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18.9.05
May Day
"Most people don't belong together," she exhaled patiently. "People ARE together because they have to be with somebody, one way or another...too lonely to accept solitude with a warm embrace like a lover coming home from the war...no, these people around us," and here she gesticulated wildly in an arc encompassing, one imagined the whole of humanity, not just the stray passerby who happened to be strolling within that imaginary arc "they aren't comfortable being alone. They've seen too much television telling them in too many subtle ways, through sitcoms and chat shows and deodorant commercials, that it is their moral obligation in this society to be with someone, anyone - they've had it drummed into their skulls from the beginning...they won't accept anything less and when they wake up one morning wondering what they've done with their lives, who this person lying next to them is, who they get ready for work in the morning with, who they eat a silent dinner over the telly with is, by then, it's all too late. They realised too late..."
She wasn't even talking to me, really, talking through me.
She got like that when the sores of society would bubble on her, get in her eyes, underneath her fingernails. There was always another tirade down the road, with Anastacia, you could predict that much, measure your time in the days between rants.
And it was always a sign that she was getting antsy, that she was preparing herself to start travelling again. Snip, snip, cut the ties.
I sat back silently as though savouring the wine, watching the smoke rings I blew upwards, my head tilted back slightly as I watched them slowly carry themselves upwards toward the ceiling and dissipate, my eyes focusing gradually on the present rather than a visionary's distance.
*****
It was May Day in Prague. Albert and I had a bet on to see who could stay off the piss the longest. Albert made it til ten o'clock that night.
"Fuck it," he announced, standing up from the chair and away from the game of solitaire he'd been conducting silently for nearly two hours. "You win. I'll buy the first beer."
There weren't many nights we weren't out, frankly. Prague is like that, a vortex drawing in the alchoholics and pretend poets and the blue collar Czechs from Zizkov. We were all there, nearly every night, playing cards, chess, music, holding conversations we imagined we were having only to realise that we were, flirting with drunker foreigners, chain smoking, enjoying the evening with the kind of pre-future nostalgia that made it seem like that evening was our last.
*****
"Can I tell you a secret?" she asked out of the blue as we were lying in bed, still clothed, the candles burning and the pot smoke hanging above us in a haze. I sat up for a moment, rubbing my eyes as though it were just morning and I'd had a good night's sleep. "Sure," I answered non committally.
"I want to leave." She didn't move as she spoke, just staring up at the ceiling. "I want to leave tomorrow, get on a train and just end up somewhere else."
I hadn't been kidding myself too seriously. I knew this would ultimately be the natural score at the end of this match. She was too edgy to relax, pacing the room sometimes (no mean feat in such small quarters), drinking heavily as if to transport herself somewhere else, always somewhere else.
I can't say I didn't understand it although in my case it was more a case of inertia than any true longing to remain in one place for very long. Even Albert had talked aloud to himself about "getting the fuck outta here..." a few nights this month.
"And I want you to come with me." she concluded, grabbing my hand.
*****
So the following morning, just after dawn and before we'd even had a coffee, we were walking down towards Hlavni Nadrazi to catch a train. Albert was annoyed that he wasn't invited but in the end, decided to go back to sleep anyway.
The gypsies were all out in force having slept off whatever they were on the night before that had them singing and dancing and holding their hungry babies in front of your face with one hand whilst the other hand was either upturned, palmward, or trying to reach into your pockets.
The funny thing is on the way down, we didn't spend a second talking about it. It was as though we were heading down to snatch a few klobasa and a beer first thing in the morning, as though this was yesterday or the day before.
We walked silently inside the station and Anastacia picked a window, mumbled things I couldn't hear from behind, pulled out a wad of unexpected cash and stepped back with two tickets.
"So, where are we going?" I hint,
"Someplace you've never been." she replies with an excitement I imagined she would normally reserve for finding a hidden stash of catnip.
"Awww, but I've been there already, like a hundred times!" I exclaim just to throw her off guard for a moment and take away her suspicious, ruling hand.
I grab at the tickets and have a look. Low whistle.
Rome.
*****
The very first time the three of us were on stage simultaneously was at Jazz Club Železná.
After the first few times, Albert and I didn't get nervous anymore. We had butterflies and vomitted often beforehand, but we weren't nervous.
With Anastacia joining us we were suddenly a trio, Albert and I had another aspect to overwhelm us with. But she had a sweet voice. Our music didn't even matter. We just tried to play as quietly in the background as possible.
And that first night we were all having a shot of slivovice for good luck when suddenly the canned music faded and someone got on the PA to announce, "the infamously awkward, Deadbeat Conspiracy."
Muffled, half-hearted applause. Golf claps, really.
Albert stood there holding his bass, leaning backwards as though that bear of a bass would knock him over from the weight and the fourteen cans of beer that proceeded him. (He was done at thirteen but I told him it was unlucky, so he had another.)
I held the sax in front of me, staring at a fixed point above the heads of the crowd because I was terrified suddenly, gasping for water.
But Anastacia stepped out there with the dusty spotlight in front of her and she had her back to me: so when she began to sing, slow and velvet caress, her voice bounced back from the walls past her and to Albert and I.
It wasn't hard to follow at all. I'd hit a low note every ten seconds or so, Albert plucked here and there when it seemed appropriate and before we knew it the place was absolutely silent.
The bartenders and waiters and kitchen help and doormen all stood there, transfixed by Anastacia's voice.
We'd rehearsed all week at the walls in that little flat and had not even smelled a hint of the reaction. No fumbling with glasses and silverware, no more idle conversations breaking ice over and over, no more bottles opening or glasses slid across the wooden bar counter. Just Anastacia's voice, like lying down on your back in the grass, closing your eyes to the sun.
When she was finished she just stood there as though waiting for us to start the next song. But before we'd even considered what next, the crowd had suddenly woken themselves, hooting and whistling, shouting, holding up their drinks. She brought the mic stand over in front of me.
"Your turn." she announced, turning on her heel and taking a seat off to side of the stage.
*****
11:42 AM
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