Stephen Laws - The Kimota Anthology

KIMOTA ANTHOLOGY

Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy fiction

edited by Graeme Hurry

First published by Kimota Publishing Graeme Hurry 2011

cover art by Martin McKenna

Authors retain copyright of individual stories:

AGAINST THE SKIN Mark Morris 1991

AGNES IN WONDERLAND Annemarie Allen 2000

ALTERNATIVE HOSPITAL Neal Asher 1998

ALWAYS THE PAST Paul Edwards 2000

A MATTER OF BLOOD Martin Owton 1997

AMYGDALA David A. Sutton 1998

ANIMAL, VEGETABLE OR MINERAL William Meikle 1995

A ROOM OF MY OWN Kevin K. Rattan 1994

A TOTALLY ORDINARY WOMAN Hugh Cook 2001

BEHOLDERS Trevor Mendham 2002

BEYOND THE HELP OF MORTALS D.F. Lewis 1998

BOXES Hugh Cook 2000

COLD COMFORT Mark Chadbourn 1996

CONCENTING ADULTS Hugh Cook 1998

DEEP BLUE Stephen Laws 1994

DEEP INSIDE Steve Dean 2001

EATING OUT WITH MR BENN Caroline Dunford 1995

EUGENE Paul Finch 1997

FLY ON THE WALL DOCUMENTARIES Jonathan Taylor 2000

GAME OVER Stuart Young 2000

GOD'S FAVOURITE CREATURES Julie Travis 1997

GOOD VIBRATIONS Simon Kewin 2000

HOME COMFORTS Peter Crowther 1995

HORIZON Caroline Dunford 1997

IDLE HANDS John Travis 2000

JULY Paul Finch 1997

LIMBO LARRY Hugh Cook 2001

NOVIE'S ARK David O'Neill 1999

ON THE EDGE OF REALITY Davina Marsland 1996

PERPETUAL MOTION Julie Travis 2002

POISONED Stephen Gallagher 1997

REMEMBER, REMEMBER Kevin K. Rattan 1995

SIMPLE BALLET Nicholas Royle 1997

SIRA Derek M. Fox 1998

THE ABRIDGED NOSTRADAMUS Peter Tennant 1999

THE CLOSING HAND Christopher Kenworthy 1996

THE EARTHLY PARADISE Peter Tennant 1997

THE FIRES OF SUMMER Steve Lockley 1997

THE FUNGUS COMUNION Alexander Glass 2000

THE GREEN BELT Steve Dean 1998

THE HAPPY CLAPPER Jonathan Taylor 2001

THE IDIOT STICK Steve Dean 1996

THE LAST DOOR DOWN THE HALL Paul McAvoy 2000

THE MURDER MYSTERY Peter Tennant 1995

THE TERROR AND THE TORTOISESHELL John Travis 2001

THE SHOE BOX Suzanne J. Barbieri 1998

THE SIMULATOR Paul Finch 2000

THE STRANGER Trevor Mendham 1998

THE WEDDING JOB Paul McAvoy 2001

TIME'S CHANGE Barbara Davies 1999

TREADING THE REGOLITH Cate Gardner 2010

TRIPLE GLAZING John Travis 2000

TROUBLE DOLLS Suzanne J. Barbieri 1996

VIDEO NASTY Caroline Dunford 1995

VINCENT'S LAST PICTURE Martin Owton 2000

WAR STORY Caroline Dunford 1996

WAY BACK WHEN David Price 2000

WEE ROBBIE William Meikle 1998

DEEP BLUE

by Stephen Laws

If I think back about it, the whole thing really began with Charlie Otis and his drunken talk about what music can do to you, depending on what kind of mood youre in.

He felt like talking that night, so I let him. Thats the thing about The Portland. Its a kind of haven for people who feel the need to get seriously drunk or talk, or get seriously drunk and listen. Its a pub thats managed to survive the plague of brass and chrome thats infected so many of the city-centre drinking places since the late seventies. Just your old-fashioned, no-nonsense, peeling wallpaper kind of place; with a scarred bar top and fast service for the professional drinker. Its the kind of bar where a draughtsman, a Chief Executive, a shipyard welder and a solicitor can get drunk and talk about their problems with whoevers there, without resorting to talk of work, influence or profession. Anybody who breaks the unspoken rule gets the cold shoulder. Anyway, I digress, and you may as well know from the beginning Im no bloody good at telling stories, but bear with me.

So anyway, Charlie Otis worked at the Breweries, something in the Orders Section I think (not that it matters, like I say). Id already got a couple under my belt when he walked in, but he was onto his fourth before Id ordered my third, and he was pissed off. He didnt want to talk about his problem, whatever it was just around it. Theres a time for talking and a time for listening. In The Portland, youve got to be intuitive. So I in-tooted, and listened.

Thats the thing with some music, he said, If youre in a good mood, you can listen to a real bluesey piece, about some fella whos lost everything, you know? And you can enjoy it, get into the feeling of it, without feeling too bad. Know what I mean? But if youre already blue well, it can make you suicidal. You must know what I mean you play that sort of stuff for a living.

Time for another digression. Hes right, Im a professional musician. I played Working mens Clubs for years with a group if you can call our Rag Tag bunch that by the name of The Hellbenders. Yeah, I know its a corny title, but wed seen a Spaghetti western back in the sixties with that title, and it sort of stuck with us. We were what you might call soft-rock, I suppose. My ambitions for super-stardom vanished a long time ago, and I dont play the clubs anymore. Im a session man, but strictly small-time stuff. You ever listen to the music that backs those kids commercials? You know the sort of thing the heavy rock stuff behind Super Auto Man or Lightening Raiders. Im proud of some of it, actually. Even cut a single of the Raiders theme, but it didnt go anywhere. Anyway, whereas the work pays the bills and the maintenance money for my Ex and two kids, it doesnt have any sort of street cred, so I dont talk about it too much.

So I said: Its just a job to me, Otis.

Come on, dont give me that, he says. Youre a musician. Youve got to feel what youre playing.

If I felt everything I played Id be burned out

But thats the point, see? He was on his fifth, and I was starting to tune out. I mean, if you really felt some kinds of songs, I mean really felt them it would depress the hell out of you, wouldnt it? I mean take "Run for Home", that Alan Hull song. I cant bear to listen to it, cause thats the day Alice walked out on me

And so on and so forth.

Okay, so were skipping ahead now. This is about a month later. I was in the same bar, and the same seat, getting on the outside of some happy hour Canadian Gold whisky, when Gerry walked in.

Now Id known Gerry for a long time. He had his faults, but he was basically okay. Actually, I owed him, because it was thanks to Gerry that I started in the commercials work. He was involved with Implosion Studios in town, and thats where I recorded most of my stuff with the other session men that Gerry used to pull together for these kids adverts. We were good and we were cheap, and the stuff we thrashed out for those London firms was bloody good, if I say so myself. But the thing with Gerry was well, he was an entrepreneur. He thought he was Big Time, but he wasnt. And you had to ignore the way he went on sometimes about wanting to make the Big Big Time. For a while, I was dragged along in the enthusiasm of Gerrys dreams, but experience taught me that most of those dreams would stay that way. Gerry wasnt involved with commercials anymore at that time, he had moved off in search of his Big Dreams. Despite that, despite the fact that Ive probably turned into some aged rock and roll cynic, we still had a beer occasionally in The Portland and I let him prattle on about the big deals he was always going to pull off.

Now, this was the second conversation, so Ill try and get it right.

Just how the hell we got around to talking about Buddy Holly, I dont know. But we did.

Ask anybody, said Gerry. Anybody (and he belched loud enough to draw the attention of the barman) anybody who knows. And theyll tell you that Buddy Holly was the greatest, the most influential the greatest

So I wasnt really going to argue with him. You know, it had been a really hard day and all I was really looking forward to was to wind down, not wind up. So I took another mouthful of Canadian Gold and started picking idly at one of the rough scratches on the battered bar counter, remembering the time Stanley Usher had his teeth knocked out on it by some pissed-off long distance lorry driver.