Roll Over Mystery
He was riding the bus to nowhere. The girl he had been sleeping with for two weeks, was sitting next to him, snoring. She was blond and pretty with a small frame. She had big motherly breasts and that pleased him. She was a devotee at just nineteen. She pretended to know things in bed that she obviously did not,full of the curious power that virginal women tasting freedom had. He had started caring for her and wondered if he was good enough for her.
Rahab Gahib was a star and all he ever wanted to do was to write the greatest rock song.
The rock press loved him. To them he was God. They invented the phrases “surreally perceptive” and “exhilaratingly transcendental” to describe his sound and style. Most music fans, if there were any, were convinced that he was the last great hope for rock. One day he would rule the world that they inherited. At thirty, he was at least ten years older than most of them. He fed on their youth and adulation. He preached to them the things they lusted and fucked for and they worshipped him with inchoate amorphous grunts and squeals.
His beginnings were poor. His mother was dead and his father was conveniently forgotten. He came from a city nobody cared to remember. He was the City’s own, ever since anyone who professed to know him could remember. He had dropped seventh grade. Once, he had seen the Ones live in concert with Buddy for back up. That was way back then, some fifteen years ago. The sight changed him. He had seen the prettiest wildest girls there, and they seemed to like what was going on. He had pretended to be a part of it all. He had an evening of fumbled kisses with a drunken girl after the concert. She insisted in calling him Buddy, but he couldn’t mind. The next day he stole a guitar from a kid at school after beating him up. He dropped out of school. He ran away to the nearest bus stop, paid a dollar for a ticket and bummed his way through for a year towards the City.
He thought up a vague rhythm that was jagged and unpleasant. It was remarkable enough to make the cut one day. He was not sure what the girl’s name was. He was calling her Mars because that’s what he thought he had heard when she had leaned across and shouted her name out to him from behind the bar. She was in a low necked white shirt that hung loosely all over her top frame. Her black dark hair fluttered all around the exposed skin at the neck. He caught himself radiating warmth towards youth sleeping blissfully,head rocking to the rhythm of the bus.
The newspaper on the seat next to him was talking about war. The war was every where .The kids and their flags had all seemed frivolous when it started. It was a show by a bunch of well fed adolescents who had nothing to lose, to whom playing heroes was cool. They were ubiquitous, walking around with candles and banners and photographs and flags making up inane rhymes that sounded worse when said out so loud in unison- as if the old order will vacate their seats and run for cover, retching at the revolting doggerel.
The band and the record label wanted a song to go with the scene. A song that every one would go about marching and singing freely: they would have placards quoting it and wave photographs. It would make a packet. He wrote them a sardonic little song with a stupid two chord chorus that rhymed real revolution with blood carnation. He drowned everything else in warm loud guitar fuzz and spewed vitriol on the kids. The song was a hit. They played it along with their Dylan covers during the demonstrations.
A year on, it had become a war. There were shelling and tear gas strikes. Neighborhood gangsters joined in with free guns and bullets to their faithful. It became dirtier every day. His studio was destroyed in a fire. The drummer lost his wife and kid in a shooting. The City was no place for rock and roll bands. It was no place for any one any more. That was why he was escaping it all with a young blessed woman called Mars. He leaned across and kissed her on the head. She smiled sleepily. He clung to her love now. Her sweet innocence seemed to give him some hope in this hard cynical time. He would protect and keep her forever. He would find a place to settle down, away from all this mess. Maybe he would end up in Paris, where everything was still alright. They loved him there too and he could start life again with Mars, who loved him. He wondered if he had been good enough for her in bed.
He looked out. They were on the State Highway. There was no one around. He missed the endlessly honking trucks and the tourists who once jammed these roads. It had rained the night before. The bright green of the passing countryside lifted his soul. He started solving the Daily Crossword on his paper. Words came easily to him. Their beats and rhythms were what he was tuned to.That, not his guitar, was the secret of his magic. He solved the first few clues with little effort and stared absently at the burning skeleton of a bus that passed by on his window. A lady behind him screamed. He turned around to look at her. There was hardly anyone else on the bus- the lady and her little boy, a dozing old white couple, a black man of around fifty and his strikingly pretty daughter and on the other aisle were two young men, who looked Indian.
Panicked at the sight of the flaming iron frame,the bus jerked to a halt. They were surrounded by men and women who poured out of the dense vegetation around. Each carried a menacing gun and wore white dirty t shirts with the red blood mark of the Revolution on the chest. They were quiet. Ten of them boarded the bus, wordless. They got them all down with a wave of the guns. The screaming woman knew better and followed them out in quiet acquiescence as did Gahib and the rest. Mars cried silently and clasped his right hand. He stroked it with his fingers and whispered that it would be alright soon.
He was riding the bus to nowhere. The girl he had been sleeping with for two weeks, was sitting next to him, snoring. She was blond and pretty with a small frame. She had big motherly breasts and that pleased him. She was a devotee at just nineteen. She pretended to know things in bed that she obviously did not,full of the curious power that virginal women tasting freedom had. He had started caring for her and wondered if he was good enough for her.
Rahab Gahib was a star and all he ever wanted to do was to write the greatest rock song.
The rock press loved him. To them he was God. They invented the phrases “surreally perceptive” and “exhilaratingly transcendental” to describe his sound and style. Most music fans, if there were any, were convinced that he was the last great hope for rock. One day he would rule the world that they inherited. At thirty, he was at least ten years older than most of them. He fed on their youth and adulation. He preached to them the things they lusted and fucked for and they worshipped him with inchoate amorphous grunts and squeals.
His beginnings were poor. His mother was dead and his father was conveniently forgotten. He came from a city nobody cared to remember. He was the City’s own, ever since anyone who professed to know him could remember. He had dropped seventh grade. Once, he had seen the Ones live in concert with Buddy for back up. That was way back then, some fifteen years ago. The sight changed him. He had seen the prettiest wildest girls there, and they seemed to like what was going on. He had pretended to be a part of it all. He had an evening of fumbled kisses with a drunken girl after the concert. She insisted in calling him Buddy, but he couldn’t mind. The next day he stole a guitar from a kid at school after beating him up. He dropped out of school. He ran away to the nearest bus stop, paid a dollar for a ticket and bummed his way through for a year towards the City.
He thought up a vague rhythm that was jagged and unpleasant. It was remarkable enough to make the cut one day. He was not sure what the girl’s name was. He was calling her Mars because that’s what he thought he had heard when she had leaned across and shouted her name out to him from behind the bar. She was in a low necked white shirt that hung loosely all over her top frame. Her black dark hair fluttered all around the exposed skin at the neck. He caught himself radiating warmth towards youth sleeping blissfully,head rocking to the rhythm of the bus.
The newspaper on the seat next to him was talking about war. The war was every where .The kids and their flags had all seemed frivolous when it started. It was a show by a bunch of well fed adolescents who had nothing to lose, to whom playing heroes was cool. They were ubiquitous, walking around with candles and banners and photographs and flags making up inane rhymes that sounded worse when said out so loud in unison- as if the old order will vacate their seats and run for cover, retching at the revolting doggerel.
The band and the record label wanted a song to go with the scene. A song that every one would go about marching and singing freely: they would have placards quoting it and wave photographs. It would make a packet. He wrote them a sardonic little song with a stupid two chord chorus that rhymed real revolution with blood carnation. He drowned everything else in warm loud guitar fuzz and spewed vitriol on the kids. The song was a hit. They played it along with their Dylan covers during the demonstrations.
A year on, it had become a war. There were shelling and tear gas strikes. Neighborhood gangsters joined in with free guns and bullets to their faithful. It became dirtier every day. His studio was destroyed in a fire. The drummer lost his wife and kid in a shooting. The City was no place for rock and roll bands. It was no place for any one any more. That was why he was escaping it all with a young blessed woman called Mars. He leaned across and kissed her on the head. She smiled sleepily. He clung to her love now. Her sweet innocence seemed to give him some hope in this hard cynical time. He would protect and keep her forever. He would find a place to settle down, away from all this mess. Maybe he would end up in Paris, where everything was still alright. They loved him there too and he could start life again with Mars, who loved him. He wondered if he had been good enough for her in bed.
He looked out. They were on the State Highway. There was no one around. He missed the endlessly honking trucks and the tourists who once jammed these roads. It had rained the night before. The bright green of the passing countryside lifted his soul. He started solving the Daily Crossword on his paper. Words came easily to him. Their beats and rhythms were what he was tuned to.That, not his guitar, was the secret of his magic. He solved the first few clues with little effort and stared absently at the burning skeleton of a bus that passed by on his window. A lady behind him screamed. He turned around to look at her. There was hardly anyone else on the bus- the lady and her little boy, a dozing old white couple, a black man of around fifty and his strikingly pretty daughter and on the other aisle were two young men, who looked Indian.
Panicked at the sight of the flaming iron frame,the bus jerked to a halt. They were surrounded by men and women who poured out of the dense vegetation around. Each carried a menacing gun and wore white dirty t shirts with the red blood mark of the Revolution on the chest. They were quiet. Ten of them boarded the bus, wordless. They got them all down with a wave of the guns. The screaming woman knew better and followed them out in quiet acquiescence as did Gahib and the rest. Mars cried silently and clasped his right hand. He stroked it with his fingers and whispered that it would be alright soon.
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