This Is Memorial Device

by David Keenan

  It all changed when we discovered psychedelics. It was this guy called Scott who was kind of notorious on the scene; a heavy dealer. His nickname was Sore Arse because he had a series of operations on his arse for some syndrome or other so that’s how everyone referred to him. He got kind of friendly with us; he was into Tolkien and John Norman, the Gor books, all that sort of stuff. You couldn’t film those Gor books, he would say, those books would be triple-X in the cinema, it just isn’t possible. Then he would light a joint, with his shades on and his greasy hair, and we would stare at him like he was an oracle from the future; an oracle with a penis. Shit, I would think. This guy is on the edge. I’m holidaying in Erotica this year, he would say, and he would wink, and we wouldn’t even get it. But the point is he began dangling the idea of tripping in front of us. We came to psychedelics from the side on, in a way; kind of by accident. We went from superhero and fantasy stuff to underground comics, you know like Robert Crumb and Zap, stuff that you would hide under your bed in case your mum saw it. But expanding our minds, hell yeah we were all for that; we lived in our minds, the more room the better.

  On the night of the first trip everyone met up at my mum’s house in Caldercruix. I had an empty. We sat in the living room and Duncan put on a Devo record and we each took half a tab to be safe. After a while I saw the curtains wobble a little and there was a drum break on the record that seemed to last forever but that was about the size of it. I heard a rumour that the batch had been cut with strychnine but I tried to keep my thoughts somewhere else even as I had to fight the idea of picking up the phone and asking Sore Arse if everything was okay. Findlay lay on the couch reading that book that Truffaut wrote about Hitchcock; this is back when Findlay was attending the cinema three times a day, crazy about films; a real nutcake. Suddenly I got this huge bulge in my pants; I thought I was going to explode. All I wanted to do was wank off; it was overwhelming. It felt like life was pulsing through me. I could feel the head bulging out, the skin peeling back. I went into the bathroom and dug up my stash of porno mags which I used to hide beneath a loose floorboard under the bath.

  Her name was Ginny; I still remember her. She was lying with her legs spread on the bed with one hand holding onto the brass bedhead while wearing stockings and next to her this panty drawer was open and spilling over with lingerie. Oh my god, I said to myself. I looked between her legs and it was like two worlds colliding and it was like lingerie was the highest pinnacle of civilisation; everything we had been fighting for; in Gor and in Middle-earth and in reality. It was a profound moment of worship and afterwards I walked back through to the living room and it was like walking onto the command deck of a spaceship. I told them how great it was, that they should try masturbating on acid, and one by one – all except Findlay – they took their turn in the bathroom so that the magazine was soaked right through and I had to wrap it in a plastic bag and throw it in the bin in the morning. After that it was inevitable that we would form a band.

  None of us could play a thing except for Alan who was a piano virtuoso and who had written a book on the history of minimalism when he was fifteen years old and then just stashed it in a cupboard; but we weren’t looking for technique and besides he was one of these guys that could play from a score fine but who couldn’t improvise to save his life. We were all like that, in a way. So we hit on this idea. Duncan’s dad had an endless supply of mannequins that he used in the windows of his store on the Baillieston Road. We decided to make tapes and then organise this show where we would have mannequins dressed up like us, like schoolboys, basically, but looking like rock stars, holding instruments and with wigs on, and we would play tapes of our music behind them like it was a gig. We came up with a name. At first it was Shooting Gallery; then Credible Ring; then Chinese Moon. We called up some bars, got the names of some clubs, but as soon as we explained what we wanted to do they hung up or refused or made some lame excuse. There was only one option. We said to Duncan, ask your dad if we can set up a window display. We’ll dress the mannequins and record these tapes and have a musical window in Shettleston. It was like an installation, but a gig too, even though we could go and watch it ourselves. His dad didn’t care, he said yes, he was drunk but he was a loving father, as far as I could see, even though Duncan felt embarrassed and obviously at home things were a bit strained.

  Everyone got to dress their dummy according to their tastes and personalities. Mine had an eyepatch and a khaki jumper with elbow pads and a pair of beige trousers and brown slip-on shoes and a black guitar – a Les Paul copy, it was all I could afford – and with this long black synthetic hair hanging down. Alan was on drums and he looked like a blue flame; his mannequin had all this make-up on, turquoise eyeliner and blue hair styled in an outrageous art-school quiff like Bryan Ferry on the first Roxy Music album but with a blazer and with grey trousers; it was like someone had set his head on fire or run it against sandpaper and his schoolboy mind had exploded. Findlay just looked like himself and he was the creepiest in a way; a blue tracksuit and a blonde bob and an exaggerated mouth holding a microphone like it was a gun he had just shot himself with. Duncan’s mannequin had a black boiler suit with military tags and he was wearing one of those furry Russian hats with a red star and a sickle on the front with this artificial hair hanging down and with painted nails and a bass guitar like a Flying V that he had made out of cardboard and that had a speaker built into the middle of it attached to a rack of Walkmans that would just keep looping the same few tracks so that the music was muted through the window when you walked past and sounded like it was under water; like we were playing drowned in a lit-up aquarium in the middle of the night in Shettleston. The window ran for about a week but then the store owner got a sniff of it and ordered it closed down. Still: what a week. In my memory it seems to stretch all the way across the summer of 1983 and I can still see it now as we approached it in the early hours of the morning; the golden light coming from the window and spilling over the pavement like a perfect dream and then hearing the music as you approached, low, with shouts of people from streets away in the background and the occasional taxi flashing past; and then walking up to it and seeing ourselves, suddenly, or our chosen representatives, more like, in this world and the next, in a way, like it was one step towards immortality or forgetfulness or whatever you want to call it; and the music was good, it was like the sound you hear when you wake up in the night and for a brief moment you are a receiver, like you have forgotten your role as a human being and for one second you catch this strange, high tone, this tone that is communicating on a level that you can only tune into in certain states; and as I looked at the window and heard this long, sustained tone, this slow off-kilter drum beat, I thought to myself, when I die let me wake up here, let me reincarnate into this picture; let me live in this moment forever.

  Although we only lasted for a week – and to tell you the truth we had never thought of anything happening beyond that – we generated a lot of interest. People started to get in touch, enquiring inside the store, which is part of the reason it got shut down, I believe: too many crazies got wind of it that had no money to spend on menswear or the summer’s latest styles. Luckily Duncan’s dad was taking names and forwarding letters – he was very supportive in that way, almost to the point of embarrassment – and so very quickly we became part of this nexus of creative people and weirdos and freaks; which suited us just fine. I got letters from artists obsessed by body parts; a dominatrix; strange reclusive homosexuals; a professor studying robotics at Coatbridge College; people with fantasies about phantom limbs; amputees; lonely CB radio hams … but the letter that was the most interesting was from Lucas Black from Memorial Device.

  It was weird; it was like he was writing to himself, or to a part of himself, in a way. It was addressed to Mr Downie, who was the owner of the shop; Downie’s, it was called. And it was written like he was petitioning part of his brain. I say that now, knowing what I know. At the time, though, it blew me away. It was like a
love song. Dear Mr Downie, it said; I’m quoting from memory here, I wish I still had the letter. Then it had this whole preamble where he laid out his qualifications; as if he had a right to get in touch; as if it was inevitable; like he was touching two wires together, just to get the spark. I remember one sentence in particular; life has no meaning, he said, but it does have resonances, frissons, places, ghosts. Perhaps you would like to see some examples of my work, he said. If so, please find the attached and he had included a photograph of a strange diorama that he had built himself; it looked like a volcano with lava pouring from the top; lava that looked more like feather boas running from the mouth of this papier-mâché mountain and around the four corners there were servitors – that’s the word he used – strange mannequins; children with pale wooden faces and silver synthetic hair and sweatshirts with emblems on the front or logos like I Love New York or Coatbridge College Athletics or, the one I remember best of all, California Good Guys; all photographed in this strange half-light that was like a memory.

  Of course I agreed to a meeting. By this point I was living in a top-floor flat in a block near Airdrie Academy. I was studying to be an electrician at a college in Coatbridge and I was sharing with some other bozos, just to afford to live away from home, which in reality was five minutes’ walk away. Looking back I have no idea why I was in such a rush to leave home. Back then I fled every moment that was laid out in front of me. I could barely wait for the future, which now, to me, is a horrible thought.

  I remember Lucas rang the buzzer and normally I had a thing where I would count to thirty before opening the door; that was how long it normally took for someone to walk up three flights of stairs. But this time I just opened it right away and stood at the top of the stairs and watched his approach and I always remember that when I walked out onto the landing I leaned on the banister to get a better look and I put my hand right through a spider’s web; right bang through the centre of it. That’s significant, I said to myself, I will remember that forever; and I still do, so it must have meant something. I could hear Lucas’s footsteps down below. He had a distinctive gait, somewhat lopsided, but soft, like those big boots that Boris Karloff wore in the Frankenstein movie, padding was how I would describe it, deliberate padding, one step at a time, and before I even saw him I could see his silhouette on the wall as he made his way up the stairs and I half expected to see a pair of bolts coming out of his neck or for him to be holding a flaming torch, like he was climbing the staircase of some kind of Gothic castle, which is to say there was something automatic about it, yet deliberate – ominous, in other words – like a suicide scaling a cliff face.

  I enjoyed that, he said to me when he reached the top and I wasn’t sure what he was referring to but I said, good, anyway, and I held my arm out and I led him inside. He stood stock-still in the hallway and I wasn’t sure if he was waiting for me to take his jacket but when I moved towards him he recoiled so we just stood there for a few moments facing each other. I suspect you’re wondering why I’ve come here, he said, after what seemed like an endless silence but which was probably only a few seconds at most. It’s about the mannequins, isn’t it? I said. Yes, he said, yes, that’s it. That would be correct. But what about the mannequins? he asked me. I guess you liked them, I said. I guess you recognised something in them or could relate to them or something like that and wanted to meet up. Yes, he said. I recognised them. But from where? And from when?

  It was like having a conversation with the voice inside your head. I went to answer him again; he had me caught in this weird automatic response thing by this point and I started saying something about how maybe it was some kind of presentiment; like some kind of death in life; like you see yourself in the mannequins and it’s like mourning your own death; standing over your own corpse; something like that. The point is there’s some kind of recognition there. I made it up on the spot, basically; I mean he was demanding answers and suddenly I felt responsible for them. A presentiment, he said to me. Is that something that comes before sentiment? Is that a feeling that you are going to have a feeling? By this point I felt like my brain was being tied in knots. A presentiment is a prelude to a feeling, I told him. What’s a nocturne, he asked me? It’s a feeling for the night, I told him. That’s it, he said, that’s where I recognised them from. By this point he was freaking me out. I’m not cut out to be an artist at all, I said to myself.

  Let’s go through to the kitchen, I suggested. I needed to get out of the hallway; away from all these questions about questions. He walked behind me silently and pulled out a chair and sat on it. He looked at the kitchen table; it was a plain wooden table that we had found in a reclamation yard. That’s like my bed, he said. You sleep on a table? I asked him. Of course not, he said. Don’t be ridiculous. I made some coffee and we sat in silence some more. How do you know what you look like before you look in a mirror? he asked me. You don’t, I said. What you see in the mirror is what you look like. At this point he sighed and held his head in his hands – which were enormous, by the way. I thought to myself, it’s fucking Atlas come to smother the world.

  When he took his hands away I noticed the big scar around the top of his head. They’ve had his head off, I remember thinking, what have they put in there? You play music? I asked him. You’re in Memorial Device, aren’t you? Memorial Device had just started at this point. What is a Memorial Device? he asked me. Are they like markers in the sand? They’re a group, you’re in them, I saw you play, I told him. Exactly, he said. Exactly. Then he just sat there. Is it like a pocket watch, he said after a while, a pocket watch that you have inherited? Is it like a gravestone? Or is it more like a Dictaphone, where you can record your memories? More like a Dictaphone, I would think, I said, though by this time I was feeling way out of my depth. Do your dolls have names? he asked me. Yes, they have our names, I told him; they’re us, in a way. That makes sense, he said, and he nodded slowly to himself. Then he took a notebook out of his pocket. This is how I piece things together, he said, pointing towards the book. I give my dolls names, he said. I name them after parts of my brain. This one here, he said, handing me a picture of a young boy doll dressed in shorts and a T-shirt and with one arm raised, waving; this one I call The Coast. This is The Gully, he said, passing me a picture of an older male doll with a blank expression and strawcoloured hair photographed sat in a chair in a garden. Then there’s The Pathways; I don’t have a picture of him to hand. He’s older still, in poor condition; though he dresses well. Then we have The Mantle, The Lamps, The Lakes and The Moon. He handed me a picture of The Moon; a small girl, reading from a book, with huge eyes and a sad expression on her face. This is what your brain looks like? I asked him. I think so, he said. I think so.

  Would your dolls like to play a concert? he asked me. Where, I said, in your brain? He laughed at that, for the first time. I felt a sense of relief. It’ll happen there too, he smiled. But I was thinking more of a show with Memorial Device; maybe opening the show. What is a Memorial Device? I asked him. I think it’s like a penknife, he said.

  That’s how we came to do the shows with Memorial Device. I still get people asking me about them; people who can’t remember if they really happened or if they just imagined it. They say to me, do you remember that show where it was just the dolls standing there? I say to them, yeah, that was me; that was my group. They did an article about us in the local newspaper. There was a picture of us outside Alan and Findlay’s parents’ house with the band playing in the garden and us sat in front of them in the long grass in the summer. Of course they tried to make out that we were creeps or there was something sexually wrong with us. Maybe there was; why deny it? But it was short-lived. None of us really took to the lifestyle; the staying up late, the drinking. I would end up drunk on two cans and start crying. I fell in love with so many girls; it hurt so much. I was just too young and they wanted the older boys, the bad boys or the tough nuts and I would end up making a fool of myself. I couldn’t understand why they would wan
t to be with these boys smoking and drinking and treating them poorly. We could be a team, I would say to them; like dark-haired girls with black tights and dramatic black eye make-up; we could be a family. What did I know about family? All we had were the dolls, and they were taking over. Girls tried to get their photographs taken with them but we had a thing where we wanted to limit access, to keep them mysterious, so we would pack them away in boxes and seal them up as soon as each show was over and then go out and mingle with the crowd but of course no one recognised us, no one was interested, even though to us we were the brains behind it, the artists; superheroes in our own eyes. The final straw came for me when that girl Vanity claimed she was dating one of the dummies. And of course it wasn’t me. She was dating Alan, she said, but not the real Alan, Alan’s double, Alan with the blue flame hair and the schoolboy uniform. She talked Alan into letting her pose with the dummy, or rather her boyfriend did; that idiot. I couldn’t believe it. Of course Alan didn’t tell me and the first I found out about it was when I saw them pictured together in some dumb fanzine with a caption about true love or something like that. You’re pimping us out, I told Alan. You’re cheapening the whole deal. I felt strongly about it. That was when the cracks started to show.