Rockoholic (5 page)

3:41
P.M.
—
The iPod’s still working, thank Cobain. I stick it on shuffle. The first song is that one from
Annie
that Mac sings all the time, “It’s the Hard-Knock Life.” There’s a burning in my throat and I want to sink inside the hood of my fleece and cry my eyes out.

5:24
P.M.
—
The cinema’s all lit up and streetlamps are coming on. Smiley
Shining
Twin now has a pair of pink leg warmers on over her wrists. She is also now blonde, and she’s tossing her long black wig from hand to hand. Other
Shining
Twin is sitting on the wall, knees hugged in, shivering. She still has black hair and large black-painted eyes. She’s glaring at me. I’m a bit scared.

5:48
P.M.
—
The sky’s completely dark. A Mercedes rolls up and a group of girls spews out, all squealing like mosquitoes. I’m in
such
a bad mood and I can’t shake myself out of it. I stink of whiskey puke, I need the loo again, and I can’t see an end to this queuing lark. And then, to make matters worse, I notice a girl from the Mercedes is wearing the eBay shirt like mine.
I’m
supposed to be the only one here wearing one!

6:09
P.M.
—
I feel the last Curly Wurly in my thigh pocket. The discovery briefly lifts my mood. I take it out and rip open the top but the whiff of my sicky hair puts me off, so I stuff it back inside.

6:23
P.M.
—
A shudder of excitement, or maybe it’s just cold, ripples through my body. It’s getting close now. The scalpers have turned up. Short men in baseball caps and striped track pants, shouting up and down the line. “Regulators tickets. Come and get your Regulators tickets here.” Everyone just ignores them. People in suits and skirts and high heels
clip-clop
back from town. I look behind at the queue. It is endless now. There are hundreds of people lining up far into the distance behind me.

Mac appears in the crowd and pushes his way toward me. I’m so happy to see a familiar face, I want to cry. Must be the emotion of knowing that I’m finally so close to getting inside.

He notices my smell straightaway. “God, who’s vommed?”

I nod toward Green Blazer Wanker, who is lying along the wall a few places down, his arms over his eyes. Said Green Blazer is propped under his head as a pillow.

“It’s coming from you,” says Mac, laughing. “You stink. Has he thrown up on you or something?”

“Yes. And he just stood there and laughed. He’s pretty out of it, though.”

Mac stops laughing. A flash of realization appears on his face. “Were you wearing my iPod?”

I pull it from my pocket. “It’s fine, it didn’t get wet. It was in my pocket.”

Without a word, Mac barges his way through the gathered knot of people until he gets to Green Blazer Boy and yanks the blazer from under his head so his skull falls back on the wall.

“Hey!”

Mac leaps up onto the wall and leans down and grabs the boy’s T-shirt, pulling him to his feet, wincing at his breath. He gets right in his face. He’s so tall and fit-looking compared to Green Blazer Boy, who’s all pale and as limp as a rag doll.

“Keep your puke to yourself, all right? Else next time, you won’t be drinking out of that bottle, you’ll be having it removed. Got it?”

The boy nods and Mac pushes him back into the leafless bush behind the wall. Mac comes back over to me, still grimacing like he’s just picked up something really dirty.

“Oh my God, why did you do that?” I ask when he comes back.

He shrugs, pulling his hand sanitizer from his coat pocket. “Because you didn’t.” His face is hard and he’s looking back in the direction of Green Blazer Boy, shaking his head. He would have looked quite heroic, if he hadn’t been hand-sanitizing. He offers me some.

I hold out my hands. “That was a bit manly.”

“Well, I’m a man, aren’t I?” he says, scratching his nose with a black-varnished fingernail.

“I meant to ask, how was the movie?” Some security guards are talking into CB radios through the windows of the building. It’s nearly time!

Mac shoves his fingers into his pockets. “Like you care, anyway. You’re practically fizzing.”

“I can’t help it. It’s nearly seven o’clock. We’ll be going in soon.”

“Must feel like you’re getting paroled. OK, well, have fun. I’ll see you later.”

“OK. Thanks,” I call out as he melts back into the crowd. He says something and puts his hand up but before I can ask him to say it again, he’s gone.

7:00
P.M.
—
We’re all bunched around the doors. They’re going to open any second now. Yellow-shirted security people have appeared and big fat bald men in black shiny jackets are barking out orders not to push and not to run once we’re inside. My phone vibrates in my pocket. It’s Mac.

“I’ll text you when it finishes, about eleven, I reckon. See the lamppost opposite the pub, the one with the orange sign on it?” I twist my neck around and look across the road to the pub, then across to the lamppost. “I’ll park by that. I’ll put my hazards on.”

“OK. See you —” But the phone goes dead.

It’s taking ages for them to open the doors. It must be almost quarter past now. I feel for the ticket in my fleece pocket next to Grandad’s moon rock, make sure it’s still there. Mac’s ticket.

7:15
P.M.
—
The crowd swell is incredible. I’m part of this vast wriggling worm of people all desperately trying to be the first through the tiny double doors. Some older girls from “The First Fifteen” try to tell the black-jacket security men that people are queue-jumping. They don’t care — they’re too busy chewing and being bald. And then, after twelve hours of waiting, everything happens. People push, girls yelp, doors open, bags are searched, people push, girls run, men shout, “Don’t run.” “No running.” “Crowd surfers will be ejected.” Doors open. People push. And then my adrenaline kicks in and I race to the front of the huge indoor arena.

“No running!” someone shouts. But I don’t stop running — I keep on,
pelt, pelt, pelt,
and pump my arms until I make the final lunge for the barrier, slamming into it and gripping on tightly. Never mind the dodgy looks I’m getting from the blonde on one side of me and the bob haircut on the other. Never mind that I’m winded. I don’t care. I’m where I need to be and for the first time today, I’m happy. I’m so happy I’m here. This is where it’s all going to happen. I’m going to sing the loudest. I’m going to stretch my hand out the farthest. He’s going to notice me.

The opening act, Beckon Gallow, is rubbish. Like a load of little boys jumping around demanding sweets. But I guess we all expected that. No one is here to see them, anyway — they are just the last hurdle between us and the heaven that is The Regulators.

I’m crammed in like a cow in a pen. The other cows pinned in around me surge forward. I have to go with them — there’s nothing else I can do, unless I signal to one of the Yellow T-shirt Guys at the front to pull me out, but only desperation calls for that and I’m not giving up yet. Not until I’ve seen Jackson. A crowd-surfer kicks my head as he passes over the top of us, but I can’t complain. Water is thrown at us from the front like we’re starving orphans. At one point, a jet of water squirts me hard in the face, I assume to cool me down, but it just makes me temporarily blind.

Smiley
Shining
Twin must have attached herself to me. Every time I turn around I see her.

“This is amazing!” she screams in my ear.

I blink the water out of my eyes and nod as she flings a plastic cup of ice-cold water over her head. I don’t think it’s amazing at all. I’ve queued all day in the freezing cold and now I’m penned in like I’m waiting to be slaughtered, mooing along with the rest of them. I’m not even watching the opening band anymore — I’m concentrating on not passing out. Somehow I’ve drifted away from the front barrier and that hallowed row in front of Jackson and the catchment area for his sweat or his spit and now I’m all at sea and there’s nothing to hold on to.

Then it happens. The best part of the day so far. The opening act, can’t even remember their name now, announces “This is our last song . . .” and everyone in the place goes mad and starts cheering, but the crush on my rib cage gets about ten degrees worse. Their last song is fast and frenetic and suddenly we’re so excited to be seeing the back of them, we all start headbanging and jumping around like epileptics on pogo sticks. Sweat is pouring into my eyes because I still have my thick fleece on. The eBay shirt underneath has become another layer of my skin. There’s a mist above the mosh pit — a mist of hot body odor and teen hormones run amok. The song comes to an abrupt halt and everyone cheers. They go off and the stage goes black.

“Wooooo-hoooooooo!” screams Smiley
Shining
Twin. I realize then that I’m pretty much deaf but for a dull audience murmur and a tiny mouse screaming somewhere inside my inner ear. The herd relaxes back and I can start wriggling out of my sweltering fleece.

Nothing happens for ages. A roadie appears every now and again to twiddle knobs on the amps. Then the curtain at the back is lifted and, in that instant, the stage triples in size. A huge, sparkling new drum kit appears at the back and everyone cheers again. Jael’s drum kit.

More roadies appear, placing mic stands to the left and right of the stage for Lenny and Pash and one right in the center. The center where Jackson’s going to be, any moment now. I’m going to see him. I’m craning my calves trying to stand on tiptoes the whole time, desperate to get the first glimpse of him when he comes on. I’m passed a plastic cup with an inch of ice-cold water in it.

Amps are hefted around, switches are checked, someone runs from the left side to the right, talking into a CB radio for no apparent reason, and a wiry woman comes on and sets up a six-pack of lagers on the edge of the drum platform and two large bottles of water on the amps. Another cheer goes up. Those are Pash’s lagers. That’s Jackson’s water. OMFG. His lips are going to be on one of those bottles any second now.

My chest is thundering. Behind the drum platform, another curtain pulls back to reveal a high staircase which leads right up to a higher platform running all along the top. I’m guessing this is where Jackson makes his entrance: I read in a
Lungs
magazine review of the Prague gig that he came down some steps at the start. I don’t think I’m ready for this. I don’t think I’m ready for what is about to happen.

More waiting. I feel the mass around me expand a little every so often, so I have managed to wriggle my arms out of my fleece and it is now down as far as my waist. I’m apologizing all the time to the bodies next to me for touching them as I try to knot it around myself. I finally do it. I’m soaked through but at least I might now begin to cool down.

As I finish tying the sleeves, the buzz around me grows louder. A roar comes up over us like a wave, and I start screaming, too, though I don’t know why. It just takes me over. Something’s happening but I’ve no idea what it is. I’m up on tiptoes, looking frantically around the stage for signs of something other than black curtains and mic stands and amps. And eventually I see a figure in the wings with a guitar.

It’s Lenny Mortiro. Lead guitarist. He is the first on. The screams grow louder, like a million tiny bells, and the swelling mass tightens around me like a blood-pressure band. Lenny salutes us and strides over to his mic stand on the left-hand side. He’s wearing the trademark kilt and white shirt with the sleeves torn off to reveal arms full of tattoos. He has a pink Mohawk. In Berlin it was green
—
I saw it on YouTube. A spotlight beams down as he sips some water, fiddles with an amp, and starts cranking up a guitar riff so clean and perfect you could scratch your back with it.

He is the Punk.

At that moment, there’s another roar. I’m on tiptoes again, I can’t see anything. Then Pash Fredericks appears in a long black vicar dress with a white collar thing and grabs his bass guitar from the same side of the stage, raises a hand to us, and struts across to his microphone. He’s so tall, just as tall as I imagined. His hair is flattened and shiny and there’s a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He goes to the drum kit to snap the ring off a can of lager. He swigs it, flicks the ring pull toward us, then goes to his spotlit mic and starts plucking his strings.

He is the Priest.

The crowd roar covers me like a boiling hot blanket. I’ve never heard anything so loud. But when Pash’s guitar joins in with Lenny’s, they take it up a couple more levels. Lenny’s wheedling away on one side and Pash is plucking for all he’s worth. They’re plucking on guitar strings, but those guitar strings could be running through the center of my body. I can feel each one, feel the vibrations inside me. I can feel it all! A steady surge forward of the crammed-in mass takes me out of my heaven and it’s suddenly harder to breathe. I’m sweating buckets and I can feel beads of perspiration popping up all over my face. I raise a hand up to wipe my forehead and it gets pinned where it is. I can’t get it down at all. I look like I’m answering a question.