Chayton illustrates his directions with his vertical palm. ‘Go down Haight Street, all the way to Market. Carry on straight. Hyde is six blocks on your left. Turk’s four blocks up. Forty minutes.’
‘’Ppreciate it.’
‘Be seeing you soon.’
The sunny side of Haight Street is too bright, so Dean crosses to the shady side where his eyeballs work better. The neighbourhood puts him in mind of the morning after an epic unauthorised house-party. Slip off before the bills fall due. Few humans are about. Overturned bins spill their trashy guts into the gutter. Crows and mangy dogs bicker over the spoils. He bites the borrowed apple. It’s golden and zesty, like an apple from a myth. Dean passes what looks like a bingo hall, but is in fact a church. He wonders if it’s the church in The Mamas and the Papas’ ‘California Dreamin’’, and remembers that he can now phone Cass Elliot and just ask her.
Three or four blocks later, the hippie vibe gives way to humdrum frontages. A hilly park rears up where birds Dean can’t name sing in trees he can’t name. He prefers the world in its shabbier clothes, he decides. My trip was a revelation, he thinks, but yer can’t live in a revelation. He knows Griff and Elf are going to quiz him about his acid trip; and knows he won’t be able to convey a thousandth of it in words. It’s like trying to perform a symphony with a skiffle group. Dean remembers the skeleton band. A few sketchy fragments of the Music of Creation are near, he’s sure … tantalisingly near …
But it wouldn’t sound like it did. A teenage couple are asleep under a ragged blanket on a park bench under a tree that mutters to itself. Twins in a womb. Dean thinks of Kenny and Floss and hopes the couple are here as the epilogue of a magical night, and not because they have nowhere else to go. He hears a tram – called a ‘streetcar’ – up ahead, and thinks of a milk-float making its way up Peacock Street in Gravesend. Ray’ll be home now, after a nine-hour shift at the engineering plant. Dean arrives at an intersection. A sign says ‘MARKET STREET’. A café is opening, right by the streetcar stop. It’s cool and shady and Dean thinks, Why not?
He goes in, sits by the open window and orders a coffee from a waitress in her forties whose name-badge says, ‘I’m Gloria!’ America loves exclamation marks. He tries to summon up the names and faces of the waitresses he worked with at the Etna Café. He’s forgotten them. One worried about him, that January night he had nowhere to sleep. She wanted to let him sleep on her floor, but was afraid of her landlady. The night Utopia Avenue began.
Dean takes Allen Klein’s business card out of his wallet. He holds one corner in the flame of his lighter and incinerates it in the ashtray. It burns purplishly. He’s not sure what his logic is, but it feels right. We’re a band. When the card is gone, Dean feels as if a heavy weight has been removed. Out on Market Street, two vans stop for a red light. The side of the front van is emblazoned with the slogan, ‘THE BEST TV RENTALS IN TOWN’. The second reads, ‘L&H MOVERS – ACROSS THE PLANET!’ A few seconds later, another van stops in the nearest lane, half-eclipsing the two behind. Its side-panel reads THIRD STREET DRY CLEANERS, the four words stacked one above the next. The alignment and position of the vans is such that, at Dean’s eye-level, a phrase is spelled out: THE – THIRD – PLANET. Dean takes out his notebook from his jacket and writes it down. ‘The Third Planet’. By the time he’s finished, the vans have departed. Behind the bar, steam is being blasted through his ground coffee beans …
… and here is his coffee, served in a big blue bowl, like poets and philosophers drink it in Paris, Dean imagines. He takes a sip. The temperature’s just right. He slurps up a third of the cup and holds it in his mouth, letting the coffee work its magic. Dean swallows, and all his tangled thinking about his possible son comes unknotted. I’ll assume Arthur’s my son. I’ll pay his mother maintenance. Every month, no pissing about. Enough so they don’t have to scrimp ’n’ save. We won’t get married, ’cause her ’n’ me both deserve to find someone we love, but we’ll aim at friendly relations. In a couple o’ years, when Arthur’s a walking, talking boy and not a blobby baby, I’ll invite Amanda ’n’ him to Gravesend to meet Nan Moss and the aunts. They’ll know if he’s my son or not. Even I’ll know by then, I reckon. If it’s a yes, I’ll shunt my life around so Arthur knows I’m his dad. I’ll teach him how to fish on the pier up past the old fort. If it’s a no, I’ll offer to be Arthur’s godfather, and I’ll still teach him how to fish. Dean opens his eyes.
‘That should work,’ he murmurs to himself.
‘How’s your coffee?’ asks Gloria the waitress.
Dean knows he’s supposed to just say, ‘Fine’, but he decides to be Jasper for a moment. ‘Let’s see. Temperature: warm, not scalding. Taste …’ Dean sips. ‘Good blend, nicely toasted, smooth, not bitter. It’s bloody perfect. The danger is that all future coffees sort o’ pale in comparison. But who knows? Maybe it’ll usher in the dawn of a new Coffee Age. Only time will tell. And that, Gloria, if I may use yer name, I’m Dean by the way, that is how my coffee is. Thank yer for asking.’
‘Wow. My gosh. Glad to hear it. I’ll tell Pedro. He made it. So, um … that’ll be thirty cents, then, when you’re ready.’
‘Rightio.’ She thinks yer too stoned to pay. He puts a dollar on the table. ‘Keep the change. You ’n’ Pedro.’
Her anxiety vanishes. ‘Are you sure?’
‘It’s yours. And Pedro’s.’
‘Thank you.’ The dollar vanishes into her apron.
‘It’s a big day. I …’ say it ‘… am going to be a dad.’
‘Congratulations, Dean! When’s the baby due?’
‘Three months ago.’
Gloria’s confused. ‘So, he’s already born?’
‘Yeah. Bit of a long story. His name’s Arthur. It’s new territory for me, but …’ Dean thinks of the pilgrim on the Eight of Cups. ‘Life’s a journey, don’t yer think?’
The waitress looks out at Market Street, thinks of other times, and looks back. ‘It should be. The best of luck with Arthur. You helped make him, but he’ll make a man of you.’
Dean passes not-yet-open shops, boarded-up shops, low offices, a building site, a plot of wasteland, a depot. Nothing to write home about. Every twenty or thirty paces a tree is losing its leaves to the warm wind. Traffic stampedes between the intersections of Market Street. Motorbikes swerve between the bigger beasts. A truck is pulled up outside a butcher’s. Carcasses hang on racks. Dean inhales the breath of the abattoir. A force that is not him runs through him, like the current in the streetcars’ overhead cable. What if ley-lines aren’t total bollocks? The buildings grow as downtown approaches. Dean finds Hyde Street and remembers Chayton’s instructions. Now I know where I am. Where Hyde crosses Turk Street, that’s the studio. Dean checks his watch. The band will be at the studio in thirty minutes or so. I’ll be there in fifteen. Carry on up to Sutter Street, and there’s the hotel. He’ll have time for a shower. I’d better: I’m hot ’n’ sweaty ’n’ stinking. He passes the Opera House, a big heavy building you might find in Haymarket or Kensington Gardens, with columns and Georgian windows. Hyde Street slopes uphill. It’s not a posh district. Dean passes a pawn shop with steel mesh over the windows. A down-at-heel laundromat. Not launderette. ‘TENDERLOIN GIRLIE SHOW’. A parking lot where a rusty sedan has no wheels. Brambles twist out of cracks. A bundled figure is slumped in a doorway. A biro-on-cardboard sign says, ‘I BEEN DOING THIS SHIT FOR 20 YEARS.’ Poverty in California looks as miserable as poverty anywhere. He puts fifty cents into the man’s hand. Grimy fingers close. He has red eyes and he says, ‘That all you got?’ At the corner of Eddy Street, a shop is open: Eddy Turk’s General & Liquor.
Dean sees a cold cabinet with bottles of milk.
It’s been a long walk. A nice cold glass o’ milk …
The shop smells of overripe fruit and brown paper. The Sikh shopkeeper has black glasses, a navy turban and a white shirt. He’s reading Valley of the Dolls and eating grapes. Bottles of spirits line the shelves behind his till.
He sizes Dean up. ‘Fine day.’
‘Let’s hope so. Just came in for a bottle o’ milk.’
He nods at the cabinet. ‘Help yourself.’
Dean gets a half-pint and holds the cold glass against his face. He brings it to the counter. ‘Twenty Marlboro, too.’ There’s a rack of postcards. Dean picks one out of the Golden Gate Bridge.
‘Sixty cents.’ He sounds as American as John Wayne. ‘For sixty-two cents, I’ll throw in an airmail stamp.’
‘Cheers.’ Dean digs out the coins. ‘Could I rent yer biro? Yer pen?’
The Sikh deposits the coins and hands Dean a pen. ‘On the house. You’re welcome to use the table at the back.’
‘’Ppreciate that.’ Dean finds a stool under an old school desk with a liftable lid and inkwell. He sits, looks at the message-side of the postcard, and wonders where to start. Maybe I ought to ask Elf. Dean drinks half his milk. It’s refreshing. What matters is the fact I’m writing. Dean takes up the pen:
Yeah, that’ll do. He writes Ray’s address, and stands up as one, two, three men stream into the shop, wearing balaclavas. Like bank robbers in a film, thinks Dean, just as they pull guns out. Real guns – the first Dean has ever seen. One yells, ‘Hands in the air, Ali Baba!’
Glowering with contempt, the shopkeeper obeys.
The robbers haven’t noticed Dean but he decides he’d better follow suit. All three robbers turn their guns on him and Dean cringes. ‘Don’t shoot! It’s okay! Don’t shoot!’
Chief Robber demands, ‘What’s he doing here?’
‘Just a customer,’ says Dean. ‘I’ll leave if, uh—’
‘Stay right there!’ Chief Robber turns to a shorter partner in crime. ‘The joint was s’posed to be EMPTY.’
Short Robber’s freckles are visible through his eye-holes. ‘I was watching the store for five minutes. No one came in. That’s why I gave you the all-clear.’ He sounds young, fifteen or sixteen.
Chief Robber snaps back, ‘Did you check the aisles?’
A pause. ‘This is my first stake-out. It’s a—’
‘You shitferbrains! Now we got us a witness!’
The tallest robber thrusts a bag at the shopkeeper. ‘Fill it.’
‘With what?’
Chief Robber barks, ‘No! He’ll stuff it with small notes an’ shit an’ say, “That’s all I got.” Get him to open the till, then you fill it.’
Tall Robber tells the shopkeeper, ‘Step back and open the till.’
The shopkeeper pauses. ‘How can I open the till after I’ve stepped back?’
Short Robber shouts, ‘Play the SMART-ASS with us, I’ll shoot your FAG ASS OFF.’ His voice squeaks on the ass. He sounds about fourteen, thinks Dean. ‘Open the till first. Then step back.’ The shopkeeper sighs and does as he’s told. Tall Robber transfers its contents into the cloth bag. It doesn’t take long.
‘Now take out the cash-drawer,’ says Chief Robber. ‘The real money’ll be hidden under there.’
Tall Robber rattles at the drawer. ‘It won’t budge.’
Chief Robber waves his gun at the shopkeeper. ‘Do it.’
‘The cash-drawer doesn’t come out of that till.’
Short Robber shouts, or tries to: ‘TAKE IT OUT!’ There’s a coked-up jaggedness to him, Dean notices, with concern.
The shopkeeper looks over his glasses. ‘It’s a till from the forties, son. The drawer isn’t removable. There’s nothing more.’
Chief Robber snatches the bag from Tall Robber and peers in. ‘There’s only twenty-five bucks? You’re shitting us.’
‘I sell liquor and groceries. Not diamonds. It’s nine a.m. on a Thursday morning. How much were you expecting?’
Tall Robber levels his gun. ‘Open the office safe.’
‘What office? There’s a stockroom the size of a closet and a broke-ass john. Why would I keep money on the premises in this neighbourhood? Too many robberies. That’s why I put the sign up on the way in, “No Money Kept on Premises”.’
‘He’s lying,’ growls Chief Robber. ‘You’re lying.’
Short Robber has gone to the door. ‘Wait up.’ He reads, with difficulty: “No Money Kept on … Promises”. He ain’t lying, Dex.’
‘No fucking names!’ shouts Chief Robber.
Now Tall Robber turns on Dex the Chief Robber. ‘You staked this job out. You said we’d clear two hundred bucks each, easy.’
‘Each? Six hundred dollars?’ The shopkeeper is flabbergasted. ‘On a graveyard shift? Do you know the first thing about retail?’
‘Shut up,’ snarls Chief Robber, ‘and give me your wallet.’
‘I never bring my wallet to work. Too many muggings.’
‘Bullshit – what if you need to buy something?’
‘I mark my purchases in the stock book. Search my pockets.’
What a bunch o’ bloody amateurs, thinks Dean.
Chief Robber turns to Dean. ‘What’re you looking at?’
‘Um … an armed robbery?’
‘Shorty, get his wallet.’
Short Robber waggles his gun: ‘Wallet.’
Dean has about ten dollars, but coked-up idiots and guns are a bad combination so he places his half-drunk bottle of milk on a pile of Pinkerton’s pretzel boxes. He reaches into his inside jacket pocket for his wallet, just as a car screeches to a halt outside the shop. Startled, Short Robber turns and biffs the tower of boxes, knocking off the milk bottle. As Dean tries to catch it, a demonic force flings him back …
Disjointed sentences reach Dean, as if from radios swinging by on long ropes. ‘You dumbass motherfucker!’
I’m shot … I’m actually bloody shot …
‘He was reaching for a gun, Dex.’
‘I told him to give me his wallet!’
‘Who keeps his wallet in a jacket?’
I can’t die … I can’t die … Not now …
‘He does! Look! He’s holding it!’
‘But he moved Dex, and … and …’
Not like this … this is too, too stupid …
‘Don’t use my name, you dumbass motherfucker!’
I WON’T DIE … I WON’T … I’M STAYING …
‘You can’t, Dean, I’m sorry.’ Chayton is here.
How can yer be here? Yer at Jerry’s house …
‘Don’t be afraid. I’ll walk you up to the ridge.’
But I’ve still got songs I need to record.
‘You’ll have to leave them here.’
Elf, Jasper, Griff, Ray … can’t I just tell them …
‘You know how this works, Dean.’
The voices in Eddy Turk’s General & Liquor Store dwindle as the velocity increases. The Sikh shopkeeper is barely audible: ‘I’m calling an ambulance for my customer. Shoot me if you want. Then you’ll be looking at Death Row. Or just run and take your chances.’
I don’t need an ambulance, Dean thinks.
‘People not yet born will play your songs,’ says Chayton.
Will Arthur play my songs?
‘I reckon so. It’s time now.’
Dean is falling upwards.
No last words …
‘All bands break up,’ Levon Frankland writes in his memoir, ‘but nearly all bands get back together again. All it takes is time and a hole in the pension pot.’ When Jasper, Griff and I disbanded Utopia Avenue in 1968, we well and truly meant it. Our friend and bandmate Dean Moss had been shot and killed in a grocery-store robbery in San Francisco, and we didn’t have the heart to carry on. The very next day calamity compounded our grief when a fire broke out at Turk Street Studios and robbed us of Dean’s last work. A Utopia Avenue album without Dean’s musicianship, vocals and songwriting would, we felt, have violated the Trade Descriptions Act. And so, for half a century, Utopia Avenue persisted as one of those exceptions that proved the validity of Frankland’s Law. So how has it come about that now, fifty-one years after our last show, I am writing these sleeve notes (as they used to be called) for a new Utopia Avenue LP featuring
Dean Moss on bass, vocals, harmonica, and a twenty-three-minute trilogy of original Moss songs? An explanation is in order.
We flew to New York in September 1968 for our first and only string of American performances. Dean’s anthem ‘Roll Away The Stone’ was a minor hit of the summer on both sides of the Atlantic, and our second LP, Stuff of Life, was knocking on the door of the Top Twenty of the Billboard 100. Our American label arranged a short tour in the hopes of kicking that door open. After four nights at the Ghepardo club in New York and a sheep-dip of media interviews, we flew to Los Angeles for a short residency at the fabled Troubadour club and an appearance on the not-so-fabled Randy Thorn Goes Pop! TV show. Two days later we played the Golden State International Pop Festival at the bucolic Knowland Park, on the back of which gigs in Portland, Seattle, Vancouver and Chicago were hastily arranged. For four British kids born in the forties and raised on the forbidden fruits of American music, the trip was less the stuff of life and more the stuff of dreams.
Transformative dreams, at that. The politics of 1968 were febrile and visionary. The future felt shapeable. This conviction wouldn’t reoccur until the revolutions of 1989, the Arab Spring and, arguably, the #MeToo and climate activism of the current era. Utopia Avenue were not a political band with a capital P, but the summer of riots following Martin Luther King’s assassination, the mounting body-count in Vietnam and the ‘police riot’ at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, beamed to every TV set in the nation, filled both public and private discourse. The anti-war movement was spilling out of its radical and hippie enclaves. In that highly charged atmosphere, indifference was rare. I remember Jerry Garcia telling us, ‘In 1966, whatever you wished for came true.’ In 1968, whatever you didn’t wish for also came true.
Against this volatile backdrop, the four kids we were encountered whole new ways of thinking and being. My long walk out of the closet took a major step forward during our stay at the Chelsea Hotel. Jasper was exorcising some old demons of his own, and the lyrics Dean wrote in his last few weeks spoke of a seismic self-recalibration. Musically, all of us took a quantum leap. America presented us with an all-you-can-eat musical buffet. We met peers, masters, heroes and villains. I recall conversations with Leonard Cohen about poetry; with Janis Joplin and Mama Cass Elliot about vocal technique and coloratura; with Frank Zappa about satire and fame; with a still-teenage Jackson Browne about finger-picking; with Janis Joplin about thriving as a woman in a business run by, and for, men; with Jerry Garcia about polyrhythm; and with the not-yet-signed Crosby, Stills and Nash about harmony. No young songwriter could emerge unchanged from such a milieu. What young songwriter would want to?
Utopia Avenue : A Novel Page 61