The Wrong Boy
Page 37
‘We were out looking for him,’ Cindy-Charlene explained. ‘The Hoboes only had another few numbers and then it was our second spot. We were up and down Plinxton in the van looking everywhere for the Cowboy but he was nowhere to be found. We just had to go back to the club, find the Concert Secretary and tell him we wouldn’t be able to go on for our second spot. But by the time we got back, the Concert Secretary had other things on his mind because the Concert Secretary and such other committee members as were in attendance that night were all running round the foyer like blue-arsed flies, some of them almost weeping, others running and looking out the doors and saying weren’t the police here yet, and others huffing and a-puffing and declaring to whoever would listen that this was what you had to expect when two-thirds of the youth of Plinxton regularly smoked ecstasy, LSD and crack cocaine. And the cause of such consternation to the committee members was there, in the Trophy Room, where a glass display case had been shattered asunder; and from which had been stolen the Great Gold Fillet Knife.’
‘And my blood ran cold,’ Sowerby Slim declared. ‘As I stared down at that shattered display case I suddenly knew, knew why we hadn’t been able to find the Cowboy in the streets of Plinxton.’
Sowerby Slim paused then, his eyes wide as if seeing it all again before him, ‘Because when we’d been looking for him, the Kexborough Cowboy was already back in the club, was already plunging his fist through that glass display case and seizing hold of the Great Gold Fillet Knife, a blade with as keen an edge as ever came out of the great steel mills of Sheffield.’
‘I saw the blood draining out of your face, I did,’ Cindy-Charlene recalled. ‘It put the fear into me, seeing you like that. And when you didn’t answer me when I asked you what was wrong, when you suddenly started running towards the function-room doors, I just knew then, I knew it was something grave and awful as was about to happen.’
‘I knew he’d snapped, y’ see,’ Sowerby Slim explained. ‘Because for all the mildness of his manners and the goodness in his heart, a man is just like a guitar string. It can be the finest string ever wound; but stretch it too far, and it snaps! And that’s why I went rushing into that function room.’
‘But we thought it was her, didn’t we?’ Deak said. ‘We thought it was her that he’d go for. That’s why we all rushed out to the bar.’
‘I didn’t rush!’ Cindy-Charlene declared. ‘She’d brought it on herself, leg-spreading slut that she was. And if she could taunt like she taunted the Cowboy, pushing him beyond breaking point, then she had no-one to blame but herself.’
‘But it wasn’t her I was worried about,’ Slim said, ‘it was the Cowboy. Because I knew that if he did anything to her in a moment of madness, he’d regret it for the rest of his life. That’s why I rushed out there. Because that’s where I expected him to appear.’
‘But when we got to the bar,’ Deak said, ‘there was no sight of the Cowboy anywhere. She was still stood there, eyes glued on the stage and that Pedal Man of hers who was in the middle of a solo, whipping up the crowd, the way he did by twirling his head and sending that bloody ponytail spinning as he picked out all them flashy slides on the steel guitar.’
‘And she’s stood there,’ Cindy-Charlene said, ‘cleavage still heaving, lips wet, groin slowly grinding in time to the music. And not the faintest idea that she’d caused a mild-mannered man to lose his mind; caused him to shatter glass and seize hold of a lethal Fillet Knife.’
‘She saw me watching her,’ Slim said. ‘She even asked me what I was gawping at. Then she just curled her lip and sneered at me, before turning her eyes back to the stage again. But little did the brazen hussy know that shortly she might have cause to be thanking me, when the Cowboy appeared. Because I knew, I knew if I could get to him before he got to her, I could talk to him. I could talk to the Cowboy and make him see sense. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. An’ if I could persuade him to hand over that Great Gold Fillet Knife before the bobbies turned up, then there wouldn’t be much harm done that couldn’t be mended.’
Deak shook his head and sighed and said, ‘But we got it wrong, didn’t we? We were in the wrong spot. Backstage, that’s where we should have been.’
Slim nodded and said, ‘I knew. I was stood there, my back to the stage, watching her, watching her face. And when I saw her eyes suddenly open up like saucers, when I saw her mouth gaping open as she stopped chewing, I knew then. I turned and followed her gaze. And there, on the stage, coming through the backcloth, behind the unsuspecting Hebden Bridge Hoboes, was the sight that I dreaded; the sight of the Cowboy, a murderous madness in his eyes and the Great Gold Fillet Knife in his hand. Some of the crowd, they started cheering, thinking it was part of the Hoboes’ act. And that Pedal Man, when he heard those cheers he thought they were for him and inspired to even flashier flourishes on his slide guitar, he played up to the crowd, smirking at his own supposed brilliance and circling his head faster and faster till his ponytail was almost a blur, rotating round his head like a propeller.’
‘And most of that crowd,’ Deak said, ‘they just sat there cheering.’
‘They didn’t know,’ Slim declared. ‘They didn’t know. But we knew. And she knew.’
‘She started to scream,’ Cindy-Charlene explained. ‘As the Cowboy made his move, the slut began to scream.’
‘But it was too late,’ Slim said, ‘it was too late for all of us. I was running, pushing my way through and trying to get to the stage. But then I heard the yell! A yell like I’ve never heard before and never want to hear again. The Hoboes stopped playing, all of them turned around and to a man they just froze, rigid, unable to do nowt but just stare, terrified, at the awful apparition of a mad-eyed cowboy stood there at the back of the stage with a razor-sharp Fillet Knife in his hand. And everybody knew then, everybody in that hall. There was nowt but silent staring people. Even the bobbies, who’d just arrived, were stood there like statues, not one of them daring to move as they peered at the stage where the Cowboy, the Hoboes and the Pedal Man were stood, transfixed, as if time itself had suddenly stopped. And then! Then the Pedal Man tried to run! But the Cowboy was too fast for him. As the Pedal Man panicked and ran for the wings, the Cowboy leaped, shot out a hand and the Pedal Man’s head snapped back as he was seized by his legendary length of hair. Screaming, pleading with the Cowboy, he dropped to the floor and the Cowboy dragged him, legs kicking, into the centre of the stage. Then everywhere in that hall there was uproar, people screaming, the slut herself screaming the loudest of all, committee members yelling at one another and the bobbies rushing forward to try and get to the stage, before they were stopped in their tracks as the Cowboy lifted up the knife and silenced everybody in that hall; everybody except the terrified Pedal Man who lay on that stage, whimpering and helpless, the Cowboy’s iron fist holding him fast by the hair of his head, the Fillet Knife poised and ready to plunge.
‘And that’s when the Cowboy looked out across the hall; looked all around, scanning the sea of faces until he saw her, his Pretty Patsy. That’s when he said, “Well then, Patsy, here’s a rum do!” Then, watery-eyed, wistful and choking back the tears, he said, “You never loved me, did y’, Patsy. You never even loved our Duke! And that dog, that dog worshipped you; like I worshipped you. But we was wasting our time, wasn’t we, Patsy. Me and Duke, we was wasting our time being good to you. Because you never ever loved anything that was good for y’, Patsy. A bit of badness, that’s all you ever loved, didn’t y’?” He paused then, the Cowboy, paused, his gaze fixed upon the pleading eyes and the anguished face of his trembling wife. “Well, I can give you badness!” he said as he slowly raised the Fillet Knife. “I can give y’ all the badness you need, Patsy! It’s easy,” he said as every eye in the room followed the glinting gold of the knife as it rose in his hand like a guillotine being slowly hoisted, as it stopped and hung there suspended above the neck of the Pedal Man.
‘ “You want badness?” the Cowboy said. “Well, all right, Patsy, I’ll give you ba
dness. How’s this for badness?”
‘And then, the Great Gold Fillet Knife flashed as it plunged down towards the neck of its prey. And with one razor-sharp slice, the Pedal Man’s ponytail was scalped from the Pedal Man’s head!
‘For one second, just for a beat, it was like people couldn’t quite take in what had happened. Then from somewhere in the crowd a voice was heard to say, “Fuckin’ hell! He’ll not be known as the Cowboy after this. He’ll be the fuckin’ Apache now!”
‘And that was the cue for a sort of pandemonium. The Cowboy was waving the length of the severed ponytail above his head with a sense of wild triumph as he screamed down at Patsy, demanding to know if she loved him now, now that she’d seen the badness he was capable of. But the Cowboy never got an answer because the rest of the Hebden Bridge Hoboes piled on top of him then and brought him down and that pedal-steel player started kicking lumps out of him, all the while fingering the stump of a tuft at the back of his head and screaming at the Cowboy, telling him he’d fucking kill him for the maiming of his follicles. The bobbies were doing their best to get through to the stage but were constantly being sidetracked by the various disputes, fracas and fisticuffs that had broken out amongst the crowd. The Concert Secretary and committee members who were in attendance were running round the hall appealing for calm. And in the middle of all this me and Deak managed to get up onto the stage and start dragging some of them Hoboes off the Cowboy who, despite his former mildness of manner and dove-like demeanour was managing to give a reasonably good account of himself. And with me and Deak weighing in on the Cowboy’s behalf it soon became something of a stalemate, with us and the Hebden Bridge Hoboes just stood on either side of the stage, facing up to each other. But that’s when she appeared on the stage, the suspender-belted slut in all her cleavage-heaving glory. And the Cowboy, God love him, that tender-hearted Cowboy, thought she was coming for him, thought that he’d won her back with his badness. “Y’ see, Patsy,” he said, “I’ve got all the badness you need. And him,” he said, nodding at the Pedal Man, “look at him now! Now y’ can see him for what he is, Patsy; nowt but a soft little pony, who hasn’t even got a tail any more.” She stared at the Cowboy for a second, flicking her tongue across her cherry-red lips. The Pedal Man called out to her from the other side of the stage, saying, “Patsy … come on, Pats … let’s get out of here.” But she ignored the Pedal Man. And eyes still fixed on the Cowboy she started stilettoing her way across the stage towards him, her hips rolling and her bosom thrust before her. She walked straight up to the Cowboy, her breasts pressed tightly up against him and her head thrust back as she stared up into his face. And the Cowboy gazed back down at her, gazed with the joy of a man whose shattered heart was about to be put back together again. That was when he started to embrace her, as he told her, “Patsy … Patsy. Our Duke’s tail’s gonna do some wagging tonight, when he sees that you’ve come home.”
‘But that’s when she slipped from his grip, her lip curled up in disgust and her eyes flashing as she told him, “You think I’d ever get back with you? Just because you’ve docked a bit of his hair, you think my stallion’s been turned into a little pony? Well fuck you, Cowboy. Fuck you! Y’ think you’ve claimed his tail? Well, I’ve got news for you! He might be a bit sheared right now. But that stallion of mine … he’ll soon grow another tail. I’m gonna see to that. Because y’ know what it is, don’t y’, Cowboy, y’ know what it is that brings on a stallion’s tail? It’s the riding! The riding he gets. And oh … am I gonna ride that stallion of mine; and in no time at all, he’ll be sporting a length of tail with a thickness and a fullness that the likes of you couldn’t even begin to dream of.”
‘She turned away then, strode back across the stage. And that’s when I looked at the Cowboy and saw the light fading from his eyes. I knew then he was a broken man.
‘A couple of young bobbies were up on the stage, approaching with some degree of caution, for the Cowboy still had the Fillet Knife in his hand. But they had nowt to be afeared of from the Cowboy. Such fight as had been in him had gone for ever now. I just took hold of the Great Gold Fillet Knife, gently slipped it from his limp fingers and handed it to the bobbies as they took the Cowboy by his arms and started leading him away and out through the function-room doors of the Allied Butchers’ and Architects’.’
Sowerby Slim, Cindy-Charlene and Deak the drummer all fell silent then, each of them lost in their own thoughts. And maybe they were too tired out with the telling, to tell the rest of their tale. Or maybe they were just reluctant and didn’t want to bring back the memory of what had happened to the Cowboy after that. So I helped them out. I said to the Desperadoes, ‘He lost his voice after that, didn’t he?’
They looked at me with puzzled faces, all of them staring at me like they’d forgotten I was there. Until Cindy-Charlene, frowning, said, ‘How do you know? How do you know that?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ I told her. ‘I just guessed.’
Cindy-Charlene began to nod. And that’s when I knew, Morrissey, knew beyond all doubt.
‘How?’ I asked. ‘How did he come to lose his voice?’
The Dewsbury Desperadoes looked at each other. And then they started to tell me what happened that night, after the Cowboy had been arrested; and how, before they drove him off to the police station, one of the policemen came back into the club, saying that the Cowboy was asking for his guitar.
‘And we never thought,’ Cindy-Charlene said. ‘We were only too glad that the bobbies were letting him take it. Because we knew it might provide some small comfort, having his beloved guitar with him.’
‘We didn’t realise,’ Slim said. ‘Even though I’d seen him broken that night, I never knew just how deeply mortal were the wounds that had been inflicted upon his heart. We just handed over his guitar and the bobbies took him off.’
‘By rights,’ Cindy-Charlene said, ‘they never should have let him have the guitar in the cell with him. But with the Cowboy back to his usual placid and mild-mannered demeanour and with the desk sergeant who booked him in being a bit partial to the occasional Country song, it was decided it wouldn’t do no harm and might even help the passing of the night’s long hours, if the Cowboy was allowed to croon a tune or two. So they let him have his guitar in the cell with him.’
‘He didn’t try and play it though,’ said Slim. ‘Apparently the Cowboy just sat there, huddled in the corner of his cell, arms wrapped around the instrument as if that guitar was his Pretty Patsy and him cradling her in his loving arms and crooning softly through the lonely hours, every sad song he knew.
‘The desk sergeant said it was the quietest Saturday night in the cells that he’d ever known. He said the Cowboy’s melancholic crooning seemed to be a balm for the soul of every other inmate that night; the drunks, ruffians, roustabouts and Saturday-night fighters in all the other cells causing none of their usual disturbance, each and every one soothed in their breasts and made meek like lambs by the sorrowful lyrics and tearful melodies floating into the air and out through the bars of cell number twenty-nine.’
‘And nobody checked on him, did they?’ Cindy-Charlene said. ‘As long as they could hear him singing and crooning, they reckoned he must be all right. But what they didn’t know was that after an hour or two, instead of the Cowboy just sitting there crooning as he cradled his guitar, the Cowboy was slowly unwinding the strings; all the while still singing, still letting everybody believe that he was doing nowt but crooning away the night.’
‘Only he was making his preparations,’ Deak said. ‘All the while, he was preparing; removing the E string and the A string and the D string. And looping them together.’
‘But he never stopped singing,’ Slim said. ‘Never once stopped singing as he twined those silver-plated strings together, as he made a loop at one end.’
‘And attached the other end …’ Deak said. ‘All the while, still softly crooning … as he attached the other end to the light fitting … as he reache
d for the chair and placed it carefully below the light … as he climbed up onto that chair … slipped that noose around his neck, still singing … still singing … In every other cell, they could hear the Cowboy singing. Until!’