Bye Bye Blondie (13 page)
Authors: Virginie Despentes
“Are you kidding? I couldn't care less about my exams, anyway I'd never get a job. That's at least one thing your mother got right.”
SHE'D THROWN HER
travel bag out the window, asking Eric to pick it up. He would
leave the house first and wait for her at the bar on the corner, the Petit Palais, so as not to alert her parents.
Gloria had stayed alone in her bedroom. She was saying goodbye to her childhood possessions, and wanted to write a letter to her father and mother. She was very young, and thought sincerely at that moment that she wouldn't be seeing them again. This definitive departure reconciled her to them, and filled her with an affection for them she had not felt for a long time. It was like an ordeal by fire, as invisible tender hands pulled her and begged her. But she had to go.
Life means moving on, you'll have to get used to leaving people behind
, she told herself, to bolster her courage. She tore up several versions, getting lost every time in sentimental effusions that made tears come to her eyes as she sat alone. In the end, she simply wrote: “Don't worry. Thanks for everything, love you lots.”
She went out wearing a T-shirt, no jacket, telling her mother, who was reading the paper in a corner of the kitchen, that she was going to buy cigarettes. As the gate squeaked, she still had tears in her eyesâshe was running away like a man, like a coward. The little street on her block was suddenly charged with sweet memories. Happy days leave less trace than traumasâuntil they're in the past.
Family, I'll miss you a bit
, was the way Gloria thought of it, with melancholy.
Two hundred meters down the road, she had put it all out of her mind.
THEY SPENT THE
whole of the month of August in Paris, so happy and trouble free that they were surprised such a life could exist. Coming out of the Gare de l'Est, they had gone straight to New Rose, off the Boulevard Saint-Michel. In front of the record shop, a few skinheads were hanging around. Eric went right up to them as if they were a friendly group of wolf cubs. Like it did every time, his natural manner won them over, and one tough skinhead with a lot of teeth missing took them under his wing. He put them up at Juvisy for the whole month, in an apartment belonging to his mother, who'd gone off on holiday with Club Med. They went back every night by the last train, brazenly scaring all the other passengers in their carriage. It was weird to see this great brute in his little-boy bedroom. The mother had locked the sitting room and her own bedroom, to keep him from making a mess of them. Eric and Gloria slept on the kitchen floor. Every morning, all three took turns perfecting their look in the bathroom: one shaving his head, the second gelling his Mohawk, the third curling her blond hairâbefore they went off to spend the day in central Paris, hanging around the Fontaine des Innocents and the Forum des Halles, opposite the Père Tranquille restaurant. They spent the time chatting, telling each other stories or real-life adventures, and panhandling. In those days, Paris wasn't full of beggars, so people quite readily gave cash to these runaway teenagers, with their wayward looks and strange outfits.
One of them would describe how he'd been beaten up the day before, another was angry because someone in the group had given a Nazi salute in front of some old ladies, the discussion would degenerate. One guy would turn up with a newly traded Walkman and want everyone to listen to Crass. Another would arrive and try to grab his head-set, and another lively discussion followed. Their days were punctuated by getting stopped and searched, the cops were the only “normal” adults they really met, briefly, now and then. The rest of the time, there was no one around to bawl them out over little things, they were inside their punk bubble, very pleased with themselves. On the margins of society.
Then the skinhead's mother got back from her holiday.
Gloria and Eric had just met a punk from Marseille who was following Bérurier Noir around from concert to concert. They jumped a train as far as Troyes with him.
When they got there, the station had been invaded by a whole crowd of punks: all it needed was some black flags. Blue hair, red Mohawks, bottles of Valstar, bovver boots, coming from all directions, everyone was at home there. A lot of youth with big grins, still in possession of all their teeth, beginner street kids, delighted to be there, wrapped up in their old sleeping bags. They greeted one another more or less cordially, going with the flow. Eric and Gloria were immediately adopted by some punks from south-west France who had glue to share around, unbelievable accents, and many tales to tell.
The concert was like Brazilian carnival for French kids: lots of fun and partying, but with an undercurrent of rage, of grating madness.
After that, Eric and Gloria followed their new gang to Besançon, a town reputed for its well-organized soup kitchen. The local cops tried to persuade them to move on somewhere else. The police spent their time arresting youths at random, taking first one then another into custody. They all learned the drill, how to spell their names according to police regulations, how to sleep on the floor, leave their shoelaces and belts at the desk, regularly have their money confiscated, receive punches in the police station in front of the others, get handcuffed to radiators. It gave them stories to tell later. It became routine, among these young people, made them feel they were genuine down-and-outs, true punks.
One evening, all high on Coca-Cola and red wine, the gang decided to get back to Toulouse in stolen cars. There were fifteen of them. The first car they tried, a Fiat, wouldn't start. They all tried pushing it, trying to get the engine to kick in by rolling it downhill. Upon which it crashed into another car . . . belonging to the police. The cops were aggressive at first, not realizing it hadn't been on purpose. After that, they kept asking, “But what would fifteen of you be doing in a Fiat?” Good questionâwhy had they gone along in such a big group to steal a car?
Eric was enjoying their freedom more than Gloria. He had to get his own revenge for discipline and ambition. To get drunk on beer, singing silly songs, was exactly what he wanted, it made him feel much better. As a couple they were popular, always welcome. It was fun being the two of them.
Another time, Gloria and Eric, having spent several hours sniffing glue, had decided to rob a tobacconist's shop, after a Parabellum concert in Grenoble. Unwisely, Eric thought it would be a good idea to start by jumping on the roof. Gloria thought that sounded like a great plan and followed him up. They bounced up and down like mad creatures, sincerely hoping the roof would give way, so that they could help themselves to what was inside. Since the owner hadn't foreseen that anyone might try to rob the shop via the roof, no alarms went off. Not that they needed to. The pair of them were making a racket fit to wake the whole town. The sight had so flabbergasted the shopkeeper, who turned up quickly, that they had time to get away.
Another time though, Eric's obsession with roofs paid off. They managed to get into a little supermarket several nights in a row, pinching alcohol and savory biscuits, avoiding the night watchmen, crouching down between the shelves, keeping still, thrilled to bits. Very exciting. Then some of their mates caught on and overdid things. The roof was soon security-proofed.
All this time, other people their age were learning about real life in school or university,
or already in jobs. People of their generation were learning to be competitive, disciplined, learning not to set their sights too high, not to ask questions, and that money is what matters most in this world. Eric and Gloria were learning nothing at all, they were having a good time and taking their revenge for all the past pain . . . In different ways, both of them would eventually realize what a very poor preparation punk rock had been for later life. Too much fun, too much utopianism. Getting back into reality wouldn't be a pleasant experience.
But for now, they didn't leave each other's side for a second. They fucked when they felt like, they lost all inhibitions, they panhandled together, they went to charity shops together when it got cold, looking for warm sweaters, they went together to the public baths . . . Besançon, Montpellier, Toulouse, Paris. Then it was autumn and really cold outside, so they bedded down together in the same sleeping bag. It was a time of student demonstrations, about which they couldn't care less, but throwing stones at the police then running away, breaking shop windows, and fighting skinheads was still just as exciting. They stayed in Paris for a few weeks.
At Nation metro station, they spent hours doing nothing but lounging around and chatting about passersby. There were regular scuffles. Eric liked picking fights with soldiers. He'd found some mates who shared his taste. Gloria loved hiding behind him when he started to mix it with them, he would give her the sign and she'd come forward to give them a head butt. They were never expecting that a girl would be the first to strike a blow. Let alone that she'd hit so hard. They'd run away after that, often pursued by the companions of the guy on the ground. They'd be laughing about it for days afterward. Being stupid had become an article of faith. They were beaten up themselves too. They patched each other up as best they could, with handkerchiefs and spit, or else they would go into a pharmacy and ask for help. Sometimes they'd be given top-notch dressings for their injuries, other times they'd be chased out with threats to call the police. Occasionally they managed to grab a prescription for amphetamines, and then they would walk around in a group for nights on end, high as kites, talking nonstop.
They had all declared losses, using false names and dates of birth so as to avoid their parents being alerted, since they were minors.
In October they were in Ãvry, a town outside Paris, a big gang of them. Sleeping in the staircases of a tower block, since nobody used the stairs, especially on the thirteenth floor where they were squatting. That morning, someone had brought up a whole tray of croissants “found” in front of a canteen.
Since it was cold, they spent the day hanging around in the entrance to a shopping mall, where they were all copped by the police, because some madwoman had accused them of nicking her purse while she was window-shopping. They were bundled into the same cell, girls and boys together, for once. Gloria clung to Eric, she had the beginnings of a cold with a high temperature, and she dozed off while the others quarreled or joked. One tall guy, prematurely aged with drugs, had hidden a dirty syringe in his pillow, which he had been allowed to keep. He was being scolded by the others, who told him that was filthy and dangerous. Then in the middle of the quarrel they had fallen about laughing. “Are you nuts or what, did you think you were going to able to find some H in the cop shop?” and they all found it hilarious. Gloria had dozed off again. One of the cops came for Eric. It didn't worry her, that was the usual tactic, pick the kids off one by one, take their photo, threaten them, etc. She was used to it, so she didn't protest. At about five in the morning, they were all told to scramâin fact, the woman had been making it up, and the cops had no intention of making out a lot of paperwork for all these time-wasting
kids. She had asked where Eric was, and the duty sergeant told her to get lost. She decided to wait at the mall all that day. Since she was feeling ill, she dosed herself on cough syrup with codeine, so she was feeling a bit high, and still didn't worry until the evening. He hadn't reappeared. That was more weird. The first three days, two friends with the self-chosen nicknames of Sid and Waty had kept her company, trying to find any information from the police station, but they just kept being sent away. Had he been charged with some offense? They went to the law courts, all five of them, but there was no trace of him there either. Or anywhere else. Gloria made light of itâ“It'll be okay, no worries”âuntil the friends shook her awake. “Stop taking that syrup, Gloria, wake up. You can see he's not here anymore. They can't keep someone for five days, even if Pasqua's minister of the interior. They must have taken him back home. He's still a minor, isn't he? You should go back to Nancy, see if he's there.” She benefited from the others' general benevolence and kindness because of their status as the mascot couple.
The gang went to Paris for a festival where the Wampas, Los Carayos, and two or three other groups were playing. She found herself all on her own. It was a long time since that had been the case, and it changed everything. Sleeping in a group of twelve in corridors, drinking beer, and exchanging stories was fine. But loitering in the cold all day, she simply became a vulnerable girl, the target of really annoying men, who hung around her and had to be yelled at to make them go away, because they all wanted to talk to her, buy her a meal, help herâand then fuck her over, one way or another.
In the end, she gave up thinking Eric would reappear. She returned from Ãvry to Paris. Once there, she went around asking everyone if they'd seen Eric. She tried to call his home, she tried to call friends in Nancy, she begged in the street all day to get enough money to telephone. Nothing, nobody had seen him, nobody knew anything. She was afraid they'd killed him. Did they do that sometimes? At the police station? Kill a kid, sodomize the corpse, and throw it in the river? She was afraid. For the first time in her life, she was fed up with being a layabout, hanging around with young deadbeats like herself. She'd had enough of their stories about being beaten up, always the same old stuff all the time. And she realized she didn't have a plan B, was fed up with being cold and dirty.
One day instead of begging, she'd sat down in the metro station and started to cry. An old lady had come to sit by her and console her. Gloria had smiled nicely at her through her tears. The old woman reminded her of something, a whole world it seemed she'd left a few months before, a world she had thought she would never return to. The sweet atmosphere of childhood.