Now we just needed a drummer. We’d gotten our bass player. The drummer fell into our hands as if by a miracle. One day when we were hanging out by the garages in Alli’s street smoking, we heard the beat of drums carrying from within one of the garages. Someone was clearly practicing drums. The same rhythm sounded repeatedly at short intervals. Dunk dunk dunk dunk klassh. Dunk dunk dunk dunk klassh.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said Alli.
We weren’t bold enough to knock on the garage door but waited and waited around for the drummer to show himself. After some waiting, the garage door opened and a boy, a little older than us, came out. To my great disappointment it wasn’t a punk, just some regular kid.
“Who’s that?” I asked again.
“Some kid who just moved into our street.”
He looked at us out of the corner of his eye and went straight into his house.
The next day we went and knocked for him. An older woman came to the door, and we asked for him.
“We’re looking for the boy who lives here,” I said.
“Hannes!” shouted the woman.
After a while, Hannes came down with a curious expression, though he obviously remembered us from the day before.
“Hey,” he said.
“Aren’t you a drummer?”
“Huh? Yes, sort of…”
“We heard you playing in the garage.”
He smiled, ill at ease. I got straight to the point.
“Want to join the band?”
“What band?”
“A band we’re forming.”
“What’s its name?”
We hadn’t come up with a name yet. We’d been thinking about it a lot but weren’t going to decide anything until the band was fully formed. I thought Anti-Police was a striking name, but Alli wanted something Icelandic like Brjálæðingarnir (The Madmen) or Kleppararnir (The Lunatics). His mom worked at the nuthouse, but my dad was a cop.
“We’re not ready to christen it just yet,” explained Alli.
“Is it a punk band?” Hannes asked, after looking at us.
“Yes,” I replied immediately and with some determination. I wondered whether it was possible to transform Hannes into a punk. Maybe you could trick him into getting an unusual haircut then stuff him in some torn jeans.
Hannes shrugged his shoulders and seemed pleased.
“Okay,” he said.
The band was formed. Hannes invited us in and we went into his room, which was covered in albums. I’d never in my life seen so many albums, not even in the record store Karnabær. He had hundreds of albums, and his room was like a record library: all the cabinets and shelves were full of records. On the wall hung a poster of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. I had never heard of them before and had no idea who they were, but judging by the picture, they didn’t look like punks.
“What sort of music do you listen to?” Alli asked.
Hannes smiled, uncomfortable. He was a quiet, placid, composed kid.
“I just listen to all kinds of music,” he said.
“Punk?” I asked, with excitement in my voice.
“Yes, yes, I listen to a lot of punk.”
I was relieved. That was good news. It turned out that Hannes knew all the bands in the world and even knew the names of the members. He was a music freak, and his only hobby was listening to music and collecting records. He had just moved to Fossvogur from Vogunum. His father had recently died, so he lived alone with his mother.
“Do you have somewhere to rehearse?” he asked.
We didn’t have anywhere and were on the lookout for a garage. We couldn’t rehearse in Alli’s garage because his brother had been in a band, and his parents didn’t want any more bands in their garage. We also couldn’t use my garage because it was full of crap. Dad had recently received, free, more than a ton of old issues of the National Will that were being thrown away. Twenty years of antique National Wills now filled the garage. No one understood why he had salvaged them. Mom was both shocked and pissed.
“What the hell are you doing with this crap?!”
“It’s valuable,” Dad insisted.
“It’s crap!” Mom shouted.
Then Dad shook his head like Mom wasn’t making any sense, like she had no understanding of complex political issues. Like she came from a long line of conservatives and didn’t understand the multifaceted value of old copies of National Will. My dad got it. In the first place, the newspapers had sentimental value for him because there were articles about the political struggles of people on the left and the ideals in which he had participated. What’s more, the papers were interesting sources. In the great nothingness of his retirement, Dad planned to sit down there in the garage and go over the papers, cutting out interesting articles and pasting them into a scrapbook. Third, he thought it a crying shame to throw such a remarkable paper as the National Will out on the trash heap. Moreover, he feared that if the papers were thrown away, someone might possibly forever lose some article. But it was not only the ideals that attracted him; he also saw a financial benefit. If he kept them long enough, the papers’ rarity would potentially mean they could be sold for good money later. For him, these were valuable. But ultimately Mom would insist they move out of the garage. So Dad, all by himself, took all the papers up to the attic where they lay for years, until the two of them moved from Fossvogur into service apartments for the elderly. Dad hadn’t yet taken the time to go through the piles with scissors and a glue-stick, and Mom didn’t want to fill their little service apartment with old National Wills. Dad then spent a few evenings ringing round all the conceivable inheritors for the piles of newspapers. It was a vain effort: my father couldn’t find anyone who cared about a whole ton of old National Wills.
“Who do you think would want this crap?!” Mom shouted as he searched for phone numbers to call.
After numerous unsuccessful calls he gave up on it and gave up, finally, on the dream. Several energetic delivery van drivers came a few days later and carried the treasures away in their cars and drove them to the dump. Dad watched and sighed sadly.
“So, they’re getting chucked away after all.”
“And it could have been far earlier!” Mom shouted.
Dad stood by powerless, unable to avert this great cultural misfortune.
All this took place, however, long after the days of Nefrennsli.
“We can rehearse in our garage, for sure,” said Hannes.
We couldn’t believe our own ears. Garages that are open to musical types don’t grow on trees. Most garage owners have enough in their garages already. People keep camping equipment and forgotten stuff. Bands cause disturbances and noise and bother beloved neighbors — especially at night. They draw smoking and spitting crowds of teens no one wants to see near their property and valuables.
“We don’t have a car and don’t use the garage for anything,” he added. “Mom definitely won’t care.”
A rehearsal space needs sound-proofing. The main things people use are old carpets, egg boxes, and foam mattresses. I remembered a leftover foam mattress Dad had gotten for free from some place many years before and that remained rolled up in a storage closet. It was something various people at various times had wanted to throw out, but as usual Dad was confident he’d eventually find a use for it. He even tried to sell my Mom on the idea that they could use this remnant as a tent mattress for camping, but she wouldn’t hear of it: it was exceptionally ugly foam, melted around the edges and with bubbles and holes. I knew that there was little point asking my dad about the mattress, so I followed my own advice and asked Mom if I could take the foam.