“That’s what happened when The Night Devils became naughty!” he said.
I don’t know if it was true or something he just made up. I’ll ask Tiger about it if I meet him again some time.
He was kind, but he only talked about cars and guys he knew the whole time, and it became rather boring in the long run. He didn’t have any music, either. But he offered smokes, Cecil, and candy, Odds and Krokant, so he wasn’t stingy. The next evening, he was going to drive to Klockbacken in Sigtuna and listen to Chubby Checker, and he asked if I wanted to come along. But I didn’t want to see him again and I don’t like Chubby Checker either, so I said no.
Boris was his name. Before I met him, I saw Göran and Uffe. I had just picked up my pocket mirror and started to paint my lips when they drove by the gateway. Uffe looked at me and smiled but Göran acted like he didn’t see me.
Saturday, 27 June 1964
Life in the country is calm and peaceful. I wander in the woods and philosophize, or I lie on the grass and read old magazines. I also wallow in them before I go to sleep in the evenings.
I have my own room on the second floor and when the sun shines it can get so hot up there that you can barely stand it. But I don’t want to sleep downstairs, because it’s nicer to lie by myself.
In the evenings, mamma and I sit in the kitchen playing cards. We often sit up until 1:30 a.m. playing, because we think it’s fun. We play Japanese Whist and Black Maria sometimes. And meanwhile we eat mint caramels and Dr. Dryels’ candies.
Yesterday was my birthday. Now I’m 16 years old. How time flies! At this time a year ago I had still not started going out to meet boys and was completely inexperienced with regards to the opposite sex. Now I’m a year older and have probably become a little more experienced, but the question is, if I have become any wiser? That isn’t what mamma and papa think, anyway, I suspect.
I got hand cream and two pairs of nylon stockings from mamma (good to have in the fall because a pair a week at 3.95 kronor adds up to lots of money) and from papa I got 20 kronor. So now I am in cash again. Though I don’t need almost any money out here. I possibly buy an ice cream sometimes when mamma and I go grocery shopping, or a Krokant roll for 90 öre, but no cigarettes and no magazines. No coffee and no movies either, so most of my monthly allowance from mamma I can save
A guy called Cowboy rode in a Ford Falcon with Biran and Lärling, with whom I’m also a little acquainted. Lärling is one of those withdrawn types who always drives, never drinks and never has a girl. “Actually, it’s those quiet driving types you should go in for,” Kicki said once, “because they are proper boys!” But it’s the other kind that dominate. Just now, for example, it was Biran who asked if I would like to go with them, though it was Cowboy who wanted me. At least I think it was he, because he was the one I was with the first time I met them. And he was sitting by himself in the back, so I knew I was going to get him.
They say he has been at the psychiatric hospital because he went crazy from brooding on the overpopulation problem. I don’t know if it’s true. I think he looks a bit like Elvis, with his hair combed back and sideburns. Now he had black, pointed shoes, black slacks and a white, longsleeved sweater, in spite of it being so warm. Biran just had a thin T-shirt and was sitting with his elbow outside the window while he gulped down a Bocken’s Special beer. The first time I met them, when I was with Cowboy and we were at an apartment someplace, Biran had a shivering fit because of drinking. At first I didn’t know what it was, but Cowboy told me so. So he is possibly called Biran because he tipples.
When we had spun around town for a while, we went out to the country. I don’t really know where we were, but there was a barn that Biran thought Cowboy and I should go into. In the meantime, Biran and Lärling sat in the grove outside and waited for us. They opened the car doors and played records, so while Cowboy and I were inside the barn, we heard music the whole time. There was “Roll over Beethoven” by the Beatles and “Good Golly Miss Molly” and some others I don’t know the names of. Cowboy and I had climbed up a ladder to the loft and lay in the hay. I thought we could tell Biran that we had been doing it, even though we hadn’t, so that Biran could quit worrying about what Cowboy did or didn’t do, but after a while Biran opened the barn door downstairs and came in.
“Have you mated yet?” he called up to Cowboy.
“No, I…” Cowboy began. “She’s a virgin and...”
I got so irritated with him. Why did he have to report everything to that bastard?
“Screw her, damn it!” Biran said and stuck up his head above the ladder.
I don’t know if Cowboy noticed that I was angry, but he did tell Biran to get lost.
“Go,” he said. “Go now. Go!”
Then he started to fondle me and asked me if I were angry.
“Yes, I am,” I said, “but not for the reason you think.”
After a while I crept over to the ladder and Cowboy followed me. I didn’t feel like telling Biran a fib anymore, and when we came down Biran smiled slyly and acted like he thought we had done it, though I knew that he didn’t belive it.
“Have you cracked the hymen now?” he said to Cowboy.
“No, she didn’t want to,” Cowboy said and tried to look nonchalant.
Why couldn’t he have just faked it, instead? But he didn’t know that I would have played along.
When we sat in the car again, on our way back to town, he ignored me. Biran pressed in “Summertime Blues” and looked unmoved, but I knew he was happy about that Cowboy was cross with me. I thought it was weak of Cowboy to allow Biran to rule over him, and he noticed that. That’s why he was angry. But he could have stood up for his rights and neglected Biran. That’s what I would have done if I had been him.
When we got back to town they were going to tank up.
“Give us a ten,” Biran said and glared at me.
“Why?”
“For gas, damn it!”
I didn’t want to fork out any money for gas, but it felt like I had to. He got my last bill. Then when Cowboy got out to buy cigarettes I gave him two kronor to buy me a lemonade. That was the least he could do, I thought. And he brought a bottle back, but instead of giving it to me he popped the cap and began gulping down the lemonade himself. At first I thought he was just going to have a couple of sips as thanks for buying it for me, but he never stopped drinking, and finally I told him that he wasn’t allowed to take any more. Then he looked at Biran, who was grinning at him over his shoulder, and continued to swig.
“It’s my drink!” I shouted and tried to get the bottle from him.
“You little shrew!” he said and held the bottle out of my reach.
And then he drank it until it was empty.
When Lärling came back he and Biran changed places so that Biran was now behind the wheel. Nobody said anything. Biran drummed his fingers on the dashboard and Lärling looked out the window. Finally, Cowboy glanced at me and said:
“You haven’t left yet?”
Then I realized what they were driving at and grabbed my purse and hopped out.
“Damned idiots!” I shouted and slammed the car door at the same time as Biran made a tearing start so that the tires shrieked against the asphalt.
I was so angry that I almost started to cry. Why did they have to be so nasty? I regretted giving Biran money, because it was they and not me who wanted to drive out to that barn. And gasoline for ten kronor hadn’t been consumed, so I shouldn’t have given them anything!
On Linnégatan a police car had stopped, and two policemen were approaching a drunk guy who was lying on the sidewalk. One of the cops squatted down and took ahold of his shoulder. When I saw that I felt weird. It was fortunate that it wasn’t a girl lying there, because I couldn’t have borne to see that. If they found me like that, and a policeman came over and squatted by me, I would die. I don’t even dare to think about how it would feel.
Tuesday, 7 July 1964
On Saturday E-L went with som
e guys who had alcohol and drank so much that she got drunk. I got a letter from her today where she writes about it.
So what do I think of that? In the old days, when we began to go out, we decided that we would never start drinking. But now she has done it. Well, she hasn’t exactly started drinking, but she has tried it, anyway. And she thought it was fun. But it doesn’t make any difference to me. I’m not going to begin. I have known since I was little that I don’t want to. I may take some wine, with food sometimes, but I don’t want to drink until I get drunk. It isn’t certain that E-L was drunk either, though that’s what she writes. By being drunk she may just mean a little dizzy. After all, this was the first time she drank.
It’s so peaceful here in the country. Papa isn’t drinking and there aren’t any rows. In the evenings we go for long walks and watch the sunsets. You have to struggle with the mosquitos, but it’s worth it. Though I know it won’t last. As soon as we are home in town again, things will be as usual. If papa isn’t the one who can’t manage, it will be mamma. I’ll never forget the time when they had talked about how he must stop drinking and he quit and didn’t drink a drop for half a year. Then mamma thought that things had turned out so well that she went to Systembolaget and bought a bottle of aquavit so that they could celebrate. She was so dumb! She bought alcohol, and he drank it of course, and then there was no more talk of him stopping drinking. I don’t get how she could be so bloody dumb!
So I don’t believe that he will ever stop. I’m just happy about the days he is sober, and that’s the way he has been the entire time out here.
I have also been abstinent, because I haven’t smoked a single cigarette since I came here. It’s almost unbelievable. I haven’t even missed smoking, so apparently I’m not as addicted to nicotine as I believed.
I went with three guys from Gävle in a Plymouth. Their names were Palle, Lasse and Chrille. Palle and Lasse sat in front and Chrille and I in back. Palle was the cutest, but I also liked Chrille, because he was kind.
At first we cruised the usual route Svartbäcksgatan – Stora Torget – Drottninggatan – Nybron – Sysslomansgatan – Skolgatan – Svartbäcksgatan. I don’t know how they would know what streets raggarna usually run here. But they had perhaps been in Uppsala before.
In the back window there was a heap of single records that I started to look through. Some of them had been destroyed by the sun, but the ones that weren’t buckled and that I wanted to listen to, I handed over to Lasse, and he set them on. Mostly I played “Hippy, Hippy Shake” with The Swinging Blue Jeans. It’s so wonderful to sit like that in a big raggarbil and see how people glare when you come cruising along the street with the music streaming out the windows.
Then we went to Skogsvallen People’s Park. The Spotnicks were playing there. Chrille and I stayed in the car while Palle and Lasse went in. When they had left, he got out a bottle of alcohol and asked me if I wanted some. At first I was about to decline it, but then I thought that it would be no harm in tasting it. The liquor was called Explorer and was some type of vodka. There was a ship with a red and white striped sail on the label.
Chrille mixed vodka and lime juice in two paper cups that I held up. I was a bit afraid that I would get sick from drinking and that it would taste disgusting, but it didn’t. It tasted mostly like lime juice. The liquor flavor wasn’t very perceptible when lime was mixed in.
Chrille was so nice. When I ran out of cigarettes, he gave me a whole pack of Pacifics from a carton he had in the car, and when I started to hang on him and cling to him, he didn’t get cross with me. He just laughed.
It wasn’t my intention to get drunk, but I was. Now I know what it feels like. You say whatever comes to your mind, and you hear and feel everything, but you don’t care about it. I already know that I’m going to drink again. If the guys in the Plymouth come to town again next Saturday, perhaps they will pick me up and offer liquor one more time, but otherwise I’ll go with some others who have spirits. Kicki probably isn’t going to like it that I have begun drinking, because we said that we would never do that, but now when I know what it is like to be drunk, I won’t be able to resist. It was so frigging delightful. And it’s so wonderful to sit in such a wide, rocking American car and swish along through the summer night while smoking, drinking and listening to music.
We went out to the bathing place at Graneberg. Palle and Lasse slipped out of their clothes and ran out on the bridge and dived in, and Chrille and I sat under a tree. After a while he pulled me down and laid himself on top of me and kissed me.
I didn’t have to come home early, because mom and pop had gone to see Aunt Margit in Alunda and would not be coming home before this evening. I didn’t dare to tell the guys that I was at home alone, because then they would possibly have wanted to come indoors with me. I just said that I didn’t have to be home at a certain time. I hope none of the neighbors saw me when I came home and tell mom and pop. But they probably didn’t, because I got home at 4 p.m.
I have checked in the cellar to see what kind of spirits pop has down there. There is one bottle of O.P. Anderson, one bottle of Eau-de-Vie, one bottle of Apricot Brandy, one bottle of Vat 69 and one bottle of Lemon Gin. I have cribbed from a list how strong each one of them are. O.P. Anderson is 43%, Eau-de-Vie 40%, Apricot Brandy 32%, Vat 69 40% and Lemon Gin 34%. Explorer, which I drank on Saturday, is 38%.
If I had known how wonderful it is to be drunk, I would have started drinking much earlier. But I believed that you felt ill and became sick because of liquor. That doesn’t happen. Well, it might happen if you drink too much, but not otherwise. Oh, how I long for the next time! If it isn’t offered to me tomorrow, I’m going to snitch a little Vat 69 from pop and drink it next Saturday. I wish I knew how carefully he keeps track of what he holds, because if he doesn’t really know, I might take a whole bottle without it being noticed. He has bought his spirits to offer on special occasions, but they are so far between that he has probably forgotten what he has. I might take the gin bottle. Just thinking of the spirits down there makes me wanna have it. Why don’t people drink more than they do when it is so wonderful to be drunk? But it’s fortunate that they don’t.
I got spirits from two guys in a Ford Consul. They were going to Holmen to watch Jimmy Justice, but I didn’t want to do that so I got out on Svartbäcksgatan again.
Then Lasse and Björn came by in their car. Lasse braked and backed up next to me, and Björn opened the back door and told me to hop in. He had a white sweater and a black jacket on and looked very cute, I thought. But he got angry when he noticed that I wasn’t sober.
“She is drunk!” he said when we had gone for a bit.
“No, you’re just happy, aren’t you?” Lasse said and glanced at me in the rearview mirror.
“Yes, that’s it!” I said. “I’m just happy!”
They were going to the railway station to fetch Lena, who was supposed to come in by train.
“What have you done this evening?” Björn asked.
“Nothing special,” I said.
“You were at the movies, weren’t you?” Lasse said.
But I hadn’t promised Björn anything, so I didn’t think I needed to lie.
“No, I’ve been hanging about in town. What have you been doing?”
“We were at the movies,” Lasse said, “and watched ‘Angels, Do They Exist?’”
“Oh, that one,” I said and looked at Björn, who sat turned away from me staring out the window. “What was it like?”
“I could never go steady with a chick who boozes!” he said.
“You couldn’t?” Lasse said and glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “That’s rather rotten spoken of you.”
“Don’t you ever drink?” I said to Björn.
“Never!”
But I know he does, because on Midsummer Eve they had a liquor bottle in the car, and when I asked Lasse whose it was, he said it belonged to him and Björn. But I didn’t care that he was cross. I was just thinking about how
wonderful everything felt.
“Well, say something,” Björn finally said.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say whatever the hell you like!”
“But I think it’s so difficult to talk with you.”
“Likewise, as the old hag at the driving school says! You’re quiet and shy, just like a little mouse.”
“If you ask me, I don’t think you talk very much, either,” I said.
“But it’s rather sweet, somehow,” he continued. “It’s better than when the chicks prattle the whole time, anyway. Skip it, maids! is what we say then.”
“And they do?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Then it was quiet again. I moved closer to him and took his hand, but he snatched it away.
“Skip it!” he said.
“Is he grumpy to you?” Lasse said over his shoulder.
It seemed like he wanted to get Björn and me together and got cross with Björn for being awkward. But I was satisfied to just sit there and listen to the music. When “Beautiful Dreamer” came on I leaned my head against the backrest and closed my eyes. Then Björn moved closer to me and put his arm around my shoulders.
“Beautiful dreamer open your crazy eyes, you’ve got to wake up, I’m here by your side,” he sang in my ear, at the same time as John Leyton sang it on the record. “Beautiful dreamer don’t be unkind, wake up and tell me you’re gonna be mine!”
Wednesday, 15 July 1964
Now I have written to E-L and told her about papa. I don’t know why it now felt that I could do it. I suppose it’s because of what she has done. That she has been drunk, that is, (if she really was). Because partly it caused me to think about papa and spirits, partly I want her to know why I, for my part, have decided not to drink. I want her to understand the background to it, and why I don’t think she should drink either (because I hope she won’t do it anymore).
Hop in Then! Page 11
