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CHAPTER 56 Detroit December, 1993 Holding her coat tight around her, Kim stepped out of the cab. For what had to be the tenth time that night, the cabbie told her to be careful. She smiled humouringly at him, nodded once, then stepped away from the cab. She wondered if she had tipped him well enough; she still hadn’t figured out how it was supposed to work. The building in front of her was still standing, and that’s about all that could be said for it. Kim wrinkled her nose. It was too cold outside to stand there gaping, and anyway, she’d heard all sorts of wonderful stories about Detroit’s crime rate. Dave had even insisted that he go with her tonight, but the thought of needing a male bodyguard insulted her. This was going to be Kim’s first interview without the band. She supposed that it felt weird, but she didn’t want whatever up-and-coming journalist who wanted to make their career with Kim’s controversial band to pick up on all the turmoil within the band. It seemed to Kim that she was getting into a habit of picking up American freelancers as her media agents. The girl who had set up this interview, Marsha Terrance, wasn’t much older than Kim herself, and this rather decrepit looking building was where she lived. Kim smirked. Her interviewer didn’t have enough money to so much as rent an office for just one night of questions. She wasn’t sure if this made her feel underground or disappointed. She knew she wasn’t underground anymore, which was in itself quite the disappointment, but she’d survive. Catching sight of someone across the street wearing clothes you’d expect in a rap video, Kim decided it was time to enter the building. She didn’t even need to buzz in. She took that as a bad sign. Marsha’s apartment was right across from the elevator on the second floor, and she let Kim in with a smile, apologizing for the mess, and leading her to a chair close to what looked more like a TV tray than a table. Marsha seated herself on the other side of the mini table, and she set a tape recorder in the middle of it. “I’m assuming you won’t mind if I record this?” “Not at all.” “Let me begin by saying that I’m a real fan of the band--” “Must be, considering you have the lead singer alone with you in your apartment,” Kim muttered. “--but I’d also like to be a bit of a realist. I mean, I think all the safe questions that can be asked have been.” Kim glanced up. “I can’t think of an unsafe one, but please go ahead and try to shock me.” Marsha smiled, maybe not the nicest smile to have ever graced a 20-something girl’s face, and she leaned forward. “Now, I can’t help but to have noticed that there are never any personal questions answered in all your interviews and articles. No one seems to know anything about Kim Kissably; or, excuse me, Kimberly Standen.” Kim narrowed her eyes. If she was bristling already, she wondered how she would last through this interview. “And?” “An image like yours just doesn’t appear everyday in the music industry. Most ‘bad girls’ are only that because they were an excess of leather and chase boys. One would think that something had to have happened to you to make you hate things of the male persuasion so much.” Kim cocked her head, watching the girl in front of her. “And?” she repeated. “Please don’t jump down my throat for this, since it’s more my own personal experience than my career that’s making me ask, but...” Marsha cleared her throat, seeming unsure. “Were you ever raped?” “Bloody ‘ell!” Kim pushed back from the little table. “Look, if you don’t have any questions that won’t make me hate you, I think you’d better bloody well just drop it and forget about this interview.” “You really are as difficult as they say, then.” “I’m sure ‘they’ have never bloody well asked questions like that!” Marsha tapped her fingers on the table. “I noticed a distance between yourself and Jessie on the stage last night.” Kim smirked. “Hm, an interviewer who actually observes the person she interviews. Will the wonders never cease?” “There are many rumours and questions concering your relations with Jessie, you know.” “Meaning?” “Well, it seems that you two have garnered a rather close bond.” “You’re asking if we’re fucking?” “Yes.” Kim almost grinned, and she had to hold back a laugh, however bitter it would be. “No.” She took a breath. “We’re not fucking. Doubt it’ll ever happen.” Again, that is. “How about Elvyn, then? He spends his entire time on stage pining over a strong red-haired beauty and one can only assume he means you.” “Elvyn wouldn’t know how to fuck a battery operated port-o-pussy, and he doesn’t seem entirely sure on how to remove his dreary head from his equally dreary ass.” “It never fails to amaze me just how militant you really are.” “It’s opinionated, luv, not militant. If I were militant, Dave wouldn’t still be standing.” “Thank you for bringing him up!” Marsha looked almost triumphant. “There are definitely questions about why you have an American boy following you around from state to state.” Kim shrugged. “He looks good, I need something to do.” Marsha raised her eyebrows. “Was that ... Depeche Mode?” “Well, you actually caught onto a quote from a rather popular song?” Kim snorted. She didn’t want to be here. “Depeche Mode is an all-male band.” “How very observant of you.” “Which would mean, to me, that you can’t respect them that much.” Kim bit her tongue before she got started on Sisters of Mercy and Cure and Bauhaus and all those. Instead, she continued on the same band. “Ever listened to the lyrics?” “There are quite a few lyrics to be listening to.” “Our dear Martin Gore--composer, lyricist, and sometimes-vocalist--is quite the submissive. In case Master and Servant never clued you in. Or Dressed in Black. Behind the Wheel. Those things.” “I’d never really looked at it that way.” “Martin’s been taking to putting at least one S&M song into every album since Some Great Reward. You may want to take another look at their career.” “You talk quite avidly about other bands’ careers; wondering if you’d like to speak a bit about your own?” “And what would you want to hear, anyway?” “Maybe how you got started?” “Oh, go read any other interview. I thought you said you wanted unsafe questions, and you’re sounding pretty bloody safe to me.” Marsha took a few cue cards out of her shirt’s front pocket and flipped through them. It took all of Kim’s will power to not burst out laughing. Marsha apparently found one that interested her. “For a song writer of your caliber, you’re remarkably well read.” “Thank you.” Marsha glanced at her. “I guess that could be a compliment. I mean, you do have references to two whole pieces of classical writing.” Kim narrowed her eyes. “And you introduced yourself as a fan.” “A fan can have a few critical analyses up her sleeves.” “Do go on, then.” “Let’s see, Wuthering Heights and The Highwayman, I notice. Neither seem your style, if you consider the fact that you're always talking about the woman being in charge. Wuthering Heights is all about women striving to find 'their place' in society--” “Which kills all the women who find said place, in case you hadn't noticed. It was major societal commentary for the time it was written.” Marsha ignored her. “--and The Highwayman has Bess the landlord's daughter shoot herself right between the breasts to warn her bad-boy lover away from his own death.” “I happen to like irony, and the fact that he still manages to get himself killed after her sacrifice always struck me as somewhat moving. Besides, when I reference it, I'm refusing to be like Bess. 'I'll come to thee by moonlight though hell should bar the way,' which is his devotion to her, becomes 'ill come to thee by moonlight,' which is now her warning him the hell away. I'm saying that there's a much different attitude coming out of women today. We don't want to die for our men; let them die for us, or live, or whatever, so long as they don't bloody well get in our way in the process. So that's why I refuse to be the black-haired black-eyed landlord's daughter who waits and waits and finally dies for her bloody wayward thing with a prick.” “That's the first time you've used your favorite phrase in this interview.” “Look, if you're going to bloody well insult me, I'm not doing this interview. Next question.” “Fine.” Kim settled back into her chair. “Now, I'm curious.” Marsha tapped her nail against the side of the tape recorder. “Do you see yourself as the new Madonna?” Kim blinked. She blinked again. Opened her mouth as if to say something, then just smiled. Smiled some more. Then she finally started laughing. Really, really hard. “I'm just asking this because you seem to be exploring some similar themes to--” “The next bloody Madonna? Are you bloody well daft?” She kept laughing. “The next bloody Madonna! Bloody hell!” Marsha said nothing, waiting for Kim to find a proper response somehow. “I,” Kim said, “am nothing like Madonna. The pop princess who pretends she's being all bad, but really, she's just doing anything she can to sell records. When you can't woo the public, shock them. When you're done shocking them, woo them s'more. Set trends! Make desperate little girls want to grow up to be you! And don't even bloody well get me started on that girl's image in the '80s!” “I notice you call her a girl.” Kim looked steadily at Marsha. “Anyone so bloody mainstream can't be a grrl, now can they? Madonna is the epitome of pop culture. You're never going to see her onstage wearing a plaid skirt and torn fishnets and safety pins.” “And are you saying you're any better for wearing such things?” “Bloody hell, no. I'm saying I'm better for being up there on stage, singing and screaming until my throat is bloody raw, with an actual live band behind me. I'm better because I don't prance around onstage with an entire bloody troupe of queer dancers with lights and props and stories and changes of bloody costume and state-of-the-art choreographers! I'm better because I don't need to bloody well grab my crotch and masturbate in front of the bloody audience just to get enough controversy to keep me interesting! I don't need fashion consultants to tell me what's okay to wear and what's not. I buy my entire bloody wardrobe of my own bloody inclination, and I would never be caught dead in a photo shoot or a video wearing something I didn't bloody well own.” “You still must admit that there are some similarities in the messages of your work.” “Similarities? Bugger all! Just because she's spent this bloody phase of her life--and every album is a new bloody phase for her--obsessed with bringing S&M and bi-sexuality to the world doesn't bloody well mean anything. So she has a bloody table book called Sex, so bloody what? I was pulling this shit she's pulling now before I bloody well got signed! She's new into this, and she will have forgotten it by her next bloody album.” “Why speak so ill of one of the only other strong female personalities in the music industry?” “Because she's not my bloody cup of tea, awright? She spends her life giving her fans image, image, image. She hires people to tell her what to wear and think and eat and shit, what religion to be into, everything. And I know I'll never be as bloody succesful as her, but I don't want it. I really don't bloody want it. I just wanna remain being myself, not bloody Madonna. I wanna be Kim Kissably.” “But you're not.” Kim looked at Marsha, confused. “You're not Kim Kissably. You're Kimberly Standen.” Kim pushed her chair back and stood up. “That's it, this interview is bloody well over!” Without giving Marsha a chance to stop her, Kim stalked out of the shitty little apartment, skipped the elevator and went straight down the stairs, ending up running into a little punkish girl as she left the building. “Sorry,” Kim muttered. The girl giggled, obviously more than a little stoned. “S’okay. Just comin’ in from the cold. What’s yr rush to get back out into it?” Kim sighed. “Just frustrated. You live here?” She giggled again. “Nah. Don’t got a place. There’s no security, s’I can crash on th’ floor t’night.” Kim sighed again, ready to make a comment on the state of America. But there were homeless teens in Britain too. Everywhere. “You ran away from home?” The girl obviously found this just as funny as everything else. “Nope. Kicked out.” Her voice dropped, and she leaned conspiratorially over to Kim. “Wouldn’t do th’ things m’step dad wanted. Think he married my mom just fr access to me.” She giggled again, pulling back. She grinned. “No more o’ that.” “You have a name?” “Sometimes.” Her smile faded. “Don’t see why you should want t’ know.” “Curious. I’m Kim.” “Yeh? Me too. Kim. Everyone’s named Kim. Only I’m Kimmy.” She was smiling again. “Sounds young, huh? S’young. I’m not, not really.” “When was the last time you got a good night’s sleep?” Kimmy looked confused for a moment, then she just shook her head. Kim sighed, then took out her wallet. She flipped through it once, twice, a third time. Then she sighed again. “Look, hotels aren’t cheap in this city, but I’ve got a lot of spare cash drifting around. You know where there’s a pay phone so I can call a cab?” “Oh yeah, jus’ down a block. I’ve got enough for th’ call!” Kimmy grinned, then slipped out the door. Kim watched her for a while, before realizing someone was standing behind her. She turned and saw Marsha. Her first impulse was to turn and walk away, but she stayed. “Well, now I know what one of the captions in the article has to say.” Kim just looked at her. “Tough-grrl act nothing more than that; Kim Kissably really has a heart of gold.” “That kid’s going to be dead of an OD before she turns 20. If the people who actually lived around here would take better care of her, that wouldn’t happen. I hope it guilts out you and your bloody American ethics that it takes a British femi-nazi to actually show kindness to these kids.” At that, she left, and found Kimmy on the corner, babbling about the taxi that would soon arrive. |
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Talk to LL,
the author. |