told me over and over again not to go there, that it was “too dangerous.” I did not know that the Sex Pistols hung out there, I just thought, Oh people keep telling me it is dangerous, I’d better stay away. So I ended up at other places and parties with the same people I had been warned against.

  If somebody told me some place was dangerous, I believed them. I was studying abroad on leave from Barnard College, Columbia University, and New York City at that time—at least Morningside Heights near the Barnard campus—really was too dangerous to go into, if you were a young white female. It was the time of The Panic in Needle Park and a lot of crazed addicts, and a lot of anger and rage.

  Only a couple of years previously, in 1973, I’d ended up at the headquarters of the Black Panthers, up in Harlem, even though the Black Panthers were almost extinct. They were hiding out in some kind of run-down brownstone house probably valued today at five million dollars.

  The people who brought me and the other kids attending the National Encampment for Citizenship made sure we “got it”: these were some very angry people and it was not safe and we would (if white) probably be killed. But I think by then the remaining Black Panthers weren’t all that interested in actually murdering, raping, and shooting a bunch of visiting teens who couldn’t even provide any media coverage.

  New York Cit
y was not London. New York City in the seventies was a lot tougher than London.

  But because of things like this, I believed people when they said the World’s End pub was far too dangerous for me to go to. I went once, anyway. It was empty. It was an off night, I guess. Nearby, by accident, I stumbled into the Malcolm McLaren–Vivienne Westwood shop called SEX. It was a store, not a bar or political headquarters. In that era, however, it was very embarrassing to go into an establishment called SEX.

  I went in by accident. I was walking by. I walked everywhere. I had no money for the bus or tube. I wanted to see London. I saw this shop, I went in. There was a rack with a half dozen T-shirts hanging on it. The shirts said SEX and had big rips and were held together with safety pins and cost sixty pounds. Some I think were eighty pounds. That was a huge amount of money.

  See, nobody was doing anything like that and nobody had ever done anything like that, but to me, that was so much money that I could have lived on it for a month. I looked at those T-shirts and I thought, If I want a ripped T-shirt with safety pins I can buy a T-shirt for a pound and I can rip it and I can buy safety pins for twenty-five pence and I can rip it and safety-pin it for £1.25 total.

  Of course it would not have the word SEX on it, but why would I want to go around with a T-shirt that said SEX?

  I was deeply offended by the price tag and that someone who bought this would have so little imagination they could not make their own. I didn’t get the politics of it.

  I was doing things like strapping the legs of my blue jeans tighter with thick fabric tape, and I had an alligator bag, kind of like a doctor’s bag, that I had bought from another girl for ten pounds. I had a striped sweater with holes and bell-shaped sleeves and I had the pointy boots with spike heels and I had a jumpsuit made of waxed black paper.