Once in a while, just once in a while, you can make someone’s dreams come true. It isn’t even always that hard.
Suddenly, because of me, Kill All Enemies was a proper band, so of course they wanted to celebrate it by playing, a good old thrash, with a full drum kit. There was this big scramble to set it all up. Rob spent some quality time kissing them – at least it wasn’t me this time. Then he sat down and did a quick roll. Then Frankie, the big bloke, gave out this terrible guttural croak, and off they went.
Bum notes, jangled chords, mis-struck strings – it had them all. But the noise. I’d forgotten just how much noise they made. Every time I heard them, it took my breath away. They were howling and gnashing their teeth and beating up their kit like it had just spat on their girlfriends.
They got to the end of the first track. They stopped. Frankie turned round to look at me, his eyes as wide as saucers.
‘Awesome,’ he said.
‘Amazing,’ said another one.
‘We are FANTASTIC!’ yelled Frankie. And Rob started crying again – he does a lot of that – and they all started dancing around and high-fiving, like they’d just won the lottery.
Off they went into more songs. It was great. They did three and that was it. They didn’t have any more songs. Just the three. Then we had biscuits and things. The lads kept stopping and gazing wetly into the distance, and then turning round and saying …
‘Respect, man.’
‘No problem.’
‘Total respect.’
‘What did your dad say?’ someone asked.
‘He said he was glad to get rid of them,’ I told them. No point in diluting my sainthood by pointing out to them it was also an act of petty vengeance, was there? I was just thinking of leaving them to it, when suddenly Frankie had this big announcement.
‘Listen, Chris, mate,’ he said. ‘We’ve got something to say.’ All the band were standing around looking at me and smiling shyly. It was obviously the big thank-you. I prepared myself for more manly hugs and tears.
‘We’ve been talking about it,’ said Frankie. ‘All of us, we’re agreed. What you’ve done, man, it’s amazing. Truly awesome. You are the man. You’re one of us. And the thing is, I can see you know how to get things done. I can see you like the sound. So the thing is – we want you to be a part of it.’
I was about to object, but he waved me quiet.
‘I know you don’t play. I know you’re not into metal as such. That doesn’t matter. We play. Chris, what we want to ask you is – will you be our manager?’
My jaw just dropped. Manager? Me? Is this what happens when you do people favours? They want to own you for the rest of your life, doing them more favours? I couldn’t believe it. I was standing there thinking, What? Manage your band? You must be joking. I’d rather give birth to a wolverine than manage your band.
My brain was shouting at me: No way! Tell them to go away, tell them your mum is paralysed from the waist down, tell them you can’t add up – anything! Just say no. NO! NO! NO!
And my mouth said, ‘I’d be honoured, man.’
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! howled my brain.
‘Really. It’s great. I’d love to,’ said my mouth. And they all started whooping and hugging and crying, and the odd thing was, I was whooping and hugging and crying along with them. Weird. It was, like, I know nothing. I’m not even the same person I thought I was.
One of the lads went out and bought loads of beer and someone had some weed, and we had a party. The band played – even I played and I can’t play. As I got drunker I stopped listening to all the duff notes and the jangly chords and stuff, and I started to listen to the sound. So they aren’t much good yet – so what? They can learn. I bet Oasis weren’t much good when they started out. I bet their parents hated the noise they made. Or Beethoven. I bet when Beethoven started playing the piano his mum said to him, ‘Ludwig, give it up – you’re deaf.’
Anyone can get good. You just have to practise. KAE had something else: energy. They were real. They were like a thousand tons of rock coming down the mountain straight for you. It made your hair stand on end … once you’d had a few drinks.
Maybe, I thought, just maybe, this could actually work.
It wasn’t till ages later, when I was on my way home, that I suddenly thought, You know what? I’ve got a job. More than that – I’ve actually got something I want to do. I never thought about it before, but my whole life up till then was just practice. Even eBay. I was just spending my time avoiding the things I didn’t want to do and filling up the spaces with football and hanging out and … games. But this was real. I belonged to something. Those guys knew who I was and what I was about. They got it. When they said, ‘Respect,’ they meant it. OK, so they were hairy and covered in studs, and I wore trainers and sports gear, but I was already more like them than I ever would be like Alex. Or Dad. Or anyone else I knew.
Respect.
I thought, I’m not going to be able to find time for school now, even if I wanted to.