The Best of Michael Moorcock Page 4

  “Yeah?”

  “Right,” said Mo.

  “What’s in the back?” Chris turned to look at the door. “Gear?”

  “You could say that.”

  “I’ve been hitching for three days, night and day,” said Chris. He had an oil-and weather-stained khaki pack on his lap.

  “D’you mind if I get some kip sometime?”

  “No,” said Mo. There was a service station ahead. He decided to pull in and fill the Merc up. By the time he got to the pumps Chris was asleep.

  As he waited to get back into the traffic, Mo crammed his mouth full of pills. Some of them fell from his hand onto the floor. He didn’t bother to pick them up. He was feeling bleak.

  Chris woke when they were going through Glasgow.

  “Is this Glasgow?”

  Mo nodded. He couldn’t keep the paranoia down. He glared at the cars ahead as they moved slowly through the streets. Every window of every shop had a big steel mesh grille on it. The pubs were like bunkers. He was really pissed off without knowing why.

  “Where you going yourself?” Chris asked.

  “Fort William?”

  “Lucky for me. Know where I can score any grass in Fort William?”

  Mo reached forward and pushed a tobacco tin along the edge towards the hitch-hiker. “You can have that.”

  Chris took the tin and opened it. “Far out! You mean it? And the skins?”

  “Sure,” said Mo. He hated Chris, he hated everybody. He knew the mood would pass.

  “Oh, wow! Thanks, man.” Chris put the tin in his pack.

  “I’ll roll one when we’re out of the city, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Who are you working for now?” said Chris. “A band?”

  “No.”

  “You on holiday?”

  The kid was too speedy. Probably it was just his lack of sleep. “Sort of,” he said.

  “Me, too. Well, it started like that. I’m at university. Exeter. Or was. I decided to drop out. I’m not going back to that shit heap. One term was enough for me. I thought of heading for the Hebrides. Someone I know’s living in a commune out there, on one of the islands. They got their own sheep, goats, a cow. Nobody getting off on them. You know. Really free. It seems okay to me.”

  Mo nodded.

  Chris pushed back his black, greasy hair. “I mean compare something like that with a place like this. How do people stand it, man? Fucking hell.”

  Mo didn’t answer. He moved forward, changing gear as the lights changed.

  “Amazing,” said Chris. He saw the case of cartridges at his feet. “Can I play some music?”

  “Go ahead,” said Mo.

  Chris picked out an old album, Who’s Next. He tried to slide it into the slot the wrong way round. Mo took it from his hand and put it in the right way. He felt better when the music started. He noticed, out of the corner of his eye, that Chris tried to talk for a while before he realised he couldn’t be heard.

  Mo let the tape play over and over again as they drove away from Glasgow. Chris rolled joints and Mo smoked a little, beginning to get on top of his paranoia. By about four in the afternoon, he was feeling better and he switched off the stereo. They were driving beside Loch Lomond. The bracken was turning brown and shone like brass where the sun touched it. Chris had fallen asleep again, but he woke up as the music stopped. “Far out.” He dug the scenery. “Fucking far out.” He wound his window down. “This is the first time I’ve been to Scotland.”

  “Yeah?” said Mo.

  “How long before we reach Fort William, man?”

  “A few hours. Why are you heading for Fort William?”

  “I met this chick. She comes from there. Her old man’s a chemist or something.”

  Mo said softly, on impulse: “Guess who I’ve got in the back.”

  “A chick?”

  “No.”

  “Who?”

  “Jimi Hendrix.”

  Chris’s jaw dropped. He looked at Mo and snorted, willing to join in the joke. “No? Really? Hendrix, eh? What is it, a refrigerated truck?” He was excited by the fantasy. “You think if we thaw him out he’ll play something for us?” He shook his head, grinning.

  “He is sitting in the back there. Alive. I’m roading for him.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fantastic.” Chris was half-convinced. Mo laughed. Chris looked at the door. After that, he was silent for a while.

  Something like a half an hour later, he said: “Hendrix was the best, you know. He was the king, man. Not just the music, but the style, too. Everything. I couldn’t believe it when I heard he died. I still can’t believe it, you know.”

  “Sure,” said Mo. “Well, he’s back.”

  “Yeah?” Again Chris laughed uncertainly. “In there? Can I see him?”

  “He’s not ready, yet.”

  “Sure,” said Chris.

  It was dark when they reached Fort William. Chris staggered down from the truck. “Thanks, man. That’s really nice, you know. Where are you staying?”

  “I’m moving on,” said Mo. “See you.”

  “Yeah. See you.” Chris still had that baffled look on his face.

  Mo smiled to himself as he started the camper, heading for Oban. Once they were moving the door opened and Jimi clambered over the seats to sit beside him.

  “You told that kid about me?”

  “He didn’t believe me,” said Mo.

  Jimi shrugged.

  It began to rain again.

  5

  They lay together in the damp heather looking out over the hills. There was nobody for miles; no roads, towns or houses. The air was still and empty save for a hawk drifting so high above them it was almost out of sight.

  “This’ll do, eh?” said Mo. “It’s fantastic.”

  Jimi smiled gently. “It’s nice,” he said.

  Mo took a Mars Bar from his pocket and offered it to Jimi who shook his head. Mo began to eat the Mars Bar.

  “What d’you think I am, man?” said Jimi.

  “How d’you mean?”

  “Devil or angel? You know.”

  “You’re Jimi,” said Mo. “That’s good enough for me, man.”

  “Or just a ghost,” said Jimi. “Maybe I’m just a ghost.”

  Mo began to shake. “No,” he said.

  “Or a killer?” Jimi got up and struck a pose. “The Sonic Assassin. Or the messiah, maybe.” He laughed. “You wanna hear my words of wisdom?”

  “That’s not what it’s about,” said Mo, frowning. “Words. You just have to be there, Jimi. On the stage. With your guitar. You’re above all that stuff—all the hype. Whatever you do—it’s right, you know.”

  “If you say so, Mo.” Jimi was on some kind of downer. He lowered himself to the heather and sat there cross-legged, smoothing his white jeans, picking mud off his black patent leather boots. “What is all this Easy Rider crap anyway? What are we doing here?”

  “You didn’t like Easy Rider?” Mo was astonished.

  “The best thing since Lassie Come Home.” Jimi shrugged. “All it ever proved was that Hollywood could still turn ’em out, you know. They got a couple of fake freaks and made themselves a lot of money. A rip-off, man. And the kids fell for it. What does that make me?”

  “You never ripped anybody off, Jimi.”

  “Yeah? How d’you know?”

  “Well, you never did.”

  “All that low energy shit creeping in everywhere. Things are bad.” Jimi had changed the subject, making a jump Mo couldn’t follow. “People all over the Grove playing nothing but fake ’50s crap, Simon and Garfunkel. Jesus Christ! Was it ever worth doing?”

  “Things go in waves. You can’t be up the whole time.”

  “Sure,” Jimi sneered. “This one’s for all the soldiers fighting in Chicago. And Milwaukee. And New York . . . And Vietnam. Down with War and Pollution. What was all that about?”

  “Well...” Mo swallowed the remains
of the Mars Bar. “Well—it’s important, man. I mean, all those kids getting killed.”

  “While we made fortunes. And came out with a lot of sentimental shit. That’s where we were wrong. You’re either in the social conscience business or show business. You’re just foolish if you think you can combine them like that.”

  “No, man. I mean, you can say things which people will hear.”

  “You say what your audience wants. A Frank Sinatra audience gets their shit rapped back to them by Frank Sinatra. Jimi Hendrix gives a Jimi Hendrix audience what they want to hear. Is that what I want to get back into?”

  But Mo had lost him. Mo was watching the tattoos crawl up his arms. He said vaguely: “You need different music for different moods. There’s nothing wrong with the New Riders, say, if you’re trying to get off some paranoia trip. And you get up on Hendrix. That’s what it’s like. Like uppers and downers, you know.”

  “Okay,” said Jimi. “You’re right. But it’s the other stuff that’s stupid. Why do they always want you to keep saying things? If you’re just a musician that’s all you should have to be. When you’re playing a gig, anyway, or making a record. Anything else should come out of that. If you wanna do benefits, free concerts, okay. But your opinions should be private. They want to turn us into politicians.”

  “I tol’ you,” said Mo, staring intensely at his arms. “Nobody asks that. You do what you want to do.”

  “Nobody asks it, but you always feel you got to give it to ’em.” Jimi rolled over and lay on his back, scratching his head. “Then you blame them for it.”

  “Not everyone thinks they owe anything to anyone,” said Mo mildly as his skin undulated over his flesh.

  “Maybe that’s it,” said Jimi. “Maybe that’s what kills you. Jesus Christ. Psychologically, man, you know, that means you must be in one hell of a mess. Jesus Christ. That’s suicide, man. Creepy.”

  “They killed you,” said Mo.

  “No, man. It was suicide.”

  Mo watched the world snake crawl. Could this Hendrix be an imposter?

  6

  “So what you going to do, then?” said Mo. They were on the road to Skye and running low on fuel.

  “I was a cunt to come back,” said Jimi. “I thought I had some kind of duty.”

  Mo shrugged. “Maybe you have, you know.”

  “And maybe I haven’t.”

  “Sure.” Mo saw a filling station ahead. The gauge read Empty and a red light was flashing on the panel. It always happened like that. He’d hardly ever been stranded. He glanced in the mirror and saw his own mad eyes staring back at him. Momentarily he wondered if he should turn the mirror a little to see if Jimi’s reflection was there too. He pushed the thought away. More paranoia. He had to stay on top of it.

  While the attendant was filling the truck, Mo went to the toilet. Among the more common bits of graffiti on the wall was the slogan “Hawkwind is Ace.” Maybe Jimi was right. Maybe his day was over and he should have stayed dead. Mo felt miserable. Hendrix had been his only hero. He did up his flies and the effort drained off the last of his energy. He staggered against the door and began to slide down towards the messy floor. His mouth was dry; his heart was thumping very fast. He tried to remember how many pills he’d swallowed recently. Maybe he was about to OD.

  He put his hands up to the door-handle and hauled himself to his feet. He bent over the lavatory bowl and shoved his finger down his throat. Everything was moving. The bowl was alive. A greedy mouth trying to swallow him. The walls heaved and moved in on him. He heard a whistling noise. Nothing came up. He stopped trying to vomit, turned, steadied himself as best as he could, brushed aside the little white stick-men who tried to grab at him, dragged the door open and plunged through. Outside, the attendant was putting the cap back on the tank. He wiped his big hands on a piece of rag and put the rag back into his overalls, saying something. Mo found some money in his back pocket and gave it to him. He heard a voice:

  “You okay, laddie?”

  The man had offered him a genuine look of concern.

  Mo mumbled something and clambered into the cab.

  The man ran up as Mo started the engine, waving money and green stamps.

  “What?” said Mo. He managed to wind the window down. The man’s face changed to a malevolent devil’s mask. Mo knew enough not to worry about it. “What?”

  He thought he heard the attendant say: “Your friend’s already paid.”

  “That’s right, man,” said Jimi from beside him.

  “Keep it,” said Mo. He had to get on the road quickly. Once he was driving he would be more in control of himself. He fumbled a cartridge at random from the case. He jammed it into the slot. The tape started halfway through a Stones album. Jagger singing “Let It Bleed” had a calming effect on Mo. The snakes stopped winding up and down his arms and the road ahead became steady and clearer. He’d never liked the Stones much. A load of wankers, really, though you had to admit Jagger had a style of his own which no one could copy. But basically wankers like the rest of the current evil-trippers, like Morrison and Alice Cooper. It occurred to him he was wasting his time thinking about nothing but bands, but what else was there to think about? Anyway how else could you see your life? The mystical thing didn’t mean much to him. Scientology was a load of crap. At any rate, he couldn’t see anything in it. The guys running all that stuff seemed to be more hung-up than the people they were supposed to be helping. That was true of a lot of things. Most people who told you they wanted to help you were getting off on you in some way. He’d met pretty much every kind of freak by now. Sufis, Hare Krishnas, Jesus freaks, Meditators, Processors, Divine Lighters. They could all talk better than him, but they all seemed to need more from him than they could give. You got into people when you were tripping. Acid had done a lot for him that way. He could suss out the hype-merchants so easily these days. And by that test Jimi couldn’t be a fake. Jimi was straight. Fucked up now, possibly, but okay.

  The road was long and white and then it became a big boulder. Mo couldn’t tell if the boulder was real or not. He drove at it, then changed his mind, braking sharply. A red car behind him swerved and hooted as it went past him through the boulder which disappeared. Mo shook all over. He took out the Stones tape and changed it for the Grateful Dead’s American Beauty, turned down low.

  “You okay, man?” said Hendrix.

  “Sure. Just a bit shakey.” Mo started the Merc up.

  “You want to stop and get some sleep.”

  “I’ll see how I feel later.”

  It was sunset when Jimi said: “We seem to be heading south.”

  “Yeah,” said Mo. “I need to get back to London.”

  “You got to score?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe I’ll come in with you this time.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Maybe I won’t.”

  7

  By the time Mo had hitched to the nearest tube station and reached Ladbroke Grove he was totally wasted. The images were all inside his head now: pictures of Jimi from the first time he’d seen him on TV playing “Hey, Joe” (Mo had still been at school then), pictures of Jimi playing at Woodstock, at festivals and gigs all over the country. Jimi in big, feathered hats, bizarre multicoloured shirts, several rings on each finger, playing that white Strat, flinging the guitar over his head, plucking the strings with his teeth, shoving it under his straddled legs, making it wail and moan and throb, doing more with a guitar than anyone had done before. Only Jimi could make a guitar come alive in that way, turning the machine into an organic creature, simultaneously a prick, a woman, a white horse, a sliding snake. Mo glanced at his arms, but they were still. The sun was beginning to set as he turned into Lancaster Road, driven more by a mixture of habit and momentum than any energy or sense of purpose. He had another image in his head now, of Jimi as a soul thief, taking the energy away from the audience. Instead of a martyr, Jimi became the vampire. Mo knew that the paranoia was really setting
in and the sooner he got hold of some uppers the better. He couldn’t blame Jimi for how he felt. He hadn’t slept for two days. That was all it was. Jimi had given everything to the people in the audience, including his life. How many people in the audience had died for Jimi?

  He crawled up the steps of the house in Lancaster Road and rang the third bell down. There was no answer. He was shaking badly. He held on to the concrete steps and tried to calm himself, but it got worse and he thought he was going to pass out.

  The door behind him opened.

  “Mo?”

  It was Dave’s chick, Jenny, wearing a purple brocade dress. Her hair was caked with wet henna.

  “Mo? You all right?”

  Mo swallowed, and said: “Hullo, Jenny. Where’s Dave?”

  “He went down the Mountain Grill to get something to eat. About half an hour ago. Are you all right, Mo?”

  “Tired. Dave got any uppers?”

  “He had a lot of mandies in.”

  Mo accepted the news. “Can you let me have a couple of quid’s worth?”

  “You’d better ask him yourself, Mo. I don’t know who he’s promised them to.”

  Mo nodded and got up carefully.

  “You want to come in and wait, Mo?” said Jenny.

  Mo shook his head. “I’ll go down the Mountain. See you later, Jenny.”

  “See you later, Mo. Take care, man.”

  Mo shuffled slowly up Lancaster Road and turned the corner into Portobello Road. He thought he saw the black-and-chrome Merc cross the top of the street. The buildings were all crowding in on him. He saw them grinning at him, leering. He heard them talking about him. There were fuzz everywhere. A woman threw something at him. He kept going until he reached the Mountain Grill and had stumbled through the door. The café was crowded with freaks but there was nobody there he knew. They all had evil, secretive expressions and they were whispering.

  “You fuckers,” he mumbled, but they pretended they weren’t listening. He saw Dave.

  “Dave? Dave, man!”

  Dave looked up, grinning privately. “Hi, Mo. When did you get back to town?” He was dressed in new, clean denims with fresh patches on them. One of the patches said “Star Rider.”