Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

‘Thank you, Lenny. I’ll think about it.’

Spanish music, brassy and tasselled, crackles from the El Quijote’s fuzzy speakers. The vocals are another reminder of Luisa. A vast mirror doubles the room’s apparent size. Jasper sits with his back to it. Waiters glide over the chessboard floor carrying trays of food. Nothing Elf sees on the trays or other diners’ tables is familiar. Their party of six is drinking a cocktail – also new to Elf – called an Old Fashioned. ‘I wasn’t looking for trouble,’ Max Mulholland is saying. ‘I was looking for talent. My logic was, if half a million kids are flocking to Chicago for a week of music and protest, there’ll be a hundred buskers on the fringes, and of that hundred, five might be shit hot. A buddy staying at the Conrad Hilton for the Convention offered me his sofa to bunk on. Now, I was expecting a San Francisco-style flowers-in-gun-barrels affair. How wrong I was. Not a flower in sight. Last year’s ten years ago. We’ve had Martin Luther King’s murder. Riots all summer. Vietnam’s going to shit. In the run-up to Chicago, the Yippies were dangling stories about spiking the water supply with LSD. Garbage, of course, but the press eat that shit, shit it out, and people believe it.’

‘What’s a Yippie when it’s at home?’ asked Griff.

‘Youth International Party,’ says Levon. ‘An umbrella group for anarchists, idealists, anti-war, pro-drugs groups. It’s quite west-coast, merry-prankster-ish in spirit – right, Max?’

‘Right, but Chicago is more Mayor Richard Daley in spirit,’ says Max. ‘Rich as Croesus, corrupt as Nero. He issued a shoot-to-kill policy for arsonists during the summer riots. Cops shot. Cops killed.’ Max’s levity ebbs away. ‘Long story short, the Yippies’ liberal base finked out. Only the MC5 and Phil Ochs turned up for the concert in Lincoln Park. Instead of a sea of half a million, there was a pond of a few thousand. One in six of whom was a Fed in a floral shirt. My hopes of finding the next Bob Dylan evaporated and I headed back to the Hilton. On Michigan Avenue, I overtook a big anti-war demo. It was getting dark. At the hotel, the TV crew lights were up bright on a phalanx of National Guards on one side, and long-haired kids waving Vietcong flags on the other. In Chicago! Two weeks later, describing it to you now, the danger’s obvious: here’s a match, here’s the kerosene. At the time, I just figured, Hey, I’m a guest at the hotel, it’ll be fine, I’ll just walk through the cops and go inside .’ Max sips his Old Fashioned. ‘It happened like a dam bursting. A roar boomed up and suddenly – urban warfare. Bedlam. Bricks. Screaming. The crowd surged. The cops surged back, armed with nightsticks. They’ll crack bones like hard candy if wielded right. And wielded right they were. The Tribune called it “a police riot”, but most riots are better behaved than Chicago. Anyone was fair game. Straights in suits. Women. Cameramen. Kids. A&R men. Anyone not in uniform. The cops went for faces, groins, kneecaps. They drove vehicles fitted with “slammers” straight into the crowd. They tore their numbers off so they couldn’t be identified. This one cop locked eyes with me. He was the predator, I was the prey. I don’t know why he chose me, but he waded straight at me. His intent was to smash my skull. I knew I should’ve run. But it was … like one of those dreams where you’re just not in charge. I just stood there, thinking, This is how I die, now, today, on Michigan Avenue with my brains spilling out … ’ Max lights a cigarette and gazes at the back of his hand. ‘A boot in the back of my knee saved me. I went down with my face pressed on the road. Someone fell on top of me. A tear-gas grenade bounced, inches away. A big red can with a steel nipple on top. I crawled off through a screaming, stomping, shouting churn of bodies. I found a kid, lit by a TV light. Busted nose, half a lip torn off, teeth gone, blood from a gash where his eye should’ve been. I still see that kid’s face. Like a Kodak print.’ Max draws a label in the air. ‘ Peace Activist, 1968. ’

‘I thought Grosvenor Square was bad,’ says Dean.

‘Were you able to get him out?’ asks Elf.

‘I took a blast of tear-gas to my face. It’s like your eyeballs are melting. I staggered away, so … no, Elf, to my abiding shame I never learned what happened to that kid. I found the back of the hotel where a porter stood by the kitchen entrance. Six foot six, armed with a rolling pin, mean – as – cuss . I said, “Let me in.” He said, “One dollar.” I said, “People are getting slaughtered.” He said, “Two dollars.” I paid. And saved my skin.’

‘That’s the free-market for you,’ says Griff.

‘I’ve never associated America with violence,’ says Elf.

‘Violence is on every page of our history.’ Max mops up his gazpacho soup with a crust. ‘Brave settlers massacring Indians. Some days we’d cheat them with worthless treaties, but mostly it was massacres. Slavery. “ Work for me for nothing till the day you die, or I’ll kill you now. ” The Civil War. We industrialised violence. We mass-produced it, years before Ford. Years before the trenches of Flanders. Gettysburg! Fifty thousand deaths in a single day. The Klan. Lynchings. The Frontier. Hiroshima. The Teamsters. War! We need war like the French need cheese. If there’s no war, we’ll concoct one. Korea. Vietnam. America’s that junkie outside the hotel, only heroin’s not the drug we’re hooked on. No Sir.’

‘All empires rest on violence,’ says Jasper. ‘The colonised resist looting and pillage, so the colonisers have to suppress the natives. Or replace them. Or kill them. The USSR’s at it now. The French, in North Africa. The Dutch in the Dutch East Indies, until recently. The Japanese in the last war. The Chinese in Tibet. The Third Reich all over Europe. The British, everywhere. The USA’s hardly unique.’

This is the most Jasper’s said since they left London.

Elf’s worried about him. There’s something wrong …

Max dabs his lips with the linen napkin. ‘Here in the land of the free, you’ll meet some of the gentlest, smartest, wisest people who ever lived. But when violence comes, it’s merciless. Without warning. Out of the bluest sky. Quick as that.’ Max mimes a gun going off. ‘Enjoy the land of the free. But be careful.’

Dean and Griff decide to join Elf at the rooftop gathering of Lenny’s friend. Jasper bows out. Utopia Avenue’s first show is tomorrow night, preceded by a day of media. Waiting for the elevator, a bearded man in an angel robe and wings approaches Griff: ‘I’ll flagellate myself later if I don’t ask you, where did you get those cheekbones?’

Griff reddens. ‘My cheekbones?’

‘Your cheekbones are deee- vine.’

‘Uh … thanks. They came with the rest of me.’

‘Sweet God above. Your accent! A dor able. I’m Archangel Gabriel and you are?’

Elf helps out. ‘His friends call him Griff.’

‘I’ll pray we’ll be friends, Griff. Look, your elevator’s here.’

‘Going our way, Gabriel?’ asks Dean. ‘Griff’ll be happy to make space for yer in the back.’

‘I’ll fly up the shaft later, thank you.’

Inside the elevator, Dean presses R for ROOF. Jasper presses 7. The angel flutters her fingertips. ‘Don’t be a stranger.’

The elevator begins its grinding ascent. Dean peers at the drummer’s cheekbones. ‘ Deee- vine.’

‘Fook off,’ says Griff, amiably.

Elf asks Jasper, ‘Are you still feeling sick?’

Jasper doesn’t realise he’s being spoken to.

Dean clicks his fingers in front of Jasper’s face.