‘It’s more important getting our group together,’ Kris said stubbornly. ‘If all you want to do is chase scrubbers instead of practisin’ – fat chance we got of ever gettin’ anywhere.’
‘Balls! I need t’get me leg over!’
‘I’ll practise without you then.’
‘Good. An’ I’ll tell yer wotcha missed.’
‘I’m pantin’ t’hear,’ Kris replied sarcastically.
At seventeen, a year older than Kris, Buzz Darke had developed a look all his own. He never wore anything that wasn’t black. He never smiled. He was thin and agile as a snake, and had a bruised, satanic look. Girls loved him.
Kris loved him too, because they were soul-mates when it came to music. They could spend hours on end discussing the merits of The Rolling Stones as opposed to the Yardbirds. Or was Bob Dylan’s latest album better than The Beatles? And who was the greatest soul singer in the world – Sam Cooke or Otis Redding?
Also, Buzz could play a mean guitar – not quite up to Kris’s standard, but pretty impressive all the same.
Kris had decided long ago he couldn’t be bothered with girls. He had his guitar, his singing, and his treasured import record collection. That was his life. Besides, he always came off like dunce of the year whenever he got anywhere near a female. At school he’d never been able to understand any of them, and once he’d even caught two of them discussing him. ‘That Chris Pierce is a weirdo,’ one had said. ‘Yeah,’ the other replied. ‘He’s got ’orrible starey eyes. Wouldn’t like to come across ’im on a dark night!’
That overheard conversation, plus the sneering giggles of the two little Edwards girls over the years, put him off the female sex altogether. Anyway, what did they know about music? Exactly nothing.
Buzz had set up a rehearsal room in the garage of his house. There was a third-hand drum set he had cadged off an uncle, a large tape recorder Kris had found on a garbage dump and promptly repaired, their joint collection of records, and an ace stereo with giant speakers, a gift from Buzz’s mum, Daphne – an emaciated-looking woman who wore too much makeup, constantly chain-smoked, and worked as a hostess in a Soho nightclub.
Kris liked Mrs Darke, although she didn’t seem at all mumsy with her stiletto heels and all-black outfits. In a funny sort of way she looked exactly like an older, female version of her son.
Sometimes, when Kris and Buzz were locked into their music, playing guitar riffs along with Chuck Berry – the great Chuck, who had taught them more than any music academy ever could – she would enter the garage and stand silently by the peeling paint of the old double doors. ‘Hmmm . . . not bad,’ she would say when they’d finished. ‘You boys are going to get somewhere one of these days.’
Yeah, Kris thought, if only Buzz would give up on stupid girls and concentrate.
It annoyed him that his own mother hadn’t heard him play in years – ever since he palled up with Buzz and moved all his stuff over to the garage. His family were relieved. ‘Thank God we don’t have to put up with your bloody racket night after night,’ Brian had said. ‘You sound worse than the bloody cats around the dustbins.’
Kris made up his mind there and then that if he ever made it, his brother would be the last person he’d invite to one of his concerts.
‘Well, mate, see yer,’ Buzz said, throwing a tatty black scarf around his neck. ‘Sure yer don’t want t’change yer mind?’
‘Give ’em one from me,’ Kris said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster – and wondered exactly what he was missing, and why Buzz pursued it so relentlessly.
He didn’t have to wonder for long. Soon he was lost in the magic of the music – playing along with his precious record collection – fighting Chuck Berry for a solo – shouting out the lyrics on a Little Richard track – marvelling at the Ray Charles mastery on ‘What’d I Say’.
Kris had taught himself everything he knew just by listening to the greats – starting off at eleven on an old acoustic guitar kept in the music room at school, and graduating to his own, third-hand electric model bought at thirteen with his savings from a paper round and a little help from his mum. Avis hadn’t exactly encouraged him although, to be fair, she hadn’t discouraged him either. It was the rest of his family who were a pain in the neck, always bitching and complaining about the noise.
Getting together with Buzz – two likely lads with the same dream – saved him. They shared the rock star vision, and were prepared to work hard to achieve it.
He was deep into a guitar lead on Buddy Holly’s ‘That’ll be the Day’, when he realized Mrs Darke was leaning against the garage door quietly watching him. ‘Don’t stop,’ she said, smoke curling from her nostrils.
So he didn’t, allowing the music to envelop him, feeling the beat, the heat, letting his instrument become a welcome part of him.
When he was finished along with the record, she clapped, scattering cigarette ash on the floor. ‘You’re not half bad,’ she said, walking towards him.
‘Thanks,’ he mumbled.
‘And not bad looking either, for a kid.’
Was he hearing right? Nobody had ever told him that before. Oh, sure, he knew he wasn’t ugly – just sort of ordinary looking – maybe weird if he listened to the girls at school.
‘Tell me something? How come you’re not out cattin’ around with my Buzz?’ she asked, squatting down on her haunches and flipping through some of the albums stacked against the wall.
‘I’d sooner practise,’ he replied, trying not to stare at the thin line of flesh showing between her tight black skirt and form-fitting sweater.
She turned to look up at him, and to his embarrassment he felt a solid hard-on begin to grow in his pants.
Don’t you like girls?’ she asked, staring at him intently.
‘Uh . . . n-no . . . I mean . . . y-yeah,’ he stammered, wishing only for a locked loo and a Playboy magazine – for that was the only way he could deal with the urgent feeling in his pants.
‘No?’ she said, with an amused glint. ‘Or yes?’
He struggled to regain his composure. ‘Er, I like ’em okay,’ he managed, and repeated weakly, ‘I’d just sooner – y’know, like; practise.’
‘Hmmm . . .’ She licked her lips. They were thin like the rest of her. And then, as if it was the most natural move in the world, she raised her arms and took off her sweater, revealing small, hard breasts, with large, purple nipples.
Kris actually heard himself gulp. The sound echoed across the dusty garage.
‘You’re sixteen,’ Mrs Darke said matter-of-factly. ‘And I’m thirty-two, luv. It’ll be better for you to do it with me than some messy little teenager who’ll get herself knocked up before you can turn around.’
Reaching for the zipper on his jeans, she pulled it down slowly. Then she touched his cock, which he knew was just about ready to burst. Springing it loose from his Y-fronts she deftly rubbed the tip, and to his embarrassment he came all over her hand.
A blush suffused him from head to toe, but Mrs Darke didn’t seem at all put out. ‘First time?’ she asked sympathetically.
He nodded dumbly, too humiliated to speak.
‘Don’t worry,’ she continued. ‘You learned how to play the guitar pretty good. Now you’ll learn how to make love to the ladies. Just lie back an’ enjoy lesson number one. I’m the best teacher you’ll ever have.’
* * *
Having a secret thing with Buzz’s mum was not exactly easy. Whereas, before, Kris was always badgering his friend to practise, now he couldn’t wait to get Buzz out of the way.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ Buzz asked irritably one day, after a long and not very good practice session. ‘This used t’be all yer wanted t’do, an’ now ’alf the time yer screwin’ up. We’ll never get anybody innerested in us if yer carry on like this.’
Kris shrugged. It was true. He was screwing up, but not on purpose. Somehow, for the time being, playing had lost its edge, and being with Daphne was a greater thrill.
‘It’s my bloody job,’ he muttered. ‘I hate it.’
His mother had insisted he do something rather than just pick up unemployment cheques. It’s about time, lad,’ she’d announced grimly. So he’d found work as a window-cleaner, and it frightened the shit out of him every day when he had to ride on the precarious little platform hanging from the side of a multi-storey giant office tower.
‘Do somethin’ else then,’ suggested Buzz. He’d got himself a job as an attendant at an amusement park for the summer, and was enjoying every minute. ‘I can pull twenty birds a day if I want,’ he boasted. ‘An’ right little darlin’s, too.’
The truth was Kris was undergoing a massive guilt trip. He’d discovered the joys of sex along with the culpability of sticking it to his best friend’s mother. Plus his brother was getting married, which meant the atmosphere at home was chaotic, with Avis acting as if a Royal wedding was about to take place.
Brian’s bride-to-be, Jennifer, was the daughter of an accountant. Brian was marrying up, and Avis let no one forget it as she nagged them all about how they were to dress and behave in front of Jennifer’s family.
Kris was elected best man. His mother made him hire a suit. It was too tight and smelled faintly of stale sweat. One day, he thought to himself as he stood behind his brother in the church, he was going to buy suits that he only wore once and then gave away – maybe to Brian if the bugger was lucky.
The summer progressed.
Kris’s affair with Mrs Darke progressed.
Buzz announced he was fed up with England and wanted to go abroad for a while, suggesting Spain. ‘It’ll be a right giggle,’ he said. ‘Plenty of cheap booze, lotsa crumpet, an’ I’ve ’eard we can get jobs playin’ our guitars in the local restaurants an’ bars. It beats stayin’ here through the winter freezin’ our balls off. Besides,’ he added with a knowing wink, ‘if yer don’t get laid soon, yer balls are gonna fall off – without any help from the bleedin’ winter thank you very much.’
Buzz still had no idea of the steamy affair going on in his own house.
Weighing up the possibilities, Kris decided it wasn’t such a bad idea. He had just turned seventeen and nothing was happening. He hated his job. He hated the duplicity involved in seeing Daphne. He hated watching his mother arrive home every day, worn out, her hands red and chapped from cleaning other people’s dirt. He hated listening to his sisters fight all the time. He hated the weekly Sunday visits from Brian and his uptight wife. And – worst of all – he was getting nowhere with his music.
‘Okay, we’ll do it,’ he decided.
‘Fanfuckin’tastic!’ yelled Buzz, quite elated for once.
Avis had a fit when he told her. ‘You’re too young to go to one of them dirty foreign countries,’ she informed him. ‘They eat dogs an’ drink filthy water in them disgusting places.’
‘Let ’im go,’ said Horace, an unusual ally, rousing himself from the telly. ‘It’s about time ’e stood on ’is own two feet. ’E’s old enough an’ ugly enough.’
Daphne Darke took the news calmly. She even helped pay for the second-hand bikes they bought, and gave them money for the ferry trip across the English Channel to Belgium. Kris had a funny feeling he would never see her again.
Bobby Mondella: New York
1966
At sixteen years of age Bobby Mondella was a handsome if blubbery singing star (he weighed over two hundred pounds). ‘Sweet Little Bobby’, as he was known, had made quite a few country and western hit records between the ages of eleven, when he started to sing professionally, and sixteen, when it was suddenly all over.
His voice broke, and before you could say ‘Two flop records in a row’ Sweet Little Bobby was dropped by his record company, his manager, and all his so-called friends.
Mr Leon Rue, his guardian/manager in Nashville, relinquished both appointments, gave him a cheque for six thousand dollars plus twenty-five dollars in cash, and put him on a plane back to his Aunt Bertha in New York, from where he had plucked him five years previously.
Sweet Little Bobby didn’t know what had happened. One day he was churning out best-selling records, the next he was on an airplane heading home, and he was so used to doing what he was told that it seemed the right thing. It wasn’t until the plane landed at Kennedy Airport and there was no one to meet him, and no waiting limo, that slowly realization dawned. He’d been disposed of. Cleanly. Neatly. He was on his own. And the funny thing was, he didn’t mind too much. No more pressures, no more non-stop work. He was free! And he was coming home to dear old Aunt Bertha.
Managing to find a cab, he got himself and his luggage (three suitcases filled with glittery stage and television outfits) into it, and set off for Aunt Bertha’s house in Queens.
There was only one problem. Aunt Bertha had expired six months earlier, leaving behind six cats and a thirty-year-old daughter named Fanni, who was even fatter than Bobby.
Fanni’s greeting was not friendly. ‘What you want, boy?’ she screamed, standing on the doorstep, hands on ample hips, huge bosom quivering with indignation.
‘I’ve come home,’ he said simply.
‘You done what? This ain’t your home no more,’ she yelled, attracting the attention of several neighbours, who leaned from their windows in rapt attention. Everyone within miles knew who Sweet Little Bobby was. Hadn’t Bertha kept his picture in a frame on her window sill? Hadn’t she always talked of him proudly – boasted about how she’d brought him up, ever since her sister died when he was only two years old?
Yes, indeed.
‘Where’s Aunt Bertha?’ Bobby asked plaintively. He was beginning to feel tired and hungry – not to mention depressed, for he knew it was all over, and at sixteen that was a frightening thought, even if it did mean freedom.
‘Don’ give me none of that where’s Aunt Bertha crap.’ Fanni mimicked his voice with mounting fury. ‘She done be ten foot under six months now, an’ you don’ even sen’ no flowers. Big star my fat ass!’
Bobby felt the tears well up in his eyes. For five years he had been away from his aunt, recording, writing songs, performing. And all that time he had known that one day he would come home. Now that day was here and Fanni was telling him that Aunt Bertha was dead.
‘Mr Rue would have t-told me,’ he stuttered. ‘I d-don’t believe it.’
‘You callin’ me a liar, cousin?’ Fanni roared.
‘Nobody told me,’ he repeated dully.
‘Well, ain’t that a good excuse.’ Sarcasm dripped from Fanni’s wide, angry mouth. ‘I guess when you all are a star, little things like a death in the family are sure ’nuff kept from you.’
By this time the cab driver, a gum-chewing Puerto Rican, had dumped all three of Bobby’s suitcases on the doorstep and was getting impatient. He started doing knee bends and cracking his knuckles. ‘Ya wanna pay me?’ he asked. ‘Or mebbe I wait around, have a meal, play some pool, huh?’
‘This boy ain’t stayin’ here,’ Fanni said firmly, indicating Bobby. ‘You kin put his stuff right back in your cab.’
The Puerto Rican grimaced. ‘Hey lady – I look like a porter? Ya wanna put his bags back in my cab? Sure. You put ‘em there, mama.’
‘Don’t you call me mama,’ Fanni cautioned, giving him a filthy look.
‘Just pay me, lady,’ the cab driver said wearily.
Suddenly Bobby remembered his cheque. Six thousand dollars for five years’ hard work. Pulling it from his pocket he handed it to Fanni. ‘This is for you if I can come home.’
Fanni eyed the cheque, devoured the amount, held it up to the light as if it were a counterfeit bill, and then finally she said, ‘Inside, cousin. I’ll take care of the cab fare.’
Fanni lived with a man called Ernest Crystal. Ernest was large in every way. Six feet five inches in height, and a solid three hundred pounds. A former pro football player, Ernie did a little bit of this and a little bit of that. He had two ex-wives, and several children. Right now he was staying with
Fanni and not doing much of anything.
Ernest took one look at the six-thousand-dollar cheque Fanni brandished in front of his eyes and his face lit up. ‘Woman, where you get this?’
‘Sweet little Bobby’s back.’
‘Holy mother! Don’t you be tellin’ me I finally stepped in she . . . it!’
Ernest and Fanni were married two weeks later, whereupon Ernest appointed Fanni and himself as Bobby’s legal guardians. The first thing he did was drag Bobby around on a relentless tour of all the record companies. Only he was too late to make a killing. Nobody wanted to know about Sweet Little Bobby anymore. He was yesterday’s news. A fat teenager with a baby face and cracked voice.
Aggravated, Ernest then set about hiring a lawyer to find out what had happened to the rest of Bobby’s earnings from the five years he had spent with Mr Leon Rue. Six thousand bucks didn’t seem right at all. And it wasn’t. But Mr Leon Rue had covered himself with legal documents giving him most of everything Bobby earned right up until he cut him free. Plus he owned every song Bobby had ever written.
‘Shyster honky bastard!’ Ernest complained to Fanni. ‘Your mama musta bin some dumb woman. She jest signed the kid away. Now we got him back worth nothin’.’
‘We have ourselves six thousand dollars,’ Fanni said tartly.
‘Pig swill,’ Ernest spat in disgust. ‘That honky cheater stolen hundreds an’ thousan’s of big bucks shoulda bin mine.’
‘Ours,’ Fanni corrected him, double chins quivering indignantly.
‘Yeah, ours,’ Ernest agreed.
Bobby couldn’t help overhearing their discussions. He had the little room next to the kitchen, and most of the day he just lay on the bed munching cookies and candies, thinking about how nice it was just to laze around doing nothing. The five years he’d spent with Mr Leon Rue were all work. Weekdays, weekends, and if he wasn’t performing Mr Rue had him sitting at a table, writing. He had lost count of the number of songs he’d composed. No time to make friends or get to know anybody. A tutor taught him school work three times a week. A hooker gave him his first sexual experience when he was fifteen – paid for and organized by Mr Rue. He hated every minute of it. The woman had hair like an oven-cleaning pad, and smelled of sour milk.