I Am Still The Greatest Says Johnny Angelo

by Nik Cohn

  Of course, he could have escaped. Doubtless, it would have been easy to climb back inside his limousine, round up his circus and head for somewhere very far away, some place where he could hide in safety. It would have been very easy, yes, and it would have been sensible but then, inside his movie, such stuff was meaningless. Inside his movie, it was apt that he should suffer.

  He sat in the half-dark, therefore, and his falcon sat on his shoulder, and his servants brought him food, a side of venison, a saddle of beef, and a flagon of rough wine, and a bowl piled high with fruits, aesthetically arranged, and his Great Danes were asleep in front of the fire, the floorboards creaked and Johnny prepared to be martyred.

  Midnight passed and still the policemen didn’t arrive, still Johnny Angelo waited patiently and he thought: I will be captured, yes, and I will be put in bondage. I will be tormented and my name will be legend. Soon enough, I will die.

  Because, in the end, it was only the movie that mattered and no such thing as reality, nor the prospect of pain, could break in on his cadillac dreams.

  Fingering his crucifix, he ate fat black grapes and sure enough, at 2 o’clock, a small army of policemen surrounded his mansion, ready to bust in by force, but Johnny offered no resistance, he welcomed them gladly.

  They charged him with indecent exposure, incitement to riot, resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. When they put on the handcuffs, Johnny Angelo smiled his golden smile.

  In Bondage

  Buried under the rubble of the Chester Palladium, there were more than 20 bodies and many thought that Johnny Angelo deserved to be lynched. In the end, however, he received no more than 90 days in jail.

  How come he got off so lightly? Basically, he escaped because, although his moral guilt was plain, legal blame was hard to prove. After all, he had kept on his knickers, he had given no verbal provocation and he’d given himself up willingly. Even his left hook had been thrown in self-defence.

  For all these reasons, it was not possible to destroy him for ever and everyone was most disappointed, not least Johnny Angelo himself, who had set his sights on martyrdom.

  Just the same, when he saw what was actually involved, 90 days began to seem ample. For a start, he was parted from his followers, stripped of his rings and his bracelets, prised out of his blue velvet pants and then, something he hadn’t reckoned with, his golden hair was cut.

  Exactly like Elvis in Jailhouse Rock, he was clipped down to the bone and, when he opened up his eyes, his hair stuck up as stubble, all rough and raggedy, like a cornfield after harvesting.

  It was then that he almost wept. But he didn’t. Instead, he pursed his lips and cast a giant spitball on the barber shop floor, an offence that cost him a day in solitary confinement.

  He didn’t speak to anyone. During morning exercise, however, he Shot the Agate real slow and everyone stared at him, warders and convicts alike, even the prison governor, when Johnny went back inside his cell-block and, just before he disappeared, he half-turned, half-smiled and let one hand trail behind him, fingers outstretched.

  Uniformed in a suit of many arrows, he sewed mailbags all day long, coarsening his hands, and at night, he lay alone in his cell, drowning in the smells of the latrines.

  By his own orders, he received no visitors and he did nothing that wasn’t strictly necessary. He ate and he slept and he watched, that’s all.

  He made a calculation, as follows: if he counted numbers very slow, it would take him 60 days to reach a million and this is how he filled his time, moving his lips in a private rhythm, a pattern that no one could understand.

  And outside his mansion, his followers auctioned a head of golden hair, falsely reputed to be Johnny’s own. At 50 dollars a lock, they grossed more than a million dollars and, even then, there remained a queue more than two miles long, which reached far down the hillside, curling around like a serpent.

  At the end of a week, Johnny Angelo had counted almost to 100,000 and, at the end of a month, he was well past a quarter million. Lying awake in his cell, night after night, it was then that he felt stranded and, for the first time in many years, he began to recall the Doctor.

  He returned beyond the barbed-wire fence. His footsteps echoed in the hall. His hand paused on the banister and he faltered, he was frightened but he persevered and nothing was changed, nothing at all. Not the emptiness nor the balcony, not the hatstand, not the black overcoat nor the black slouch hat. Not even the honeypot.

  Things began to turn tough: every day, he sewed mailbags; every night, he lay awake; both day and night, he kept on counting slowly, until he reached half a million.

  Very soon, his fingers were scabbed and misshapen, his flesh smelled stale. His clothes were covered with arrows and his hair stuck up like a wire-brush, all his companions were evil and, no matter how hard he scrubbed, he did not feel clean. After each meal, he vomited.

  Latrines and bedbugs and pigswill for lunch, such things had no place in any motion picture and Johnny felt betrayed. Martyrdom was one thing, after all, but this slow erosion was something else entirely. Caged, he began to fall apart.

  Everything was different: in the courtyard, he didn’t Shoot the Agate but huddled in a corner, twitching, and he couldn’t sleep, and he believed that he was laughed at, he lost count of his numbers and, worst of all, he could not stop shaking.

  All the time, he kept remembering the Doctor, and his yellow flesh, his yellow eyes, and his study at tea time, so safe beyond the fence. And the cranberry jam, the buttered scones and muffins, the Jasmine Dreams, and the Doctor on the sofa, telling stories, his voice soft in the afternoon.

  Standing on the balcony, Johnny looked out across his neighbourhood, thinking of turnip watches, and motorbikes revving up in the alley, bright red suits in the sunshine and cards slapping on the table, hour after hour, when the Doctor crept up behind him and put his hands over Johnny’s eyes, blinding him.

  Johnny Angelo wept.

  But on Thursday afternoon, when he visited the jail, the Doctor was unchanged. Seated behind the grill, he wore the same old overcoat, the same slouch hat, and his flesh was yellow like parchment, like old papers found in an attic. ‘Johnny,’ he said. ‘I’ve missed you.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Many times I’ve read of your exploits, I’ve watched your exhibitions on TV and I’ve meant to get in touch with you, except that I’ve kept forgetting.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘But now I’ve remembered.’

  Underneath his arm, the Doctor carried a little black bag, which contained something heavy, and Johnny looked at it steadily. ‘I may say that I’ve been proud of you,’ the Doctor said. ‘It was me, after all, who created you.’

  ‘What’s in your bag?’

  ‘On Mafeking Street, the wind blew in spasms and my coat was lifted high about my knees. Your golden hair was blown into your eyes. Everywhere that we walked, newspaper kept clinging to our legs and I taught you, I made you afresh.’

  ‘Tell me,’ said Johnny Angelo, growing impatient. ‘Why have you come here?’

  ‘I have brought you a present.’

  ‘Show me.’

  Inside the small black bag, there lay something not quite like a box, not exactly like a jug, nor yet a tub or jar: ‘Of course,’ Johnny said. ‘A honeypot.’

  ‘That is the correct answer,’ said the Doctor, smiling shyly, and he brought it up close against the grating, where Johnny might touch it with his fingertips. ‘In a house of 53 rooms, all alone, there lived Monseigneur Pike, a star of motion pictures, who carried a silver spoon in his left hand, a honeypot in his right and, everywhere that he wandered, a deep and satisfied sniffing was heard.’

  Through the bars, Johnny reached out and clawed, feeling for the pot itself, which just eluded him. ‘In one month, you will be freed,’ the Doctor said. ‘Straightaway, you will receive you
r gift and every happiness will then be yours.’

  Very soon, the warder came and the Doctor put the honeypot back inside its bag, clicked the lock and he went away, smiling his yellow smile.

  Left alone, Johnny Angelo counted past 600,000, on past three quarters of a million. And his flesh was still torn, his senses still befouled but, out in the courtyard, he stuck his thumbs back inside his waistband and he hunched his shoulders, he strutted very slow. Passing the latrines, he sniffed crystals.

  So he survived, and the time came soon when he was given back his velvet suit, his blue suede shoes. When the gate swung open, Johnny put his hand up to shade his eyes, dazzled by the sudden brightness, and all his followers were waiting for him, arranged in formation, and there was also his golden cadillac, and many hundreds of schoolgirls, who waved white handkerchiefs and whimpered. A small army, they filled the street solid for several blocks, waiting for Johnny to wave his hand and smile, and the sun was shining brightly. It was the most beautiful day.

  Standing outside the prison gate, however, Johnny gave no sign. Instead, he pulled up his overcoat collar, he tugged down the brim of his hat and he disappeared inside his car, driving home to La Collina without a word.

  His golden hair was gone and he could not smile. Inside his mansion, he sat all day without moving and, while he was motionless, he held a mirror up in front of his face. He didn’t run, didn’t jump, did not burn. Instead, he only slouched and schlurped and did the mooche half-hearted. Shorn, he was pathetic.

  He waited for the honeypot.

  On the third day of his confinement, he received a visit from the Doctor, who brought with him his little black bag. Something that Johnny had not noticed in jail, the Doctor was a very old man, a walking corpse: ‘In his house of 53 rooms, Monseigneur Pike sniffed deeply and, one last time, the crystals bloomed in his brain,’ he said. ‘Then he shook my hand.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ said Johnny Angelo. ‘Where’s the honeypot?’ And he reached out greedily, as though he’d tear open the bag, grasping the pot by force.

  But the Doctor was too quick: backing away, he clutched the bag to his bosom, he shook his head sternly. ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘You can open it after I’ve left.’

  ‘When will that be?’

  ‘Straightaway.’

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘I am tired,’ said the Doctor, sniffing, and crystals bloomed in his brain. When he gave the pot to Johnny, he touched him lightly, a touch as dry as dust, and then he shut the door, he went away to die.

  Johnny Angelo sat by himself, surrounded by pictures of himself, and he thought of elegance. At the age of 25, he opened the honeypot slowly and he looked inside.

  It was empty.

  Neon Armadillo

  At La Collina, Johnny waited for his hair to grow and, meanwhile, he was helpless. Stubble-headed, he was not robbed of his essence, like Samson or the Cobra, but he wasn’t beautiful and, when he wasn’t beautiful, he was filled with self-disgust.

  Accordingly, three months passed by in total inertia, while he roamed through the many rooms of his mansion, a mirror always in his hand, and no one could get in to see him, not even his fans and closest followers.

  Outside, his enemies had triumphed: his concerts had been banned throughout the nation, his records withdrawn, his memory abused and his picture removed from public places. ‘The dragon has been slain,’ Lord Morly said, and everyone cheered.

  None of this seemed to bother Johnny Angelo, however, whose face remained expressionless, and he gazed at his own reflection, and he dined alone by candlelight, and he watched himself walking on clouds, he waited, he was patient.

  At last, in the middle of a heatwave, he looked once more in his mirror and his hair hung smooth and golden to his shoulders, it shimmered and it glowed.

  Then Johnny smiled and he called his circus all around him. ‘I am still the greatest,’ he said, his hair tied back in a scarlet bow, and he led them away from La Collina, a mighty cavalcade.

  For five days and nights, they travelled without stopping, until they came into the desert, a place named Armadillo.

  Sixty miles from Gulch City, 8o miles from Magdalena, Armadillo was nothing but sand but here, with the remnants of his great fortune, Johnny built a neon sculpture, a monstrous effigy of himself.

  A hundred and eight feet high, it glowed with sixteen colours and it wore a suit of baby blue neon, it was hung with a neon crucifix and, high above everything, visible at a range of 100 miles, it featured a flashing neon sign, and the slogan it spelled was as follows: JOHNNY ANGELO in silver, I AM THE GREATEST in gold.

  Furthermore, this was not just a monument, it was a lived-in palace and, the moment that he entered its toe, the visitor was lost in a world of neon delight.

  All the organs of Johnny’s body were traced in appropriate colours, red for the bloodstream and blue for the lungs, gold for the flesh, puke green for the intestines and purple for the heart. And in the liver, there was a gambling salon and, in the pancreas, a cinema and, in the bladder, a discotheque. In the brain, there was a lecture hall. Inside the genitals, predictably, there were scented boudoirs.

  Everywhere that the visitor turned, he was dazzled by bright lights, which formed pretty pictures or spieled strange messages, and music blared in every limb, kaleidoscopes unfurled at every corner and, 24 hours a day, the name JOHNNY ANGELO kept flashing overhead.

  As for Johnny himself, his bedroom was placed in his own left eye, and hour after hour, he gazed out across the desert, brooding, while his circus disported and roistered down below, having the time of their lives.

  Sometimes he brooded about his imprisonment, sometimes he brooded about his enemies and sometimes he brooded about his bright red suit. Most of all, however, he brooded about the empty honeypot and what it might possibly mean.

  Detail by detail, he delved back through all the sequences of his movie, looking for his mistakes, but he could find nothing crucial. Perhaps some errors in emphasis, yes, and a few missed chances. Even some moments of tedium. And then, of course, his journey with the Cobra. And the time when he shot from the hip and it was only a dog. And when KICK ME was scrawled on his back. But again, what did it all come to? Surely not an empty honeypot. Surely not.

  So he looked across the desert, unsatisfied, and he walked the red brick wall, and the sun shone very brightly, he held a turnip watch all snug and safe inside his palm. And he threw a brick through a plate-glass window, the hole was perfectly round, and he hid in the attic, he lay with his eyes shut. Motorbikes roared outside and the Doctor stood beneath a gaslamp, on the far side of the street, and his face was shadowed by his hat. Johnny Angelo took photographs, his father sat by the bonfire. In his hotel room, Kid Clancey sat without moving, polishing his guns, and Johnny was a jackdaw, who owned a watch with five hands, and he wore a wine-coloured uniform with a yellow dragon emblazoned on the breast.

  At tea, there were Chestnut Whirls and Monseigneur Pike had crumbs on his waistcoat. From the balcony, it was possible to see everything. Perched on top of a flagpole, Johnny saw everything. In the graveyard, he buried his fat black cat and derelicts clawed at his feet. Dead mice were left inside his desk and he rode on a motorbike, he sat in the corner caff, where the windows were all steamed up, where the waitress licked inside his ear. In the darkness, small girls screamed and Johnny jumped over the balcony, soaring off into space. Catsmeat had pink piggy eyes. Elvis Presley smiled lopsided. Catsmeat was beaten to a pulp. Melting in the heat, Johnny was a gunslinger and his hair fell over his eyes, all golden, and he smoked the most cool cigarette in the whole of Heartbreak Hotel.

  From Lincoln County, there came the Skulls and, from Spanish Savoy, the Compadres and, from Jitney, the Tombstones. Black monsters on black machines, they howled in the night, causing destruction wherever they passed, and Johnny Angelo trembled, slithering like a serpent. On the bo
mbsite, he stood with bowed head and shot the Doctor dead. In the windowless back room, he was safe.

  What else besides? His guitar shaped like a spaceship, and Ace, who was dropped in a puddle, and Astrid, with her eyes all full of silver stars. The Cobra and her candyfloss wig, her smell like voodoo, her smile like sudden death, and cats with flaming tongues, who hissed and writhed and crackled, and Johnny himself, Johnny Angelo, who rode away to Movie City.

  All of this, and very much more: a journey, an odyssey, with every detail perfect. And yet. And yet Johnny brooded in his own left eye, he cast a spitball in the sand.

  In his thighs and arms and belly, his disciples lived for fun alone. They swam up and down in his arteries, they prayed in his armpits and orgied in his scrotum and, everywhere that they went, neon flashed and flickered constantly, so that nothing looked the same, not ever.

  From time to time, overwhelmed by sensation, a strongman or bearded lady would go insane and leap screaming through the vents of Johnny’s suit, tumbling sixty feet to their deaths. In general, though, morale was very good and the circus endured through all disasters, even when the fuses blew or sandstorms whipped in their faces or, once, when the whole of one kidney exploded, killing five outright and injuring fourteen others.

  Nor did Johnny Angelo absent himself entirely. Once a week, he descended the sweeping stairway of his throat, a single white rose in his hand, and he strutted on his collarbone. Again, he snarled and squirmed and grovelled on his knees, twisted his legs like rubber bands, buried his guitar in his groin. Yet again, he smiled his golden smile and then, launching himself without looking, he swooped and soared and ricocheted, span and trampolined, all the way down to his diaphragm.

  Climbing back inside his eyeball, he returned into solitude but he didn’t brood any more, he got drunk on neon instead. Safe in the effigy, he spat out blood, he shouted out obscenities and he threw away the honeypot, hurling it far into the desert night, up and away and on, until it disappeared.