The Man Who Lived by Night

by David Handler

  Scarr: She likes to nick things. What they call a … a …

  Hoag: Thief?

  Scarr: Kleptomaniac. Don’t doubt she’s a nymphomaniac as well. And an overall maniac. Just like her jolly old mum.

  Hoag: Who is … ?

  Scarr: Tulip.

  Hoag: Ah. The floral motif should have been a giveaway.

  Scarr: They haven’t gotten along, she and Tu, since Tu found his holiness. Tries to impose her beliefs on the girl. And raises bloody hell over her things being mussed with. So I let Vi crash here, if she’s into it.

  Hoag: She seems very mature for her age.

  Scarr: She’s fifteen, if that’s what you’re wondering. Why, did you climb into her nickers? It’s cool with me if you did. I can’t exactly tell her not to do the things I did, can I? It’d be bleedin’ bullshit. (pause) Did you?

  Hoag: I’ve spoken with Jack a couple of times. I wouldn’t exactly say he’s hostile, but, well, he is hostile.

  Scarr: He’s fucking jealous is all.

  Hoag: I wondered if it was something else. Something he didn’t want coming out.

  Scarr: Such as?

  Hoag: I was hoping you’d tell me.

  Scarr: I’m not tracking, Hogarth.

  Hoag: The man’s dead set against talking to me.

  Scarr: So leave him be.

  Hoag: Can’t. He’s too valuable a source.

  Scarr: I see. I’ll have a word with him then.

  Hoag: Thank you. I’m interested in what the music scene was like here in ’62, when the Rough Boys were first getting gigs.

  Scarr: Uh-huh. There was a small R and B thing happening in and around London. Like a cult thing, really. (pause) Did you fuck her? It’s okay, mate. I mean it.

  Hoag: It didn’t come up.

  Scarr: (silence, then laughs) There’s a good one. Bloody good.

  Hoag: Now can we … ?

  Scarr: Right. We talked about how Lonnie Donegan, of skiffle fame, had played in Chris Barber’s jazz band back in the fifties. So had Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies, until they split to form Blues Incorporated, which I reckon you could call Britain’s very first blues band. Charlie Watts of the Stones-to-be was on drums. Jack Bruce of Cream-to-be played bass. Blues Incorporated tried playing the trad jazz clubs around London, only the serious jazz fans—the bleedin’ intellects—thought they were too scruff. So they started up their own club in a basement under a teashop in Ealing—the Ealing Club. Those of us who were into R and B took to hanging out there when we weren’t playing a gig. Me and Rory, Michael Jagger, Keith, Brian, John Mayall, Long John Baldry … We were all mates then, before there was competition and egos and the like. We’d rap about music and gigs, and anybody could have a blow up on stage. Got up there m’self one night, roaring drunk I was, and sang “Ooh-ee Baby,” the Albert King song, with Blues Incorporated. Cyril backed me up on harp. Played it like a monster. Right then I decided to learn harp m’self. (yawns) All of which meant the Rough Boys started sounding bluesier. We added “Please, Please, Please,” a James Brown song, and “Spoonful,” the Howlin’ Wolf song, which Cream did years later. After Blues Incorporated split up, Cyril formed a new band, the All Stars, and they got a gig at the Island. That’s Eel Pie Island, which was an old twenties dance hall out on this island in the middle of the Thames at Twickenham. Cyril put in the word for us and got us a gig there as well. There was a small blues circuit then—the Railway Hotel in Harrow, St. Mary’s Parish Hall in Richmond, Studio Fifty-One in London. We played all of ’em. Met people. Talked ourselves up. Only, we kept playin’ the weddings and church dances as well, which was a mistake. Couldn’t get known for anything that way. I thought we should be a blues band. The Beatles were already rockin’, y’know? Rory and the others, they still liked playing “Blue Suede Shoes.” While we were busy arguing over it, Decca went and signed up the Stones to a recording contract. Pissed me off. (yawns) They were playin’ at Crawdaddy then. Turnin’ it into a big R and B club. We followed ’em in there after they signed with Decca. We were always followin’ ’em. Played the Marquee after ’em as well. Only now—now the knock against us was we was too much like the bleedin’ Stones. We sounded different, but the people makin’ decisions, the record people, they went by categories. Rory fought the categories. He believed in the power of the music. (yawns) I…

  Hoag: You didn’t?

  Scarr: Hmm?… Sorry … I was more a realist, I reckon.

  Hoag: Realist?

  Scarr: To me all we lacked was a proper gimmick. Or management. It’s all a hustle, isn’t it? You’ve got to get noticed, is all … I think I’ve had it for tonight, mate.

  Hoag: You do look somewhat beat. I meant to tell you, Tristam—somebody was following me in London last night.

  Scarr: Know that feeling. So well. Seems real, doesn’t it? It’s the acid … So real …

  Hoag: This was real.

  Scarr: Mmm-mmmmm …

  Hoag: Any idea why someone would be following me? (silence) Tristam? (silence) Hello?

  (end tape)

  (Tape #1 with Jack Horner recorded in his office Nov. 25. There is a cluttered desk, portable heater, girlie calendar, gun rack. Contents: Browning 20-gauge over-under, Remington 1100 automatic, pre-’64 Winchester bolt action sporting rifle. Door leads into parlor of his apartment. Spartanly furnished.)

  Horner: I’d like to apologize about before, sir. Didn’t mean to appear rude.

  Hoag: Are you still opposed to looking into the past?

  Horner: I am. But I understand you have a job to do. Mr. Scarr, he made it clear to me.

  Hoag: What did you mean before when you told me, “It wouldn’t be bright”?

  Horner: Just talk, sir.

  Hoag: I thought you might have been referring to Puppy’s death.

  Horner: Puppy’s death?

  Hoag: T. S. seems to think it was no accident.

  Horner: (silence) I was road manager when it happened. I knew what went on.

  Hoag: And?

  Horner: Pup, for all of his wildness, he knew his limits. He wouldn’t have taken that much speed on his own. Someone slipped him a monster dose without him knowing it. Replaced the pills he was taking with stronger ones. At least, that’s what I always figured.

  Hoag: Any idea who?

  Horner: Had to be one of us, didn’t it?

  Hoag: Did it?

  Horner: It’s not like they were on the road when it happened. They were recording, or trying to, at Rory’s country place in the Cotswolds. I was helping with the equipment. The band was there, Tulip, Marco, a couple of ladies…

  Hoag: You’re saying you think someone in or close to the band murdered Puppy Johnson?

  Horner: Who else could it have been?

  Hoag: Did you tell this to the police at the time?

  Horner: Yessir, I did. And there was a thorough investigation—all quite hush-hush, so the papers wouldn’t get hold of it. But the pills were never found. No case was made against anyone. So it was ruled an accident.

  Hoag: (pause) T. S. seems to feel you’re pretty bitter about being dropped from the band. That you hated Puppy.

  Horner: I told you before, I’m not a bitter man. And I don’t appreciate you suggesting—

  Hoag: What were your responsibilities as roadie?

  Horner: I did what needed to be done.

  Hoag: Did you buy Puppy’s dope for him?

  Horner: From time to time—when they were on the road. At home they were all on their own. I wasn’t any drug dealer. I don’t know where that speed came from and that’s the truth. One minute they were playing in Rory’s studio. Next minute Pup was dead. That’s all I know.

  Hoag: T. S. and I were talking last night about the club days, before the Rough Boys caught on.

  Horner: That was wartime, that.

  Hoag: Between the different bands?

  Horner: Between T. S. and Rory. That was their way, when they were young. Arguing was how they talked. Punching was how they argued. Hot-
tempered, both of ’em. Sometimes they’d go at it right there on stage. Derek and I would just look at each other and roll our eyes … Rory, he got in a proper punch-up with Mr. Law over his work habits as a roofer, or lack of ’em. He and T. S. took a room together, near the garage where we played. Bloody awful place it was—two bare mattresses on the floor, a single suitcase between the two of ’em, cigarette butts and beer bottles everywhere. The lights and heat were coin-operated, which meant it was always freezing and dark in there. And they were always sick. Never ate. I’d go over and they’d be wrapped in blankets on the floor in the dark, coughing, Rory strumming away on his guitar. Even slept with the thing. The Rough Boys weren’t earning more than a few bob a week for the four of us. Some nights there’d only be five, six people listening to us in the clubs. I still laid bricks. Derek was a clerk at a men’s clothing store. Those two, they lived the music twenty-four hours a day. They wanted to be rock ’n’ roll stars, or die trying … The thing you should bear in mind, Mr. Hoag, is it was always T. S. and Rory’s hand. Derek and I were just along for the ride. Until … until it was just Derek along for the ride.

  Hoag: Can we talk about that?

  Horner: (pause) I suppose it goes all the way back to when we attended the Negro Blues Festival, autumn of ’63 at Fairfield Hall in Croydon. Giorgio Gomelsky, who managed Crawdaddy, pulled it together. Giorgio managed the Stones until they left him for Andrew Loog Oldham. This blues festival, it was a showcase of American blues greats—Muddy Waters, Otis Spann and the one and only Mad Dog Johnson. Mad Dog was a giant, enormously fat old geezer from Louisiana. Six feet six. Weighed twenty stone easily. And admitted to being seventy years old. They called him Mad Dog for two reasons. One was he could make the mouth harp sound just exactly like a dog growling. Two was that he was stark, staring mad. This we didn’t know yet. All we knew was he was the real thing. T. S., he got it into his head we should somehow hook up with him. Rory wasn’t mad about the idea, but he had to admit that the Rough Boys needed a push. We approached Mad Dog backstage after his performance, where we found him with his “niece,” Mabel, who was perhaps twenty and traveled with him. T. S. told him how much we dug him, and how we played the blues ourselves and would love to play with him sometime. Mad Dog just mumbled something, and then T. S. tried to shake his hand. In response, Mad Dog swatted T. S. away with the back of his hand, sent him flying against the wall. And went after him, cursing and spitting. He’d have killed T. S. if we all hadn’t pried him off. Turned out he didn’t like to shake hands. Turned out he drank twenty-four hours a day, ranted and raved and was violent. Carried a loaded gun as well. Still, T. S. was not to be denied. After he came to he asked this Mabel to get Mad Dog to Crawdaddy the next night. She did, and he got up there with us, this ancient black giant who didn’t even know where he was half the time. It was a wild gig—him drinking whiskey from the bottle, yelling out lyrics that made no sense, doing these strange things with his harp, like flickering his Adam’s apple with his fingers as he played it. But it got us noticed. Which was what T. S. was after, I think. Right off a bloke came up and said we ought to let him manage us.

  Hoag: This would be Marco Bartucci?

  Horner: No. Marco came later. This was a geezer named Eli Gushen, who said he was a cinema hall manager, and assured us he could get the Rough Boys, featuring Mad Dog Johnson, a gig in a package tour. Those were a big deal back then. They’d put one headliner together with an assortment of musical acts—some on the way up, some on the way down, some on the way nowhere—and they’d tour the cinema halls performing one-night stands. Eli got us a spot in a two-week tour of the north, opening for Jerry Lee Lewis. Twenty pounds a week for us all. So we hit the road. Spent our days in a motor coach, our nights in mining town railway hotels, living on eggs and chips, washing out our socks in the sink, all of us in one room except for Mad Dog and Mabel. “This is it, lads,” T. S. kept saying. “We’ve made it.” Christ, we were practically cleaning up after the elephants—Jerry Lee would not even say hello to us—but T. S., he was in heaven. And he worshiped Mad Dog. Pestered him constantly for stories about the old days. Nicked his expressions, like “Lord have mercy” and “Hoo, Lord.” And that quality to his voice that he became so famous for, that rough quality, it came from imitating Mad Dog … He was a bit of business, was Mad Dog. There was always this ungodly whooping and hollering coming from his room. One night he shot out his hotel room window and got all of us thrown out.

  Hoag: How did you go over musically?

  Horner: Piss poor. At least at Crawdaddy and the other clubs around London there were a few blues followers. Not in the north. Saturday nights there they wanted to drink up a lot of ale and hear “Rock Around the Clock.” We got booed for playing the blues. T. S. and Rory got into quite a row over it. The tour was basically a disaster. A rip-off as well. Eli was holding our money, see, saying we’d get it after the tour. Only we didn’t—he claimed it had all gone to cover our expenses. Turned out he was a kind of pimp who got young groups like us to fill out the bill for nothing. We got our money though. Rory and me took him out back of the bus and beat the shit out of him and emptied his wallet for him. He was only worth seven pounds, so we took his coat and his shoes and sold those. T. S. thought we should give the money to Mad Dog. His work visa was up and he had no passage home to America. So we did. Not that T. S. was entirely without reasons of his own. See, he was having it off with Mabel and wanted to give her the go.

  Hoag: Tired of her?

  Horner: Not exactly. (laughs) Mad Dog wasn’t the only member of the family who packed a gun, sir.

  (end tape)

  (Tape #1 with Derek Gregg recorded in parlor of his Georgian town house in Bedford Square, Nov. 26. Room dominated by cherry wood gun case featuring museum-grade collection of American muzzle loaders, including 1775 Maryland Committee of Safety musket with brass wrist escutcheon, A. Waters and Son 1842 smoothbore percussion musket, 1847 Sappers & Miners musketoon. Former Us bassist looks remarkably like he did twenty years before. Sandy hair still cut in moppet style. Few if any lines on face or neck. No suggestion of paunch under black silk shirt. Jeans and boots are also black. Companion is a muscular swarthy young man in matching attire. Gregg asks him to leave us. He does so, sulkily.)

  Hoag: It’s very nice of you to give me this time.

  Gregg: No problem. Anything for Mr. Cigar.

  Hoag: Lovely muskets. Do they work?

  Gregg: Of course. No point in having them if they don’t. I belong to a black powder shooting club. We frolic about the fields and streams exactly as they did a century ago. It’s great fun. Sometimes we even wear underwear.

  Hoag: I’d think ammunition would be hard to come by.

  Gregg: I have it made.

  Hoag: That you do. Own any contemporary arms?

  Gregg: No, I don’t bother to collect garbage. You like to spar, don’t you?

  Hoag: Not particularly.

  Gregg: You’re good at it.

  Hoag: Everyone ought to be good at something. I’ve been hearing about the old days, when the band was starting up.

  Gregg: The scruff days. And they were scruffs, Rory and Mr. Cigar. Their idea of a gas was to nick two air guns from a sports shop, go out to the junkyard, and let fly at the rats.

  Hoag: Hit any?

  Gregg: They did indeed. Right good shots they were. Brought their kills to school with them, so all of us could see.

  Hoag: How tasteful of them. I understand you had a bit of a reputation yourself. Something about a pregnancy.

  Gregg: Christ, he’s not putting that in, is he? The girl, her parents adopted the baby. The boy still thinks his mum’s his sister. “Boy.” There’s a laugh—he’s thirty. I’m a grandpa, believe it? I’ve always sent the family a little money. Quietly. And I’d prefer it stay quiet, for the family’s sake. You can understand, can’t you?

  Hoag: Yes, I can. However, that kind of decision isn’t mine to make. If you want something left out I suggest you take it up
with Tris. It’s his book. Speaking of which, I have something rather delicate to ask, if you don’t mind.

  Gregg: I don’t mind. I feel quite comfortable with you. It must be your eyes.

  Hoag: What about them?

  Gregg: They’re sad. I don’t trust happy people. They lie.

  Hoag: Especially to themselves.

  Gregg: You’re very perceptive.

  Hoag: I’m a helluva guy. Tris … he says you loved Rory. Is that true?

  Gregg: (pause) Members of a band develop a closeness outsiders can’t totally appreciate. We eat, sleep, bathe, and fuck in front of each other. We communicate with each other in our own language—the music. There’s a bond. And there’s love. I’m not ashamed to admit I loved Rory Law. He never fully returned it, but that never changed how I felt. Mr. Cigar threw it in my face when he learned of it. He could be cruel if he had something on someone.

  Hoag: Did you and Rory ever … ?

  Gregg: Have it off? Once, back in the crazy days. Chateau Marmont Hotel in Hollywood, ’68 maybe, during one of those stoned-out after-concert orgy shows—the band and eight or ten groupies in a variety of configurations. Sexual experimentation was a vital part of the scene back then. Part of the adventure. Rory and me, we found ourselves together that night, and he looked at me and I looked at him and … he enjoyed it. He did. Though later he denied that, which hurt me. Is my gayness to be a part of this book?

  Hoag: How would you feel about it?

  Gregg: I’d absolutely love it. It’ll be a gas, won’t it?

  Hoag: It’ll open some eyes. How did it feel to be gay and yet be a sex symbol to millions of teenage girls?

  Gregg: It was merely one part of a much larger illusion. We were never who the record company said we were. They made us up, like they did the old-time Hollywood movie stars. Christ, a lot of people still didn’t know until he died of AIDS that Rock Hudson was gay. His studio had even married him off … Of course, early on, I was not a practicing homosexual. It simply wasn’t done—at least, not among the working class. (laughs) I had my share of birds, and plenty of laughs. For a while. It just wasn’t me, y’know? It was … it became very hard for me later on, traveling with Rory, wanting to make him happy, and seeing him destroy himself on drugs and stupid, greedy women. No woman ever made Rory happy, from when we were lads until the day he died.