Adios, Motherfucker Page 6

  Ron meanwhile, seemed to be in an ever-expanding personal hell on his barstool three nights a week, snarling into a Bud Light bottle amid a throng of shitfaced postcollegiate art types dumping Jägermeister and Miller Low-Life all over the place while a rock band, often an experimental one that had formed on the spot, experimented at jet volume in his dining room. That the bar was always three-deep irked him no end, despite that from a fiscal perspective he couldn’t have done better if someone had struck oil in the men’s room, which, with all the additional traffic in the pre-war plumbing, sometimes appeared to be the case.

  My room was already something of a social center with the vets and became the de facto greenroom for the shows downstairs, generally available for bands and artists needing a place to tune up, smoke a joint, drink, nap, pray, shoot up, change clothes, store gear—I tried to accommodate. I got a sense of music scenes all over, made more connections than I could count without having to get up from my recliner except to answer the door. And the vets kept it more interesting than your average greenroom. A touchy, MKUltra-scrambled neighbor dropping by to bum some wine and jibber about gooks and torture to an indie band too stoned, or simply too indie to deal; Arthur Lee finding himself out-kooked by Invisible Stan, a paranoiac from upstairs who was very visible indeed, a sight in fact (you would have smelled him anyway, his drink of choice was Scope mouthwash). One late night an ancient, splintery figure in a cowboy hat, appeared at my door—stepped out of thin air, one leg at a time. Townes van Zandt, a country music legend, more like a myth, standing there feebly asking if I happened to know where he could get some heroin. In the off chance, evidently, that there might be any left on the planet he’d overlooked. Three-Hat, a somnolent deaf-mute who always wore a stack of hats, happened by and the two of them wound up in some kind of coma-meld, silently staring at each other there in the hall, for a long, long time. Socially awkward, of course.

  When Mal finally gave The Unband a slot it was on a Tuesday, a dead night. An audition. The next time we played was a weekend, and we were a headliner everafter, usually playing to a capacity crowd. Other local bands would pack the place, too—Sebadoh, or a J Mascis, or Thurston Moore-related project; Silver Jews; the Figgs—a sorely underrated pop group from upstate New York, honorary locals—but the bar receipts would pale (I always asked, it felt good when the place made money). We inspired excess, it seemed. Maybe people took those other bands more seriously, or simply wanted to remember them more clearly.

  Mornings after we’d played I’d stumble down to the bar as usual, bathrobed, half-conscious, cigarette, or double-cigarette, to get my mail or have an eye-opener, and Ron would fly off the handle about anything and everything whether there’d been damages or not. A few times I tried to explain to him the value of what was going on from a creative standpoint, highlight his contribution to it. But verbalizing such things is no good and he wasn’t interested anyway. Especially if I didn’t have the rent, which, in Ron’s defense, was pretty common. I learned to shut my mouth and let him finish his riot act, offer some degree of apology, then go back upstairs. Leave him to his Keno.

  The rave-ups at the Bay State came to a head one night for us. Stories you heard from people who were there conflicted. Most accounts—the official police report being one exception—included crowd control spray. People said the cops tried to disperse the crowd by shooting either mace or pepper spray into the ceiling fans, or air vents, depending on who you talked to. I can attest that there was something in the air, all right.

  Whether the police report is deliberately incomplete, the official report got most of the basic facts right. Names have been changed, except ours.

  NORTHAMPTON POLICE DEPARTMENT

  Police Officer’s Incident Report

  INCIDENT ID#: XXXX

  INCIDENT DESCRIPTION: Open and Gross Lewdness

  PRINCIPAL PARTIES: Eugene Ferrari, Matthew Pierce, Michael Ruffino

  DOM. ABUSE, Yes/No: NO

  OFF. WRITING REPORT: Det. LeProng

  REPORT: On 04-10-94 at approximately 0030 Hrs. I and Officer McConstable were conducting a plain clothes detail in the downtown area of Northampton. At this time we were conducting a check of the Baystate Hotel for alcohol and narcotic violations.

  The Baystate Hotel bar had a large crowd and a live band was performing in the back room. An initial check of the front room located a subject who had several beers in a backpack. These beers were emptied into glasses and then drank by persons at the table. I notified the Owner of the bar Mr. Ronald Saracen and Mr. Saracen corrected the problem.

  Officer McConstable then approached me and advised me that the drummer of the band which was on stage was no [sic] wearing any clothing. I then went to the back of the room and observed the drummer to be seated and wearing NO clothing. While the drummer played he stood up several times and played the drums. The drummer’s genitals were clearly visible both while seated and while standing, as we observed from numerous vantages. The crowd was very rowdy and were engaged in “slam dancing.” The name of the band playing was found to be “Unbanned” [sic].

  At this point I decided that the smartest thing to do about the drummer was nothing. Any police involvement would cause serious problems for the crowd and the Officers. Officer McConstable and I then went outside to the parking lot. From this location you could easily see the naked drummer. The drummer could also be clearly seen along the sidewalk along Strong Ave. and several other vantages. At about 0100 hrs the band stopped playing. The crowd began to exit the building. At one point one of the band members looked out the windows which were directly behind him. He then chose to drop his pants and expose his buttocks to everyone standing outside the bar. I acknowledged this act and the subject did it again.

  At this point Officer McConstable and I reentered the bar and identified ourselves as Police Officers. I then obtained the names of the band members.

  The drummer was putting on his clothes as we entered the room. I asked for identification and was advised that his license was in his pants which were in Room 1 of the hotel. This subject was later identified as EUGENE FERRARI. Mr. Ferrari explained that he was playing music while wearing a scarf which was pinned onto him. The pin broke and the scarf fell off. Mr. Ferrari stated that the crowd reacted so he played the rest of the set while wearing nothing.

  The next person I spoke to was Mr. MATTHEW PIERCE, resides Brewster Court in Northampton. Mr. Pierce stated that he exposed himself to the crowd outside because he “got carried away changing his pants.” Mr. Pierce said that he directed the exposure to Officer McConstable and I. He stated that “obviously” he did not know that we were Police Officers.

  The third member of the band was identified as Mr. MICHAEL RUFFINO of room #1 of the Baystate Hotel of Northampton. Mr. Ruffino stated that he did not expose himself to the crowd. He then showed me that he was wearing black leather pants. Mr. Ruffino then explained that he almost could not get into the pants, let alone get out of them.

  Mr. Ferrari and Mr. Pierce were both advised that they were going to be summoned to court for open and gross lewdness. Both subjects made gestures and drew attention to themselves while in clear view of the public, including members of the audience and passers on the City street.

  Mr. Saracen explained that he had NO knowledge that the band was going to expose themselves and he assured that the band “Unbanned” will now be banned from the Baystate Hotel.

  Paperwork will be submitted for violation and criminal charges.

  The Associated Press picked up the story. Newspapers in several states made wordplay with “Unband” and “banned.” Local papers got some mileage out of it. Someone from SPIN called the bar looking for a quote from somebody to comment, while I happened to be sitting there next to Ron who’d answered, and become purple as a grape. We could still drink there—Ron was no monster.

  Matt’s dad represented Matt and Eugene for the district court appearance, I wasn’t charged since I’d remained clothed. There was some concern th
e Bay State Cabaret days might be over, the bar could lose its license, or be fined significantly—things were strained around my domicile, to say the least. For all the potential drama, in the end the court appearance was little more than comic relief on the docket between another formulaic drunk-and-disorderly in the bead store (“suspect was flailing her limbs and shouting profanities”) and a parole violation by a guy we knew who waved to us when he was led in (so, by default, did the psycho he was chained to). The undercover officers were there in uniform, no hard feelings. Harry presented his case and concluded with, “These are nice boys, your honor,” unintentionally getting a laugh from the courtroom. The judge seemed to like that, and followed the verdict with the punchline he’d been dying to deliver—“I’d say this is a case of mooning at the Bay!” (A bailiff supplied the rimshot “ba-dum-bum.”) The sentence was twelve hours of community service and the judge allowed that a charity gig would cover it.

  Not bad at all as days in court go, apart from the charge itself, “open and gross lewdness.” The same charge you’d get for beating off on a playground full of kids. A second offense—which we all soberly recognized could easily be as unintentional as the first—carried an automatic two-year sentence. That didn’t sit well.

  Shortly thereafter we played a benefit to help pay medical bills for a local lesbian attacked one night, a violent hate crime, right in downtown Lesbianville, U.S.A.* People came out in full force, outraged. It came out later that the incident might not have been a hate crime after all. But as far as our community service, the court was satisfied.

  8

  RECREATIONAL VEHICLE

  Ivan was a socialist, an anarchist, a historical materialist—maybe all, maybe something else; being a successful black-market capitalist afforded him time to experiment. He was the band’s tireless patron, regardless. A generous friend who also counted The Unband as an agent of chaos, and therefore sort of roundabout investment toward a future of armed self-rule. Ivan, whose aspect owed equally to Ming the merciless and Che Guevara, received us holding a teapot. A ferret on his shoulder batted the tassel of his beret.

  “Welcome, gentlemen,” said Ivan, lifting the teapot and an eyebrow. “Tea?” At Ivan’s, tea could mean almost anything. “No. English Breakfast,” he said, suddenly unsure. He put the teapot down and distributed beers instead. “Come,” he said. “I have to sex the mother.” Which sounded like something you shouldn’t have to do until your mid-thirties at least, and then in private.

  In the hall Ivan unlocked the door of the neighboring apartment, rented to but not necessarily inhabited by someone called “B.J. Swindler,” whose mail Ivan collected in a hefty bag behind the door. The shades were all drawn and there were dishes in the sink; the lights, the TV, all the appliances were plugged into timers, and two blowup dolls sat across from each other at a table, the silhouettes visible from the street below. We followed Ivan into a closet space. He pushed the rear wall open and pulled aside a black leaded drape, and we stepped into a spacious, sunlamped, ecosphere with foil-lined walls, tubs of slowly evaporating ultrafiltered water, and oscillating fans blowing gently on platformed rows of marijuana plants, robust from regular mistings of high-end phytonutrients and Beethoven. The plants seemed to respond when Ivan entered, like triffids.

  From a nearby wheelie cart Ivan handed me an auto-dialer, a device about the size of a pocket calculator, with a speaker that emitted a sound that satisfied a pay phone it was receiving coins. You could call anywhere in the country for free. I conducted all the band business from the pay phone at the Bay State, and, Ivan knew, some weeks it would clean me out, death by thousand dimes. It remained that any incoming business call might be answered by any one of the baker’s dozen of tremensing basketcases I lived with, but that couldn’t be helped. “And who am I giving this to?” Ivan said, holding aloft a currency envelope. The ferret made a grab for it then jumped away.

  “What’s that?”

  “Are you or are you not traveling to Texas? The music festival—no?”

  We were due to leave for Austin, to play at South by Southwest, an annual competitive drinking event for music executives. Thousands of bands applied for the chance to perform at it; a recording contract was the grail, and merely being given a slot had caché. I’d filled out the application and sent our CD, and a copy of the police report from the Bay State incident in lieu of a press kit. That had done the trick. One of the event organizers called to invite us personally (twice—he got Stuttering Jerry initially), and asked us to be in a documentary film they’d be shooting during the festival. A camera crew would follow us around while we were there. To see what happened.

  “For emergencies,” Ivan tossed the envelope into our midst. “The scope and details of which we are free to imagine.” He parted the leaves of a plant and observed an area of its stem, his eye giantized in a magnifying glass. “I trust you will keep me informed.”

  We were cruising north in Matt’s Fiero, headed up into Vermont, where we’d pick up the RV we’d be driving to Texas. Matt had recently custom painted the Stars and Stripes over the entire car; it was a flag on wheels. Anonymity was impossible, but you couldn’t argue, he’d done top-notch work. We’d combed our hair neatly and put on clean sweaters (gifts from family, normally unwearable), and I’d brought the old pair of wire-rimmed glasses I sometimes wore for court appearances. Between Matt and I we didn’t have a credit card or a valid driver’s license—first impressions would go a long way. Up the interstate in late winter sun, one-hitter, and James Brown’s “The Payback,” turning it up. . . . A decent day, whatever happened.

  Back in Northampton I parked the RV on Matt’s lawn. It was too big to maneuver into the drive. Midnight Dragon Lady, a pretty Irish redhead from a picturesque colonial village upriver, was in her usual spot on the stoop, sipping a forty-ounce. Geto Boys thumped out of a boom box next to her.

  “What up, motorhomies.” She threw a hand sign. East Coast, I assumed. Or maybe there was gang sign for motherfuckin’ historic Pocumtuck now. “ ’Sup up wit that booo-shit.”

  We told her.

  She laughed. “You’re gonna fuckin’ die.”

  “Nah. We can handle it,” I said.

  “Who’s drivin’?”

  Matt said, “He is.” Meaning me.

  “Oh you’re definitely gonna die.”

  It’s true that by the time I understood driving was a not medium for free-form self-expression the cast had hardened. I reminded Dragon Lady that I’m a decent wheelman in blizzards, getaways, unusual conditions, and a motor home is unusual. She splashed some of her forty-ounce on the ground. “That’s for you in advance, bitches.”

  Next day we got on the road, with Trailer and DJ Paisan. Trailer was the best soundguy in town, set apart by his uncanny ability to solve chaos-related sound problems a few seconds before they happened. Paisan, though he was broke, bought his clothes in New York; he looked like he’d been thrown out of a Calvin Klein ad, probably for something he said. He played with us live on his turntables. Not the rock-rap usage but effects and samples, song transitions, sonic punchlines, and such. Who knew, really. Everything was always so loud nobody knew what anybody else did. I was behind the wheel, popping mailboxes off their posts like dandelion heads, cornering badly. Bottles rolled around, ricocheting off the furniture. Nearly clipped a woman with bulging triceps and a mullet on a bike; she smacked the side of the RV, screamed something slogany and flipped us off. I had a premonition of parallel parking that involved a body count. “Dragon Lady’s right,” I said. “This is no good.”

  I turned onto Main then banged a left onto Market (literally—bang! unplanting a road sign), and pulled over in front of the house Steve and his girlfriend ran a production company out of, as much as one could do anything like “run a company” in an underachiever Shangri-La like Northampton. Steve came from Taunton, an out-of-the-way area of Massachusetts near the Rhode Island border. He played in a popular band in town, the kind where having two or three differe
nt singers works, a jam-band gone over to outlaw country, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard. Steve was licensed to drive oversized vehicles, and as hoped, he was home.

  “And what would I be doing, besides driving,” Steve wanted to know.

  Nobody knew.

  “A month is a long time. When would I be leaving?”

  “Well, that’s the thing.” I pulled back the window curtain. The RV out front, idling.

  “You gotta be fucking kidding me,” Steve said.

  “You’d think so.”

  Steve went into another room, consulted with his girl. We did a few hits off the Graphix with the band who’d been playing in the basement. Steve came out ten minutes later, a packed army duffel over his shoulder. “All right, let’s go. But my price just went way up.”

  MARCH 3

  Incredible traffic jam en route to New York now. Show at Brownies, if we make it which is doubtful.

  The recreational vehicle. Thirty feet of rattling, gas-guzzling, wall-to-wall-carpeted liability. We (I) peeled back part of the roof like a tuna can on a gas station canopy before we were a mile away from the rental place in Vermont, then we (Matt) nearly yanked the front bumper off on a stone wall, mutilated a vent window (Eugene), and destroyed a yet-to-be-determined electrical component by accidentally ripping out a bunch of wires under the master bed with a cymbal stand (Eugene again, but then I made it worse). The loft bed above the cab is filled with guitars, amps, and T-shirts (mustard yellow, like a summer camp T, with the band name in script above a pair of praying hands I cut out of a church bulletin, and “Pray for Us”—most of the shows are in the Deep South, I figure it’ll go over, one way or another). Drums and hardware piled in the shower, speaker cabinets on the master bed, cymbals beneath, between and behind, personal baggage always underfoot, cabinets jammed with discount foodstuffs, and forte bottle-clink with every bump and turn—because this is, after all, a recreational vehicle. It’s a lot of logistics, this thing. Clearance height, turning radius, hookups, dumping procedures and relevant ordinances, inlets, outlets, connectors, system panels (buttons that make ominous noises when pressed), propane (a bomb on board); fresh water, gray water, pink water, black water; a zillion things you absolutely have to do and at least as many you absolutely cannot do. Matt and I were thoroughly instructed by the rental people but being horrifically stoned at that particular time, our modus operandi leans on trial and error. Heavy on the latter.