Jón Gnarr - The Pirate

“How are you, Jón?”

I didn’t know how to answer. I’d never had anyone ask me how I was. I really had no idea how I felt. I was stressed, always stressed. I was anxious, I longed to be anybody but myself. I wished I was calmer and didn’t have red hair. The people inside Outreach tried hard to motivate me and did what they could to increase my confidence. They often talked, for example, about the future, but all the talk about the future stressed me out even more. I would rather not think about the future.

“Can’t we just talk about anarchism? Do you know the difference between Proudhonism and Bakuninism?”

They didn’t know.

“What do you want to be, Jón?”

An unpleasant, anxiety-inducing topic. What did I want to be? I wanted to have dark hair. I wanted to be calmer. I also wanted to be a singer. But all the same, I knew that what I wanted would probably never come to pass. I was just unfortunate, neurotic, redheaded, and ridiculous. A half-wit in glasses. When I grew up, I’d certainly end up in the loony bin like Cousin Kiddi. Perhaps there are lots of folk like me who come into existence and get born by mistake, the way some things that are manufactured are defective and never work. Useless from the start. All you can do with such things is throw them away. Maybe I was like that, just a copy of a person. I never spoke about this with anyone, not even the people in Outreach. In a certain way, maybe I didn’t realize it. I thought it was self-evident, and I was afraid that if I said it out loud, they would agree. The main reason, however, was shame. I felt ashamed. Ashamed to be myself, the way I was, so I didn’t talk about it. I really didn’t understand why they were so concerned to get involved with me. Sometimes when they sat and chatted with me, I wondered why they were wasting their words on me. Did they feel sorry for me? Yes, they probably felt sorry for me, but it was also their job. One time when we were sitting and having a chat, and I was talking about anarchism and punk while they tried to get me to talk about anything else, the future came up in conversation, as so often before.

“What do you want to be when you’re older, Jón?”

That single question awakened feelings of suffocation in me; my chest tightened, and I felt pain in my forehead.

“I don’t know, just anything.”

“Don’t you have a sweetheart, Jón?”

Me? I was the ugliest and most awkward boy in Reyjavík! What girl would want to be my sweetheart?

“Noo-ee, I think the girls are really nothing special,” I said, as an explanation.

“How strange that you don’t have a girlfriend, such a cute kid like you!”

The words reverberated around my head. A cute kid like me? I looked at the woman questioningly and considered her words. She smiled and seemed to mean it. It looked like she really believed it, and her words weren’t just an expression of sympathy. Incredible! She was cool, though she wasn’t, of course, punk — but she wasn’t a hippie, either, more like plain, sweet, and she had a boyfriend. She was just some twenty-odd-year-old chick, everything figured out, and she found me cute! “Such a cute kid like you, Jón.” That a person like her could say something like that about me was frankly unbelievable and caused a revolution in my wretched soul. I found her much more interesting than the people who had so often in the past told me I was stupid and ugly. Her words far outweighed theirs. I had never reckoned on anyone ever saying I was cute. I was filled with unprecedented confidence. The staff at Outreach, had caught wind of the fact that I was in a band. Sometimes concerts were held in the courtyard outside Outreach and they would from time to time ask me if Nefrennsli didn’t want to play. I deftly handled their questions and made endless excuses. Sometimes we weren’t well enough prepared, or else I had a cold or the flu and couldn’t sing, and then I argued that there weren’t enough punks to play in Outreach’s yard, and it wasn’t right for a punk band like Nefrennsli.

“See, we’re the real thing, a true punk band.”

I definitely wasn’t going to play a concert with a bunch of ridiculous bands. Then Outreach decided to hold a real punk festival. By this time, all my excuses were exhausted. There was going to be a punk festival, and Nefrennsli simply had to go onstage. The concert would be for punks only. There weren’t going to be any idiots who would laugh at me and mock me. Alli and Hannes jumped high for joy when I told them what was in the cards. The concert was organized, and the names of the bands that were playing were written on signs that were hung on the lampposts outside Outreach and nearby. REYKJAVÍK’S BEST PUNK BANDS. PUNK FESTIVAL IN OUTREACH COURTYARD ON TRYGGVAGATA, 1-4PM NEXT SUNDAY! Among the band names was Nefrennsli. The big moment was coming. The anticipation and excitement carried me away. I was going to take the step I’d always wanted to but never dared.

When the day of the festival arrived, I’d not slept a wink for two days. I wanted to cancel. Should I pretend to be sick? No, I couldn’t do it, it was arranged, and there was nothing for it now but to bite the bullet and jump off the cliff. I put on my finest punk clothes, which consisted of the most torn jeans I had and a Sid Vicious shirt, and put safety pins through my ear. There was no way I was going to wear my glasses; I decided to sing without them. That meant, however, that I wouldn’t be able to see Alli, so I would have to rely on myself totally for the songs. I was very myopic: minus six in one eye and minus seven in the other. And I didn’t only have severe myopia, but also a significant astigmatism. Glasses-less, I could see about one meter in front of me; everything else was a haze. Maybe it would be better this way, since I wouldn’t be able to see the audience and therefore wouldn’t get nervous if there were some kids who were hiding there, looking at me funny, or who weren’t really into Nefrennsli. Before entering the courtyard, I took off my glasses and hid them behind a trash can and then went into the haze. Alli and Hannes were extremely cheerful and full of expectation and almost jumping out of their skins because they wanted to get onstage. I, however, was absolutely paralyzed with fear and didn’t speak a word to anyone. I just followed them at a distance, hoping I would not end up a lone wanderer, lost and wild, completely dry in the mouth and absolutely confused. The bands got onstage one after another and played their songs. Between the bands, an announcer came up onstage to introduce the band that was next up and present them to the audience. Before I knew it, we were up.

“Next onstage are three young boys from Fossvogur who call themselves Nefrennsli.”

Clap. Clap. I succeeded in clambering up onstage with the boys, bone-dry in the mouth and with a thundering heartbeat. My hands shook from the stress. I could barely make anything out.

“Okay?” I heard Alli ask from somewhere in the haze.

“Umhmmm,” I muttered.

I wanted to die, to disappear into the stage or somehow jet up into the air. Without warning, Hannes struck his drumsticks together and launched into the first song. Someone had handed me a microphone and I held it firmly, both my hands clamped fast to its sides. I was paralyzed. The song kept going, but I stood rigid like a wooden figurine, wearing an expression that suggested I’d just forgotten something. I had no idea when to come into the song. Alli moved closer to me and shouted:

“Why don’t you have your glasses?”

“I forgot them,” I called back.

They continued to play. Alli moved right up next to me, energized but with a questioning expression, and gave me a signal to start singing. I brought the microphone up to my lips and put my other hand in my pocket. As soon as I started singing, it dawned on me that I’d started singing the wrong part of the song. I was so shocked to hear my own voice on the speaker that I immediately fell silent again, turned around and gaped somewhere into the emptiness, acting like I was worried about some technical issues. The song carried on and I mumbled incoherently, half a sentence here and another bit there, unable to remember the lyrics and sure my face was blushing beetroot. With about this much success, we scraped through two songs; the boys played on, inspired, and I walked awkwardly back and forth, muttering things in odd places into the microphone. Between words, I looked confusedly out into blue yonder. I tried to pretend I was a bit distracted due to some technical problems, but it was clear nothing was wrong. I just couldn’t deal. It was a complete flop. Then it was time for our third and final song, “Bad World,” which was also our best-known song, the one that had the greatest chance of becoming popular. I knew I was both physically and mentally unable to perform the song. I just wanted it to end. How the hell was I going to get myself out of this dilemma?