Nine Foot Tall Page 12

  Then Clockwork John appeared again, wearing a white boiler suit. I could see a little speck of blood on his sleeve.

  ‘Hi de hi de hi there, droogs. Have I got a surprise for you two little beastie boys. Come with Uncle, you are invited.’

  He turned to the golden staircase and waved at us to follow him. We grabbed a bottle of Moet & Chandon each from the bar and walked after him.

  At the top of the stairs we walked along a corridor. The walls were lined with works of art, paintings of Jesus and what have you. Fuck knows who they were by, but they looked expensive. We got to a room at the end of the corridor. John opened the great oak door and beckoned us in. He walked straight in and sat down on a red leather Chesterfield sofa, saying nothing. We followed. As we got around the great oak door, I stood in disbelief. I froze. Before me were two men tied to chairs, their arms around the back. They had red pillowcases tied over their heads, their bowed heads. They were moving slightly and groaning. What the fuck have we walked into? I turned to Steve, sweating, my heart about to implode. He looked nervous as he stared back at me, then he smiled, laughed out loud and shouted:

  ‘SURPRISE!’

  Three other guys came in to the room, all laughing and shouting surprise too. Steve put his arm around me and sat me down on another Chesterfield, all the while Do You Wanna Funk? was playing downstairs but we could still hear it real loud up here. Of the three guys who came in, two of them, real mean looking fuckers, walked over to the tied up blokes and stood either side of them. They were still groaning. The other guy, about my size, he looked Italian or Spanish or something, came and sat with me and Steve. He leaned over and put his arms around Steve.

  ‘Hi Steve. Mr Unsolved Steve. I’m glad you could make it to my little soiree. Is this Gaz?’ He patted me on my knee as he asked.

  Steve lifted my arm up and moved it toward the guy. ‘Yeh Mick, this is Gaz. Go on, Gaz. Shake Mick’s hand.’ I shook the bloke’s hand as Steve said, ‘Mick the Human, this is Fast Gaz. Fast Gaz, this is Mick the Human. There ya go. Now yerv been introduced.’

  I was still shocked at the two blokes tied to the chairs, although it now seemed that I didn’t appear to be in any immediate danger.

  ‘What the fuck is going on?’ I half shouted this question.

  They all laughed. Clockwork John in the corner laughed like a mad man.

  The Spanish, Italian bloke, who I now knew to be Mick the Human, opened his mouth again. He had a London accent. Not Spanish. Or Italian.

  ‘This is a surprise, Gaz. A surprise for you.’

  As he said this, one of the meatheads produced a baseball bat and cracked it right across the front of one of the tied up guy’s faces. A little yelp came from within the red pillowcase. The guy at the other side pulled out a bat and cracked it over the top of the head of the other one. No yelp. Just a twitch. As I watched in horror I saw that the pillowcases used to be white – the red was blood. It was soaked completely through the entire case. On both men. It was a small white section showing near where the rope was tied around their necks that gave it away. The two meatheads then began to whack and whack and whack away at the heads of these two poor fellas. They were obviously unconscious inside the pillowcases, but no matter, they still kept being pounded. The music that was playing was Dancing On A Saturday Night by Barry Blue. Steve was laughing and singing along to the song as they stoved their heads in for over thirty seconds. Trust me when I say that it seemed like hours. Clockwork John was doing a kind of Cossack dance in the corner. Nutter. They must have got forty blows a piece. Blood was gushing down both of their necks from inside the pillowcases.

  ‘That’s enough now, Milo, enough, Joshua. ’ Mick the Human waved his finger at the meatheads to stop. They both looked knackered. It must have taken it out of them. ‘Take off their hoods.’

  Milo and Joshua pulled off the hoods and pushed the chairs to the ground, each giving the poor unconscious fuckers a kick to the head as they fell.

  ‘Do you recognise these men, Gaz? My new friend Gaz.’ Mick the Human was seeming more like Mick the Inhuman as he asked the question.

  I was stuttering a little, ‘How the fuck am I supposed to recognise them? They’re covered in claret, man. And their heads are massive. They won’t even recognise their selves in a mirror.’

  It was one of the most repugnant sights I had ever had the misfortune to see. The heads of the two guys must have been four times bigger than their natural proportions. They were as big as space hoppers. They were covered in black and red blood. I couldn’t make out who they were. They looked like Big Brain Headed Aliens from 1950s science fiction films.

  Mick the Human went on to tell me the tale.

  ‘These, Fast Gaz, are two fuckhead bouncers from that shithole of a nightclub, Asia. They are friends of the police, you might say. Stool pigeons, ha ha ha har! Well, look at them now…’ He throws his champagne at them laid out on the floor in their own blood. Dead, by the look of it. ‘They don’t look very fuckin’ clever now, do they? We, that is my associates and I, found out that these two maggots were informants, that they were supplying the police with information. Information that I, and my associates, did not care for the police to have. So, my new friend Fast Gaz, here is the result. This…’ He points at them and spits a greeny on one of them. ‘This is what happens to informants. Grasses. I don’t like grasses. I’ll kill ’em all. And anyone who looks like them. I’ll fuckin’ go out and leave ’em where I fuckin’ find ’em. Our friend Steve told me that you are a very good friend of his. His best mate. That you had been in some trouble with these cunts also. That you may be going to do some jail time because of them. We told Steve our plan, what we were going to do to these worms, and we asked him to bring you along for the ride. Revenge for us, and for you. Kill two birds with one stone, as it were.’

  Clockwork John burst out laughing. ‘Ha ha, kill two birds, ha ha ha.’ And he walked over to the two pulp-headed messes on the floor and started making bird noises and flapping his arms like wings. Nutter.

  Mick the Human stood up and walked across the room to a Chippendale cabinet. He pulled out a huge bag of coke and tossed it to Steve. Must have been a kilo at least.

  ‘Prezzie for ya, Steve man. Merry Christmas. Now, come on, let’s go back down and enjoy the party. I have guests to entertain.’ He turned to his two meathead minders, pointed to the bodies on the floor and said, ‘Get rid of that fuckin’ mess. Take them to you know where and do you know what.’

  Mick the Human may have been a scary fucker, but he certainly knew how to throw a party. We stayed till the sun came up. Drinking, dancing, drugging, you know the score.

  Driving home in a daze, I turned to Steve and mumbled, ‘Good night that, man, when all’s said and done. I know I shouldn’t really but I feel a bit sorry for them bouncer cunts. Don’t you?’

  ‘Nah, fuck ’em,’ was all I got in reply.

  ‘Ha ha…’ I had to laugh at his indifference. ‘You still haven’t told me why they call him Mick the fuckin’ Human. Don’t you know? Really?’

  Steve shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, then smiled at his bag of Charlie and said,

  ‘Nah, man. I haven’t got the first fuckin’ clue. He’s a good lad though, isn’t he?’

  I laughed sarcastically. ‘Oh yeah. Fuckin’ great.’

  Chapter Eight

  -

  Madrid, Elvis, Jagger And Di

  Insomnia– Faithless

  (Maxi Jazz, Sister Bliss and Rollo) 1995

  Summer 1986 – Aged 19

  In 1918, the German playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote his earliest play as a twenty-year-old student. The play was called Baal. In Baal, Brecht created a monster of sensuality and self-gratification, a hedonistic drunkard who was named after a pagan god. Although Baal is not the most handsome of men, he has an ego as large as the moon, he is rude, obnoxious and immoral to the core. Despite th
ese flaws he is irresistible to women. This makes him the envy of men and also admired by them. He sleeps with every woman he ever comes into contact with and abandons them just as easily. In the end he kills his best friend and dies alone in a woodman’s cottage.

  I had never read the play, but I did see it on the telly in 1982. It starred David Bowie and it was brill. I wanted to be David Bowie. Even more so, I wanted to be Baal.

  Except for the part where he kills his mate and dies alone. That bit’s not good.

  I was a success. In The Fanny at least. I was king of the decks.

  DJ Gaz.

  The World’s Number One DJ and Porno Legend.

  This was a name I gave myself of course. I wasn’t really the best in the world. But I knew I could be. The Fanny was packed to the seams every weekend now. My dad was making a fortune. And, for my youth, so was I. Nineteen years old, a hundred and forty quid a week! Spot on.

  My confidence had grown a thousand fold from the stutterings of my first night. Nothing could stop me. People came from all over Leeds to see me play. To get the piss taken out of them. They loved it. They loved me.

  An old friend of my dad’s had come into the pub one night while I was playing. He was a DJ also. Pretty famous around Leeds, a legend. He was also called Gaz. Gaz Granville. He was about forty years of age. He was impressed with what he saw and heard and came over to give me his approval. Not only did he tell me how great he thought I was, he gave me a huge box of records. I’d been investing in all the latest tunes over the months, even got some new decks and a new microphone. But the collection that Gaz gave me was massive, just over four hundred singles.

  ‘They’re for you, lad. You’re on your way up just as I’m on my way out. I won’t be needing ’em anymore.’ He shook my hand and wished me luck.

  I was over the moon. One of the legends of Leeds had passed his crown to me in the best of grace. He probably wished he’d never given me his records though – he was still DJing fifteen years later. He must’ve had to buy ’em all from scratch again. But he was still a legend.

  All was well in the world.

  These were the good times.

  The best times.

  I was always a big-headed get, thinking that I was real handsome and all. I’m not. I just think I am. I’m not bad looking, not unpleasant to the eye, but I’m no shaving advert either. However, if you convince yourself that you’re lovely, it’s easy to convince everyone else.

  The fact that you’re the DJ makes you even more handsome than you already think you are. The girls love the DJ, as my dad had told me. He was right. They didn’t want me for me though, they just wanted to shag the DJ. Then tell their mates that they’d shagged the DJ. Hell, I’m not bothered what they wanna do. I’ll be a piece of meat for any girl. No skin off my nose.

  ‘The trick is, Gaz…’ My uncle Georgie was trying to explain women to me. ‘The trick is, shag ’em all. Coz if you don’t, you might miss a good ’un.’

  It was an excellent piece of advice.

  And I took it. With brass knobs on.

  If they threw themselves at me, who was I to complain?

  The best thing is, they never wanted anything more than a quick tumble, no strings, no dinners, no fuck all. They came in all ages, shapes, sizes. Tall women, small women, young women, older women, single mothers, married women, divorced women, blondes, brunettes, redheads. You name it. No fatties though. My rule was, ‘If I can’t lift them above my head, they’re not coming in my bed.’

  It was fantastic. I was addicted.

  I thought back to my Jenny, sweet, sweet Jenny. She’d created a monster. She’d created Baal.

  One Saturday night when I was playing, a bouncer from the local nightclub, Madrid, came into The Fanny. He was standing at the bar for a while with his mate, all the while looking over at me. Then they started to march over to the decks. At first I thought, Aw fuck! Was he gonna stove me cake in? Had I shagged his bird in Madrid? I did go in there quite often after work and there was always someone wanting a piece of DJ Gaz. Half the time I didn’t even know their name, let alone who their boyfriend might have been.

  Had some jealous boyfriend sent him to kill me?

  There were a lot of girls in that night. I knew I’d be able to take my pick later on. But not if I got bitch kicked all over the pub by two fatheads.

  There was one girl in particular that I was instantly drawn to. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen, just like Bardot. She was with a fella, one of the local gangster types, and she had her head bowed, as though she was constantly checking her shoes or something. Katie Farmer was her name. I saw her peek up a couple of times, right into my line of sight, and then look back towards the floor in case her fella spotted her looking. She was gorgeous. I remember thinking in my head, She will be mine… Oh yes… She will be mine. But I had these meatheads to contend with for now. Katie could wait.

  I had Diana Ross playing on the decks – Chain Reaction.

  The Madrid guys both stopped in front of me and the bouncer put out his big tree trunk hand for me to shake it.

  ‘Hi, I’m Eddie. Gaz, isn’t it?’ He sounded friendly enough, huge, bulging bastard but friendly all the same.

  The record was just about to finish so I stuck my headphones on to cue in and I waved my finger at him as if to say ‘one sec while I change songs’. They were both wearing little vests, showing all their muscles off, like bodybuilders always do. But it was freezing outside. It was July, but it was still freezing. I picked up the mic, nervously looking around at the crowd then back at the two brutes in front of me. Here goes nothing.

  ‘There you go, ladies and gents, good old Diana giving it plenty. Are you all having a good time?’

  The crowd all shouted YEAH!

  ‘Good. I’ve got a great show for ya tonight. Looking around the room I see we’ve got some gorgeous people in. Gorgeous girls, guys, bar staff, everyone. Just take a look at these two fine meaty specimens, ladies…’ I point to the two steroid heads in front of me, a few of the girls wolf whistle at them and they both look really shy. ‘They really are big lads, eh? But what the FUCK is with those vests? It’s freezing outside. Freezing. You two guys have either come in a car or you’re both as hard as nails…’ I look at them both, smiling. ‘Nah, they must have come in the car! Soft bastards!’

  At this, I cranked up the next song, Rebel Yell by Billy Idol, and took a big, fuck off swig of brandy. The two guys looked at me menacingly and then laughed. Everyone else in the room laughed too. Good, they took it in fun. Thank fuck. My dad was shaking his head behind the bar as usual.

  I held my hand out again to shake. ‘Yeh, Gaz is me name. Eddie, did ya say? I didn’t upset ya both then, did I? I were only messin’ about. What canna do for ya boys?’

  Eddie came closer, around the back of the decks so that I could hear him over the music.

  ‘Nah, mate, yer okay. It were funny. We love yer, yer good, man. Yer a good DJ. Best one we’ve seen in ages. That’s why we’re ’ere. Our boss sent us up to see yer. From Madrid.’

  This is sounding promising. I won’t let on that I’m gonna shit myself with excitement. I act real calm.

  ‘Yeah? Go on. Tell me more.’

  Eddie puts his arm around me. ‘Listen. Our boss has seen yer playing. He thinks yer the business, lad. Everyone who comes into Madrid keeps telling him he should get you to work there. That you’re the best. He’s asked us to come up and make you an offer. Do you fancy it?’

  I was fit to bursting inside. Yes. Yes. Madrid. Think of it, Gaz. One of the biggest nightclubs in Leeds and they want you to work there.

  ‘How much is he offering?’ I remain calm as I ask the question. I’m not even bothered what the pay is really. It’s Madrid, man. I’d work there for free.

  ‘What are yer on now, Gaz?’

  I lied, ‘Fifty bar a nigh
t, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.’ My dad gave me thirty a night really.

  ‘Our gaffer says he’ll give you a hundred quid a night. Thursday, Friday and Saturday. How’s that sound?’

  I nearly fuckin’ shit meself then and there. A long ’un? Hundred fuckin’ quid? A night? Fuck me.

  I still acted calm and changed the song over –Native New Yorker by Odyssey.

  ‘I can’t leave me dad, he’s been good to me.’ I was ecstatic inside at the prospect of three hundred notes a week.

  He put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Gaz, mate, you won’t have to leave here at all. You can still work for your dad. You won’t have to start at Madrid until 11.30pm.You can work here, then come down there after. It’s only two minutes away. You finish here at 11pm, don’t yer? Job’s a good ’un.’

  He was right, I could easily make it work.

  I took his number and arranged to call him the next day to meet his boss.

  Fuckin’ hellfire.

  Three hundred a week off them, ninety a week off me dad. Three hundred and bastard ninety quid for Thursday to Sunday. Wahey! A few hours a night. Singing, dancing, drinking and shagging.

  It’s time to give up the day job.

  So I did.

  My poxy forty-nine quid for forty fucking soul-destroying hours job at the council had to go, man.

  Bye bye, council.

  Hello wine, women and song.

  And hello three hundred and ninety fucking quid a week!

  Madrid was the making of me. It was one of the most popular clubs in Leeds. Nearly a thousand people every night. It was a fantastic platform for me to show off my talents. All the other nightclubs in Leeds just had a DJ playing music, which is all well and good I suppose. But Madrid was a “show bar”. It had big name acts on stage early on in the evening before the DJ started. Bernard Manning, The Drifters, Edwin Starr, Showaddywaddy. This put the punters in the mood to be entertained even more, not just music and dancing. It was perfect for my brand of “shock jock” frivolity.