Bye Bye Blondie

by Virginie Despentes

  Gloria sat still for a couple of seconds, telling herself she didn’t want to get in trouble, it was probably just a test. Even here, even these people, couldn’t be so stupid, could they? As if there were any limits to the nastiness of the powerful. A voice in Gloria’s head was telling her to stay calm and wait for her father to visit, so that he could ask for her Walkman to be returned. The same voice advised her to keep quiet and never mind that she’d spend a few days without her music. Rightly or wrongly, this cowardly voice lost the battle super fast, and Gloria hurled herself at the woman. Literally propelled herself at her, as if she were rediscovering reflexes from playing rugby (in some previous life perhaps?). She’d flung her into the corridor, where the woman fell over backward, the confiscated Walkman in her pocket. Gloria, on her knees astride her, had grabbed her by the hair. And before the other slimeballs could muster the gumption to come running and pull her off, she had time to draw a little blood from the back of her head. She was screaming in the woman’s ear: “You whore, you bitch, you can’t stop me listening to Motörhead, hear me, you can’t do this to me!” Yelling at the top of her voice, hoping the woman would be deaf for the rest of her life. That would make it worth creating havoc. Ruin her life, filthy cow, so she’d never hear properly again. At the time this had seemed important.

  As a result, Gloria was deprived of music, exactly and precisely the only thing that kept her company until the end of her stay. Yet another thing that would help her get better, “rebuild herself,” as they called it. Fuckers, with their crap methods.

  That was the other thing you absolutely had to understand before they’d let you out of there: they could do anything they liked, and all you could do was keep your mouth shut. As time went on, Gloria learned that this was a very basic lesson. Which a lot of people know about, in fact.

  Eric had been in the corridor that day, the woman had literally landed at his feet and he had stood quite still while Gloria was shaking her, yelling mad insults at her. He had observed the scene with the utmost attention. And a slight, knowing smile had crossed his lips.

  Next day, breakfast time (if you could bear to eat it), 6:00 a.m. The future belongs to those who get up early, all right, but could someone please tell her the point of getting mental patients up so soon, given that everyone was totally fed up with being here? Oh well. Refectory tables, you were supposed to find a place for yourself. Gloria could never find a seat. Balancing her tray in one hand, it was tricky. What with the residents she wanted to avoid, the ones she made nervous, and the tables that were already full, she often had to go around the room several times before sitting down. Every morning, the anorexics, who had been forced to eat a bit of defrosted bread, were already vomiting. One mouthful and they puked up three whole meals. The nurses were instructed not to let them go to the toilets on their own, but they escaped. One old woman was chewing on her hand, which, like her arms, was covered with scabs and scars. She must have become unhinged long ago, before they invented modern ways of self-harming, so she ate her own flesh. This was pretty upsetting to see, especially on an empty stomach. One man, graying temples, metal-rimmed glasses, tracksuit top—typical gym teacher—used to sob hard, with tears running down his cheeks, then calm down before starting to howl in distress. It just took him like that, and he added to the local color. In this cacophony of wrecked souls, what depressed Gloria most every morning was that the coffee was lukewarm and bitter and served with powdered milk, whereas she liked her coffee boiling hot and laced with cold milk—real milk. She was propped up over her bowl, almost dozing off. Eric had appeared out of nowhere and sat down beside her. She’d noticed that he was looking at her with a dazed air, as if rooted to the spot. But she hadn’t grasped straight away that this was serious affection.

  As polite and poised as if they were meeting in a normal café—easy to see he hadn’t been there long—he asked her, “Do you listen to a lot of music?”

  She didn’t know what to reply.

  “Same as everyone.”

  He laughed. “No, I don’t think so, I saw you fighting for the right to listen to Motörhead. That’s not like everyone, no way.”

  At the time, this had gone to her head, thinking that it attracted him to have seen her freak out the day before, and then to remember it next morning, as if it were funny. Every tantrum of this kind made them all the more determined to keep her there, and the longer she stayed, the more frequent and extravagant the scenes became. You had to admit that if she were looking for a trigger for tantrums, she’d come to exactly the right place.

  She clenched her fists without answering, she found this boy a bit of a jerk anyway. He was tearing his bread into little pieces, which he then ate like a sparrow, in tiny bites, chewing them very slowly. He was almost as tall as she was, but very fragile looking, with curly hair, sharp features. His gray eyes darted around the canteen, with real cruelty perceptible in them. He stooped slightly, giving an impression of intelligence and vivacity, but it made you feel uneasy. He stayed looking thoughtful for a while, visibly not distressed to be in this place, then he remarked, “I never get in a rage like that. I’d really like it to happen to me.”

  His voice was high-pitched, but pleasant.

  “Oh come on, man, you don’t even know your own name. But you know that you never get in a rage?”

  “Yes, yes! I know, weird isn’t it, the brain, I haven’t stopped thinking about that since yesterday. It surprises me too, it really surprises me, I’ve forgotten my name, my address, my work, my friends, but what I am, myself, that seems to have stayed clear. Well, at least I can ask myself the question, that’s something.”

  He was very calm, making out like some character in a dream, expressing himself slowly, as if it were painful to be waking up completely. She thought it must be the meds they were giving him, making him high, getting special treatment. But as she discovered later, he was always like that: in his own world, with occasional blazing outbursts. He looked at her over the coffee bowl he was holding in both hands.

  “Apart from Motörhead, what do you listen to?”

  “Motörhead.”

  “Oh, she has a sense of humor, I see.”

  “Don’t you like Motörhead?”

  “Frankly, if I didn’t like them, I certainly wouldn’t tell you. I don’t want to get beaten up . . .”

  This started him off laughing, she was already getting used to him. He had a slight coughing fit afterward and put his hand in front of his mouth, his hands were precise and delicate. White with long, thin fingers. He was refined without being feminine. Extraordinary to discover among all these crazy people in gowns, a rich kid who had remained a rich kid. She was about to get up and ask him to leave her alone, once and for all. Then he added, “I prefer the Stooges, New York Dolls, Generation X, that kind of music. Not as powerful as Lemmy but more twisted, I think, I prefer it.”

  She stayed sitting down. She would have been unable to identify any of the bands he mentioned if she had heard them. But she recognized all the names, the list operated as a good password, nothing but quality stuff, old guys.

  “So you remember the music you used to listen to as well?”

  “Are you working for them, or what?”

  His smile showed his front teeth, his canines slightly too long and pointed, gave him something of a vampire look, which Gloria found suited him.

  She was watching out for one of the servers who was in charge of refilling coffee cups. When she turned her head back, he was devouring her with his eyes. Remaining a little reticent, she was nevertheless becoming intrigued. You could sense at once that he wasn’t really calm and peaceful, contrary to his apparent attitude. First of all, he wasn’t at all upset or angry at finding himself among the insane. He was taking it too well for it to be genuine.

  Gloria started talking again. “But you don’t just listen to punk music, do you?”

  “I listen to everything really. It’s my thing. I like it all, jazz, rock, hard rock . . .”
>
  This was the 1980s, people who listened to a bit of everything didn’t really listen to anything much. She insisted: “Okay, okay, it’s fine to be open-minded and educated, but what bands?”

  “Polnareff.”

  “Oh, so you’re a poof?”

  He was content simply to give her a doubtful look, almost pityingly. She appreciated the effectiveness and economy of expression: in two seconds, he’d made her feel really stupid.

  “Sorry, I must be mixing him up with someone?”

  “With Frankie Goes to Hollywood?”

  “No, with that guy who sings ‘Où sont les femmes.’”

  He immediately began a brief but very accurate imitation of the singer she meant, singing and wriggling on his chair, shaking his arms and his torso. A thin, high-pitched voice.

  “Go on, you are a bit gay, aren’t you?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Peculiar to like Polnareff though.”

  “It’s not my fault if you only go for one kind of music.”

  “At our age though, it’s weird, isn’t it?”

  “It’s nothing to do with age, stop it. You’re being thick, thick, give up!”

  “And you remember that all right, do you, that you like Polnareff, isn’t that weird too?”

  “Yeah, a bit more. But stop frowning. It really, really doesn’t suit you.”

  When something made him laugh, he looked like a child, his eyes changed and betrayed their animal power. A funny guy altogether, with the rodent-like teeth he showed when he smiled. She felt herself beginning to be won over—to feel less alone.

  As he relaxed and declared that he could be nasty as well, and since Gloria, whatever her doctors said, was all woman, she started wanting to sleep with him. She certainly liked his hands.

  He hesitated, and looked at her, trying to make something out. Feeling she was being assessed, she immediately wanted to be attractive to him. He leaned a little toward her, their shoulders touched.

  “Can you keep a secret?”

  She couldn’t prevent a little nervous giggle.

  “Who do you think I’d tell, here?”

  “When I woke up this morning, I could remember everything perfectly well. My name, my local disco, and even that I don’t really like coffee first thing in the morning.”

  “Oh really? But you still don’t get it, do you? Your secret’s neither here nor there, if you really want to be in here, you can tell them your real name. They’ll keep you just the same. It’s not as if people are fighting to get in here, it’s not selective . . .”

  “Yes, but I want us to get to know each other better.”

  “Well, that’s flattering . . .”

  She didn’t believe this for a second, and it must have been in her voice because he frowned, embarrassed.

  “You’re not very encouraging. Don’t you want to get to know me?”

  “I’d sit and chat with a German-speaking goat, I’m so lonely here.”

  “Good, because I’m much more fun than a goat.”

  “So how come you lost your memory?”

  “I must have had too much Rohypnol.”

  “I hate that kind of stuff. Last time I had some, I ended up head down, asleep on the floor, through a whole concert of the Cure.”

  “In Vandoeuvre?”

  “Were you there?”

  “No, but I’ve got this friend, he talks about it all the time.”

  “So you really do know about punk.”

  “I keep up with stuff. But what I really like is Polnareff.”

  “And you’re not queer? Never mind, I get it.”

  She made him laugh and he gave her some funny looks. Gloria was starting to feel disturbed, wondering on one hand whether she wanted to go to bed with him, and on the other whether he too was thinking of this, or whether he wasn’t interested at all. She tried not to ask herself that question for the moment.

  Eric must have read her thoughts, since he said, “Look, I’m not trying to chat you up or anything, I just wanted . . . I’d just like it if we could maybe have a smoke together, just talk a bit . . .”

  “You’ve got some cigarettes?”

  Her eagerness could not have been more obvious if she had rubbed her hands together. She suggested, “I’ve got a little stuff and some papers—spliff?”

  He agreed and raised his hands in the air, arms up straight. Gloria said, “You look a bit like a cat.”

  “I was doing a boxer who’s won the fight, but okay, too bad.”

  “Oh really? Sorry, but you did look like a cat.”

  “You wouldn’t be a castrating kind of girl would you?”

  “Me? You must be joking? Well-known for it.”

  She’d hidden in a pot of Nivea a little ball of dope that a friend had brought her, a boy she hardly knew but who had decided to take an interest in her case. He came to see her by car, brought her some rag dolls with funny faces, the Cabbage Patch Kids, and he hid little pieces of shit in their pockets. “That’s really kind of you,” she had said with enthusiasm, wondering whether this guy was really cool, had nothing better to do, felt concerned, or just wanted to sleep with her. In which case it wasn’t worth going to all the trouble. She liked the dolls anyway, they made her room look more cozy.

  Her stay in a psychiatric hospital had become something weird, cool, all-or-nothing, as viewed by her friends, girls or boys. The ones who came to see her were not at all the ones she would have expected. Her best mates, the boys (and the one girl) for whom she would have gone to hell and back before she had been locked up, had never called or written. It was her school friends who had really been faithful. They would often phone, tell her funny stories, some sent newspapers or cassettes.

  She pretended to be a girl who was neither surprised nor wounded, nothing that could make her mother say, “See I told you so.” She was determined to be Miss Josephine Cool, but actually it was weird that her wildest friends had dropped her so brutally. When one of them had gone to prison, she had written to him, even sent him some money. She’d learned as well that there were plenty of jerks out there who thought it quite normal that she was in here. “Yeah, Gloria, well she dropped too much acid, she’s fucked-up.” As if anything at all could justify her being locked up here with horrible and incompetent slimeballs who didn’t even have the slightest idea how to put someone back on her feet. After all, you had to be soft in the head to expect a person without even a garden to walk and sit in to make a complete recovery of mental balance, if all you provided was a lousy canteen meal, an hour in the TV lounge, and a few sedatives.

  When she’d found out that several people she knew had found the decision understandable, she’d had to stifle tears of rage, burying her head in the pillow. Please God, don’t let anyone come into my room just now. Die, rather than admit how she felt. Hard to believe that these kids, who listen to punk music morning to night, could just accept it if one of their gang gets locked up. You had to suppose that it gave them street cred or something, she’d find out when she got out. Some of them, tucked in at night by their mamas, never having taken a risk in their lives, were now pleased about what was happening to her, because that made it all more serious: hey, we’re punks, it’s dangerous.

  Eric had already discovered a secluded place where you could smoke in peace and quiet, cigarettes or even a joint. Gloria was amazed that he had found it so quickly.

  It was an empty courtyard, entirely surrounded by buildings, and reached by corridors she didn’t know about. There was a small bench in the middle, deep in the snow that was still covering everything. It must be a special place for people who wanted to smoke in summer. It was bitterly cold. Gloria stamped her feet against the bench. She rolled up, gritting her teeth, stuffing the joint as much as possible with frozen fingers. She asked him, “How come you’ve still got cigarettes? Did you buy some before you got here or what?”

  “I had plenty of cash with me when I arrived. I bought some off Pierrot, don’t know if you know
him, he’s the one who . . .”

  “I don’t talk to anyone here.”

  “Have you been here long?”

  “Two months, maybe not as much. Yeah, coming up to two months. Not hard to work out, I came in on January the third.”

  “Must get pissed off if you don’t talk to anyone.”

  “At first I didn’t plan to do that, but . . . what’s he look like, your Pierrot?”

  “He’s a really nice guy.”

  “Not weird, then?”

  “Well, he is a bit, you know, away with the fairies. At first sight, he looks okay, just this guy that used to work in a bank. Mind you, after about five minutes he’ll start telling you that he’s being followed, for instance, he gets on the train, someone’s following him—it’s the government that’s after him. If he goes to the swimming pool, they follow him, if he phones, they listen in. And now that they’ve got him up here, they’re still following him. He told me for instance in his sessions with the shrink, they’re taping him . . .”

  “That’s just what I mean. I’m fed up with these people, their nutty ideas . . . it’s all so trivial. I don’t want to chat with someone who works in a bank, that would so totally depress me.”

  “Working in a bank, that’d depress you?”

  “Why, do you think it’s romantic or something? It’d really turn me on, eh? Chatting to him about how he gets up every morning to go and be yelled at in a stinking office with colleagues who hate him and then at the end of the month get just enough money to pay the bills? I’m too young, can’t you see, too young for compromises. Why should I bore my ass off talking to old squares? They don’t even know who the Stooges are.”

  “So why are you here?”

  “My parents.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t know what got into them, but it was nothing to do with me.”

  “Did they want to go away on holiday or something?”

  “Dunno. They’re pretty uptight anyway. I’d rather they’d’ve dumped me at the side of the road.”

  She was acting the girl who’s quite confident that she’s here because her parents have somehow gone crazy. She sincerely thought she believed this. But deep inside, the intimate enemy was watching and collaborating with the shrinks and therapists, deep inside, she was convincing herself that there really was something wrong with her. You don’t get locked up by chance. Not in places like this.