Rock 'n' Roll (7 page)

FERDINAND
Ahoj.

MAGDA
They changed his shift.

She kisses Jan and leaves.

Jan takes the bag, takes the records out of their sleeves, looks at them, puts them back. He relaxes a bit.

FERDINAND
(
meanwhile
) Jan, Jan … Hey, how about that? Pink Floyd without Syd Barrett, and Syd Barrett without Pink Floyd. How long have you had these?

JAN
A while.

FERDINAND
What happened?

JAN
The Floyd dumped Barrett.

FERDINAND
It shows.

JAN
He was out of it with drugs.

FERDINAND
He
sounds
out of it. But I love him.

Ferdinand finds his petition.

Jan looks at the sleeve of the
Madcap Laughs
album and removes the disc.

JAN
He went home to his mum in Cambridge. He comes from Cambridge. I nearly saw him once, or maybe not. A girl I know thinks she saw him and he sang to her … only, she didn't know it was him. But she was high a lot of the time, so I don't know … maybe it was the great god Pan.

Jan puts the record on the player.

FERDINAND
Will you sign this?

JAN
No.

SYD BARRETT
(
sings, on record
)
‘I really love you and I mean you,
The star above you crystal blue,
Well oh baby my hair's on end about you …'

Blackout and ‘Jugband Blues' by Pink Floyd.

Smash cut to night and silence.

Spring 1974.

Ferdinand is reading a piece of paper. Jan is watching him nervously.

JAN
Underground concerts are so rare now, kids from all over the country got the word and found their way to this nowhere place. So did busloads of police, with dogs. They stopped the concert and herded everyone to the railway station and through a tunnel under the tracks, and in the tunnel the police laid into everybody with truncheons. Rock ‘n' Roll!

FERDINAND
So, what am I supposed to do with this?

JAN
Get your friends to sign it.

FERDINAND
What friends?

JAN
You know, those banned writers and intellectuals you hang out with.

FERDINAND
And this would be different from moral exhibitionism, would it?

JAN
Yeah. A genuine moral action.

FERDINAND
Oh, good. How is that, by the way?

JAN
Well, because you've got no interest in these kids and they've got no interest in you.

FERDINAND
That's the difference?

JAN
Yeah, they don't care about politics… If people want to pick a fight with the government, that's their business.

FERDINAND
They should take what comes, you mean.

JAN
No … well, yeah … Perhaps you're missing the point.

FERDINAND
Perhaps you'd like a smack in the mouth, but the difference is still eluding me.

JAN
(
roused
) These are schoolkids, they'll get expelled and end up with the lowest work available in the paradise of full employment, and what I'm saying is they didn't pick the fight. They didn't ask for anything except to be left alone for a while. It's not just the music, it's the oxygen. You know what I mean.

FERDINAND
Why don't you get your friend Jirous to sign it?

JAN
He's in gaol.

FERDINAND
What for?

JAN
Free expression. Somebody in a pub called him a big girl, so Jirous called him a bald-headed Bolshevik, and he turned out to be state security.

FERDINAND
Yes, well, with Jirous you never know. Maybe insulting people in pubs is his idea of art.

JAN
He thinks you're a bunch of tossers, too.

FERDINAND
Does he?

JAN
The ‘official opposition'. The fans just want to be left alone to do their thing.

FERDINAND
This isn't about the fans, it's about the band.

JAN
Same thing.

FERDINAND
(
getting angry
) You want me to ask serious men—

JAN
Women, too, would be good.

FERDINAND
—who are working in boiler rooms and timberyards—

JAN
And breweries, right—famous odd job men.

FERDINAND
—to invite the police to arrest them—

JAN
Arrest them for what?

FERDINAND
—so that your druggy drop-out weirdo friends with hair down to here can be allowed to do their own thing? You're an arsehole!

JAN
That's a no, then.

Jan takes the petition back.

FERDINAND
You're a political imbecile. There's no leverage in asking people to come out for people people don't give a shit about.

JAN
Relax, Ferdinand.

FERDINAND
I mean, who are they?

JAN
Forget it. How's Magda?

FERDINAND
What?

JAN
How's—

FERDINAND
She's fine—in fact, I forgot—she sends her love …

JAN
Her love?

FERDINAND
Let me explain—

JAN
No, I get it.

FERDINAND
You don't get it.

JAN
Send her mine.

FERDINAND
What?

JAN
Should I put on a record?

FERDINAND
No, let me explain. I don't believe in cultural hierarchy. Dvorak did his thing, the Plastic People do their thing … I do my thing—fine, the more the merrier and everyone's welcome. Except that none of us is welcome as things are. Except for Dvorak. But—my point is—

JAN
I don't really want to—

FERDINAND
Who's going to change things for the rest? Not the ones who just want to be left alone. The Plastics won't change things so Vaculík and Grusa can publish their books. But
we're
putting ourselves on the line for a society where the Plastics can play their music.

JAN
Excellent point.

FERDINAND
Fuck you, just answer me one question. You've read Havel's letter to Husák?

JAN
No.

FERDINAND
That wasn't the question. But Havel has written this open letter about what's gone wrong in Czechoslovakia, the apathy, the spiritual paralysis, the self-destructive tendency of what he calls post-totalitarian—

JAN
Jesus, Ferdinand! What's the question?

FERDINAND
Who's got the best chance of getting Husák's attention—Havel or the Plastic People of the Universe?

JAN
The Plastics.

FERDINAND
I'll put it another way. Who's going to lay bare the ideological contradictions of bureaucratic dictatorship? Us intellectuals, or—?

JAN
The Plastics. Why do you think you're walking around and Jirous is in gaol?

FERDINAND
Because he insulted a secret policeman.

JAN
No, because the policeman insulted
him.
About his hair. Jirous doesn't cut his hair. It makes the policeman angry, so he starts something and it ends with Jirous in gaol. But what is the policeman angry about? What difference does long hair make? The policeman is angry about his fear. The policeman's fear is what makes him angry. He's frightened by indifference. Jirous doesn't
care.
He doesn't care enough even to cut his hair. The policeman isn't frightened by
dissidents!
Why should he be? Policemen
love
dissidents, like the Inquisition loved heretics. Heretics give meaning to the defenders of the faith. Nobody cares more than a heretic. Your friend Havel cares so much he writes a long letter to Husák. It makes no odds whether it's a love letter or a protest letter. It means they're playing on the same board. So Husák can relax, he's made the rules, it's his game. The population plays the other way, by agreeing to be bribed by places at university, or an easy ride at work … they care enough to keep their thoughts to themselves, their haircuts give nothing away. But the Plastics don't care at all. They're unbribable. They're coming from somewhere else, from where the Muses come from. They're not heretics. They're pagans.

Blackout and ‘It's Only Rock ‘n' Roll' by the Rolling Stones.

Smash cut to daylight and silence.

Autumn 1975.

Jan and Ferdinand sit almost in suspended animation. Ferdinand's hair has been cut short. The lavatory flushes.

A man comes out of the bathroom, doing up his fly. He has a leather jacket, the jacket of choice for secret policemen.

POLICEMAN 1
(
smirks
) Apologies. My aim was off.

A second
POLICEMAN
stands at Jan's record collection.

Okay?

POLICEMAN 2
Okay.

The Policemen leave together.

Ferdinand is phlegmatic. Jan leaps up.

JAN
Oosh, whooof, shweez, hey, jesus, jeezuss …

Jan goes to look in the bathroom, and returns grimacing.

JAN
(
cont.) (scared
) What did they want?

FERDINAND
They didn't want anything.

JAN
Then why did they come up?

FERDINAND
They were bored, probably. Usually they hang about outside.

JAN
Outside my place?

FERDINAND
Outside anywhere I go. (
pause
) I won't come here, if you like.

JAN
The thing is, I don't feel grown-up enough for prison. That's one thing. I'm definitely afraid of prison.

FERDINAND
That's nothing to be ashamed of.

JAN
(
snappish
) I'm not ashamed of it.

He becomes accusing.

JAN
(
cont.
) It's normal to be afraid of prison. Normal people don't do things that might send them to prison. I can't even remember what you did, or who it was supposed to help. Of course, I understand it was for being heroic, I just forget the details. You must be bloody stupid going to prison for something I've forgotten before you come out, frankly. Heroism isn't honest work, the kind that keeps the world going round. It offends normal people and frightens them. It seems to be about some private argument the heroes are having with the government on our behalf, and we never asked you.

FERDINAND
Relax, Jan.

JAN
Well, it's very annoying. Heroic acts don't spring from your beliefs. I believe the same as you do. They spring from your character. It's not the action of a friend to point out that your character is more heroic than mine. It pisses me off. Why do you do it? You'll be insufferable now.

FERDINAND
Do you complain to Jirous?

JAN
No. Jirous's character is heroic and there's nothing to be done about it. He was a heroic baby.

FERDINAND
I met him in prison.

JAN
Did you? How did he look with a haircut?

FERDINAND
He explained about the hair. The tempter says, ‘Cut your hair just a little, and we'll let you play.' Then the tempter says, ‘Just change the name of the band and you can play.' And after that, ‘Just leave out this one song' … It is better not to start by cutting your hair, Jirous said—no, it is
necessary.
Then nothing you do can possibly give support to the idea that everything is in order in this country. Why couldn't you have explained this? I would have signed your
hopeless letter. Other bands have better musicians but the Plastics are the only band safe from the desire for recognition. In the alternative culture, success is failure. Look what happens in the West, Jirous says.