HE KEEEL YOU—THE MONTARGIS CHAINSAW MASSACRE
(Back in Fucking France, or France: Part Two)
“France. I can’t believe I’m still in France.”
It was straight from the opening montage of Apocalypse Now. I was Martin Sheen. My head hanging off the edge of my bed, upside down, staring at the nothingness of our desolate and boring Toulouse hotel room. The soundtrack still played in my head. It rang in my ears for the nineteen-millionth like that damn Doors tape in the van. Just like Coppola’s Vietnam epic.
The killer awoke before dawn. He put his Doc Martins on. He went looking for his passport to appease the rude bastard at the front desk and then he...HE WALKED ON DOWN THE HALL…
Dahl’s prediction of a tour plagued with Woolite is slowly coming true. Z and my shared flophouse shit room is covered with freshly hand-washed socks and long johns strewn all over the place—hanging from the ventilators, window sills, draped off the radiator. It’s interior decorating at its most slovenly. However, it’s functional. Although Tim is rooming with Dahl, he insists on barging in and out of our room.
“What’s up? What are you guys going to do? Wanna go walk around? Wanna get some fritters?” And on and on. Trivia spews from his mouth. Z lies on his back on his bed, pulling the pillow over his head when Tim walks in.
“Wow, you guys got a regular Chinese laundry going here. Hey, maybe I’ll bring some things over and wash them in your sink, since you’ve already started.”
“No, Tim. Wash your shit in your sink,” demanded Z. “Go away. We’re tired. We’ve been doing nothing for so long we’re just absolutely exhausted.”
Simon bounces in, cheerful again, having survived Spain. “What are you lot up to? In case you’re interested, we’re going into town, going to run some errands—banking, post office, that sort of thing. Leaving in five if you want to join.”
I rise from my lumpy bed and gaze back at it. The outline of my body remains embedded in the worn and faded covers. It resembles a chalk outline of a corpse at a crime scene. Pain runs down my spine as I attempt to straighten my back and fail miserably. The positioning in the back of the van during those long hauls has reshaped all of our postures. But in school, I would also slump, low rider style, at my desk, trying to emulate the posture and demeanor of a delinquent. Years spent playing the low hanging strings of my weighty Les Paul Triumph bass, have also reeked havoc on my posture.
The four of us depart for town. Rat, Dahl, and Geordie, who has rejoined us, stay behind. We queue up in a bank and attempt to exchange Spanish pesetas for French francs. No change excepted, no English spoken, no can do. On to the next the bank.
“Bonsoir,” says Z, his accent perfect. Unfortunately, he’s exhausted his French vocabulary with the greeting. “Can we exchange pesetas for francs, por favor, pretty please?”
The teller, a chunky woman edging into her forties, smiles a brown smile and lets loose an embarrassed laugh. She calls over another lady, who also doesn’t understand what we’re asking about. These two women smile and laugh as they stare at us with blank expressions and brown teeth. A third woman joins, at which point we revert to sign language. We point at the pesetas we’re placing on the counter, to the francs in the teller’s drawers, and hope they realize we want a simple exchange and aren’t looking to rob the joint. Eventually, they understand and exchange most of our paper money. We’re stuck with the coins, which, for some reason, I have a huge amount of. Oh well, someone will take it, somewhere along the line (wrong). Meanwhile, Z, bored already, returns to our makeshift dry cleaner.
During the course of visiting two banks, we’ve lost Tim, presumably on fritter patrol and unencumbered with the needs for petty cash. Daddy’s money is accepted everywhere, just like American Express. I need stamps for the communiqués I’ve been darting off to Gina, my folks, and work. I suggest we go to a post office. Simon informs me that he has a larger transaction to complete—for the Master—and it must be done at the nearest Banque of France.
Of course, we’re in Toulouse. How could I forget? This is where Dahl got robbed last year. He’s gonna want to off-load as much cash as possible to alleviate all financial headaches and conceivable disasters. Whether it’s superstition or hard-learned forethought, it’s still a good idea. We may possibly be experiencing the height of his paranoia this entire tour. It’s doubtful he’ll leave his room except to play and possibly go search for the commode down the hall.
“Well, let’s go find the bank, and then go to the post office,” I suggest.
“To be honest, Dahl said I should go to the bank alone. He didn’t want any of you coming along,” announced Simon, punctuating the abrupt proclamation with a nervous giggle.
“What the hell’s up with that?” I ask, even though I know what’s up with that.
“I don’t make the rules. Look, tell you what, the post office is right down the street there. You go there, and meet me outside the bank in ten minutes. Then, we’ll go find some pinball or something.”
“Gee, ya think maybe I can get an ice cream and ride the mechanical pony outside the market, too? What do you take me for, a sap? Never mind, don’t answer. Simon, you know I’ll get lost. I get lost between the dressing rooms and the stage. You can’t turn me loose in war-torn Toulouse.”
“Don’t be such a baby. You’ll be fine. Look, there’s the post office. Go right there, and then it’s just up that street dead ahead to your left. Take the first right, and you’ll see the bank. You can’t miss it.”
“How the fuck do you know all this? You’ve never been here!”
“Well, you’ve gotta know these things to be road manager, don’t you?”
Off I go, wary but nonetheless brave. The folks at the post office are friendly and confirm Simon’s directions. I walk back out into Toulouse’s main town square and head in the correct direction looking for the designated Banque of France. I make the pre-ordained right turn, and there, dead ahead, is a bakery, a butcher shop, a tobacco shop, a photo studio, but no bank. How could I have screwed this up, it was one turn? Maybe it’s one more block up and then right. I make the walk and still no bank.
“Excuse me, madam,” I say to a well-dressed woman walking down the street. “Parlez vous Englishe?”
“Oui, a leetle.”
“Do you know where the closest Banque of France is?”
“Oui. You go straight up zat street, you see? Follow zat a leetle way own-teel you see Bertrand De La Rue, follow zat three blocks, and you are zere. Seemple.”
I repeat the directions back and head on my way. Bertrand De La Rue, as best I can ascertain, doesn’t exist, as least not in Toulouse. I take a few more turns up and down business streets with a lot of traffic. If nothing else, the law of averages will begin to work in my favor, eventually. No luck. I spot a longhaired, young guy, and ask him for assistance. He speaks English and is friendly. He’s my new bro. I appreciate the cordiality, and write down his name to put on the guest list for tonight’s show. Following the new set of directions he gives me, I journey to the outer reaches of the town’s square, up by a courthouse, and around the back of some horse stables. I’m more lost now than ever and have lost track of the center of town. At least I know my way back to the hotel. I reach in my pocket, pull out the paper I wrote my young friend’s name on, and tear it up.
I spot a French cop, and ask for some directions. By this time, I’ve been wandering around about forty-five minutes, and figure the rest of the guys have moved on from the Banque of France.
“Excusez moi, gendarme. Parlais vous English?”
“A Beet. A teenee beet. Ow can ah elp yiouu?”
“I’m trying to find Hotel Des Arts.”
That’s a laugh. “Hotel Des Arts.” Such a name for that rattrap. “Chambre des Torture Und Artiste Sufferink” would be more apropos.
“Hotel Des Arts? Hmm. Non, non, ah doon beleave ah know eet.”
I fumble through eight or nine pockets of my leather jacket, looking for the address to Chez Woolite. Shit! I wrote that geezer’s name for the guest list on the back of the hotel address and tore it up in anger.
“Uh, yeah. I mean, oui oui, bon, bon, it’s on, shit, uh, it’s on Rue, Rue, Rue something or other.”
“Ahm eh-frade ah need more details than that, monsieur, American lost man.”
He points me somewhere, just to keep me moving, I figure. He then walks away, chuckling. I wonder how Martin Sheen would handle the situation. “Don’t get off the boat. Goddamn right. Never get off the boat.”
I finally stumble back into Hotel des Arts, locating it completely by chance, as the entire population of Toulouse has denied me access to the necessary information. Everyone is sitting around smoking cigarettes and drinking chocolate milk.
“I still hate France,” says Ratboy in the nonchalant manner that is his trademark.
“You fucking guys. I told you I’d get lost. If a guy is willing to admit he’s retarded, the least you could do would be to allow for that handicap and wait for him. It was just ‘down the street,’ I recall, some three hours ago!”
“Don’t be too mad, darlin’,” snickers Simon. “We only just got back. We’ve been lost as can be. None of these French fuckers will help you find anything, save a rope to hang yourself. To top it off, no one’s seen Tim since he went for fritters at the beginning of the day!”
We all have a laugh and all is forgiven. Tim turns up as we’re heading out to the van to go to the club, which is affiliated with FMR radio in Toulouse. Fritter in hand, Tim hops on board. Off we go, on a wild goose chase to locate a club that’s less than a quarter mile from the hotel. Even with Geordie, our promoter and guide, we can find nothing in the maze that is Toulouse.
We finally locate FMR, park the van, and Tim bounds into the club looking for the deli platter. He’s still burping the last fritter. I guess everyone needs a hobby. His is eating.
After soundcheck, Dahl and Rat do a lengthy interview on FMR, while the rest of us shuffle around, bored. Simon beats Tim repeatedly at Funhouse pinball, and whips Z time and time again at foosball. I get a beer and listen to the broadcast in the bar, where the guys are DJing and playing songs from all the various CDs we brought along. A tall, late-thirtyish English gentleman walks by, grabs some peanuts off the bar, and asks if I mind if he sits down. I gesture toward an empty chair.
“You a Yankee, then?”
“Yeah, yes.”
“What brings you to the sleepy town of Toulouse, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I’m the bass player in a traveling rock band.”
“Bloody terrific! What sort of music do you play?”
“Punk rock, more or less.”
“Name’s Eric, I was importing jewelry across the channel, traveling all over France, and I came here once about a year and a half ago and fell for this bird, and that changed everything. I decided to pack in the importing, so I could stay with this girl.”
“What’s her name?”
“Her name’s Candice. Her mom and dad are here. She couldn’t bear to leave them, so I just changed my whole life to suit her. Love’s a bloody chuckle, right?”
“You know it, Eric.”
“Now I sell boats, wholesale. Well, it sounds great, but business is slow, times being what they are. Still, as long as I’m around Candice, I don’t give much of a damn about money. Her parents, they have a different view, of me laxing about doing fuck all, but if business is down, well then, that’s life, innit? Punk rock you say? Prior to the jewelry importing, I helped run an Indian food stand down in Soho, and before that—this might interest you—I was the bus driver for The Clash. I worked for that lot for nine months, great fun it was, too.”
“When was this, Eric?”
“Well, back in the day, wasn’t it? Late seventies, I should think. Before those guys stunk up the radio with ‘Rock the Casbah.’”
Meanwhile, the bar radio is playing one of my songs off the Sister Goddamn album. I don’t get to hear my music on the radio too often, and the distraction causes me to drift from Eric’s long-winded tale.
“...And Strummer, great bloke, but he’d get excited when he talked to ya, especially when the topic shifted to politics. He’d start spitting all over ya when he got worked up. I don’t think he meant to.”
Eric is joined by some friends and his precious Candice, who appears to be nothing special, but for every man...I pull out a blank postcard and rattle off a communiqué to my boss back in the states.
Dear, Pete. Went looking for Triple X stuff and found some in a few scattered stores. Good thing me and Z have brought some CDs over, that alone has doubled your distribution. I think Rat put me in an ether coma and sodomized me. I can’t walk straight anymore. I notice Z has the same problem, but he won’t talk about it. Haven’t seen Dahl much. Much fear lies ahead. Our merchandising w/ Maltese Crosses causes severe unrest. The gutters of Deutschland will run red with our blood, we’ve been told. Much love, McGruff. P.S., Please help Gina w/ my estate sale. Top dollar for Voxes and Gibsons. The Yoko collectibles should be worth something. Should I survive, cut me in. I invested in good faith, you know.
The Toulouse gig is awesome and over the top. This crowd of 300 or so rabid maniacs are more familiar than most with Dahl’s repertoire, particularly his original songs such as “Living in Lisa’s World” and “I’m in Love with the GTOs.” Rat and I clown and goof during the show, striking ridiculous poses and making faces to crack each other up. Z is doing his best, too, to have a laugh. Still, we’re working hard, back on track again, and sounding hot. After about three songs, something unusual happens. Actual pretty girls, without guys attached to them, begin to gather along the edge of the stage, just like you hear about with real bands, just like in the movies. Two energetic blondes are in front of Rat and I—winking, shaking, bouncing, smiling, doing all those things that young girls know how to do that makes guys go into various stages of convolutions and/or hypnosis.
At the back of the stage, there’s a rickety staircase that leads down to the dressing room. We descend and pat each other on the back. The crowd is howling for more, but eventually the adulation begins to wane. We decide to do an encore. As I walk up the stairs and my cap appears onstage, a shriek goes up through the crowd. I quickly duck.
“Wow, did you check that? Screaming?! Just like The Ed Sullivan Show!”
I do it again: head up, shrieks, head down, quiet. This is great, more fun than a ham radio. Finally we emerge and do a couple of encores. After which, I walk to the edge of the stage and hand one of the cute blondes my personally embossed guitar pick, which reads “Screamin’ Lord Duff.” I would never do something so corny or cliché back at home, but things would never be so desperate, boring, and surreal back at home, either. Besides, why be embarrassed? Who from this crowd am I ever gonna bump into on the street?
The blonde grabs my arm and starts yammering in half French/English. She wants to go backstage, and I got no problem with that. “Can I bring my friends?” Of course.
The two blondes descend the steps with two longhair, rocker guys. You guessed it, their boyfriends. They want to conduct a lengthy, in-depth interview with the legend himself, Jeff Dahl. I act as Jeff’s publicist, which, back at home, I am.
“Sure, Jeff will talk to you. Take as long as you like. He loves to talk.”
With Dahl and the guys settled in, I begin to interview the girls, and learn that the one I gave the pick to is named Carine. She has long, straight blonde hair, parted to the side with long bangs, straight but soft features, sort of like Catherine Denueve in Repulsion, king-sized deep blue eyes you could swim in and a body that any guy would be proud to peak through a keyhole at. (Did I mention it’s been a long trip already?) Though her boyfriend is ten feet away, she’s all over me like Sunset Strip spandex.
“Brooose, you know, for sure I am not groupie. Nor my friend. We’re just regular girls, our boyfriends write for punk rock magazine. But, Broooose, we are not groupies.”
“I didn’t say you were. Have you met the Ratboy?”
Suddenly, there are a few more girls around, and they all seem to know each other. Geordie comes in and congratulates us on a great show, and says that the promoter wants us to eat now. We had chosen to postpone dinner until after the show, this is one of the rare occasions we were even given a choice. We mention that Jeff’s doing an interview, and say we’d like to relax a minute, but Geordie is insistent. “They want you to eat now. The cook has been working hard, and he doesn’t want it to get cold.”
“Yeah, sure, whatever.”
“Brooose, you must tell me all about Los Angeleees. It must be sooo exciting. I must know everything!”
A guy runs into the room, waving a long cooking fork, brandishing it like a weapon. “I deed not slave over a fiery oven for hours just to watch mah creation grow cold. You must eat at once.”
I invite the girls to join us, leaving Dahl behind with the two fanzine guys. We rejoin in the bar, where a long table has been set for us. Spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread for everyone, at this most preposterous beggar’s banquet!
“Brooose, do you like your deenair?”
“Yeah, it’s great. Open wide, here comes a bite for you.”
With my cap now cocked to the side of her head, she’s chewing sensuously on my meatball. Sometimes touring ain’t all bad.
“Theese food is okay, but I weesh you could stay longer. I would cook for you all day long. I make fabulous pizza, and breads, and omelets. I feed you all day to make you fat and happy.”
Meanwhile, under the table, her legs become intertwined with mine, and her hand caresses my thigh. She talks of all the places we would go and the things we would do, if only I didn’t have to ship on out to the next show.
“What about the French Dave Marsh back there?” I inquire, indicating Mr. Fanzine. “Don’t you think he would object to your sudden switch of allegiance to the California kid?”
“Oh, no, Brooose. You are soo silleee. It’s not like that. I would simply tell him to go away for a few days.”
As her hand leaves the general vicinity of my thigh heading north up Highway Hard-On, I realize this fantasy dream date is most likely not gonna make it much past dessert, no matter what she hints at.
“Tell me more about America, Brooose.”
“Well, darlin’, it’s the land of opportunity, where a man can give all he’s got just to invest in his own retirement fund, all the time doing a curious two-step with his wicked Uncle Sam. The street where I live is lined with palm trees and for a good four hours either side of dusk, both the setting sun and the full moon sit side by side in the sky, and all the street signs glow with neon. If you’re ever in town, you gotta drop in. Can’t stay too long, though, it’s a small town we got.”
Her voice is getting lower, more quiet. “Brooo-ow-ow-sss, it sounds so beautiful, so sexxeee. I wish I could go there with you.”
“Honey, I’ll take you home in a drum case if I have to.”
“Tell me more.” Clearly, her hunger for knowledge was insatiable. It was time to up the ante.
“I’ll tell you whatever, sweetheart. Why don’t you hop in the kill machine we call a van and venture back to the luxurious Hotel Des Arts, where we have the finest in contemporary men’s undergarments on display in the celebrity suite as we speak. There, our travel guide—that’s me—will tell you all about the hidden treasures of the utopia known as Los Angeles.”
“Brooose,” her voice suddenly developing an edge of scorn. “You are like all the rest, you men. You want nothing more than to get me back to some hotel room, and then you’ll move on with your band the next morning.”
“Well, yeah. I mean, no. I mean, don’t wreck the spontaneity of the moment we are sharing.”
She is falling back into my web of evil, staring deep into my tired, bloodshot eyes, when this magic moment is broken by the limey accent of our slave driving road manager.
“Romeo, Romeo, time to move your amp now, Romeo.”
I dutifully respond. Back in the dressing room, gathering my things, Carine reappears, and begins clinging to me and going through the motions of the long goodbye. “Eh, let’s take it upstairs. You know what I’m sayin’?” Her boyfriend’s a mere ten feet away, still heavily engrossed in conversation with Dahl, as the two share memories of the late Stiv Bators.
Up onstage, I grab the bag that holds my cables and whatever booze I’ve managed to steal. Carine is across the stage, vaguely following me around. Though we’re in the big showroom for the first time, we’re alone.
“Well, I guess I gotta go. Nice meeting you.”
She springs up and blocks my exit, and throws her arms around me. “You would leave me without a keees?”
The bag falls to my side, we embrace, and begin kissing passionately. It is not a particularly long kiss. She looks deep in my eyes, draws a breath, and gasps, “If my boyfriend catches us, he KEEEL YOU!”
“Well, what the hell we doing this for, then? Look, you’re awesome, come visit me in Los Angeles sometime, but I have a tour to survive right now!”
The duty-bound and the long-suffering rocker, aka your humble narrator, strides up the stairs and out into the Toulouse night. The steel horse, aka our van, awaits ready to whisk us off into a sunset that supports sun and moon, earth and sky. I relate my most recent tale of woe to my fellow travelers. They laugh, and for a couple of days, “If my boyfriend catches us, he KEEEEL YOU!” became our catchphrase of choice.
Everyone’s pretty excited about our Paris show. Thing is, it’s not really in Paris. According to Geordie, there are no clubs in Paris proper that cater to alternative/indie/punk, whatever-the-hell-we-are rock. We are instead playing in a Parisian suburb called Issy les Moulineaux, which is akin to playing Jersey instead of Manhattan or Reseda in lieu of Hollywood. It’ll do.
Geordie guides us to our lodgings for the evening, a private rooming house she has secured, with four separate bedrooms, all feeding out to a central hall. It’s just like The Monkees had, or The Beatles in Help. Catching this communal sixties rock band vibe, we all get pretty silly. Rat’s running around in his little red pajamas. Tim’s serenading us on Dahl’s acoustic. Simon’s singing along as he shaves. Z and I are playing poker with my newly acquired Salvador Dalí deck of cards, picked up at the Dalí museum on our way out of Spain.
We had taken a special detour to Figueres, Spain, where Dalí’s home was now a museum. All of us were fascinated by Dalí, naturally, and had heard this was the best accumulation of his work and installations in the world. As would be our luck, and typical of this tour, we arrive on a Monday and the whole place is closed, except for the gift shop and snack bar. Hence the cards. Six years later, I’m serving as substitute bassist for White Flag on a Spanish tour, and we finally make it to the Dalí house/museum. While it has nothing to do with this story, if you can ever go, go. It is perhaps the most amazing attraction/museum/oddity/rarity on earth.
Back to the card game…We begin talking about the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the popular band that’s opening for us this evening.
“Spencer’s a total critic’s darling, ever since the Pussy Galore days,” I tell Z. “These French people will know all about him. He’ll probably draw real well. I wonder how we’ll come off playing after him.”
“Like a Top Forty band of old guys,” reckons Z.
“We need to do something, something to get an edge. Something to throw the proceedings out of wack.”
Z is deep in thought. Suddenly, he utters the proclamation, “Glitter rock.”
“Capital idea!”
We run down the halls of Chez Monkee with our concept. Whereas Spencer and Co. will be all dark and trendy and NY noise band chic, we’ll be retro-fag. Perfect! Everyone likes the idea, and soon we’re crowded in front of the same bathroom mirror, teasing and spraying our hair, applying eyeliner, rouge, lipstick, frilly clothes, ruffled shirts, whatever we can manage. In true glam style, we commemorate the indulgence with a private photo shoot, in the bathtub, no less. Posin’ ‘til closin’, honeys.
Following the crowd’s lukewarm response to Spencer’s excellent set, we take the stage, all pomp and circumstance. Kicking off with our regular opener, “View from the Gutter,” I go right to the edge of the stage and strike my best Mick Ronson pose. Hair flying, guitar in ultra-phallic position, lips in perfect pout, I demonstrate that the early-seventies were not lost on me. I feel a hand slip up my inner thigh, and think to myself, Hmm, there’s something to this. I’m getting an immediate reaction. Looking down to check out my newfound admirer, I’m staring straight into the demonic-possessed eyes of a bald-headed, toothless, sweating Frenchmen. Ah, the French, they are soo sensiteeve. Since The Doors have been our patron saints throughout this expedition, I recycle an old Morrison audience taunt.
“Well, that’s Paris for ya. The only people to rush the stage were guys.”
So much for Glam.
Back at the crib, Geordie is in our room, drunk. Rat, Simon, Z, and I are in the house. Geordie is quite giddy. Glances are exchanged sideways amongst the guys to make sure no one’s interested in making a move on her, and it’s quickly confirmed by all: No!
“I am Number One. You are Number Six.” She’s babbling lines from the British psychedelic Sixties television obscurity, The Prisoner. “What do you want? We need information. INFORMATION!”
We’re all in our pajamas, and I put on the ever-reliable 30 Golden Hits collection by the man, James Brown. We all start dancing on the beds and singing loudly.
“Please, please, please, please, baby please, don’t go, oh honey please. Don’t goooooo. Huh! (Long pause). I love ya so!”
Down on our knees, pulling hot pseudo-Brownian moves, we are in a place where there’s no one to disturb, save Tim and Dahl, and they’re just gonna have to tolerate our steam blowing.
Now, remember Claude, the guy who cooked spaghetti for us in Orleans? He’s now gigging as Jon Spencer’s road manager/driver. He had talked to Geordie before our departure from the gig.
“You know, Claude took the Jon Spencer guys out on the town in Paris.”
“That sounds like fun,” I mention.
“Well, why don’t you guys hit the town? You’re back here having a pajama party like a bunch of schoolboys.”
“Believe it or not, this has been one of the most fun nights we’ve had!” enthused Rat.
“I can’t believe you wouldn’t want to go out on the town in Paris, the city of romance. If you can’t scrape up girls at the shows, I know you could at a French bar.”
“Well, Geordie,” said Simon, who only slightly tolerated her to begin with and admitted in our confidence that he could conceive of no earthly value to her being on the road with us. “Dahl won’t let us take the van on pleasure expeditions such as that. That’s the rule.”
“We could take the night train,” she suggested.
“I think that’s coming up on the James Brown tape,” said Rat, going over most of our heads.
“We can’t afford to take trains, Geordie,” said Z, slightly huffy. “We’ve even run out of CDs to sell. We’re almost flat broke. Did you see Ratboy trying to work out getting more from the French distribution company, backstage tonight? We need to get more CDs just to afford cigarettes.”
“It’s so sad,” says Geordie, half sympathetic, half frustrated at the plight of being stuck on a beyond-boring tour with a bunch of deadbeats. “When Jeff stayed with me, he didn’t want to do anything. It was like having an old grandpa around.”
“That’s just the way he is. That’s the road Dahl,” said Simon.
I have to disagree. Jeff seems different to me. I’ve mentioned it to the other guys and, well, it’s not that they haven’t noticed, it’s just that they don’t really give a damn. But I insist it’s an important matter for discussion.
“When I was in the first band, it seemed more like a regular band,” I said vaguely. “For example, we got some gigs up the coast in San Francisco. We’d drive up in my van and Del’s truck, grab a couple hotel rooms, play, go hang in the Haight, and go record shopping or go get a pizza or just go walk around and check out the basic vibe and feel of the city. But, whatever, we’d do it as a band, and Jeff seemed more, well, with us. It didn’t seem ‘us’ and ‘him’ at all, not at all. I wonder why it feels so different now?”
“Maybe it has something to do with him hanging in the desert for so long,” proposed Z. “It must get weird out there, all isolated, just answering his fan letters all the time, that being his major connection with the outside world.”
“Whatever, he sure seems different,” I add, redundantly.
“Why don’t you talk to him about it?” proposes Simon, reasonably enough.
“Yeah, I guess I should. I’ll have to remember to do that. Gotta see if there’s something wrong, ‘cause, bottom line, he’s my friend, right?”
“Yeah, whatever you say, Bruce.”
“You’re the greatest, McGruff.”
It seems obvious that they weren’t even listening. I deal off the bottom of the deck and ante up for a round of poker. I’ve got to make some money out here somehow.
Following Toulouse and Paris, places most people have actually heard of, we head for unknown parts, towns French people themselves are unsure about. In Nimes, we arrive at a fairly typical small rock club on time and find no one else involved with the show has arrived yet. There is no equipment, food, drinks—hence, nothing to do. So we sit. I lay across a table. Z sits on the stage. Dahl and Simon sit in the van. Rat sits at a booth. Tim paces back and forth, looking like a junkie waiting for his fix. The boy needs his deli tray. This goes on for an unmeasured amount of time, perhaps ninety minutes, maybe two hours. There is no conversation during this time.
Bored with boredom itself, I muster the excessive energy it takes to stand up and walk out the venue’s front door. I look up and down the street. No shops of interest, no movie theaters, no junk food. Even if I had money, there’s nothing to spend it on. It’s a ghost town with living people. I turn, return to my table, and lay back down.
Finally, the crew guys show up, and begin erecting a massive lighting rig over the dinky stage. “What’s with all the lights?” I ask, observing that a performance under them is going to be similar to a tanning salon or being stuck on a rotisserie.
“The rider. It’s in the rider,” answers a polite, young guy who introduces himself as Richard. “See, right here. It’s in the contract rider.”
“Richard, no one reads the contract rider. We’re lucky if we get half the things we ask for to eat or drink. We never get all the sound and lights. You’ve got enough lights to do KISS at Madison Square Garden.”
“It’s in the rider.”
Richard and his crew diligently set up their mega-rock lighting and sound rig. They are nice guys, but they are slow...very, very slow, and this setup takes hours. More time sitting with nothing else to do. There is virtually nothing to do in Nimes.
True to following the rider, the letter of the law, they feed us a rich, fattening, mind-numbing meal that is fantastic, consumed about five minutes before we go onstage. Sluggish and apathetic from the pig-out, I turn in a going-through-the-motions performance, peppered with countless mistakes. The rest of the band is equally lax and no one seems to give a damn anyway.
Following the show, Dahl seems a little pissed. I assume it’s due to the lackluster Factsheet performance, but I’m wrong again.
“I told Camille no private accommodations, and damned if we don’t have them tonight. Why do I bother to arrange these things so far in advance?” he poses with disgust.
Private accommodations mean that the club, promoter, or some fans are going to put the band up for the night. It’s a common way to cut costs on van tours, and none of us are strangers to it. Dahl has been through it a thousand times. Sometimes it’s pleasant, even homey. Other times it can be pure hell. It’s a crapshoot.
“That explains why they were so anal about all the other rider details,” I mention. Dahl had promised us no private accommodations. It was part of his deal to make the practically nonexistent per diems more bearable.
While waiting to depart for unknown parts, I mingle with the good people of Nimes, who are, by and large, an unusually negative bunch. I repeatedly hear reports of “I hate this town,” “The economics here,” “My neighbors,” and so forth.
I ask a few of them, “Alright, why don’t you leave?” They look at me as if I’d asked, Why don’t you ram an ice pick into your ear? As much as they hate it, the thought of leaving is completely alien.
Having lost my patience for their logic and lack thereof, I begin a flirtatious conversation with a tall German girl. At this point, I shouldn’t even have to mention it, but of course she attended the show with her boyfriend. Knowing this, given my advanced state of hyper-boredom, I decide to try to pick her up, for the simple sport of good old-fashioned home wrecking. If she lives here, she hates it anyway, so what difference does it make?
Geordie overhears my ridiculous come-ons such as “follow me to paradise” and “what say you and I blur cultural boundaries,” and she laughs to herself. She can’t believe it when the girl agrees to go back to the hotel with me (yes, I know there isn’t one), but then her boyfriend comes up and takes her by the arm away from me.
“Hooray for you, Bruce,” says Geordie. “At least you’re trying to have fun.”
I’m not sure how to respond, so I don’t. I continue milling about, and I’ve just about exhausted every possible social encounter available. The club is thinning, and we’re still waiting. Finally, at a few minutes before 2:00 a.m., Richard announces we’re ready to go. His partner, a glad-handing English bore, is putting up Dahl, Ratboy, and Geordie, while the rest of us are to go with Richard. We grab some guitars and follow Richard on foot to his apartment a few blocks away.
Outside Richard’s place, we stand in the street. No one says anything. We just stand there. Time passes. More time. “What’s up?” asks Tim.
A guy we don’t know has led us here, presumably Richard’s flatmate. He says nothing. We continue standing.
Richard comes up and joins us. More standing. I cannot take it anymore.
“WILL SOMEONE OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!!!” I scream like a complete idiot. Everyone has stopped pacing, the two French guys are both staring at me, while Simon, Tim, and Z gaze silently at the ground. My outburst has instantly turned me into John Wayne Gacy, madman and killer. I quickly try to analyze the situation. Do I quiet down, apologize, and act humble in the hopes that everyone will forgive my petulant tantrum, or do I continue to act like an asshole in the hopes that someone will actually open the door and let us inside? Right.
“What is the deal? Are we going to stand around all night outside in the street drooling like a pack of freakin’ zombies, or are we going to go inside and behave in a more civilized manner?”
Richard was getting impatient with my childlike fit, and I was growing tired of his namby-pamby inability to accomplish auspiciously simple tasks in a reasonable time frame.
“I have to walk back to the club to find the key,” he says through barely clenched teeth. “I’ll run if it makes my guests happy.”
I shoot a glance at Simon that says, “Don’t let him off the hook. A brisk run will do him a world of good.”
Fifteen minutes or so later, we gain entrance to Chez Richard, a mildly grubby crash pad that is actually fairly tidy given the context of being in France. Richard breaks out a bottle of wine, and we start to relax. I apologize to everyone, especially Richard.
“Hey, sorry I acted like a total idiot. I was pissed. Forgive me. I really don’t have an excuse.” (That is, no excuse beyond boredom setting in at an unchecked rate to an advanced degree. Nothing more serious than spending an entire day doing virtually nothing besides sitting, gazing at nothing, dozing off due to gazing at nothing, and playing bass for a little over an hour. Thank God for that hour!)
Everyone loosens up, and Richard smiles and says all is forgiven, but I can’t help but think he thinks of me as a typical, spoiled, selfish American pig. As Simon would say, with his deep London accent, “I can’t be bothered.”
A girl, who Simon hit on at the club, suddenly wanders around the living room in a halter-top and cutoffs. Simon gets a good look and comes to his senses. Ouch! I wander to the back of the flat, where Tim begins to play Dahl’s acoustic guitar. Simon pulls me from Tim’s room out into the hall.
“You know, Tim can play rings around the lot of ya, yet you all treat him like shit.”
“Yeah. So?” I respond.
“I just think you could give him a break. I know that when he first came out with us he was a bit of a goof, and he realizes he doesn’t fit in with you guys, but he’s really been trying to get along and fit in.”
“Hey. I’m letting him read my Burroughs book. I’ve roomed with him more than Z or Rat. Lecture them, why don’t ya?”
Back in Tim’s room, he stops the instrumental workout to lead those in attendance through a rousing five-verse sing-along to the “House of the Rising Sun.” Hail, hail, the gang’s all here. A Beatles medley follows, and by the time we hit “Patience” by Guns N’ Roses, I politely bow out.
DREAM SEQUENCE
I’m in a city I don’t know, and judging from the interior decorating and design, it seems to be the early sixties. I’m in a high-rise apartment somewhere, and Jeff Dahl walks in.
“Everything’s going to be real cool on the tour. You’re going to have the time of your life!” says Jeff.
A woman with her hair pulled up in a bun and a slow-moving, graying, kind gentleman appear through another door. They cordially welcome me into their home. Though I’d never seen them before, I accept them as Dahl’s parents. A pretty girl with short, dark-brown hair and a shiny, blue-green mini-skirt/space suit come up behind me. It is love at first sight. What I assume to be the male part of Dahl’s secret family enters, three guys of an indeterminate age all wearing brand new, perfectly pressed, sharp black suits. These are the notorious men in black, and it becomes clear that they were not working for the C.I.A., nor secret societies within our country, but for space aliens all along. This sort of unnerves me. I remember feeling both anxious and unpleased that Dahl’s sister must be a space alien as well. The next thing I know, I’m being pursued by the men in black. However, the foxy sister decides to save my life. Using her secret knowledge and special alien chick capabilities, she forms a bubble around me so I can float up and out of harm’s way. I see no point in continuing this dream, so I wake up.
END DREAM SEQUENCE
We quickly leave the next morning. I accidentally leave behind the only lay around piece of clothing I have, my black sweatpants. Not good. French cities are becoming indistinguishable. It’s what Z has dubbed the Euro-Blur Phenomenon. After one show, all the Carol Bators crew came back to the hotel with us. Tim and I have adjoining rooms. I told Rat he could bring his French friends up to my room to party, seeing how he was rooming with the Master and a party would not be tolerated. I sat there watching French television while ten people sat in my room and spoke French to one another. It was pretty depressing. I called Gina after they left and had a long talk, pouring my heart out about how much I miss her. I wonder if this separation gets easier over time, if you get hardened to it. She seems to be having fun back home, and is a little drunk every time I call her at night.
Speaking of French television, one night we were in an Ibis after a show, just vegging out and watching it. Dahl was totally happy and in a great mood whenever we stayed in an Ibis. They were regimented and identical to one another; he liked the quality control and loved the uniformity. The odd thing was the French Ibises were all right next to either a hospital or a cemetery. It could have been a coincidence, but after about the third or fourth time we stayed in an Ibis adjacent to boneyards or meat lockers, I was beginning to wonder exactly what the connection was. The familiar Smell of Death was thinly disguised by cheap French perfume, but was still readily recognizable. There was no escaping certain things—the smell especially. But I was talking about French television. At any rate, we’re all in our rooms, when Dahl, who had his own room that night, began running up and down the hall and pounding on our doors.
“Turn on channel three. You gotta check this out!” he shouted and glowed with excitement, and then promptly returned to his nest following the announcement. Channel three was showing a game show that featured large numbers of topless women. It was mildly entertaining, and most of the girls were cute, but after a few minutes I returned to French MTV, hopelessly awaiting the next Leila K video. The following day, Rat expressed to me that he felt Dahl was far too excited about that game show, and we pondered the possible reason for his sudden increased heart rate. Why would a man who had spent his entire adult life happily married be so excited by a few televised titties? And doesn’t he have cable out there in Phoenix? When no clear explanations surfaced, we feared a deeper dementia might be underfoot. I lay back on my hotel bed, flicking back and forth between MTV and Breasts of Fortune. Simon took off his clothes, emptied his money belt, and covered his nude body with francs, while his eyes rolled back in simulated orgasmic ecstasy. I could hear Dahl cheering down the hall. Sirens faded in and out of my perception with Doppler pitch-bending effects—far then near, then far again. Were they ambulances, police cars, or hearses, I wondered, trying to remember if we were next to a hospital or mortuary tonight. Of course, how silly of me, it was a hospital. Everyone knows hearses don’t require sirens.
It just keeps getting stranger, and by the middle of the second week of February, we’re way up in some mountains heading for a small hill town called Thiers. Our hotel is like a little mountain resort, with a quaint, rustic bar/restaurant. Geordie is hanging in the bar, getting soused by around 4:30 p.m. Rat is on the pay phone with his wife back at home, talking again about her recording contract. Tim is eating the bar’s complimentary pretzels. Simon’s looking to conquer The Joker pinball game. Z glances at the pictures in the French newspaper, and I check out the jukebox, which has singles by underground bands like The Hickoids and The Mummies. Geordie is getting into the groove of the tour, which at this point can be boiled down to a Zen-like “just be” mindset. Don’t look for trouble, don’t seek out fun. Just ride in the van and play. She had complained a few nights ago about our not wanting to party with her and her French friends, as if that would be some sort of pleasure for us, and that we’re missing out on something really special. Right. Again, she brought up the fact that Jon Spencer’s band went out and had fun. I reminded her that for the last few days, we’ve been in towns so small that we literally were the only thing happening that night. She pouted and looked away.
The gig is in a two-story, small capacity club with no stage. We play right on the floor eye-level with the audience. The soundman is an older guy who encourages us to play as loud as we like in this small room. No problem, friend.
The stage, or rather the corner in which we play, faces a doorway that leads to the barroom. Past the bar are the toilets, and past the toilets a private room, in which we’d stashed all our cases and bags full of crucial musician stuff. I’m heading into the private room when a girl comes down the spiral staircase that leads from the offices and dressing room.
“Hallo, I liked ze ban tooonight,” she says in the thickest accent I’ve yet heard. “Would yew like to smoke weeth me?” she asks, giving me a glimpse of a big fatty she produces from her small bag.
“Yeah, come in here, where it’s private.”
Inside the room, Tim is hunched over with his face pressed against a wall. I consider this to be unusual behavior, but this is Tim, so I chose not to discuss it.
“You won’t believe this!” he says somewhat quietly.
“Let me guess. You forgot you had super glue on your nose when you leaned over to catch that fly that had landed on the wall and licked him up just like a big, green lizard.”
“Huh? No, look.”
He turns to face me and points to a hole in the wall. The hole peers into another room, but I can’t discern what I’m supposed to be looking at. I ask what it is.
Tim pushes me aside and glares through the tiny hole like a pirate through his telescope. “Dude, it’s the girl’s bathroom! You can watch them squat and take dumps.”
“You can’t be serious. And your watching it!?! Let the poor girls defecate in peace. Have you been in these bathrooms? It’s enough of a chore to take care of business even if you think you have a bit of privacy, much less with some villainous American merchandise hawker peeping at you through a switchblade-chiseled glory hole. I better take a look.”
Remembering I had company, I put my bass to bed and tell my smoking companion that we should go smoke in the dressing room. Upstairs, there was some food and beer. We grab a bench. She says her name is Laurence. I ask if I should call her Larry for short. She politely smiles.
Sandwich in hand, Simon sits and joins Larry and me for some serious hash smoking. Rat, who loves being around so many people he can speak French with, comes over and hands Z and me a large sheet of paper.
“They want us to fill these out. They’re rock star questionnaires. They’re totally hysterical.”
They were like the old Gloria Stavers-style 16 Magazine faves-and-pet-peeves star sheet thingies. We get into the spirit of the thing and complete our factsheets like dutiful schoolboys. All manner of trivia is unleashed. Ratboy cites Lightning Hopkins as his favorite recordings, but “not the songs, just the parts where he talks in-between.” Z’s favorite song to sing in the shower is the choral section from the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth.
Laurence fires up the hash again, and Tim enters sporting a self-satisfied grin.
“He looks ‘appy,” observes Simon.
“The industrious little tike discovered a free peep show,” I inform.
“C’mon, Simon, come have a look,” confirms Tim. “You know you want to, you horny bastard.”
“I can’t be bothered. I’d rather eat me sandwich.”
Laurence keeps hanging around, and producing hash. I want to be a good host. I do appreciate her easy-going company and the exquisite hashish, but I’m running low on small talk. Her accent is thick, her English slow and rather painful. Our conversations have to be kept reasonably simple. Ah, I know. I’ll discuss something every Frenchie has an opinion about.
“So, Laurence, I’ve always wondered, we Americans think about this mystery a great deal, and spend no small amount of intellectual energy pondering it: Why is Jerry Lewis so popular with the French?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand you.”
“OK. Jerry Lewis. You know, the funny guy, tall and thin, likes a good cigarette now and again.”
She sits there and thinks hard, almost as if she feels sorta bad for putting a crimp in the flow of conversation, what little there is to begin with. She finally smiles and shakes her head no. Z’s sitting behind her, and appears to be tuning in to the chat.
“He hung around Dean Martin, The Nutty Professor, The Patsy, The Errand Boy, The Bellboy Always Rings Twice, you know, funny movies. Jerry’s Kids.”
She shook her head again. At this point, I reduce myself to rendering horrible impersonations of the nutty one, to no avail. Z begins to giggle under his breath.
“Oh, come on Laurence. You’re French. ZZZ-GG-GG-AIR—EEEE LOOOOUUU-EEEESSS!” I spout in the most exaggerated, insulting French accent I can muster.
“Ooohhh. Yes. Oui, Oui! Geeaaiir-Eeee Loooouuu-Eeeesss. Yes, of course,” she enthuses while Z doubles over laughing, spilling his beer. She gets flustered by the sudden burst of hysteria directed toward her, stands up, and quickly leaves.
Jeff interrupts his interview and looks over at us, snickering. “You chased that poor girl out of here.” He turns back to the interviewer and tells him, “You can’t take them anywhere.” Three nights later, Laurence turned up again in Lyon, dressed to kill in a black miniskirt. She took photos of the band against a spray-painted psychedelic wall, and says she will paint portraits from the snapshots. Of course, she never did, best to our knowledge anyway. However, it was nice to know that she wasn’t offended by our basically good-natured ribbing and that she looked so great in a miniskirt. The morning after the Thiers gig, I woke up in the rustic hotel in a pool of my own piss. This was quite an unsuspected surprise.
“Shit, Z. I wet the bed. I’m losing it. I’m going out!”
“I’ll be honest with you, McGruff. It doesn’t look good.”
“How could this happen? What does this mean? You think someone put the whammy on me?”
“It might have more to do with the amount of carbonated beverage treats you had. Well?”
“Christ, I don’t remember. Do you?”
“No. All I know is, my beer resistance has gone up a lot in the last couple of weeks. I’m drinking twelve to fourteen beers a night now, and I don’t even get a buzz. No sensory distortion at all.”
“Wow.”
It was one thing when Z lost his voice, quite another when our lead singer lost his. For just over a week now, Dahl has been slugging back the codeine-fuelled cough syrup that is legally available in France without a prescription. He insists on riding in the back of the van, in spite of the increasingly colder weather. It’d been two hours of no tapes playing and no talking when we rolled into Montargis. The place we are playing is a small, eh, recreation center. It’s stuck in the middle of a dirt parking lot on a corner near an open sewer. It is the coldest building I’ve ever been in, significantly colder inside than outside. I run back out to the van to grab a sweatshirt to bear the freeze inside. The place has no stage, no food, and no toilet. The backstage is just a room full of empty beer crates with no chairs or furniture of any kind. The P.A. is two Peavey columns, subpar for even a garage rehearsal. It won’t be loud enough, and it will sound bad.
We had all noticed in our itineraries that tonight would be private accommodations again. I hoped it wouldn’t be in this barn. I walk outside to warm up and have a smoke, and join Geordie who is standing alone.
“Hi.” No answer. “Well, you must be glad to be rid of us.”
“Not really. I’ll miss you in a way. I wish this little tour within your big tour had been more fun, but I certainly learned a lot.”
I didn’t press for an explanation, but rather changed the topic to more immediate concerns.
“What do you know about where we’re staying tonight?”
“Jeff said he’s stayed there before, but he wouldn’t say much about it. He didn’t look too happy. I can tell you that tonight is your highest-paying French show.”
“What?! That can’t be, look at this place. They can’t get more than 150 people in here, and that right there is probably more than the entire Montargis population.”
“The promoter, Jean Luc, is a huge Jeff Dahl fan. He is paying for the privilege of having Jeff perform here in his small hometown. He’s promoted rather vigorously—he printed a lot of those huge concert posters—and I think he thinks he has a fighting chance at breaking even.”
“Yeah, what do you think? Do you think he actually will?”
A Mohawked guy with jackboots and an old French army coat walks past. Geordie nods to indicate that is Jean Luc. For some reason, we actually bother to do a soundcheck with this awful equipment in this functioning echo chamber. With my glasses on, and my sweatshirt hood drawn tight around my ears, I look about as far removed from the standard image of a rock musician imaginable.
“McGruff, I think you’re onto something,” laughs Rat, who even in this cold maintains his capped/pointy shoed/vest ‘n’ ruffled shirt image. “You should look like that for the show tonight, that would be hysterical.”
Simon rounds us up, and loads us into the van, trying to sound cheerful as he fills us in on the plan. “Alright then. We’re following this Jean Luc character back to his place, which is where we’ll be staying. We’re going to hang out there and hopefully warm up and get something to eat. We’re going to follow him in his car, apparently it’s not very far from here.”
All seven of us were in the van at the moment: Tim and Geordie sharing the shotgun, Simon in the driver’s seat, and the whole band in the back seat. Though he’s in a codeine fog, Dahl’s cough sounds like a Harley being kick-started. It’s unnerving as he sits there with that raspy, throat-tearing cough. It blasts forth at regular twenty-second intervals, but other than that, there is no sound in the van. Rat slips in some Tom Waits.
“We sail tonight for Singapore...”
The sun is almost down, and we’re heading out of town into the hilly forests of the countryside. The main road leads to a small road that leads to a dirt road that leads to a glorified footpath as we continue to follow Jean Luc to his home. What sort of digs would the primary punk promoter of Montargis have?
“I stayed there last year. HAAACCK!” spat Jeff, offering no more information.
As we crossed the rickety bridge, the trees and the dark forest grew ominous. I realized we were miles from phones, hotels, and highways.
“Man, this reminds me of the first scene in The Evil Dead, you know, where the kids are all going to the mountain cabin, thinking everything’s alright when doom waits just around the corner.”
“Didn’t see it, McGruff.”
“Me neither.”
“Stop being paranoid. We’ll only be here ALL NIGHT LONG,” comforts Simon.
“This guy could be the punk rock Norman Bates,” says Tim, catching my fever of fear and paranoia.
“I don’t know what you guys are talking about,” says Geordie.
“This guy is obviously setting us up for the kill,” I conclude. “Look, out in the middle of no place, getting dark, back roads lined with creepy trees. This is so far away from the club, or the abandoned room, or whatever it is. He’d have saved money putting us up at the local Slaughtered Lamb, as the rent would be cheaper than the gas money. Heads are going to roll tonight. I’m gonna sleep in the van.”
“Do you know how cold it would be in the van? You’d likely freeze to death,” warns Simon.
“Bleeeachchaaack,” Jeff coughs.
We finally park in front of Jean Luc’s house. It’s a gray, stone, two-room affair with an adjoining guesthouse. A very severe looking ax protrudes from a pile of wood. Simon, Tim, and I peer into the guesthouse—a cold, rectangular prison cell of a room with three metal bunk beds and absolutely no other furniture. The whole place was straight out of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Inside the main house, it’s even colder than the club. We quietly gather around a huge mahogany table as Jean Luc attempts to make us feel at home. “You’ll like this,” he beams, and puts on a CD by some French hardcore band, cranking his huge stereo to the max. Our entire entourage glares at him hatefully.
Jeff: “Please turn it off.”
Simon: “Bloody hell!”
Rat: “I hate music like that.”
Tim: “How about something to eat?”
Z: “We haven’t eaten all day.”
McGruff: “Got any booze? That would thaw us out.”
Geordie emerges from the bathroom looking slightly green. Clearly, everyone is unhappy and uncomfortable. Jean Luc disappears into the kitchen and comes back with a plate of white cheese and bread, a jar of orange juice, and a bottle of vodka. We hover around the plate like starved animals. In an attempt to show we’re slightly up the evolutionary ladder, we quickly organize. Tim and Simon methodically churn out sandwiches, while Z and I bartend for all. Rat raids the sizeable CD collection and puts on a selection more suitable for a volume that allows for conversation and normal brain functions. Now Jean Luc looks uneasy suddenly, says he has to go back to the club, and darts out the front door.
I slam a huge OJ and vodka and feel an immediate tingle, an increasing numbness, an oncoming warmth. Looking around this punk cabin, I begin seeing various objects that indicate our host might be a white supremacist: assorted Nazi books and posters stashed just out of view, skinhead romance novels, that sort of thing.
Alone in Chez Jean Luc, the question arises: “Are we going to actually stay in this meat locker in the middle of wherever the fuck we are all night?”
“I think we should move on, Jeff,” says Simon. “Staying here isn’t going to do anyone any good. This is miserable.”
“That guy’s creepy, too,” Z opines.
“I know he’s going to hack us up in our sleep,” I say with my usual paranoia.
“We can’t afford to get another hotel out of our budget tonight. I’m not paying for it,” said Dahl.
“Jeff, you’re on the verge of death now, plus your codeine supply is dangerously low,” I point out. “You need to get into someplace warm more than we do.”
Dahl started to give in, which meant he didn’t want to stay here anymore than we did, but didn’t want to look like he was a wuss. “Whatever you guys decide, but I can’t pay for hotels tonight.”
I wonder to myself, but Rat and Z can probably hear my brainwaves: How can this tour be so tight? Aren’t we making a profit as we roll along, with a lot of fairly big shows and almost no expenses? How could things be so down to the bone?
“Well, we’ll just drive all night to the next hotel, and hope to get an early check in,” says Simon. “Is that all right with you guys?”
We all nod yes. We return our luggage to the van and head back to the center for the show, which is a numb, clanging blur of noise, vodka, white light, echoed sound, cold medicine, and beer. The Bators folks show up en masse to bid us farewell and cheer us on at our last big French show.
This is embarrassing, I think to myself. Playing with my big Buddy Holly glasses and a fucking sweatshirt hood to ten people and Carol and her friends screaming like they’re watching the Stones or something. It’s all too weird, gimme another shot of that cold medicine. I’m not sick. I just want more blur in my Euro-Blur. They even demand encores, which Jeff grants—this is too much!
We say goodbye to everyone, Geordie included, who hitches a ride to the train station and heads home. Off we go on our night ride.
“I can’t say I’ll miss Geordie,” announces Simon with a smile. “Bloody goofy girl trying to tell me how to run a tour. Hah! Well, McGruff, you going to keep me company while I drive? Because you know that lot in the back will be asleep as soon as we hit the highway.”
“I’m with ya, bro. Italy or bust.”
Easy enough to say, but in a couple of hours I’m bobbing for apples, too. Simon looks knackered as he tries to keep the van on the road, as 3:00 a.m. turns into 4:00 a.m. We pull into a rest stop, get out, and have a couple of smokes.
“Fuck, it’s cold,” Simon shivers, as we jump up and down to keep warm while we smoke to stay awake. “Maybe we should sleep awhile, McGruff. I can’t keep me bloody eyes open. I’m shagged.”
Back in the van, we try to sleep, but for me, it’s just too cold. Remarkably, Z and Rat are huddled together and appear to be sleeping comfortably. Tim, who really wishes he’d brought a jacket now, is bumming hard, also unable to sleep.
“At least those two are sleeping,” I mention to Simon.
“I’m not sleeping,” says Z, barely opening his lips. “I’m too goddamn cold to do anything, including opening my eyes.”
“Simon, make it warm, I don’t care how you do it,” pleads Rat through chattering teeth.
“Try turning on the heat, Einsteins,” says Tim.
“If we turn on the heat with the engine running, we might run low on petrol,” reasoned Simon.
“We could get carbon monoxide poisoning, you idiots,” coughed the Master from the extra-ultra-super-cold back of the van.
“Just get some sleep, lads. You won’t know you’re cold if you’re unconscious.”
“This is true rock camping,” I shiver after a moment of silence. I seem to drift between a very uncomfortable, freezing semi-consciousness and a variety of nightmares involving Alaska, walk-in refrigerators, a couple of ex-girlfriends, and other frigid tundra. I can finally take no more.
“Simon, wake up and drive and turn the goddamn heater on. We’re gonna end up like that plane that crashed in the mountains and everybody had to eat everybody else.”
“Who would we eat?” asked Rat, sounding like he was getting interested.
“Well, who would yield the most meat?” asked Z reasonably.
“McGruff?” Z and Rat both laugh at the notion of a roasted McGruffwich.
Simon kicks it on down the road, and finally the heat liberates us from such delusions. We drive a few more hours, and prior to getting to the border, we find a truck stop to hang in and thaw out even more efficiently. We drink black coffee until 11:00 a.m., with Dahl, presumably a human ice cube by now, remaining in the van.
“This tour is beyond belief,” grumbles Rat. “I’ll never do this shit again. If you’re going to go out on the road, you at least have to live at human standards.”
“Yeah, Dahl digs it. He thinks he’s back in the army or something,” says Z.
“He said it’s going to be great when we get to Italy,” said Tim. “Especially for you guys. Supposedly the women are wild there, that’s what he keeps saying.”
“He just says that to give us hope over the horizon,” I opine. “It’s always the next country where the women will be an army of Amazonian nymphomaniacs, where the food will be culinary ecstasy, where the locals will finally be nice to us. It keeps the troops going in lieu of money or fame.”
“The prospect of pussy,” grinned Simon. “I’m just fucking happy to get the fuck out of fucking France.”
“Three whole ‘fucks’ in one sentence, m’man!” congratulates Z. A hideous looking family stares at us and sneers at our English profanity.
“Pass the fucking sugar.”