by Mick Norman
Several attacks by the teenies had been repulsed without too much trouble by the blue line. Tom was nursing a ragged scratch on his left cheeky and his epaulettes had been torn off, but the men still held.
‘Now, one for all the Angels and all the friends of the Angels. Here’s ‘All Alone’.’
The song from a year or so back had almost become the anthem of the reformed and revived Hell’s Angels movement. Since the catastrophic explosion at the London offices of the Daily Leader a few months ago, little had been seen or heard of Gerry ‘Wolf’ Vinson and the chapter known as the ‘Last Heroes’. It was assumed that they had once again retreated to their mountain fastness in the wilderness of North Wales. In the meantime, the country was plagued by a resurgence of the ‘skull’ movement – an ultra-violent culture based on the mindless rampaging of fee skinheads of the sixties.
Flute and bass were discarded and the couple sang together to a background of a wailing Moog.
‘Blood on fee road,
And a white heron flying.
Blood on the road,
And a grey mist rising.
All alone,
All alone,
All alone.’
The song hammered through two more verses, the background noise rising until it reached an almost inaudible pitch feat vibrated the small bones in the face and caused teeth to quiver.
Erection Set began to stamp louder and louder. Faster and faster. They reached the final verse.
‘Not alone, not alone, not alone.
Blood in my mind,
And a white hawk rising.
Blood in my mind,
And a free road waiting.
Not alone,
Not alone,
Not alone.’
The last phrase was repeated hypnotically, on and on and on and on. The strobe lights played faster, whining epileptically over the gyrating audience. With a sudden movement, the taller one ripped off the cluster of silver bells and threw them into the audience.
Underneath, he was naked.
Tom knew nothing of feat. All he knew was that the noise and the lights had made him feel sick. That his false teeth seemed somehow too large for his mouth. That the scratch on his face was beginning to sting. His groin ached. If only it would stop.
The baring of the singer’s sexual organ was the catalyst that transformed the audience. Pushed them finally over the brink.
Eyes wide open, staring blankly, mouths gaping the young girls came at the stage. Tom and his colleagues linked arms and tried to repel them by becoming immoveable objects. But, they failed. And, the girls were an irresistible force.
Even so, in normal rock concert riot conditions, that were becoming almost acceptable, they might still have held.
Tom smashed his fist into the face of a girl – hardly fifteen, hurling her backwards, blood spurting from her nose. The noise from the stage hammered on, and the lights still flickered, lighting the mindless faces of the teenies. The screaming had died down and had been replaced by an eerie, obscene moaning.
For a second of frozen time they withdrew, leaving a narrow space in front of the stage. Several girls lay there, groaning, some with bleeding faces. The commissionaires also drew breath. Some of them – most of them had scratches on hands and faces, while few had a uniform that wasn’t torn.
Then, as Tom watched in confusion, the girls came again. And the lights in the theatre sparkled and spun about, whirling off the brass buttons on the commissionaires’ jackets.
And off the sequins that were scattered in the hair of many of the girls. As well as on something else. Glittered on things held in the hands of the teenies.
Short, shiny knives.
Four of them converged on Tom at once. He was too shocked even to fight back. To explain why he was there.
As the thin blades pecked out his life, he began to cry.
Two – We’re Gonna Rap It Up
An interview with Rupert Colt, from the British rock magazine
Telescopic Knife February, 198—
Telescopic Knife: Rupert Colt, you are handling the publicity and promotion for the tour that is now ending of Mucking Punt and Erection Set. I believe you are also the man in charge of security arrangements.
Rupert Colt: Yes, dear. That’s right. But, after last night’s awful happening at the Sundance Theatre, I’m not sure whether security is the right word.
T.K.: Yes. This morning’s papers call it a ‘bloody battle’ and ‘a pop charnel-house’.
R.C.: You missed the one about the abattoir of rock.
T.K.: We’ve seen figures quoted of up to forty dead and as many as one hundred and fifty injured.
R.C.: I think that you can quote me as saying that those figures are considerably exaggerated. I rang the Royal Northern Hospital just before I came along here. The number of actual dead – actual dead, is no more than thirty-four and the injured who have been kept in hospital number less than eighty. Seventy-nine if you want the exact figures.
T.K.: How many of the dead were your security guards?
R.C.: I’d rather not answer that one, if you don’t mind.
T.K.: Fair enough. It has to be said, though, that we’ve also been seeing people this morning, and we were told, officially, that over half of the fatally injured were these old men. Would you care to comment on that?
R.C.: All right sweetheart. If you insist. Yes, that is correct. But, I honestly don’t feel any blame over it. We had no way of knowing that the bitches would all be carrying knives.
T.K.: There were warnings. Mick Houghton – and no better music critic there is – said weeks ago that the teenies were building up, wanting some rather special souvenirs, and that he’d heard some of them were going tooled up to concerts.
R.C.: No comment.
T.K.: After this, will the final concert of the Mucking Punt and Erection Set tour take place?
R.C.: Unfortunately not. I got out when they started to come over and only went back after they’d shifted the bodies. The whole Sundance smelled of dope smoke, of piss, of blood and of death. No, after that, the rest of the tour is O.F.F. – off. In any case, they got Erection Set up the cable and into the helicopter in time, but they’ve split and I don’t know where the f**k they are. Of course, ticket money will be refunded.
T.K.: We’ve heard about another big tour you’ve got lined up, including some of the biggest names from both sides of the Atlantic. Can you tell us something about that.
R.C.: No.
T.K.: Just ‘No’
R.C.: Just ‘No’. But, it will be big – probably the biggest package this country has ever seen. But, for contractual reasons, I can’t give you any details. There’ll be at least one big name from the old days. An American super-group. A great English group with a lead singer who used to be a great science fiction writer. It’s not certain about their booking yet; so, don’t jump to any conclusions. And some names that’ll make this package that’s just ending look like an evening with Cliff.
T.K.: One last question, please. If this show is as big as you say ...
R.C.: No ‘ifs’ about it, love.
T.K.: Well, what will you do about security?
R.C.: (after a long pause) I want to go for a drive out into the clean green God’s country and try and track down an old friend of mine.
T.K.: What makes you think he’ll come?
R.C.: I’ll just look up at him with my baby blue eyes and tell him I’m in trouble. I know he won’t let me down. He’s a real angel like that.
Three – To Gather Flowers Constantly
Spring had come late to the secluded valley on the Lleyn Peninsula in North Wales, named after the rebel chieftain, Vortigern. The first green shoots of the ferns were bursting through the dank, brown deadness of the previous year. The winter had been hard down there, close to the sea-wrack and the barking of the seals.
The two rows of cottages, set at a sharp right-angle to each other, had been almost destroyed by hooligans in the sixt
ies and seventies. Roofs had been partly stripped and all the wooden floors and ceilings had been burned out. Only the shells remained. Plus the shells of one smaller house, and of the bigger building – that must have belonged to the manager of the lonely quarry, high on the grey hillside above.
But, the walls remained. Granite. Heavy block cemented to heavy block. It would have taken a bulldozer to flatten them. And there was no way that you could get a bulldozer down there. Or a car. Even a jeep would have found the twisting path impossible. Since the Welsh Freedom Society had destroyed what path remained several years ago, to check an attempt by the council to sell the village off, there had been no way down.
The handful of walkers who used to brave the stiff climb dwindled away. The Lancashire middle-class who had hoped for a country cottage were disappointed. In those days, it had seemed a cause worth fighting for. Now, the desolation of the whole area had gone too far. In summer it was crowded. But, out of season, the villages of weekend dwellers stood empty and alone. From ghost villages, there had come a web of ghost communities. The Welsh-speaking population of Caernarvonshire had shrunk by half in the last six years.
Nant Gwrtheyrn remained. Gulls and cormorants soared above it, and the sea mumbled sullenly across the shingle beach below it. And, it had found a new life. With new residents.
The offices of the Daily Leader had erupted in a plume of death, and many had breathed their last. Again, the premier chapter of Hell’s Angels in Britain – the Last Heroes, linked with the Wolves, affiliated by charter to the great chapter of Oakland in California – went underground. But, times changed. Many of the dead had been members of a rival chapter – the Ghouls – and the public were not that concerned. Of far more interest was the news, only three days after the Holborn cataclysm, that a Minister of the Crown had paid a high-class prostitute to beat him with bunches of thistles, while he stroked her Alsatian. Not only had he admitted this absurd perversion, but a leading paper actually had photographs of him taking his pleasure. And the lady was reputedly of foreign extraction.
The Hell’s Angels were off the front pages, and that meant they were out of people’s minds. Which, decided Gerry, their president, wasn’t a bad thing.
So, quietly living, and partly living, they had survived the cruel grip of winter. They had enough money – the benefits of a raid in Llandudno saw to that but their village had been cut off by land. Fortunately, the rotting jetty along the beach held together to enable them to bring in supplies by motorboat.
Now, spring and it was all worthwhile. But, the coffers were perilously low, and change was in the air.
Gwyn, the white-haired, white-faced, red-eyed leader of the Wolves, was becoming restless. Cochise and Kafka, with Rat, Riddler, Dick the Hat and Gerry the sole survivors of the Last Heroes of two years ago, wanted to move south again. They had seen enough of hills and rivers.
But the most interesting development concerned the ladies of the chapter. Brenda, Gerry’s old lady, had always been militant, and two other women – they were no man’s old lady, yet they weren’t mamas either, who called themselves Holly and Lady, joined with her in a sort of splinter movement.
They didn’t burn their bras – they didn’t wear any – nor did they withdraw from the men members of the chapter. But, when they engaged in sex with any of the brothers, it was always on their terms. This had caused tremendous opposition at first, because it ran against all the laws and beliefs of the Angels. But, all three were clever, and very tough. In some ways more ruthless than most of the brothers. Between them, they had killed more than a dozen men. They walked together, and they walked alone.
The rest of the brothers still hung around the village. The new boy was Monk, a.k.a. Mick Moore, who had played such a large part in putting down the Ghouls. He spent a lot of time roaming round the Ballard landscape of the ruined quarry and rock-processing plant at the far end of the beach.
One freezing bright day, Gerry had walked along the pebbles, dusted with ice, the sea crackling in through a heavy mist, towards the quarry. Monk’s old lady, Modesty, hadn’t seen him for several hours, and had begun to worry.
The sandy path up to the wrecked offices was normally slippery, but the small stream that flowed over it was frozen higher up. The mud had rutted hard and gave an easy climb. The metal supports of the main shed were exposed and thrust sharply at the air. A light wind whistled through them, bringing a variety of pitch and resonance. Far below him, Gerry could just see the beach, speckled with vast logs from the summer storms. In the comer of the cove, the skeleton of a basking shark lay stark and white, seaweed draping itself lovingly around the bones.
Far away, at the edge of seeing, a small group of brothers were riding their hogs round the pillars of the jetty, the wind bringing the thin note of the engines to his ears.
Shrugging his denim jacket up round his neck, Gerry climbed inside the frame of the building.
Inside, all the noises were cut off. Red rust dripped silently from the rotting roof, splashing on the blown sand. The only movement in the emptiness came from the flapping, loose corner of a faded picture stuck to a sheltered wall. Stained by time, it was still recognisable as a portrait of the anguished figure of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, her pale dress stippled with the blood of her assassinated husband.
In front of the picture, like a daemonic altar, lay the red-frosted hulk of an old engine, the product of a crash years before between the manager’s car and a loaded ore lorry. When the quarry closed down, the smashed engine had been left behind, coated with the crystals of time, a useless ornament in a dead landscape.
Gerry peered about this drowned world, looking for Mick Moore. Finally, he spotted a hint of movement, high among the thick girders, near the only window in the shed. ‘Monk! Monk!’
The eyried figure made no movement. Sighing with irritation, Gerry swung agilely up into the maze of beams. He climbed towards the solitary man, noting in passing how fit he felt, despite their winter exile. Finally, he reached the side of Monk, and stood with him, gazing into the depths of the cliffs, down into the white water and sharp rocks.
Neither spoke. Finally, it was the younger man who turned, the wind plucking at his long hair, blowing it across his face. He raised a hand to push it out of his eyes and grinned at Gerry.
‘Hello Wolf. Nice up here, isn’t it?’
Before he answered, Gerry reached in his pocket and pulled out a battered joint. Hand-rolled. A few months earlier, the Government had yielded to liberal pressure and taken a faltering step towards the legalisation of marijuana. Under strict licence, one manufacturer had been given permission to market a branded line of cigarettes. There were rigid controls over any advertising, and the new line – named Rainy Day Women by some sharp young merchandising executive was launched. But, there was one thing wrong with them. The amount of dope in them was minimal, and it wasn’t even good quality grass at that.
It came from Government farms in Southern England and gave about as strong a buzz as dried banana skins. It became known as Berkshire White, and the cigarettes were called Enids, to indicate the contempt of the users.
So, the scheme failed, and everyone went on using the old illegal stuff.
‘Modesty said she thought you’d be up here.’ There was a question implied in the statement.
‘Silly cow. She’s worse than my old lady used to be. My mother that is.’ There was a brief silence. Then, he went on to answer that implied question. ‘You want to know why I come, don’t you? Well, Gerry, I’m pissed off. We seem to have been stuck here, freezing our balls off for bloody years. I tell you, I’m about ready to pack it in and get away.’
‘What would you do?’
Mick took a long slow drag at the joint, holding the smoke deep in his lungs. Then he expelled it, watching it circle away into the cold air. ‘You’d laugh. I haven’t told anyone about it; not even Modesty. I thought I’d pull a job and get some bread. Then, I’d straighten up and buy a shop somewhere. Maybe in Birmi
ngham. A head shop, with a bit of magic and some science fiction. I’ve even got a name for it. I thought I’d call it Agaric after the mushroom.’
Gerry thought before he replied. ‘I think it’s a nice idea, Mick. Very nice. Going straight. I’ve thought about it during this winter, as well. But, I keep thinking about spring, and going on runs again. All together. No shit from anyone. Nobody hassling us. Spring’s nearly here. Something’s bound to come up. If it doesn’t in the next week or so, then we’ll go looking for it.’
Monk grinned. ‘You’re a clever bastard, Gerry. You’re a fucking manipulator. You know that people fall for your freedom and the open road crap. Even me. But, there’s a lot of aggro building up.’
Gerry started to swing down towards the sandy floor, and stopped half-way. ‘Who from? I know the women are getting their knickers in a twist, but I reckon that’ll pass. Who else?’
‘Some of the Welsh. They used to like being the Wolves. They didn’t mind too much being The Last Heroes and Wolves. But, they aren’t the happiest brothers about being back to the Last Heroes again.’
Gerry spat. ‘Shit! I thought it was that. Gwyn’s been quiet for a couple of weeks now. Relapsed into bloody Celtic mysticism. Christ! The Last Heroes are years older than the Wolves; and I even put it to the vote. I’m the president, and I could have pushed it through. The majority voted for the name change back to the Last Heroes.’
‘Yeah. But it wasn’t much of a majority. And now they think they might split.’
Gerry dropped the rest of the way to the floor, cursing as he banged his ankle on a hidden splinter of metal. ‘All right, Monk. Thanks for letting me know. I reckon we’re going to have to get some action going, to take their minds off all this. Maybe a run in a week’s time. We could go to a rock concert – something like that. Come on, let’s get back for some dinner. Maybe God will send us a good fairy to give us some action.’
