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Kisses Sweeter Than Wine
Prague, Štvanice Island, June 12, 2004
Kisses Sweeter Than Wine
Prague, Štvanice Island, June 12, 2004
The summer sun slowly sinks towards the horizon. Soft wind rustles the leaves of trees. If you descend the short flight of stairs to Štvanice, you'll find the island in its usual slumber. Only a thread of red posters weaving its way from one tree trunk to another alerts you that today is in no way usual. Take a walk down the concrete path, under the branches of what looks like laurel trees, but it's undoubtedly something much more common and much less special. Pass strange concrete and metal constructions raising from the river, the purpose of which escapes most mortals. Listen to a booming noise reverberating through the quiet Saturday evening, sounding like a distant gunfire, and realize that it's nothing more sinister than skateboarders relentlessly practicing on a roofed U-ramp. Go past a few buildings which remember better times and get ready to be greeted by the familiar sight of empty grassy grounds, here and there interspersed with tall trees. But no, not today. The way is barred. Several youths, bored, uninterested, some looking as if their minds were roaming places far, far away, occupy a couple of tables, brought here from God-knows-where. Tickets, small metal boxes for money, programme sloppily printed on a sheet of white paper and pinned to the cloth shelter over one of the tables. It's not an ordinary weekend – it's the weekend of a music fest.
Grab a ticket and get past the bar, pass several small white trailers parked next to the path. Let's call them the backstage – they are situated behind the stage after all. Get closer and see white sheets with names of musicians in the tiny windows of the trailers. But no, no more peeping behind the scenes. Walk further, to the very tip of the island, and you'll finally find yourself surrounded by life. A few stalls offering beer, slices of fresh melon and tie-and-dye clothes. Folks. Young, old, underage, standing, sitting, chatting, drinking, screaming, weaving their paths around. Some of them even paying attention to the small stage, where stars of world music sweat their heads off. The broad but not-so-majestic Vltava lazily flows by. Tourist boats pass by on their regular routes, undisturbed, uninterested. The homeless occupying the makeshift dwellings on the river bank, across the slow brownish stream seem equally uninterested. A couple guys have perched themselves on a small patch of concrete and are playing chess on a chessboard sketched on the concrete with the help of young unripe chestnuts fallen from a nearby tree. But connoisseurs, some of them sporting punk hairdos and undispensable plastic cups of beer, know what to look forward to. To the main stars of the evening – Shane MacGowan and the Popes. Yet almost nobody notices when an inconspicuous small blue van silently drives to the backstage trailers, comes to a halt and spills its load of musicians. One by one, they walk to the trailer which is undistinguishable from the others except for their name in its window. The main stars of the evening. Going unnoticed to take a rest and prepare themselves for their stellar performance.
***
Joey walked the short distance from the van to the trailer briskly, surrounded by the other Popes, his head bent, not looking left or right. He expected the petitioners who had lately been spitting on his good name to shout their boos again. Bloody bastards, they had even driven him away from the stage, away from his beloved whistle playing. Fuck, he had even stopped lighting Shane’s fags after the unlucky occassion when he had been hit with a paper cup full of beer. (Bloody good beer it was, the drops that made it into his mouth were the best stuff he had ever tasted. And they say beer is great for hair. So maybe he shouldn’t have stopped with his routine. But what if some bastard threw sticky sugary lemonade another time?) He quickly disappeared inside the trailer, not even looking back to check on Shane. He’ll make it. Some organizer will surely pick him up from the ground or kick him out of the van if needed. They cannot risk a fuck-up. Anyway, his cautiousness wasn’t neccessary – not a single boo reverberated through the air. Interesting place this Prague. Maybe Internet hasn’t reached these parts of the world yet? Joey sat down and waited. It took Shane some time but finally he appeared in the doorway, obviously unharmed. Joey watched him stagger up the steps; he stumbled once and nearly fell, but didn’t even spill a drop from the bottle in his hand. The door banged shut. Still no boos, no flying cups of beer. Joey breathed a sigh of relief.
***
The time in the small stuffy trailer stretched endlessly. Shane half-slumbered in one corner, Joey drummed his fingers restlessly on a formica table. One could easily develop claustrophobia in this shitty hole... it’s like a box of sardines... Some kind of Carribean accordion music wafted from the outside. Carribean... hmm. Do they have those female dancers in grass skirts there? Maybe they are shaking up their arses on the stage right now. Joey was curious, but not as curious as to raise his own arse and go to have a look. He was imagining an encounter with a tanned beauty in a grass skirt, placing an orchid-blooms chaplet on his head and then placing her tanned hands on him and then her lips... when suddenly the door swung open and a young man strutted inside. One of the organizers. Joey had taken an enormous dislike to him the first moment he had met him. It was the guy’s stupid smile. Or maybe his stupid tousled hair. Or maybe his stupid checked shirt. Joey would love to place the sharp tip of his whistle to the guy’s throat and demand he surrendered the marvelous garment to him that very moment. The guy had been instructed to monitor the pre-gig buzz in the online world – something Joey would never bother with, but Paul always insisted on. After all, Paul was friendly with computers. He even replied to fans via e-mail – something Joey would never bother with either, even if he had a personal secretary for it.
"What’s the news?" Paul eagerly looked up from his guitar, which he had been polishing with a handkerchief.
The young guy fished a sheet of paper from his pocket, meticulously folded up into a small square. He cleared his throat. "Umm, the gig is talked about a bit, but nobody speaks about actually coming."
Good, Joey thought. Booing bastards are lazy to travel. Booing, boozing, begrudging, beastly bastards... Hm, it doesn’t sound bad. Maybe it could be turned into a song somehow.
"What about us?" Paul persisted. "Do they talk about us?"
"Yes." A short pause. "Mr Joey, here, is called, ehm... a cash-... a cashcunt."
Paul roared with laughter. Joey didn’'t blink an eye. Bad, base, baleful bastards...
Paul waved his hand. "Joey, Joey... But what about me?"
"You are called, uhm, the same. Minus the cash."
Paul roared again and slapped Joey on the shoulder. "Me brother!" Joey just gritted his teeth.
"So that's all?" Paul asked and gleefully whistled a few notes of Donegal Express.
"Almost," the guy answered. "Somebody also called you, umm, the shittiest guitar player ever. But that's surely only..."
All colour drained from Paul's face. His hands stopped fidgeting with guitar strings and began to shake visibly. "Oh no...," he muttered under his breath. "Oh fuck..."
Joey rolled his eyes. "Why do you always ask, you idiot, if you don't want to hear the answer?"
Paul didn't say anything. He strummed a few chords on his guitar. It sounded as if a kid found his dad's guitar and tried his luck for the very first time. Not even a very enthustiastic kid.
Shane half-opened his eyes and remarked: "That sounded as the shittiest guitar player ever. Krrrssshhh..."
"Calm down, Paul!" Joey growled. "Nobody boos here, it's your chance to impress! Are you going to fuck it up again just because some chickenbrained jerk decided to vent his twisted thoughts on the internet?"
Paul bent his head. "Too late... I WILL fuck it up now."
Joey sighed. He was getting mightily fed up with playing a nanny not only to Shane but to that sissy as well.
Paul tried to play a bit of a song – which song it was supposed to be was impossible to recognize. Joey noticed that the young guy in the fetching shirt had already disappeared. He felt a pang of frustration – he wanted to tell him to fuck off. He would love to tell it to Paul, but that was impossible, so the brat could have been a handy substitute.
Another organizer thrust his hand inside the trailer and tapped a finger on his watch. Indicating that they are expected on stage in a few minutes. Ah well, Joey thought. No other way than going for the good old Snow White method. Once again he swore to himself that he would learn to play the guitar before the following gig.
***
Joey watched the Popes straggling on stage. A mild cheer greeted them – and no rotten tomatoes. They took their places, checked their instruments. Paul shyly, quietly played a few chords – it was as terrible as before. Joey sighed. He braced himself and proudly stepped on the stage. Or sneakily crept on the stage, but surely in a proud manner. He walked to Paul and stood in front of him with his back turned to the audience, expecting a cup of beer to hit him every minute. That’s how a soldier feels when entering a battle zone... He smiled his sweetest smile at Paul.
"Paulie. You are the best. You will make it."
He took Paul's head into his hands, looked him straight into the eye, added even more sugar to his smile and then kissed Paul square on the lips.
"Wake up, Snow White," he sneered under his breath. Then, in a louder voice, he added: "Show them you are number one! You can do it, Paul, you can!" One more totally saccharine, totally plastic smile, then he broke free and briskly walked down and away from the stage.
In the safe heaven of the wings of the stage, he stopped and looked back at Paul, whose eyes were burning with fierce determination. Why do I have to always deal with the worst crap? Joey rubbed his forehead wearily. They should hire some professional for this, they really should...
Mission accomplished, he turned his attention to the classic routine. He slipped inside the trailer, where Shane was still sitting in his chair, but not dozing any longer. Fully concentrated, he was playing with something in his right hand. A mobile phone. My mobile phone, noticed Joey at a closer scrutiny. Shane was wildly pressing the helpless buttons as if he wanted to crush them, occasionally emitting sounds of frustration. Joey carefully disentangled the bottle from the fingers of his left hand, and replaced it with an identical one – identical except for the contents, heavily diluted with tap water. Thoroughly occupied with the gadget, Shane didn't even notice. Joey roughly jerked the mobile phone from Shane's hand, put it into his pocket, and not-much-more-gently pulled Shane from the chair, forcing him to stand up.
"On stage!" he commanded. Shane looked around like a lost child, teetering slightly, but when Joey nudged him, he obediently staggered to the door, and even coped with the steps without falling down. Joey hustled him to the stage. When Shane stumbled up and greeted the Prague audience with "Hello, East Germany!", Joey sighed with relief.
Paul hit the guitar strings with vigour, and although he didn't exactly sound like a virtuoso, it was quite listenable. Or at least survivable. And Shane announcing wrong songs? Nothing out of normal. Joey noticed that Shane didn't even burn his fingers when lighting a cig himself – he couldn't help feeling a flash of pride. He considered retiring to the stuffy trailer, but discarded the idea. It was a lovely summer evening after all. He sat on a chair next to the stage and enjoyed his own cigs and huge plastic cups of delicious Czech beer.
When the show was reaching its climax, a young blonde girl shot past him like a flash of lightning. Before anyone could blink an eye, she sprinted on stage, straight to Shane, and gave him a hearty kiss. And then she was gone again, disappearing as as quickly as she appeared, her young cheeks all flushed.
Fuck it! Joey thought to himself. Some people work their arses off, and all they get for it is kissing a sloppy, nervous, ugly wreck of a guitar player. And others do nothing at all and get kisses sweeter than wine from a blonde fairy. The world is unfair. But he noted that no matter how sweet the kiss was, it didn't provoke Shane to outstanding achievements. Actually, it had no effect on him at all. No Snow White resuscitation. A smug grin spread over Joey’s face. Even in his glumness, he felt a spark of satisfaction.
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