I Am Still The Greatest Says Johnny Angelo

by Nik Cohn

  Solemn and slow, he travelled across the darkened stage and nobody screamed, every sound was stilled. Very stern, he froze the audience and he held them like that, he permitted no kind of levity. But then, without warning, he suddenly jack-knifed and he jumped up high in the air, he flew and, in that instant, even as he was airborne, everything exploded.

  Lights flashed and flames leaped up and mirrors glinted all over the auditorium, blinding and distorting, and a hundred musicians thumped, strummed and blew, and bass drums rolled like thunder, and electric guitars wailed like sirens, and then Johnny hit the ground, his legs began to tremble.

  The noise was frightening: out of the dark, there came wave after wave of a sound that was screaming, yet resembled no scream that you’d ever heard. It had no rise and fall, no variation, almost no emotion, and it shattered all the windows, so that the audience was showered with splintered glass, and it went on for ever, it was quite relentless.

  And this was the truth of Johnny Angelo, that he was all things at once, masculine and feminine and neuter, active and passive, animal and vegetable, and he was satanic, messianic, kitsch and camp, and psychotic, and martyred, and just plain dirty.

  He twitched and squirmed and shuddered. He ran his hand down inside his thigh and tickled. His head was tucked in against his shoulder, very coy, and he pouted, he fluttered his eyelashes. He blew fat kisses from wet red lips. He staggered with emotion. He fell down on his knees, grovelling in the dust, and then his hips rose up and over, he raised himself, and his baby blue pants split open from knee to crotch, the girls glimpsed golden flesh. Or he sang songs of heartbreak and he buried his face in his hands, moving very slow, like a man in an underwater dream. Or he leered and he scowled, he ground his groin and every defenceless virgin in the world was raped, he beat them and he whipped them, he kicked them in the guts and stomped them underfoot and fucked them till they fainted. Or he minced. Or he slithered his legs like serpents, he stretched them out like tentacles, and he bent them back double, he tied them up in knots, and he sprawled them all over the stage, nothing else existed. He blasphemed. He wept. He cowered, begging for mercy: ‘Am I clean?’ he said.

  And the screams got louder and louder and louder. Down in the darkness, the small girls were rending their hair, were tearing their own flesh and they writhed in religious ecstasy, and their bodies were racked by spasms, their eyes rolled up, and there were some who pissed themselves, there were others who were covered in vomit. A sordid detail, but true, there were many who ripped the legs from their seats and thrust them under their skirts, mauling themselves most horribly.

  Johnny Angelo’s hair was undone, it tumbled down around his shoulders, and he was dripping sweat. His mascara ran, his lipstick was smeared all over his face. His clothes were torn in many places and his golden flesh was soggy and his face became a swamp. His eyes went blind. His mouth hung open. When he was 24, he was ugly.

  He was pelted with jelly babies and hairclips and cigarette butts, teddy bears and coins. A gilt bracelet hit him full on the mouth, splitting his lip, and blood flowed over his face. Blood stained his blue velvet suit, blood fell on the stage, blood got in his eyes and he stumbled, he collapsed in a heap.

  On his knees, he clutched at his heart and, taking out a white silk handkerchief, he soaked it in his blood, he let it fall into the audience.

  With a last convulsive effort, he tried to rise, just for a moment, he almost made it, he staggered 3 steps forward but then he suddenly crumpled and fell down on his back, spreadeagled, his arms and his legs stretched out in the shape of crucifixion.

  Catsmeat ran on in his white silk suit, and others behind him, and they carried Johnny Angelo, limp and shattered, from the stage; just as they reached the wings, however, he revived and he threw them all off, he came storming back on his stage and he grabbed the microphone and he reached out with his bloodstained hands: ‘Am I clean?’ he said. ‘Can you touch me?’

  It was then that the small girls rose up and stormed the stage. Policemen with linked arms formed a barrier and tried to force them back but were soon overwhelmed by handbags and broken bottles, nails and teeth and stiletto heels. Within 5 minutes, the cordon was smashed and the girls surged forward in their hundreds, in their thousands and tens of thousands.

  Flames sprang up everywhere, and the music kept getting louder, and trapezists swung low, dropping stink bombs, and wild animals rampaged through the aisles, jackals and muskrats and skunks, mongeese and kangaroos, while Johnny bled in the background.

  And the first girl to reach him, she clutched at his feet and he turned around, he kicked her full in the face. ‘Am I clean?’ he said, and then his followers surrounded him. At the very last moment, they rescued him.

  They carried him to his dressing room, where he slumped in an armchair and didn’t move. His hair hung down in sodden rat-tails, his face was slabbed with paint and sweat. His mouth was full of blood.

  Outside, the girls were baying like wolves and then they hammered on the door, they began to break it down. Very soon, it buckled under the weight of blows, the boards split open and hands reached through, grasping, clutching and, one last time, Johnny Angelo arose. He wiped the blood from his face. He spat on the floor. He climbed out through the window and dropped down in the alley, where his cadillac was waiting, and he scrambled inside, he was safe.

  Up front, there was the golden cadillac and, all around it, there were black motorbikes and, behind the motorbikes, there was a long black limousine and, behind the limousine, there was an open wagon and, behind the wagon, there was a zoo.

  Slowly and with dignity, the procession moved off and it passed through the heart of the city, it headed out towards the open countryside. Inside his cadillac, Johnny Angelo fell asleep and girls climbed on the roof, clung to the handles, pressed their faces tight against the windows. They scrabbled with their fingernails. They clambered everywhere. They fell down in the dirt. They were trampled underfoot, they were hit by flying stones, they were thrown beneath the wheels. Always and always, they screamed.

  And inside the auditorium, when everyone else had gone, there remained one last girl, who was crying. She sat in the aisle, surrounded by refuse, by stale sweat and vomit and urine, and she whimpered softly. She wept for a very long time.

  Pranks

  Although his fans adored him, Johnny Angelo also had many enemies, who described him variously as a menace, a maniac and a moral degenerate and, every time that he caused a riot, they rose up fiercely against him.

  They wrote letters to the papers, they organised petitions, they set up pickets. When Johnny did the splits and his trousers were ripped from knee to crotch, questions were asked in parliament and his concerts were banned in many cities.

  Was he disconcerted? On stage at the Gladstone Armoury, he unzipped his flies real slow and the aisles were littered with swooning puberts.

  And this was the truth, that he travelled by himself, locked inside a private movie, which contained his cadillac and his velvet suit, his fans, his circus and his mansion, and nothing else had any meaning for him.

  Within his movie, Johnny was a sultan, all-seeing and omnipotent, and he passed through a hundred cities in a hundred days and, everywhere that he went, he left chaos behind him, and that was his only purpose, to cause explosions.

  Each morning, before he hit the road, he sent out a posse. A random assortment of Mighty Avengers, acrobats and freaks, they headed for the next city on his route and prepared for his arrival.

  Lifesize effigies of Johnny Angelo were carried through the streets, loudspeaker vans toured the suburbs and free souvenirs were given away by the hundred. More important than all this, however, a series of pranks was played, throwing the whole city into turmoil.

  Hearses careened wildly down the High Street, for instance, while masked gunmen riddled the crowds with dummy machine guns and plastic bombs were thrown through windows and
the pavements were splattered with ketchup. Sirens howled non-stop. Itching powder was dropped from skyscrapers. Bank-notes were scattered by helicopters. In stores and bars and stations, the multitudes were sprayed with Dayglo paint and, meanwhile, 50 miles away, Johnny Angelo lay in bed, munching a crab-paste sandwich.

  The rest was simple: when he rode into town, Johnny was met by utter confusion and, given the circus and the motorcade, the blaring music and untamed animals, not to mention the final apocalypse of his own performance, hysteria was swiftly turned to flat-out anarchy.

  Seated in the penthouse suite at the Hotel Splendide, he ate oysters with champagne and he looked down 43 floors to the streets below, where rioters ran wild with knives and clubs and razors, lit torches and sawn-off shotguns. Burning and looting at random, they threw bricks through windows and overturned cars and beat up on racial minorities, they raped defenceless virgins, they wallowed and grovelled in filth, and Johnny Angelo sighed, very far away.

  Violence and glamour and speed, splendour and vulgarity, gesture and combustion – these were the things that he valued, none else, and his tours turned into full-scale odysseys, and Johnny himself was seen almost as a messiah, whose message was a single word: excess.

  In Plankton, his followers sneaked out at dead of night and scattered tintacks on the boulevards, deflated car tyres by the thousand, planted white mice in the subways; in Sabine East, the TV studios were stormed and captured by the Mighty Avengers, who then staged an orgy on camera; and finally, at sacred Magdalena, Johnny spat in church.

  Of all his outrages, it was this last, minor in itself, that most incensed his enemies. Goaded beyond endurance, they determined not to rest until he’d been banned outright, his circus dismantled, his records deleted and he himself left friendless and derelict, exiled for ever.

  To this end, they cursed him up and down the nation, they heckled his concerts and defiled his photographs and scratched his records with hairpins, and they spread foul rumours about his private life, they bribed his musicians to play out of tune, they hissed the very mention of his name.

  Politicians and priests, journalists, retired colonels and strict-tempo bandleaders, they gathered close together in their common cause, regardless of race or religion, and the ruin of Johnny Angelo became their only dream.

  ‘This man is a monster,’ said Sir Aubrey Challenor. ‘More than a man, he’s a symptom,’ said Dr James Purdie.

  ‘It’s people like Angelo that have brought this country to its knees,’ said Lord Morly, the motor magnate.

  ‘Man or myth?’ asked the Sunday Echo.

  ‘He is the anti-christ,’ said the Reverend Groat. ‘In the very strictest confidence,’ said Bobby Surf, who wore a toupee, ‘he is a fairy.’

  Johnny Angelo was not alarmed: riding in his cadillac, he ate chocolate bonbons and scratched himself, he stuck out his tongue at meter maids and then, at Sloat, he pissed in the soup.

  Criss-crossing the nation from coast to coast, he covered half a million miles each year but never tired of causing chaos and he rampaged like a reborn Ghengis Khan, a souped-up Saladin or Attila the Hun.

  Furthermore, for every insult that he suffered, he gained revenge in full. Sir Aubrey Challenor, for instance, speaking in public, was attacked by unknown marauders, who sneaked up tight and razor-slashed his braces, thus causing his trousers to fall around his ankles.

  Lord Morly, who was a cripple, was stripped naked and deprived of his wheelchair; the Reverend Groat found his altar defiled; Bobby Surf lost his toupee; and many others besides were found out, cornered and purged.

  Stern and unforgiving, Johnny lived like a warlord and his opponents were crushed without mercy. In private, however, he was not always so harsh. To his fans, whom he trusted, he appeared as almost a saint.

  Any young girl who knocked at his stage door, she was sure of his kindest attention; any gifts that he received, be they sweets or flowers or furry toys, he was often moved to the edge of tears. Busy as he was, he was known to drive 500 miles to see a sick supporter on his deathbed and, whoever was killed at his concerts, stifled or trampled underfoot, it was always Johnny Angelo who sent the biggest wreath.

  And day by day, week by week, his enemies pursued him but he didn’t slow down, he never looked back. When the crowds milled around his golden car, surrounding him, he didn’t even blink.

  ‘Fuck you,’ he said.

  Johnny Angelo Speaks

  There follows a transcript of a press conference given by Johnny Angelo, sitting in his suite at the Hotel Excelsior, on April 14th, 1964:

  ‘What is your favourite colour?’

  ‘My favourite colour is baby blue.’

  ‘Are you pleased to be here?’

  ‘It’s wonderful to be back.’

  ‘How do you feel about your latest record?’

  ‘I’m so very happy to see it in the charts, it’s a thrill, and I wish to thank all my loyal fans, who put it there and make my life worthwhile.’

  ‘How is your tour going?’

  ‘Great business, just great business.’

  ‘Any amusing incidents?’

  ‘Just one so far: in Decatur, a little girl came to the stage door and asked to see me. Of course, I try to meet my fans whenever possible, I make it my duty, but imagine my surprise when in came a very small child, no more than 8 years old, who was clutching a battered teddy bear, and she curtsied, she stepped right up to me, bold as brass, and she said to me, Johnny Angelo, she said, please will you give teddy a kiss, because teddy wants to marry you.’

  ‘Are you happy?’

  ‘I am very happy.’

  ‘Why aren’t you married?’

  ‘I believe that the right girl has not yet come along. Someday I hope to meet my dream and fall in love but, until that happy time, I will endure by myself.’

  ‘Are you very rich?’

  ‘My wealth is beyond all reckoning.’

  ‘What is your temperament?’

  ‘I am very sensitive. Sometimes almost too sensitive. I am a leaf blown by the wind, a naked nerve, and the merest breeze may bring me pain.’

  ‘What is the nature of your appeal?’

  ‘I am the world of dreams, the Thousand Nights of Arabia, and I am all things at once, all heroes and all villains. I am the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the sneaky Doctor Strange, the secret Count Mordo, who flies by night, and the glamorous Mr Universe. I provide, and you may quote me on this, a teenage fulfilment of fantasy.’

  ‘In other words?’

  ‘I fuck.’

  ‘What are your ambitions?’

  ‘My personal ambition is happiness; my professional ambition is likewise.’

  ‘Who do you admire?’

  ‘Among my favourites are Lord Byron and Elvis Presley, the Mad Monk Rasputin, Howard Hughes and Our Lord Jesus Christ.’

  ‘What are your hobbies?’

  ‘I am partial to pinball.’

  ‘Where is your family?’

  ‘My mother is dead, my twin brother is also dead and my father is an oil tycoon, who lives by himself on a very large estate. When I was only 5 years old, he ran away with a waitress and I was left to keep us alive. For years, we scrabbled and starved in a rat-infested basement, until my mother died of TB and my brother ran off to sea and my two sisters turned to alcohol, sousing themselves in gin, the first sad step on the road to prostitution. By God’s good grace, I was spared and I persevered until things began to break my way. When I was 21, I rode on a golden cadillac, I was worshipped by millions and I travelled to my father’s distant estates. For 3 days and nights, I drove without stopping, until I arrived at a long winding driveway and, at the end of this driveway, I drew up in front of a house like a palace. I knocked on the door. For some minutes, I waited in the cold but then the lock turned and a face appeared, the face of my father. I looked deep int
o his eyes. I smiled, just as I was going to embrace him, however, he suddenly shrank back and his eyes were blank. “Who are you?” my father said.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘I went away.’

  ‘Did you weep?’

  ‘I returned to my fans, who love me, and I learned to live again.’

  ‘Do you believe in God?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘What is your preferred foodstuff?’

  ‘My most favourite is knickerbocker glory deluxe, which consists of vanilla ice-cream, chocolate and coffee and strawberry, poured over with hot chocolate sauce, and crushed pineapple sauce, and butterscotch and melba sauce, plus a turret of fresh whipped cream, sprinkled with pistachio and topped with a morello cherry, the whole thing combining into a fantasia.’

  ‘What do you value?’

  ‘It is sacred to be clean.’

  ‘How many cars do you run?’

  ‘I own 7 cars.’

  ‘Are you paranoid?’

  ‘I am fastidious. I am a creative artist, which means that I am condemned to solitude, for inspiration is loneliness, and I am repelled by squalor, I cannot live with ugliness or tedium.’

  ‘Do you sleep in the nude?’

  ‘I refuse this question.’

  ‘Are you lonely?’

  ‘All men are lonesome.’

  ‘Do you like women?’

  ‘I do not.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘In my view, a woman is a vulture and she is full of shit, she’s a wheedler and whiner and twister. The man who trusts her, consigns himself to hellfire and she will gobble him up like popcorn. Plus, her body disgusts me and the way that she fucks is distasteful, all the ways that she screams and scratches and smells, with no sense of dignity – these things repel me and it is also true that a woman will destroy you, casting you aside as soon as you’re squeezed dry, and she is dirty in her habits, her flesh is soft and sloppy.’

  ‘Have you ever been in love?’