Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls

23

Johnny Quinn would have been chuffed.

To have seen Armageddon: The Musical performed as a rock opera, live upon stage in front of one hundred thousand young men in black T-shirts and shorts. That would have been quite something. That would have made his day.

But sadly old Johnny couldn’t make it there in person. He had long since traded in his Biro for a shroud. And although it would be nice to think that he was sitting up there on a cloud somewhere, smiling down upon the proceedings, it is far more likely that he is way down deep in a place less pleasing, having the most popular prison pastime inflicted upon him by demons with bad breath and pointy peckers.

So Johnny wouldn’t be seeing the show. Which was a shame, because it was a killer.

The Gandhis looked the business and the Gandhis were the business. They were rock stars and they did what rock stars do.

You can keep all your rappers in sportswear. And your dressed-down bands from the North. And you can forget all that crap about, “We’re into music, not image”, or worse than that …

UNPLUGGED

Any musicians who play UNPLUGGED should be taken out quietly and put to the sword. A rock star should look like a rock star and a rock star should play like a rock star. And that means the twenty-minute Stratocaster solo and that means hair and that means leather. And if it’s too loud you’re too old.

And if you don’t like it, then you can, in the words of Axl Rose, “just fuck off.”

And another thing, too, while we’re at it. It is not just the right of every young person to go off to a three-day rock festival, get smashed out of their bonces on forbidden substances and blow their minds to rock ’n’ roll.

IT’S THEIR DUTY!

These things must be done and they must be done now! Too soon the jammy sandwich in the expensive sound system. Too soon the housework and the family saloon.

Remember the credo your fathers forgot.

TURN ON – TUNE IN – DROP OUT

And grow your hair big while you still have some to grow. And never trust anyone over thirty.

It was around three thirty when Gandhi’s Hairdryer opened the show and raised high the banner of rock.

It was big hair and tight leather trousers. It was Pigarse with his bulging crotch and Litany in a red rubber catsuit and four-inch stilettos. It was Ricky with his Stratocaster.

It was rock ’n’ roll.

A great sigh rose from the crowd as Litany walked onstage. Ten zillion male pheromones took to head-butting one another. A coachload of Paul McCartney fans thrust their knitting into their handbags, pulled their cardigans over their faces and fled.

And that was only the blokes. Ha ha ha ha ha …

Cheer and ogle went the boys in the black T-shirts and shorts. Rock ’n’ roll and rock went Gandhi’s Hairdryer.

It is virtually impossible to describe in mere words a great rock performance. But, as Norman once said, “It is only by attempting the impossible that we will achieve the absurd.”

So, let us pan gently across the stage with our belletristic camera, and, shunning the holophrastic, cry havoc and let slip the doggerels of war.

No. Let’s not.

Let’s go see how Soap is getting on.

Soap Distant and John Omally were down the front in the snake pit. That Holy of Holies before the stage, where only the Blessed possessing the sacred stage pass may bang their exalted heads and play their ethereal guitars.

And, as the Gandhis pumped out “The Dalai Lama’s Barn Dance”, and Litany’s vocals and Ricky’s Strat meshed and intertwined and Pigarse’s backbeat drove fists of sound through stomach walls and Dead Boy Doveston’s Rickenbacker bass (the 1964 4001S model) underlaid a funk groove previously only achieved by the now legendary Bootsy Collins, whilst Matchbox Finial produced the power chords, Soap and John made mad eejits of themselves and worked up a sweat you could drown in.

And, as the last power chord crashed out and the final drum roll did its thing and the impossibly fast twiddly-diddly show-off Stratocaster tail-piece flourish blurred away to an end, the audience erupted into orgasmic applause, which shook the ground and registered 3.6 on the Richter Scale.

Which was a pretty good opening for any show.

“Brilliant.” John raised peace-fingers, whistled and cheered.

“That was something,” gasped Soap.

And all around them was hubbub and hollering, pushings of bodies and crush.

“John,” Soap shouted with what breath he could find. “I have to speak to you. It’s very important.”

“Later.” John whistled some more.

“John, it’s very important.”

“Later. Later. Leave it, Soap.”

Soap Distant bawled into John’s ear. “John, I know who killed Jim.”

John Omally froze amidst the roaring, cheering crowd. “What did you say?” he mouthed at Soap.

“I know who killed Jim. I have to talk to you.”

John mouthed a “Come on,” and pushed Soap through the crush.

“Come on!” Wingarde shouted at his chauffeur as the long red, white and logoed limo slid between the building sites of Brentford. “Get a move on, I’m missing the show.”

The chauffeur made a huffy face in the driving mirror. “Well,” said he, in the manner known as camp, “if you hadn’t spent half the day digging on your allotment.”

Wingarde cradled the bundle on his lap. An oilskin cloth swathed the AK47. From between his gritted teeth he mumbled, “It wasn’t my bloody fault that I couldn’t remember where I’d buried it.”

“Excuse me?” said the chauffeur.

“Nothing,” grumbled Wingarde.

“You should have marked the place with a stick or something,” said The Voice in Wingarde’s head.

“A stick?” said Wingarde. “A stick!” he said again.

“A stick?” said the chauffeur.

“Shut up!” said Wingarde.

“Don’t tell God to shut up,” said The Voice.

“Not you, sir,” said Wingarde.

“That’s more like it,” said the chauffeur.

Wingarde whispered into his hand. “You could have told me where it was buried. You are God, after all.”

“That’s very sweet of you,” said the chauffeur, whose hearing was very acute, “and I’ve always rather fancied you. Shall we give the concert a miss, do you think, and just go back to my house?”

Back in Gunnersbury House, with the Gandhis’ music rattling the windowpanes and playing merry hell with the foundations, John Omally sat at his grimy kitchen table and listened in silence while Soap told him his tale.

“Oh my God,” he whispered, when the lad had done. “Oh my God, my God.”

Soap stared at the Irishman. He looked on the verge of collapse. The colour had faded away from his face and his hands shook terribly.

“I’m so sorry, John,” said Soap. “Sorry about Jim and sorry I had to spring all this on you.”

“It’s all right, Soap.” John took breaths to steady himself, but these met with little success. “It’s all right. It all makes sense to me now. Why Geraldo wanted my autograph when he met me. Why Jim was so secretive. All of it. It all falls into place.”

“So you can see why it’s so important that we find Geraldo today.”

John nodded slowly, his voice was scarcely a whisper. “You find him, Soap, and let me deal with Wingarde.”

“Now hold on, John. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Stupid?” John’s eyes flashed and his trembling hands became fists. “He killed Jim and that’s all I need to know.”

“Yes, I know that’s how it looks. But we can’t actually prove anything.”

“He’ll confess to me,” said Omally. “And then I will carry out his execution.”

“No, John, that isn’t the way.”

Omally climbed unsteadily to his feet. He reached out a hand to Soap, who took it. “Soap,” said he. “This is where you and I part company again. You’re a good man, Soap. Jim was a good man and you’re a good man too.”

“You sound a bit like Brian Epstein,” said Soap. “But please don’t do this, John.”

“It has to be done. Call it revenge, call it whatever you will. But I have to do it, all the same.”

Soap looked up at Omally and they solemnly shook hands. “There’s nothing I can say that will talk you out of this, is there?” said Soap.

“Nothing, my friend.”

“Can I give you a hug?”

“Certainly not,” said John. “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” said Soap. “And good luck.”

There had been quite a lot of talk of late in the press regarding the return of the death penalty. Well, in those papers owned by the Virgin Newsgroup at any rate. They’d been running a competition, inviting readers to write in with their suggestions for a new and novel form of public execution that could be broadcast on the Virgin Community TV Network.

Inspectre Hovis had not written in. Not that he wasn’t for bringing back hanging. He was. But the line, in his opinion, had to be drawn somewhere.

Unlike his constables, Inspectre Hovis was not in plain clothes. Nothing about him was plain. He was a character, and as a character he was dressed in style. Today it was a four-piece blue suede suit and a rather dashing pair of riding boots. However, at the present moment, all this sartorial excess was hidden from view. Because Inspectre Hovis was invisible.

He was sitting in one of the latest line in Virgin Community Police helicopters. One with the new stealth mode. This was hovering soundlessly, employing its exterior aural camouflage modification. Based, no doubt, on the principle of Ricky’s silence tape. But who can say for certain?

The Inspectre’s invisible person hung a mere twenty feet above the cheering crowd of Gunnersbury Park.

“Take us up,” Hovis told the pilot. “And make us reappear. The last time I had an experience like this was back in sixty-seven, when Lord Crawford and I did some really bad acid. Mind you, it wasn’t fanboys we saw down there that time. It was vampire sheep.”

The pilot took the helicopter up to five hundred feet and reengaged reality.

“That’s better,” said Hovis, examining his person. “And now tell me about all this electronic hocus-pocus you have on the dashboard.”

“Actually,” said the pilot, who was a stickler for correct terminology, “it’s not called a dashboard. It’s an instrument panel.”

The helicopter dipped alarmingly as Hovis stamped hard on the pilot’s foot.

“Right, sir,” said the pilot, as soon as he had regained control. “Beneath this aircraft is the new High-Spy 3000 Series surveillance camera. One thousand times magnification. Infra-red and ultra-violet tracking systems. Fully integrated missile guidance lock-on facilities.”

“Demonstrate,” said Hovis.

“Certainly, sir. Would you like me to blow up that band on the stage?”

“Very much,” said Hovis. “But I meant the camera. Tell me how the camera works.”

“Well, there’s not much to it, really. Light enters the lens and passes into a system of refracting mirrors that—”

The helicopter took another alarming dip.

“I meant, show me how I work the camera.”

“Just jiggle the little joystick,” said the pilot.

Hovis jiggled the joystick and the camera scanned the crowd.

Soap sat in one of the Virgin control boxes, peering at video screens. These too were scanning the crowd, on the look-out for anyone who was having too much of a good time.

On one of these Soap could see Omally. The Irishman was not having a good time. He was standing at the park gates, his hands behind his back, no doubt awaiting the arrival of Wingarde.

Soap sighed and turned his attention to the other screens. Crowds and crowds and more crowds. Black T-shirts and black T-shirts and an odd little group wearing kaftans and beads.

“Plain-clothed policemen,” said Soap. “And they seem to be looking for someone.”

Soap leaned back in his chair and drummed his fingers on his knees. He had to find Geraldo and he had to find him soon. Soap felt certain that if he could get to Geraldo, before John got to Wingarde, matters could be brought to a satisfactory conclusion, without the need for bloodshed.

It was a good, pure thought, was that. And one that was worthy of a Buddhist such as Soap. And, if this had been a perfect world, where life was lived in little movies and there was such a thing as justice, Soap’s worthy thought would have earned him a bit of Instant Karma and he would have been rewarded by an instant sighting of Geraldo.

But, as events have so far proved beyond any shadow of a doubt, this is not a perfect world. And so Soap sat there in the control box and saw nothing whatever.

And after half an hour of this, poor Soap fell fast asleep.

There’s too many Hoppers for this time of year.

They come in on the wind, I hear.

They get up your nose and into your ear.

I think it’s time for action.

Brave words are fine, but insubstantial.

What we need is help, financial.

A government grant would do the trick.

It needs some toff to shake the stick.

Then, if everything starts to click,

We’ll really get some action.

There’s too many Pikers for this time of day.

They fall from the clouds (or so they say).

And crawl up your bum while you sleep in the hay.

I think it’s time for action.

Proud talk is well, but it’s not enough.

We need more, when the going’s rough.

A word from the Pope would spin the coin,

Or Johnny B. could write a poem.

Or sing a song to get things goin’,

And then we’d see some action.

There’s too many tinkers in the street.

They always get beneath your feet.

They make you trip and drop your sweet.

I think it’s time for action.

Great oaths are grand, but money talks.

We need police to guard our walks.

A dozen for The Avenue,

And in each sweetshop, one or two.

And plain-clothed coppers, quite a few,

And then we’d see some action.

There’s too many things …

… hey, come back, fellas, I haven’t finished …

… hey, fellas … wait for me …

… come back …

… damn …