PART 4: IT WAS JUST THE BEST PARTY.
CHAPTER 9
"Hello everyone, and welcome to the devil's ball! Here the Damned Souls of All History gather for one night to mix, mingle, network and bemoan their eternal fate! Why, lookie there, it's the 37th President of the United States, Richard Nixon! How're the fiery pits of Hell, Dick? Of course, Kissenger's fault it was, yes. I think you'll find he pulls a little more weight around here than you do, Dickey! Galling, isn't it? Well, that's Hell for you!
Everyone, my name is Jack, Jack Terricloth is what they call me, and tonight I will be your host! I am here with a great bunch of kids, The World/Inferno Friendship Society. If you need anything, if there is anything you want, please just communicate it to me, I will tell Dan Bailey. He will borrow money from Ben and go and get it.
It is that easy.
It is now my great pleasure to introduce, that alpha, the omega, and always of American music, your own gypsy-blooded-punk-identified mischief cult: THE WORLD/INFERNO FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY!"
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
I love that sound.
Ah yes, I never wanted to be nobody's hero. I always wished I were special. I was always peering around corners, lurking through abandoned buildings, hoping someone would spot me and say, "who's that lurking over there? Is that that young Cloth boy lurking over there? What is he lurking about? Perhaps there is more to him than we thought. I must learn more about this fascinating lurking lad. Lurk on Clothy! Youre gonna make it! You'll lurk all the way to the top! People will see you lurking and cry!"
I used to spend an awful lot of time going on like this,
and, like falling off a horse, it's the kind of thing you never forget how to
do.
No, please, don't encourage me.
How can I explain that night? I don't know if I can. I got what I wanted, the hard work paid off, every hurt and hardship I'd ever suffered was transformed in this fabulous new perspective as really alright and part of the plan. Through luck, hard work, foresight and several incredible bouts with the DT's, I had risen to the very pinnacle of my profession; Master of ceremonies at the devil's ball. The top of my field, folks. The tallest boy in the world, la cervasa mas fina. Fucking mint.
Oh yes, it was good. Imagine the vista: The great hall of the Good/Bad Art Collective where up the majestic spiral staircase marched all the Damned of the world, greeted royally at its apex by the dashing prince of lies, dressed impeccably in the finest tuxedo and resembling more a touch like the sartorial actor Patrick Stewart. Next to him, his beautiful witch queen resplendently nude, greeting her subjects whom gratefully kissed her hand and headed straight for the punch bowl.
Oh and we played. Hours, old songs relearned, new songs, off-the-cuff covers, requests, classical charts, we did it all. Between sets our accordionist Franz Nicolay strolled the crowd, playing his own compositions, setting many a lost soul swaying in his wake.
At the bar, I spoke with Orson Wells over a fine Shiraz (oh, let's face it—he spoke, and spoke, and spoke).
There was Dan Bailey and Keith Moon yucking it up at Louie the Sun King's expense.
The proud Texans of the Good/Bad Art Collective chatting with everyone who ever worked for the IRS about their tax exempt status.
Semra cackling at Salman Rushdie ("But I'm not dead!". . . "Oh yes you are!")
There was The Mysterious Doctor and The Kid hunched over with John Ritchie, and for some reason, Liberace, discussing footwear.
The entire Manning clan kind of keeping to themselves, actually.
Lucky and Mozart exchanging Masonic handshakes, Rudy giving Bing Crosby the finger (I don't know why, really). Yuli giving Wagner an earful, Nietzsche trying to intervene and being drawn into a conversation with James Miraglia.
There's Maura trying to ignore Frank Sinatra's advances while slipping some of the ecstasy she always carries around into Beethoven's wine (the best thing that ever happened to him).
And where was Ben?
CHAPTER 10
The Giant Cat came and saved me from Orson's drone (there were really a lot of other people there I wanted to meet, but. . .) to tell me it was time for the second set. The room was so full and the spiral staircase still ushering up the Lost Souls. I wondered how they determined what order they were allowed up. The poor Witch Queen looked tired, but gamely held out her hand to be kissed. What a pretty, pretty naked woman.
We began the second set. I can never remember anything that happens on stage afterwards—it is always such a rush. I yammered, we played, we yelled, "Fuck the police!", there was Easy E as sweaty as I remembered him. It got late, we had time for one more song, soon the sun would be up, and soon the Damned would have to return down the spiral staircase. I called for the waltz and held out my hand toward the crowd, towards a little man bug-eyed and rumpled in his tuxedo. He stepped forward, smiling nervously onto the stage, filling my nostrils with a scent of almonds.
"Ladies and Gentlemen," I said "Mr. Peter Lorre."
The crowd not so much roared, but all at once sighed so sadly with such fondness. They knew the night was almost done.
"Thaank yoou, Jaack," Mr. Lorre breathed in the mic while wiping his brow with a handkerchief. "Thank you for inviting me up heer, it is soo kind of you, really . . . really. Is it all right, alright wiiith everyone eef we waltz?"
The band started up the sad Oohm Pah Pah of Peter Lorre's last waltz, and I stepped off the stage to dance with the audience, changing partners every other measure, spinning them away and turning to a new one, thanking them, thanking them all, as Mr. Lorre sang:
"It's hard to remember, that one September. All the frontiers, through which I crept, well the displaced we forget. But the dope and the girls and the wine, oh hell they were so fine. What a wonderful, wonderful world."
The great hall was filled with the dancing of the damned, sadly smiling into each other's eyes as they were obliged to say good bye once again to this earth. Mr. Lorre continued for them.
"No, I can't remember, not any December. It seemed I was always leaving, maybe you know that feeling? But I never forgot my lines; I still hear them all the time. What a wonderful, wonderful world."
As the clarinet soloed, my spinning took me near the staircase where the first of the night's revelers were sadly returning to the pit. And before them, as they filed slowly past, danced the devil, like the bastard he is. Sweeping his exhausted queen before him, his subjects sadly glancing at them, down for another year.
Mr. Lorre, finally letting go of a distressed looking Semra, back on stage, finished, "The dope and the wine and the stage, they gave back to me what I gave. What a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. . ."
You could hear the sound of a microphone being dropped and the night was over.