Utopia Avenue : A Novel

by Mitchell, David

  The entirety is steel, mighty, permanent, real …

  … and was once just a dream in somebody’s head.

  The Camper turns off the freeway at a sign for Knowland Park. Further down the slip road, a sign reads, ‘GOLDEN STATE INTERNATIONAL POP FESTIVAL’.

  ‘Are we the “international” bit?’ asks Griff.

  ‘Us,’ replies Levon, ‘plus Procol Harum, the Animals and Deep Purple, who played here yesterday.’

  ‘Who’s Deep Purple?’ asks Elf.

  ‘A Birmingham band,’ says Griff. ‘They’ve been supporting Cream on tour here. They’re getting quite a name in the States.’

  The Camper enters the showground proper. Ranks and files of cars are parked to one side, with tents and camper vans on the other. There are dozens of stalls offering food, drinks and hippie trinkets. A grandstand and a Ferris wheel are visible above a tall wall. Crowds enter through turnstiles.

  ‘More organised than I’d expected,’ says Elf.

  ‘It’s big,’ says Griff, ‘but not big big big big.’

  ‘Twenty thousand punters paying three bucks a head,’ says Levon, ‘is much, much tastier than a half-million paying nothing. The word “free” in “free concert” means “bankrupt”. Walls and turnstiles. That’s the future of festivals, right there.’

  A guard recognises Bugbear and waves the van into a fenced-off compound of neatly parked trailers. Two men are lugging a huge Marshall speaker out of a truck. José Feliciano’s soulful croon and Latin guitar figures fill the middle-distance. Bugbear takes them to a trailer with a handwritten ‘UTOPIA AVE’ sign taped to the door. ‘I’ll be taking y’all back later, so break a leg.’ He walks off without a backwards glance.

  ‘A man o’ few words,’ remarks Dean.

  ‘Maybe he left his words in Vietnam,’ says Jasper.

  ‘I’ll slip away and take some pictures,’ says Mecca. She kisses Jasper and exits the compound. ‘See you all later.’

  ‘Could you take a few of the band when they’re on?’ asks Levon. ‘I’ll find something in the budget if we use any.’

  ‘Sure.’ She tells Jasper, ‘Break your legs,’ and goes.

  ‘I love how she says that,’ says Jasper.

  Inside the trailer is a kitchenette with jugs of water, overflowing ashtrays, bottles of beer, Pepsi and bowls of grapes and bananas. Marijuana smoke hangs in the air. When everyone is settled with a beer, Levon springs a surprise. ‘Band meeting. Max has put together a possible package of four days’ worth of dates, here in the States.’

  Thank God, thinks Dean. I can put off London.

  ‘It’s intense. Portland on Thursday, Seattle on Friday, Vancouver on Saturday, then Chicago on Sunday to a show at the Aragon Ballroom – also known as the Aragon “Brawl-room” – to be broadcast across the Midwest and Canada. You can say no. But this could shunt Stuff of Life up ten places. Possibly into the Top Ten.’

  ‘I vote yes,’ says Elf.

  ‘I vote yes,’ says Jasper.

  ‘I vote “Shit, yes”,’ says Griff.

  ‘This gives us an extra day to record,’ says Dean. ‘Could you say we’ll do it if the record company pay our studio fees?’

  ‘We’ll make a manager of you yet,’ says Levon.

  ‘Being skint’s my superpower,’ replies Dean.

  ‘Studio fees are in the deal. If we’re agreed, I’ll tell Max—’

  There’s a knock-knock at the door. A sunburned man with sweat-patches and a clipboard peers in. ‘Utopia Avenue? Bill Quarry. I’m the operator of this smooth-running festival machine.’

  ‘Welcome to your trailer, Bill. Levon Frankland.’

  Bill shakes everyone’s hand. ‘José finishes in twenty minutes, then Johnny Winter is on from five till six, then it’s you guys. Why don’t I show you backstage, so you can get the lay of the land?’

  Dean is mugged by a huge yawn. ‘I’ll catch forty winks.’

  ‘Forty “winks”?’ checks Griff.

  ‘I despair of you two,’ says Elf.

  ‘Don’t worry, boss,’ Dean tells Levon. ‘I won’t do anything you wouldn’t. Or take anything.’

  ‘The thought never entered my mind,’ lies Levon.

  Dean sinks into the sofa-bed. Something smooth sticks against his cheek. He sits up again and peels off a Tarot card. It shows a figure walking away, up a mountain across a channel of water. The figure carries a staff, like a pilgrim, and wears a red cape. The pilgrim’s hair is shoulder length and brownish, like Dean’s, though his face is turned away. The yellow moon watches him from a twilit sky. Three cups sit on a bottom row of five cups in the foreground, and the words ‘VIII of CUPS’ are written along the top.

  The breeze rustles the net curtain. A woman laughs like Dean’s mother used to. The pilgrim won’t be coming back this way again. A nearby crowd of thousands roars its applause as José Feliciano finishes his fluid version of ‘Light My Fire’. Dean puts the Tarot card into his wallet, next to Allen Klein’s business card. He lies back down and shuts his eyes. There’s Rod Dempsey to worry about; there’s Mandy Craddock and my possible son; there’s what to do about Harry Moffat. I’m sure there are more I’ve forgotten … Problems tangle up like clothes in a tumble dryer.

  No. Enough. Dean leaves the launderette and follows a path, up a mountain, under a yellow moon both crescent and full, with a staff in his hand. He’s left his worries behind him, on the other side of the river. He won’t be going back …

  … and arrives at the Captain Marlow pub in Gravesend. Dave the publican says, ‘Thank God you’re here. Upstairs is on fire and the firemen are on strike.’ So it’s up to Dean, Harry Moffat and Clive from the Scotch of St James to work their way up, floor by floor, fighting the fire with buckets of water and sand that are brought by half-strangers. The flames are purple, noisy and drenched in feedback. At the top of the pub is an attic room. Inside, a scrawny boy with black corkscrew hair is munching grapes …

  Dean is in a trailer in California where a scrawny boy with black corkscrew hair is munching grapes. He’s wearing sandals, shorts and a baggy Captain America T-shirt, and looks about ten. His skin-tone is from everywhere. Dean is unimpressed with Bill Quarry’s security arrangements. ‘What rabbit-hole did you pop out of?’

  ‘Sacramento,’ says the boy.

  Dean has no idea where, what or who Sacramento might be. Try again. ‘What’re yer doing in my trailer?’

  The boy flips a top off a bottle of Dr Pepper with a bottle-opener. ‘My parents wandered off. Again.’

  Dean sits up. ‘Who’re yer parents?’

  ‘My mom’s name is Dee-Dee. My honorary dad’s Ben.’

  ‘Don’t yer think yer should go back to them?’

  ‘I’ve been looking. Ever since the man with the sore throat sang about the bad mood rising. No luck yet.’

  ‘So … yer lost?’

  The boy sips his Dr Pepper. ‘My parents are lost.’

  All I wanted was a bit o’ shut-eye. Dean goes to the door of the trailer. A few muscled roadies are milling around. They don’t look likely to help a lost boy. In lieu of a more purposeful action, Dean asks him, ‘What’s yer name?’

  ‘What’s yours?’

  Dean’s surprised into answering, ‘Dean.’

  ‘I’m …’ the boy says something like ‘Bolly Var’.

  ‘Oliver?’

  ‘Bo-li-var. Bolívar. After Simón Bolívar, the revolutionary from the early 1800s. Bolivia’s named after him.’

  ‘Right. Bolívar. Look, I’ve got to go and perform soon, so why don’t yer take those grapes, and …’ Dean realises he can’t tell a ten-year-old to go and hunt for two people in a crowd of thousands. He wishes Levon or Elf was here. He sees the security man at the gate to the VIP compound under his big sun-umbrella. ‘We’ll go ask that sort o’ policeman over there. He’ll know what to do.’

  Bolívar looks amused. ‘Whatever you say, Dean.’

  They leave the trailer and walk over. Security Man wears a hunte
r’s hat, reflective sunglasses and a combat jacket. ‘’Scuse me,’ says Dean, ‘but this kid just appeared in my trailer.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, he’s separated from his parents.’

  ‘That big blue flag.’ Security Man points towards a pavilion across a field of campers. ‘That there’s the lost kid tent.’

  ‘But I’m Dean Moss. I’m in Utopia Avenue.’

  ‘So in Utopia lost kids are someone else’s problem, are they?’

  ‘No, but I’m a musician. Lost kids aren’t my responsibility.’

  ‘Ain’t mine neither, pal. I can’t abandon my post.’

  ‘So whose responsibility is it to walk this kid to that tent?’

  ‘That’s a procedural matter. Ask Bonnie or Bunny.’

  Dean sees his incredulous face reflected in Security Man’s sunglasses. ‘Where are Bonnie or Bunny?’

  He gestures at Heaven and Earth. ‘Could be anywhere.’

  Oh f’ fucksake. Dean crouches. ‘Look, Bolívar. See that blue flag over there?’ He points. ‘That’s the lost kid tent.’

  ‘Let’s get going, then, Dean.’

  ‘Great idea,’ says Security Guy.

  Smarmy git, thinks Dean. ‘We can’t encourage a boy to go wandering off with strangers.’

  ‘But you ain’t a stranger,’ says Security Guy. ‘You’re Dean Moss. You’re in Utopia Avenue.’

  Dean has been outplayed. If I don’t spend ten minutes walking him over, I’ll spend seventy years wondering what happened to him. ‘Okay, Bolívar. Let’s go.’

  ‘If I ride on your shoulders,’ says Bolívar, a few paces into their journey, ‘Dee-Dee or Ben might spot me.’ Dean hoists him up. Bolívar presses his hands on Dean’s skull like a faith healer. He shouldn’t trust strangers this much, thinks Dean. Yet now Dean has been chosen, he is determined not to let the boy down. Guitar chords from inside the showground criss-cross their own echoes. Women are sunbathing on blankets. Teens sit around smoking. Couples canoodle. Families eat in the shade of tents. Girls are having their faces painted. A woman breastfeeds her baby like it’s no big deal. Yer don’t see that in Hyde Park. Clowns are patrolling on stilts. Teenagers are strumming on guitars. I know that tune … They’re working out the chords to ‘Roll Away The Stone’. They’re arguing over whether it’s a D or a D minor. I’ll let them work it out, thinks Dean. I had to.

  Bolívar asks, ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-four. How old are you?’

  ‘Eight hundred and eight.’

  ‘Huh. I guess yer use face-cream.’

  ‘Are you from London, Dean?’

  ‘Yeah, I am. How d’yer know?’

  ‘You speak like the chimney sweep in Mary Poppins.’

  ‘Where I’m from, you sound funny too.’

  A scrimmage of wild children rushes by, shrieking.

  ‘Are you a dad?’ asks Bolívar.

  ‘Wow, look at that balloon-bender.’

  ‘Do you have any kids?’

  Sharp as a tack. ‘The jury’s still out on that one.’

  ‘Why don’t you know if you have any kids or not?’

  ‘Grown-up reasons.’

  Bolívar shifts his weight. ‘Did you have sex with a lady who had a baby, but you don’t know if her baby grew from the seed you put in her womb or not?’

  Bloody – hell. Dean twists his head to look at Bolívar.

  The boy looks victorious.

  ‘How d’yer know that? How could yer know?’

  ‘Educated guess.’

  ‘God, yer grow up quick in America.’ Dean carries on towards the blue flag. A biplane hauls a banner reading, ‘THIRSTY? GRAB A COKE!’ across the nearly cloudless sky.

  ‘Why don’t you want to be a dad?’ asks Bolívar.

  ‘Why d’yer ask so many “why?” questions?’

  ‘Why did you stop asking “why?” questions?’

  ‘’Cause I grew up. ’Cause it’s bloody annoying.’

  ‘You’d have to put a quarter in the Profanity Jar if you were in our family,’ says the boy. ‘Mom started it because she doesn’t want me growing up in a sewer. So why don’t you want to be a dad?’

  ‘What makes yer think I don’t?’

  ‘You change the subject when I bring it up.’

  Dean stops to let a water-melon vendor push his cart by. ‘I s’pose … I’m afraid of being a dad I wouldn’t want as a dad.’

  Bolívar pats his head as if to say, There, there.

  A freckled man in a San Francisco Giants shirt and a floppy hat is hovering in the mouth of the lost kid tent, puffing nervously on a cigarette. When he sees Bolívar his face transforms from bottled panic to sheer relief. It was worth bringing the kid over just to see that, thinks Dean. ‘Jesus Christ, Bolly,’ says the freckled man, ‘you gave us a fright.’

  ‘Profanity Jar,’ says Bolívar. ‘Two quarters. One for the “Jesus” and one for the “Christ”. I won’t forget.’

  The man makes a God-give-me-strength face and tells Dean, ‘Thanks. I’m Benjamin Olins – just “Ben” is fine. I’m his stepdad.’

  ‘“Honorary dad”,’ insists the boy.

  ‘Honorary dad.’ Ben lifts Bolívar off Dean’s shoulders. ‘Mom is having a cow. Where were you?’

  ‘Looking for you. I found him –’ the boy points at Dean ‘– in a trailer. His name’s Dean, he’s from London and he isn’t sure if he’s a dad or not. Speak to him, Ben. Old guy to old guy.’

  Ben listens to this, frowns, and looks at Dean properly. ‘Dean Moss? From Utopia Avenue? Holy crap. It is you.’

  ‘One more quarter,’ says Bolívar. ‘You’re up to three now.’

  ‘But Utopia Avenue’s why we’re here today, and—’

  ‘No ifs, no buts: three quarters. And Mom’s here for Johnny Winter, not Dean. Sorry, Dean. There’s a lady over there giving candy to lost kids. I’ll be right back. Don’t wander off.’

  ‘Yer said it was yer mum ’n’ Ben who got lost,’ points out Dean.

  ‘She’s not going to hand out lollipops to a grown-up, is she? Think it through, Dean.’ Bolívar goes over.

  ‘Not yer average kid,’ Dean tells Ben.

  ‘Jeez Louise – you have no idea.’

  ‘Eight hundred and eight years old, he said he was.’

  ‘He’s been keeping that up since he was five. Acute meningitis. Nearly died, poor kid, and he came out of his coma kinda … different to before. Sometimes Dee-Dee – Bolly’s mom – thinks we should get him looked at, but … he’s a happy enough kid, so I’m not sure what we’d be trying to fix. But, Dean, I really dig your music. I run a record store over in Sacramento. If I’ve hand-sold one copy of Stuff of Life, I’ve hand-sold fifty. Your first album sells too, of course, but Stuff of Life is …’ Ben mimes an aeroplane gaining altitude.

  ‘Cheers. Guess I owe yer a royalty cheque.’

  ‘Just make a third album. Please.’

  ‘I’ll see what we can do. Yer boy’s struck gold.’ The lollipop lady is holding the jar for Bolívar.

  ‘Oh, he could charm the birds and fishes,’ says Ben. ‘Do you have kids, or … I didn’t get what Bolly was saying just now.’

  The smell of toasted chestnuts wafts by. No, I can’t tell a total stranger about my legal woes when I haven’t even told my own family. ‘He asked if I had kids and I was just saying I don’t feel ready to be a father. That’s all.’

  ‘“Ready”? Forget it. I’m winging it, every single day.’ Ben offers Dean a Marlboro: Dean accepts. ‘To Dad or Not to Dad? That is the question. It is heavy shit. I won’t say, “Do it,” if you don’t want to.’ He puffs the smoke away. ‘But if you’re on the fence, and want a nudge, I’ll nudge you. You won’t miss what you think you’ll miss. You’ll have more headaches but you’ll have more joy. Joy and headaches. The A side and the flip-side.’ Bolly returns with a fistful of candy. ‘Look at you, you hunter-gatherer.’

  Bolly spots someone behind Dean. He waves. ‘Mom! Mom! It’s okay �
�� I found Ben. He’s here.’

  Dee-Dee, a heavily pregnant woman with beaded, braided hair lets out a long, earthy groan of relief and smothers her son in an enormous hug. ‘Damn it, Bolly, please don’t go wandering off like that …’

  The boy wriggles free. ‘One quarter! One whole dollar for the Profanity Jar. I got us a lollipop each, plus one for the baby. Dean, this is Mom. She’s in her third trimester. Mom, Dean helped me find you. What do you say to him?’

  ‘Bolly, it’s you who went off—’

  Bolly holds up an admonitory finger.

  Dee-Dee takes a deep breath. ‘Thank you.’

  The crowd of seven or eight thousand is the biggest by far the band have played. Dean feels stage fright bubbling under. The sky is the sky from the Eight of Cups, on the cusp of evening. ‘Please welcome,’ booms Bill Quarry at the central mic, ‘all the way from England, the one, the only UTOPIA AVENUE!’ Levon slaps Dean on the back; Dee-Dee, Ben and Bolívar slap his shoulder, and he’s following Elf onto the stage. Can’t turn back now. The crowd blast out a roar that Dean wasn’t expecting: he feels it on his face. Elf turns and grins. The band take their positions. Jasper and Dean plug in while Elf speaks into her mic. ‘Thanks, California. We weren’t sure if anyone here knows us, but I guess—’ The roar and whistles intensify, and a chant spreads out from a spot Dean can’t locate: to the tune of ‘John Brown’s Body Lies A-mouldering In The Grave’, the crowd sings: ‘Randy Thorn’s career lies a-mouldering in its grave, Randy Thorn’s career lies a-mouldering in its grave …’ Jasper picks out the melody on his guitar; the notes are burnished and golden. For the ‘Glory, Glory Hallelujah’ chorus, Elf vamps on the organ, and Dean conducts like Herbert von Karajan. His stage fright has evaporated.

  ‘We love you too,’ says Elf. ‘So, our first song was written by Dean in a dungeon.’ A roar of approval. She nods at Dean.

  Dean deploys a trick Mama Cass told him for opening a song with an unaccompanied vocal: run through the line once, in your mind’s ear, at the pitch you want, then replay it, but join in: