Chapter 35 Fuck Authority
FUCK AUTHORITY
CHARLIE
Thursday night at the Tool Shed is live music night.
When we reopened, I worked with Ahmed to program local performers which, tonight, is me: taking the stage with the three bandmates I’ve made amends with. Charlie Roth and the Mongrels are back for our first electric set in two years.
I’ve come back with a new look. My messy, depressive muso hair is gone.
I’ve shaved it into a wide, blood-red, Rancid-style Time Bomb mohawk, spiked up with hair glue, the hawk protruding from my skull like a weapon.
If I’m gonna be an unsuccessful muso, I might as well go down swinging, looking how I wanna look.
I pogo around the stage for a few belters with the Mongrels. I’ve never played ‘Penetration’ for an all-gay audience. They totally respond to the jokey, horny lyrics; there’s laughter and cheers and even some guys shouting the lyrics by the last chorus.
When we get to slowing things down and playing ‘Roof’ live, I look at the framed photo of Curtis Levesque on the shelf behind the bar. It’s one of two ways he’s still with us.
The second is the giant mural on the brick wall beside the bar’s rear loading dock.
The cops still haven’t found the culprit of the graffiti, but Ahmed hired the mural artist again to paint over it a gigantic image of Curtis, arms folded and muscles bulging, watching over the alley like the world’s toughest bouncer.
And beside Curtis’ photo behind the bar is something I added myself: a little green army man Blu-Tacked to the shelf, standing guard over the bar, a proud soldier.
‘This song is dedicated to a farm boy,’ I say, nodding to the army man. ‘He knows why.’
There’s a small smattering of applause when we finish ‘Roof’, which quickly peters out.
It’s no Madison Square Garden. Not even an Astor Theatre.
But playing music in front of fifty guys is still playing music, and it’s nice to look into the crowd and see your trucker boyfriend cheering you on. Don’t need glory when you got love.
‘Thanks – you guys are bloody legends!’ I say into the mic. ‘That song was “Roof”, and it’s available on our Spotify. Now, let’s kick it up a notch. Any Pennywise fans out there?’
Literally one bloke – a military dude with a leather harness over his bare chest and an olive hanky hanging from the back pocket of his camo pants – calls out, ‘Yeahhh buddyyy!’
‘That’ll do, I’ll take it, good sir,’ I call back. ‘This next one’s the most punk song there is.’
As I trade my shiny new acoustic Gibson for my trusty old sticker-covered Les Paul guitar, I see a young guy, surely just eighteen, walk in the front door of the bar, right beside Curtis’ BOYS ONLY graffiti.
He’s a scruffy-haired dude with mutton chops, an oversized Def Leppard T-shirt, baggy blue jeans and chunky Globe skate shoes.
He couldn’t look more like a daggy bogan if he tried.
He stares up at the homoerotic murals and the stage and the shirtless guys in the bar with an expression I recognise from my old cruising days in Gero: that first thrilling flush of finally being yourself.
As I slide the guitar strap over my shoulder, the young scruff walks up to the bar. Vince smiles and asks him what he wants.
I step back up to the mic. ‘We covered this track cos there are a lot of people in this world who will try to tear you down,’ I say.
‘They’ll try to tell you what to do, try to stop you being who you are or doing what you love.
They’ll tell you you’re bad. They’ll try to crush you, hurt you, cancel you, kick you when you’re down.
And do you know what us mongrels here at the Tool Shed say to those people? ’
The scruffy Def Leppard kid glances up at the stage, taking his first sip of a pint.
‘We get tough,’ I say. ‘And we stick up our middle fingers. And we shout: “FUCK AUTHORITY!”’