Ukulele Jam

by Alen Meskovic

  ‘You don’t need to pretend,’ I joked. ‘Just act normal, then they’ll probably send you home.’

  Fric was hired as a ‘server.’ That is ‘the bricklayers’ assistant at various building sites. He mixed cement, sand and water and served the mortar to the officious masters. It was Gogi who had got him the job. Gogi spread his legendary smile and raised his eyebrows while he told me in detail about how the bricklayers took the piss out of Fric and his ‘Imagine this.’ I could picture it all in front of me: the masters sitting on the scaffolding smoking their fags, Fric wiping his brow, and the sun baking everything and everyone at a building site covered in cement dust.

  ‘Herr Fritz,’ one of the masters said. ‘This mortar is too thin! Imagine this, that you put less water in it! So do it! Hurry!’

  ‘Ha! Ha! Ha!’

  ‘“Herr Fritz!” Ha! Ha!’

  Myself, I had to tackle the third and final year at Trade School. The door to my bright future was about to open for me. I could already glimpse what awaited me on the other side of the crappy doorstep: a goodbye and thank you from Boro, who neither had enough work nor could afford to employ me, then a regular spot at the Muscle Market and best case periodic employments at one of the building sites where the Turbo-folk king Gogi and the death metal prince Fric honourably earned their daily bread.

  Beep! Beep-beeeeeep!

  A column of cars passed me in Vešnja. A wedding party. A true orgy of kitsch and loathsome sounds.

  I hated car horns. I hated trumpets. And most of all, I hated people in suits and ties.

  At the head of the column, an older guy with slicked-back hair had stuck his head out the window. He sung something inarticulately and energetically waved a Croatian flag that was already fluttering. Several windows were open, and several people stuck their heads out and hollered in excitement. The problem was that you couldn’t hear a thing because of their car horns.

  Beep! Beep-beeeeep!

  I turned down a narrow street that led towards the marketplace. A new record shop had opened at the end of the street. I wanted to check it out, even if it was after closing time.

  It was a small shop with a nicely arranged display window. Angel Dust by Faith No More and a best-of The Smiths hung from a nylon thread at the same height. I still did not know The Smiths, but immediately fell for the low-key cover, where a woman sat in a bar smoking a cigarette.

  Then my eyes rested on the bottom of the display window.

  Wow! They had an entire six White Button cassettes! The first six albums!

  It was Yugoton, now called Croatia Records, who had re-released them with Bregović’s consent. I found that out later. Now I just stood there, breathing on the glass and feeling my heart press against my throat. It grew. It wanted out.

  The tapes were spread across the bottom of the display window. It was strange to stand there and look at the cool covers again, after such a long time, through the glass, and in such a small format. Apart from A Lullabye for Radmila M I had all the other albums as LPs back home.

  It is a good thing that not everything is lost, I thought. It is a good thing that records can be re-released! On tape, at least.

  I decided to buy all the tapes as soon as possible. I had to have them. I could just save on something else. Celebrate tonight, assess the finances tomorrow and go from there. Or else ask Boro for a small advance.

  A few riffs, melodies and solos washed over me. Soon I had the craziest ex-Yugo-retro-trip, without even knowing the term. I hummed various verses on the way through the packed marketplace, where the wasps buzzed and the juicy watermelon slices were bloody tempting.

  The good old White Button records! My old record player! My room! All the issues of Džuboks, which Mister No subscribed to, and all the old posters! It felt like two hundred years ago.

  ‘Six litres of bambus and some plastic cups, please. No, not the jug. Can I get four bottles of Coke instead? And then that small one there … What is that? Rum? Okay. Good! A small bottle of rum, too, please!’

  I dragged two heavy bags out of the wine cellar and past my old school. Thought about all the water I drank in its toilet. Of the go-getter, Horvat, who was going to come that night. Of that moron, Tomić, who did not teach me anything except to hate him.

  Up by the citadel I quickly assumed our usual spot, sat there waiting for the others. We had some warming up to do before our trip to Ukulele. I had invited every Tom, Dick and Harry. Fabio, Daco, Endi, Glava, Bego, Neven, Role, Tonči, Kreja, Brale, Horvat, Anastasije … Everyone said they would come and bring some friends with them.

  The citadel was a well-preserved medieval fortification, where you had to pay to get in, look around and climb the lookout tower. Beneath one of the walls of the fortification – the one facing the harbour – there was a plateau with a few slender trees, green bushes and scattered building remains from the time of the Romans. The excavations had long since stopped and grown over. They were one and a half metres deep, and there were bottles and condoms in most of them. I never understood why nothing more was done with this place. It had the best view in the city.

  Our spot was between the furthest blocks of stone and the security fence. Through the fence and across the bushes on the slope you could see across the dense city centre and the large cranes by the harbour.

  Twilight. The first lights were being switched on. I opened a chilled bottle of bambus and took the first sip. Down in the city it buzzed with summer and life. The vehicles quietly rumbled, but constantly – as if it was a matter of a single unseen car. A ship’s horn blew hollowly on the horizon behind the harbour, and I suddenly felt very happy. The sky was quite clear. Ready to show stars.

  I thought about Mauro, and about how everything was going to go that night. Him and his new band, Hard Turd Machine, had not had much time to practice. I wondered if it was stupid of them to sign up. They could have just waited until next month. There was talk that the Open Stage events would become a tradition at Ukulele. The place would support young talent and bla, bla, bla. Mauro hoped there would be producers and managers there, that he would be discovered that night. So did I. The problem was just that I still hadn’t heard the band play. They acted like stars and forbade any form of visit to the rehearsal room. They needed to ‘work in peace.’

  Fabio and four others came five or ten minutes later. I did not even get a chance to think of the two Ukulele girls I had talked with last time. Further behind me others groups had gathered. I knew almost none of them, only a guy with the nickname Vampi. He was the only one in Ukulele who wore a long vampire-like leather coat. He was lean and had thin dark hair. He actually looked like Nick Cave, now that I think about it. Just don’t know if he knew Nick Cave back then. I didn’t, in any case.

  Fabio and the others wished me a happy birthday, hugged and kissed me, as custom dictated.

  ‘It’s not until tomorrow,’ I protested.

  ‘Yes, and you won’t get your present until Monday,’ Fabio said.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s a surprise.’

  ‘By twelve we’ll already be wasted,’ Endi said. ‘Let’s see what you’ve got in the bag!’

  I remember the two or three hours we were hanging out at the citadel. I remember several conversations, jokes and funny stories. The Satanist Brale rambled about Tolkien and The Hobbit, which he had read several times. Fabio talked about a tame concert he had been to at Ukulele – a concert that I had missed because I had been broke. Horvat, who arrived later dragging several of my good school friends with him, was in an unusually good mood. He drank quickly and told good jokes. I remember the one about a man sitting on the bus. The inspector arrives and wants to check his ticket. ‘Ticket!’ the inspector says. ‘Yellow,’ the man says. ‘What?’ ‘Yellow,’ he says. The inspector repeats himself: ‘May I see your ticket please?’ ‘Yellow,’ the man repeats. ‘What do you mean yellow?’ ‘Yeah, what do you mean “ticket”?’

  I responded with one I had heard on the radi
o. The Free Europe reporter from Geneva told about the peace negotiations that reminded him of a joke, where a man walks into a church and prays to God that he will win the lottery. He prays week after week and simply doesn’t understand why he doesn’t win. One day he hears a deep and annoyed voice from up on the altar: ‘Then why don’t you buy a ticket for once!’

  At one point I noticed that I didn’t even feel like proceeding. I was sitting on a warm block of stone from the Roman times, surrounded by friends and their friends, observing the city and passing around more and more fresh bottles. It’s probably called something like melting into the situation or the moment, but I didn’t feel like I was melting into anything at all. I was still completely myself. I was just not in a hurry to move on, had no idea what time it was, and did not think about what might be happening at Ukulele at that point.

  Later, when I started to feel the bambus a little more, I walked a few metres away from the others and sent a stream of piss down through the fence. I stood alone in the dark and was raised above the city and its sparse quantity of lights. Wafting from behind me was a sweet smell of burnt corn silk, a girl’s voice sniggering stupidly several times, and I stood there with my manhood in my hands and felt content and powerful. I wished I had more piss in me. I could have stood there for an eternity. Just stood there pissing. And be almost seventeen and almost drunk for the rest of my life.

  I shook myself off and walked back to my guests. The sweet smell could be smelt here too. Fabio and Horvat were arguing over what it was.

  ‘Hash!’ Horvat said.

  ‘Grass!' Fabio said.

  ‘No, it’s hash!’

  ‘No, it is grass!’

  ‘It is hash! I know what I’m bloody talking about!’

  ‘Boys,’ I broke in a slightly pedagogical tone, ‘why don’t we just say that it’s both?’

  Then I told them about Boro’s friend Ljubomir and his ‘neither sheep nor donkey’ story. Everyone laughed, and I laughed too. We drank everything we had in the bags, apart from the small bottle of rum, which only Jurišič, the local patriot, tried. He grimaced and shoved the bottle back into my hands: ‘Yuck!’

  I took one sip with my nose close and stuffed the bottle into my back pocket.

  Then we slowly walked down the path, towards the city.

  SEVENTEEN

  On the tall foundation of the terrace, to the left of the gate, some provo had written in large letters: UKULELE IS JUST A SMALL GUITAR. Horvat was dying with laughter. They had in fact put up a new neon sign up by the entrance. The graffiti ended up being right under the sign, and Horvat and I proclaimed it as the new slogan for the place.

  While we stood in the queue, I remembered the bottle of rum. I hurried down the street, placed the bottle in the grass behind a bush and hurried back.

  The others were talking to Mauro and a powerfully built and totally dangerous, pierced chick. She was at least twenty. She had ripped tights, a leather skirt and short-sleeved pink shirt. The colour of the shirt reminded me about the icing on wedding cakes I had seen on TV, but had never tasted.

  ‘There he is! The birthday boy!’

  ‘Our songwriter!’

  ‘The Ukulele beast!’

  ‘Mi-ki!’

  The girl’s name was Renata, and to everyone’s surprise Mauro introduced her as the new lead singer of the band.

  ‘Wow! Did you know anything about this?’ I asked Fabio.

  ‘Yes, but I wasn’t allowed to say anything.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Mauro said. ‘We alternate between male and female vocals. It establishes tension in … how should we put it … the repertoire. Wait and see!’

  ‘As long as you don’t sing a duet, like some musical,’ I said, ‘then I’m happy.’

  I didn’t dare ask him how far they had got with ‘my’ song.

  Mauro and Renata walked ahead to have ‘an internal meeting’ before they went on stage. The rest of us finally got in.

  The band that we could hear from outside, and which was still pounding away on stage, was from Split. They played their arses off. The lead singer’s T-shirt was drenched with sweat. He poured a glass of beer over his face between songs. He was so ugly, that he was almost beautiful.

  ‘They remind me of The Exploited,’ Fabio said, and I nodded:

  ‘Agreed. All punk sounds like The Exploited!’

  The terrace was pretty full, but there were not as many people as a normal Saturday night. I searched for Kaća and her girlfriends, but found Dejo, the bass player in Mauro’s band. He stood at the base of one of the two spotlight constructions that were placed at either end of the terrace. The light pointed towards the stage and the OPEN STAGE SATURDAY banner behind it.

  In front of the stage, a group of punks were dancing the craziest slam dance. The kicking military boots flashed in every direction. A bare-chested guy climbed onto the stage. He wanted to stage dive, but changed his mind when he saw how few people there were in the few metres in front of the stage. He contented himself with jumping off the stage feet-first and continuing to slam dance, as if nothing had happened.

  I studied the equipment and the instruments. It was cool. The bass guitar was massive. The bass player – round-cheeked and small. The background vocals were sung by the drummer, who could barely be seen behind his busy cymbals. He was pounding away.

  Dejo downed his beer and lit a new cigarette. He looked impressively calm.

  ‘What time are you guys on?’ I asked.

  ‘In an hour. This is fucking boring. They’re just droning on.’

  ‘Yeah, but they bloody mean it! Do you want to come with me? I’m buying.’

  ‘No, you don’t have to do that. I can afford it tonight.’

  ‘Come on! It is my birthday after all!’

  We squeezed through the crowd and went into the bar. I said hi to Komar, Ukulele legend number one. The man was twenty-five years old. Famous for being only one of three guys from Vešnja who had been to the Pink Floyd concert in Vienna that summer. He had stood twenty metres from Gilmour, he said. Had drunk Vodka Red Bull on the way to the concert grounds. I was close to cracking with pride at knowing the man. He had the wickedest sideburns. I looked forward to the day I would be able to pull something like that off.

  ‘Do you want to go backstage with me?’ Dejo asked when we took the first sip.

  ‘Backstage? Where’s that?’

  ‘Upstairs.’

  ‘Cool! I’m in.’

  He laughed:

  ‘No, I’m taking the piss!’

  ‘Oh, fuck you, man! It could be true.’

  ‘Easy, man! Who do you think we are? The Beatles?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I hate The Beatles. You know that.’

  A little later I cruised around and maintained my calm drunkennesses. Two really hard bands played after the punks, and I stood with Fabio head-banging a little. They were very bleak and vicious. Especially band number two. They used keyboards in several of their songs and sounded a lot like Mercyful Fate and King Diamond. Something with deep organ notes in the intros and a lead singer who could really hit her falsetto.

  When they were finished and the name Hard Turd Machine was shouted out of the speakers, I stood in the toilet taking a piss. The heavy stench of ammonia already hit me several metres from the large entrances. In its own way, it was a brilliant smell, the smell of Ukulele.

  Mauro and the others stood on the stage fiddling with the equipment and their instruments when I came out. There was a brief pause. I moved over to Renata, who stood to the left of the stage with Fabio and the Gabrijela girl. Gabrijela had long since declared that she only wanted to be friends with Fabio, but he had not given up.

  ‘How come I’ve never seen you before?’ I asked Renata, when Fabio and Gabi left.

  ‘You must have been blind, and now you see.’

  ‘Well answered!’

  ‘I’m from Lovgar. I’m Dejan’s cousin.’

  ‘A-ha! And how many numbers are you going to play fo
r us, Dejan’s cousin?’

  ‘Seven. Sorry, boy! You seem very nice and all that, but I’m up now.’

  ‘Boy?’ I said and looked around. ‘Who are you talking to? I’m the only one here.’

  She disappeared behind the stage and popped up on the side where Dejo was sipping a beer. They exchanged a few remarks, and she remained standing behind, to the left of the drums. People were hooting and whistling impatiently. Mauro fiddled with an amp and stepped on his two pedals. Dejo got people to laugh when he put his sunglasses on, while Baja tested the bass drum and adjusted his chair.

  Then an uncontrolled and far, far, far too loud sound roared out of Mauro’s Marshall. It sounded like a Lipizzan horse whose back leg had ended up in a gigantic meat grinder. It was a hideous sound, full of suffering and confusion. You could almost see the froth dripping out of the horse’s mouth, as it desperately attempted to get away.

  ‘What the hell are they doing?’

  Dejo jumped aside in shock. Mauro looked surprised, while he restlessly grabbed his Gibson copy and stomped on the various pedals. He tried to tame the equipment and at the same time make it to look intentional.

  It succeeded. The drummer came to his aid by making a drum roll and a quick break. Dejo made a single ‘bop-bop’ on the bass, and then it went quiet. Mauro adjusted his microphone and said:

  ‘Good evening!’

  The crowd roared. A few murmured a greeting in return.

  ‘We’re called Hard Turd Machine, and what you just heard was our latest number … “The Wild Horse Symphony”!’

  People applauded. So did I. Nice save! Saved just in the nick of time.

  Mauro unbuttoned his shirt. He had nothing underneath, apart from a chain with two devil’s heads made of carved stone and plastic. You could see that he was already sweating.

  ‘Yeah!’ he shouted. ‘The next number is not instrumental. We call it ‘The Physical Act of Love!’’

  Then he played the first riff. He went down on his knee a little and started to hammer away. Four quarter notes! His left knee stuck out of the tear in his ripped trousers. When Dejo and Baja followed, Mauro started to head-bang like a madman. The machine was driving!