Chinaski

by Frances Vick

  “See you at the flat, we can regroup there!” He yelled, and then they sped off, and Peter and John were left on the Rue des Martyrs, the traffic blowing rubbish about their ankles.

  On the way back, John gave Peter his version of what had happened. At some point Carl had got frustrated with his guitar, either that or he was doing it for effect. He hit it a few times, with no real force, against the altar rail, and a string broke. Then another. He carried on playing so brutally that he tore up his hands – that’s where most of the blood had come from. It looked worse than it was, John thought. But things had started to get really weird once he began tearing at himself. He twisted and tore at the neck of his t-shirt until it hung off his shoulder, but then he carried on pulling at it and yanking at it until it fell off altogether. Then he took a walk down the aisle.

  “He did what?”

  “He jumped over the little fence thing, the bit with the cushions, and walked down the middle. And his fingers are all fucked up by now, you know, and he keeps on playing. And I kind of look at Chris, and he’s laughing and going ‘carry on, carry on’ and I hear you carrying on, so I do too. And so Carl’s at the end, and I don’t know what he’s doing because of the lights, but I hear people kind of laughing – not like laughing ha ha, like it’s funny, but more a kind of ‘what the fuck’ kind of laugh, you know. So Chris says ‘carry on’, so I do. And then I see Carl come back up the aisle thing, and he’s looking really fucked up, I mean brutal. Fucking scary, mad. So I think, oh fuck this, and I look at Chris, but by now Carl’s kind of gone nuts on his guitar, proper fucking it over, and they all seem to love it. So I think, OK, alright then, he’s just putting it on, OK. But then he looks bad, I mean really sick or something, and he goes to the room, and Chris gives it –” John drew his fingers across his throat, “so I go and get you. End of. But it was fucking weird, because I go back and I kind of expect Carl to be giving it all, you know ‘oh what a laugh, oh that was massive’ all that, but instead he’s just sitting there like a big fucking doll and Chris is acting like it’s all a joke. So. I dunno. Where are we going? Do you know the way?”

  They were too afraid to take the Metro and not sure what their stop would be anyway. Since they’d been in Paris, they’d barely left the flat – the party had come to them. Now that they were left alone in the streets, they felt very young, very vulnerable. In the couple of months they’d been on tour, they hadn’t really had any time to just walk about. There were never any worries about language, because there was always someone who spoke English at the venue. They never had to think about finding their way around because they always had Dougie, or Chris. Now, as they trudged along the increasingly cold streets, they felt like abandoned children. Neither wanted to admit this to the other, and it crossed both their minds that they didn’t really know each other very well. Outside of the smut and the perfunctory, they’d never had a real conversation. And so they both leaped all over the one thing they had in common: Carl, the band. John wanted to know if Peter thought Chris Harris really had any sway with major labels.

  “He talks it up, but does he have the contacts?”

  “He knows a lot of people,” Peter hedged.

  “Yeah. Yeah. But, I mean –” John blushed a little, “I mean if he does, then why pick us?”

  Privately, Peter had thought the same thing. Reading some of the things Chris wrote about them, he found it difficult to square the shimmering phrases with his own band. Peter didn’t have any illusions about his drumming. Carl imitated whatever guitarist he was enamoured with that week, while John’s bass was like road markings on a straight, empty road: apparently necessary, but ignoring them wouldn’t make that much difference. Sometimes Peter felt as if they could be a great band, a really great band, particularly when they played live. ‘Shattered’ had some good things in it, very good things, but the influences showed. Carl’s constant fiddling had made for an uneven record, a series of demonstrations of what they could do in various styles. So when Chris Harris wrote about the album’s circular narrative, the animal thread of woe, running through the core of it, and meeting the authorial voice head on – whatever that meant – a little voice in him protested. What narrative? What grand plan? They’d gone into a studio and laid down over twenty tracks, some of them covers that ended up being reworked and disguised as original songs. These tracks had been cut up, overdubbed, tweaked, tuned and polished by a professional engineer, and brought into being while Peter was in the pub, while John was watching TV and smoking weed. They hadn’t even paid for the studio time. They hadn’t even had a say on what tracks made it onto the album. Ian had done it, with help from Carl and Mason. It had been a project with many managers, nobody had suffered for Art. But then he thought of Carl, living in the studio throughout the sessions, sleeping just long enough to dream an idea and then spend hours testing it out, driving Mason mad. He thought of all the ideas Carl been given of himself from Dom, from whatever Lydia told him, and now Chris. Maybe Carl did have a grand plan that everyone saw except his bandmates. Perhaps Chris was right.

  John said, “Perhaps he wants to use us,” and Peter shut that down right away.

  “Maybe he sees the truth, and we’re just too close to it?” Peter suggested. “And, I mean, it’s not like we came out of nowhere. I mean, me and Carl have been practising for years. And you too. And we’re good, so why not good enough for a major?”

  “I just don’t want it to be like, we’re just the session guys, and it’s all about Carl, you know? That’s not what I – that’s not –”

  Peter took a deep breath, “It’s not like that though, is it? Me and Carl – and you on the last two tracks – we wrote them. The songs. I mean it’s on the sleeve that we did. All the money’s split. The singer always gets the most attention, but that doesn’t mean, you know, that it’s all about him or we don’t matter –” John kicked at some rubbish, “I don’t think we have to worry. I mean we’re not going to get fucked over. And Chris is on our side.”

  “He’s on Carl’s side,” John muttered.

  “But it’s the same side!”

  “We didn’t get a lift back, did we?”

  “No –” Peter wondered how to turn this one around, “but there wasn’t room. I mean, we don’t know what other people were in the car too. They might be meeting with someone, now. About a deal.”

  John’s hurt eyes belied his twisted smile, “Then why aren’t we there, if we’re so important too? And isn’t that our label’s job?” And Peter tried, failed, to find an answer.

  They walked in silence for a few more minutes, until, quite by chance, they saw their building on the next corner. John stopped Peter on the way in.

  “All I’m saying is that we have to look out for ourselves in this. I don’t know Carl that well, I mean, I like him. But, I know you a bit better, and all of this has been fucking –” he raised his hands in the air and made the sound of an explosion, “but, you know, after tonight, and Carl pulling that weird shit and Chris acting like he’d found the golden ticket, I’m a bit fucking freaked out. To be honest.”

  Peter held his shoulder. “Look mate, don’t worry. Seriously. Don’t worry. Carl can be in his own world a bit, but he’s not flaky and he’s not – he doesn’t forget his friends. Look, it’ll be OK. Let’s go up, we’ll talk, see what’s happened.”

  Chris’ voice bounced off the apartment’s bare walls and high ceilings. The phone cord twitched and slid as he moved from room to room. When Peter and John came into the living room, he was in mid conversation.

  “– Like, I don’t know, like Evil Dead or something. I’m not even kidding. The single most insane thing I’ve ever seen. I’m not. No, sweet, I am not given to hyperbole. This day will go down –” he saw Peter and John, and enthusiastically shooed them to the sofa, “– it will go down as The Death of The New. Yes! The death of all this loathsome, shoe gazing, slacker shit nonsense. Yes I’m calling it that! Why not? It has an academic ring to it. Yes. Yes! I’m taking t
hem to a party now. Oh, you can be such a terrible cunt. Yes, you! Terrible. Ok, ok, kisses kisses, bye, bye, bye.”

  He came towards them with hands outstretched, his red face hacked in two by a smile, and shook their shoulders. The album lay on the coffee table, and one fat line of cocaine had been carefully placed beneath beneath Peter’s picture, another under John’s. A snail trail of coke scurf remained under Carl’s. Peter and John looked at each other over their 10 franc notes, eyebrows raised, questioning. You think? said John’s face, and Peter answered by blinking and snorting.

  Chris Harris loved to share. He loved to share drugs, drink, and tales of the unexpected. But most of all he loved to share good fortune, and tonight he was brimming with it. Tonight, they were told, had been their grand debut. He brought over shot glasses and tequila.

  “And like Cinderella, I am taking you to have a ball. I have some serious big beasts on the hook, panting for you. There’s a gathering an hour ago that we’ll just be able to make an entrance at, and a few more later that may involve serious drinking. So –” he clinked glasses with Peter, “– up your arse,” and he downed the tequila, gagged, and began laying out a few more lines. John licked his finger and dabbed up the remains of Carl’s line, and that reminded Peter – where was Carl? He got up a little unsteadily to look.

  “Oh, he’s in the bedroom. Calling his little friend.” Chris threw the words over his shoulder. “See if you can make him see any sense about that one. She’s OK for wherever you’re from, but she’s cooked her goose now. Completely unsuitable. Could stand to lose a few pounds too. Tell him.”

  Peter knocked at the bedroom door. Carl was stretched out on the bed, looking at the ceiling as he always did after talking to Lydia. He’d washed his face, but a tidemark of blood still showed around his jaw, and there were long dried drips down his throat. The cuts on his fingers were nasty and deep looking, the skin ruddy and swollen around them. Peter sat down heavily on the bed, and Carl rolled his face towards him, put his hand out to be held. His lips parted in a weary, melting smile, and he began to say something. Peter leaned towards him.

  Suddenly the hand became rigid and pulled Peter towards the bed. Fresh blood oozed as Carl’s hands clenched and unclenched. The slippery blood allowed Peter to pull his hand away, and he instinctively scrambled off the bed, landing on the floor, wrapped in the eiderdown. Carl was shaking, jerking, his thin legs and chest rigid. Surges of horrible electricity ran through his body, pinning him down. His arms, held at an unnatural, painful angle, moved quickly, out and in, up and down, in a rapidly changing rhythm, like puppets’ hands. His blonde head, mashed into the pillows, bobbed frantically, and his trapped-animal eyes rolled over in their worn looking sockets.

  As soon as he realised what was happening, Peter got up and held on to Carl’s shoulders, trying to stop the shaking, looking anxiously at his lolling tongue, hoping he didn’t bite it. He bellowed over his shoulder for Chris and John, and after what seemed hours, Chris slunk in with a brandy glass and a lit cigarette that fell out of his mouth as soon as he saw what was happening.

  “Holy fuck!”

  John ran in behind him and pushed Peter out of the way. Rolling Carl over onto his left side, he put a pillow under his bucking head and pressed down on his shoulder, whispering to him. The bolts of energy lessened and grew weaker. John kept saying the same phrases in a low voice, “It’s OK, it’s nearly finished, it’s OK, it’s nearly ended. Nearly done now, nearly done,” until the shuddering subsided, stopped, and room was calm in that uncanny way, as after an earthquake. John pulled the eiderdown off the floor and covered Carl, whispered something to him, and left the room, beckoning the others to follow.

  “My little sister has it,” he said once they were back in the living room. “She’s only nine, so it’s bad for her.” His mouth was a line and his eyes were moist. “Best thing, if it’s bad, is to leave them to sleep afterwards. It takes it out of them.” He turned to Peter. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “He takes pills. And anyway, I didn’t think it was that bad, I didn’t think he had it that bad I mean.”

  John reached for a beer. He still looked sad. “He’ll need to see a doctor, if the pills aren’t working.” Peter, dazed, nodded at John’s superior knowledge.

  “Well,” Chris Harris looked unruffled, but he was pale and his hands were still shaking, “in that case, it might be best if he stayed here with me for a while longer. He probably shouldn’t travel.”

  Peter looked at John.

  “He could travel, there’s no problem with that. I don’t think,” said John.

  “No, no really,” Chris sat down and pressed his fingertips together, “Really, if he’s sick, then he should take a break. Relax. Recuperate. There’s no point in going back home and joining the whirl again is there? God only knows what Deep Focus have planned, and it would be just like Carl to overdo it. No. No. It’s best he stays here, calm and quiet, with me for the next week or so. I have this flat as long as I want it, so it’s no problem. And they have doctors here too, after all. In case it happens again.”

  Peter felt, somehow, that he ought to put up a counter argument. He opened his mouth but no thoughts fell out of it, and when John questioned Chris, Peter found himself backing Chris up. Really, maybe this was the best thing. It would only be for week or so, and Carl wasn’t likely to relax at home, not with Lydia clamouring for him. Chris was right. It was good of him to put his own schedule on hold, just for Carl. John still looked sceptical, but caved under their combined assurances. Yes, yes. Carl needed to stay. It was the right thing to do. They have doctors here, after all...

  And so they’d come home without Carl, without Dougie, without the van, and without their gear. Apparently it was going to be picked up by someone – they didn’t know who –and they’d get it back in a week. It was a sad end to such an odyssey. On the ferry they got disgustingly drunk to deal with the weirdness of it, and had to be poured into Ian’s little Fiesta when they arrived. It felt like being picked up by your dad from a party. On the way back Peter was sick out of the window.

  15

  Three years later, Peter reflected that that was the last time they’d been a band. The last time they’d had some element of control, anyway. After that it was all mapped out, organised, and they each withdrew to their own corners, Carl most of all. The last time they’d all been together it was because Carl had summoned them to an emergency meeting. He’d been drinking all day and claimed to have heard that Nirvana were planning to bump them to third on the bill for the New York show. What would this do to them? What would this do to sales? The album was due out in a few weeks. He wanted to know, he demanded to know. What kind of a cunt would do something like that? Only Chris Harris was able to calm him down. It was a shoddy last memory to have of a friend.

  When Peter left, Freida was still sitting on the floor, gazing at the photographs in the file. Ian crouched outside the door amongst his cigarette butts, and when Peter came out he jumped up and grasped his arm.

  “I’m sorry Pete, you shouldn’t have to deal with all of this. It was good of you to come. I’m sorry, I’m sorry that Fred’s like this today – she’s been like that since she heard.” He glanced at the door and lowered his voice. “It’s like Carl was, I don’t know, her son or something. She hadn’t seen him in months, but then, as soon as we got the call – Christ. I thought – I mean she just broke apart. Completely broke apart. She won’t leave the office, even. Won’t go upstairs to sleep, won’t eat. What do you think? Should I, you know, should I get her to the doctors? Or something? What do you think?”

  Peter wanted, desperately wanted, someone to ask how he was, take care of him. After all, he was the one who’d made most of the phone calls, and had to deal with the disbelief, the tears, again and again. But no. No. It was all about Carl, just like it had always been, and Peter was the caretaker, just as he always was. He closed his eyes and reached for Ian’s soft shoulder, saying things he’d heard on TV ab
out grief. Stages; needing time; bear with her; if there’s anything I can do, and Ian’s face relaxed into its grey folds, relieved.

  Each time Peter made someone else feel better, it felt like he took on their pain. Each time he heard a voice on the other end of the phone stop choking, take a deep breath, and say calmly, ‘thanks for letting me know’, he felt the weight of tears and rage behind his own eyes and rising in his throat. This walk, this sentimental journey, had been meant to take him away from all that, but ending up at Deep Focus had brought him full circle, and it took all his will not to punch Ian in his grateful face.

  He tried again with the pretty girl on the way out – suicidally flirtatious, almost aiming for rejection, which he got. She was polite. She was sorry he felt so bad. She really didn’t want to go for a drink, and she thought he should go home. Yes, she’d heard of Chinaski. Had she liked them...? An arch smile. An apologetic shrug.

  “To be honest? I thought you sold out? Once you signed to DCG, you really sold out. I mean, I didn’t like you that much anyway, but that single, the one with that video? You know, the jumping one,” she rolled her eyes, “it wasn’t really...it was a bit corporate.”

  Corporate. What did corporate mean? Well produced? Polished? Fucking successful? What was wrong with that? For sure, when Peter had first heard the final mix of the second album he wasn’t sure what to think. It sounded too smooth, like some Mötley Crüe record. But then Carl had made him realise that that was the subversive thing. Chinaski had made a Trojan horse of a record. It was catchy, it was radio friendly, it could march right into bedrooms across the country, under the noses of parents, and change their kids forever. It had that power. Carl was gleeful and it rubbed off on Peter, who learned to love the album and defend it fiercely. But then who was there to defend it against? Old indie stalwarts, jealous, backward-looking bastards. People who were afraid of success. What power did they have? What point did they have anymore? And if Chinaski’s importance was doubted, he brought up the live experience: Carl comes alive on stage, he would intone in interviews, when he sensed criticism was imminent, we’re really a live phenomenon. Except he couldn’t say that now, could he?