Crystal Passion Ch. 01

"Just a minute, madam," said one of the Customs Officers, a large black woman with a massive bosom and no evidence whatsoever of a sense of humour.

I ignored her in the hope that it had nothing to do with me and continued to walk towards Crystal, but the woman repeated her demand and a thin Customs Officer with a weird toothbrush moustache stepped in front of me.

"If you would be so kind..." he said as he gestured with an open palm towards a Formica-topped table where Judy, Olivia and my sister Andrea were also standing.

I walked over, dragging my suitcase behind, while hoping that New York customs didn't have sniffer dogs that could smell Ecstasy tablets and also wondering whether it was an offence to import a copy of Viz into the United States (I was especially keen on Johnny Fartpants and the Fat Slags).

"Please place your bag on the table, madam," said the black woman.

"This is fucking harassment," said Olivia, whose uniform of ripped denim must have made her seem especially scruffy to the Customs Officers. "Why're you picking on us?"

This was exactly the wrong thing to say, of course, and before long all of us with the exception of Crystal and Tomiko were detained by the United States Customs Service and our bags emptied in the search for contraband, illegal drugs and firearms.

It was typical of Crystal that although she didn't have to, she let Tomiko go ahead with her bags, which were just a guitar case and a modest rucksack for her clothes, and returned to stand beside her band-mates.

"Can I be of assistance, officer?" she asked the large black woman, whose plastic name badge displayed the name Kate Phillips.

"How could that be, madam?" the officer asked as she held up to the light a bottle of duty-free whisky she'd found wrapped up inside a towel in Philippa's bag. Perhaps she thought it might contain dissolved Lysergic Acid.

"All these girls are members of my folk group, Crystal Passion. We're on tour in the United States of America as you can confirm by talking to our record company. I'm sure none of my companions would ever break the law, officer."

"What you're sure of and what is the case, madam, might well be two different things," said Officer Kate Phillips.

"You have a lot of phials in your case, madam," the other Customs Officer known as Miguel San Antonio said to Judy. "What's in them?"

He emptied half a dozen pills into the palm of one hand and theatrically exhibited what I immediately recognised as White Doves.

Fuck! We were as good as bust.

"Sweets," said Judy straightaway. This was quick thinking on her part given that they were too uneven and unpolished to have been supplied by a pharmaceutical company. "English sweets. I've got a very sweet tooth."

"A bit odd, don't you think, that you keep sweets in this kind of container."

"They're sold loose in English sweet shops," said Judy. "I had to carry them in something."

"Hmmm," said the Customs Officer, who nevertheless returned the tabs to the phial and therefore ensured that this modest flow of Ecstasy to America from the Netherlands via England could continue unimpeded.

Our suitcases, rucksacks and flight bags were emptied out onto the Formica desktop, but it was actually our array of musical instruments that the Customs Officers seemed most interested in.

"There have been cases of drugs and contraband being smuggled into the country in violin cases recently, madam," remarked Officer Kate Phillips when Bertha challenged her about this.

However, we probably wouldn't have been detained for much longer at all if a small plastic bag of Moroccan hash hadn't been found discarded on the airport corridor floor just before the entrance to the Nothing to Declare channel. A corpulent self-satisfied Hispanic woman with bizarre schoolmarm spectacles waved the small plastic bag in front of us and asked sarcastically: "Do any of you claim this as your own?"

Although it wasn't mine—my stash had already been seen and disregarded in the Tic-Tac container I'd popped them in—I was pretty sure I recognised it. It was the sort of sealable cash bag that Jenny used to carry her dope. Along with Bertha, she was one of the two roadies and famously could scarcely function at all without a joint either in her hand or mouth. I guessed that she'd panicked when she saw that we'd been stopped and just let her stash drop to the ground. A sensible plan, but not one that had worked as planned. The Customs Officers weren't so stupid as to imagine that a bag of dope had appeared from nowhere. I just hoped they weren't going to fingerprint it, although in that regard if it was Jenny's stash, her affectation of wearing little leather gloves might well protect her.

"I think we're going to have to detain all you girls for further questions," said Miguel San Antonio who seemed to be the most senior Customs Officer.

"Does that include me, sir?" asked Crystal. "I've already been cleared by customs."

Officer Miguel San Antonio glanced at Officer Kate Phillips and the Hispanic woman whose name-badge read Costanzia Rodriguez as if for advice, and then, spotting Judy's surly expression, he said: "You claim this is your Folk group, even though they look more like a goddamn freak show like those Rock groups my son listens to. If you want to represent them, my dear, then I guess you'll also have to accompany us."

And so it was that my introduction to America, and that of most of the Crystal Passion ensemble, was to be in a bare detention room on the wrong side of the United States border where we all had to wait together until we were individually interrogated. The waiting room was in the midst of a series of corridors hidden well away from anything that international air-travellers would normally see. We had to sit on hard-backed plastic chairs of the kind I'd only ever seen before in a dentist's surgery. And, of course, just like at a dentist's waiting room we waited apprehensively for the drilling we'd inevitably get.

I got the impression right from the start there was no real expectation that we'd be exposed as international drug-smugglers and that the only real hope the Customs Officers had of finding anything was if we incriminated ourselves or if the stage gear the forensic staff were going to examine happened to be crammed full of heroin or crystal meth or acid or whatever else the Customs Officers were looking for. Which thankfully wasn't Ecstasy pills.

"All our gear!" moaned Philippa, who'd only recently bought a new tenor saxophone.

"My Fender Stratocaster," echoed Judy.

"And my Roland," I wailed.

"Well, not everything," said Bertha, the other roadie. "Tomiko's got the gear she needs for the sound desk and she's got Crystal's acoustic guitar."

"Fucking great!" said Judy. "So, our first gig in America is gonna feature solo guitar and a huge fucking orgy of backing singers."

And so we sat together in a decrepit waiting room that was pretty much crammed full with the dozen of us including Crystal. If anyone else was to be interrogated that day they'd have to sit and wait in another room.

As the most stroppy, Judy was the one to be interviewed first; leaving the rest of us to sit and wonder what she might be saying. I don't think any of us had much to worry about really. Our bags had already been searched and cleared, and surely nobody was stupid enough to stash drugs inside the musical instruments or electronic gear. I knew I was alright anyway. I don't think it'd have been easy to hide much stash inside solid state circuitry even if I'd wanted to, but I speculated whether there might be drugs stuffed into the violin case, the drum kit, or even the electric guitar. And with Judy being interviewed first, I couldn't help wondering whether she might be pushing her luck a little too far.

"No sweat guys," Judy announced when she returned. "The questions they asked were so dumb I didn't have to lie even the teeny-weeniest bit. They don't know fucking shit about anything. I guess they think 'cause we're not like Joe Public we must be Public Enemy Number One."

"And that's crap, right," chimed in the Harlot. "All we want to do is get out there and play our songs to the people of New York..."

"...Or Brooklyn at least," said Philippa. "So, what actually happened, Judy?"

"A lot of the questions were just about who we were, where we came from and what we're gonna be doing in the States," said Judy. "My guess is they just want to find a hole in our story that make us seem like liars. And, of course, there's the issue of the dope. They took my fingerprints, but I know for sure that my dabs aren't on that little plastic sachet..."

"Yeah right," said Jenny, who we all suspected was the real cause of our suffering but none of us could admit. "What would that prove anyway?"

"Quite a lot, I suspect," said Crystal diplomatically. She looked at Judy intently. "There wasn't any of that plea bargaining stuff you see in American legal movies?"

"What d'you mean?" said Judy.

"You know, like in those films based on John Grisham's crime books," Crystal elaborated. "You know: 'If you cooperate with us we'll make things easier for you.'"

"Nah! Nothing like that. They asked a shit load of questions about money though, so perhaps they were digging a bit. Y'know, how much an electric guitar costs. How much we each get at gigs. Whether I've got another job to make ends meet. Just general questions on how we manage to get by."

"I think we'd all like to know the answer to that," laughed Philippa, who in actual fact lived mostly off the generosity of her solicitor boyfriend.

"I guess what they want to do is find out whether one of us is so far from making ends meet that she'd be tempted to smuggle drugs into the US," said Jacquie.

"And who would we sell the stuff to anyhow?" said Andrea. "None of us know anyone in the States and I'm sure any Yank hip enough to be into our music would be well able to score shit cheaply enough for themselves without our help."

There wasn't much of a wait until Crystal was summoned for questioning. Her session was almost as long as Judy's, but no one after that was questioned for more than five minutes. My guess is that after they'd questioned Crystal and Judy, the Customs Officials didn't think there was much of a case to pursue, but that there was a small chance that one of the rest of us might say something incriminating.

"What happened in there?" I asked Crystal when they'd finished with her.

"Nothing much to worry about," she said.

"You look a bit shaken," Jane remarked.

"I've never been interrogated by Police or Customs or anything like that before," Crystal admitted.

That was almost certainly true. In most ways, Crystal was the good girl in her ensemble. Even I had once been pulled to one side and searched at the Notting Hill Carnival. And that was before I'd shaved off all my hair.

"So do you think they've found anything to charge us with?" Bertha wondered.

"They asked about the band's political philosophy," said Crystal. "I guess they thought we might be anarchists or political extremists of some sort. I showed them the publicity stuff that Madeleine produced and pointed out there was nothing in it about our allegiance to a terrorist or extremist group of any kind. The officers in the room are that Miguel guy and a woman who looks like a specialist in interrogation. The name on her badge was Anna something. 'But you're all feminists, right?' Miguel asked. I had to squirm a bit there. I was about to say that I didn't think being a feminist was like having a political affiliation, but I asked instead: 'Why do you think that?' He then looked at this Anna a bit sheepishly. 'You're all girls, ain't you? And you dress like a bunch of dykes.' But before he could go any further on this line of interrogation, Anna said quite firmly: 'I really don't think this is at all relevant to our inquiries.'"

"Sisterhood solidarity," Olivia remarked with a mock clenched fist salute.

"Maybe," said Crystal doubtfully. "Anyway it was Anna who asked me in a kind of sarcastic way. 'So, what kinda rock group, are you? Are you the next big thing? The next British invasion?' So I said: 'You mean like the Beatles?' And she said, which was a bit weird: 'It's been a while since you Brits came up with anything worth listening to. I've heard of this new pop group called the Take That. Are you like the Take That?'"

This assertion split those assembled in the waiting room into two camps. There were those who hated anything to do with Pop and immediately rolled their eyes and said things like "Fuck yeah!" and there were those, like me, who mightn't like Boy Bands as such but were seduced by the notion of Pop success.

"So what did you say to that?" wondered the Harlot who was the most vocally anti anything that stank of commercial success. "Did you tell her where to stuff her 'British invasion'?"

"On the contrary," said Crystal with a conspiratorial smile. "I said that we were a relatively new group struggling to make a living and that our image was just a way to make new fans."

"You what?" remarked Judy indignantly. "What fucking image? We just dress the way we would anyway, Crystal Passion or no Crystal Passion."

"In fact, I said more than that," Crystal continued. "I said that our biggest hope was to be just as popular as Take That and that we hoped that teenagers who enjoyed their music might also come to enjoy ours. I said that if all went well on this tour, we hoped to sell as many records as Elton John, Phil Collins and Rod Stewart."

"Fucking Phil Collins!" Judy snorted. "You might as well have mentioned Val Doonican and Max Bygraves."

"I would have done if I'd have thought either Anna or Miguel had ever heard of them," said Crystal. "Look, the more we appear to be a non-threatening pop group and the less like Alt-Rock, Grunge or Punk the better for all of us."

"And how did this Anna react?" I wondered.

"'Waaalll!' she said in that weird over-the-top way only Americans can get away with. 'If you're even half as good as that Elton John, I'll be coming to see you on stage myself.'"

"Did that clinch it then?" Andrea persisted. "Can we all go now?"

"I don't think so," said Crystal. "But if we play this cool, we might still get to do our gig in Brooklyn as planned."

My time for interrogation came not long after Crystal's and that was when I again met Miguel San Antonio and this woman, Anna Walentynowicz, who, like so many American women, was exceptionally big and bosomy. She was probably older than my mother and sported a distractingly large hairy mole on her chin. It was obvious by this stage that our interrogators were just going through the motions and neither Customs Officer thought there was much more to gain.

"This Crystal Passion seems to have a reputation for having lovers of both sex," remarked Anna Walentynowicz. "Obviously, it's none of our business what you do in private, but I can still ask whether you two are what you might call 'an item'."

She was right. It was none of her business. But I wasn't going to make it an issue.

"No, we're not," I lied.

"You're not what?"

"We're not lovers," I elaborated.

"And you never have been in the past?"

"Never," I lied again.

"Well, so many other girls in your pop group have been, according to what they've told me," said Anna Walentynowicz with a weary smile, "that I assumed you would have too."

"Well, I'm not and I never have been," I volunteered unnecessarily.

And then the telephone rang. Miguel picked it up and while he was replying with "Yes", "No" and "Of course, sir", Anna waved me away almost dismissively with the back of her surprisingly slender-fingered hand.

"You can go now, dear," she said. "I don't think we've got any more questions for you."

It was about an hour later that the last of us was interviewed and that was Jenny Alpha. It was then that Anna Walentynowicz strode into the waiting room to address us, accompanied by another Customs Officer we'd not seen before who appeared to be even more senior and was apparently somewhat disengaged from normal day-to-day proceedings. He was a relatively dapper guy with greying hair and cuff-links that protruded from the sleeves of his official uniform. Unlike the other Customs Officials, his name badge was discreet and difficult to read, but it seemed to say 'Peter Piper' or something like that.

He regarded us all with an indulgent smile. "So here's the British Pop Invasion of the 1990s," he said. "The Beatles of the future."

"We certainly hope so," said Crystal with a winning smile.

"And none of you girls are smuggling drugs into the country or have any idea where the marijuana we found on the floor might have come from?"

"Absolutely not," said Crystal emphatically.

It was Anna Walentynowicz who now addressed us.

"The good news for you girls," she announced, "is that you can all now proceed to your hotel in Manhattan. I hope you have a good night and y'all beware the muggers that hang around 54th Street. It's not always safe in the Big Apple."

She paused for affect and let the smiles of relief sweep across our faces. We'd be able to do the gig after all.

"However," Anna Walentynowicz continued after a pause, "the bad news is that we'll be holding onto your musical instruments and electronic equipment for at least until tomorrow. We have some extra checks we still need to carry out."

The relieved smiles on our faces were transformed into alarm.

"But we're due to do a gig tomorrow night," said Andrea, who hated to be parted from her violin for even a matter of minutes. "How're we going to manage without our instruments?"

"I guess you girls are just gonna have to find a way," said Anna Walentynowicz with a smile. "Contact the airport tomorrow and you'll know then whether you can pick up your possessions. In the meantime, y'all can walk out through Departures. Have a nice stay in New York, girls."

And so it was that the least of all our worries came to be resolved. We weren't going to be deported from America and none of us were to be charged with drug dealing (at least not yet), but the only equipment we had for the gig was Crystal's acoustic guitar and the sound desk equipment Tomiko had brought along.

Judy was the most annoyed of all of us. "What the fuck are we gonna do?" Judy asked Crystal. "Is it just gonna be an acoustic solo set. You, the microphone and a six-string guitar."

"I think so," admitted Crystal. "You'll all just have to sit it out, though Thelma and the Harlot can help with the vocals. I'll just have to manage most of it by myself."

"How the fuck is that gonna work?" said an equally aggrieved Olivia. "There's almost a dozen of us. We're a big band. How can we do a gig with just you?"

"My first album was mostly just solo guitar and vocals," said Crystal reassuringly. "For most of the first year or so of Crystal Passion as a performer it was just me on stage. I can manage. It won't be as good as it would be with all you guys, but it'll work."

"The Yanks'll fucking crucify you," said Jacquie angrily. "They're expecting fucking Bob Dylan and the Band and all they'll be getting is Bob Dylan. It'll be more House of the Rising Sun than Like a Rolling Stone."

"Well, at least no one'll be shouting out 'Judas!' like they did at Dylan that time," Philippa remarked.