The Kirk Niagara Experience (Short Story)
07th October 2012
In: Short Stories
If it had been hot in the cramped dressing room it was even hotter on stage. Kirk wiped damp palms down the sides of his jeans and began tuning up. The acoustics weren't bad, his bass notes throbbed, loud and raunchy, as he struck a few random cords then adjusted nearby speakers to cut out a suggestion of feedback.
Doors banged. His stomach fluttered. Beyond the fire curtain their audience advanced like an incoming tide, crashing into their seats, hollow voices rising and falling, pounding the air with aggressive waves of sound. He hoped the front row wasn't too near the stage.
Georgio had dressed, or perhaps undressed, to suit the prevailing climatic conditions. His green silk boxer shorts, whether by accident or design, exactly matched the emerald trim on his drum kit. With his broad, sunbed-bronzed chest squeezed into the fashion equivalent of a black string vest, the ensemble was made complete by a large, luminous, plastic fish dangling from his left ear. He tapped the gleaming cymbals, executed a couple of subdued,
experimental drum rolls, then leaned back casually swigging from a can of lager, rather as a prima donna might gargle before a performance, while the others got ready. Georgio Stiletto, self-styled Corsican (real name Malcolm Pratt, born in Bolton) with fictional Maffia connections and a pseudo-latin temperament imitated from archetypal gangster movies.
Their lead guitar, Rocky Sanchez, sauntered into position. In black, fringed leather from head to foot, his chunky rather than hunky figure was reminiscent of a bulging, rather badly frayed wallet. He could play though. He'd memorized whole Eric Clapton albums. OK, he tended to fudge a few notes here and there, his chubby fingers blurred the chords on occasion, but it hardly noticed really. And he purposely hadn't shaved tonight, cultivating his macho, if patchy, designer stubble and sneaking out the house, stage gear hidden in his football holdall, before his mother could haul him back for questioning. Past 30, unfledged and unfulfilled, all his fantasies revolved around his neon-blue electric guitar and blonde rock-siren Trixibelle Tahiti, lead singer and occasional keyboards.
With only four minutes to go before curtain-up, Sam Casablanca (Casa to the other members of the group) made his appearance. He was cool. He wore a vivid yellow t-shirt with the words Play It Again, Sam emblazoned front and back, in vermilion script. He grinned round at the others. Plugged in and struck a pose. He dragged the plectrum across the strings deliberately. Once, paused, then again. The unseen audience shouted. Encouraged, Sam did a brief, frenzied Hendrix impression, letting out a whoop as the curtain slowly began to rise and they plunged, unevenly, into their first number.
By the third chorus they had warmed up and were almost together. Except for Georgio, whose bass drum remained half a beat behind everyone else but compensated with an extravagant display of juggling with his sticks. As a finale he tossed them into the second row of the audience and drew out a spare pair that had been tucked down the side of his lurex socks. Where a mob hit man might have secreted a knife, Georgio kept a spare set of sticks. He's just that sort of guy.
During the intro of the next song, Trixibelle bounced out of the wings and across to the keyboards. There were loud whistles of appreciation. Trixibelle was packaged in a way that makes Madonna look both flat-chested and a virgin. Laced into a scarlet satin basque with cups that resembled ice cream cones, she pranced and pouted, her voice husky, suspenders glinting above thigh-high black suede boots.
Kirk watched Rocky watching her. He'd never seen a guy so besotted. Fooled by the stage image, lured by the cheap glamour. Trixi was plain Denise Blackwell by day. Without the wig, make-up, clothes and strategic padding, she was easy to miss in a crowd. A clerk-typist who worked for the Gas Board, transformed into a flamboyant, provocative, slightly ridiculous caricature of the star she no doubt dreams of being.
I'm getting past it, Kirk thought. God, it was hot in this place. No air-conditioning. A couple of antiquated electric fans did their best to blow a current of cool air across the stage but Kirk couldn't feel the benefit from where he stood. His shirt stuck to him. His hand slipped wetly on the neck of the guitar and he had difficulty changing key. Then he forgot the words. He quickly improvised an unscheduled guitar solo which threw the others into confusion. Trixi scowled at him, mouthing what the devil did he think he was doing, or words to that effect. He grinned round at Georgio. Georgio grinned back, oblivious, and continued drumming. He would probably have pursued the same unvarying rhythm even if they had launched off into Land of Hope and Glory.
Kirk stared out into the audience. There were between two and three hundred or so, he guessed. Mostly standing, crushed at the foot of the stage, they swayed, hypnotically, in vague response to the music. All kids, none of them much over eighteen. Christ, he felt old. How many, he wondered, had come to see them rather than the second half of the bill - Orange Octopus, or whatever they were called. Not many. That was a safe bet.
Meanwhile, Trixi was stompin' her way through a version of You're so Vain when artificial smoke began rolling round their feet. Someone had released the cannisters early. Abruptly they wound up the number and broke into Smoke on the Water as, behind them, projected lighting effects transformed the entire backdrop into an impressive moving waterfall. The front spotlights cut out, throwing their figures into silhouette. Georgio's fish gleamed, Rocky's guitar glittered - a blue, floating triangle bobbing like a sail on a dark lake - as they thundered out the lyrics, bringing the song to a rousing climax that shook the old building to its foundations.
A deafening wave of applause washed forward followed by a screaming crush of kids who scrambled up on the stage. We're being mobbed, marvelled Kirk. After all these years he at last knew what it felt like. He grinned like an idiot at all the kids pressed round him. Then keeled over in a dead faint.
***
He came round back in the dressing room, the rest of the group
hovering like anxious aunts. Rocky handed him a glass of water. He swallowed some, coughed a bit and sat up. "Jeeze, what a gig!" They laughed, relieved.
"You OK now Kirk?"
"Yeah, it was just the heat out there. But did we do the business or what!"
"We sure did " Rocky beamed. "It was mega. Wasn't Trix just great?"
"Brill" Kirk agreed, "everyone was."
There was a tap on the door. "Come in" they chorused, expecting the
press or maybe a talent scout.
A gang of youngsters stood in the doorway, programmes in hand. A
very young doe-eyed girl approached Kirk. "Can I have your autograph?"
He smiled and took the pen. "What's your name, honey?"
"Wendy."
"To Wendy," he wrote,"who shared in the experience." And signed it
Kirk Niagara with a flourish.
"You're great" she said, planting a clumsy kiss on his cheek.
Kirk caught sight of his profile in the mirror, ran a hand through his
thick, spikey hair and, at that moment, was inclined to agree with her.
Doors banged. His stomach fluttered. Beyond the fire curtain their audience advanced like an incoming tide, crashing into their seats, hollow voices rising and falling, pounding the air with aggressive waves of sound. He hoped the front row wasn't too near the stage.
Georgio had dressed, or perhaps undressed, to suit the prevailing climatic conditions. His green silk boxer shorts, whether by accident or design, exactly matched the emerald trim on his drum kit. With his broad, sunbed-bronzed chest squeezed into the fashion equivalent of a black string vest, the ensemble was made complete by a large, luminous, plastic fish dangling from his left ear. He tapped the gleaming cymbals, executed a couple of subdued,
experimental drum rolls, then leaned back casually swigging from a can of lager, rather as a prima donna might gargle before a performance, while the others got ready. Georgio Stiletto, self-styled Corsican (real name Malcolm Pratt, born in Bolton) with fictional Maffia connections and a pseudo-latin temperament imitated from archetypal gangster movies.
Their lead guitar, Rocky Sanchez, sauntered into position. In black, fringed leather from head to foot, his chunky rather than hunky figure was reminiscent of a bulging, rather badly frayed wallet. He could play though. He'd memorized whole Eric Clapton albums. OK, he tended to fudge a few notes here and there, his chubby fingers blurred the chords on occasion, but it hardly noticed really. And he purposely hadn't shaved tonight, cultivating his macho, if patchy, designer stubble and sneaking out the house, stage gear hidden in his football holdall, before his mother could haul him back for questioning. Past 30, unfledged and unfulfilled, all his fantasies revolved around his neon-blue electric guitar and blonde rock-siren Trixibelle Tahiti, lead singer and occasional keyboards.
With only four minutes to go before curtain-up, Sam Casablanca (Casa to the other members of the group) made his appearance. He was cool. He wore a vivid yellow t-shirt with the words Play It Again, Sam emblazoned front and back, in vermilion script. He grinned round at the others. Plugged in and struck a pose. He dragged the plectrum across the strings deliberately. Once, paused, then again. The unseen audience shouted. Encouraged, Sam did a brief, frenzied Hendrix impression, letting out a whoop as the curtain slowly began to rise and they plunged, unevenly, into their first number.
By the third chorus they had warmed up and were almost together. Except for Georgio, whose bass drum remained half a beat behind everyone else but compensated with an extravagant display of juggling with his sticks. As a finale he tossed them into the second row of the audience and drew out a spare pair that had been tucked down the side of his lurex socks. Where a mob hit man might have secreted a knife, Georgio kept a spare set of sticks. He's just that sort of guy.
During the intro of the next song, Trixibelle bounced out of the wings and across to the keyboards. There were loud whistles of appreciation. Trixibelle was packaged in a way that makes Madonna look both flat-chested and a virgin. Laced into a scarlet satin basque with cups that resembled ice cream cones, she pranced and pouted, her voice husky, suspenders glinting above thigh-high black suede boots.
Kirk watched Rocky watching her. He'd never seen a guy so besotted. Fooled by the stage image, lured by the cheap glamour. Trixi was plain Denise Blackwell by day. Without the wig, make-up, clothes and strategic padding, she was easy to miss in a crowd. A clerk-typist who worked for the Gas Board, transformed into a flamboyant, provocative, slightly ridiculous caricature of the star she no doubt dreams of being.
I'm getting past it, Kirk thought. God, it was hot in this place. No air-conditioning. A couple of antiquated electric fans did their best to blow a current of cool air across the stage but Kirk couldn't feel the benefit from where he stood. His shirt stuck to him. His hand slipped wetly on the neck of the guitar and he had difficulty changing key. Then he forgot the words. He quickly improvised an unscheduled guitar solo which threw the others into confusion. Trixi scowled at him, mouthing what the devil did he think he was doing, or words to that effect. He grinned round at Georgio. Georgio grinned back, oblivious, and continued drumming. He would probably have pursued the same unvarying rhythm even if they had launched off into Land of Hope and Glory.
Kirk stared out into the audience. There were between two and three hundred or so, he guessed. Mostly standing, crushed at the foot of the stage, they swayed, hypnotically, in vague response to the music. All kids, none of them much over eighteen. Christ, he felt old. How many, he wondered, had come to see them rather than the second half of the bill - Orange Octopus, or whatever they were called. Not many. That was a safe bet.
Meanwhile, Trixi was stompin' her way through a version of You're so Vain when artificial smoke began rolling round their feet. Someone had released the cannisters early. Abruptly they wound up the number and broke into Smoke on the Water as, behind them, projected lighting effects transformed the entire backdrop into an impressive moving waterfall. The front spotlights cut out, throwing their figures into silhouette. Georgio's fish gleamed, Rocky's guitar glittered - a blue, floating triangle bobbing like a sail on a dark lake - as they thundered out the lyrics, bringing the song to a rousing climax that shook the old building to its foundations.
A deafening wave of applause washed forward followed by a screaming crush of kids who scrambled up on the stage. We're being mobbed, marvelled Kirk. After all these years he at last knew what it felt like. He grinned like an idiot at all the kids pressed round him. Then keeled over in a dead faint.
***
He came round back in the dressing room, the rest of the group
hovering like anxious aunts. Rocky handed him a glass of water. He swallowed some, coughed a bit and sat up. "Jeeze, what a gig!" They laughed, relieved.
"You OK now Kirk?"
"Yeah, it was just the heat out there. But did we do the business or what!"
"We sure did " Rocky beamed. "It was mega. Wasn't Trix just great?"
"Brill" Kirk agreed, "everyone was."
There was a tap on the door. "Come in" they chorused, expecting the
press or maybe a talent scout.
A gang of youngsters stood in the doorway, programmes in hand. A
very young doe-eyed girl approached Kirk. "Can I have your autograph?"
He smiled and took the pen. "What's your name, honey?"
"Wendy."
"To Wendy," he wrote,"who shared in the experience." And signed it
Kirk Niagara with a flourish.
"You're great" she said, planting a clumsy kiss on his cheek.
Kirk caught sight of his profile in the mirror, ran a hand through his
thick, spikey hair and, at that moment, was inclined to agree with her.