Pat raised his shades and smiled.
“I think we’re playing tomorrow night, actually!”
“Eek! Fabbo! I can’t wait!” squealed his “biggest fan,” which she assured him now she was.
The sad truth being that Pat was not playing tomorrow night or any other night, come to that, and would, in fact, be found dragging out a zinc bucket from underneath the stairs to wash down the dirty old stairs for his mother. Whose bulky shadow was never far away as she tapped him on the shoulder and “reassuringly” remarked, “There’s a good fella. Do you think you could give the windows a rub when you’re finished?”
Throughout those long evenings, when his mother would go “Ho!” and he would go “Hum!” it seemed to Pat that all the color that had ever existed had literally been drained away and all that now remained was a world the color of stone.
“Do you think it’s going to rain?” his mother would say, as he replied, “I don’t know, Mammy.”
“I think it is,” she would say, another page of her book, as though with great effort, being turned, “I think it is.”
If Pat McNab looked put upon and weary, at times indeed about to cry, it was because he knew that within minutes of his home existed a world of flashing lights and neon tubes where guitars would squeal and fingers click till dawn. Deep in his heart, of course, he knew that where he truly belonged was in that sucked universe of miserable gray, a place of perennial rain and sighs. The carnival swirl of possibility was not intended for the likes of him. He knew that. Why, of course he did! Hadn’t his mother told him often enough?
“Look at you!” she’d said. “Wanting this! Wanting that! You’ll take what you get! And be glad to have it!”
But Pat wasn’t glad to have it. He wanted to open those curtains and admit strobe lights so strong that there was a danger they might blind you right there and then on the spot! And the more he denied it to himself the more he craved it until it became as a drug he longed to have coursing wildly through his veins.
It was on a Saturday afternoon in the middle of that long hot summer (throughout which the temperature had rarely dropped beneath eighty-five degrees) that Pat found himself sitting in the Genoa Café when Scott and some of his friends entered. They considered Pat for a while (he was attired in his customary black suit coat and his gray frieze trousers) before Scott, staring at his nails (they were beautifully manicured), locked his thumb in his hipster pocket and then, smiling, said, “So—what type of music do you like, Pat?”
Pat’s cheeks flushed a deep red.
“I like pop,” he stammered, “and rock and roll.”
Scott smiled with a hint of tolerance.
“I know, Pat,” he went on, “we all like pop and rock and roll. But, like, man—who? Who do you dig, you know?”
Pat gulped.
“Dig?” he replied, the flesh of his cheeks feeling extremely burned and soft.
Scott’s hands were outspread. His companions chortled a litde.
“Yeah!” he said. “Like who in your head is the mostest?”
Pat perceived his eyebrows elevating.
“Mostest?” he said.
“Yeah! Like, hit me!” went on Scott, clicking his fingers.
There was a long pause and then Pat replied, “I like the ones on the jukebox.”
Scott covered his mouth with his candy-striped sleeve. There was an eager light in his eyes as he leaned forward.
“The what? What did you say?”
Pat swallowed.
“I really don’t know their names. The jukebox ones!”
Scott tossed back his head and clicked the fingers of both hands loudly.
“Hey, guys,” he cried, putting his arms around the shoulders of his companions, “can you dig what’s happening? He doesn’t know, like! Hey! What about the Walker Brothers! Manfred Mann! The Beatles, man! Surely you’ve heard of the Beades! Help me if you can I’m feeling down! Oo-ee! Yeah! You’ve heard of them, Pat—haven’t you? John, Paul, George, and Ringo?”
There are no words to describe the depth of Pat’s humiliation as he crossed his thumbs in the comforting dark beneath the vinegar-stained Formica.
“Yes. Yes I have,” he croaked.
“Sure you have!” cried Scott Buglass, slapping him on the back. “We drive around with them in London. John Lennon—why he’s our best mate, actually. Right, guys?”
It was clear—even to Pat, in his confused state—that this came as something of a surprise to Scott’s colleagues, but nonetheless they succeeding in rising to the occasion with enthusiastic cries of, ‘Yeah!” and “Right on!” and “Wot a geezer!”
“Tell you what, Pat,” continued Scott, “you stick with us. You stick with us and we’ll set you straight, if you know what I’m saying. You want it, we got it, all you got to do is ask. You like the Stones, Pat? Here …”
Despite himself, and the deep-rooted instincts within him, Pat became aware of a huge feeling of warmth consuming him as Scott pinned an “I Love the Stones” badge on his lapel. Mick Jagger was wearing black-and-white-striped trousers on it.
They left Pat in a daze, fingering his badge, waving to him as they wiggled their hips and strode off down the main street of Gullytown.
The following day, Pat was doing some shopping for his mother when to his surprise he heard Scott’s voice calling to him from across the street. He was sitting on the wall with his friends. “Hey Pat, man! Choogle on over, yeah?” he cried. It was perhaps the proudest day of Pat’s life as he sat there with them on the wall, now sporting Scott’s own shades. Scott, who clapped him on the back and said: “Hey, fabbo! Sing it for us again!” as Pat gathered all the air in his lungs and began: “Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood!” the Animals song which Scott had just taught him.
The following day he found himself with them, having donned a Monkees-style beanie which Scott purchased specially for him. “What do you think of this?” the dark- popster called to some passing girls. “The most, you reckon?” The girls giggled into their hands and replied, “Wow! Just about the mostest of the most, Scottie!” before literally exploding, unable any longer to restrain their laughter.
It is no exaggeration to say that those midge-ridden summer days were among the happiest of Pat’s life. And the Psychedelic Shack nights when he would “bop” in the middle of the floor, sporting his ever present “beanie,” windmilling his arms to the twanging music and the thumbs-up approval of Scott and associates, who whispered, “Wow! Like a stoned scarecrow!” To Pat’s face, declaring proudly, “Hey! Be bop a lula! It’s the Pat McNab Show!” and joining him in an untamed “Woolly Bully” dance that had them all landing in a heap beside the loudspeakers as Pat, to his dismay, found himself overhearing the words, “Let’s hear it for Pat McNab! Hepcat King of Bumpkin City!” It was the first arrow of pain to find its way into Pat’s heart that summer and, as he made his way home that night (it had begun to rain), he felt as if he had been fitted out with the lead-reinforced boots of some deep-sea diver. It was the first indication (although, truth be told, he had harbored secret fears) that his desire to be Scott Buglass indeed had been seriously misplaced. He was soon to find out that this was indeed the truth, and that all the dreams which had sustained him throughout that time were now about to dribble away like once beautifully painted watercolors carelessly abandoned in the monsoon rains.
But what dreams they had been! What dreams they had been, as Roman candles which had burned so bright and brief! Pat grinned in the dark of his bedroom as he visualized himself in a bead-hung, all about him Toulouse Lautrec art prints, Easy Rider motorbikes, and a bronzed tennis player abstractedly scratching her left buttock, his distorted reflection shining (all twisty) from the lens of Scott’s shades as the muso looked at him and smiled. “Pat?” he said benignly. “You know the Man?”
Sleepily, Pat heard himself reply, “What—huh?”
He took the long tapered cigarette between his fingers and inhaled a soothing drag as Sco
tt began to tentatively pluck some Eastern melodies from the sitar. “I am talking about the space between us all, between you and me and he and she,” he sang tremulously.
“Scott?” Pat said, a cloud of purplish smoke gathering turbanlike above his head.
“Huh?” Scott replied without raising his head.
“You’re quare and good on the guitar!” Pat said.
At this the entire bedsit seemed ringed around with laughter. There was a soapstone Buddha squatting on the table.
“Oh, Pat! Oh, man!” wept Scott, rubbing his eyes. “You really are something else! You’re two thousand light-years from home!”
“Oh wow!” laughed Pat, clicking his fingers (he had become quite adept at it now) and sucking long and hard on the thin, drooping cigarette, the consequence of which was that the entire room now seemed bendy as a pipe-cleaner house of straws pushed rudely to one side.
“Hey, Pat?” said Scott unexpectedly as he left down his instrument. “How about you do a number for us?”
“Huh?” replied Pat, some ash falling onto the gray trousers which protruded from beneath his kaftan.
‘Yeah, sure!” cried Scott, clicking expertly. “Come on, man!”
To raucous approbation, Pat found himself in the center of the floor clutching the sitar. Initially, he hesitated, but the coaxing eyes presented him with all the encouragement he needed as out into the night now he watched his voice sailing like some exultant bird of hope.
“Yeah! Say that you’ll be true!” he sang, all the while twanging (inexpertly, perhaps) the sitar, mostly with his thumb, continuing, “You said to me! That you’d rather be free! And that then you could love me! Oo—ee! Ee—oo—ee! Really love me—ee! Oo—ee—oo—ee—ee!”
The whoops of delight and approval that followed his performance were unanimous and unrestrained. As then—coalescing as though to form a living, breathing entity of sound—glided the one they called “Astra,” a tall angel of unfathomable beauty attired in a maxilength print skirt, clutched in her hand and extended toward Pat, a tall, startlingly colorful sunflower.
“I want you to have this, Pat,” she said softly.
Her voice seemed redolent of crushed petals. Pat found his mouth going dry as he lowered his head.
“No. I couldn’t,” he responded shyly.
“No, Pat,” insisted Astra, “it’s for you.”
He felt Scott laying a tender hand on his shoulder.
“Take it, Pat,” he heard him say. “It’s a gift.”
Pat was so overwhelmed that he almost felt part of his head swooping away, never to return.
“Thank you very much,” he said.
The bloom stood in his hand, noble and perpendicular.
“It’s because you’re one of us now,” said Scott. “We’re going to travel the world together.”
Pat gulped.
“Travel the world together?” he gasped.
Astra nodded.
“That’s right,” she intoned softly.
In that instant, Pat found himself giddily overcome as he saw the kaleidoscopically patterned Volkswagen bus (the curly words We are the we painted on its side in intense blues and reds and purples) zooming off down some endless interstate. “That’s San Francisco up ahead!” he heard Scott say as Pat clicked and sang, “If you’re going to San Francisco! Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair! La la! Ha ha ha!”
“Cool, Pat!” Scott said. “You keep hitting that beat!”
“I love you, Pat,” said Astra, to which Pat ecstatically responded, “Whee—hoo!” as the bus pulled into a canyon where it was their intention to spend the night. Sitting around a campfire as Scott strummed the sitar, Astra looking into Pat’s eyes as she softly whispered the words, “Tomorrow we oughta make it to Sausalito,” fingers of campfire light playing rhythmically on her face. To which Pat—coming back to earth as the uninspiring surroundings and the old dark house once more asserted themselves—longed to reply, “Of course we should! Why not, youse lying pack of bastards!” But never actually did, for to do so would have irrevocably destroyed his dreams.
Not that he need have worried about that—ha ha, as he said himself—for very shortly that was about to happen anyway, without the slightest assistance whatever from Pat McNab or anyone else! As events in the Genoa Café a mere two days later indicated, with Scott Buglass puffing a cigarette (an innocent Players No. 6) and wryly suggesting as he inspected his fingernails, “Tell you what! Let’s have one of the chicks make a play for him and see what happens! What about you, Nikki?” (Nikki was attired in a cheesecloth maxi, two long pigtails extending to her waist.)
“No! It isn’t fair!” inteijected Carole, turning a chip. “It isn’t—really, Scott.”
“Oh, come on,” chortled Scott, “it’s just a bit of a laugh! We’ll do it after the gig tomorrow night! What do you say, Nikki?”
Nikki flung her arms in the air and gave Carole—who shrugged—an encouraging push.
“Oh what the hell, Scott!” yelped Nikki. “It’s the sixties, I guess!”
Yeah, it was the sixties all right, Pat was often to reflect many years later. The dirty rotten miserable sixties that turned out to be the most hateful time of his life. The effing cunting hooring bastarding sixties when all the things that you ever wanted to do should have been possible but walked away from you as though each of them was but a private in some vomit-inducing army of nothingness. Not that he blamed Nikki, for he knew that in her heart she had been forced into it. Deep down he knew that and had forgiven her for it, suspecting from time to time that they might well have compelled her to proceed with the dastardly plan while under the influence of drugs.
It was quite an ordinary night in the Psychedelic Shack, with “Everybody Loves a Clown” by Gary Lewis and the Playboys jauntly playing and Nikki looking into Pat’s eyes as she slowly circled her arms about his neck. Her eyes seemed to melt like small marbles of ice. “I love you, Pat,” she said, in the most beautifully husky voice Pat had ever heard. “Let’s go to San Fran and get married. What do you say?”
“I wish I could, Nikki,” Pat replied, trembling ever so slightly, “I only wish that I could.”
“Oh, Pat,” whispered Nikki, stroking his neck with one of her nails, “you’re such a sexy man, do you know that?”
It is to Pat’s eternal credit that never once after he overheard Scott and his highly amused colleagues discussing the hilarious “setup” as they called it (they had been surreptitiously ensconced behind some chairs close by the gents’ toilets) did he blame Nikki. Never once occurring to him to do so. Indeed, the truth being that, deep in his heart, he knew who he blamed. Particularly when that very day he encountered him outside the Congo Bar, Scott clicking perkily as he winked, “Wo! Pat! Nikki got the hots for you then, has she? Nice!”
The effect on him was catastrophic, however—Pat, that is, for in the days that followed sleep became a thing of the past and it might be an accurate enough description to say that he resembled at this time an extremely tightly wound spring or crackling, perambulating time bomb. A state which only his mother was capable of understanding, especially now that she had become aware (Pat having sobbed his heart out to her one particularly bleak evening) of the events which had led up to it. “Yes!” she repeated, as Pat paced—almost ran around, in fact!—the floor of the kitchen. “He thinks I want to wear his glasses! I never wanted to wear his stupid old glasses! I didn’t, did I, Mammy? I only pretended to! I’d see them sitting on the wall and I’d think—I want to be him! But it was only pretending! It was only pretending, Mammy!”
His mother shook her head and poked something out of the inside of her furry slipper.
“God, but weren’t you the right eejit all the same,” she said. “You’re an even bigger eejit than I took you for.” Her voice fizzed with disdain.
“Me thinking I could go off around the world in a colored bus! And me only auld Pat McNab! Imagine Pat McNab doing that, Mammy! Doesn’t it just show you!”
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His mother nodded and her lips went quite thin.
“It does,” she replied. “It shows you the kind of gobalooka I reared! Letting himself be led up the garden path by every drug addict and Antichrist that comes about the place.”
“Oh now, Ma! And them laughing at me the whole time!”
“Oh, they’d laugh. They’d laugh at you all right!”
“Aye—laughing at me all along! Saying, ‘This McNab—what an eejit!’ God, when I think of what I let them away with I can hardly believe how big an eejit I am myself!”
“You’re an eejit, are you? You’re no eejit. No son of Maimie McNab should ever call or let himself be called the like of that!”
“What, Ma?” Pat choked.
His mother stopped by the radio. Her voice was hoarse now, and tense.
“I said—you’re no eejit. We’ll soon see who’s the eejit.”
Pat’s eyes lit up and his voice seemed to leapfrog into life.
“That’s right, Ma!” he cried. “It’s him’s the eejit! Buglass! Thinking he could cod me with Nikki! Sure I knew well what she was up to!”
Mrs. McNab’s face was suffused with a troubling grayness.
“It’s him’s the eejit! For only an eejit would risk making a cod of the McNabs!”
Pat nodded vigorously and laced his fingers tightly.
“That’s right, Ma!” he cried. “Only an eejit would do it. An eejit from England into the bargain!”
‘Yes,” replied his mother, “an eejit who’ll have the best going-away party ever! Isn’t that right, Pat?”
Pat had never before smiled so broadly.
“That’s right, Ma!” he retorted excitedly. “He’s going away on Monday!”
His mother’s expression was impassive. She looked at the clothes pegs in her pocket and replied in a monotone, Yes, Pat. I knew that.”
Outside a car drove past on the road and someone whistled far away off in the town. Ironically, and with eerie prescience, the melody from the TV series Kidnapped.
“Why Pat, that’s fantastic!” ejaculated Scott when Pat told him the news. “Thanks a lot, mate! You’re a real pal!”
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