Click to play OBVIOUSLY 3 BELIEVERS
Read by Paul Clarke
It's Christmas Eve. We are poolside, paralysed, poleaxed in the aftermath of another gig. I perch on the end of my lounger and do another line of coke. Images fuse together, coalescing into an acceptable form of clarity. A graceful blonde cuts like a blade through the water while the party festively debauch themselves around her. In the near-distance the illuminated letters of the Hollywood sign form my only link with reality. Through a filter of tinitus, underneath the narcotic chatter, I can hear what I think is our first album.
The blonde from the pool is drying herself off and staring at me with hungry intent. A lesser man would have left his compatriots to join her, but those days are behind me now. I've a wife and kid back home that Miles' record label won't let me mention. Besides, after two hours of greatest hits everything aches, and I mean everything.
Gilly elbows me and asks if it's Christmas Day yet. I think of everyone back home sipping sherry in front of the Queen's speech, damp sprouts clinging to the air, everyone stoned on white meat; in LA they have their own drugs and Miles has laid on a buffet of heroic proportions; multi-coloured pills lie around like M&Ms and there is enough white powder to go snowboarding.
I chop up another line while humming Silent Night to myself. Gilly's drumming instincts kick in and he taps along to the rhythm, miming an elaborate paradiddle while chomping on another pill.
"The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Motherfucker!"
It's Deano. He's been shouting out random title suggestions for the next album. Soon he'll give up and say what he sees in the immediate vicinity; Bottle, Table, Pool. This was how our third album ended up being called Floor. True Story.
We're nearing the end of our current contractual obligations, just one more disc to go before our hands are untied. Rake can go solo, like he desperately wants to, and I can return to the house in Hertfordshire and do whatever it is aging rockers do: climb trees, open a trout farm, or make cheese.
The rest of the band are feeling the same way. It's in their eyes. But every time we come within an inch of breaking up spectres of our teenage selves appear at our shoulders to remind us just how fucking cool it is to be on stage. It's true, the first few years are rock, but after that there's pure roll man.
Suddenly Deano fizzes into life, pointing to the sky in a rare display of off-stage energy. Gilly's puts down his imaginary drumsticks and joins in the game. I hope this isn't another group hallucination; We barely made it out of Vegas during the last one.
They flap and point eagerly to the heavens. There is a bright star overhead, probably a meteor heading straight for us. Our just deserts for a life of unapologetic excess. But fuck me if it's not the most dazzling thing I've ever seen. It pierces the night, pure bling, like a diamond sun dwarfing everything else in the canopy.
I'm not a God-fearing man, and given the life I've led it's far too late for me to start, but something grabs a hold of me and I find myself saying "Guys, we should follow this!". After all, it is Christmas and there's fuck all for us at the party other than lethargy and further intoxication.
We slip away, traipsing carelessly across Miles' manicured garden. Deano gives us a shaky leg-up over the security fence, breathlessly clambering afterwards but before we know it his weight has brought the fence down. We run off into the night stopping for no-one, three kings on a mission from God.
After a few minutes we take a middle-aged breather. The star is so high above that it's difficult to tell which direction to head in. Deano and Gilly stare goldfish-mouthed as if navigating is too much for them to cope with. I feel the unwanted burden of being the leader. Such is the curse of the rhythm guitarist.
I tell them we'll head south.
"South Is Where The Devil Lives," says Deano.
I almost reply before realising this is another album title.
South turns out to be a sharp downhill slope of undeveloped scrub. Gilly is the first to go, tripping over a clump of weed and skidding down the rest of the slope on his backside. I'm laughing so hard I miss Deano sneak up behind me, hands pushing me over, sending me tumbling into oblivion. Deano launches himself afterwards maniacally laughing all the way as he bounces down the hill. We fall together, numb to the shocks of boulders and the impact of the dry California ground. From now on the collective noun for a trio of rock musicians is an unbalance.
Spread-eagled and grazed at the foot of the slope, I notice the world is spinning more than usual. The crumpled Deano is in hysterics: "Cheese Rollin' Blues!" he cries.
We're not having that one. No fucking way.
I'm ready to give up, head back to Miles' poolside pharmacy and forget about it all when Gilly starts tugging at my sleeve. We've landed by the side of a road and across the way, past lines of rushing traffic, is a hospital. More specifically "Our Lady Of The Weeping Heart Maternity Hospital", and right above, still blazing away, is that bloody star.
Gilly sighs, "I was expecting a barn."
I'm guessing a barn would be much better, anyone can walk into a barn, a barn would not have security, security designed to keep out all manner of miscreants- from baby snatchers to wayward rock casualties.
Deano and Gilly are looking at me with puppy dog eyes, pleading with me for a plan. My drug addled brain has had the imagination irreparably sucked from it.
I look up to the star again, it's so high that I feel a tiny pop from the cartilage in my neck. I focus hard on its glare, praying to it for inspiration. Suddenly I feel a wave pass over me; it's warm and comforting. It tells me that it doesn't matter, everything's going to be ok. We're just going to walk in.
We give it a go.
Slowly we cross the road, trying to look like three normal guys, sober ones without shaggy hair and wild eyes. The kind that would not look out of place in a maternity hospital in the early hours of the morning. We shuffle gingerly, and our drug-crazed bravado helps us make it across the road, dodging traffic all the way.
The automatic doors open and we are greeted by the reception desk. We trudge, suppressing guffaws, up to the nurse; she has the name Candice on her badge. I try to open my mouth, but my lips feel like they're gummed together.
"We're here to see ... the baby?" I struggle, the words feeling like the height of stupidity as they tumble from my mouth.
Candice smiles back at our ragged assembly.
"Of course you are," she says. "Follow me!"
She ushers us down a long corridor. We trail slowly; it wasn't supposed to be this easy. I fear that she is leading us into a trap and somewhere there's a room full of men with strait-jackets waiting to bundle us away.
Candice begins to whistle something familiar; Escalator Lovin' to be precise. One of Deano's rare songs and an obscure B-side. I relax. Candice is a fan.
"The mother is sleeping, but if you want you can see the little boy," she says. "We didn't think you'd make it here. We sent messages, but we thought you'd be busy partying."
She leads us through another set of doors and there's a window overlooking a room full of incubators. Candice taps on the glass and points to the one closest to us.
"That's him."
I have this theory that all babies look alike. People coochy-coo and claim they immediately take after a parent, but it takes a while for them to develop a personality. Hell, I'm in my forties and still developing one. But there's something about this kid, placidly smiling away, that makes me feel as if I've known him all my life. He is beautiful, he is zen. It's alarming and awesome, like meeting David Bowie for the first time.
The baby looks so fragile in his plastic box but Candice tells me he'll be ok. I ask about the father and it turns out he split months ago.
"His mom would be so pleased to know you were here, but she needs rest. Imagine- going to a gig at the Hollywood Bowl when you're nine months pregnant!" Candice sighs.
It dawns on me that our presence is nothing more than a drug-orientated coincidence. Later we'll find out someone left a message with Miles about some chick who'd given birth during our encore. I hoped there was another purpose in us being led here, but instead it's just another episode of life on the road.
Seeing as it's Christmas day I tell the guys that we should leave some presents. Gilly surrenders his lucky drumstick, but all Deano has is a plectrum so I leave the harmonica that I've been carrying with me since my early-Jagger phase. We sign autographs for Candice and I give a little goodbye wave at the child who we appear to have indirectly kick-started into being.
I missed the birth of my own son. Angie sent me pictures. She did the same for his first steps.
Gilly asks if he has a name yet and Candice nods.
"He's called Rake"
Rake. Typical.
We're outside the hospital, frazzled, fazed, forlorn, unsure of what to do next. I look to the sky for further guidance, but all I can see is a police helicopter circling the neighborhood, its magnesium searchlight blazing in the sky; a lot like a Christmas star.
A limo pulls up; One of Miles' men who's been patrolling the streets looking for his wayward investment. We jump in like naughty children.
Deano pipes up with his first contribution to the evening that isn't intended to be an album title. He bursts into a rendition of We Three Kings. Gilly joins in, and before long there's all three of us carolling away.
I'm certain we didn't witness the second coming tonight, but I hope the little guy enjoys learning the harmonica when he's older. It dawns on me that Rake junior is not the most important child in the world. Far from it; and the sad feeling in my bones is not a comedown, it's not old age, it's homesickness.
We move onto Jingle Bells and a tear rolls down my cheek. In all our years together this is by far the most beautiful sound we've made. It seems fitting I should end it here.
We arrive back at Miles' and I head to the deserted tour bus, find my phone underneath a pile of discarded lyrics and dial.
"Angie, it's me. Merry Christmas!"
I can hear the telly on in the background, the sound of presents being played with, family chatter, bottles being opened, crackers being pulled. I tell her that I'll be home soon and she tears my son away from his toys so I can tell him how much I love him.
After the call I pack my things and walk away from the mansion, winding my way through the Hollywood Hills, the smell of sprouts wafting on the breeze from half a world away.
Guiding me home.
(c) Darren Lee, 2013
Darren Lee’s fiction has previously been performed at Liars’ League, Open Pen and The Book Stops Here. In 2011 he wrote a piece of Twitter fiction that won him copies of the Booker long list, enabling him to legitimately claim that he has won a Booker Prize for his writing.
Paul Clarke trained at the Central School and always got cast as a baddie or a monster. Or, for a bit of variety, a bad monster. Now a photographer, technologist and occasional performer, he finds the League's stories islands of relative sanity in his life.
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