by Nathan Davey
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The next morning I found me and Lizzie in the room alone. I could hear the voices of the band from the open door going out into the corridor. When we heard this, I and Lizzie got dressed as fast as we could and headed out into the corridor.
In the corridor stood the band all chatting among themselves. Once we came into the corridor all of them fell silent. All of them looked quite saddened but strong. Many of their faces were expressionless, like when you’re trying to suppress the way you actually feel. Each of them shook our hands in turn, like how the Queen shakes hands with all of the performers after the Royal Variety Performance.
“You lot ready?” asked Ritchie, who was talking to the owner of the next venue on his phone,
“Yah, we’re ready” replied Nick,
“Right then” said Ritchie, “let’s make a move”
We all started to make our way down through the corridor and out into the foyer. We arrived at the desk where he all handed in our keys and officially checked out. Lizzie and I took one last look at the lovely hotel before heading back out into the car park.
It was a calm and quiet morning. It was as if the world knew that there was going to be a parting of the ways taking place. There was a light wind blowing which made the trees lining the car park sway. The sky was grey and the early morning was still considerably dark. Birds were in the trees singing their little hearts out and pigeons were wondering around the pavement looking for fallen food.
The boys arrived at the van and opened the doors. Ritchie climbed in first and sat in his seat, still talking away enthusiastically on his phone. The others piled in the back seats and put on their safety belts. Lizzie climbed onto the Moped. I walked up to the open doorway of the black van. Nick was sitting there and he looked down at me with sad eyes. He put a fist out to me to express his respect for me. I put out my own fist and we both bumped out fists together in a blokish fashion. He nodded his head and a moment later closed the door.
I backed away as the engine revved up, ready to go. The van pulled away with a loud bang from the exhaust pipe. The smoke from the pipe, once again, made a large cloud develop behind the vehicle. As the van pulled out of the car park and onto the road, I could see all of the band members giving us peace signs with their fingers. Both I and Lizzie returned the gesture by giving them peace with our fingers as well. Very soon the van had pulled out onto the road and was gone, leaving a trail out smoke behind it.
I looked at the spot where they just left for a few moments. I took a deep breath before going to the moped to join Lizzie. I climbed on the bike behind her as she was already in the position to drive the bike. She told me later that she wanted to drive because she didn’t think I’d be in the mood for it. She was right, that girl can read me like a book.
Lizzie kicked the ignition and started up the engine with a loud roar. Lizzie had already taken the two helmets from the sidecar’s boot. She had her helmet and she passed me mine. I put it on and tightened the straps accordingly. She looked behind to check that there were no obstructions. Using her feet she shuffled the bike back, as motorbikes and mopeds can’t reverse, until the bike was positioned towards the opening that led onto the road. She twisted the accelerator on the moped’s handles, which made the bike zoom off across the car park and onto the road.
Joe said that the School with the drama studio was to the left of the Speakeasy bar. So the sensible decision was to go to the Speakeasy bar first and then go from there. Lizzie drove the yellow bike with the rusty old sidecar through the Essex town. We passed all of the same shops and sights that we passed on the journey to the bar the night before. We arrived at the bar from the right so kept on driving past it.
We kept on driving down the road until, as Joe said, we came to the large sign which said; “Epping Secondary School”. The building was lined by a tall brick wall and the only entrance was an open green iron gate. We rode on through the gates into the school’s car park. At the entrance, just by a large square building, was Joe wearing the same dirty shirt as the day before. He was talking to an older woman with bleach blonde hair when we approached him on the bike. When he saw us, he completely ignored the woman’s next comment and waved to us with a massive and toothy smile across his wide face.
“Hello!” he called to us, “Thank god you’ve come. You two are seriously going to be a great help”
We parked the Moped into one of the spaces. We climbed off the bike, removed our helmets, placed them into the boot of the sidecar, closed the boot and then walked over to Joe. Joe looked extremely excited by our arrival, while his female companion looked at us as if we were something she’d just stepped in.
She was a nasty looking woman, the kind of person whose face is permanently stuck in an expression of disapproval. These were the kind of sour women that you find on village and town councils. These are the kind of people who think they know the score and are somewhat royalty, when in fact they’re just bigoted fools. We’ve all come across these people at one time or another.
I like to call these people “The Marvellous People”, as all they do is tell everyone how marvellous they are. They are convinced that their farts smell of strawberries. They walk around with their bottoms sticking up in the air while they criticise everyone and everything except themselves. “The Marvellous People” come in all forms of men and women from all ages. This woman was, by far, the worst “Marvellous Person” I’d ever come across.
“Fantastic!” Joe was saying, as he shook our hands in turn, “So glad you’re here. This here is Laura Mish our costume and make up designer, Laura these are our new lighting and sound operators”
“My arse they are!” she cried, “They’re just chavs!”
“Don’t judge a book by its cover” said Joe, looking rather disgusted by what Laura had just said, “I saw these chaps at work last night at the bar in Town. They were working with a band you see. They were wonderful, perfect in fact. These are the people we need and I think that they’re going to do a great job, personally”
“Well, personally I think you’ve made a huge mistake” said Laura, flicking away some of the burnt ash from the cigarette she was smoking, “They’ll probably nick everything or set something on fire or start a riot or….something!”
“You’ve been watching too much Sky News” I said,
“You what?” asked the women irritably, “are you trying to insult me you little council house scumbag!”
“Now listen here!” bellowed Joe, who was getting more and more aggravated by the way she was treating his new guests, “what do you know about anything? You old bag! Leave them alone. I’ve chosen them to work with us, so you’d better get used to it!”
Laura was taken aback by this. She wasn’t used to being talked to like this. She was usually the one who told others off for being dicks, Joe was giving this horrible “Marvellous Person” a piece of her own medicine. I and Lizzie couldn’t help but smile. People like that don’t deserve respect or power. It’s just such a shame that everyone in parliament, running this country, are all “Marvellous People”. All of our world leaders are at the top end of “Marvellousness”. Except for you Obama (wink).
“It’s your funeral Joe” said Laura, rather hurt by Joe’s comments, “do whatever you want to do. Just don’t come crying to me when it all goes tits up.”
“I’m pretty certain that it won’t” said Joe, “they’re going to do the full week of shows in Edinburgh without fail. You’ll see. Come along you two, let me introduce you to the cast and crew”
Joe led us away from the gobsmacked woman behind us and into the drama studio. The drama studio was a small room which was painted entirely black, had a dozen lanterns with many gels and filters, black curtains lining the walls and a black granite floor. Many young actors were scattered across the room; chatting, laughing and memorising lines from their scripts. An overweight man with a monk haircut was playing on the piano, he was playing for some girls who were practising a dance rou
tine for the show.
No one even noticed us at first as Joe took us over to the man playing the piano. As we walked across the granite floor, some of the young actors finally took notice of us. Some girls coming out from a second room after changing into their costumes, saw us and stood their ground looking confused. They were dressed in ragged clothes and covered in make up which was designed to look like dirt. On their shoulders were armbands with the Star of David on it.
When I saw that, I began to worry about what kind of show we’d agreed to work on. I looked around and I saw props of old suitcases, period antiques from the 1940’s and, to my shock, a giant Nazi swastika banner. It was on the wall where the door was, the one we came in through, so only at this angle did we finally notice it. Then from the changing room where the girls had come previously, came out a man in a full Nazi uniform.
Both me and Lizzie saw this at the same time and panicked. What kind of play is this? I thought, if this is some sort of Neo-Nazi shit, I’m bolting!
“What the hell is going on?” Lizzie asked, “This is seriously starting to freak me out”
“Don’t worry” I told her, “if this does turn out to be dodgy, then we’ll be out of here and up the road before Joe can say anything about it”
“Ok” she replied, “good plan”
Lizzie paused for a moment, before tugging at the shoulder of my tracksuit to gain my attention.
“Aaron?” she asked, “Aaron?”
“What?” I asked,
“That guy’s wearing a gas mask” she answered,
“I know” I said, “just don’t look at him. Don’t make eye contact. Just keep looking forward. Pretend he’s not there, pretend he’s not there”
Finally we arrived at the piano. The man with the monk haircut stopped playing when he saw Joe and told the girls to take a break. The girls went away into the changing room, giggling among themselves all of the way. The large man turned to face us, while wiping his sweaty brow with a handkerchief. His face was bright red from the strenuous effort of playing the piano. Like everyone else we’ve seen here so far, he looked confused by our presence.
“Who are they?” he asked,
“They’re our new light and sound operators” answered Joe, “I can assure you that they are the real deal. They’ll do just fine”
“Joe?” Lizzie asked, “What kind of play is this?”
“Oh, of course, I haven’t told you yet” said Joe with a smile, “It’s a musical about the Holocaust”
I remember there being a very awkward silence after he said that, a musical about the Holocaust? What writer and musical composer would think that that would be a good idea? Who would have thought that anyone would want to watch something disturbing like that?
If it was a serious straight play then that would be fine, in fact it could be very powerful but a musical is just going too far. It’s like me going to the Really Useful Group and asking them to fund my production of 9/11: The Musical. It’s offensive, unnecessarily and insensitive. Besides even if the play did get on Broadway, if the choice was between Holocaust: the Musical and Mamma Mia, people would go to Mamma Mia. People pay to watch a “feel good” show not a “cut your wrists” show.
You can imagine that I and Lizzie were a bit hesitant to work on the show. Then I was reminded that we wanted to help as many people as we could. We didn’t want to be selective about who we helped. It wasn’t like they were extremists or racists or anything. They were just an amateur Youth Theatre company, whose Director had picked a very edgy play to perform. My assumption was that the play was picked purposely to cause controversy, a bit of a cheap attempt to get famous in my opinion. Then again I was not on this journey to judge others, in fact I was there to do the opposite. Even though Lizzie still felt quite hesitant, I had already decided to be opened minded about the group and work with them. We were only going to get out of it if something really weird happens.
“A musical about the Holocaust?” I asked, “That’s….different”
“For sure!” said Joe, “It’s going to be the biggest controversy since Jerry Springer: The Opera. We might even get in the papers!”
I was right. This wasn’t anything to do with the Director’s political beliefs or agenda. This was just a deliberate shot at getting famous. It was very seedy and unnerving but they were not causing any real harm with it, well not yet anyway. As Joe Pepper turned to the man on the piano to talk about some music, I leaned over to Lizzie and whispered in her ear. I told her that if this play begins to seriously upset people, then we’ll leave Joe and his actors to their own devices. I told her that we’d only stay, as long as people were watching the show without getting too mad about how despicable the whole idea was. We knew that people would hate what Joe was trying to do, so really it was just a matter of time before me and Lizzie could leave. We didn’t want to seem rude at first, as that would completely contradict what we were trying to do on this road trip.
From that point on it became a case of gritting our teeth and getting on with it. As we watched the rehearsals we saw this horrific play unfold. We learnt how to work the equipment while children as young as ten were pretending to die in the gas chambers. We learnt the light and sound ques from the script while the young actors sung very disturbing songs. On the front of the script we discovered that Joe Pepper wrote the book and music himself.
We were then suspicious that Joe might be a little bit ill in the head. Once again we reminded ourselves that we didn’t want to be a couple of back stabbers. We chose to assist this horrible production, unfortunately before we knew anything about it, so we had to keep our promise. We knew very well how angry this show would make people. We knew that we could only get out of it when things got too hot. Joe would be so caught up in all the hype that we could leave without him knowing.
I know that many of you reading are all asking the same question: Why didn’t we just leave then and there? There are two valid answers to that question. One: we wanted to keep our promise and carry out our mission of being good helpful people. And two: we’d never come across anything this messed up before and we wanted to see how much it would piss people off, not in a cruel way but just out of genuine interest. As disturbed as we both were by this encounter, both of us also knew that this was going to be an adventure we wouldn’t soon forget. We would had been mad to miss this opportunity to see the darker side of mankind, in this deceitful quest for fame which we were going to become apart of.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A day after our first meeting, we were at the Train Station and ready to travel to Edinburgh. The actors were boarding the train as me, Lizzie and a couple of the train’s staff was putting the Moped into the cargo carriage at the end of the train. Once the yellow Moped was inside the carriage and firmly secured down, the doors of the carriage were closed. I remember worrying about the bike for the entire trip, but I want to assure you that it arrived in Scotland without any problems what so ever.
Joe was nice enough to pay for our tickets to Scotland. As nice as he was, we were still scared of him. We really began to worry when we saw him place a copy of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler into his hand luggage. We sat far away him from for the entire journey. He was reading the book for the entire four hours, without any realisation of the looks he was getting from people passing by. Many people who saw the front cover of the book, moved away from him quickly. I don’t blame them. He looked like a complete nutter. Our suspicions about him were at boiling point.
We got to talk to the actors, all of whom were perfectly nice. They told us that the hated the play and wanted to do Grease. Joe insisted on doing this play because he wanted to “tell an important message”, what that message was none of them were sure.
“This isn’t the first weird play he’s done” said one girl, “last year we did a musical about the plague, before that we did a show about French Prisoners at Dartmoor Prison, before that we did a show about The First World War, the year before that we did a show about witch
burnings and who knows what we’ll be made to do next year!”
“Why don’t you join another group?” asked Lizzie, “If you want to do happier plays, I’m sure you can find a group that will do them”
“This is the only Youth Theatre group on our area” replied the girl sadly, “there’s not really much else for kids like us to do”
“We know how you feel” I said, “that’s why we ranaway in the first place”
“You guys ranaway?” asked the girl,
“Yeah” I said, “there wasn’t much else going for us, so we decided to make our own destiny”
“That was silly” said the girl, who now had her hands on her hips, “where’s that going to get you? If you don’t go to school, then university and then get a job, that makes you a failure. You’ll just be a lighting man all your life. You’ll probably go homeless within the year. I’m going to an Arts College so I can be rich and famous, while you spend the rest of your life sweeping the roads and cleaning dustbins”
The girl then gave us a smug look before going to tell her friends what she just told us. We could see them looking at us and shaking their heads in disapproval. From that point on I’ve always disliked young actors, they are some of the worst “Marvellous” people you can get. I know I’m becoming a bit cynical and unpleasant about these experiences, but that’s how I felt at the time. Now I wish that I hadn’t let the “Marvellousness” get to me like it did. Then again, I now wish that I didn’t go with Joe at all. Nonetheless it was an experience that made me see the side of humanity that I didn’t see with the band members of Purple Skull, the “Marvellous” side.
For the rest of the journey the actors and crew ignored us. That girl most likely told everyone a distorted and exaggerated version of the conversation we had. Everyone must had believed her overly dramatic version of the story, making them all avoid us and only give us scorning looks as they passed us to go to the toilet.
