Pop Tarts: Omnibus Edition

by Brian Lovestar

Verse 1: I found a four-leaf clover one day,

  But before it could bring any lucky my way,

  I broke a mirror in seven places,

  Then blew all my money on the races.

  Chorus: I’m just a hard luck kind of a guy,

  Nothing ever goes my way, I tell you no lie,

  I’m just a hard luck kind of a guy,

  Somebody tell me why…

  Inspired by the limited success of ‘Supermarket Checkout Operator’ and the notion ‘no press is bad press’, Max Jacks rushed the band into the studio to record it. And sent them back to prison to record the video.

  Cherry Chesney even made a special starring appearance as half a female prisoner, half a male guard during verse 2, just to annoy Holly some more:

  I met this bird by the bars one night,

  With legs-eleven heaven, she looked quite a site,

  I began to tremble as soon as she spoke…

  (Cherry spins round)

  …but the hot chick that I’d pulled turned out to be a bloke…

  Chorus: I’m just a hard luck kind of a guy,

  Nothing ever goes my way, I tell you no lie,

  I’m just a hard luck kind of a guy,

  Somebody tell me why…

  There was then a 30-second instrumental bridge, before the chorus was repeated thrice to fade.

  Meanwhile tests had proved there had been no sexual contact between Felix and Fifi, but before he could get to know his newfound daughter Holly sent her off to rehab in Lake Lucerne, Switzerland.

  Despite this, Felix was still harbouring deep feelings for Holly and was confused now more than ever.

  After the video shoot had ended and the others had gone home, he had Holly and himself accidentally locked in a prison cell together on purpose, to ensure she couldn’t escape his planned inquisition.

  “How’s Fifi?” he started off gently.

  “She’s fine,” Holly replied clutching and kicking at the prison bars.

  “Would someone please let us out of here!” she screamed.

  She shook the bars with such an aggression, Felix actually trembled with fear.

  But then he noticed the diamond ring on her finger again.

  Fifi had told him Holly had never married, yet he remembered seeing the same modest ring on her finger at the supermarket checkout in chapter 3.

  “You haven’t introduced me to your fiancé yet,” he enquired.

  She looked bewildered, until she noticed him looking at her hand, which she then hid.

  “It’s none of your business,” she said, shaking the bars with an even stronger right hand only, the left now in her pocket.

  Then Felix had a flashback and it suddenly dawned on him. The engagement ring - the one Holly was wearing - was the engagement ring he had given her in 1987!

  “Let me see that ring again,” he asked.

  She backed off into the corner, holding her hands behind her back and refusing to budge.

  He grasped her arms at both sides, and pulled at them… but she kneed him in the balls and he fell to the floor in agony.

  “Felix, are you okay?” she enquired, nervously, fearing she’d damaged him more than she had intended.

  As she went to help him up, he clutched at her left arm and pulled her hand into the full view of his face, which just confirmed what he had already suspected.

  It was his ring!

  “I knew it,” he said.

  Their eyes locked again and he went to kiss her, but a guard appeared and unlocked the cell, enabling Holly to make a quick getaway.

  Felix was left lamenting his bad luck yet again.

  Hard luck kind of a guy, indeed.

  At this moment in time, quite literally.

  Chapter 15. (Ceasefire)

  Fake Rhino aka obsessed Pink Champagne fan Hawky Andrews was pissed. His attempts at mucking up Tequila Sun’s comeback were backfiring famously.

  The comeback single ‘Supermarket Checkout Operator’ may have failed to reach the top 10, stalling at no. 11; but their follow up ‘Hard Luck Kind of a Guy’ had just entered the top 10 to critical acclaim and was heading for the number 1 spot with a bullet.

  It seems Tequila Sun were flavour of the month again. And fake Rhino was not a happy witch.

  The juggernaut to absolute superstardom just simply had to be derailed, of that there was no question. So he did what any good witch would do in any given situation. He consulted his ancestor’s spell book…

  Meanwhile Cherry Chesney was starting to tire of her recently discovered limelight. She couldn’t even urinate in a restaurant lavatory cubicle without a fan sticking some loo roll under the partition for an autograph.

  And the paparazzi were driving her to the brink of insanity.

  Oh how she longed for the good old days when they hounded Holly Wood instead.

  Holly Wood meanwhile was an out and out basket case.

  She couldn’t cope with not getting enough attention!

  She was also missing her daughter Fifi - who she’d shipped off to the Swiss Alps - and had no-one to confide in about her true feelings for Felix. And she certainly had no intention of confiding in him.

  She poured herself a cup of chamomile tea to try to calm her nerves, when there was a knock at the door.

  It was Cherry!

  Before she had a chance to slam it in her face, she noticed Chesney hadn’t bothered to turn up.

  Holly didn’t like Cherry, but she liked Chesney even less.

  “Truce?” Cherry asked, raising a hand and looking Holly firmly in the eye.

  Holly hesitated for a second and then shook her hand.

  The next thing they knew they were having tea and cake and discussing fashion, urban politics, and the size of Felix’s wiener!

  Who knew they had so much in common?

  Cherry agreed to let Holly reclaim the spotlight and even offered to help her with her make-up.

  Holly confided in Cherry about how much she was missing her precious Fifi and that she might even still love Felix.

  It was like they were proper girlfriends for the first time in over a quarter of a century.

  Fake Rhino would be proper furious, had he not been too busy implementing his latest spell of doom for the Tequila Sun pop tarts, Just Felix in particular.

  And this was going to be his biggest spell yet.

  First of all he scoured the bargain bin of an old record collectors store and found an original 7” vinyl copy of one of the bands greatest hits from 1987.

  He covered it in enchanted fairy dust.

  Then he bid for and won a vintage Dansette record player on eBay and rigged it so that the turntable spun backwards.

  He also implanted a detonator in the record player mechanics, so that 30 seconds into a track, the device would explode into smithereens.

  And then he had it anonymously delivered to Felix’s apartment.

  Meanwhile Holly (on Cherry’s sisterly advice) had rung Felix to tell him she was coming over.

  She was going to confess her true feelings to him.

  But the mystery gift arrived first.

  He was puzzled when he opened it, but assumed it was from a fan and was touched, not for the very first time.

  He set the record player up and was covered in fairy dust as he took the record out of its sleeve, but laughed it off as a sweet gesture.

  The record dropped from the auto changer and began to play just as Holly was coming up to the apartment in the elevator.

  As she reached the door all she heard was a loud explosion.

  “Felix!” she screamed as she burst in through the door.

  First she saw smoke…

  Then she saw fire…

  Then she screamed again.

  Chapter 16. (Lost Boy)

  Holly waded through the smoke and came across the burning record player.

  “Felix,” she shouted as she looked around the flat for any sign of him.

  But there was none.

  And even
tually the flames became so fierce she was forced to make a swift exit.

  Crying desperately, she rang for an ambulance.

  The next thing she knew she was back at Cherry’s crying into a pair of Felix’s boxer shorts that she grabbed as she ran out of the apartment.

  “This is all I have to remember him by,” she sobbed, pressing them into her face and breathing in the smell of his sweet testicle sweat.

  Cherry cringed a little, but had a secret sniff herself when Holly wasn’t looking.

  The police had determined that the fire had been caused by faulty wiring in the old record player. It had been fitted with the wrong amp fuse, which is probably what set the catastrophe off, they surmised.

  The apartment was burned to the ground and presumably Felix along with it, though no body was found.

  Holly took a sedative - given to her by a doctor Cherry had called in concern - and retired to the bedroom.

  Cherry agreed to her staying over. She didn’t want her newfound BFF to be left alone.

  She then rang Rhino to tell him the bad news.

  Rhino pretended he was devastated, though he was of course delighted. Well fake Rhino was anyway.

  The single that was headed for no.1, stalled.

  And the tabloid newspapers delighted in spelling the end of Felix – and the band – themselves, no black magic necessary.

  Tequila Sun were over.

  And Just Felix was dead.

  Or was he?

  At that very moment he woke up naked in the middle of the woods.

  It was late spring and the birds were singing as sunshine nestled in through the haze of the trees.

  He felt like he had a hangover but couldn’t remember drinking.

  And he had no idea why he was naked, though that wouldn’t be the first time.

  “Must have been a good night,” he thought.

  He found a bit of torn rag and wrapped it around his nether regions.

  “Very 80s Pop Star,” he thought.

  And his butt looked great in it. Something to wear on Top of the Pops, perhaps? Or maybe even Razzamatazz?

  He wandered into town and was more than a little perplexed.

  All of the traffic looked old.

  “Must be a vintage car fair going on,” he chuckled to himself as his torn rag dropped a little, exposing a full moonshine to two wolf whistling old ladies.

  He went to what he thought was his apartment.

  It looked like his apartment. Except the paint looked fresher and the door handle was shinier.

  Then he went to get the key out of his pocket and realised he didn’t have any. Or the key.

  He tried the door handle anyway, but it was locked.

  As he was about to leave, it suddenly swung open.

  There, standing right in front of him was himself, 27 years ago!

  “Dad?” young Felix asked, confused.

  Felix nearly had a heart attack, but was assuredly quick on the ball.

  “Yes son,” he lied.

  “What are you doing here? And where are your clothes?”

  “It’s a long story son,” Felix replied. “Can I come in?”

  He entered the apartment, dropping the torn rag in the hallway as he did.

  Young Felix followed, still puzzled.

  Naked Felix headed straight to the coffee table, which was adorned with a copy of today’s newspaper, knowingly folded over to expose the infamous breasts of page 3. This was how Felix always left it.

  He picked it up and read the date at the top of the page:

  Wednesday 15 May, 1987.

  Chapter 17. (RIP)

  That same date in present time and preparations were well underway for Felix’s funeral.

  Holly Wood was still a complete mess. Fifi had returned from Switzerland to attend but wasn’t happy that she’d been denied the chance to get to know her long lost father.

  Holly’s newfound best friend Cherry had managed to alleviate matters somewhat, by pointing out Holly’s own personal devastation.

  They were going to be burying an empty coffin of course, because no trace of Felix’s body was indeed found.

  But then Cherry had the ingenious idea to bury his old waxwork dummy instead.

  Master Tussaud’s located it wasting away in the showroom basement and were happy to donate it, especially with the increase in profits since Felix unintentionally promoted their business with his drunken antics.

  Holly thought this was a splendid idea and insisted on an open casket, to ensure she had a chance of some closure and to say a proper goodbye, though Fifi thought it was a little creepy.

  As a fitting tribute Holly and Cherry were joined by Rhino to perform together for one final time, right there in the church grounds, as the coffin was lowered into the burial plot.

  They sang what was to be their final single ‘Hard Luck Kind of a Guy’ as the lyrics were deemed more than appropriate, but adjusted them slightly.

  Holly took on lead vocal for the first time as her own personal tribute. She was a little pitchy, but her saving grace: a Calrec Soundfield microphone, courtesy of Stock Aitken and Waterman:

  “He found a four-leaf clover one day, but before it could bring any luck his way…

  He broke a mirror in seven places, and blew all his money on the races…

  He was just a hard luck kind of a guy, nothing ever went his way, I’ll tell you no lie…

  He’s just a hard luck kind of a guy, somebody tell me why…”

  She broke down during the last line and had to be comforted by her also blubbing band mates.

  Rhino was surprised that his tears appeared to be real and he really didn’t understand why. He was feeling super emotional. Was he actually starting to like these two brazen trollops?

  They formed a group hug as Fifi looked on slightly embarrassed and Felix’s mannequin stuffed coffin was soon six feet under.

  A mysterious woman, blonde and sultry, with dark sunglasses and a black veil, watched from afar and summoned Rhino over.

  They then went and whispered behind a tree.

  It was that old scrubber Jade Astley, back from the dead!

  “Why are your eyes puffy?” she sneered.

  “All part of the act,” Rhino replied.

  But he was lying. And he wasn’t quite sure why.

  “I was hoping you’d trip one of those dumb arse bitches up, make them fall in the grave,” Jade added.

  This woman was pure evil, personified!

  Rhino was scared of her.

  Was he under her control?

  Was she the real mastermind behind his duplicitous actions?

  Fake Rhino was of course obsessed Pink Champagne fan Hawky Andrews, and he’d spent nearly three decades thinking the sun shone out of their sagging backsides.

  But now he was starting to realise something.

  Maybe Tequila Sun were the good guys after all?

  He’d had so much fun sabotaging their comeback. Or was it that he’d just had so much fun being a part of the band?

  He liked Cherry. He liked Holly. But this Jade Astley creature was something else.

  He didn’t like the way she spoke about people and he didn’t like the way she spoke to him.

  He regretted rescuing her from the fiery lava under the bridge of doooooooom.

  But there wasn’t a thing he could do about it now.

  Or was there?

  At that very moment, as Fifi comforted a still tearful Holly, Cherry noticed Rhino was missing and went looking for him.

  She stopped when she saw him behind the tree with the mystery blonde scrubber and became instantaneously suspicious.

  Chapter 18. (Time Warp)

  Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now by Starship was spending its 2nd week at number 1, Margaret Thatcher had just been elected as Prime Minister for the 3rd time and the world’s population had just reached 5 billion.

  “So 5 billion and 1 then,” Felix cursed as he threw the newspaper down, still in complete and u
tter disbelief.

  He was back in 1987. He didn’t know how he got there. And scariest of all his own actual 1987 self believed he was his father!

  “Just as well ‘real Daddy’ had been off irking his responsibilities for a few years and wouldn’t be back till the early 90s,” Felix thought.

  But he wasn’t ready to be his own ‘Daddy’. This was way too much responsibility for someone 49 going on 15.

  What the hell was he going to do?

  He turned on the small Mr Sheen polished wooden boxed TV set - only to find Pebble Mill at One - so he decided to go out for some old fashioned retail therapy instead.

  He marvelled at the cars again and then the fashions on the high street. On the shop mannequins and on the people themselves.

  There were girls in oversized shoulder padded blouses, wearing pedal pushers or ra ra skirts, with fingerless gloves, luminous jelly shoes and matching psychedelic leg warmers.

  He’d dressed the part himself, borrowing some of younger Felix’s wardrobe: skin tight stonewashed denim jeans that looked like they were painted on and pulled right up and over his belly button. And a jumper he was sure his mother had actually knitted in 1985. Not to mention the teal tassel loafers!

  Those were the days!

  “And now they actually are again,” he chuckled to himself, as he went into Woolworths to check out the 7” vinyl chart displayed on the wall behind the counter.

  La Isla Bonita by Madonna, Shattered Dreams by Johnny Hates Jazz, and Wishing I Was Lucky by Wet Wet Wet were all riding high in the pop charts.

  He marvelled at the toys section: the big yellow teapot, the Mr Microphone, the Mr Frosty he had always wanted for Christmas but never got.

  Then he bought a Marathon and some Opal Fruits and continued en route.

  He kind of liked being back in 1987.

  Lethal Weapon and Dirty Dancing were showing at the mere 2 screen cinema.

  He wandered some more and stopped outside Rumbelows electrical store and gasped in amazement at the technology or as he knew it now, somewhat lack of.

  Tube TV’s with tiny rounded screens playing the monochrome changing freeze frame at the end of an episode of Sons & Daughters in unison, and Hi Fi stereo record players with oversized speakers that would take up half the size of your living room.