I Am Still The Greatest Says Johnny Angelo

by Nik Cohn

  In Lincoln County, she brought him into a festering slum. Instead of open streets, there were only alleys, which wound in and out like a labyrinth, and the people lived in wooden shacks. Garbage was piled high against the walls, rotting slowly, and rats grew fat. Epidemics raged like plagues, the drains overflowed and, on each corner, there was sickness, madness and death.

  This was the Cobra’s birthplace and she liked it. Somewhere in the heart of the labyrinth she owned a single room and that’s where she lured Johnny Angelo, that’s where they remained.

  In this room there was cowein and yen pox and gris-gris, the secret cures of voodoo, and reptiles in cages, poisonous spiders and serpents, and a metal bath-tub in which the Cobra wallowed, all black and sleek and shiny, while beneath her arms and between her legs, there was a tangle of hair like a jungle, a wild exotic undergrowth, coloured candyfloss pink.

  Soaping herself slowly, she smoked yen and the room was filled with evil fumes. Very soon, she sighed and the pipe fell from her hand, it clattered on the floor.

  While the Cobra was dreaming, Johnny sat by himself and crawling black snakes surrounded him, and dogs lay starving outside his window and, across the alley, crouching in the shade, there were cripples and spastics and mongols. It was then that he felt trapped and he ran out of the room, he plunged headlong into the labyrinth.

  Straightaway, he was lost. In Lincoln County, everything looked alike and he blundered round in circles. Children clutched at his arm, rats nipped at his ankles. The smell was very bad and, after half an hour, exhausted, he sat down in the filth. There was slime on his white kid shoes.

  In her own good time, the Cobra came and rescued him and took him back inside her room, where she licked him clean. Once more, she wallowed in the tub and she smoked bad yen, and Johnny lay with his eyes shut, and tarantulas crawled on the walls, scorpions made hissing sounds and he didn’t move for a very long time.

  How long did this continue?’ Time meant nothing in Lincoln County, each day was the same. But three times Johnny ran out into the alleys and three times he sat down exhausted. Three times he was covered in filth. Three times the Cobra brought him home and slowly licked him clean.

  When all the yen was finished, only then, she led him back to Heartbreak Hotel.

  By this time, he was very much changed. He no longer rode out with the Mighty Avengers, he didn’t wear black leather and he didn’t smile lopsided. Skulking in the back room, he bit his nails and picked his nose. Even with the light out, he kept his eyes shut.

  And the Cobra ate him up. ‘This is the truth,’ she said. ‘I am very fond of fun.’

  She loved her candyfloss wig. Of all her possessions, this was the one that she cherished most and she never took it off. Every morning, as soon as she awoke, she would settle herself in front of a mirror and smile at its reflection. An hour would pass, maybe more: the Cobra sat without blinking, all alone with her pink bouffant, and she couldn’t help but purr.

  Johnny Angelo, meanwhile, was abject. He was aware of nothing but the Cobra. He didn’t speak or eat or sleep without her approval. He didn’t see, he did not think. At all times, he was drugged.

  He dreamed many dreams of escape.

  Way up in Crescent Heights, poised on the edge of a cliff, he sneaked up behind her and started to shove; in the Shanty Canrush, he purchased poison; and in his windowless room, suffocating, he laced his fingers round her throat. On each occasion, however, at the very last moment, the Cobra turned round and she smiled at him, she tickled him under his chin.

  Then she took him on another journey, penetrating into neighbourhoods that Johnny had never seen, places that he didn’t even know existed and, in each of them, they passed through a different movie.

  In Spanish Town, the week of the bullfights, the streets were full of roses and the young girls leaned down from their balconies, blowing kisses.

  In St Sulpice, artists starved in garrets.

  In gutrot Chicane, the Rube sat in his hotel room, polishing his guns, and Diamond Slim was killed on the corner, shot down as he stepped from his car.

  Everything was total. On this journey, there was no middle course, there were only wild extremes. ‘My best friend was Maria,’ the Cobra said. ‘She was known as the Suicide Queen. Every morning, without fail, she swallowed strychnine with her coffee but she still had fun, she never stopped laughing.’

  In Pleasant Bay, riverboats passed by in the sunlight and the orchestra played waltzes, the women wore gowns down to their ankles. Beside the sparkling water, the Cobra and Johnny were strolling, eating ice-cream cones, when a sudden gust of wind whipped up and almost removed the candyfloss wig.

  Fortunately, she reached up fast and saved it. In that moment, however, her eyes had shown fear, the first time that Johnny had ever seen her vulnerable and, for 10 minutes afterwards, she couldn’t stop trembling.

  Right then, Johnny Angelo saw his chance. But before he could take any action, they had left Pleasant Bay and travelled on through Tully Cross, through Fabian and Rouge and Tabasco.

  The Cobra changed with every day.

  In Little Italy, she took off her shoes and walked on a bed of burning coals, smiling as she did so.

  In Musk, she healed the sick.

  In Sancerre, she did a striptease on a table and she swilled champagne from the bottle, she used obscenities, she made love with any man that would take her.

  After 3 months like this, Johnny was a shambles and he didn’t wash, he grew fat, he stuttered. One by one, his teeth got loose.

  Finally, in Bastion, he tried to sneak away and, slipping down the alley, he scrambled over a red brick wall and he fell down the other side. When he stood up, however, the Cobra was standing beside him: ‘You’re not safe,’ she said. ‘Not here. Not any place.’

  The very next night, his revenge came.

  In a waterfront hotel, they were playing cards and the Cobra kept on winning. Hour after hour, they sat without speaking and then, when it was already almost dawn, the Cobra’s eyes rolled up without warning and she keeled over on the floor, fast asleep.

  The rest was easy: Johnny reached out and he tugged at her wig, all pink and sweet and sticky, and he threw it on the fire, where it burned very slow and the flames licked up like the many tongues of a Chinese dragon.

  Underneath, the Cobra was not bald, as he had hoped, but she had a coarse black stubble, which was not at all mysterious, and Johnny blew in her ear.

  Everything was changed.

  When the Cobra saw what had taken place, she wept most bitterly. ‘John Angelo,’ she said. ‘Why have you burned my pink bouffant?’

  ‘Why not?’ said Johnny and he dressed himself like a riverboat dude, complete with satin waistcoat, string tie and St Louis Flats, fancy squat-heeled shoes with lightbulbs that winked in the toes.

  That same morning, they returned to Heartbreak Hotel and this time they stayed there, they didn’t travel any further.

  In the small back room, the Cobra crouched in a corner, covering her skull with her hands, and she didn’t smell of voodoo, she carried no cures in her breast. Her eyes did not glow in the dark, her smile was not like sudden death. She did not travel anywhere. She wasn’t even a cobra.

  She was only Yolande, an easy lay.

  Teen Angel

  When Johnny Angelo was 18, Yolande was his servant. Every day, she darned his socks and made his bed and laid out his various uniforms. Stubble-headed, she followed him everywhere.

  She loved him very much. Outside his windowless room, she waited patiently and, as soon as he emerged, she caught him by the arm. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Can I have my wig back?’

  ‘No,’ said Johnny Angelo, and rode away on his motorbike, with his followers ranged out behind him and, everywhere that he went, he caused destruction.

  Nothing was changed: he returned to Bogside, he sat in the c
orner caff, he listened to the jukebox. The waitress brushed him with her breasts. Elvis Presley sang One Night. Black cats covered the pavements.

  He began to make money. Venturing beyond the docklands, he started playing in clubs and dancehalls all over the city. He hired a backing group and he wore a golden suit and he got his picture in the local paper. Squirming and slithering, he made his hair fall over his eyes, he let one hand trail behind him, fingers outstretched and, very soon, he had his own fan club. He acquired a girlfriend named Astrid, who had long blonde hair, tied back in a ponytail, and wore highschool sweaters, short shorts and bobbysox. Sitting in the soda fountain, Johnny held her hand and she had eyes of baby blue; she kept on blowing bubblegum. One Coca Cola, two straws: in no time, she wore his ring.

  They went to the beach and they went to drive-ins, where they watched Frankie Avalon and Fabian and Annette Funicello, and they shared a hot dog at the corner stand, and they danced the Madison and, after every date, Johnny Angelo kissed Astrid at her front door and then he turned away, fired his machine and he rode away into the night.

  This was his Teendream and he gazed at the moon, he wished upon a star. At Heartbreak Hotel, meanwhile, Yolande crouched in the purple gloom, recalling the Cobra and, when Johnny returned, she crept up tight behind him, she licked inside his ear. Purring, she sucked at his flesh: ‘You can’t do that,’ said Johnny.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you can’t,’ he said, and it was true that he was fastidious. Roaming the city as he did, looting and plundering, he had no place for lust and he changed his underwear three times a day, he washed behind his ears, and he slept in silken sheets, he sprinkled himself with cologne and he breakfasted on apricot juice, escargots, chilled white wine.

  Anyone that called him names, they were beaten and thrown out in the gutter, while Johnny feasted on Kentucky fried chicken and flung the bones over his shoulder, a warlord, a waterfront caliph.

  Beneath a starlit sky, Astrid wept in his arms and he kissed away her tears, one by one: ‘Oh, Johnny,’ she said. ‘I love you.’

  ‘Oh, Astrid,’ he replied. ‘I love you, too.’

  On her birthday, he gave her a heart-shaped locket, in which there was his photograph and a lock of his golden hair. Then, beside a fountain, their lips met in a burning kiss and Catsmeat waited on the corner, guarding Johnny’s motorbike.

  And this was only one of the ways in which Catsmeat made himself useful. Every door that Johnny approached, the retard passed through first, in case of ambush and, when Yolande sneaked out and bought another bouffant, it was Catsmeat that found it and burned it.

  Factotum and jester and sometimes even confidante, he had his own special outfit, a cinema commissionaire’s uniform, complete with braiding and shiny buttons, and he also had a sharp peaked hat, which he wore at a rakish angle.

  Of course, he still had piggy eyes and puff-pastry flesh, he still wore fluorescent orange socks. No matter, he was satisfied and several months passed most peacefully, while Johnny rode his motorbike and twitched his legs like jelly beans.

  He ruled the docklands. He commanded 100 Avengers. He was screamed at by small girls. He smiled lopsided for money each night. He was safe. He had the love of a wonderful girl.

  Once again, however, a time arrived when Johnny grew restless. For more than 18 years, he had always remained inside this city and now he became bored, he wanted to move on.

  One last time, he stood outside the barbed-wire fence, he walked the wall and he wandered on the bombsite, he sat in the corner caff and he watched Little Richard on the scopitone, and he swung from the balcony in the Roxy, and he passed among the derelicts, he hit the straight and he put his foot hard down and he reached the top of the hill, he soared up high and then he saw everything.

  In Heartbreak Hotel, he packed his possessions and he strapped his guitar on the back of his machine. The Mighty Avengers lined up behind him, and Catsmeat, and Yolande, who rode on Catsmeat’s pillion, and Johnny Angelo waved them on, he moved out slowly from the docklands.

  On the corner, Astrid was waiting in a white belted raincoat, and, when Johnny cruised by, she ran towards him, she kneeled down beside his motorbike. Her teeth were very white, her lips were very red: ‘Take me with you,’ she said.

  Then Johnny looked grave. ‘Someday I will return,’ he said. ‘When I am very famous, I will come back and we’ll live inside a mansion, with a swimming pool, an orange grove and TV in every room.’

  ‘Do you promise?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

  In the shadow of Heartbreak Hotel, he kissed her lips. Then, with all his disciples behind him, he moved along and he passed out of the docklands, out of this Teendream for ever, and rode to Movie City, where he soon became a star.

  PART THREE

  Am I Clean?

  ‘I am the greatest,’ said Johnny Angelo and, when he was 24, he rode on a golden cadillac.

  Entering a city, he wore a suit of golden velvet, shoes of golden suede and his hair fell to his shoulders. Standing on top of his cadillac, he waved and smiled and blew kisses and, all around him, there were black-leather riders on black motorbikes, known as the Mighty Avengers.

  Behind the golden cadillac, there came a long black limousine, in which sat Johnny’s intimates, Catsmeat and Yolande, and his hair-stylist, his masseur and his valet, his astrologer and his tennis coach, plus a selection of pretty young starlets.

  And behind the black limousine, there came an open wagon, which was filled with varied performers, Johnny Angelo’s private circus, complete with clowns and jugglers and tumblers, belly dancers and dwarves, contortionists and bearded ladies and, also, his mother, his father and his two older sisters.

  Finally, behind the open wagon, there came a series of trailers, in which were caged wild animals, who roared and shrieked and howled, who screamed abuse through the bars.

  Very slowly, this cavalcade nosed through the crowds and, when it reached the heart of the city, the wagon opened its doors. Music played loudly, the voice of Johnny Angelo boomed from a dozen hidden loudspeakers and out rushed freaks of every description, hunchbacks and midgets and spastics, stringbeans and albinos, who ran among the crowd and showered them with confetti, and pulled faces, turned somersaults and gave out countless autographed pictures of Johnny Angelo.

  Raised high upon his Cadillac, meanwhile Johnny held a single white rose. Smiling rather sadly, he cast it high into the air where it hung for a moment, hovered, and then it dropped down in the street, where it was torn apart by a thousand clutching hands, while Johnny passed by.

  Once inside his dressing room, he took 2 full hours to prepare himself. Everywhere that he performed, it was his habit to send a team of interior decorators ahead of him, who equipped his rooms with gilded mirrors and chandeliers, Persian rugs, Egyptian tapestries and a satin chaise longue for Johnny himself, on which he now reclined, sucking on a liquorice stick.

  And first, his stylist combed his hair, one hundred strokes with the left hand, one hundred strokes with the right, and then drew it back in an 18th-century ponytail, tied up with a black velvet bow.

  Second, his beautician painted his eyes, using liner and shadow and thick mascara, and coated his teeth with sparkling white oil, and powdered over his golden flesh, and lastly touched his mouth lightly with lipstick.

  Third, his manicurist shaped his fingernails, and his masseur toned up his muscles, and Catsmeat read him poetry, and Yolande licked inside his ear.

  Finally, his valet dressed him in a suit of baby blue velvet, with pants so tight that it took him 5 minutes to get them on, and buckled blue suede shoes, and white kneesocks, and his jeweller hung him heavy with monogrammed bracelets, diamond earrings and, of course, a silver crucifix.

  In Johnny Angelo’s life, everything was a ritual and, just before he went on stage, he faced his astrologer, who consulted cha
rts and Tarot cards. If these turned out badly, the whole performance was cancelled. But if the omens were auspicious, nothing on earth could stop him and he smiled his golden smile, Sun God Johnny Angelo.

  On stage, his followers were already raging and the auditorium was filled with entertainments of every kind. Simultaneously, there were trapezists and trick cyclists and high-wire artists, trampolinists who bounced into the balconies, belly dancers who strutted their stuff by candlelight, and wild animals who prowled the aisles, chimpanzees and llamas and baby leopards, and there were liveried servants who scurried everywhere, distributing capons among the audience, sweetmeats and guavas, pomegranates and fat black grapes, and that wasn’t all, there were also swordswallowers, human torches, boxing kangaroos and, most important of all, there were goatskins full of rough Algerian wine, which were passed from hand to hand, until everyone was flushed and roaring, howling for Johnny Angelo and then, without warning, the lights went out.

  In a single mauve spotlight, Catsmeat emerged from the shadows and climbed up into a podium, a pulpit. He wore a white silk suit, a pink carnation in his buttonhole, and he was round like a human doughnut, he had pink piggy eyes.

  Inside this auditorium, there were ten or twenty or fifty thousand small girls, all of whom lived for Johnny Angelo, and now they began to scream, they began to weep and wring their hands. Lost in the dark, they called his name, they fainted, they bayed. Down on their knees, they prayed.

  For several minutes, Catsmeat said nothing. Basking in his pool of purple light, he felt no urgency, he was happy here. Smirking, he picked his nose and, even when he finally made his announcement, it carried no hysteria, it was almost conversational: ‘Johnny Angelo,’ he said.

  Somewhere in the wings, trumpets played a Purcell fanfare, very stately, and Johnny was revealed, standing motionless on top of his golden cadillac, one arm raised, just like the Statue of Liberty.