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READ A SAMPLE: Prologue
“HEY,
man, this room looks like a bloody
disaster area! World War Two
revisited.” The
two late arrivals surveyed the room they had just entered.
Prone bodies decorated the darkly floral carpet beneath their sandaled
feet. “Yeah,
wow, it looks like some party. That’s what comes from being in a band like
Delta Grit. You’re gonna have people hanging off you everywhere. Half of these
people probably just wandered in off the street.”
As
the newcomers grabbed a beer from the makeshift bar someone screamed suddenly,
for no reason that was apparent to anyone within earshot. The sound trailed off
into a bizarrely insane cackle. “Cool
it, man, for God’s sake! Do you want the gendarmes paying me a visit?”
yelled the flat’s lessee, Neil Kingston, waving a guitar strap in the general
direction of the noise. The tail end of his remark was drowned out by the
connection of a guitar into a lone sixty-watt amplifier that was turned up to
almost full capacity. It was loud enough to obliterate any but the most strident
conversation and was accentuated by a bottleneck being manipulated in a
shuddering motion against the strings of the semi-acoustic. The implement’s
chrome finish flashed dazzlingly beneath the overhead light, producing an
exquisitely tortured wail, almost human in its tormented pleading. Neil strapped on
a harp rack and propped himself against a nearby armchair back. Plugging his
guitar into a second input on the same amplifier, he ran his fingers lovingly
over the strings of his Maton. Kingston, sometimes referred to by the trade rags as
Brisbane’s only dyed-in-the-wool twelve-bar blues exponent, very rarely played
guitar on stage. He liked to be free to move at will there, but at home or among
friends he loved to relax to the mellow sounds of his guitar. His voice was
strong and throaty. The group around the duo showed their appreciation by
yelling requests for numbers far more rapidly than they could possibly be
played. The air was so dense with the rich, woody aroma of marijuana as to seem
almost impenetrable. A small knot of trippers congregated in one corner. They
had arrived at the flat with their own supply of entertainment, a small handful
of microdots. LSD had only recently arrived on the streets of Brisbane. It had
been greeted with the fervour of a new religion by many who had previously
indulged in nothing more potent than the occasional toke on a joint. Timothy
Leary had elevated the ecstasies experienced while ingesting lysergic acid onto
the level of spiritual enlightenment and this description seemed more than apt
to its users. Timothy
Leary’s ecstasy, however, seemed to be lacking in the expression of one
indulger whose twisted features stood out in stark contrast to the beatific
smiles all around him. The terror that curled the corners of his mouth seemed to
be dredged from some hitherto unsuspected corner of his psyche. No ecstasy was
evident as he cringed, fell to the floor and beat at some spectre, which
appeared to hover over him malevolently, baring its acid-etched incisors. Steve
Patane, with his screams of horror and strangulated laughter, succeeded
eventually in jolting most of the room to attention. There began to be a general
air of uncertainty emanating from those who had dropped acid, an undercurrent of
gradually accelerating alarm. Euphoria only began to return when an almost
catatonic silence settled over the source of their interest. Steve stood rigidly
openmouthed, eyes fixed on a distant spot on the wall in front of him. Just
as the partiers had become once more immersed in the still throbbing guitars,
and were assuring themselves that Patane had managed to overcome whatever
phobias currently assailed him, he was on his toes, once more screaming. This
time several of the surrounding boppers attempted to offer moral support but he
pushed them away with a violence and strength amazing for one so small. His
fists, white-knuckled, beat the air while he wrenched his head from side to
side. For what seemed like hours he alternated between long, deathlike silences
and dervishlike activity. With no sign of transition from one state to another,
he would leap to his feet, flailing the now fully engaged and agitated onlookers
with once more desperately clenched fists. After
what seemed to everyone present an eternity of this indiscriminate air
thrashing, suddenly his random, almost blind stare became focused on one spot.
Steve Patane measured in at perhaps five feet seven inches. The face he now
homed in upon seemed to him to surface out of the mist which enclosed him,
looming over his quivering head. He took in the venomous features, brow hooked
down over patrician nose. He could see clearly the mouth set hard in an
unforgiving line, eyes staring. Cold, fathomless grey pebbles bored deep into
his now gelatinous brain, eroding away his ever shaky will. His father had found
him yet again! There was no place in which he was truly safe, not ever.
His supercilious, fanatical, music-hating father always knew exactly how
to track him down, his bloodhound sensibilities ever perfectly tuned.
This was the man who had conceived him in a fit of icy passion and
destroyed him by inches from the hour of his birth, the man who filled him with
a fear such as no mortal should ever have to experience. Steve
screamed at the pale face only inches from his. It leered knowingly, so huge its
contours blotted out the room behind it. “Leave
me alone! Get away from me! You’ll
never make me give up playing. Never, never!” He was screaming so loudly by
this time that his words were almost incoherent, running one into the other. He
now had the rapt attention of the entire room, the guitars stilled. Even the
trippers, who had been so far mostly oblivious to it all, now emerged into the
room’s reality. He felt their eyes burning into him, sending messages dictated
by the machinations of his father. They told him to return to his cheerless
home, to say goodbye to any future in the world of blues music. To turn his back
on the sole reason for his existence. He
fell backwards with the stricken stare of a deer caught in undimmed headlights.
His shoulder came into sharp contact with a large bookshelf. Automatically half
turning when he felt the impact, he saw the heavy onyx bookend which stood, rock
solid, not inches from his flushed face. He lunged for it with lightning speed.
Later Steve would swear to whoever would listen (when he could bear to talk
about the event at all) that it had taken him hours to pick up the weighty
object and carry the gruesome deed to its climax. In actual fact it was all over
so quickly that none of the grass-saturated partiers had the slightest hope of
preventing what then occurred. When
Steve turned from the bookcase the face of his father still hung suspended
before him, strangely disembodied. It pulsated and flickered in and out of his
vision like a dancer beneath a strobe light. Just as the cavernous mouth opened
in the globe of flesh and a hideous voice began, “Steve,
don’t…” he raised his weapon above his head and smashed it over and over
onto the face of the only human being he had ever loathed, knowing he must
obliterate it or die. “You
will never say, ‘Don’t’ to me again!” he yelled hoarsely.
Suddenly, the world flashed red, the face disappeared and he, at last
relieved of his oppressor, dropped to the cushions strewn across the dark carpet
and slept. Across
the rest of the room complete pandemonium ensued.
Distraught and suddenly perfectly sober people raced in opposing
directions or paced the carpet, entirely at sea in a situation with which not
one of them had ever had to cope. The ghastly image of one of their friends,
blood covered and obviously beyond any help they could administer, was one which
didn't allow for coherent thought. The simple fact was, those who might have had
some resolution to the problem did not want to have to look at Steve Patane’s
handiwork to implement whatever plan may have sprung to mind. By
this time all traces of drug enhanced euphoria had been dissipated.
It was unanimously decided after some discussion that they would never be
able to convince the police that the act had been carried out with no
premeditation. What had occurred was, if examined in its true light, they felt,
an accident. Just the same, they could not see the police agreeing with their
construction of the facts. “When
you look at poor old Doug, he does look slightly like Mister Patane, you
know,” said one of the girls, huddling closely with a group of her friends.
“He’s got – had – the same hooked nose and those thin lips. And Steve was
on acid.” The girls were trying very hard to stay calm while chewing the tips
of their nails to shreds.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he deserved to be beaten to death,”
observed Neil Kingston, his face the colour of oatmeal. “Anyway, the big
question is, what are we going to do with him now that he is dead?” “Hey,
man, what floor are we on?” asked one of the many visiting musicians in the
room after an extended silence. He had arrived at the residence in such a state
of bliss as not to notice whether the celebrations were being entered into on
the roof, in the basement or somewhere between the two. “The
seventh,” replied Andy, Delta Grit’s guitarist. “Well,
then, the answer’s obvious. Need I spell it out? We’re having a party, a
noisy party. We’re all drunk, or so the neighbours think. Doug’s clowning
around on the window ledge, slips and falls out – simple. We can clean up the
room, remove the dope and do the necessary.” There were more than a few
shudders at this point but he continued, “We can then phone the police without
involving ourselves in too much risk.” “Yeah,
I like the ‘too much’ bit. In
other words, we are in some risk – there’s a good chance we could all go
along as accessories to murder – and Steve’s over there snoring his fucking
head off. It’s his mess and we have to clean it up after him.”
This from another of the late arrivals. “Well,
let’s hear it, then,” put in Andy. “Somebody come up with something
better. Does anyone think we should
hand Steve over to the fuzz?” There were a lot of irritated mumbles but nobody
came forward to vote for Steve’s arrest. Alienation from the boys in blue was
at its peak in those days of harassment of any male with hair that ventured
below the earlobes. The
original creator of the plan went on, “Neil, you live here. What do you think
of the window balancing trick?”
Neil shook his head slowly, seeming to be still in a state of shocked
disbelief that they really were discussing the disposal of a body. Finally,
he shrugged and said, “I can’t think of an alternative. Maybe your idea is
simple enough to work, Lex. So far it’s been the only idea presented so I
guess we have no choice but to try it. I just wish to God we’d never been put
in this position to begin with.” He looked slowly around the room. “One
thing everyone here has to realise is that we’re all equally involved in this,
just by being here. Anyone with a big mouth is going to risk sending a lot of
people to the can for a long time. It will also completely wreck Delta Grit’s
career, through no fault of the band’s. I
hate to sound like a boy scout at a camp meet but I have to bring this up – we
have to agree not to open our mouths about this – ever!” Everyone
nodded solemnly, words seeming entirely superfluous. Lex sat, long fingers
drawing aimless circles in the spilt beer, which decorated the kitchen tabletop,
preparing mentally to put his plan into action. “Right.
We’ve had four complaints about the noise so far. If only those neighbours
knew it, they’ve provided us with the best alibi we could ask for. All we need
to do is play the drunken idiot bit and sit around looking stupid when the
checkered caps arrive. Hopefully, they’ll shake their square heads and go on
about the disintegration of today’s youth, maybe give us a lecture on the
abuse of alcohol, and that will be that. I mean, let’s face it, we are
traumatised about what happened, there’s no need to pretend anything. I’m
sure they’ll see how shook up we are.” With
more than a little trepidation Lex’s instructions were carried out.
The carpet had been almost completely covered with large cushions in
Steve’s area so a small team, who reluctantly volunteered for the job,
gingerly removed them. The vivid scarlet flourishes sprayed in gay patterns
across the cushion covers did not make the job any easier. The smaller spots on
the fortunately indiscriminately patterned carpet were viciously scrubbed with
undiluted detergent. This removed some of the colour but also took the offending
stains with it. The marijuana and varying array of bongs, along with the
cushions, were thrown into one of the panel vans and driven to a safer place.
The aroma of pot would linger but without solid evidence what could the cops do? The
clean up was simply depressing. The task of dispatching the belaboured corpse of
their friend, upon whose head a totally misguided retributive justice had
rained, was nothing short of horrendous. By pre-arrangement, one of the group, a
huge, barrel-chested fellow, who happened to be a rock vocalist noted for his
raucous and far-reaching voice, stood at the window ledge and made noises which,
he hoped, would pass for drunken revelry. His screamed words were, in fact, for
him a quite welcome outlet, a release of tension after the gut wrenching drama
and the fear of arrest hanging over him and the others. He laughed and sang
incomprehensibly, then when the body was positioned on the windowsill, yelled,
“Look, you guys, look. I’m balanced on a tightrope!
Watch my circus act!” Someone
cried out in simulated alarm, “No, Doug, you idiot, come back in! Grab him,
someone!” A short scream followed. A second or two later came the sound of
Doug’s weight hitting the concrete below with a sickening thud that
reverberated in many a nightmare over the weeks to come. No
one in the room that night could have achieved what they had without a sort of
mental withdrawal taking place, a suspension of thought and feeling. They were
simply making use of the motor muscles to carry out the tasks they had been
allotted by Lex. Consequently, nobody had the mental energy left to spare for
the originator of the gruesome scenario, the blood-soaked and insensible Steve
Patane. When he finally emerged from his stupor his portion of the room was
completely devoid of its previous rioters, a fact that penetrated the mist in
his brain only slowly. He carefully dragged himself to a sitting position and
immediately felt a sense of oppression. It was as though a ton weight were
bearing down upon him, compressing his brain. He could not remember a single
detail of the previous few hours but he knew instinctively something was very,
very wrong. He was frightened, his skin contracting as though a frigid breath
had been blown on him from some nightmarish hobgoblin leering sightlessly over
his shoulder, just out of sight range. What had happened?
Why had he been sleeping in the middle of a noisy party? He
remembered the music and the laughter… suddenly; he also remembered the red
splash. Hard on its heels came the terror he had felt immediately prior to it.
His breathing constricted and his heart raced, thumping against his ribcage. “Where
is everyone, for God’s sake? Why
isn’t anyone talking? There must be someone here, why are you all so quiet?” “Shut
up, Steve,” replied Andy, walking over to stand next to him, “we’ll be
taking you for a walk in a minute.”
“Taking me for a walk! Why should I go for a walk? I’m not
someone’s pet poodle. Why do I need to go for a walk?” “Because
the fuzz just might, in the line of duty, take umbrage at the sight of you,
covered in blood and half demented, when they walk through the door,” remarked
Lex sarcastically. “The
police! Why are they coming here? Have we been dobbed in for disturbing the
peace?” asked the bewildered Steve, completely disregarding the reference to
his blood drenched state. “No,
man,” put in Neil, joining the pair, “don’t you remember what you did?
Surely you must have some memory of what happened here tonight?” “What
I did? What in hell do you…” His
father’s face floated again into his vision. It hung suspended, glaring at him
icily. He saw himself back away, felt the clamminess of terror. He cringed
reflexively as the image came flooding back. This time, though, he saw events as
they had truly occurred. This time around it was Doug’s rounded features,
which loomed over him, Doug’s voice which begged him to stop. It was Doug’s
blood, which had sprayed in a fountain over him. He felt the satiny coolness of
the bookend against his palm and knew the acid he had ingested had once again
taken him down a bad road. Except this time it wasn’t his own head he had
messed up, he thought hysterically, horrified at his sick levity. He slumped
back down onto the detergent-reeking carpet, stunned almost senseless, sitting
silently for some minutes. He attempted to make sense of what he had done,
wrestling with the fear which still surfaced at the very thought of his father.
Could he actually have attacked Doug with a bookend? The thought seemed
unbelievable. Then he was sure it had happened; he had committed mayhem on a guy
he called his friend. These thoughts flashed through his brain in seconds. They
were too much to bear. The very thought of living day after day with this
knowledge was more than he could stand. The
consequences of what he had done, the nightmares that he knew he would agonise
through never-endingly, were too abhorrent to contemplate. He sprang to his feet
and hurled himself at the window through which his exhausted fellow indulgers
had just a few minutes before hurled the reason for his wanting to end his life.
He almost made it over the ledge. Hands
grabbed from all sides and hauled him, struggling and kicking, back and away
from his intended escape from reality. “Jesus!
Get him out of here! The law will be ringing the doorbell at any moment. All we
need is to have two bodies to explain,” said Lex, panting with the effort
expended in prising Steve away from the windowsill. “I’d
like to have a little chat with the guy who sold him the acid in the first
place,” remarked Delta Grit’s drummer, Amos. “He should have his hands
chopped off. All the suppliers know Steve’s cracking up. It’s common
knowledge that his old man’s been making his life hell since he took up guitar
full time. The bastard keeps telling him he’s doomed because he plays rock
music.” “Wow,
if my old man said I was doomed I’d know for sure I’d finally made it, big
time,” said Andy, sucking contemplatively on an almost empty Southern Comfort
bottle. “Yeah,
well, let’s go,” yelled Lex, then added, “Hey, Neil, can you lend Steve a
coat? He’s a bloody mess, we can’t take him to the lift looking like
that.” Neil
quickly brought them an old trench coat, assuring Steve hurriedly that he
needn’t bother returning it. They helped the dazed and childlike Patane into
its sleeves. “Alright,
one under each arm. Just relax, Steve, it’s cool now, we’re taking you
home.” And off they went to the elevator. As they went down in one car, two
uniformed policemen went up in the other, walked into the flat and asked
everyone to remain where they were. Downstairs, the wail of two different sirens
could be heard. The ambulance and two squad cars had arrived. ♫ Steve
Patane slept for sixteen hours straight. When the details of the party did
finally filter through he winced and skirted the thought of Doug entirely. He
made himself a strong black coffee with hands that were none too steady. Just as
he took his first sip the doorbell rang. Opening it with much trepidation, quite
expecting to see a blue uniform on the other side, he found instead the only
person he would have welcomed at that time. Neil
Kingston was a complex character, one who seemed continuously to be composing
poetry or blues classics in his head. At the same time, his faraway eye did not
dull his keen perception or his ability to provide unobtrusive sympathy. He was
around five feet ten with long, unruly brown hair, Buffalo Bill beard and
moustache, slim and lithe in his movements. At that moment he was standing,
studying Steve, looking intensely into his face. As
he was ushered in, he said, “I don’t suppose I have to tell you that
you’re going to have to leave that shit alone? Either that or give up music.
It will be a helluva waste if you have to do that.” Steve
only nodded wretchedly, removing himself to the kitchen to make another coffee.
He then sat at the kitchen table looking so dejected that Neil, who joined him,
would have given anything to relieve his torment. He knew, though, that this was
going to have to be Steve’s battle. Only he could suck out the poison injected
by his father and find the antidote. Taking the steaming coffee he said quietly
to Steve, “I’m not going too far into what you did at my place because I can
guess what you’ve been going through by looking at your face. It can’t ever
happen again, mate. Those guys went way out on a limb for you last night.” “Man,
I know that. Do you think I’ll ever forget it?” He put his head on the table
and sobbed into his cradled arms while Neil sat quietly, letting him get it out
of his system. His breathing eventually became more regular, the sobbing
subsided and he once more sat upright in his chair. Looking shamefacedly at his
visitor, he picked up his coffee. Neil said softly, “Actually, I wanted to see
you about something last night but with all the drama going on I didn’t get a
chance. I guess I’m taking a risk by not reconsidering my idea. I won’t deny
I went through some soul-searching this morning. The thing is, I really dig you
as a muso and I feel you’re the obvious choice. Are you up to thinking over
something important?” Steve
nodded shakily and replied, “It’s okay, man, I’m getting my act together.
Tell me what you wanted to see me about.” He was feeling acutely embarrassed
all of a sudden over last night’s gory climax. With a shock he realised that
he had done away with someone and his predominant reaction was to feel embarrassed.
He panicked and thought wildly, ‘My God, what am I?’ Neil had
started talking so he strained to look normal and listen to him. “What’s
happening is, I need a rhythm player. Jock is getting married. His wife is
against him touring. Do you feel up to stepping into his shoes? Answer
carefully, mate. I’ve got a lot of gigs lined up, including a couple of spots
on Get Set. I know you know that goes to air live so there can’t be any
stuff-ups. Just give it some thought.” Steve
made an attempt to seem nonchalant about the offer, to look as though he was
mulling it over, but he was absolutely knocked out. Neil Kingston was up there
with the best Brisbane had; even visiting Melbourne musicians had heard word of
him. They sometimes appeared at his gigs hoping for a chance to blow. Neil’s
great love was singing blues – his whole life was blues! He said simply,
“Yes,” and mentally shouted, ‘Yes, yes, YES!’ They slapped each
other’s shoulders, made arrangements for Steve’s first rehearsal with Delta
Grit and Neil left. ‘Maybe
now I can bury my old man once and for all,’ was Steve’s next thought. He
felt an immediate flush of guilt redden his cheeks. ♫ Brisbane
being an arid outpost where blues in the late sixties was concerned, it wasn’t
long before Delta Grit made the obvious decision.
They packed their gear and made the long trek to music’s Land of
Plenty, Melbourne. Blues had taken off impressively there, perhaps due to the
often cold and dank weather. Sydney, warmer and freer, was at that time
embroiled in the groove sounds of Surfmania. As the band
became more and more sought after Steve, although feeling cosseted by the other
members, had moments of pure panic. He rarely left the group’s rented house in
Prahran during the day. In the midst of a gig he would suddenly feel an
unreasonable desire to turn his back upon the audience while playing. He would
become suddenly aware how brilliantly he stood out beneath the glare of the
spot. That his thinking was erratic he knew, but he had become used to his
often-demented thought processes. He seemed to spend half his time at the house
sitting on the floor with his head between his knees, yet during the other half
he felt quite relaxed with Neil and the other guys. ‘At
least I’m working,’ he thought one day. ‘I’ve got newspaper clippings to
prove our popularity. Even Dad will have to admit it’s a lucrative business if
you work at it.’ Click on the cart below to purchase this book:
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