/ had hoped you might join us, but I see now that’s impossible. All I ask now is that you receive my testimony, and understand why we’ve done what we shall do, why I’ve led them here….
John reached out and picked up the dragonfish knife, sliding it out of its scabbard. As he did so, a dim, reddish glow was reflected off its sharp, polished-white surface.
Rock must die, John….
He looked around; through the open tent-flaps, he saw a sudden blaze of firelight from the amphitheater.
You must accept this….
Then he had vanished into the deeper shadows of the night.
“Bloody hell I will,” John whispered to the fire. Clutching the knife in his fist; he strode out of the tent.
Already there was shouting from the campsites: cries of surprise, anger, shock, desperation. He could see people emerging from their tents, staring in disbelief at
the bonfire that was erupting from the stage area. Now there were new, smaller blazes being set; the backstage shed, the speaker stacks, the sound board, all in turn were being set ablaze by distant cloaked figures who had scaled the stockade walls and were now committing arson on the amphitheater. Everything was made of wood; once set afire, it would all go up in minutes.
There was a wash of heat against his skin. He could hear Elvis bellowing in rage. Through the trees, he glimpsed audience members moving toward the besieged stage. From somewhere not far off, there was a harsh scream of mortal pain, suddenly cut short as another knife found the passive throat of a Second Chancer. “John?” Mary called from somewhere behind him. “John, what’s going on?”
John ignored her. Somewhere in the heart of the furnace, Jim was waiting for him, capering with a torch in hand, igniting precious sound-equipment and acoustic baffles and his own crude yet irreplaceable piano. The technology of music, deemed the root of all evil by a group of religious fanatics, was being systematically destroyed.
John took a few more steps into the night. It wouldn’t be very difficult to find Jim. He must have known that he would die again before he left Graceland; he had all but told John what he intended to do, and John had attempted to escape the blunt reality of the threat by taking home a sweet little hippie-chick. If you smoke enough pot and fuck long enough, you can avoid coming to grips with anything. Hell, when it came down to it, he was a world-class champion when it came to avoiding responsibility.
No more. Not when something he loved was being torched.
Mary was still calling his name as he took a few more steps into the darkness, the palm of his hand sweating
98
Alien Steele
against the handle of the knife. Find the fucker. Grab him by the neck. Slash his goddamn throat…
Do you know who you are? the nameless policeman in the ambulance asked again.
He stopped in his tracks. He felt his knees buckle as he sagged to the ground.
He remembered the Cavern Club. He remembered the Royal Albert Hall. He remembered the first American tour and the groupies who sobbed over a patch of ground he had walked across. He remembered going to India while Epstein was dying. He remembered the final rooftop performance in London with the lads before they called it quits. He remembered falling in love with Yoko. He remembered their bed-in demonstration, and all the other countless protests and demonstrations against war and violence. He remembered Julian’s birth, then Scan’s. He remembered the one and only time he met Morrison, backstage in Toronto when the Plastic Ono Band and the Doors had been the headliners. He remembered writing a song about how it was permissible to give peace a chance….
“Good Lord,” he whispered, “what am I doing?”
He didn’t remember dropping the knife. In fact, he didn’t remember much else until Keilh sat down next to him on the dew-soaked ground, lit up a joint, and offered it to him.
GRACELAND
99
“… with a little help from our friends…”
“Haven’t seen anything like this since we played the pubs, eh, mate?” Keith said dryly.
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