Dashboard Elvis is Dead, page 6
Oxfam have provided everything the band are currently wearing for their first trip to America. The total cost of clothing the four members in coordinated black amounts to £33.50.
‘I’m changing my name. Stateside, like,’ Chic announces. Chic Chalmers is the band’s drummer.
‘Stateside?’ Bingo remarks.
‘Tae whit?’ asks Reef.
‘Chad.’
‘Chad? Ya fucken balloon. What for?’ Jamie Hewitt’s irritation is bubbling to the surface. The guitarist and remaining founder member of The Hyptones is not in a good mood.
‘Well, Chic Hyptone … it sounds like a fucken procedure that wealthy coffin-dodgers pay for on the BUPA.’ Bingo pats the head of her rhythm-section partner. ‘Good for you, mate,’ she says. ‘Never mind that miserable cunt.’
‘Aye, but keepin’ the surname tae,’ says Chic. ‘Just like the Ramones did. Fae now on, it’s Hyptone, Chad Hyptone. Please tae meet ye ladies.’
The drummer smiles broadly. He continues tapping out an irritating rhythm on his suitcase with his ever-present sticks, a form of Morse Code torture for Jamie.
‘Jesus Christ, Chic, gonnae gie that up? It’s like bein’ out wi’ a hyperactive toddler,’ says Jamie.
The drummer ignores him and drums on. As they wait in the long check-in queue, it’s obvious who is most excited about their upcoming US tour dates. And who is least. Seymour Stein is waiting for them in San Francisco, potentially lining up a lucrative recording deal with his Sire Records label. There is a lot riding on this trip.
‘The fuck’s up wi’ you, man?’ says Reef.
Jamie ignores the question, just as he did five days previously when Reef last asked it – in response to Jamie saying he wasn’t coming to America.
There are several reasons why Jamie Hewitt is apprehensive about this short showcase tour of Arizona and California. The band’s third single has recently been released to substantial acclaim in the fashionable music weeklies. It’s currently sitting in the high thirties of the UK charts. The Hyptones are firm favourites of John Peel and Kid Jensen, having recorded recent Radio One sessions for both. But this eighteen-day jaunt to America has, in Jamie’s opinion, been far too hastily and haphazardly organised. Two warm-up gigs in England have been warmly reviewed, but unknown to the others, Jamie is concealing a developing anxiety about live performance. All four experience pre-gig nerves to some extent. To combat them, Reef gets stoned, Bingo gets drunk, and Chic … well, God only knew what Chic gets high on. But for Jamie a serious stage fright is escalating, and artificial stimulants only make it worse. And if that isn’t enough, Annafuckingbelle, his unshakeably loyal girlfriend, has blagged a place on the tour as the official photographer. Although the real reason she’s here – the reason why no-one has contested her presence – is that Ronnie Mason, Annafuckingbelle’s gangster father, is funding the tour.
Annafuckingbelle. The AFB. Omnipresent. Like a second skin. An irritation that no amount of calamine lotion can salve. A few months earlier, the first time AFB travelled with the band, a Bulgarian concierge in their London hotel had registered her name firstly as Hambel, and then Hannibal. Four daft young Glaswegians mocked her relentlessly. They laughed at her. Jamie more so than the other three in the band.
‘Jesus Christ, it’s Anna fucking Belle. It’s not difficult,’ she had eventually yelled across the desk. Her rage was overtaken by embarrassment. But Annafuckingbelle she has been ever since. She has had little choice but to warm to the name, convincing herself it’s stuck because she is not to be messed with. Although she is privately grateful that now only the abbreviation is used.
Jamie’s head dips again as he sees her returning from the toilets. She says little, self-conscious perhaps, in the band’s working-class gang environment, of her formal diction, honed in the privileged halls of an Edinburgh private school. She makes little attempt to participate. She is an observer; a watcher constantly on the periphery, and that sets Jamie even more on edge. She is a constant reminder of the Mason obligation; the hefty concrete ball to which he is chained. If only he had finished with her before Christmas, as he’d intended. Before the hype around the group had begun. Before her brother had taken his own life. Before it would’ve been considered heartless. Jamie Hewitt is a fucking coward, and that’s a cold reality he can’t outrun.
The line of impatient people edges forward again. Jamie stares back at the terminal doors. His blood pressure is rising. Chic leans around him unseen and flicks the ear of a small, restless boy in front of them. The boy turns sharply and, sizing him up, kicks Jamie’s shin.
At the tail end of the line, several adults and children are pushed to one side amid breathless ‘excuse me’s’ and an ‘ah’m wi’ them up there’.
‘Where the hell’ve you been?’ Reef asks.
Kenny McFadden, the band’s manager arrives, already sweating and red-faced.
‘An’ whit in the name ae Christ are you wearin’?’ asks Bingo. ‘We agreed on the black.’
Kenny looks down. He sports an emerald-green tracksuit. AFB slips her dark glasses down, shielding her eyes from its brightness.
‘Taxi broke doon on the bloody M8. Had tae clamber across the three lanes,’ says Kenny.
‘At least the traffic would’ve seen ye,’ says Chic.
‘Aye. Ah’ve got a splittin’ headache just looking at ye,’ says Bingo.
‘Beat it, the lot ae ye’se. Comfortable for travellin’ in.’
‘So’s a Lear Jet,’ says Reef.
‘Bugger off. Ye’se are no’ The Rolling Stones yet.’ Kenny reaches into the fat leather pouch stretched around his middle. ‘Right here, the passports.’ He flicks open a page and hands them to their respective owners. ‘Visas aw sorted. Finally. Whit a fucken palaver that was.’ Kenny doesn’t let on that he was advised not to bother with visas because the process was hugely complex. ‘AFB, you got yer ain, hen?’
‘Got it, Kenny. Right here.’ She’d have had everything packed and organised from the minute the tour was confirmed. She loops an arm through Jamie’s before he can stop her.
‘Next over here, please?’ A voice calls them to attention.
‘Hope she asks my name,’ says AFB, fishing for a smile from someone.
All six advance towards the smiley check-in girl.
‘Are you travelling as a group?’
Reef is dazzled by the radiance of the young woman’s smile. ‘Too right we are, hen. We’re The Hyptones. An’ we’re goin’ tae the top ae the fucken pops!’
The miserable guitarist stares out at the shiny, wet tarmac of Glasgow Airport. Loud, uncontrolled children run around, crashing into anything that gets in their way. It’s like watching a tiny, human demolition derby. If vasectomies were suddenly to be made available pre-flight, he is certain most of the males waiting in the lounge would be behind him in the queue for one. These noisy brats can’t possibly be travelling to Newark. Other international flights to Majorca, Alicante and Faro are the more likely family destinations. At least he’ll be saved that. Only Chic, the biggest child here, will be left to contend with. Hopefully, the cunt’s batteries will drain and he’ll sleep through the flight, leaving everyone else in peace.
Jamie’s negativity about this whole trip is exacerbated by fears about his beloved acoustic guitar. It should’ve been on the plane with him. He’d pleaded with the check-in attendant, telling her the guitar was just a hobby, naively hoping it would change her mind.
‘I’m sorry, sir, it’s a very full flight today. You’ll have to check it in.’
Jamie watched the precious cargo disappear onto the belt with a worrying thud.
The love of Jamie’s life is this Fender Villager twelve-string Natural. It is a thing of absolute beauty. Made in 1965 and, according to the brash cockney muso selling it, used by Gene Clark to scope out the psychedelic peaks and dips of ‘Eight Miles High’. Jamie bought the guitar based on that impressive lie alone. The Hyptones songs began life as unrelated chords strummed absent-mindedly on it, until he properly introduced them to each other. Warm, honeyed melodies and little phrases poured from the instrument like it was describing his very heart and soul. Ideas became riffs that became songs that sounded full without the need for much else besides the guitar. And now he has been parted from it. He’d rather have had the guitar sitting next to him on the plane than AFB.
To compound this latest misery, his boarding pass is for a middle seat. A last hope that they would all be located separately vanished along with the guitar. With the case packed off to the hold, and an update advising that the flight is going to be delayed by two hours, Jamie hasn’t spoken a word to anyone since his cigarette lighter set off the beeper going through the security check.
The flight is finally called.
‘Right, Hendrix, chocks away, son,’ says McFadden.
Jamie glowers at him.
They watch the rest of the band climb the airline steps. Their restless excitement is plain for all to see. Airplane travel is new to all of them. Except AFB, of course. As Jamie and AFB are welcomed at the entrance of the plane, Chic is led back from first-class to economy, head bowed, like James Brown being escorted from The Apollo stage, ostensibly for his own good. Jamie sees the flight attendant patiently smiling. He knows she’s already thinking the same thing as him: My God, stuck in an enclosed space with this absolute tube for six and a half hours…
Kenny, Bingo and Reef are seated at the rear of the plane. Jamie spots the empty row in front of them.
‘I’m by the window,’ says AFB.
Jamie tuts. It means that he’ll be sandwiched between her and Chic. Both drooling as they snore, using his shoulders as pillows.
Fuck!
Several people are still attempting to cram large bags into overpacked overhead bins. Some of the bags look even bigger and more unwieldy than his guitar case. Jamie reaches their row. AFB sits, leaving him to store her carry-on bags. He opens the hatch above and a box falls out, hitting his head. Kenny, Bingo and Reef laugh like drunk hyenas.
‘Should’ve got up off yer arse when ah telt ye tae,’ says Kenny. Smug bastard.
‘If yer no’ fast, yer last, sunshine.’
Jamie opens other doors. All are packed full, like a winning game of Tetris.
‘Fuck sake.’
‘Sir, can you please take your seat. The captain is about to push back.’
Jamie turns, ready to fire off a salvo, before realising the steward is talking to Chic. The hyperactive drummer has made a second attempt on the first-class cabin.
‘Aye, God loves a trier, son,’ says Kenny.
‘Whoa, whit’s that smell?’ Reef sniffs the air around him. He looks accusingly at Kenny, who shrugs. On his other side, Bingo is asleep.
‘Honestly, whit is that? Smells like a school janny’s sick mop.’ Reef reaches over the seat and slaps his song-writing partner lightly on the back of the head.
‘Have you farted?’
‘Get fucked,’ says Jamie.
‘Je-sus!’ Kenny stands. ‘He’s just takin’ the piss. You need tae get wi’ the fucken programme, son. This is the big break for us, crackin’ the American market.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Kenny, listen tae yerself,’ says Jamie.
‘Just think ae it as a paid holiday, then,’ says Kenny. ‘Without the wages, like.’
‘Aye. An’ fucken cheer up, ya torn-faced bastart,’ adds Reef. ‘It’s like bein’ on holiday wi’ Joy Division.’ Reef’s smile is intoxicating. It is easy to see why the music journalists fawn over him. He possesses the charisma that all lead singers need. The sense that something magical and memorable will happen when he’s around.
‘Come oan, Jamie, son,’ says Kenny. ‘Ye know ye want tae.’
‘Bring me sunshine … all the while…’
‘Christ Almighty. Three straight weeks ae this bollocks,’ says Jamie.
For the final two hours of the American Airlines flight across the Atlantic, Jamie Hewitt sleeps, unaware that a guitar case bearing his name is gliding around an otherwise empty baggage carousel in Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.
A State of Independence (3)
I sit, window seat, driver’s side, on the cramped bus. I’m careful to sit closer to the rear than the front. Extreme heat and a temperamental air-con system could be the spark for some deep-seated, deeply southern aggression. No point in offering it an easy target. I’ve paid $13 for the single-journey ticket to downtown Dallas. It isn’t my intended destination, merely a stopping point. One of many, I assume, where I’ll take stock, recalibrate, and then go again. Naively, I figure I have the rest of my life to adjust.
The silver Greyhound rattles onto the Gulf Expressway by Calhoun Road. I catch sight of the University of Houston sports fields. I imagine AJ Carter being carried shoulder high by his grateful new team-mates after a phenomenal first season. Then propelled towards the drafts as a young, star quarterback pick. And then Jimmy Montgomery vaults into the scenario from his sweaty, stinking foxhole.
I reach into my bag for paper and a pen. Ruminations on the word ‘draft’:
Essentially the same process. Intended to apply a sense of fairness and equality to the selections, but for totally different purposes and with opposite outcomes.
I scribble these notes in the journal that will document my adventures on the road.
Getting well beyond Houston’s limits is a new experience for me. The bus hits Interstate 45 with a few warnings from the driver that we’ll be arriving at our destination late. A series of temporary road closures ahead will extend our journey from just under five hours to just over seven. The heat rises, inside and out.
We travel through an anonymous landscape on arrow-straight roads where no change in character is witnessed for hours. The country’s open vastness amazes me. Reinforces my insignificance. The interminable green of fertile farming land. It looks untamed and rugged. I anticipated white houses, sunlit silos, boisterous lumber yards, and freshly ironed Stars and Stripes hanging from every flagpole. Huge oil derricks swooping down like metal flamingos on the horizon. But there is nothing of that in the expanses between metropolitan areas. The only rhythm is from the wires, gently dipping and cresting between each telegraph pole as if describing a pattern of breathing. A mellow, resting-phase electrocardiogram of the communications they carry.
Gradually, the green subsides. The low-rise, industrial brown takes over. The blink-and-you’d-miss-them cities of Wilmer and Hutchins indicate that we must only be thirty minutes or so from the terminus. The driver announces these places as cities, but they’re the same faded small towns as every other enclave the bus passes through. I am headed west, and to the bright lights of San Francisco. I begin to appreciate now that I’ll witness familiar dead-end lives in the spaces between.
I leave the putrid locker-room stench of the bus. I gulp in the fresh Dallas air like it is the water from an oasis.
Hi. Larry? Is that you? Yeah, it’s me, Jude, I say.
I told him I’d check in regularly, and here I am, fulfilling that obligation on my first full day as a runaway. As soon as he picked up, I felt foolish and immature. Like he knows this telephone call is to give me some reassurance rather than them. But whether I just want to let them know I’m safe, or whether my safety is in knowing they will always be a call away, I can’t honestly say.
Uh. Um, yeah. Uh-huh, Jude. Yeah, where are you? he stammers.
Larry sounds drunk. Or hungover. It’s early evening. He can’t just have gotten up.
I’m in downtown Dallas, I say. Gonna get a burger then catch the night bus, I tell him.
There’s a pause. It’s as if he’s on the other side of the world and there’s a delay, rather than there being only three hundred miles between us.
Uh, hmm. Yeah. Okay, he says.
Are you drunk? I ask him.
Um. No. nope. Just … well, y’know, he says.
But I don’t. Larry rarely drinks during the week, and only gets drunk on the weekends. He is permanently on call, like a specialist surgeon waiting for his pager to beep. Or a butler, waiting for a master’s summons.
You workin’ later? I ask him.
Um. No, not tonight. Got some days, uh, off. He sighs deeply. Look, Jude, I gotta go. Your momma’s asleep. I don’t, um … don’t wanna wake her,’ he says.
It is as if he is being held at gunpoint, forced to read words that someone else has written for him.
I’ll let her know you called, and, uh, that you’re fine. Um. Bye.
And with that, the line goes dead as abruptly as if a brown dust storm has zipped through the Houston County plains, laying waste to those dipping and cresting wires and the poles that hold them.
The Ballad of the Band (3)
Kenny McFadden is panicking. He can’t get hold of the band’s American agent, and the band are asking searching questions that he can’t answer. There is no-one at the airport to meet them. No man in a peaked cap holding a professionally printed card reading ‘Hyptones’. And to top it all, Kenny has just informed the disgruntled group that their transfer across the vast plains of America from New York to San Francisco, where the tour ends, will be by coach. Kenny was advised by their UK agent to purchase an American Airlines special-offer ticket for the band. It would have been an open ticket costing $500 each, permitting them to fly anywhere in the country, and as many times as they wanted during a thirty-day period. But Kenny wanted to see the country. He’s a postman from Drumchapel, for Christ’s sake – this might be the only chance he gets. Kenny puts more coins in the payphone. He dials one more time. Norm, the US agent, picks up.
‘Holy fuck, pal, whit’s the score?’
He listens to Norm’s explanation.
‘Well, Norm, no-one’s fucken here, son,’ Kenny yells into the receiver. He doesn’t wait for the response before lying: ‘We did land on time, man … ah’m bloody tellin’ ye.’ Kenny looks around. ‘An’ some ae the luggage is missin’ tae.’
