‘Do you have any authority?’ one of the security goons asked, and you had to admit to yourself that you did not.
The show itself was okay. They were playing tracks from the new album – your moment of fame was already history. The band had moved on; the new songs seemed obsessed with downfall and mayhem. The last track seemed to you to be waving goodbye to everybody’s good times. You doubted the Panthers and the Angels would disagree.
It was typical of the band to want to replicate Wood-stock’s good feelings. Typical that they misjudged the way the world’s mood had travelled since then. Their own free concert was by way of an apology for ticket scams and all that ill-feeling. You knew it wasn’t going to be that easy.
For a start, the drugs had moved on. Everything was bad: diluted, cut with poison, lethal. You were a pro; you could probably give Keith lessons on where to score. You had managed to pull yourself away from the siren call of heroin, but the acid seemed to be giving you more bad trips than good ones. Nevertheless, on the day, you took a proffered tab from a complete stranger.
And tripped.
In cold black light, explosions strafing the sky. The sound system consisted of alarm bells and artillery. The crowd was hungry, tired, concussed. They needed everything they weren’t getting. The medicos couldn’t cope with the trauma victims. Word went around: ‘Don’t touch any acid you’re not sure of.’ But you already had. And you’d handed over money for a single sheet of further trips, little purple stars: an ironic comment on the war in Vietnam? Who gave a shit – you were beyond irony by this point.
You had about a week to go before your employers threw you out. You’d added nothing of inspiration to a ‘modern western’ they’d asked you to pep up; had failed dismally to pitch them a black comedy about the drug scene in LA. You were not justifying their early faith in you. You were on the road out of Tinseltown.
Back to Blighty: a dismal prospect. You’d already traded the T-Bird to pay off a debt which had come with the promise of a switchblade attached. They’d threatened to cut off your eyelids. That was the way things were now. The most potent threat anyone could make was to stop you ceasing to see.
You’d hitched down here with a friend. The traffic had forced you out of the car five miles from the field, and you’d promptly lost your friend in the crowd. Not that he’d be your friend for long: you owed him money, too, and were planning to fly off without making good.
You were way past ‘making good’.
You noticed them early on, the Angels. They revved their engines, clearing a path for several dozen hogs, which they parked in front of the stage, creating a security cordon. And then the guest bands started coming on, and it got colder, and trouble flared. Pool cues and motorbike chains. Ugly cries and gashed heads. Pleas from the stage going unheeded, an Angel going up there to pick a fight with a stoned musician.
You were standing next to this black guy when the headliners – your old muckers – finally came on. Your whole body was numb, but your brain was alive with sparks. The air felt malign; the hairs once more rose on your arms. Violence broke out again.
‘This is heavy,’ the black guy said. You offered him a tab of your acid, showed him the little purple stars.
‘I sang backing on this,’ you shouted. The black guy nodded. ‘In the studio,’ you persisted. ‘I’m there on the album.’
He nodded again, but you knew he wasn’t listening. You were humming now; brimful of brimstone. And up there on the stage they were playing your tune.
‘This is it, man,’ you yelled at your new friend, slapping him on the back. ‘This is us! This is what it’s all about! Come on!’ And you gave him a push that sent him jogging down to the front, right into the phalanx of guards. You stayed back. You watched. You saw silver flash in the darkness. A gun? A knife? Your friend went down and was swallowed up by denim jackets and leathers. People started screaming, showing bloodied palms to the band on the stage. Over the microphone, a doctor was requested.
The cusp of devilment, my friend…
You nodded to yourself, jungle drums dying in your ears. The sacrifice had been made. The energy had been earthed. Anger’s Lucifer had been appeased.
Or whatever.
And the sky made a song of your cries…
Unlucky in Love, Unlucky at Cards
Unlucky at cards, lucky in love: isn’t that how the saying goes?
Which is why Chick Morrison went to the casino the night his wife finally walked out. She’d left a note explaining that she wasn’t leaving him; it was just that she couldn’t stand his habits any longer. He tore her note up. It had taken her several attempts: the rejects were little crumpled balls in the kitchen bin. He lifted each one out and spread them on the table, trying to work out their chronological sequence. It wasn’t just a matter of the shortest one being the first attempt: each began on a different tack.
She was leaving him because she felt lost, and had to find herself.
She was leaving him because it would be cruel not to.
She was leaving him – well, he had to admire her for all the effort she’d taken, all the effort she’d felt he merited. Or maybe she just didn’t want him going after her. The thing was, he’d already started – started and finished, really. He’d been following her on and off for three weeks, had seen her enter the man’s house, had watched her leave, patting her hair back into place. He’d taken to tailing the man, too, not knowing why: wondering, maybe, if he could learn something, something about the kind of man his wife wanted him to be. But all he’d felt was growing tiredness, and, in a moment of sharp lucidity, that he didn’t care any more, didn’t love her any more.
Which didn’t make it any easier to just let her go. He’d wondered about killing her, making ever more convoluted plans. He knew the problem with murder was that the spouse was always first in the frame. So the murder had to be perfect. He needed either a cast-iron alibi or to make sure the body was never found. It was a matter of pride, wasn’t it? For years, on and off, he’d enjoyed the fantasy of being the one to walk out, the one to make the break. And now she’d beaten him to it: she was the one starting the new life; which meant he was the one who’d been left in the lurch. He didn’t like that. He resolved to do something about it.
What he did was drive into Aberdeen, park the car, and hit the pubs and clubs. And at closing time, as he was being escorted from the final hostelry, he’d seen lights and smoked-glass doors with an illuminated staircase behind them. The casino.
Lucky at cards, unlucky in love. He’d proven the latter; it was time to give the former a chance.
Walked in, watched for a little while, getting a feel for the place. That was what he did, in his line of work: he tried to fit in as quickly as possible, melt into the scenery. The person you didn’t notice as you left your hotel assignation or partook of a final embrace in an apparently empty car park. Those were the moments when Chick would catch you with his camera, making sure you were in the frame.
But that night, he felt he wanted to be seen. So he sat in on a card game. Did all right at first, losing a little here, winning a hand or two there. He was not a natural card-player. He knew how to play, knew all about card-counting, but wasn’t up to it. He liked to pretend games were all about luck rather than the playing of percentages.
He wrote out a cheque, backed it with his banker’s card. The new stack of chips arrived and he began the dogged task of giving them away. His occasional brash bets were whittled away to steady tosses of a single chip into the pot. It was late into the night; most of the tables were quiet. Gamblers who’d finished for the evening were standing around the table, a phalanx which seemed to constrain those still playing. To get up and leave… in front of an audience. It would have been like walking away from a fight.