"Pixel Juice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Noon Jeff)HOMO KARAOKE Tonight, the city wears dirty slut perfume and matching outfit. The rain has stopped, leaving the streets with wet greasy hair, strands of pulp blocking the drainage. All the flyers of every party of all time have gathered at the plughole of life. I'm standing on the balcony of Dubtek's nightclub, holding my hand over my mouth. High above me, projected from the roof, lasers paint a dark cloud with colour, chameleon to the beat. I've come out for some air, but even the music has got a serious hygiene problem and there's no escaping it. It's my first ever gig in Manchester, and the place is one giant filthy arse-wipe loudspeaker, zero panache. There's no sign of my challenger. When I walk to the edge, look down, waves of people are streaming out of the club, epileptic under stuttering lights. A purified canal runs back of the club. Some tables, chairs, a couple of sun umbrellas, all wet and soggy but no matter; it's the small gaps between the rain that count, and learning how to live amongst them. Clouds of cheap, shop-bought hormones lift from the young bodies. A girl screams. Another flings her drink at a waiter; the liquid passes right through, creating radio shimmer. Some boy falls in the water. It's all very flesh-core, very human-human, and it's all I can do to stop from retching. 'Would sir be requiring assistance?' 'What?' I turn round: a waiter is grimacing at me. 'Is it the humidity, sir?' His face is twitching badly, struggling like a bad flow diagram. 'I'm fine,' I say. 'A drink? To calm the nerves, perhaps? Courtesy of the management?' 'Leave me alone.' 'Young man, I wish you luck tonight.' Yeah, right. Put the emphasis on And the rain falls once more. Getting into Manchester only this morning, pitching up at the Piccadilly Hotel, rooms paid for as promised, everything laid on. Separate rooms. Leave it be, for now. Margo celebrating with a gym workout, sauna, massage, the works, and a serious noontime session in the bar, everything on the club tab. Knowing what the drink would lead to, but like I said, leave it be. Me, up in my cell, going over possible tunes for the night, checking all the ghosts are happy, checking the weapons. Ten past one, I look in on Margo. She's flat out, buried deep in the fog. Beside the bed, the usual nasty gear. And all the broken promises. I kiss her lips. Like smoky bruised peach, the smell of her breath. She stirs at the kiss, opens her eyes, softly. 'It's good here, isn't it?' she whispers. 'Here in the city?' 'It's fine, Margo. Just fine.' She's never even left the hotel yet. 'You get some sleep now.' 'Lullaby me, one time.' What the hell; I sing her favourite number, all about the physics of angels, and the weight of the clouds, and when it's done, she says, 'Don't forget the deal, Perfume. Do it good.' And then gone with a slow, slow smile, back down into limbo. Sure thing, the big deal: Margo driving the car, Margo making decisions, finding gigs, doing the talking, counting the money. Margo getting dirty, me keeping clean. But what about the deal with the heart, eh Margo? The stupid, unsigned deal with the heart. How much longer has she got? If I can only come good tonight, collect the winnings… Yeah, and all the other promises. We're supposed to be at the club, two o'clock, for a sound-check. I really need to make it, because the decks will be way beyond my usual span. I call the desk, arrange a four o'clock alarm call for Margo, and then set off walking, alone across the city. Through the crowded heart, some rain decides to fall. This is the start of it. The club's on Whitworth Street, half redbrick, half-chrome. Just the pink word, Becoming pulp. Some guy lets me in and straight away I know something's wrong. A frazzled technician is running around with sparks in her hair. The faltering lights, popping like broken stars, and the stench of burning flesh hanging over the empty dance floor. And the shiver, like the building's sizing me up, making fun of me, moving in. The technician comes close; I tell her who I am, and what I'm here for. 'Soundcheck?' she says. 'Oh, I doubt it, not at this rate.' 'What's the trouble?' I ask. 'It's not a virus?' 'Get out of here. Sweet as a virgin, we are. Nah, just a technical thing, be clear by tonight, sorted. But like I said, no soundcheck, buddy. You'll have to fly blind, eh? What's the name again?' 'DJ Perfume Sword. Four times champion of my local league.' She looks at me as though I'm smalltown-dead already. 'Well, we do things a bit different in the city. No-one's ever beaten him, you know? No-one ever. Skinvader's a maniac. He'll swallow you whole. Still, always a first time, eh? Always a first time.' And she laughs like I should have left right then. Instead… I mean, the size of the floor, the circumference and the haze and the far horizon of the floor. I step on to the boards, kinda fearful, feeling the expert suspension give gentle breath to my weight. All around me, hanging from the walls, the projection system glimmers with wanting. Somebody tries a record out, making a hole in the air where the bass prowls loose. Hits in the stomach, like a deep-sea memory; bells in the head as the treble makes wing-glitter. 'What do you reckon? Bit better than Blazer's, eh?' It's Margo, of course, bending close to whisper above the music. Always makes it, doesn't she? Taxi-sealed, looking like she's never been away. But how can I speak? Blazer's Nitespot was where I learned my trade, spun my baby grooves, called up my first ghost. The bleak suburban long dark disco of the soul. To which this is the mothership. Under the spasm-lamps, inside the music, which breaks into sick, dark crackle even as Margo moves closer still to kiss… Tonight, the same floor is a temple of sweat, noise, crush, sweaty noise crush, flavour beats, heartache, naked flesh, head fog, spilt beer, tarnished love. I'm forcing my way through the miasma, the wet flesh of dance, getting sticky with it. People recognize me from the flyers, which is more than I do. It's somebody else they're clawing at, calling fuck-off names, some stranger hanging loose inside this prickle of skin. The warm-up DJ is playing floor-fillers only, no adventure, and strictly human. Every so often and just for a second, the lights dim, the music cuts out, leaving the crowd in quantum jerk mode. Shit! I should never visit the floor before a gig, especially one this big, and me the visiting team. Margo's out there, jam-dancing amid the crowd, her face a miles-per-hour glaze of bliss, when she's supposed to be looking after me. And there's one too many stabbing hand, one too many bad name screamed out, it's getting so I can't see the good way forward any more, so I'm turning… Turning around, trying to make it to the big doors to the doors trying to make it to the doors being dragged under trying to make it to the doors dragged under when a bouncer beam swoops down on waves of ice and all the dancers around are stuck sudden on full freeze and I'm caught in the same cold crush jungle slow-motion overload and running now like tepid flesh smoke They're strapping me into the DJ machine. It's dark in the booth, and the world closes in. My challenger is a blur of movement in the chair across the room, spinning away from me. No Margo. I'm feeling lost without her, because it's lonely going under and without a hand to hold, no matter what it's made of. The twin faces of the turntables come up to meet me, already speeding, so that even calling out Margo's name does nothing to stop my hands moving on impulse to caress the slip and slide of the grooves. The visor clamps down on my eyes, as my fingers merge with the spinning, then my hands fully, sinking into the soft, melting plastic and I'm through… … into the music, projected from the one thousand speakers. All is calm, floating, prepared, on a tremble. Below me, miles away, the dance floor; a boiling of faces, stretched-out arms, jeering voices. I'm suspended above them all, giant in my shape, made out of intersecting beams of knowledge. I sweep down a magnified arm; it moves through the crowd like a wavelength. Some of them fall back, others just let the illusion pass through their bodies, defiant. What do I care? I am the almighty Godzilla Bass, of the Perfumed Sword. There's no sign of Skinvader yet, the floor is mine, so I start a growling riff that gets them dancing; a charge so deep, they just have to move, even to the opposition. The club lights fuse and pop, a tiny darkness, split-second followed by a stutter to the beat, before the system kicks back in, and there I am, scouring the air with blades of bass, loving the flash of it all. A cheer goes up, battle drums sound. A bass answers my own, only deeper, rivered with teeth. Shovelling the noise, Skinvader comes alive; fierce dark drenched information. Slow pounding drumbeats taking shape; a vast heart pumping. Bloodsonic caress. The club shakes with fury. Nightblack wings sprout from each side of the heart, floating dragonbass high. And when the heart splits open, showering me with stars, it's a melody of daggers. Pain floods me, like sunjuice. Staggering, I call up Metal 6-string Boy, scratching twisted funk on the ghost guitar. Drop da funk, hope to bomb the rhythm. Skinvader mutates; fogburst of psychedelic squall, dissolving into whispers. Now I become the Lizard Ninja Tongue; antique Led Zep drum loop, hip hop scattershot maniac. Rapid fire, hard-edged words, dissing the house DJ, the club, and all who dance in her. Skinvader is turntable fog, letting the music hit, again and again. The crowd doesn't know how to handle the beats I'm throwing them, it's going cold-crazy down there. Let's murder this; calling up M.O.R.phine now, floating in on a cool, shimmering breeze of vibraphones and finger-clicks. It's nice, it's smooth. It's a charm of sleep. Skinvader melts away, seeking slumber. And with the joining of all my monsters, all into one skyscraper, I am Empire State Perfume Sword! Projected from the exterior system, I break loose from the disco. Rain is caressing my body, but my head's above the cloudline. Immense at the centre of roads and dazzle and the distant hills where once I lived my little life. But that was on a yesterday, and now all must bow to my 97 million floors! I'm lulled by my own dream, when the enemy-bass really slithers, earthcore deep, and the drums surge into a speeding plague that travels the crowd by the veins, sucking energy from them. The noise twists again, into a swordfish locomotive, steam driven, ravaging. The blast hits my building dead centre; elemental. Expressway to the skull. Headburst. I come crashing to the ground, so now I see only the club's ceiling, all the lights ablaze with sizzle. Dancers rush through the broken rooms of my body, scattering, cheering. It's done. So easy. Hovering, kaleidoscoped, Skinvader hangs triumphant from the beams of light, his shape now a horse, now a hammer, now a switchblade, now a swarm of wasps, now a rocketship; each with its own, terrifying melody. Finally, a giant snake looms suspended over me, salivating with a venom song, each drop of which burns right through my walls. Until only one person remains inside my illusion, and I feel Margo's slow, burnt-out feelings mingling with mine. But she's smiling, I don't know why. Whispering. The lights flicker once more, the beams falter, time becomes languid. I understand all things in that stretched moment, the way that failure itself has a rhythm; lights, projection, music… And in the tiny silence that follows I let dissolve all my ghosts, calling up only Girlforce 7 with my last remaining strength. The music clicks back into action, time becomes ordinary, and I'm gone, vanished. The snake hisses around, searching. But I'm small, I'm petite. Angels in the dub. I'm the little girl who sings poison in your ear, when no-one is looking… Now they're dragging me, flesh naked, out of the DJ machine, what's happening? All is dark, inside and out, with a crowd screaming somewhere far away and my challenger lying on the booth-floor, smoke rising from his puny, twitching body. In this world, he can't be no more than ten years old. I'm shaking as well, so bad I can't even feel the pain as somebody hits me. But Margo's there, she's always there when needed, demanding the money, the prizes. Somebody's offering me a job; Margo tells them to go stuff themselves, and that's good, because with the new thing inside me now, alive to my every need… We don't bother staying overnight, just grab the bags, check out, start driving. Margo can't stop smiling, the mouth fixed into joy as her hands move slowly on the steering wheel. We're out of the city now, following the twin snakes of light back to the hills. All is quiet outside, the night passing by in a hush of rain. We don't talk much. Each of us caught in separate feelings, lost in the wonder. Until, as we reach the crest of the hill, Margo stops the car. 'I can't drive any more, Perfume,' she says, her voice as gentle as the moon that hangs above. 'You'll have to get us home.' Right. She gets out of the car, ghost-frail, walks a small distance into the darkness. I follow her there, to take a hold of her dissolving hand. We kiss, under the moonlight, and I let her spirit seep back inside of me. It's a tear-stained cadence. Then I'm alone. I walk back to the car, carrying some beauties. |
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