‘Call it? Haven’t thought that far. It’s Halloween night, right?’ I heard him speak off from the telephone: ‘Hey, Laetecia, is Roland around? No? Well, what do you think? What we gonna call this shit?’ There was a pause, then a female’s muffled reply. Joseph laughed. ‘That could be it.’ He returned to me. ‘Max, I’ll tell you later, but you’re gonna like it.’
I received an invitation in the post. It wasn’t signed with Joseph or Roland Sparks’s names. Instead there was a fat red lipstick kiss that wasn’t an imprint; I could smear it with my thumb. What that was supposed to mean, I didn’t have a clue.
Club Marrakesh Presents
Halloween’s
‘End of the World Showdown’
feat.
Misty Blue vs. DoctorJay
31 October
And Then Bye Bye!
XII
It was Misty Blue’s first bracket in Club Marrakesh’s last night on Earth. If you had a pulse you were on that giant dance floor, rubbing your hips against everyone else’s, getting touched up, toes squashed and you were dripping sweat before the first bracket was even over.
The Sparks brothers had planned a musical battle that we’d already lost. This interstate ensemble knew exactly how to play the crowd. They’d done all the jazz festivals in the world, including the meccas: Monterey, Montreux and the New Orleans’ Mardi Gras. The band had thought the gig through and it wasn’t going to be one of those quiet affairs with couples and lonely types leaning at the bar or nodding to the beat in darkened corners. It was all jump and jive and get everyone dancing right from the start.
On a stage that reached right into the dance floor, Misty Blue was set up a little to the left, DoctorJay a little to the right. The lightshow illuminated the band playing and cast the collection of opposing instruments into a sort of glittery darkness, promising even better things to come.
Our approach was different. Expecting that this club’s patrons would be real jazz enthusiasts, we were going to dig deep into classic twentieth-century albums and play a lot of them in their entirety. I mean, both sides of well-loved vinyl records all the way through, starting at a side per bracket. What a bad idea. We came out and opened with side one of Blue Train – the ten-minute title track plus the nine minute ‘Moment’s Notice’. Our audience went into a sort of awed silence. It sounded good, but you could hardly dance to it. As soon as we finished, Misty Blue came out and got everyone moving again; we took to the stage and gave them side two: ‘Locomotion’, ‘I’m Old-Fashioned’ and ‘Lazy Bird’.
Here was the difference between us. The crowd went wild for Misty Blue; the crowd really appreciated DoctorJay. Added to which, the Misty Blue singer, an African-American with the unlikely name of Nathaniel Prince, had a great bluesy voice and really looked the part in his all-white suit and electric blue shirt, not to mention that women were going weak at the knees every time he crooned in their direction.
During one of those breaks where our opposition murdered our memory, we smoked weed and swallowed all the free drinks we could. We decided it was either give in or try something different; we couldn’t keep dampening that crowd just so our interstate rivals could move in and whip them into even greater frenzies. We decided to throw away our plan.
What would Jamie have told us? Boys, it’s time to get loose. Be cool.
At the first few bars of ‘Theme From Shaft’ the crowd didn’t know whether to tear us apart or dance. This wasn’t jazz – but someone screamed, then someone else. That meant they liked it. From there it was plain sailing. We kept up the tempo and, on the spot, developed a sort of instinct for what this crowd really wanted. At the end of every tune someone in the band would call out the next song, picked on the spot. Everything from Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Superfly’, to Gil Scott-Heron and James Brown. Rodney, our lead guitarist, definitely was not sexy, and his voice wouldn’t challenge a professional like Nathaniel Prince, but he had this crazy way of duck-dancing while vocalising that made the crowd laugh and egg him on.
No one wanted either band to give in, to call it a night. We all did literally play until our fingers were ready to fall off. Misty Blue and DoctorJay had been going for hours, but, at the stroke of midnight, Joseph Sparks jumped the stage and shouted into a microphone, ‘It’s Halloween, isn’t it – who wants to go home to the ghosts and gremlins?’ The crowd let him know they didn’t. Joseph yelled, ‘Jam!’ The crowd chanted back: ‘Jam! Jam! Jam!’
The dozen of us got together. Misty Blue’s drummer deferred to me and took up the congas, vibes and a glockenspiel. We started off with a slow groove, letting each soloing instrument weave in at will, then that turned into what everyone really wanted, an old-style cutting contest with each soloist trying to out-duel the next. The energy was up, then went higher and higher. I even got a turn, me soloing on the drums and Misty Blue’s drummer replying on the congas. It was a blast. All of that burned for a good hour. Then, two girls, maybe on a dare, jumped the stage and ran through the musicians, alternately kissing us and tugging at our clothes. One tore her blouse as she tried to pull it over her head, but the other, a flaming redhead, had no trouble. Her shirt and bra went sailing into the air and she bounced her breasts in time to my beat. Joseph and Roland were in no hurry to get her off-stage. Eventually they had to, laughingly helping her down. The intrusion set the tone for our last hour. Not a soul in this place felt laid-back. We played hard and Nat Prince scat-sang his heart out. We hit a final ecstatic high and everyone knew that was it. You just couldn’t go any further, couldn’t get any happier.
Stage lights down. Applause like the end of the world. The night had lasted more than five hours and the place was still packed. No one had wandered off, except for one – and despite the high, I was mad with disappointment.
XIII
I noticed her while we were setting up. Outside, an unhappy twilight was settling over the city and rain started to come down. Inside, Joseph and Roland Sparks conferred at a main bar long and deep enough for five bartenders. The brothers had enough Italian and black Scottish blood in their veins to look like a pair of curly-headed Moors. They were worried the bad weather would keep people away. While preparations were ongoing she entered the club shaking rain from her hair. The three kissed and I saw her call one of the bartenders, who stopped washing glasses and brought her a bottle of champagne. Knew her pretty well. She popped the cork and poured a glass. The brothers weren’t having any; she sat on a stool and drank while Joseph and Roland went outside to fret at the storm-clouds. I didn’t know who she was, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the swing of her long black hair.
There was an aura about her. She was dressed well, but wasn’t very relaxed, and instead seemed to be holding in a lot of nervous energy. She sat, she drank, she got up and checked the rain with the others. If someone had told me she was preparing to do something like make her stage debut up here with one of the bands it would have made sense. I was fastening my kit’s rivets. When I tried out the snare, giving a few rolls and a ratatat, she was back at the champagne bottle, this time watching what I was doing.
The boys in my band might all have been married, but they’d noticed her as soon as I did. Ronald asked a technician, ‘Who is that?’ but Nathaniel Prince, in a t-shirt and studiously ripped jeans, and sitting cross-legged on the stage as he went through his set-list, said in his deep Louisiana accent, ‘The babe is the Sparks brothers’ little sister. This has been a public safety warning.’
It was the ‘Laetecia’ Joseph Sparks had turned to when he’d first been on the telephone to me. So this was the person who’d given the ‘End of the World’ night its name – and it was her red kiss on the invitation, I knew it.
She finished a last drink and I lost sight of her until later in the night, during our second bracket, playing the flip side of Blue Train. From being nowhere to standing right at the front of our stage, she smiled up at me. My eyes locked not with hers but with those of the grinning Raf Santos, and his fun, rumbling bass
runs were echoed by my foot-pedal and tom-tom.
Next time I looked she was gone. Didn’t see her at all, not for the rest of the night, and that made the whole thing go a little sour for me. It was just part of being a player in this sort of an outfit; we were nobodies and six-sevenths of our septet was married anyway. Appreciative females were for the likes of Nat Prince, who probably ate them up with cream. Red kisses – all for him.
Three in the morning and we were nearly done packing. Staff finished cleaning up and I was making trips to the Premier to get the drum kit squared away into the boot and back seat. Rain and storms had kept no one home. The Sparks brothers were thrilled their night had been such a success. Thrilled – and full of gloom to see it all over. It seemed more than appropriate the weather was so foul. The boys in the band had taken turns holding borrowed umbrellas over one another as they crammed instruments and equipment into their cars. Roadies were one thing we lacked; Misty Blue had three of them and a decent-sized truck. I envied all of that. Then, as mementoes, Nat handed each of us a signed copy of the band’s latest CD. I felt like I was a small dog and a Great Dane had just urinated on me.
The younger brother, Joseph Sparks, called me over.
‘We’re gonna finish all the champagne before the auditors get their hands on it. Drink up, okay?’
It was good stuff and he poured generously. Roland was quiet, resting his great, dark face in his hands. Joseph said, ‘Don’t mind him.’ Roland nodded as if to mean that sooner or later he’d get over this great disappointment. He drank steadily and efficiently, on a mission to get plastered.
There were about twenty of us sitting in that funk of stale cigarette smoke and spilled drinks that creates the usual post-gig haze. Tonight the haze was deeper; soon bulldozers and wrecking balls would be moving in. Someone joked that the demolition company’s motto read, ‘All that’s left are the memories,’ but it wasn’t a joke, that’s exactly what it was.
The others in my band had families to get to and sports days to rise and shine for, all of it less than a few hours away. Misty Blue had also left, but for Nathaniel Prince, who’d been doing lines of coke since the witching hour and looked like he could keep going a week. Most of the female staff staying behind had their eye on him; he wouldn’t need to go anywhere alone.
Exhaustion had the better of me. One or two drinks, then bed. My temples hurt. The funny thing is, I had no idea that I was about to lose the ability to choose whether I would play drums in a band again. I had no idea the turn my life was about to take. You never get the chance to get ready for change; you simply hurtle in, blind, lonesome and always ill-prepared.
Quiet, even-tempered Joseph picked up a bottle of Krug and threw it against a wall, where it smashed to pieces. Then he burst into tears. Roland grabbed his kid brother and the two hugged, forehead against forehead; they cried and cried. From there the dam was broken. It was on for young and old. Lines of coke were cut and prepared. The bartenders emptied all the champagne bottles from out of the refrigerators onto the counter. Everyone took one for themselves. Corks popped; coke was snorted; no one was going to be straight or sober for very much longer.
When Joseph noticed I was getting ready to go, he unlocked himself from his brother’s embrace. ‘Hey, you can’t leave, our sister told us to get you to stay.’
Laetecia Sparks. It turned out she’d be the only one to remember me. I mean, really remember me.
I looked around and there she was. Nice red lips.
Roland moved out of his seat and went and sat beside one of his blonde waitresses, putting his arm around her. They started to kiss right in front of the rest of us. Nat Prince’s eyes lit upon the Sparks’ young sister and he said hello with easy familiarity, trying to get closer. He couldn’t because she sat next to me on the stool Roland had vacated. Everyone was stale with the post three a.m. doldrums, yet she was as fresh as if she’d just stepped out of the shower. It looked like she’d changed her clothes. Her new attire was demure; she could have been ready to go teach a class of school kids. What was she, early twenties? Twenty-five?
‘What took you so long, Lee?’ Joseph asked.
His sister opened her shoulder-bag, which was a little too big for nights out in bars and clubs. She had packet after packet of hash, and flipped one each to Joseph, Roland, Nat Prince, the bartenders, other staff. She didn’t keep any for herself, but looked at me and weighed the last one.
‘Thanks, but I’m heading off. Gotta drive.’
‘Hmm, Jamie said you didn’t like to make a pig of yourself.’
‘You know Jamie Lazaroff?’
‘Until he went to Africa. One year becomes many, right?’
I couldn’t think of what to say and she passed the bag to someone else.
Joseph was pulling himself together. ‘Is this all of us?’ There was general agreement. ‘Then let’s head up. Roland,’ he said to his brother, ‘want to lock up one last time?’
They went to do it, their staff spraying the bitter little door-locking ceremony with champagne.
‘The boys’ve got some rooms upstairs. The hotel managers are friends. It’s not just the club closing down, the whole building’s going to be demolished.’ Laetecia stood up. ‘Are you really so sure you want to go home?’
‘I guess not.’
She grinned and took my arm. Nathaniel Prince gave me a rueful smile. His top-dog attentions were going to have to shift elsewhere – and, the thing was, I still had no idea why.
XIV
They’d booked plenty of rooms, but one of them was the presidential suite, top floor, uninterrupted view of the world.
To room service Joseph rattled off a food order long as his arm. Roland filled the not-one, not-two, but three already-stacked, decent-sized bar fridges with all the booze taken from the club. Everyone drank and moved around, watching the random pattern of city-lights glitter through the rain. There was music. Television sets were on in every last gold-plated room. Big budget Hollywood movies and glossy porn films played. Images only, sound turned down. It was easy to see what sort of bacchanal this party was headed toward. The food arrived on a convoy of trolleys. Tokes were rolled, more coke was snorted, expensive drinks flowed like water. People came in and out; the entire hotel, or at least the top floors, was a movable feast. Suite to suite to suite; strangers arrived and disappeared, all celebrating the fact that soon this place was going to be one great big hole in the ground.
Roland’s depression was lifting. He was all over a different blonde to the one he’d been kissing downstairs. Joseph assuaged his own rage with a redhead sitting in his lap, the girl who’d danced bare-chested on stage. Nathaniel Prince was telling stories I couldn’t hear, that deep, sexy voice of his rumbling like a bass. No time passed before couples were swaying together, others yab-bering over God-awful disco music that got louder and louder. Adrenalin and blood seemed to pound. Now pills were going around. Uppers, downers, who could even tell?
‘So you missed the show tonight,’ I said to Laetecia.
‘Not everything. I liked the risk you took, playing Coltrane’s best album like that. Not everyone knew it but they liked it. I came back in the middle of your “funk and soul” period. Sacrilege in a jazz club, still, you got away with it. Better than this.’
‘Why did you have to go?’
She thought it over. ‘Well, a lot of things are finishing today. I promised myself this Halloween would be my special day too.’
‘For what?’
‘I don’t know you, so let’s leave it for now.’ She looked at me with an inquisitive smile. ‘Do you know where Halloween comes from?’
‘No idea.’
‘Two thousand years ago the Celts celebrated their new year on November first. The night before was called Samhain, and that was when the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. So, for one night all these ghosts could come back to Earth and wreak havoc with homes and crops.’
‘I thought Halloween was just
American trick-or-treat type stuff.’
‘It is now, but do you want to know how that part of Halloween got added? In England, the poor would beg for food and people would give them things called “soul cakes” to eat, but only if those beggars promised to pray long and hard for the souls of the dear-departed. The church liked all the praying. They thought it was better than what people used to do, which was to leave food and wine out on doorsteps and in cemeteries for ghosts and ghouls to collect. So soul cakes and prayers were encouraged. Later, cakes in exchange for paupers’ prayers turned into little treats for neighbourhood kids. Simple evolution.’
‘You like these stories.’
‘Well, ghosts are fun, don’t you think?’
‘Not for everyone.’
Some of the glossy group sex on the television sets was being turned into rawer, more vivid pleasures in this ridiculously well-appointed living room. Laetecia said, ‘Want to find a place we don’t have to be voyeurs?’
I looked at how open and bright her face was. ‘All right.’
She crossed the room to the telephone and dialled an internal number. The lights were low, sugary music played too loud, and bodies moved in and out of shadows. Plates of food and bottles of champagne lay about. Outside it was storming, the windows regularly washed by gusts of rain.
She might have been fresh as a daisy, but my neck hurt and my eyes actually throbbed. Sleep, blessed sleep. I felt a sheen of perspiration, oil, on my face. While Laetecia used the phone I went to the main bathroom. Joseph Sparks and the redhead were in the shower. She was bending under the water spray and he was devouring her back and hips. I found another bathroom, its toilet bowl covered in fresh vomit. I held my breath and washed my face and hands with plenty of soap and hot water. When I was finished, Laetecia was waiting for me.
‘Sure you want to come?’
Why me? I wanted to say. What did I do to get your attention?
Dirty Beat Page 18
