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Beating the borders was always a challenge. Various subterfuges were employed as we crisscrossed our way across fortress Europe. Nico would adopt the disguise of a prim librarian - specs, hair in a bun - but unfortunately it was undermined by the black leather trousers, the biker boots and the leather bracelet with silver skulls. And, as her eyesight was perfect, the alien tenses distorted her vision so much that she could barely discern a familiar face, let alone the inquisitorial stares of officialdom.
Customs officials, it has to be said, ain't the brightest of individuals. They always pull the brokendown old 2CVs with brokendown hippies inside, or the conspicuously guilty pop group with the pills and potions in their underpants. Meanwhile the professional hustler in the black BMW with a briefcase full of cocaine is waved on through. This prejudice infuriated Nico, to the point where she would become contemptuous of even her own fear. Once, as we were driving off the car ferry at Dover, she handed me a bunch of used syringes, a whole tour's worth. I quickly threw them off the ramp and into the oily black water below, thanking her profusely for the macabre bouquet.
Nico's preferred method of concealment was to buy a pack of condoms (a source of great embarrassment to her: 'I'm sure they must think I'm a hooker when I buy these things') and a jar of vaseline. Then she'd fill the prophylactic with a clingfilmed ball of heroin. This she would insert into her behind, generally about five minutes from the border. This is how it would go:
'Are we ne-ar the booorder?' We'd heard it sung so many times it had become a familiar refrain along with 'Have you got a little bit of haa-aash?' Out would come the condom, a look of disgust on her face. Then she'd wriggle out of her leathers. Everyone would suddenly busv themselves with displacement activities: books that hadn't been opened throughout the tour would suddenly become 'tntenselv fascinating.
They like the Blues in Chicago... Nico's music was so white it was almost translucent. She was indifferent to such untermensch basics as rhythm and expression. What we played was like a slap across the face from a Gauleiter's gauntlet. We did a kind of upstairs bar/poolroom. There was no stage. You could hear the balls clacking through her solo spot.
janitor of Lunacy
Paralyse my infancy
Petrify the empty cradle
Bring hope to them and me.
Clack a tat tat! 'Yo . . . Hey, a couple of beers and some pretzels!'
Two dudes just stood and watched us, leaning on their pool cues, faces impassive, in a kind of sleeping hatred. Nico still hadn't found a heroin connection and Echo's methadone just wasn't enough. She couldn't get that lift on to the stage without it. So now she was forced to see the boredom and hostility upon the faces of the miserably few punters. Normally the heroin enveloped her, gave her a totality of purpose that propelled her from the dressing-room on to the stage and projected her out towards the audience. It was a substitute for Will.
She had a name in Chicago that she'd been tracking down every spare minute. Finally, just before we left the hotel, she got the address. Axel took some persuading as we had to be in Minneapolis by early evening. She promised him a hit. We were parked near a vacant lot on the edge of the South Side in our stupid hire car and trailer, like we'd lost the rest of the circus. Nico had picked up the exact whereabouts of her 'friend'. She worked a couple of blocks away. Axel slowlv inched the vehicle along as if it was about to come under sniper fire.
'There she is!' shouted NICO.
There were two women standing on the corner of a tenement block. One had on a pair of ass-splitting hot pants and red thigh boots, the other an off-white minidress and teetering stilettos. There could be no misconception as to their chosen profession.
'Saandra,' Nico leant out of the window.
The girl in the hot pants warily came over. She looked at the car, she looked at the trailer. She wasn't sure. Then she looked at Axel and Bags - she definitely wasn't sure. Nico called her again from the back. The girl recognised her and Nico got out. They chatted for a couple of minutes, then walked off. Axel followed up behind. The girl in the minidress came over. The doors were open for ventilation. She sat herself down in the driver's seat. Her skirt hem 'accidentally' sneaked up to reveal the absence of underwear.
'Twenny bucks a shot, guys, whaddya say? Anyway ya like.'
We tried to pretend we hadn't seen or heard anything, resuming interest in dead conversations and exhausted magazine articles. Though Smiler was giving it some serious consideration, his mouth half-open in that strange Planet of the Apes perma-smile. The girl fanned herself with her clutch-bag, filling the car with the smell of cheap perfume and stale sex. We all declined:
Out of Moral Prudery - Echo.
Out of Fear of Disease - Me.
Out of Misanthropic Indifference -
Spider.
Out of Latent Homosexuality - Bags.
Out of Peer-group Pressure - Smiler.
Cash was tighter than ever after Nico's score, so we had to be prudent with fuel. Axel had a theory that the car burnt significantly less gas if the air-conditioning was switched off. This meant having the windows wide open, though the breeze was baking hot and laden with dust. Later I learnt that this was in fact false economy, the open windows creating a drag effect.
We arrived too late for the Minneapolis show. Now there was even less in the kitty. We had two days to get to Denver, Colorado, on the edge of the Rockies. About eight hundred miles. The only way we could make it was if Nico didn't have to score again, which meant Echo would have to give her the remainder of his methadone. Various ploys were thought up by Axel in order to achieve this, the chief being that we could listen to the radio station of our choice for one hour each day. Echo surrendered his insurance. He'd planned to wean himself off the stuff, but not with quite such an abrupt wrench to the nervous system.
Seven misfits literally stuck together in submission to Axel's military might. 'I want to drive,' Nico shouted. 'Why can't I?'
No one responded. Axel kept his eyes unflinching on the road: 'Rock 'n' roll will never die - you'll never know until you try" he yelled.
I muttered peevishly from the back, 'Rock 'n' roll is dead id done - bring back Lonnie Donegan.'
'Wassamadda wid Lord Jim? English proper, Oxford prim!'
Nico was catatonic on the methadone: 'That Leonard Cohen….. he broke my wrist.'.
No one had been talking about Leonard Cohen, or wrists. In fact no one was talking at all. Spider Mike had won the toss for a free hour on the radio station of our choice - he chose Zero FM, Radio O.F.F. Perhaps Nico was making conversation - but nobody wanted to talk except for drummer-boy Smiler and he was terrified. Every time he opened his mouth, Nico wouId bite his head off. It wouldn't be anything witty or obtuse, more like 'Shut your fucking monkey face.' But now she trying to be conciliatory, to sweeten the atmosphere with idle chitchat. It was the same script she'd been using for years - the events she could recall before she beecame a junkie and time stood still. Like everyone, Nico had certain landmark experiences in her past, but she never bothered to integrate them into the present. She would only ever quote from her own diary - and that had stopped a decade before.
It seemed unbelievable, but she insisted that she'd never heroin until after her spell at the Factory. Looming up to her, out of the psychedelic fizz, she'd never noticed anything unusual in anyone's behaviour. She accepted everything. Apart from withdrawal tantrums she hadn't changed. Everything is the way it is. It just happens. The complex skein of historical process was not, one suspects, uppermost in her thoughts.
In the half light of early dawn amid snores and farts and Bags's stinking feet, I heard Rosa's door open. I sneaked a look and saw her standing over Echo, staring intently at her sleeping prey. She was wearing a black leather corset encased in a breastplate of twisting metal rosebranches with fierce steel thorns. Echo awoke but remained where he was, paralysed. Rosa knelt down, slid her arms under his passive torso, lifted him up lifeless from the cross and carried him to her Chapel of Correction.
The last thing anyone heard of them for twelve hours was the locks on Rosa's bedroom door click shut ... one by one by one.
"Ave yet ever 'ad an enema?' Echo asked me. 'It gives yet a ard-on the size of a baby's arm.'
We were driving along Big Sur. Strange sea-plants, mist, Kerouac, Ansel Adams, and a baby's arm.
'Have you ever read On the Road?' Nico asked me.
'No.'
'Neither have I. I couldn't finish it ... too many woords.' She drifted back into the mist.
'It stays up fer 'ours,' Echo continued.
Bags wriggled in his seat to accommodate his emergent stiffy. He cast another furtive glance at Axel's crotch.
'Did you hear that, Axel?' Nico asked. 'Up for hooours.'
Axel was beginning to get a little less self-confident. Two people in the car had serious designs upon his body, and they were making their intentions abundantly clear. Nico was in one of her weird, slightly hysterical moods, just on the edge of withdrawal.
'My father was Turkish ... you know what that means, Axel, don't you? I like it the Turkish way ... Axel ... did you hear?'
He didn't respond.
"Ear that, Axel?' said Echo. 'She prefers the tradesman's entrance.'
Axel turned up the Twisted Sister. Echo fell back into reverie.
We sat it out for the best part of another week. Nico had a nice little bag of Manchester scag in her pouch, plus her little Joey, Le Kid. They only ever appeared at mealtimes, scuttling back to their room to get loaded. Demetrius hinted that they shared the same bed - but then they shared the same everything.
It was decided to put on a private concert for the landlady and her family in the hotel basement to keep them all sweet. Demetrius had dropped words like bel canto and coloratura The Signora was expecting a few arias from Rigoletto.
There was a strange old uncle, deathly thin, with a hat and a walking cane, who haunted the upstairs landings and looked straight through you when you spoke to him. I stayed in my room as much as possible. I'd found a porno cartoon mag on top of the wardrobe: Leonora the Leopard Lady. She provided some solace and companionship throughout those interminable siesta hours. Neither waking nor sleeping, I could hear Uncle Morbido creeping about outside. Sometimes I'd notice the handle turn on my door. Maybe Leonora was already spoken for.
Demetrius had commandeered a microphone and a box amp. The harmonium was taken out of its native soil and placed under the one single lightbulb. The cellar looked, appropriately enough, like a torture chamber. Luckily it was to be an exclusive solo performance, for one afternoon only. It was a packed house. The whole dynasty ... kids running around like puppies, all wearing Nico T-shirts. Grandma was magnificent, spreading her sombre influence like a black widow spi'der from the corner of the room.
'Per me,' she sighed, 'la bella vita finira presto.'
Our good landlady and Nico came in arm in arm. Le Kid, high on his mother's dope, followed behind; then the good Doctor and finally old Morbido, who just walked past everybody to the other side of the room and leant against the wall, leaning on his walking stick. The Signora said a few words about 'what an honour it was', etc, etc, and then Nico began.
'I want to begin with 'The End'. This song was Jim Morrison's favourite song.'
This is the end,
Beautiful friend,
This is the end,
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
...
It was the perfect family portrait, frozen in time. No one moved. Mouths hung open. Old Morbido was the first to crack. He began to sway from side to side. Then the dog began to whine. Grandma had seen a glimpse of the Other Side and didn't like it. Some of the younger kids were a bit frightened by the strange lady in black with the man's voice, but the teenies were biting their tongues in an effort to suppress their laughter. Uncle Morbido started to wander around with his stick, banging into things, like he was drunk, blind or delirious. The Signora got a grip of him and marched him off to his familiar haunts upstairs.
Nico called it quits after the one song, and everyone relaxed again. Cakes and Fanta were handed out for the kids and grappa for the adults. Nico didn't seem too put out by the brevity of her recital as she still remained the glamorous centre of attention. What everyone really wanted was a party. So we had one, there in the basement.
Le Kid had taken a fancy to the landlord's beautiful daughter.
'I 'ave 'eard zeese Italian guerrls are good for ze sex.'
'Oh, aye,' said Toby, 'they think of nowt' else. Bred like pedigrees they are.'
'Do you sink I could fuck 'er?'
'With your irresistible Gallic charm, no problem.'
When everyone had loosened up on the grappa, Grannie suggested it was time for more music. It was Raincoat's turn to do a song, and I had to accompany him on the harmonium.
My funny Valentine,
Sweet comic Valentine,
You make me smile with my heart.
Your looks are laughable,
Unphotographable,
But you're my favourite work of art.
He tilted into the full Sinatra croon. Smooching up to the Signora and Grandma. Then he sidled up to Nico and, astoundingly, she took up the final verse. Then together they sang the last lines.
But don't change a hair for me, Not if
you care for me,
Stay, little Valentine, stay Each day is
Valentine's day.
The basement went bananas. They wanted more! But we didn't have any more. So it was back to whacking off in our rooms.
It was the best gig we'd ever played.