DOOM 94 Read online

  It would be fine if I could share the experience with someone. I ran into Gatis as he was wandering around. He seemed like a harbinger of our futures — he was always on the outskirts, always quiet, a little mean and annoyed with the rest of the world. He believed he had to walk a different path. I decided to tell him what happened.

  What he didn’t say was:

  — My goodness! Don’t do that! It’s all downhill after gypsies and drugs!

  What he did say was:

  — Great!

  He nodded approvingly and added quietly:

  — It would be cool if you shared.

  That’s exactly what I wanted to do — share. I was so moved that I forgot to invite him to come with me.

  And so I went to the meeting place by myself. I was making my way around the Other School when I ran into Milēdija. I played it cool, and offered to walk with her for a bit. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Then she asked me:

  — What are you doing out here?

  I tried to think of something unusual to tell her, but all I could think of was the truth:

  — I’m going to buy weed from a gypsy.

  She responded with the sweetest word in the world:

  — Crazy.

  She said it as gently and archly, as always. I added that I might get my ass kicked, and she smiled. Milēdija looked at the headstone carving workshop and laughed lightly:

  — The whole class is saying we’re together.

  I laughed too, what would our wonderful class come up with next.

  Like they were high or something.

  I walked with her until the kindergarten building and then headed back to the Other School. Even I had to think — what was I doing there?

  Soon the gypsy showed up; he held out his hand to shake and asked:

  — One?

  It was like in a movie. He motioned to me, and we walked until we had reached the centre of the gypsy quarter. It was a rough neighbourhood — it was isolated, a city built from nails and painted boards, and felt like a foreign country to any passer-by because all around you just heard their strange language. Several men approached us, of different heights and sizes. The gypsy said:

  — Don’t be scared. You’re totally white, but don’t worry, I’m here.

  Suddenly he looked straight at me.

  — You’re a normal kid. Your hair’s normal.

  That tore open the wound. As mentioned previously, I’d had to cut my hair after the first time I got drunk, and now I just looked normal. The gypsy continued:

  — We’re at war with that crazy long-haired group.

  He pointed out toward the outskirts of Jelgava:

  — Their base is at Uzvara Park. A bunch of our guys went to fight them.

  Holy Kurt! He was talking about the underground club, about the inaugural and, for now, only huge party at the Villa Medem manor, the one I didn’t get to go to. I’d heard there had been a big fight with the gypsies.

  — The place was packed with them! We were by the door, on the front steps. At first we were winning. But then the doors opened and, like, a hundred of them poured out! Every one of them with long, shaggy hair.

  The gypsy threw up his hands in a wild gesture, his brown eyes wide. Well, far as I know, there couldn’t have been a hundred.

  — The first one had an iron bar!

  It had been a broom handle — that’s what the victors had told me.

  — Good thing we were able to get out of there. But we’ll be back. Do you know when their next thing is?

  I didn’t know. We had stopped next to a small wooden shack.

  — Give me four lats.

  He said this both hushed and business-like. I gave him the money and he went into the shack, just like that, without knocking. I waited outside for a long time, and started to think about how I didn’t want to be here, in this gypsy quarter, when it got dark. I understood, I’d fallen for a classic trick, I’d learned a lesson — and for four lats was a fair price to pay for it.

  Back then, four lats was a lot.

  But then he came back out of the house. They didn’t have any today; I should come back tomorrow.

  I headed home, free and happy, without my money and without the weed.

  The next day I returned begrudgingly to the wooden shack. The gypsy’s brother, I think, came out holding a big monkey wrench. No, Dolārs wasn’t here. Relieved, I again headed back home. I didn’t see the gypsy by the Other School. Just like in a book — I’d been conned in a drug deal, so to speak.

  But not for long. One day Ķīselis came right up to me and whispered:

  — From Dolārs.

  And he stuck out his hand; he had something balled up in his fist. I reached out my hand. What was he going to give me? The coveted plasticine? But no, it was just my four lats.

  — He can’t get any right now, so he gave your money back. Said he was an honest gypsy.

  It was unbelievable. Everything, all of it in this situation had turned out wrong.

  But no matter, we had our poor-man’s ways of getting high, too, and we didn’t need money or gypsies to do it. The group from the Other School did it by the brick wall, over there by the bushes.

  Voldiņš volunteered and crouched down next to the wall, taking seventeen deep breaths (everyone counted out loud). On the last one he held his breath, stood up with his back against the wall, and the leader of this socalled ceremony and his assistant applied pressure right below Voldiņš’ solar plexus. And Voldiņš, the volunteer, passed out. His head lolled onto his chest and his body slid down the wall and slumped over, his face slowly coming to rest on the asphalt. Immediately, they lightly slapped him awake and he relayed what he had seen:

  — Devils. Some kind of devils, with horns and pitchforks. The devils are singing. Women with bloodied nipples are licking the floor. Monsters fly around, vomiting. Okay, screw you guys, I’m going home.

  I wondered whether Voldiņš’ imagination was really that wild. I reminded myself that nothing what he said was original, it was all from fairy tales, fairy tales, fairy tales. Now I know that Voldiņš hadn’t been making things up; he’d seen the future. Everything he said he saw soon came true.

  8

  Jelgava echoed more and more resolutely with grunge, alt-rock and an indescribable genre of music that was likely the truest form of underground. I wasn’t doing as well in school anymore. Pūpols kept hanging around and amassing shadier and shadier friends. Eva was treading on thin ice at her new job.

  I had my guitar, and planned on starting a band. There was no clear concept yet, though, and I had no idea how to play that block of wood. Just the one Nirvana song, ‘Sappy’.

  Though it turned out that there were already some bands in Jelgava. More and more people talked about having practice and cutting their fingers on their guitar strings. There were even concerts.

  Tonight, almost all of Jelgava’s underground scene poured into the Jelgava Art School.

  Imbecile Hog — our classmate Ugo’s band, the punkest of the punks.

  With Cut — the best band to come out of the Other School. Mareks on drums, Ēriks on vocals, Gints... They were famous, Jelgava-grunge.

  Shiny Hairless — the city’s underground legend. Later they’d become the pop-like Herlis and Citruss, but for now they were purists.

  Frontlines — Šolis’ band, amazingly depressing. Thanks to them I later gravitated to Joy Division.

  I was in the bathroom, smoking by the window. The smell from the cigarette didn’t overpower the smell of the paint so many students had washed out of their brushes (the style back then was to rinse them out in the toilet, not the sinks). The sounds of the first band warming up drifted through the door, and I was filled with a sense of greatness: history was being made here. Just like in their time Nirvana or the Pixies had played at their schools.

  Someone called to me from outside the window. I looked out and saw a few guys I’d never seen before. One of them asked me:

  —
Are you already in?

  I nodded and took a drag of my cigarette.

  — Do you know how we can get it?

  The main doors were easy to find and access; but there was a doorman there asking one lat per person for admission. I felt a flood of generosity:

  — Go around the corner, I’ll meet you by the other window, I said and pointed, taking another drag.

  I knew about the secret hallway and stairs that led down to that window.

  They were waiting when I got there. I opened the window, which was close to the ground. All four of the guys pulled themsleves up with some difficulty, especially the one who was holding an open bottle in one hand. He hurriedly offered to me. I tipped it back, and immediately spit out the mouthful — one of the guys had frantically unzipped his pants and was pissing right there on the wall. Though pissing was an understatement: he was practically assaulting the wall like he’d been holding his bladder for a year; he reeled, pissing over the entire wall and the stateliness of the concert. The rest of them howled with laughter, and one of them asked:

  — How much you got in there?

  Now that the mood was shot, it occurred to me that he may have been too embarrassed to go outside in front of all the passers-by. He was just a bit shy, this kid who had defiled the art school’s walls. Self-consciousness had been the reason behind this orgy. I feel like a lot of the stupid things we did back then were born of our being overly sensitive and weak.

  Once the shy stranger had zipped his pants back up, we all headed upstairs. Imbecile Hog had already finished their set. It was 90s Jelgava punk rock — sharp and quick.

  I found Eva and her friends in one corner of the room. They were passing around a l.5-litre bottle of Fantastika lemonade. Baiba passed it to me and said:

  — It’s spiked!

  Believe it or not, I was still naïve enough back then that I actually peered into the mouth of the bottle, wondering just how a spike would’ve gotten in there.

  Kārlis and his friends came in. They had a Mangaļi mineral-water bottle filled with a brown liquid. Two seemingly innocent things — mineral water and cola. They came up to us and said that Gatis couldn’t get it because of the same one-lat problem. I went outside to find him.

  I could show him to the back window, but I didn’t want to take my refined friend through piss-stained halls.

  He was standing outside, sullen and irritated.

  — Well, can you get me in?

  I thought a moment. No other ideas came to me. Gatis said:

  — Let’s try copying the stamp.

  He had a pint bottle in his pocket. The back of my hand that had the admissions stamp was soaked with some vodka. Then Gatis pressed the back of his hand to mine. A strangely intimate moment. Then we both inspected his hand: there was no stamp, just a ghost of a rosy blotch. I looked at my hand: my stamp was completely gone.

  Gatis sighed, sniffed and headed straight for the main doors. I followed.

  He just walked past the guard at the door. The guard looked after Gatis and said nothing. With his long hair and otherworldly gait, he must’ve looked like he belonged there. The guard eyed me a bit longer, but I instinctively gestured toward Gatis — I’m with him — and slipped inside.

  The school auditorium was thumping with sound. With Cut had launched right into their hit single, without keeping the audience in

  suspense, without waiting for the audience to chant for them:

  I don’t see you, don’t see me,

  Hell is burning all around us.

  Then there was a run of indistinguishable words, and then the chorus:

  Fire — Fire!

  Fire — Fire!

  Fire — Fire!

  Fire — Fire!

  A few fans jumped around in front of the stage. The majority of the audience sat on the floor, their backs against the walls. My group was sitting right by the door so they could more easily take care of the need to smoke or puke, and passed around their bottle of brown drink.

  With Cut was thrashing out their next song:

  They had life!

  They had weed!

  Well Jesus shit, of course they had life with weed. But where was I supposed to get my life? I watched Gints closely as he screamed into the microphone, wondering if he knew he was envied, a rock star preaching the painful truth?

  We live,

  and don’t know why

  we kill each other.

  Kill our brains and minds,

  we don’t know how to exist together.

  I went toward the stage and joined the group of fans. It wasn’t hard to get to the front row. I jumped around with my newly-acquired dance moves and inconspicuously watched the others. This wasn’t regular jumping around, but a kind developed in a secret Garnier-type laboratory to cater to those who until now had spent their entire lives embarrassed about their dancing abilities. I jumped around and felt closer to the entirety of alternative culture, to all the people around me, especially to those who hadn’t made it out to the art school tonight. I thought warm thoughts about them and jumped higher than everyone around me. But then the song ended and I got self-conscious.

  I went to re-join the girls. Eva put her hand on my shoulder and handed me the bottle of spiked lemonade. To me, a neurotic teenage boy, this gentle gesture was annoying. Some meaningful lyrics sounded from the stage:

  There’s no future. No Future.

  I want to live, but I can’t.

  Eva was from Nākotne — a city whose name translates to ‘the future’. Nākotne was just outside Jelgava. But With Cut had clearly said it: there is no future. So I decided not to hang out with Eva anymore, and instead devote myself fully to rock and roll.

  With this last song the Jelgava grungers finished their set. There was no encore; it wasn’t custom back then. If the audience didn’t shout “Go home, you cows!” during your set, then the show was considered a success. With Cut’s guitarist Gatis had received a special ovation, and was headed toward us now with a grin on his face. He said:

  — This girl told me that I played the loudest.

  Our Gatis, however, was sceptical. He simply replied:

  — With Cut plays nothing but shit.

  And he left to go talk to them. He always knew everyone. I stayed behind, thinking about shit. How did he figure? They were a real band, real underground, true Jelgava grunge. How could it not be good?

  Eva and Baiba suggested we climb up to the roof. I called my friends over to join us. The metal ladder streaked our hands with rust; the sky was already dark. The two groups, who otherwise didn’t know each other, immediately lit cigarettes. I did too; I was the one common denominator here. It was a beautiful but cold night. And although it wasn’t at all comfortable sitting up there, no one made to leave.

  Weren’t they worried that the next group had already started its set? Was I the only one who cared about the history of rock and roll in the city of Jelgava and the surrounding region? I wasn’t going to say anything, though, wasn’t going to remind them of the band. I wasn’t going to tell anyone to come see shit bands. I wasn’t jealous of them any more.

  I didn’t want to play in just any band, or whatever band anymore.

  I wanted to at least play in Nirvana.

  9

  We went up on roofs whenever we had the chance. We liked it up there. Often we’d climb back up onto that same unfinished art school roof. A non-world from where we could clearly see the world. From above. No one could see when we’d smoke up there. Sometimes we’d work through a “Riddle” or two.

  The nearby nine-storey apartment building had an even higher roof. The building was in the neighbourhood called Žukova, or simply Žucene. Here you had to look out when you climbed up out of the roof door.

  But it was worth it. You could see everything from here — the unfinished chapel, the unfinished school — and feel like you’d made it in life. The view on one side opened up to Lielā Street, which snaked through the centre of town. Along it were
three identical buildings, a single word displayed on the windowless wall of each, respectively: ‘Work’, ‘Peace’, and ‘Freedom’.

  Down below you could see a cafe that was famous for shootings and gang arrests. Back then people said that stuff about any place, but I’d seen it with my own eyes at this cafe: the cafe was surrounded, then a van pulled up with a bunch of strangely-dressed cops inside, each of them with an Uzi, and soon they were walking someone out of the cafe, his hands bent far behind his back and his head hung low. Doing the airplane.

  Those were rough times. The Jelgava Central Prison was under the reign of the infamous Ivans Haritonovs. During his time there, he learned Latvian, learned how to use the computer, read and played sport. His friends would stop traffic along Garoza Street and pass all manner of goods over the prison fence to him, and there was nothing the police could do about it. The situation was even worse at the Pārlielupe Prison. That’s where Juris’ brother was locked up, who’d once asked me to borrow my stereo, but I’d said no. How could I have lent it to him? He found a stereo somewhere else and drank away the money he got for selling it, while I ended up with a dangerous enemy.

  On the other side of the apartment building Lielā Street turned into Dobele Highway, leading all the way to Nākotne — which I had sworn to steer clear of. Although Eva was right there next to us on that same roof. What was she, a beautiful young woman, doing hanging out with a bunch of teenagers on a roof? At the time I didn’t ask, not myself or her. At that time I thought the rooftop was the only place in the world where someone could want to be. The worst place in the world.

  Gatis, Sīnis and Kačaks were there, too. We had two litre-and-a-half bottles of beer with us. You could get them refilled at the bus station for fifty santims to the litre. The beer tasted good, especially when it was cold. But by the time we made it to Žucene from the station the beer would have warmed up, so we never knew just how good it could taste. We also had a pack of Hollywood cigarettes and a yo-yo, that popular toy from the mid-nineties.