They let him through the kitchen and out the back of the place with no problem. Once your name was big enough, you could go anywhere.
For just a moment in the alley, he felt all fuzzed up—all turned around, like he was young again and had taken one too many of whatever shiny pills Mavis was handing out that week. The place itself looked no different now, really than it had in ’94, or ’89, or—oh, God, why did he have to remember that far back?—than it had looked when they first stumbled here in ’77. Still, he had no clue if he would be able to remember how to get started.
Probably he should just go. Just keep easing along the alley out to the street and…
It occurred to Hal that following through on that idea would be best. He would walk out toward Kerr Street and collect himself for a moment, looking like any old shit standing absent-minded on the pavement. Then, he would turn around and come back through the alley and he would have his bearings. After all, that was how they got here back in the day. That was even how he got here last time. He came along from Kerr Street that afternoon back in ’94, and even in his mindless, drunken wandering, he had easily done what was necessary.
But no. He was tired. Backache, creaky joints—no time for wasted steps. Just keep an eye out, watch the wall, get things over with, catch a cab home.
The wall looked the same as it had since ’77. Time had worn away at the brick, of course, and there were newish bits of half-hearted graffiti scrawled here and there, but otherwise things were as they should be. And why not? After all, this was a hidden spot. No one who mattered would judge this place as anything but a mildly decrepit in-between place, dividing a former chocolate shop from a trendy new eatery that served everything on whole-wheat bricks.
Presently, the wall’s wavering lines of faltering masonry began to make sense. Here, a brick showed a smooth, deep depression as if someone had pressed a thumb into it before baking. There, a repair had been made with mad, parti-coloured mortar. Above that a spot, a disused window or conduit access, was covered with dingy, crackled plaster. Shambling along, he got to what he thought was the right point. Feet slightly spread, he faced the wall straight on, left thumb hooked into his belt for the moment. His right hand he pressed firmly to the wall’s surface, as if steadying himself for a drunken piss.
He did need to piss. Not badly, but enough that he knew if he let things go on even during the ride home, he would probably wet himself before he got his key in the door.
The left hand fumbled now, struggling to undo the belt. It was rough going; lefty had been his strong hand, long ago. The strength had been drained that night in Kyoto in ’99, when he managed to put his arm through the window of his hotel room and shredded flesh to ribbons. He was lucky, really, to still have the arm at all. It worked all right for basic things, but it had never got back to full strength, and now age was weakening it further.
None of it mattered at the moment, really, because just as he thought he had the buckle almost under control, the bricks against his right palm seemed to suddenly come alive with distant vibration, and he felt that ill wind whip through the alley.
He fell to his knees, half-choked from the nasty-sweet smell. It was just like all those years ago, except this time his knees were shot through not simply with pain from hitting the pavement, but with the aging agony of failure to warm them up before such a sudden bend.
He pissed himself.
“How are Ken and George?”
The voice was warm in his head, and golden as melted butter. He knew the voice so well—it had been his own, after all, any time he sang since the third day of August, 1977. Yes, his voice for singing, but now it was speaking. No one now living had heard that voice speak since that same August afternoon years ago.
Well, no one who mattered.
The press always made a big to-do over the difference between his speaking and singing voices. Talking, he sounded gruff and hoarse; one little twit who interviewed him in late ’81 compared his speaking voice to that of a corpse.
Really, it was the singing voice that belonged to a dead man. A dead boy, anyway.
“How are Ken and George?” the voice repeated.
Head throbbing, legs still screaming from the fall, Hal tried unsuccessfully to sit up. The surface under him was icy cold and smooth, and he knew he must have not made a full crossing. Surely, he was lying on the old marble-slab table in the back of what had been George’s uncle’s chocolate shop. Sometimes, you ended up in the back room before the Power fully pulled you through. He opened his eyes at last, content to lounge up on his elbows, and looked around.
Yes, this was the backroom of the shop. Old, dusty, not used since George retired his uncle to a mansion in California in ’85. No one had ever taken the building over, luckily. If he recalled correctly, George’s kids still owned the place, and they never seemed inclined to even rent it out. Even with how he had managed to short-change George on royalties, they did not need the money.
“Ken and George…” he rasped.
“Are dead,” the voice answered, tone more than a little sad.
The air seemed heavier then, and he felt himself spinning, a leaf on the wind. Soon, the room was gone, swallowed up in the purple-blue atmosphere he wished he did not know so well.
There she sat, the Power, looking as the four of them had first seen her. God, she was gorgeous—or was she a gorgeous god? Slender figure, smooth skin, wild curls of dark hair tumbling around her angelic face.
At least, that was how she had first appeared to him. Decades of study had led him to believe she might look different to others. Neither Ken nor George had ever wanted to talk about any of this much, so he had no way of knowing how she first looked to them, other than “beautiful.”
But Jim. Jim had clearly seen her as she was right off the bat, because while the other three had stood and stared, eyes full of lust, Jim had screamed and pissed himself and collapsed jabbering onto his side.
The others had taken that as a sign, in the end. Clearly, if Jim was not ready to be in such a Presence, then he was not ready for what she offered them. Fame, fortune, freedom—all things that resonated deep in their teenage hearts. Jim, however…
Well, as when dealing with any great Power, a sacrifice had been needed.
The Power was sitting on her delicate silver chair, smiling softly, her eyes full of what some might read as welcome, and perhaps love. Certainly, the old man standing before her, who had first stood before her in the days before he ever imagined growing old, felt warmth and love surrounding him.
“Back for more?” a voice, not Jim’s voice this time, but some other, wilder voice, whispered in his head.
He nodded.
“Just a bit more. See, there’s… I got some new guys together, a new album just finished. We’ve gotta tour for it, but I’m slowing up a lot and…”
“And you want more of my Power?”
“Yes. Please, yes. Just a bit. Just another few years, another…”
“Have you not spent enough? Enough time, enough energy? Would you not like to rest?”
“I… I’m not ready to stop yet. I gotta keep going. They still love me—the people, that is. They still need me.”
“And so all you require is more time?”
“Yeah. And energy. I ain’t young now, and my doctor… Well, I just need a few years. Five or a little more.”
“Five years or more. You are old now. Your body is old. Your mind is old. Is it not time to let the young have their day?”
He shrugged, smiling in that way he knew could always win over anyone. Anyone human, at any rate.
The Power smiled at him in return, an expression he initially took for one of genuine kindness and understanding. But suddenly her body seemed to quiver, and he could see the beauteous appearance slipping away. It was like a curtain slowly pulling aside, and he felt his breath catching in his throat, releasing as a sickening whine.
He and Ken and George had seen her first as beautiful, but once the deal was struck, they saw her as Jim had, and they each lost a little shred of their minds in that moment.
“No. Please, I don’t… You don’t have to…”
“Who are you to say what must not be done?”
The lovely image flashed away, leaving the reality behind. Again, he fell to his knees, and the contents of his very expensive lunch shot up from his stomach. Over the sound of his own retching and the thrum of his heart, he heard a thick, scraping, sloughing sound.
Maybe it was laughter.
The kid was handsome, all right. Not too tall, but slim, with a mop of wavy dark hair. His eyes sparkled, and he somehow made the raggedy, out-of-date clothes he wore look like high fashion.
And his voice! The smooth, warm tone of his singing worked well with the bright jangle of the battered acoustic guitar he played.
“You’ve got quite a talent,” Lester said, stopping to drop a few bills into the hat at the boy’s feet.
“Thank you, sir.”
Polite. That was nice. So many kids these days were rude little shits without any concern for others.
“You sound very like that one fellow. Can’t remember the name at the moment…”
“Hal Greenson?” the boy offered softly.
“Yes! That’s it. Yes, you sound like him.”
The boy smiled softly, showing less-than-perfect teeth that Lester found unspeakably endearing.
“I get that a lot, sir,” he said, and smoothed a hand through his dark hair.
Looking around quickly, Lester noted the street was nearly deserted. Not unusual for this time of day.
“You’re not too busy right now, eh?”
The boy shook his head, and now his expression was one of aching tenderness that brought a lump to Lester’s throat.
“Well, would you… Whereabouts do you live?”
“Anywhere,” the boy shrugged.
“Ah. Rough, eh?”
“A bit. My parents… Well, they’re not around here anymore.”
“I see. You in care?”
“No sir. Not now. Was a bit when I was younger.”
“I see,” Lester repeated, and felt his phone buzz in his pocket.
He elected to ignore the device, but he did scrounge a little change from his pocket, prepared to drop it into the boy’s hat. Halfway through the motion, however, he paused.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“Could eat a horse,” the boy replied.
“Well. Well, I’m… I’ve got no plans. Want to come back to my place and have a bite? I’ve got a spare room as well, if you’d want to sleep somewhere a bit comfortable.”
A series of emotions flashed over the boy’s face, so swift and delicate that Lester could not catch even half of them.
“I don’t want to be a bother,” the boy said.
“Oh, it’s no bother. I’m a lonely old guy. Could use some company.”
“Well…”
“You’d be doing me a favour.”
After a long moment, the boy smiled again, swinging his guitar on its strap behind his back and crouching to pick up the hat. A wave of tenderness swelled so quickly in Lester’s heart that he had to press a hand to his chest.
“Thanks for the invitation, sir,” the boy said.
“Oh, please, do call me Lester. And you?”
“Well, Lester, I’m Jim.”
They started off along Kerr Street together.
All original contents © L. Richmond, 2025-