Then he had walked down towards the ocean, unmolested by the constabulary this time, Santa Monica apparently not having outlawed Shanks’s Pony as a form of transport. Up in Hollywood, the words pedestrian and pederast didn’t just sound alike: they invited comparable disdain.
The big banner was clearly a gimmick. You saw it from a distance, ‘Save the world’, then the punchline was delivered when you reached the comer: ‘from our sins’. Boom boom.
He had heard the music from about a block back, the sound of a crowd and the smells of outdoor catering carrying through the air. A lot like a summer fairground down the local public park, except without the three feet of mud and the twelve-year-olds smoking menthols and demanding money with menaces. The architectural acid trip that was the Pacific Vista sat across the road, about two hundred yards away, looking from Steff’s angle like a big engagement ring: a giant glinting jewel flanked by opaque bands on either side. Draped banners with understated colour schemes and a tidy logo announced that the 1999 AFFM was taking place there.
Opposite, markedly less understated banners announced that the 1999 Festival of Light was taking place there. They announced also the presence of something called the American Legion of Decency, and advertised that a Mission of Purity was being undertaken, as well as, of course, urging onlookers to ‘save the world from our sins’.
He figured the banners’ authors were (just a mite presumptuously) including the entire global population in the ranks of the implied sinners, rather than just those attending the Festival of Light. The possibility of any such ironic interpretation of ‘our’ was unlikely to have occurred to them; or if it had, they were probably confident that it wouldn’t occur to their target audience.
Steff checked his watch. He had a loose arrangement to meet up with Jo ‘around lunch-time’ – a less specific time frame it was almost impossible to define. He was supposed to give her a call on her mobile when he got inside the Pacific Vista, and they’d take it from there. It was half eleven. He grinned to himself and popped open a new tub of film. Time enough to find Jesus.
He paid five dollars at the gate, trying not to think about what ideologically distasteful project he might be indirectly funding, and had a date stamped on the back of his hand, allowing him to ‘just walk right in and out, many times as you like, all day’. He resisted asking the Colgate advert who had taken his money whether it counted towards the validation of any future parking tickets, and ‘just walked right in’.
It was worse than the Barras. He estimated there were close to three thousand people thronging the place, an area about the size of the pitch at Fir Park. There was no doubt room for more, but the sense of constant motion as the crowd moved around the stalls and platforms gave the impression of a greater host. The comparison with Glasgow’s famous market ended with the teeming bustle of the place. For a start, by some meteorological phenomenon, it was always raining when you went to the Barras, and the resultant smell of two thousand damp jackets in a confined space was just one of the olfactory delights the experience offered. The clientele were a little different, too. The Festival of Light was like a Californian shininess convention. It was easy to believe he was the only person in the enclosure who had ever farted.
The omnipresent Barras paranoia of having your pocket picked was unlikely to set in either: Steff felt pretty confident of being the poorest person present. All around him were shiny adults dragging along shiny kids, miraculously born of these shiny parents who simply looked far too wholesome ever to have shagged. More disturbingly, there were shiny teens and shiny adolescents in attendance of their own free will, in blatant defiance of the aeons of evolution that dictated they should be out getting pissed on sweet cider, or locked in their bedrooms wanking themselves to death.
Once he started moving around the place, he was able to glean some idea of the format. The crowd, seemingly amorphous upon first impression, was in fact divided up into groups around each stall or platform, with a rectangular hub of food and drink stands in the centre of the concourse. On closer inspection, he saw that some of the canopied stalls were actually entrances to tents, inside which a selection of meetings and activities was taking place, from biblical puppet shows to your basic, bog-standard sermonising. At the far end there was a wide stage, raised about seven feet, upon which stood a small choir singing excruciatingly hoaky countrified hymns to the accompaniment of a woman strumming a steel guitar, which Steff thought should be confiscated with the instruction that she’d get it back when she had learned what such a fine instrument should really be used for. Behind the choir, the world’s cleanest-looking roadie was assembling a drum kit.
Steff felt a blow to the ribs and looked down to see a face-painted child reel away dazed, now moving with less rabid enthusiasm towards the candy floss stall, or ‘Manna on a Stick’, as it was advertised.
‘So-rreee,’ said Mrs Stepford, giving Steff a big, empty smile and hugging another child, whose face had been painted red with a white cross in the middle. Steff looked down at his grey T-shirt. Stepford Junior had imprinted half the stars and stripes on it.
‘We’ll get Tommy back to do the other half – save you buyin’ a flag,’ said Dad.
Steff felt deeply privileged to have been present when this, the world’s funniest remark, was made. One day he would be able to tell his grandchildren, and they theirs. It was surely only the distractions of such dreamy thoughts that prevented him from collapsing in uncontrolled laughter just like Mr and Mrs S. He settled instead for clicking off a few shots while their faces were really contorted. It was silly and childish, he knew, but then so was the Festival of Light.
‘God bless you,’ they said, moving off, still laughing, in the direction of Manna on a Stick and the adjacent Bibleburgers on a Good Book Bun.
‘Amen,’ Steff said, grinning. This was fun.
‘Let me tell you about the information superhighway,’ said a voice. He turned around to see that it had come from one of the stalls, where an adolescent male in a ‘True Love Waits’ T-shirt was standing on a platform beside a cardboard fake computer. Steff moved a little nearer, to the back of the small gathering, around which the skinny blonde True Love the speaker was presumably Waiting for was handing out accompanying leaflets.
‘Imagine it. All the information in the world, at your fingertips,’ he said. ‘Everything you need to know, everything you could ever need to know for living on this planet, at your immediate disposal. Sounds like the privilege of an advanced age, doesn’t it? Wrong! We’ve had it for nearly two thousand years. All the wisdom, all the knowledge, all the understanding you could possibly want, all readily accessible, right here.’ He held up, with cringeworthy inevitability, a copy of a well-known religious publication. Five letters. Starts with a B.
‘Forget the Net,’ he shouted triumphantly. ‘Surf the Bible!’
Steff lowered his head and retreated. He felt a mixture of embarrassment on the poor bloke’s behalf and vague guilt at deriving vicarious amusement from watching him. There but for the grace of – well, you know. He wandered off and joined the queue at a refreshment stall. ‘Sin-free sodas,’ the sign advertised. ‘No sugar, no caffeine and no alcohol – because you’ve got enough spirit within.’
‘Jesus . . .’ he said in involuntary response, drawing an interrogatory look from the woman behind the counter, ‘. . . eh, would be so proud if He could see us all here today,’ he added, hoping his cover wasn’t irretrievably blown.
‘Jesus can see us. Jesus is here,’ she told him. Her face had brightened a little but Steff still wasn’t sure if what she said was an assurance or a rebuke. He bought a caffeine-free Diet Coke and ambled over to a shaded bench to drink it. What he had really fancied was a can of Irn-Bru, He knew you couldn’t get it in the States, but reckoned even if you could they wouldn’t be flogging it here. It was a soft drink that had built its reputation on consoling Glaswegians the morning after their crimes of fleshly indulgence, most satisfyingly consumed in bed with a stinking headache while
better citizens were out at church. Jesus would have liked Irn-Bru, Steff reckoned. It was an unjudgemental friend to sinners, helping and comforting them as they strove to overcome the wrongs of their recent past and return to society.
‘It’s a cool scene, huh?’ suggested a voice, inviting his agreement. Two kids – definitely an item – in True Love Waits T-shirts had sat themselves down opposite. They both looked about seventeen, bright-eyed, attractive and energetic, all of which was a hell of a waste, given the slogan. Steff hoped the guy who had spoken was just naturally outgoing; otherwise that meant he had been looking vacant enough to pass for one of them.
‘Yeah,’ he said, smiling back.
‘Where you here from?’ asked the girl, taking time out from going cross-eyed as she tried to focus on the hairs she was blowing upwards away from her brow.
‘I was just passing by. Thought I’d check out what was going on.’
‘You impressed?’
‘I’m flabbergasted.’ Which was no less than the truth.
‘You’re from out of town, right?’ she said. ‘You got a weird accent. Where is that?’
‘The People’s Republic of Motherwell. It’s just south of Scandinavia.’
‘Oh, cool. We’re from Wichita Falls, here for the whole week. We won the trip watching CFC. Gordy’s mom pledged a thousand dollars, which got us into the quiz, then Gordy’s Bible knowledge did the rest.’
Gordy chucked her bashfully on the shoulder. ‘With a little help from someone too modest to say,’ he laughed.
‘A whole week?’ Steff asked, trying to prevent his tone from adding, ‘Are you out of your fucking minds?’
‘Oh sure, it’s a great programme they got, ain’t it, Sally?’ Gordy said, pulling a glossy brochure from his canvas satchel. ‘Look, there’s different events here every day. Different speakers in all the booths, new activities, and all kinds of attractions on the big stage. Plus there’s stuff at night around town, too.’
‘Yeah,’ added Sally. ‘Like, the Believers are doing a show in Santa Monica tomorrow night. And there’s the Stand Up for Christ comedy bill at the Open Mike Club on day four.’
‘Things are only getting started,’ Gordy assured him. ‘Today is just sort of a welcome event. The real action’ll get going after that. We got campaigning workshops, protest co-ordination seminars . . . The Festival of Light is kind of like a launch party for the Mission of Purity. The Legion of Decency is ready to get serious.’
‘About what?’ Steff asked, growing slightly concerned. Anyone or anything so much in approval of Purity and Decency was unlikely to be much in approval of him. He kept having images of a six-foot seven-inch stake surrounded by kindling.
‘You don’t know?’ Gordy asked incredulously. ‘Oh, but then I guess you don’t get CFC where you come from.’
‘Afraid not,’ Steff said, trying to sound profoundly regretful. It wasn’t strictly true, he thought. There was a CFC back home, and it was watched every week, mainly by Catholics. There was an RFC too, watched by Protestants. And it was true to say that both of them were never off the fucking TV. But as explaining the relationship between religious sectarianism and the Celtic and Rangers football clubs of Glasgow was not something he wanted to get into with Gordy, he left it at that. ‘Tell me all about it, maybe I can sign up,’ he prompted.
‘Oh, you gotta, man, you gotta,’ Gordy enthused. ‘It’s nineteen ninety-nine, you know, the signs are all around. The omens are everywhere. We’re on our last warning. The Lord’s getting ready to call time-out on us, and we’ve gotta prove we can clean up our act before it’s too late. But it’s like, the nearer we get to the end of this century, the more sin and godlessness there is, and the less people seem to worry about it. So much homosexuality, prostitution, abortion, promiscuity, atheism. The human race can’t go breaking God’s rules so flagrantly and not expect to be punished.’
It was Steff’s guess that this spiel wasn’t entirely Gordy’s own words, more likely something he’d heard on this CFC shite. He looked a bright enough kid, but terms like ‘flagrantly’ probably didn’t pop up in too many of his normal conversations.
‘That’s what the Mission of Purity is all about,’ he continued. ‘For evil to triumph, good men must do nothing, right? So it’s not enough for people like us’ – Steff was flattered by Gordy’s inclusive hand gesture – ‘just to obey the rules. We’ve gotta do what we can to stop the sinning. We’ve gotta protest, we’ve gotta campaign. We’ve gotta educate people because they’ve forgotten what’s right and what’s wrong.’
‘And the worst of it is how many sins are legal and therefore condoned in this country,’ Sally added. ‘Abortion is legal, sodomy’s legal in some states, atheism’s legal, pornography’s legal. What must God think of America now when He sees that?’
‘We’ve got to remind people about God’s rules before we’ve outraged Him so much that He destroys us all,’ explained Gordy. ‘And it’s not like He hasn’t warned us that He’s upset. Look at AIDS – how big a hint do you need? But people still didn’t listen, so now He’s getting ready to talk a little louder.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘There’s just so much weird stuff going on, man. Strange phenomena. Unexplained occurrences. Folks try and tell you it’s aliens or it’s government conspiracies, stupid stuff like that, but they’re just fooling themselves.’
‘Yeah,’ Steff agreed. ‘It’s amazing how gullible some people can be.’
‘Darn right. It’s God getting ready to rock’n’roll, I’m telling you. They laughed at the Reverend St John in this city when he warned them, but he had seen the signs, and they won’t be laughing when the tidal wave hits. Then after that, we gotta spread the Word against the clock, because if this world doesn’t start some serious repenting . . . it’s over, man.’
Steff was confused. ‘Hang on, were you talking metaphorically when you mentioned a tidal . . .’
But neither Gordy nor Sally was listening any more. There had been a loud, crackling sound from the stacked PA speakers either side of the main stage, and Sally had looked up first then gripped Gordy’s shoulder to draw his attention.
‘Oh-my-God-oh-my-God! I don’t believe it!’ she screamed, suddenly standing up on the bench.
‘You gotta be kidding me! You gotta be kidding me!’ Gordy yelled. Then the two of them grabbed each other, laughing and shrieking, punching the air and clapping.
‘Yeeeeaaaaah!’
All right!’
The air filled with cheering, like Jesus had scored the winner in the last minute of the Moral Cup Final against the Godless Gay Abortionist Prostitute Pornographers XI.
Steff twisted around on the bench and looked back over his shoulder at the stage. All around the Festival, people were pouring from tents and stalls to congregate in front of the main platform, where four shaggy-headed youths had ambled up mock-bashfully behind a white-suited, middle-aged man who was holding the microphone stand, beckoning the crowd’s attention. Gordy and Sally had clocked the scene ahead of the announcement now being made, and were clearly initiants into whatever rite was about to be executed.
‘. . . very special surprise for you all today,’ the man in the white suit was saying. ‘They’re playing in town this week as part of the Festival of Light’s programme of evening events, but they’ve come down here RIGHT NOW just to see how it’s all going, and – what d’you say, guys? – maybe playa coupla tunes?’
The shaggy heads nodded and shrugged, in a hopelessly choreographed-looking display of nonchalance. The crowd roared approval, few as loud as Steff’s soft-drinking buddies. Many of them were making a Cross sign with their forefingers, holding their arms in the air. It was like a well-brought-up cousin of that daft carry-on with the forefinger and the pinkie that metalheads did.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I know these young men need no introduction, but I’m gonna do it anyway ‘cause it’s such an honour to have them here. They’re currently top of the charts on K-ROS C
hristian Radio, and tomorrow night’s show will be going out as a special on the Christian Music Channel – so if you couldn’t get a ticket, set your VCRs for that one. Here they are, America’s number one Christian band: THE BELIEVERS!’
Steff stood up and faced the stage. This he just had to see, with plane-crash fascination. He suspected the on-going history of rock’n’roll was about to witness a particularly unbecoming development.
The Believers looked to Steff like what you might get if you put the Ramones into a big washing machine for maybe half a dozen cycles, then tumbled them dry and ironed them. They had managed to affect a jeans’n’leather look that you could confidently take home to meet your granny; and they looked like they would smell of fabric conditioner up close. Rock bands, as a rule, shouldn’t really smell of fabric conditioner. Fags, blow, whisky, spew, engine oil maybe. Not Lenor. Steff understood: they wanted to look baaad, but they were fundamentalist Christians, so there was kind of a conflict-of-interest problem. In short, they represented a Disney illustrator’s idea of a rock group.
‘Okay, how y’all doin’ out there Santa Monica?’ barked the lead shaggy, plugging in his guitar lead with one hand and gripping the mike stand with the other. He growled out his words in a rapid, throaty staccato. The crowd roared.
‘All-right-everybody-here-I-wanna-hear-you-say–praise-the-Lord.’
‘Praise the Lord,’ the crowd screamed.
‘One-more-time-wanna-hear-you-say-praise-the-Lord.’
‘Praise the Lord.’
‘One-mare-time.’
‘Praise the Lord.’
‘One-mare-time.’
‘Praise the Lord.’
‘One-mare-time.’
‘Praise the Lord.’
‘All-a-right-a-one-two-three-four-one-two-three-hup!’
Then they started playing.
Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.
Since its beginnings it had been said in America that rock’n’roll was the music of Satan. Steff always thought that was fair enough, given that for centuries longer it had been said back home in Scotland that ‘the de’il has aw the best tunes’. the Believers obviously could not be playing the music of Satan, and although the beat, chord structures and arrangements matched the standard criteria, it would be folly to describe what they were doing as rock’n’roll.
Not the End of the World Page 8
