Naked, Stoned, and Stabbed

by Bradley Denton

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  Our third night at the Bowery Ballroom, Liam punched me in the gut. But I was happy to let him do it, for the sake of the gig. Besides, I hoped it might take my mind off a few things.

  Such as the fact that we were in the city where my half sister lived. Who didn’t know I existed. And whom I’d sworn I would never try to meet.

  Trouble was, after three days in New York, I was finding that a tough resolution to keep. It turned out Big Sis lived just seven blocks from the Ballroom, a fact I discovered because I couldn’t stay off Google. And I reckoned if I walked in that direction, I’d do better to turn around, step into Sara D. Roosevelt Park, and alter my motivation with the cheap K2 its denizens were hawking.

  Of course, I’d already heard that some of that K2, the stuff the locals called KX or Xeno, would drive you starkers. Among other things, it was blamed for various incidents of violence, especially nat-on-joker or vice versa. But that was the sort of thing prigs said to scare you. My own experience, though limited to one party in London, told me that K2—or Spice, or KX, or whatever—was just mild synthetic pot.

  On the other hand, my gaffer in chief, Liam, warned that whatever was being sold in an NYC Jokertown park wasn’t going to be what I’d had back home. And since Liam had tried and quit more drugs in more places than I’d ever heard of, I guessed he would know.

  Besides, if I got baked, I might be even more likely to wind up at Big Sis’s apartment. And then I’d tell her who I was, which would also mean telling her that eighteen years ago, her dad had cheated on her mum with my mum. Not an auspicious icebreaker.

  Especially since Big Sis just happened to be world-famous as a fashion model, reality-TV contestant, and, hang on, what was that other thing? Oh, yes: Insanely powerful, civilization-saving ace.

  Given some of the barmy fans I’d encountered in almost two years as a Maximum R&B roadie, I reckoned someone like Big Sis would have delusional wankers claiming personal relationships almost daily. So knocking on her door and saying, “Hi, I’m yer secret baby brother,” might be problematic.

  Still, I couldn’t help thinking it might be nice to have a sister. Half or otherwise. After all, it was a safe wager I’d never see my mum again. Since, if I did, one or both of us could wind up dead. I hadn’t run off to join the circus on a whim.

  In short, I was a bit torn. The one thing I was sure of was that as long as The Who were in Manhattan, I would be arguing with myself about it. So I was ready for Liam to punch me.

  But I wasn’t ready for the Bowery Ballroom to catch fire, and I wasn’t ready to electrocute myself.

  Or to die and meet an angel.

  Or to be attacked by a psychotic mob.

  Or to be smacked to oblivion by an insanely powerful, civilization-saving ace.

  So I suppose what I’m saying is:

  Getting punched would be the easiest part of my weekend.

  * * *

  Mr. Daltrey had screamed like a fiend on Thursday and Friday nights—in December, in New York City, in a drafty venue—so by Saturday, his throat was as raw as if he’d swallowed a hedgehog. But for the 2018–19 tour, The Who are playing multi-night stands in small to medium halls, and profit margins are slim. We ain’t about to cancel a show due to minor illness. Which means the band and crew must find ways to carry on.

  For one thing, the lads might play fewer rusty-fork-and-chalkboard numbers. But even so, they always close with “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” which requires the nuclear apocalypse of all screams. And they absolutely must do it, Mr. Townshend says, because otherwise “the arse‘oles won’t leave.” By which he means the audience.

  My own favorite tune from Who’s Next happens to be “Bargain,” and I always wish they’d end with that one. Or “Pinball Wizard” from Tommy. But “Pinball Wizard” always shows up in the middle of the set, and some nights they don’t play “Bargain” at all. So Liam has told me not to bother suggesting it as a closer. “It’s always gonna be ‘Won’t Get Fooled,’” he says. “And ‘Won’t Get Fooled’ has always gotta have the ‘Eee-yaaayyyy’ so the Wholigans can end the night screamin’.”

  So on Saturday night at the Bowery Ballroom, during the recorded synthesizer break near the end of the song, while the lights and lasers were flashing, Liam and I slipped behind Mr. Entwistle’s Hiwatt bass cabinets at stage right. It was the thirteenth time we’d done it in the year and a half since I’d shown Liam what I could do.

  Liam got down on one knee. In the strobes, he looked like a bushy-bearded Buddha. Assuming Buddha had ever worn a black T-shirt emblazoned with a bull’s-eye roundel. Or if Buddha had ever flattened a bartender for calling me a “freakish little wog.”

  Now, Liam himself had once said that my spiky white-blond hair, wheatish complexion, and silver-gray eyes were an “odd mishmash.” But that didn’t mean he’d let an outsider insult one of his crew. Even if that crewmate happened to look as I do, or sometimes happened to sound more like a Yank than a Londoner. But Liam knew I couldn’t help that. I learned how to speak from my mum, who had spent much of her youth in the States. And that was no doubt where she would have stayed, modeling and having tons of fun, if I hadn’t come along.

  Which explains her resentment of me. Not that my childhood was consistently dreadful. For one thing, in addition to my odd speech patterns, Mum also gave me an appreciation for classic rock—since my naptimes were always accompanied by the Kinks, the Rolling Stones, or The Who. And after my card turned, that appreciation would help me make my getaway.

  But I would always be an odd duck, and I couldn’t get away from that. In fact, it was right after Liam’s “mishmash” comment that I’d taken to wearing round, blue-tinted spectacles. I couldn’t change my skin, my hair, or the way I spoke. But I could cover my eyes.

  Mr. Moon started the drum buildup to the “Won’t Get Fooled” climax, and Liam tapped his earplugs. “Ready, Mr. Fullerton?” he asked.

  Which I knew by reading his lips. I don’t wear earplugs myself—don’t need ’em—but I still can’t hear shite over those Moonie drums.

  I made sure my old gray jacket was open, so I’d get the full impact, then gave Liam a nod as he drew back his fist. I looked toward the front of house, adjusted my specs, and tilted my head up. I stared over the speaker cabinets and took careful aim at a dark point out at the center of the Ballroom’s high ceiling, midway between the balconies on either side. The place was packed with five hundred strobe-lit Wholigans on the floor, jumping and jostling, plus another hundred at tables on the balconies … and I didn’t want to bash any heads together. The audience was a diverse mix of nats and jokers, all of whom seemed to be having a fine time. But that might not hold steady if I knocked them into each other.

  When Mr.
Townshend’s big guitar chord slammed down and Liam’s fist connected with my belly, just below my own T-shirt’s bull’s-eye, it was perfect. Mr. Daltrey mimed my scream with precision, and the noise bounced off the ceiling, shook the Hiwatt cabinets, rattled the lights, rang through the cymbals, and roared from the walls. The whole joint was shakin’ all over. But nothing collapsed or burst, and Liam remained on one knee in front of me instead of being swatted away like a tennis ball. Best of all, it sounded like Mr. Daltrey on a good night, if a bit louder. The Wholigans cheered.

  Liam was grinning as he stood up. And my headache, though immediate, wasn’t terrible. I could walk it off. This had been one of our best “Won’t Get Fooled Again” saves. And no one in the audience would guess that the scream what had ripped their knickers had come from an unamplified roadie.

  But as the lads hit the “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss” bit, a blazing yellow flash washed out the stage lights, and a tremendous ka-wham overwhelmed the music. It was even louder than my scream.

  Then the amps and PA went dead, Mr. Moon dropped his sticks, and the only sound was a sudden cacophony from the audience.

  Liam’s grin vanished. He peered out between the Hiwatts.

  So did I. That was when I saw the flames at the foot of the stage, between the band and the audience.

  The cacophony turned to shrieks.

  Then came a second yellow flash and another ka-wham. This time I was blinded. I heard the shrieks become panicked as the audience stomped the floor and slammed into each other.

  It was the beginning of a stampede.

  “Bloody Jeezus!” Liam bellowed. “I told that Russian bloke ‘No pyros, and no smoke!’ I don’t think the sod was even allowed to be in here. I see him again, I’m gonna tear off ’is arms!” He slapped my shoulder, but not so hard that it triggered a shout. “Right, Freddie! We’ll bugger off out back. Arnie and I will get the lads, and you and Bruce grab amp heads. Two apiece if you can, but move fast!”

  “And take ’em where?” I asked. We’d planned to load out to a hired lorry in the morning, and it wasn’t there yet.

  “Carry ’em up to the hotel!” The band and crew were all staying at the Public Hotel a few blocks up Chrystie Street. “But stay out o’ the park, or them dossers’ll take ’em. Leave the drums and cabinets, and we’ll get ’em tomorrow. If they don’t burn!”

  My vision was starting to clear. I caught a glimpse of Mr. Entwistle calmly unplugging his bass. Beyond him, below the lip of the stage, the flames were licking higher. I didn’t know what had exploded down there, or what was fueling the flames, but the fire was spreading. The stage monitors in front of Mr. Daltrey and Mr. Townshend were alight, and the heavy curtains at stage left were starting to catch. And there was smoke. The mingled chemical stinks of burning cloth, plastic, electrical wiring, and God knew what else filled the air.

  Out on the floor, illuminated by flames and by bobbing cell phones, hundreds of flickering Wholigans were shoving, shrieking, and falling. They were all trying to get to the lobby doors at the far end of the house. But those doors were closed, and dozens of shadow-people had already clustered there, shoving outward. No one was escaping. And the fire was spreading.

  I grabbed Liam’s arm. “We can get some of the audience out with us!” I had spotted a gap below our side of the stage where there were no flames, and where people might be able to climb up.

  Liam’s scowl was tinged with something frantic. “No way to tell ’em!” He had to shout so I could hear him over the screams. “The PA’s knackered!”

  He was right. I could see Mr. Townshend, his face glowing with weird orange light, trying to yell to the audience through his mic as he waved his red Strat over his head. But there was no sound except the noise from the crowd.

  “We can’t do nothin’ but look after our own!” Liam yelled. “That smoke reeks, and Mister D is gonna asphyxiate! So snag a couple o’ bass heads, and come on!”

  He pulled away and ran around the Hiwatts to the front of the stage. I watched him grab both Mr. Entwistle and Mr. Townshend, who held on to their instruments as Liam dragged them back to the stage door that led to the green room and rear exit. Our crewmates, Ginger Arnie and Bald Bruce, came onstage from that door just then, and I saw Liam bellowing orders. Arnie collected Mr. Daltrey and Mr. Moon, who was wandering around behind the drum kit, and he got them out while Bruce yanked the speaker cables and power cords from Mr. Townshend’s two amp heads and carried them out as well.

  That left me onstage alone, behind the bass cabinets, unplugging speaker cables from Mr. Entwistle’s three big Hiwatt heads. The vacuum tubes inside the top head glowed the same yellow-orange as the flames below the stage. The grille that had once covered the back of the chassis was long gone, so those tubes shone as bright and hot as tiny furnaces.

  The amp was still getting juice. And it was one of Mr. Entwistle’s vintage units from the 1970s, so the power cord was hardwired. I couldn’t just yank out the cord, grab the head, and take off. I had to disconnect it at the mains.

  The cord snaked down to a block of outlets bolted to the floor at stage right, and I scurried over to unplug it. But as I bent down, I heard crashing noises and still more screams. I looked out through the flames and smoke and saw people, nats and jokers alike, jumping from the balconies. Their chairs and tables were going over, too. So everyone below, already panicking, was now being hit from above. Some Wholigans were falling to the floor, and others were collapsing on top of them.

  It looked as if one of the doors to the lobby had been torn from its hinges. But it was still nothing but colliding shadows back there. So the main doors to Delancey Street were still closed, and no one was making it out of the building.

  For a few seconds, I froze with my hand on the plug of the power cord.

  All I could think was that everyone who had come to see The Who that night was going to die. All those people. All those Wholigans.

  And I remember what I did next. But I don’t remember deciding to do it.

  So I guess I didn’t consider how much it was going to hurt.

  * * *

  I left the power cord plugged in and jumped back behind the Hiwatts. Then I made sure I had a line of sight to the western wall of the main floor, beyond the far edge of stage right. There was still a gap there with no flames. The wall was about thirty feet from me, and I hoped that was close enough. Luckily, no one was in my way because the entire audience was clustered at the other end of the house.

  I reached into the amp head. Just to the left of the little glowing furnaces, I found the metal cover over the filter capacitors. It came free with a tug. Ginger Arnie, our lead amplifier tech, has to work on the guts of Mr. Entwistle’s amps almost every other gig, so he always leaves the screws loose.

  After flinging the cover away, I reached back inside with both hands and grabbed the exposed capacitors. There were five of them, and I tried to squeeze them all into my fists. Then I yanked.

  Filter capacitors look like small sticks of dynamite. I wasn’t looking at them just then, though, because I had to face that western wall. But I knew I had them. Arnie had pointed them out many times.

  “Now, these little thugs,” he’d said. “You lay a finger on these ’fore you bleed off the charge, and they’ll kick yer bollocks up through yer skull.”

  Which was his way of saying filter caps carry tremendous voltages. Sometimes they’ll even hold those charges for hours after the amp has been switched off.

  When it’s switched on, though, there’s no debate. Grab ’em, and you’re dead.

  Or most of you are.

  I levitated. It was as if I were suspended in air on a skewer of lightning. Every cell in my body burst into a fireball.

  Even so, I stayed on target, although the shrieks of my various internal organs kept me from hearing the actual noise of my shout.

  But I saw the result.

  A rough oval section of wall, eight feet wide by ten feet high, blew out as if
punched by a gigantic fist.

  And at that, I collapsed to the stage with my muscles convulsing and my head being crushed by a pneumatic press.

  It was bad. Almost as bad as the day my card had turned, the day my mum had lost her mind and slapped the shite out of me. The day I had tried to suppress my first big shout—thus saving Mum’s life, but sending myself to hospital.

  I had been all right with that. And I was all right with this, too.

  The shock wave had knocked over the Hiwatt cabinets, so I still had a clear view to the hole I had made. It was a pretty thing, having been blasted through the shared wall into the building next door. That building appeared to house a showroom for commercial kitchen equipment. The lights were on in there, and as the brick and concrete dust settled, I saw gleaming pots and pans scattered on the floor where they’d been blasted from their shelves. The brightness stung my eyes, because my tinted specs had been knocked askew.

  Then I saw some of the Wholigans come back toward the stage and begin to make their way out through the hole. There were just a few at first, but then ten, fifteen, thirty. One bloke who looked like he might be almost seventeen—my age—a dark-haired kid wearing Buddy Holly glasses and a kilt, took it upon himself to pull two limp fans through the hole. Then he pushed his way back to help two more. He moved so smoothly and so fast that he looked as if he must have been skating on air.

  You can always count on a floating Scotsman, I thought.

  Then I saw that his legs ended in wheels, joined by some sort of cartilaginous axle.

  So I guessed my mind was not cogent. In fact, I reckoned I was in rotten shape overall. But I managed to turn my head enough to look out at the main floor. I wanted to see the entire audience find their way out through my new door.

  But only those closest to the stage had seen what I’d done. Everyone else must have assumed the noise was another explosion. Now most of them were even more panicked than before, and they kept surging toward an escape that wasn’t there.