As he turned to walk down the corridor, John was startled by a hard tap on his shoulder. He jumped a half-inch off the floor, then spun around to find a massive, hairy shape filling the hallway.
John sagged against the wall, laying a hand against his thudding chest. “Oh…Billy, it’s you,” he gasped. “You scared the life out of me, mate.”
Billy was one of the Titanthrops who worked on the island. Although the bands rarely had any problems with audience members seeking their way to the dressing rooms uninvited, Elvis had insisted upon having one of the titans enlisted as backstage security. Billy guarded the exit door that John had just passed. No guest list was necessary; if Billy was told a name—as Brian did every night—then Billy would remember that name for weeks, even months, to come. And if someone tried to con or muscle their way into the dressing rooms, they were usually treated to a flying lesson over the stockade wall.
“Thorry to interrupth you,” Billy said in his usual deep-throated lisp, “but there’th thomeone at the door who inthith upon theeing you.”
Billy looked annoyed, if only because he had to bend almost double to keep from banging his huge skull against the ceiling. John sighed; rock stardom was dead in the afterlife, but it still didn’t prevent zealous fans from seeking out his autograph at exactly the wrong
time. “Tell them I’m about to go onstage and I’ll see them after…” he began.
“He’th rather thee you now,” Billy persisted. Before John could respond, he added, “He’th from the Church of the Thecond Chanth, and he thaid he knowth you from back then.”
He paused, then added in a low voice, “He thaid it wath important.. .he thaid hith name was Jim.”
John looked askance at the Titan. “Jim? I don’t know anyone named…”
He stopped. For a long moment, John stared at Billy, deciphering what he had said. When it struck home, his first impulse was to yell for Keith and Brian… hell, not just them, but for Duane and Pig and Janis and Mary West Wind and anyone else who remembered the magic, anyone within earshot who remembered the Lizard King….
John sucked in his breath. “Pardon me,” he said, then he ducked beneath Billy’s right armpit and slowly walked back toward the intersecting hallway. Behind him, he heard the nervous rattle of drumsticks, a woman’s faint cry of orgasm. All around him, there was sound: the twang of Duane’s muted guitar strings, someone laughing at an old joke, the faraway clapping of hands by an audience waiting to see rejuvenated legends of their past. John broke into a trot….
He stopped at the crossway, staring at the open door. Torchlight from outside illuminated a robed figure, standing half-seen just outside the doorway.
No call to him, though. No gesture of recognition, no familiar all-fucked-up amble down the corridor to meet him. Only a monkish figure in severe brown robes, a hornfish helix draped around his neck, waiting just outside the dressing room. And, within the dark pit of the
88 Alien Steele
hood, the barest hint of a familiar face, first seen long ago in Toronto when they were sharing the bill….
“Jim?” he whispered. “Jim, is that you?”
“After the show, John.” The voice was very low, but it was the same unmistakable voice. “Back here when you’re through.”
The figure then melted into the shadows, allowing the door to slowly swing shut again.
John stared at it until Keith goosed him with one of his drumsticks and reminded him that the crowd was waiting. For the first time since anyone in the band could remember, John was late coming on stage.
GRACELAMD
89
“… no future for you….”
The Mersey Zombies set lasted for an hour; to nobody’s great surprise, least of all John’s, it was a lame night.
John had long since learned that the intrinsic problem with the band was that, because of the all-star lineup, everyone expected to hear their favorite Beatles or Rolling Stones or Who or Sex Pistols songs. However, there were many differences between each band member’s sensibilities that could not be easily paved over by the excuse that they were all British rockers; it was like expecting Nat King Cole and Jimi Hendrix to successfully collaborate because they were both black American musicians.
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