Coffin Dodgers

by Gary Marshall

  We sit in silence for a while. Eventually, Dave goes through to the kitchen, brings back three beers and hands them out.

  "To Comedy Jim," he says.

  We clink bottles.

  "Comedy Jim."

  Dave and Amy have been part of my life for a long, long time. Dave and I grew up on the same street, went to the same nursery, went to the same school, were in the same classes, chased the same girls. My parents were friends with Dave's parents, and we spent most of our childhoods running in and out of one another's houses.

  Our parents were similar too. We were both IVF babies, which means that we don't know who our biological mothers are: we're from donor eggs. We've spoken about it from time to time, and neither of us wants to try and trace the donors. Our mums were -- are -- our mums. Do you know what I mean?

  Like most IVF babies, our parents were already old when we turned up. That's usually the case: the procedure costs so much money that you can't even think about it when you're worrying about a mortgage, trying to pay the bills and all the everyday stuff. Unless you're born with a silver spoon in your mouth and a huge trust fund waiting for you to grow up, IVF is one of those things you can't do until you're on the wrong side of fifty. My mum and dad were in their late fifties when they had me; Dave's were a few years older.

  In some ways that's a shame -- I mean, my dad tried his best, but when we played football together he got tired really quickly; when he tried to talk to me about sex when I was a teenager it freaked me right out -- but, you know, I was a happy kid and I loved my parents. Still do, even when my mum phones long-distance for no good reason at the worst possible time and says goodbye four hundred and thirty-two times before actually getting off the phone. I know Dave feels the same way.

  Our parents are still around, although when Dave and I got an apartment together it wasn't long before our respective folks upped sticks and headed for somewhere warmer. Which is probably for the best. When we all lived under the same roof we argued a lot; now we only see each other a few times a year, I really enjoy their company. It's a bit like that with Dave, actually. When we shared an apartment we got on each other's nerves, but since we've moved to separate flats we get on just great.

  Amy is different. She wasn't an IVF baby: her mum was one of the few people unaffected by whatever it was that threw a spanner into people's reproductive systems. Her parents were quite young when she came along -- her dad was thirty-one, I think, her mum twenty-nine -- and her dad's job (something to do with the army) meant they moved about a lot when she was young. Amy moved about a lot when she was older, too, but for different reasons: her dad died in an industrial accident when she was eleven and her mum died of cancer two years after that, so she spent three years with various family members before striking out on her own.

  I met Amy when she ended up in some of my classes, the new girl in town. I was fifteen, maybe sixteen, and Amy had been parcelled off to a distant aunt -- but this time, she stayed. I don't think it was that her other relatives didn't love her; I think it's more that they didn't know how to handle her. Amy's never talked about it and I wouldn't dare ask, but I get the impression that in her aunt Cathy, Amy finally found an equal, someone who cared for her but who also knew exactly what shit she was pulling. They argued constantly, but there was always a real warmth to it. They were like a couple who'd been married for decades, fighting like tomcats while trying to hide the grins. Amy was devasted when Cathy died but, being Amy, she got over it.

  Amy scares me sometimes. She's always pretty intense, and when somebody's as smart as Amy that intensity can be terrifying. She doesn't do it often -- she's never done it to Dave or I -- but she's one of those people who can take somebody apart with a couple of words.

  She's also the smartest, funniest, coolest person I've ever met, and I'd crawl over broken glass if she asked me to.

  I'd like to talk about something else now.

  I'm dumping my stuff in the locker room at work when Steve, one of the other barmen, gives me a nod.

  "Sleazy Bob's doing the rounds tonight," he says.

  "Ah. Thanks for the heads-up."

  Sleazy Bob is Robert Hannah, the casino's general manager. He isn't related to the Hannahs who founded the place and gave it its name -- even if he were, it wouldn't matter; they shipped out and sold out to a conglomerate from Dubai more than ten years ago -- but he doesn't exactly go out of his way to correct people if that's what they think. Over the years plenty of gullible and grasping staff and a fair few customers have been under the impression that if they're nice to him, he can make nice things happen to them. You can see how he got the nickname.

  He tried it on with Amy once. She never told us the details, but he's been visibly wary of her ever since.

  If Sleazy Bob is doing the rounds, that means he's showing a bunch of suits around the place. Investors, maybe, or more likely another bunch of high rollers waiting to be impressed.

  I'm not sure why Steve warned me, though. It's not as if we all skive, and then suddenly try to look busy when Sleazy Bob's around. The cameras mean we wouldn't get away with it.

  Did I tell you about the cameras?

  The casino, like all casinos, is Camera City. There are cameras in the light fittings above the gaming tables, and in the pillars next to the slot machines. There are cameras over the cash machines, and over the tills. There are wide-angled cameras giving a bird's eye view of every single inch where customers or staff may be. There are even cameras in the toilets, or at least there were until the footage from the ladies' became a short-lived but very successful hit on a couple of disreputable websites.

  The cameras are there for one reason: to catch cheats.

  Until a few years ago, all the camera feeds went to Mission Control, a room full of screens in the bowels of the building where a couple of security guys would keep an eye out for anything unusual. That wasn't ideal, though. They missed things, or didn't recognise known scammers, or got bored and played poker instead. Now, it's mostly automated. Computers scan the feeds in real time, using a facial recognition system that’s hooked into a database of known offenders. It's spookily accurate -- it isn't fooled by beards, or glasses, or even minor cosmetic surgery. If the computers find a match, Dave and the boys are alerted immediately with details of who they're looking for and where they'll find them.

  Computers can't do everything, though. They're great at spotting faces, but they're terrible at spotting "tells", the physical tics that even the most accomplished scammers can't completely suppress. So when the computers have done their face recognition thing, the footage is beamed to a company in Anchorage where real people play Spot The Tells. Amy says they're paid a pittance, and I'm sure she’s right: if this stuff cost money we'd still have a couple of bored security guys sitting in Mission Control instead. The security guys can still use the cameras, but they don't have to and they don't tend to bother.

  Incidentally, if you've been wondering why Dave and I don't do pranks in the casino, there's your answer. We'd be caught in seconds.

  I spot Sleazy Bob a few times during my shift, and sure enough he has a posse of suits in tow. Chinese, I think. They usually are. That's where the money is.

  Eventually, inevitably, he brings them over. Drinks on the house. They all order the most expensive whiskies we sell.

  "How's things, Matt?" he asks. Sleazy Bob prides himself on his ability to remember everybody's name, although I'm sure our name tags make such impressive feats of memory that little bit easier.

  "Very good, Mr. Hannah. You?"

  "Can't complain," he beams.

  I've always been fascinated by Sleazy Bob's hair. It's not a wig, but it doesn't look entirely organic either. It's as if space aliens came to Earth and left something sitting on Sleazy Bob's head.

  As if he's reading my mind, Sleazy Bob scratches his hair.

  "You know, Matt, if there's anything you ever need, my door is always open," he says.

  That's not strictly true. Sleazy Bob
's office door is four inches thick, milled from solid steel, with state-of-the-art electronic locks. It's more of a panic room than an office, and Sleazy Bob is the panicking type. When he says his door is always open, he means that an entire army wouldn't be able to get through without an appointment.

  Still, I play along. "Thank you, Mr Hannah. I appreciate it."

  Sleazy Bob doesn't try to motivate me any further, and eventually he and his posse move on to annoy somebody else.

  The shift is nearly over when Amy turns up.

  "Hey," I say. "Long time no see. You okay?"

  "Did you see the paper?"

  "Nope, I haven't had time," I tell her. "Sleazy Bob was doing the rounds."

  "I know. He didn't come over, though."

  "Funny, that."

  Amy smiles a wan smile. She grabs the paper from the corner of the bar, taps it, and flicks her fingers until she finds what she's looking for. She turns the paper round and pushes it towards me.

  "I'm sorry," she says.

  "Sorry for what?"

  And then I see the photo.

  It's Michael Hurley.

  When I knew Michael he wasn't called Michael; that came later, when he decided that his real name -- Kevin -- wasn't rock'n'roll enough. We played in a band together, and we were a bit deluded. We were mighty warriors of rock, snake-hipped sex monsters with zero self-awareness, precious little playing ability and lots of spots.

  It was probably the best time of my life.

  We used to play a mix of our own songs and the inevitable oldies -- Beatles, Radiohead, U2, that sort of thing. Michael -- Kevin -- really liked U2, and dressed like their singer, Bono. It was a pretty good facsimile, but Kevin differed from Bono in one key respect: Bono could sing.

  Don’t get me wrong, Kevin could sing too -- and when he was good, he was very good indeed. Unfortunately his relationship with the tune was rather rocky, and the slightest distraction would send his voice wildly off-key, never to return. As a result, rehearsals were essential: Kevin needed to rehearse songs until his body sang them on autopilot, because if he didn’t then he’d lose the key and howl like a recently bereaved walrus.

  I can’t stress this enough: when he had the key, Kevin was a fantastic singer. When he lost the key, he created the worst noise imaginable, a sound that could smash glass and peel paint. You know those old hand-cranked air raid sirens? Imagine one of them being forcibly inserted into a cat’s arse inside a dustbin that’s being beaten with baseball bats. It sounded like that, but worse.

  I remember one time, we were booked to play a pretty rough pub in a pretty rough bit of a pretty rough town. Two of the audience were in traction: one of them, I discovered later on, had escaped from a mental hospital. It was that kind of place. Still, we were going to get paid for playing there. Sure, it was danger money but hey! We would win over the hostile crowd with our sheer rock power!

  Just before the gig, Kevin spotted a pretty girl at the bar. He caught her eye, got a smile, and swaggered over, the rock band frontman in full effect. After a brief chat, the conversation turned to music.

  "So what bands do you like?" Kevin asked.

  "All kinds of stuff. U2's probably my favourite," she said.

  Kevin beamed. "Cool! We do a few U2 songs, you know. What's your favourite?"

  "Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. I love that song."

  Kevin told her we'd play it, and came over to tell us. I didn't think it was a good idea. David the drummer didn't think it was a good idea. Chris the bass player didn't think it was a good idea.

  "We don't think that's a good idea," we said.

  "Why not? You know how to play it."

  "That's not the point. We haven't rehearsed it."

  "Come on," Kevin implored. "It's easy."

  "We'll screw it up."

  "No," Kevin said firmly. "We won't."

  I wasn’t happy, but Kevin managed to talk Chris and David into it. We decided -- grudgingly, on my part -- to do the song the way U2 used to do it at their shows: one guitar and one vocal, then the rest of the band would kick in after the first chorus.

  Mid-gig, Kevin announced that we were going to do a song “for a friend of mine”. I stomped on my delay pedal and started the riff. Kevin moved forward. He started to sing.

  It was beautiful.

  When a band works, it's alchemy: you take a bunch of ordinary, completely unremarkable blokes, add a decent song, and the result is something stunning. If you closed your eyes you wouldn’t hear a duff bunch of teenage wannabes; you’d hear one of the world’s biggest bands at the peak of their powers.

  Kevin’s new friend was pretty impressed. So were we.

  Into the chorus.

  The audience was singing along. Even the hospital escapee was singing along. The girl was melting. Kevin wasn't going home alone that night.

  The chorus ended, David the drummer clicked the sticks for a count-in, Chris the bassist slid down to the first note. Click-click-click-der-der-der -- yeah!

  We were kicking. Swiss-watch timing, perfect playing, Kevin with his foot up on the monitor.

  Into the second verse.

  Oh, shit.

  Kevin had lost the key. He didn't know he’d lost the key. He was wiggling his arse in front of the crowd, yelping. They were pissing themselves laughing. We were pissing ourselves laughing. Traction man was going to end up back in hospital if he laughed any harder.

  By the time we reached the next chorus David was playing the drums with tears in his eyes. My stomach was in knots. Chris was hunched over, howling.

  Every single person in the room was in fits of laughter.

  Except one.

  Kevin was spinning around, oblivious to the effect he was having. Occasionally he’d stare right into the U2 girl’s eyes, at which point she did a very impressive job of looking awestruck. The second he looked away, she was banging on the bar with her fists, hooting. The same happened with the rest of the crowd: when Kevin looked at them, they quickly put on their serious faces. When his eyes moved on, they were laughing even harder than before.

  The only one who didn't notice was Kevin. He was deafened by the speakers, blinded by ego, honking like a startled goose.

  The song ended. The audience gave a huge ironic cheer. Kevin turned around, beaming, and looked right through us.

  David was face-down on the snare drum, weeping.

  Chris was next to his bass amp, giggling.

  My cheeks were streaked with tears.

  Kevin beamed. “What’s next?”"

  We had a lot of nights like that.

  For a while it was great fun. Deep down, though, we knew that we'd never make money out of it, and that wasn't just because the best band name we could come up with was Big Gay Hitler. We weren't particularly good, which was a bit of a handicap, but even if we'd been great we were about twenty or thirty years too late. Most of the places that put on live music had already closed their doors permanently or relaunched as more upmarket venues for older customers, and the ones that remained followed suit within a year or two. We weren't good enough to play weddings or corporate gigs -- that's where the money was, and still is. Weddings especially. With people getting married and remarried so many times there's plenty of repeat business -- so the whole thing was a lot of work for very little reward. We enjoyed making music, but the rest if it -- rehearsing, trying to find places to play, getting to the gig only to discover that absolutely nobody had turned up -- became more trouble than it was worth.

  It didn't help that many of the bands we'd looked up to, bands we loved because they flicked v-signs at The Man, eschewed sponsorship and stuck to their principles, were doing the casino circuit. It's funny how our role models' artistic integrity suddenly disappeared when there were tax bills and gardeners to pay. The prospect of knocking ourselves out for years only to end up playing matinees for pensioners didn't exactly appeal, and eventually we realised we were wasting our time and decided to call it a day.

&nb
sp; By "we", I mean "everybody except Kevin". He wasn't going to let anything as mundane as common sense and reality stop him from achieving his destiny. He changed his name to Michael, started a new band, and kept on going.

  Amy and I saw them play once. They were awful, but you couldn't fault Michael's/Kevin's enthusiasm. We watched him play to six people, two of whom were the bar staff and two of whom were us, but in his head he was playing to an adoring crowd in a stadium somewhere.

  And now he's dead.

  The paper is a bit light on details, but it said that he was playing an end of term gig for a handful of students. There was something wrong with the wiring, or maybe with the equipment, and the microphone stand was live when it shouldn't have been. When Kevin -- sorry, Michael -- accidentally hit the stand with his guitar, the metal strings and the metal stand came together to create a circuit that blew him ten feet backwards, into the amplifiers. It wasn't the electricity that killed him; it was the impact. He cracked his head on the corner of the bass amp and never woke up.

  Jesus.

  I'm having a hard time processing this. This is not how it's supposed to happen. We were never best friends, but we shared a lot of history and I figured he'd be part of my life for a good few years to come. I always thought he'd either keep on chasing the dream, playing his heart out to a couple of drunks and a murderer with me occasionally turning up to mock him -- while, naturally, feeling a bit jealous that he was still doing it and I wasn't -- or, through a combination of delusion and persistence, he'd become famous and I'd be able to tell everybody what a tit he was.

  That was the plan.

  This definitely isn't part of the plan.

  I look at Amy.

  I'm not crying.

  There's something in my eye.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Dave is going on another date.