Spinetinglers Anthology 2008

by Nolene-Patricia Dougan

  Jimmy’s heart was in his mouth as, gently, he lifted the Country Gent out of the case. He ran his hand along the length of the fingerboard and automatically went to form a chord. Without warning, he was struck by a rush of unidentifiable sound, like waves crashing on a beach, and momentarily a sea of agitated phantom faces welled up in front of him in the semidarkness. In the same split second, he felt there was someone next to him, very close, a young man’s face only inches from his own, someone he thought he recognised. Jimmy jerked upright. The sensation rapidly subsided, but left him feeling queasy. He was mystified, but then shrugged it off. Just a dizzy moment after crouching there and springing up suddenly, he thought.

  Carefully, he put the guitar back in the case and pushed it behind a blackboard and easel leaning at an angle against the wall, making sure it was well out of sight. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do about this. He stood there for a minute, ruminating. Then he picked up the mike holder from where he’d dropped it, and turned, swaying, still a little queasy. He fixed the holder back on the mike-stand and took it back up the stairs to the stage. Dave and the other guys in the band, Sam, the bass player, and the drummer Will, had arrived.

  “Hey, dreamer! Where the bloody hell have you been?” Dave called. “We thought you’d been spirited away!”

  “You’ll never guess what I’ve...” Jimmy began, but then checked himself. No, he wouldn’t say anything about what had happened just yet. It might not be a good idea. If the Gretsch was vintage, it could be worth thousands. What was it doing there? Whose was it anyway? Who would have put it there under the floorboards? “I forgot my mike- stand, but I’ve found one in the basement which I can use,” he said instead.

  “You’d forget your head if it wasn’t screwed on.”

  Indeed, to the others, Jimmy often seemed to have his head in the clouds, but it didn’t worry them that much, the way he played. He could handle anything, effortlessly, soaringly, the envy of any cover band that needed to have a repertoire that stretched from the ’50s to the present. Jimmy had studied all the greats, all the styles. Over the years, he’d played rock, country, blues – he was a great all-rounder. He’d had his own bands, written songs, made records, played professionally for a while, dreamed of fame, and seen those dreams fade. He’d never had the luck, never been in the right place at the right time, it seemed. Now he was coasting, playing just for the joy of playing, no pressure, no dreams. Hitting a solo just right still gave him a high, but he had no illusions. He’d been in bands since he was thirteen years old. For thirty years, the music had been in his blood, and there it would stay.

  Soon, a spaghetti of cables covered the floor of the stage, as all the gear was connected up and plugged in. Guitars were perched on stands, foot pedals were positioned, and a half-circle of drums grew. Jimmy set the volume and tone controls on his amp and dumped a handful of .50mm picks on top of it. He was still a little unsettled, but excited at the same time, over his find.

  Once everything was in place and the sound check done, Sam put on a CD relayed through the PA for background music, while the crowd filtered in. The band went to the bar, where it was Dave’s custom to buy the first round of drinks, not too alcoholic, of course, they were all driving. This was hardly the mythic rock ’n’ roll lifestyle. There’d be no groupies, dope, or trashing dressing rooms tonight.

  As the lights went down and the band walked on stage for the first of their three, 45-minute sets, Jimmy admitted to himself that he was worried about missing his cues. He felt apprehensive for some reason, but at the same time, oddly charged, as he picked up his Strat and flipped the strap over his head, settling the guitar into place on his hip. He felt intensified, coiled – it was more than the usual, mild-adrenaline flow he usually experienced on gigs nowadays. Powering into “Travelling Band,” the opening number, everything was spot on. It was in “Can’t Buy M Love” that Jimmy felt his solo approaching, with a kind of ecstatic trepidation.

  Something was coming at him askew. He stepped on his effect pedal, and as he bent that first note of the solo, the sound that came out of his Strat was unlike anything he had heard from it before. It was as if at that point, someone had put on the record. The solo was note perfect to the original – it wasn’t Jimmy’s usual interpretation. In fact, it was just like... the guitar was playing him. The guys in the band were all staring at him, and each other, with expressions on their faces that combined puzzlement and surprise. The solo ended, and Dave and Sam had to get back on mike. As Jimmy’s foot touched the pedal again to take off the effect – it had been hardly the one he’d intended! – and the Strat returned to its normal sound.

  After the number had finished, Dave sidled over. “How the hell did you do that?” Jimmy just shook his head and waved him away. There was no answer he could give. There were still a couple of numbers before the close of the set, and Jimmy didn’t really have time to think about what had taken place, not that he thought he could figure it out anyway.

  In the break, the band went to the bar, where they found Eddie enjoying a pint. “Everything okay, lads?”

  “Yeah, fine,” said Dave. “The guitar genius has even got a new sound!” His usual, sarcastic self.

  “I bet you’ve seen a few bands here over the years, anyone famous?” Jimmy asked Eddie, with an ulterior motive known only to himself.

  “Well, not lately, but back in the ’60s and ’70s we had ’em all, the package tours. I remember the Searchers coming here, Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, the Outlaws, Shane Fenton – and when he came back as Alvin Stardust about ten years later. There was Marc Bolan and Dave Edmunds. We even had the Beatles. I think it was around the time their first record came out. A lot of people had never heard of them then. ’Course, I was just a youngster. I used to come to all the shows. They were great times.” Eddie chuckled at his reminiscences.

  “The ’60s were over by the time I started playing guitar,” Jimmy told him. “But I got into all that stuff during the ’70s. There’s never been a period like it – it was the golden decade, that’s for sure.”

  When the second set passed without incident, Jimmy was more than thankful. But in the next break, he felt drawn to the Gretsch in the basement.

  Using the excuse that he had to check his tuning, he left the bar and went backstage. He descended the stairs and pulled out the guitar case from where he’d concealed it. Seeing the hole in the floor, he put the boards back in place as best he could, moving some furniture over on top of them.

  Holding his breath, hoping he wouldn’t be seen, he carried the Gretsch upstairs and pushed it in between his own guitar cases, which he had placed behind some curtains draped on his side of the stage. Exactly why he was doing this, he wasn’t quite sure, except that he felt he had to have the Gretsch closer to him. And so far, so good, he thought, yet he was on edge. He rejoined the band for a few minutes before it was time to go back on, doing his best to hide his nervous elation.

  It was during “Wonderwall,” the opener for the final set, that something extraordinary happened. At first, Jimmy thought someone was fooling with the stage lighting. The spots dimmed and changed colour, and then seemed to move into new positions. He noticed that people who had been dancing in front of the stage were somehow different, too. What was it? Their clothes... the way they were dancing... it was like one of those old movies from the early ’60s, the guys in suits and thin ties and the girls in tight dresses and piled-up hair, the jerky movements. It was just as if he was looking back in time... as if? Jimmy tried to attract the attention of Dave and Sam and Will in turn, but they were oblivious and took no notice of him.

  All the while, Jimmy was still playing, and he realised he couldn’t have stopped if he tried. His guitar seemed to pull his fingers over the strings and fingerboard like a magnet, and he felt himself moving through the chord pattern with a preternatural fluency and precision. At the end of the song, the spots flickered again, blacked out for a moment, and then came back on in their previous colours
and positions. Dancers walked off the floor, looking just as they had when the number started. Thank God, Jimmy said to himself, feeling that it was right about now that he had to start tightening the grip on his sanity. He couldn’t believe what he had just seen. It had been like a dream... or worse. He went over to Dave, gesturing out front.

  “Did you see that?”

  “See what? Are you okay?” It was Dave’s turn to wave Jimmy away, as he moved to announce the next song.

  “I dunno – I must be seeing things. Carry on!”

  Jimmy’s mind was split, virtually in two places at once. He was on edge now, wondering what was going to happen next, but his playing was strangely unaffected. In fact, he had never played better, he was telling himself. He felt disorientated, yet infused with energy from an unidentifiable power source, which was ushering him effortlessly through the music. Jimmy almost stood outside himself, detached, aware that something had taken control and that he had no option other than to go along with it. It was like being blown along in a gale. Jimmy simply swept through the encores demanded by an ecstatic crowd. Whatever it was didn’t give up its grip on him until the last note was played, and instruments and drumsticks were being put down. The house lights went up, and the audience began to thin out. Jimmy felt drained, but he stood there beaming.

  Sam came over to Jimmy, looking concerned. “How are you feeling? You played great, but you don’t seem to have been your normal self tonight.”

  Jimmy was at a loss for something to say. “No, you’re right,” he managed.

  “Maybe I’m sickening or something.”

  Slowly, Jimmy began to break down his gear and pack it away. It wasn’t going be “last in, first out” tonight, as was normally the case. He had good reason to take his time. He didn’t want any of the guys to see he’d acquired an extra item of equipment during the evening. Jean came over with the cash, and Dave signed for it and split it four ways. Dave looked suspiciously at Jimmy.

  “I hope you’re gonna be all right for the weekend,” he said. And then: “You’re not holding anything out on us, are you? You seemed pretty strange tonight.”

  “No way – it’ll be fine,” Jimmy replied. “Just fine.”

  Half-an-hour later, the stage was cleared, the cars were loaded up, and the band were heading home. The crowds had gone, except for a few stragglers. The barman was collecting glasses from the tables, and Eddie was sweeping up. No one took any notice of Jimmy leaving the venue with an extra guitar case, and placing it cautiously in his car.

  He drove back on automatic pilot, his mind preoccupied with the strange events of the evening. He’d never experienced anything like it before. His consciousness had been assailed, invaded. He was shaken, but somehow galvanised by the whole business. He just didn’t know what to make of it, except that it was something to do with the Country Gent, that much was certain. Maybe those dancers he’d seen from the stage had been a kind of daydream, triggered by what Eddie had been saying about the ’60s scene at the town hall. Maybe... yet he’d never been prone to dreaming while he was awake!

  Jimmy ordered himself to think about more practical matters. As soon as he got home, he must check the guitar’s serial number. That would pin down the year in which it was made. It was 12.30 AM when he got back, and he carried the Gretsch into the house first. After he had brought in the rest of the gear, he took out the old guitar, put it on one of his stands and sat down opposite it on the couch. For a while, he just sat there gazing at it, almost hypnotised. He knew that the Country Gent was designed in the USA, back in the ’50s – famously in close cooperation with the legendary Chet Atkins. It was the first model in the Gretsch range to have a seventeen-inch body and a thin, two-inch depth. It had become one of the most venerated of guitars. What an instrument to behold! God knows Jimmy wanted to keep it, but somehow he knew he couldn’t.

  Reverently, he went over to look at the serial number. It was in the 48000s, and his heart leapt. He rummaged for his guitar identification book, and flicked rapidly to the Gretsch section. Yes, it was a 1962 model, the year the Country Gent took on a double cutaway shape. Jimmy’s mind reeled at the possibilities.

  Could a group have unwittingly left the guitar behind after a gig back in the ’60s? If so, who? Might some fan have found it after a show – even stolen it – and hidden it, planning to return for it later, but then never did? And, if he didn’t return, why not?

  Eddie’s recollections came back to him again. Something was gradually dawning on Jimmy, although part of him was resisting it. It was too awesome.

  There was a certain musician who was playing a Gretsch Duo-Jet in 1962, and who could well have acquired a Country Gent later that year – he’d certainly got one by 1963, and it became his trademark.

  Jimmy took the guitar from the stand, and sat back down with it. As he drew it close to his body in the playing position, he was suddenly rocked by another avalanche of distorted sound inside his head, just like he’d experienced in the town hall basement. The previously still room was now ravaged by a tumult of menacing vibrations, like the swirling of a great wind. The sound became a high-pitched scream against a crashing of chords and a pounding of drums, which echoed away into the distance. A sequence of bright, flashing lights passed in front of his eyes. Rows of phantom faces swam again into his view, but he couldn’t bring them into focus, and there was the peculiar feeling once more that he wasn’t alone in the room, that there was someone right at his elbow. He felt as if he was on a cavernous stage, gazing out into a vast audience. There was now another presence, and it seemed to be attaching itself to the guitar, tugging at it.

  Jimmy jumped up, dropping the Country Gent back on the couch, and lurching giddily away from it. As before, the assault on his senses subsided as quickly as it had taken hold. But, after what had happened to him during the gig, it was all becoming too much. Something was going on that he didn’t understand, and didn’t particularly like. He realised he hadn’t felt right since the moment he first touched the Gretsch. Things had become surreal, phantasmagoric. This was one guitar he couldn’t hide behind, one that wouldn’t let him hide, one guitar that threatened to command him, rather than him commanding it.

  Before he could fully regain his composure, there came a knock at the door. What now? Who the hell would be calling at this time of night? The knock was repeated, with more urgency this time. Still a little dazed, Jimmy went to the door and opened it. There was a man standing there, half in shadow. Without speaking, the caller took a step nearer the light thrown from the hallway. Now, Jimmy was transfixed between fright and wonderment. There was no mistaking the features, although the hair was cropped, the cheeks sunken. The eyes were large and earnest, and cast intently on Jimmy, who backed away, incredulous.

  “I think you’ve got something belonging to me, my friend.” The visitor moved swiftly across the room to the Country Gent. “I wondered where this had got to,” he murmured, lifting it up. Delicately, he placed the instrument in its case, snapping the catches closed. “Thanks for taking care of it for me,” he said, looking straight at – or maybe straight through – Jimmy, who was stricken speechless. The front door closed behind the slight figure. There was no sound of a step on the path outside.

  Jimmy sank back on the couch, shocked, bewildered, unable to order his thoughts. He gazed blankly in front of him. He was in a cold sweat. The next thing he knew, daylight was filling the room. He awoke with an aching head amid the shards of a shattered dream. He struggled to put together the lingering elements of the dream, instinctively sensing its significance, but the pieces wouldn’t properly cohere.

  There’d been lights, a band, a stage, a seething crowd – he’d been singing in familiar harmony a song he knew so well, sharing a mike with another singer, he’d been soloing on the Country Gent, yet the instrument was slipping away from his grasp, losing its solidity, its form, becoming fluid. Even as Jimmy’s fingers moved on the strings, they were dissolving into lines of water droplets shaped
like tears. The guitar was weeping...

  Still half-conscious, Jimmy gazed bleary-eyed about him. The Gretsch was not where he’d left it. The fragments of the dream dispersed. Suddenly wide awake, Jimmy leapt up, spinning round on his heel. The guitar was nowhere to be seen, nor was its case.

  “What the bloody hell’s going on?” he cried out loud, looking in vain for signs of a break-in or other disturbance, seeking in vain for some rational explanation for the guitar’s disappearance.

  A clicking sound and a voice made him start. He spun again to find the timer had switched on the radio, as usual, for the breakfast news.

  “George Harrison, the Beatles guitarist, is dead. He died last night at 9.30 PM at the home of a friend in Los Angeles, following a battle with cancer. His wife, Olivia, and son, Dhani, 24, were with him when he died. Harrison was 58...”

  A shudder turned Jimmy’s spine to ice. After all those years, the Country Gent had been reunited with its owner at last.

  Wilderness

  by F. R. Jameson

  I hobbled as fast as I could across the moor. I didn’t look back and I didn’t look down – the former because I didn’t want to know just how close it was, the latter because I didn’t want to see the blood spurting from my foot. It was chasing me. I didn’t turn round, but with each limped and painful step, I knew it was right behind me, ready to pounce and end any futile hope of survival. It was so near, at my shoulder, on top of me, right through my brain. I could feel its breath pushing against my neck, salivating in hunger. Why didn’t it just finish me off? Maybe it wanted me to turn; maybe the moment I looked, it would be there, its red eyes shining into mine, its wide mouth ready to make an aperture of my throat. The temptation to turn was immense. If I turned, it would be over, I wouldn’t have to run – hobble, limp, stagger – anymore. I heard it growl, ready to pounce. My arms flailed, my mangled foot slipped in a coating of my own blood – but still I ran, still I refused to look back. I kept thinking of survival, thinking there’d be a future, thinking I’d live – and it was with that thin slice of hope that my legs disappeared from under me.