But then it got scary, because then the cops came. We had just crossed Skolgatan, and Kicki was holding me up so that I wouldn’t slide down onto the gravel, when I saw a black car turn up from behind and come to a rocking stop.
“The cops!” I screamed and had already turned around and started to run. I didn’t manage to think before I was on my way over the bridge. I thought that Kicki was coming after me, but when I turned around I saw that she wasn’t with me. She remained standing by the police car. They had got hold of her. One of the cops was standing on the sidewalk and held her by the arm. Simultaneously a car slammed on the brakes next to me. The back door was open, and the guy in the back seat shouted for me to hop in and almost dragged me in. It all happened so quickly, and before I could see more, we had sped off with a flying start.
“They took my friend!” I said. “The cops took my friend!”
“Yes, we saw it.”
“But why didn’t she run? I screamed and started running, and I thought she was coming after me, but she wasn’t. Why didn’t she run?”
“She dropped her purse.”
“She did?”
“Yes, and when she turned around to pick it up, that’s when they got hold of her.”
I was all shook up.
“It was fortunate that you came, because otherwise, they might had caught me as well,” I said.
The guy put his arm around me, but I couldn’t relax.
“What are they going to do now?” I said. “What are they going to do with her now?”
“They will probably drive her home.”
“Aren’t they going to take her to the police station?”
“Possibly.”
“But if she’s there, I must go and get her out!”
“That can’t be done, damn it.”
“But I have to get her out!”
“She’s most likely home by now.”
“Drive me to the police station and I’ll go in and ask if she’s there.”
“Then you’ll get caught too, don’t you get it? You are drunk, for God’s sake.”
“No, I can pull myself together. I must know if she’s there!”
“Take it easy, now.”
“But it was my fault that she got caught.”
“In what way?”
“Because if she hadn’t gone there dragging me, none of this would have happened. She was almost sober. I was the one who was drunk.”
“Yes, you obviously are.”
“So I have to get her out!”
“But she is very likely home by now.”
“Drive to a telephone box so I can ring and check.”
I thought about the bottle I had in my purse and wished that I could get it out and drink a little more, but I didn’t want them to find out that I had my own spirits.
They stopped at a phone box on Gamla Uppsalagatan, and I got out and dialed Kicki’s number. But I didn’t find anything out, because as soon as I asked for her, her dad slammed the phone down. Did that mean that she was at home and that he had found out everything?
When we got back to Svartbäcksgatan, I said that I wanted to get out, because I intended to go into a back yard and drink a little more.
“But if you go out again you might also get caught,” the guy said. “We’ll drive you home.”
“No, I’m going out. Pull over here and let me off!”
I will drink more, I thought. I’ll drink until everything disappears and I don’t know what is going on. Then somebody has to come.
Monday, 27 July 1964
It’s strange, but neither mamma nor papa have raised the issue of what happened on Saturday again. They didn’t say anything about it on Saturday, either. Mamma was possibly so overwrought that she wasn’t able to do it, but papa could have said something. But if he doesn’t want to recognize for himself that he drinks too much, he can’t say: “You ought to think twice about this, so it doesn’t turn out for you as it has turned out for me.” But he could say that you shouldn’t go around carrying on like that, or that I am too young to drink, or whatever the hell. And he is a big supporter for the idea that you should do your share, so he could have said something along the lines of: “As long as you live here at home and I’m the one who supports you, you will behave properly!” It’s strange that he hasn’t said that, because that would be quite in his style. “As long as you live under my roof you will do as I decide!” But he hasn’t said anything. He got angry when I came home late the time we met Håkan and Becke, because he was worried and afraid that something had happened to me, but now he didn’t scold me at all. But he does have experience with spirits, so he probably noticed that I wasn’t drunk and thought: Well, she certainly can’t have drunk very much! He probably didn’t take it very seriously. Mamma, on the contrary, acted like I had committed the world’s worst crime and had come home and said: “Now I’m going to be arrested and sent to prison for a couple of years.” And that isn’t the way it was! But I was probably registered with the police in any case. Actually, I think that’s unjust. There I go taking care of E-L, because she is drunk, and then I am the one who is nabbed by the police and put on their register! And papa has grounded me. I’m not allowed to see EL. I don’t dare to call her either, but I have written a letter, because she probably wonders how it turned out for me.
I didn’t dare to call Kicki, but now I’ve got a letter, so I don’t need to be worried anymore. The cops drove her home. This is what she writes:
When I saw the police car, and you shouted that we ought to run, I started running, but I dropped my purse, and when I was going to pick it up, they caught me. One of the police officers grabbed my arm and there I stood and saw you disappear into the distance. Then I had to go with them in the patrol car, and they asked me what my name was, where I lived and what we were doing there, and then they drove me home. What your name was, they never asked me, strangely enough.
And she wrote that her parents don’t want her to see me anymore. They think that I attract her to do stupid things. But if she didn’t want to participate, she could say no.
When I think about how she sat there in the police car and answered questions the cops asked, I feel weird. But I’m glad that I’m not the one who was caught, because it would have been so degrading to be driven home like that. But I wouldn’t have told them my name or where I lived, if it had been me, I think. I don’t know. And they would probably have found out in the end anyway.
Sunday evening when I walked on Svartbäcksgatan it felt like everyone knew that I had been drunk the previous evening. I believed that everyone had seen me, although I hadn’t seen them. Two guys, called Lelle and Ove, had noticed me anyway, they said when they stopped.
“You did?” I said. “I didn’t see you.”
“Well, that’s hardly surprising!”
“What do you mean?”
“You probably didn’t see anything at all, I would think!”
I hadn’t finished my bottle, because I let those guys, who saved me from the cops, give me a lift home after all, and now, when Lelle and Ove had driven off, I drank a little again, in a yard. Then I sat on a bench near the river and smoked. The cinema audience came out of the Saga after the first performance, and it became crowded on the sidewalk and a line of cars waited at the traffic lights at the intersection. I felt so full of expectation as I waited for the liquor to kick in.
After a while I got up and left. I would have been able to walk straight if I had pulled myself together, but I rather wanted to relax, and I didn’t mind if I took side-steps. A car pulled over, and when I came nearer I saw a guy called Dimman sitting in the back seat. He rolled down the side window, leaned out and said:
“Are you pissed this evening as well!”
“No, I’m not pissed,” I said.
“Well, you aren’t sober, anyway!”
I hardly know him, but he still seemed angry with me because I was tipsy.
“A broad like you shouldn’t carry on and booze like
this,” he said.
“A broad like me?”
“Well, all broads, though!”
But what’s the difference between him doing it and me doing it? I know that guys don’t like girls who drink, but at the same time they are more interested when you are drunk, so it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you don’t meet someone you might fall in love with.
I went with two guys in a Ford. Before they came I had gulped down the rest of the vodka, and then I sat there and held the bottle out of the car and waved and shouted to people on the streets. You can do whatever you want when sitting in a car, because nobody can stop you. Some people become afraid when they see a crammed raggarbil come driving and hear the music rumbling and raggarna screaming and bawling, and some take offence and start complaining about today’s youth, and that feels so wonderful to know. But I would never have dared to do what I did on Sunday if I hadn’t been drunk.
It’s already August. This summer has gone by so quickly. Yesterday I went with a guy called Georgen and his buddy in an Opel Kapitän. They didn’t have any spirits, but I rode with them anyway because I like Georgen. We lay in the back seat and kissed and hugged while Nisse drove around and played records. They had “Suspicion” with Terry Stafford and “Dead Man’s Curve” with Jan & Dean.
Nisse also wanted a girl but there wasn’t anybody who wanted to go with us when he asked.
“Pick up Maggan, damn it, and you’ll surely have a bang,” Georgen said as we drove past her.
“I want to have a girl and not a creep,” Nisse said.
“All good things come in triplets: syphilis, crabs and gonorrhea,” Georgen grinned. “But there isn’t anything wrong with her.”
“Easy for you to say, since you have already gotten the best,” Nisse said.
I noticed that Nisse liked me, but I preferred to be with Georgen because he is cuter.
Nothing special happened. They asked me if I had a mate we could go and fetch, but Kicki wasn’t allowed to go out this weekend, so I said I didn’t have anybody. Then Georgen caught sight of a girl who was walking by herself and shouted to Nisse to stop.
“Well, let’s drive around and check her from the front, first,” Nisse said.
We went down to Stugan and turned around. When we came back, Nisse drove slowly by the girl on the other side of the street and took a peek at her.
“Hell no!” he said and sped up.
“There was nothing wrong with her,” I said.
“When you already have the best in the car, you don’t want to have anybody else,” Nisse said and glanced at me in the rearview mirror.
Then Georgen drew me down and kissed me.
“Are you in love now, Eva-Lena?” Nisse said.
“Yes, she is!” Georgen said.
He stuck his hands under my sweater and unhooked my bra in back. I let him draw up my sweater and bra and kiss me on my breasts, and Nisse saw everything when he happened to glance over his shoulder.
“What the hell are you doing?” he said.
Then Georgen took everything off me from the waist up and rolled down the window and waved my bra outside.
“Now I let go of it!” he said and laughed.
I cast myself up and tried to grab ahold of it, and he withdrew his arm and embraced me and kissed me again. It felt strange when my breasts were pressed against his shirt. First he kissed me on my lips, then on my neck and shoulders. When he stopped, I saw Nisse’s eyes in the rearview mirror. I put my sweater back on, but my bra I stuffed into my purse, because it would have felt ridiculous to sit there and put it on while they were watching.
On Nybron, among all the Mods, an old dude called Nordan balanced on the bridge railing. He is a bit cracked and somebody that everyone in town knows about.
“Fucking daredevil!” Georgen said when we drove by. He had his hand under my sweater, and I felt thrills when he carried on with my breast, but I didn’t show it to him, because then he perhaps would have thought that he could go further than I wanted him to.
Putte is back. I don’t believe that he has been at sea. I think it was true what Becke said, that he was in prison. Why did he lie? Did he think I’m an innocent little lamb who cannot bear to hear the truth? Or was he ashamed of himself? But I don’t give a shit about what he does!
I saw Georgen and Nisse, and Georgen pointed at me with his cigarette and smiled, but they didn’t stop. Later, when I sat on the bench down by the river, Maggan came by and asked if we could walk together for a while. But I wouldn’t walk with anyone but Kicki on Svartbäcksgatan. The other girls are not like we are, I think, and it would feel ridiculous to walk with someone I don’t know. If I went with Maggan, for example, she might say yes to guys that I think are repulsive and don’t want to ride with, and what would I do then? So it’s just as well not to do it.
Maggan took out a pack of Winners and sat down on the bench and smoked. I hoped that she would leave soon, because I didn’t want anyone to think that we were together. And I thought that she disturbed and discouraged guys who possibly wanted to stop and ask me, just because she sat there.
When I was alone again, Tommy, a guy whom I’ve met a few times before, came by with his buddy Kent in a Valiant. All three of us sat in front and drove around and listened to music. I played “Be My Baby” with the Ronettes and another song, named “You Never Can Tell” with Chuck Berry. When I had pressed it in three times in a row, Kent pressed it in a fourth time, and then I kissed him. It felt almost like I had been drinking though I hadn’t.
“We saw you on Saturday,” Tommy said.
“You did?” I said. “Where?”
“On the ground,” Kent said and grinned.
“Oh, last Saturday,” I said and felt stupid.
“Then you were really drunk,” Tommy said. “Or were you just shamming?”
“No, I was drunk.”
“Why?”
“Well, why do you get drunk?”
“I’m the one who asks questions here!” he said and tried to look strict.
“I don’t know”, I said. “What did you do yesterday?”
“Now she’s changing the subject!” Kent said.
“We went to Liljekonvaljeholmen and danced,” Tommy said.
“Who played there?”
“Jailbird Singers.”
Then they talked about Ranger 7, which the Americans have taken pictures of the moon with, and about the Beatles performance at Johanneshov on Wednesday. When the Beatles sang “I Want to Be Your Man”, the public had gone into ecstasy and stormed the stage so they had been forced to cancel the performance. Chairs had been tossed about and girls had fainted and the cops had stood powerless, they said.
I sat and played with the knob on the glove compartment, and suddenly it opened. There was a bottle of hard liquor in it, and I took it out and pretended to drink from it.
“What the hell are you doing?” Tommy said before he realized that I hadn’t screwed off the bottle cap.
“Drinking!” I said and held up the bottle so that he could see that it was closed.
“You little monkey!” he said and laughed.
“You thought I drank, didn’t you?” I said.
“Yes, you never can tell!”
“And when will you crack this?” I said.
“Some time,” Kent said.
“Tonight?”
“No, not tonight.”
Then I put it back in the glove compartment so that I would be spared the sight of it.
Tuesday, 4 August 1964
I stayed at home on Saturday and Sunday because papa didn’t allow me to go out. If it had been E-L who was caught by the police, and if her parents had found out and said that she must stay at home, she would have been out the next evening anyway, because her papa doesn’t have the same power over her that mine has over me. That’s probably because she has rejected him. But if papa says to me that I’m not permitted to go out I don’t do it, because I want us to have a good relationship, if it’s p
ossible. I don’t want to isolate myself from my parents and not have anybody who cares about me. I don’t want to have it like E-L, who almost never talks with her parents and who feels almost like a lodger with them. She doesn’t think she can talk with them about anything and she has no confidence in them. Actually, I don’t have any in my parents either, but I want for us to have something in common and not to live in two completely different worlds.
On “Kvällstoppen” “Long, Tall Sally” by the Beatles came in first, “Tennessee Waltz” second and “A Hard Day’s Night” third. I like the Beatles, but their songs aren’t played very often in the cars, so I have to listen to them at home.
Kicki had to go with her parents to the countryside, and I went out on my own again. When I sat on the bench down by Skolgatan, Cowboy and Biran came by and wanted me to go with them, but they didn’t have any booze, so I said no. Cowboy thought I didn’t want to because they dumped me at the BP gas station before, but that wasn’t the reason.
Then I saw Björn, Lasse and Lena in the Kapitän, Putte and Becke in the Dodge and Tony and Ricky in an old Volvo PV. In another car, that Rune was driving, there was a guy who threw up through the back-side window so it ran down the side of the car. I hoped that Björn and Lasse would stop, but they didn’t. I went with two guys from Tierp, and they had liquor which I drank until I got drunk. Then I went out into town again. They were going to come here again next Saturday, and they wanted me to come along with them then, but the one I was with was only a two, so I don’t know. Perhaps if they have booze.
Then Putte came by himself in a car and stopped by the bench where I sat.
“Come here!” he said, and when I got up and went to see him he noticed that I was drunk.
“Who the hell has given you booze?” he said and glared at me.
“A guy.”
“What kind of a fucking guy is it who gets a bird drunk?”
Hop in Then! Page 13
