Bad Dreams
Chapter 1
I was lying on the floor as it all went
off around me. I couldn't remember if it was my room, I thought
maybe we'd started there then moved on to Phil's room, but that
might have been the night before. It's all the same in Holiday
Inns. Anyway, now it was all going off again.
From where I lay, I could see at least six
pairs of cowboy boots stumbling around, making a lot of noise.
They were all laughing and talking and drinking and smoking and
taking turns to bend their heads over the large mirror that
someone had thoughtfully taken from the wall and placed on the
bed. I wanted to join in with them but not as much as I just
wanted to lie there. No, I was fine, thanks. Those mandies I'd
taken earlier had gone weird on me, that's all, probably in
reaction to the speed or maybe the smoke. I'd be fine, though.
I just needed to be still for a minute…
Phil never batted an eye. He knew. The
rest of them, as always, took their cue from him and did the
same, stepping over me carefully as they bustled around,
telling a dirty joke or two, as the song went. I began humming
it… The boys are back in town/The boys are back in
town… then those big crunching guitar chords… Dern!
Da-dern!
Suddenly Phil was standing over me, his
long black face filling the indoor sky. “Are you taking
da piss?” he said in that hoarse Irish brogue.
What? Oh… I stopped. I hadn't
realised I was doing it out loud. I tried to tell him but my
mouth wouldn't open. Then his face vanished again and I heard
someone say, “I want whatever he's on,” then more
laughing.
I felt like laughing too. This, I thought
idly, is the pinnacle; about as inside the inside as you can
get without actually being in the band. And that felt good to
me. Very good. I had promised myself as a teenager that my life
would be a rock'n'roll one and now here I was, just turned 21,
and actually out there doing it. All of it.
I would never have gotten this close to
them if I had remained a journalist. As a PR, though, I became
someone they relied on, someone they liked having around, a
great kid, a cool customer, an
it's-all-right-he's-with-the-band kind of guy. Much better than
being a music journalist, who the bands always felt very
uncomfortable around, no matter how well they disguised it. Not
with me, though. With me they could be themselves and that made
me proud. I lay there, basking in my new-found glory…
Some time passed. The next time I counted
there were only two pairs of legs in the room. I could hear
them talking.
“…I don't know,” one of
them was saying, “Why don't we just take him out into the
corridor and leave him there? Throw a blanket over him, he'll
be all right…”
“Naw,” said the other voice,
which I recognised as Phil's. “You can't do that, he
doesn't know what focken time o'day it is. Look at
him…”
Momentary silence. Then the first voice
again. “Which room is he in? Has he got a key on
him?”
I felt their hands on me, checking my
pockets. Nothing. I wanted to help but didn't know how. I tried
to get their attention by humming again but Phil looked at me
aghast.
“Jayzus Christ!” he said.
“His focken brain's gone! Come on, let's get him into the
corridor…”
Phil got me by the arms while the other
one got me by the feet.
“Christ, he's as light as a
feather,” said Phil.
“More like a girl,” said the
other.
They got me through the door and carried
me about twenty feet down the corridor, where they lay me out
again.
Phil stayed with me while the other one
went to get a blanket and pillow from the room. He looked down
at me and spoke.
“Look at it dis way, son. Either
you've lost da use of yer focken legs permanently -- in which
case yer focked anyway -- or dis is all a bad dream you're
gonna wakeup from in a few hours. Either way, I'm off down to
da bar now, so I'll see yer later… ”
“Yeah, sweet dreams,” smirked
the other one, a good guy for getting me that pillow.
I watched their legs disappear down the
corridor towards the elevators and I thought: I wish I was
going with them. I'd love to go down to the bar with Phil and
the lads right now. That would be great.
I began humming again. It was, after all,
one of the all-time classic rock songs, I had always
felt…
Chapter 2
I was used to waking up in strange places.
We all were, those of us who were young in the seventies. Like
sex and getting drunk, doing drugs was just another rock'n'roll
rite of passage. Certainly nothing to get worked up about.
Getting wasted was just where it was at. Elegantly wasted, like
Keef.
I was good at getting wasted but I hadn't
perfected the 'elegant' part yet. That would takes years of
inelegant practice and many times on that journey I found
myself laying face-down in the gutter; not so much staring up
at the stars as pondering the unblinking eye of the abyss that
lay just inches below; a crumpled black sack of rubbish left
out in the street for the bin men to collect.
Once I did actually come to inside a
plastic bin liner. I didn't know it was a plastic bin liner at
first, I just awoke to find myself submerged in darkness;
sitting scrunched-up on the floor, my head between my knees. I
didn't know what the fuck, just that I was there suddenly. Like
being transported down to the surface of a new planet.
It wasn't bad, actually. Wherever I was,
it felt warm and safe there. I would probably have gone back to
sleep if it hadn't been for the strong smell of puke coming
from somewhere. I tried searching for it with my eyes and
that's when I became aware of the fact that I was wrapped in
something; cocooned. Like someone had thrown a blanket over my
birdcage. I struggled to free myself…
It must have looked funny when my
bewildered face popped out of the top of the bag because
everyone in the room started laughing. I just sat there,
blinking at them, unable to get my head round it. I knew who
these people were; they were my friends. But I had never seen
them this way before. They just could not stop ho-hoing and
pointing at me. It was infectious. I started laughing too. I
couldn't keep it up, though, and stopped. I had become aware of
the drying chunks of sick in my hair; the warm wet patches of
it on my chest and thighs. The terrible, gut-heaving smell.
I felt around inside the bag and realised
I was sitting in vomit. It still didn't register yet that it
was my vomit. I merely wondered why I had been allowed to sit
in a bag full of sick? It didn't make sense.
“You went mad in the pub and tried
to pick a fight with a guy twice your size,” said
Jonathan once he'd stopped laughing.
“What?”
“If we hadn't been there to get you
out of that one, he'd have fucking killed you. So that was fun,
thanks.”
I tried to remember but nothing came.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Then you tried to start a fight
with me, you mad bastard! We got your arms behind your back but
then you started chucking up everywhere…”
“Which was extremely
charming,” said Rosemary.
Rosie was Jon's chick. He was a coke
dealer; she was a model. They were the coolest couple I knew.
Fuck, I thought, I've really blown it now.
“We brought you back to the flat but
you were still being sick everywhere so I said we should put
you in that bag,” smiled Rosie, obviously still pleased
at her ingenuity. “I didn't want you being sick all over
the carpet,” she said.
Well, no. I could see that. I pushed down
the edges of the bag and tried getting to my feet. Rosie and
Jon almost jumped off the couch.
“No, for Christ's sake!” he
yelled. “Don't get out of the bag! You'll get it
everywhere!”
I sat wearily back down again. I could see
their point. Then it all went quiet again as a good bit came on
the telly and everybody went back to watching that.
There was Jon and Rosie and two others;
another couple called Viv and Bob that I didn't know so well. I
wondered what they were thinking. It was a shame because I
quite fancied Viv and I remembered vaguely how she had flirted
with me on an earlier occasion. Now she could barely bring
herself to look at me.
I sat there forlornly, stuck in my bag,
wondering what to do.
“What shall I do?” I asked no
one in particular.
Jonathan looked at me. “You stay
where you are and we'll figure something out.”
“Look, I'm rolling a joint,”
said Rosie.
“Good idea,” Jon said.
“I'll chop one out.”
Oh well, I thought, at least they were
being cool about it. I shifted around and made myself more
comfortable. I smiled and tried to catch Viv's eye but she
wasn't having it…Êcontinue reading
