Cohn I Am Still The Greatest Says Johnny Angelo

1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-1-84344-982-9
Verlag: No Exit Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 256 Seiten

Despite persistent rumours of his death fifteen years ago, Johnny Angelo's legend continues. Johnny Angelo is a rock singer, and this is his story from the beginning. As a child he is a dreamer and a solitary, a thief, a killer of birds and cats. As a man he is a god to his fans, an emperor to his cronies, a hoodlum to his enemies. Girls lie at his feet. He becomes rich. He commits murder. At the end, police shoot him down in the street. In a cool and highly original style Nik Cohn has written a bizarre fable for our time, capturing its sickness and horror yet staying true to its grandeur and allure. I Am Still The Greatest Says Johnny Angelo is Nik Cohn's hymn to rock as myth, in all its crazed, absurd and glorious excess. Partly based on the legendary rocker, P J Proby, Johnny Angelo is the pop star to end all pop stars - narcissistic, mock-heroic and massively destructive. The novel follows his progress from warped infancy to final messianic explosion. A top read, which David Bowie once claimed inspired Ziggy Stardust.

Nik Cohn was the original rock & roll writer. Arriving in London from Northern Ireland in 1964, aged 18, he covered the Swinging Sixties for The Observer, The Sunday Times, Playboy, Queen and the New York Times and he published the classic rock history Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom in 1968. later he moved to America and wrote a short story that was filmed as Saturday Night Fever. His other books include Rock Dreams (with Guy Peellaert), Arfur Teenage Pinball Queen (which helped inspire the Who's Tommy) and Yes We Have No.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Cohn, Nik

Leseproben

The Doctor Johnny Angelo was not a person who changed. From the time of his birth, he hated squalor, sickness and ugliness of every kind and he lived for style. To the last degree he was fastidious. Already at the age of nine he did not tolerate his mother’s nylon stockings lying unwashed on a chair, nor his father’s stale tobacco, nor his sisters’ sanitary towels all crumpled in the trashcan. All of these things repelled him and drove him deep inside his attic. He wasn’t like a child. He didn’t cry and he didn’t get excited. Instead, he passed his time in solitude and he wore a watch with live hands and he lived through days of 7 or 18 or 29 hours, according to his mood. For a long while, he lived inside his bright red suit with the flowing white scarf and the white pompom on top of the hood. Even after he’d grown too big for it, he kept it in his attic and took pictures of its reflection. But rats nibbled it while he was gone, moths caused it to disintegrate. One day, he picked it up and it fell to pieces in his hands. He took the remnants out on to the neighbourhood bombsite and he buried it in a hole. His beautiful red suit, he folded it neatly and wrapped it in tissue paper and covered it over with earth. Then he went away. When he returned inside the back room, his sisters were there, playing snap. Johnny Angelo lay in his bed and turned to the wall but his eyes remained open, he kept thinking of his bright red suit, buried in a bombsite. Of course, his sisters guessed. Their cards slapped against the kitchen table, they talked at him: ‘Johnny, I can see you.’ ‘Johnny, I know.’ In school, Johnny Angelo was given a new uniform – his blazer was a deep wine colour and there was a yellow dragon emblazoned on his breast pocket. Also, he had a matching wine-coloured cap, complete with yellow bands and his socks were black, with wine and yellow stripes. He stayed by himself. During break, he stood in some empty corner of the playground and was always the last to troop back inside the classroom. Not that he was shy: he cared about dignity, that’s all, and he had no wish to fraternise. Similarly, he refused to undress in public. On the afternoon when everyone played football, he wouldn’t get changed, wouldn’t take his pants down. Simply, he thought it unbefitting and he sat without moving until all the rest were fitted out in their sky-blue shirts and silver studdings. His teacher called him names, the other boys snickered: ‘Johnny, who d’you think you’re kidding?’ ‘Johnny, we can see you.’ ‘Chicken Johnny Angelo.’ Still, he sat in front of his locker and wouldn’t budge. One true thing about him, he was stubborn at least and prideful and he never changed his mind. Even when his teacher got mad and hit him, he didn’t cry and didn’t smile but sat without moving and wouldn’t be budged. For this reason, he was disliked. When he walked into morning assembly, for instance, everyone laughed behind their hands and pointed. On Johnny’s back, someone had pinned a notice and the following message: kick me says Johnny Angelo. Johnny Angelo says kick me: he stood in some empty corner of the playground and, as soon as school was out, he went home to his attic. Halfway down Mafeking Street, he met for the first time with the Doctor. It was mid-October and leaves swirled around their ankles. Straightaway, Johnny’s life was changed. The Doctor was a man of middle-age, with yellowed flesh and yellowed eyes. Each night, he went walking through the neighbourhoods of the city and he stood in the shadows. On the dark side of the street, he would wait beneath a gaslamp and he wore a long black overcoat, a black slouch hat. Because of this, his reputation was sinister and he was known variously as Doctor Sax, Doctor Spook and Doctor Kitsch. As it happened, all of these names were unjust – he liked to walk alone, that’s all, and he wore his hat pulled low across his eyes. For twenty-two years he had lived by himself in a large house on Westmill Boulevard, almost a mansion, surrounded by high barbed wire. Late at night, returning from his travels, he would pace up and down in his study. A light shone from behind his back, his silhouette was framed in the window, his yellow eyes gleamed. And that’s how Johnny Angelo knew him. Sometimes, when he’d been out stealing turnips, Johnny would pause beyond the barbed-wire fence and watch while the Doctor paced. The yellowed flesh, the black slouched hat – these things amused him and, later, he became aware of the Doctor beneath the gaslamps, or lurking up an alley, or moving silently behind his back, or simply crouching in the dark. Johnny wasn’t made uneasy. Rather he was intrigued, attracted: he thought the Doctor was cute. Therefore, passing him by on Mafeking Street, Johnny went slow and hoped to be accosted. His golden hair fell forward across his eyes, his teeth showed very white. When he looked up into the Doctor’s face, the Doctor smiled. Then Johnny smiled in return and they shook hands on the corner. The wind blew in spasms, the Doctor’s coat was lifted high around his knees. Then he held Johnny’s hand in his own, gently squeezing the fingers. ‘Little boy,’ he said. ‘What are you called?’ ‘My name is Johnny Angelo: I live in the attic.’ ‘You have beautiful flesh.’ ‘I have a watch with five hands.’ It was almost teatime: Johnny Angelo wore his wine-coloured blazer with the yellow dragon emblazoned on the breast, his wine-coloured cap with the yellow stripe. He was almost ten years old. ‘Of course, we could always go to my house,’ the Doctor said. ‘Once inside, we could eat toasted scones.’ ‘I think I’d like that,’ said Johnny, simpering, and they walked together to the house on Westmill Boulevard, while leaves swirled around the ankles. Beyond the barbed-wire fence, the Doctor’s mansion stood black and gaunt and lonesome. Their footsteps echoed through the hallways and many empty rooms surrounded them, because the Doctor confined himself to a single room on the second floor and the rest of his house was deserted. Hand in hand, the Doctor led Johnny Angelo out on to a balcony and they looked across the neighbourhood. Then Johnny shaded his eyes and he saw his own street, his own house, even the skylight of his attic. ‘From this balcony I can watch everything that occurs,’ said the Doctor. ‘Even the Sunday morning markets, where turnip watches are stolen in their dozens.’ Johnny Angelo was not embarrassed. Standing close to the Doctor, he didn’t feel threatened and he didn’t feel tense. In fact, he felt more at ease than during any other phase of his lifetime, so he laughed out loud and the Doctor also laughed and then, still holding hands, they went inside the Doctor’s study. This room was the centre of the Doctor’s whole existence. For twenty-two years without a holiday, he had paced from one end to another and all of his life had accumulated within its doors. It didn’t add up to much: on the hatstand, there were four slouch hats, all identical; pinned to a wall, there was the Doctor’s medical diploma; in the darkest corner, there was a heaped confusion of books and journals and pamphlets, gris-gris calculations and secret cures; and hanging from the ceiling, there was a single candelabra. Apart from these items, there were also a handful of applecores in an ashtray, three guttered candles and a phial of verdigris. When Johnny sat down in a velvet armchair, dust rose up in clouds and made him sneeze. Nonetheless, this room was not squalid. Just gently decaying. Meanwhile, the Doctor had disappeared inside the kitchen and was preparing an afternoon tea, namely toasted muffins, buttered scones and cranberry jam. When he emerged once more, there were crumbs all around his mouth and his yellow eyes were sheepish. First he took off his overcoat, his black slouch hat. Then he balanced his plate upon his knees, looking dainty: ‘I am fond of elegance,’ he said. ‘Grace and style in all things, the avoidance of tedium.’ ‘I used to own a bright red suit,’ said Johnny. ‘I buried it in a bombsite.’ ‘Precisely.’ ‘I sit cross-legged on the floor and take many pictures. At four o’clock in the morning, I threw a brick through the window and my sisters were playing dominoes, the lightbulb was swinging in the draught. My eyes kept opening and shutting.’ Inside this room, everything was peaceful and Johnny sank down deeper in his velvet armchair. Soon he began to be drowsy and nothing mattered any more. Then the Doctor helped himself to a second buttered scone and spread it thick with jam. ‘Doesn’t truth get tiresome?’ he said. ‘When lies are so much fun.’ Johnny picked up a slouch hat from off the hatstand and placed it on his head. Straightaway, it slipped down over his eyes, skidded right to the tip of his nose and he looked ridiculous. The Doctor laughed softly: ‘Do you take my meaning?’ he said. ‘I think so.’ ‘Then have another muffin and come back again...