incoherent and mumbling off into a bluesy, lichen wine-ramble, there was always her old boyfriend, Pigpen, to shore her up. On the other hand, the Mersey Zombies had a nasty rep for breaking into on-stage bickering, backstage fistfights, short huffy sets… and Sid couldn’t be restrained from sometimes spitting into the front rows when they began to jeer.
More than a few times, Elvis had been asked by Graceland’s patrons why other resurrected rockers couldn’t be found and hired. Elvis usually mumbled off with one of his usual excuses—”good idea, buddy, I’ll work on it” or “we’re straightening out the contract, y’know”— but the fact of the matter was that the musicians who had been found during his long talent search were the only ones who still considered themselves to be music people. Jimi Hendrix was alive, but he now lived in Soul City, where he played an occasional blues duet with Robert Johnson; no one who didn’t live in the African-heritage nation-state had ever heard them perform. Hank Williams and Patsy Cline were married and owned a farm far downstream, as did their nearby neighbor, the Big Bopper. Ronnie Van Zandt and Steve Gaines were dragonfishermen; Buddy Holly and Richie Valens co-owned a small airship company flying out of New Bohemia. Bob Marley was reputed to be a revolutionary, secretly traveling along the Rivervalley to infiltrate and foster rebellions within slave-nations wherever he and his gang of Rastafarians could find them. Bon Scott was a hopeless dreamgum addict without a grail, squatting wherever he could and begging for the basic necessities in whatever village would next accept him.
And no one knew what had happened to Jim Morrison
82
Alien Steele
GRACELAND
83
… if, indeed, he had truly died in Paris when everyone thought he did.
“… please to introduce myself…”
Shortly before sundown, the grailstones had delivered dinner with all its usual sound and fury. Once the audience had removed their grails, the Titanthrops had opened the wooden gates of the amphitheater’s stockade and allowed the newcomers inside. Now, beneath the torchlight surrounding the seating area, a hundred of the resurrected were standing or sitting on the bamboo benches, waiting for the first band to come on stage. The summer-evening breeze carried mixed odors—fried fish, lichen wine, tobacco and marijuana smoke—along with the low buzz of voices, impatient whistles, and hand-clapping. The sounds and smells of rock ‘n’ roll….
“Ten minutes to curtain, John.”
John let the redfish curtain fall back into place; he had parted it a half-inch to peer out at the audience from the entrance of the backstage area. He turned to look at the skinny young woman who had come up quietly from behind him.
“Already beat you to it, love,” he said stoically. She blinked rapidly in apparent confusion; he pinched a fold of the curtain. “See?”
Mary West Wind blushed and looked down at the floor, embarrassed at having not caught the awful pun. John flashed her a smile to show that he didn’t mind and she visibly relaxed. Mary West Wind had been a San Francisco
flower child until six tabs of particularly nasty LSD had dispatched her to strawberry fields forever. Here on Graceland, she served as stagehand and permanent groupie-in-residence to both house bands. She was so sweet and innocent, however, that none of the rockers—not even Sid, even in his most repugnant moments—had the heart to seduce her, although John was completely aware that she had a crush on him in particular.
“The King asked me to ask you to find Brian,” Mary said meekly. “I mean, I know where he is, but I can’t… I mean, I shouldn’t….”
John sighed and rubbed his eyelids between thumb and forefinger. His vision was now perfect, but he still missed his glasses. Like Keith and his rotten gold tooth. “I know, I know,” he murmured. “Bloody damn… all right, I shall go track down our errant stone.”
He began walking away from the curtain; Mary deferentially stepped aside to let him pass to the short flight of stairs leading to the dressing rooms. On sudden impulse, John paused, leaned over, and gave her a quick brotherly peck on the cheek.
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