Ramones, I thought. The riff is stolen, but to hell with it: the audience was clearly up for it. After the hard, wicked boys and lyrics with death, blood, war and pain in every other verse, the more melodic punk rock hit was a godsend. The atmosphere became festive. Mauro stepped to the side and left the centre of the stage to Renata. We responded with a massive roar.
She stepped forward and grabbed the mike. She looked insanely good with her black-as-tar hair, the piercing in her nose and the bright pink shirt. She stood almost motionless on the stage, her eyes closed and her lower arms handing around the microphone stand. Her voice was teasing and sexy. It caught me completely off guard, that such a special voice could come from the same girl I had just stood talking to.
‘She’s so cool!’ Horvat said.
Unfortunately we could not hear half the words she sang. The sound of the guitar was far too loud and drowned out parts of the vocals. I heard only the chorus in its entirety – ‘The physical act of love, man! The physical act of love, yeah! The physical act of love, man! That’s what I need yeah! That’s what I neeeeed!’ – and then there was a brief modulation and a thumping guitar solo. Mauro went down on his knee again and proved his worth. It was sizzling!
The next four numbers were sung in Croatian. Mauro sang backing for the first one, then lead on the next, where Renata though sang the second chorus. He was right. It actually worked really well, the interplay. And Renata’s charisma was in a class of its own. It looked really promising. Hard Turd Machine! If it didn’t become something, I don’t know what would.
But there was also room for improvement. Mauro’s lyrics lacked a little wildness, at least the ones I could hear. There were far too many repetitions. A lot of rock cliches. I could easily see myself giving the lyrics an affectionate hand. Throw in some more vitamins and minerals. Mix them around a little. Fine tune the stanzas up to new heights.
After playing ‘We Want the Airwaves,’ a Ramones cover – yes, it was all right! I knew it! I have a nose for that sort of thing! – Mauro took off his shirt and wiped his face with it. He threw the shirt aside and looked at his watch.
‘We’re about to wrap up!’
‘Noooo,’ we roared, and Fabio, Glava and I clinked glasses and drank a little of our beer.
Mauro smiled:
‘It’s almost twelve o’clock, and we’re going to play one last song for you.’
‘Boo-ooo!’ Fabio bleated. ‘Crap band!’
‘This song,' Mauro said, ‘really means a lot to me.’
‘Boo-ooo!’
He suddenly got serious:
‘As many of you already know … it hasn’t been much of a secret … that I’ve been through a big artistic crisis.’
Silence. A couple of claps. People didn’t really understand.
‘That’s how it is in this industry …’
Fabio and I looked at each other:
‘What the hell is this he’s spouting off?’
‘It’s been a difficult time. Not least because … when you live and breath to write and play music … and …’
‘He’s high!’ Horvat said.
‘I’ve had several highs and lows in my career … several bands and fans … But now we’ve found each other, the four of us …’
He pointed at the others, and people clapped. Renata got the biggest applause and lots of whistles when she was introduced.
‘And then there’s a fifth … band member, we could almost call him. This is the man who saved me … to put it mildly … There is a man who helped me through the difficult time thanks to some lyrics, which showed me the way, opened new horizons, started a new creative process!’
‘Pope John Paul II!’ someone in front of us shouted, and those who could hear him laughed loudly.
‘No, not Polly! Polly is a fine fellow, but … no, this is a man, who is actually here with us tonight. He has …’
Mauro looked at his watch:
‘He has already been seventeen years old for three minutes. It is …’
Nobody understood a thing apart from me and my birthday guests. The reactions – our sporadic yeahs – came from the various places we stood.
Mauro played the first notes of ‘Happy Birthday to You’ and stopped.
‘Yeah! His name is Miki! I call him Micky the Beast. This is the man who knows all the lyrics in the history of rock by heart. Miki, would you please come up here?’
No, I did not fancy that at all, but Fabio pushed me towards the stage and to the stairs on the right. Renata had already got people to clap in time, when Eli, the DJ, who functioned as MC on this night, moved some cables aside in front of my feet. I thanked him and walked past.
The spotlight blinded me.
Standing on that stage was nothing new to me – we normally hung out on it Friday to Saturday – but the spotlight and all eyes directed at me made me a little uncertain and awkward.
People were clapping. Mauro started to play ‘Happy Birthday to You’ again. Renata sang the four sugary-sweet lines to me. I didn’t know what to do with my hands, so I lifted them up and began to conduct. Finally, before the final note, I went over to Mauro’s microphone and shouted in it:
‘… to meeeeee!!!’
I had a lit cigarette between my fingers, and the smoke stung my eyes, while I held the mic. It was insanely strange to hear your own voice across the terrace. I was nearly frightened by it.
‘Thank you! Thank you very much.’
Mauro gave me a hug. I waved at the other three and bowed on my way off the stage. Eli said happy birthday. Fabio embraced me. We remained by the stairs behind the speakers, because Baja was already starting to beat the rhythm – one, two, three! – and the song began.
It was a ballad. E-minor, D- and C-major. Those were the three chords I could see Mauro play – but there were more! The tempo was relatively slow, but at the same time you could sense that it would not be like that throughout the song. Harder riffs were on the way, the lurking disquiet in Mauro’s phrases hinted at. Something was brewing.
The song’s build-up reminded me a little of Metallica’s old ballads – ‘One,’ ‘Sanitarium,’ ‘Fade to Black’ – but mostly of ‘Civil War’ by Guns N’Roses, one of their few songs I could still put up with. It was a rock’n’roll song. There was not much metal and no punk at all to it.
After the second refrain Mauro stepped on one of his pedals and turned towards me. He nodded with a smile and played a brilliant, melodic solo. Then he turned to the audience again. There was an instrumental break. Mauro played the same chords and the same melody as during the pieces, now just as riffs with a shaggy distortion included. The crowd roared, I felt a tingling run down my back.
When Renata started to sing an extra piece, which Mauro had added himself, people went completely amok. He had seen through my method and used it. Taken various phrases and verses from the different songs and pieced them together. He even took two band names and stuck them together: Sick of It All and Rage Against the Machine became ‘I’m sick of it all, I feel a strange rage against the TV, this hard turd machine that poisons my eyes.’
Wow, I thought. He has named my lyrics after the name of the band, or the other way round, the band according to the lyrics that I had written the majority of. That is too cool, man! It’s like Iron Maiden and their first album, where the band, the album and the song have the same name! And Maiden always plays that one at the end, too, just like Hard Turd Machine now!
I got tears in my eyes. I stood there behind the speakers and looked across the crowd as they head-banged in time. They liked it. It looked insane with all the outstretched arms and crazy signs of the horn and devil heads, that just swung at the same tempo.
I was gobsmacked. The thought that several of them soon would swap their air guitars for a proper AK-47 and be shoved into another kind of machine, did not cross my mind at a single point. I had completely forgot that there even was something called war. That I came from somewhere else. That maybe one day I would
leave this city and travel away.
I put out the cigarette and hurried down to see how everything looked from the crowd’s viewpoint. Got the same feeling as up at the citadel, when I stood pissing and looking across the city. Fabio and I mixed in with the audience and head-banged to the rest of the song.
When the band retired, there was a wild roar from the audience. It was the biggest applause of the night, no doubt about it. The rounds of applause went on and on and on. I raised my arms high in the air and checked: the ceiling of heaven hung right above my head. I felt its hard, cool surface and pressed my palms up against it.
No, you couldn’t get any higher. Simple as that. It would never get better, I thought and almost immediately, I discovered that I was wrong. Heaven’s ceiling raised again straight away. My hands just swung in the air again. There was at least a metre between my hands and the ceiling.
Because in that moment I spotted Suzi.
SEA SALT
Suzi! The blonde curly-haired Suzi with a colony of freckles on her face and a constant cheerful attitude. I had exchanged a couple of words with her one night when she had to go home. It was a long time ago. Then I met her again on the street one day, where she stood twirling a tuft of hair around her finger. I was just going to suggest a cold lemonade at the confectioner’s or something along those lines, when she informed me that she was waiting for a girlfriend. They were going to play table tennis.
Now she stood talking to Anastasije. I told him that Glava was looking for him, which actually was true. Just that it was an hour ago.
He took off.
Suzi hugged me and wished me a happy birthday.
‘So! You’re getting really famous, eh?’
‘Oh, that,’ I shrugged, ‘that’s nothing special. How’s it going?’
‘Good, good.’
‘Hey, do you know this one: a blind man meets a cripple? The blind man asks: “How’s it going?” and the cripple replies: “Well, as you can see …” Do you know that one?’
‘Yes. Everyone does.’
‘Ah, okay!’
Quick change in subject. Slightly feverish:
‘What about the table tennis bats? Is that what you’ve got in your bag?’
Table tennis was the only thing I had to work with. In addition, she only had a small backpack with her. Not exactly a widespread phenomenon Saturday night at Ukulele.
‘No, only a towel. We were out swimming. Larisa, Tanja and I.’
‘Cool!’
‘We just came from there. I’ve got salt everywhere.’
Just what I was waiting for! A quick forehand:
‘Salt is fine with me. Where should I start?’
She hit me on my upper arm:
‘Really!’
‘Really, what?’
‘A couple seconds on the stage, and then he thinks he can just, that he can …’
‘No, it’s really got nothing to do with that,’ I said while I dug into my pockets and emptied them of coins. ‘Let’s share a beer.’
‘I don’t have a penny,’ she said. ‘Tanja paid for my entrance.’
‘Hey, that’s not what I meant. I’ve got enough. Actually a little more than enough. It will be the last one of the night. Anyway …’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you remember the last time we saw each other?’
‘Obviously. In the pedestrian precinct.’
‘I was just about to invite you for a glass of lemonade. And cake and ice cream and the whole caboodle!’
I did not run into Kaća that night at Ukulele. Nor Zlaja or Fric, who I had expected would come. The only one I did not expect to see was Gogi. His cousin had died, and the funeral was in Karlovac.
Suzi and I sat on the newly installed folding seats near the entrance. We shared a half litre of beer, and I told her excitedly about some of the evening’s bands that she had missed out on. Instruments and equipment were packed away and pushed away from the stage. Inside Eli was whipping up a party. In half an hour there would be free entrance, and people stood on the other side of the gate, drinking bambus they had brought with them, waiting.
Mauro and Baja came past at one point. They wanted to hear if Suzi and I wanted to go out with them to drink Baja’s Slivovitz. I was not interested. I was fine. I was exactly where I wanted to be. Suzi put up with my terrible jokes, and that was a good sign.
I bummed a fag off Mauro. He and Baja took off, and Suzi and I continued drinking and talking with bigger and bigger pauses. Another good sign. It was not necessary to jabber away. We could be content with commenting on what happened on the terrace in front of us. Share the hops and maintain some form of we in relation to the rest of the crowd.
Tanja went past and was content with a wave. If Suzi was not interested, Tanja would at least have come over to us. Another good sign.
Things moved in my direction. The night was mine, and it continued to show it.
Then the plump half-litre bottle was empty. I rolled it aside and asked:
‘Why don’t we go for a walk and see what’s happening?’
I actually wanted to go to Eli and ask if he would play ‘Hallowed Be Thy Name’, the Live After Death version – not the relatively slower album version. He definitely would have, it was my birthday after all, but Suzi said:
‘No. Do you know what I feel like doing?’
‘What?’
‘Teasing your hair.’
‘Teasing what?’
‘Teasing,’ she said and found a small strange comb at the bottom of her rucksack. The comb had very few teeth, but they were long. It was far longer than it was wide. An eccentric comb. A comb freak.
‘I can make you look totally cool!’
‘Can you?’ I said and felt a bit of nerves. Because now she was going to sit there and touch me.
‘Teasing! Why have I never heard of that before?’
Her fingers felt cool on my neck and scalp. The comb made some immediate, dry and bristling sounds, while Eli played The Cure, ‘Doing the Unstuck’. I had long since grown tired of that song, but Suzi’s enthusiasm rubbed off on me.
‘No, I’m making you into Robert Smith!’
‘Are you a fan?’
‘Obviously.’
‘Then go ahead.’
Eli had obviously gone over to the softer tunes, so I dropped the idea of my request completely.
‘Should be go for that walk then, m’lady?’ I said and gallantly offered Suzi my right arm.
‘Then let’s go, monsieur,’ she replied and took me by the arm.
She was studying to be a chef and French was a mandatory subject.
‘What is ćevapčići called in French?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t eat meat.’
We went for a walk. Then another. Then more. People looked. I didn’t know whether it was because of my brief appearance on stage or because of my hair. One ruled out the other in a way. So it had to be the hair. It was airy and massive. My head looked like a king-sized candy floss.
Near the entrance to the toilets we passed Vampi and one of his friends. They looked rather stoned. When they spotted me, they broke down in laughter. They stopped, pointed at my hair and grabbed their stomachs. They could not control their laughing fit.
‘Fuck am I ever high, man!’ Vampi shouted. ‘Do you see what I see?’
‘Fuck, man!’ the other moaned.
‘It’s grass,’ I said to Suzi. ‘Or hash. Soft drugs.’
‘He ought to eat more, that guy,’ Suzi said. ‘Man, he looks more zombie-like than you!’
The more walks we went for, the less we talked. I felt I was not actually that drunk, by no means tired, in any case. We looked at each other a couple of times along the way and a smile flickered across her face. Suzi had large calf-like eyes and a crooked lower front tooth. She was the perfect height for me, and I caught myself thinking that we were actually a really good couple.
When we walked out through the gate, helped along by thr
ee bouncers, who impatiently cleared the terrace of people, I finally spotted Fabio and Gabrijela. Fabio was going to walk Gabi home. It looked like they were holding hands, but I wasn’t certain.
We banged fists and gave each other the sign of the devil. Agreed that the night was ‘better than sex.’ That Mauro and Renata had fooled all of us.
On the way towards the boulevard I said goodbye to a few people and reminded Kreja that he was going to have to find my The Art of Rebellion cassette soon.
‘Otherwise I’m going to file a fucking compensation claim! You can count on it!’
I found my small bottle of rum completely unscathed in its hiding spot. We drank a little before we parted, and Fabio and Gabrijela disappeared down the deserted footpath.
‘Where do you live?’ I asked Suzi, who didn’t want any rum.
It was rather far away, actually in the exact opposite end of the city. In the exact opposite direction I had to go. I knew that if I did not take my usual place soon and hitchhike, it would be difficult to get a lift to Majbule before the early hours of morning.
But I did not care. I felt a lurking sadness that the evening was already coming to an end. I wasn’t tired and wanted to postpone its conclusions.
Suzi was still holding my arm, but I changed sides and grabbed her hand. I could have kissed her already there on the boulevard, where our paths would separate. I could have asked for her phone number and thanked her for the evening. I could have surprised her with a kiss in the middle of her synopsis of a film she thought I should see at the cinema. I could have stopped and pulled her close to me at the spot in the pedestrian precinct where we had met that day she was going to play table tennis with Tanja. I had loads of possibilities. I could also have gone back to Majbule early and in so doing avoid everything that was going to happen. But everything that was going to happen, obviously was going to happen. So it was much later that I kissed her, when we took a break in her neighbourhood.
In front of something that looked like a hospital, but probably wasn’t, we sat on a damp bench, surrounded by bushes, trees and paths of cracked cement. Suzi put her legs on top of mine. We sat across the boards and weaved our tongues together.
Ukulele Jam Page 28