AT 29 (2 page)

For weeks he and his followers burned their way deep into the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. He stole sheep, set crops afire and put farm families on the primitive roads to forage for their lives. With soldiers in pursuit, skirmishes occurred. Most of his
men were captured, but Dermott held out, stealthily moving among the valleys and hilltops. He was cornered on a ridge overlooking Bainbridge Valley. When the soldiers surrounded him he opened fire, more willing to die than endure another assault from the lash, but the Governor's order was to take him alive. And, alive he came out when his last bullet was expended.

“Best you shoot me, now!” he shouted, from behind a tree as the soldiers closed in. “For I will not bend to the lash and will not be hanged!” Six soldiers set upon him from behind. He was chained and brought back to justice.

Not one of the many settlers who lost their homes to the Gannon band was killed. Nor did a soldier lose his life in his pursuit, although not for lack of intention. This saved Dermott Gannon from the rope. His sentence was nevertheless harsh, two hundred lashes, enough to kill any man. And, if he remained alive, deportation to the worst hellhole in all of the British Empire, Norfolk Island, one thousand miles out to sea, desolate and ruled over by one of England's unending line of brutal overseers.

The lashes were administered in Sydney's public square. Townspeople made a gay picnic of the spectacle as Gannon was paraded to the post chained, but head held high. Helen was brought to witness the depravity, allowed to carry their crying daughter as the infant sought her mother's sickly breasts. Helen's eyes lowered to the dusty ground when her proud husband was marched into the square. Hoots and hollers rose up from the excited throng. When Dermott Gannon saw his wife he cried out in anguish. Then, as his shirt was stripped from his back and his chains fastened to the post, he called out to her.

“Raise your head, woman! Lift my child so she may know what dirty deeds men do! I may not live. Nor may you at the hands of these oppressors, but see that we are not forgotten. Gannon is our name! Make sure the fruits of our daughter's passion carry that name down through all generations to come!”

The first swing of the terrible lash whistled through the air, opening a slit across the Irishman's back. He did not cry out. Instead, he raised his head and spat upon the ground. Then he endured the rest, stone-faced, until his back was a bloody pulp, ripped and torn to the very depth of his spine. When the chains were loosed soldiers stepped forward to carry his broken body away. The crowd was hushed, sickened by the immoral justice meted out, but Dermott Gannon would not be carried from the post. The stone man summoned all the strength he had to raise his head and walk from the square to the ship that would take him away.

Lloyd Gannon Clarke mused about his middle name. He knew his great-grandfather's fate; the second to last convict to be put to death on Norfolk Island. Everyone remembers the last man to die, but who preserves the name of the man who died before? Dermott Gannon led an uprising. He was hanged along with twelve others, their bodies buried in a mass grave. Not long thereafter, the last man was killed at the post, lashed three hundred times before the deadened eyes of his fellow convicts. The island prison was closed by order of the new Governor of New South Wales, dispatched from London to halt the depravities for which his homeland was becoming too well known. The last remaining convicts were then transported to another hell in Van Dieman's Land.

Lloyd's thoroughly researched thesis about the treacherous founding of his country earned him a doctorate in history. He joined the faculty of The University of New South Wales, but languished in obscurity at an institution more dedicated to the sciences.
He bored his students with the same droning lectures that filled his thousand-page history, a dry tome that only the most dedicated reader could finish. His failure was detail bereft of the humanity of the men and women who suffered so greatly to build his country. This lack, so easily recognized by the many publishers he pursued to print his work, drove him to bitterness. “Fools, all of them, publishers and students!” After a few years of fruitless teaching he quit. He became the resentful arts pundit who now sat alone in the center of the balcony's first row.

He stared dismissively at the filling theater. Opening night featured the leading citizens of Melbourne. They came to be seen. None knew that what they were about to witness was nothing more than another fantasy masquerading as historical fact; an American company and its producer/songwriter attempting to make money by catering to the whimsy of Australians ignorant of the truth. Absurd! How dare they!

Jimmy's turning point came in late December of 1978, the debacle at Atlantic City. Opening for VooDoo9, that pre-packaged studio fraud, was the absolute low point. I couldn't understand why he took the gig. I knew his talent better than anyone. When he was on, nobody, especially a coifed, corporate creation like VooDoo9, was worthy of being on the same stage. But that night Jimmy looked like just another flameout. I cried for him, couldn't write a word about that show. He fell hard. Of course, he had been falling for a long time
.

- Alice Limoges, rock ‘n' roll writer and groupie - from her memoir
.

He hovered above his vessel, staring down at the smoke and flames. A dozen men thrashed in the waters in a desperate attempt to right a whaleboat floating face down, atop the waves. It was his crew. The smoke rose into the sky, thick and black, but he could penetrate it. Not with his eyes because he had no physical presence. He did not see nor hear. He was merely aware. He drifted beneath the smoke to the Captain's quarters. An empty jug lay on its side on a table. His spirits, the needed drink that too often filled his nights at sea after the music was done. He descended further to the bowels of the barque. A body lay smoldering. His body. Suddenly, he was above the ship once more. The whaleboat was gone and he slipped beneath the ocean to find it listlessly trailing severed ropes as it drifted slowly down to join its twin already resting on the sandy bottom. At last, he rose above the ship as it listed starboard. Only four men remained above the waves, fighting for life with their heads barely visible. He sensed they would join him soon.

In the distance, a figure appeared surrounded by bright light; a woman, floating, like him, with a baby in her arms. She came nearer, eyes down, smiling at her child. Her image filled him with remorse. Then they were gone, but the light remained. He knew he must follow it, that he would see his wife and child no more. The light grew brighter, tugging him into the ether.

Jimmy woke abruptly with the recurring dream still fresh. He was on his back in a bed with railings. He turned his head to see that he was alone although there was an empty bed next to his. Sunlight blasted through the windows, shining directly into his eyes. He surmised that it was the reason he awoke. He closed his eyes in self-defense, but the disconcerting dream lingered, forcing him to open them again. More windows framed a door to a corridor where people dressed in white walked by. A hospital, he realized. His head pounded as he looked down at the sheets covering his body up to his chest. His arms were outside the sheets and a tube was connected by tape across the top of his right hand, no doubt penetrating a vein. Not his guitar hand he noted, thankfully. It was a purplish color, but there was no pain, just his head. A tall black presence appeared at the door.

“Ah, you're awake.”

He knew the face and the voice, but he couldn't find the name in his memory. Then it came to him as the slender, clean-shaven visitor moved through the door to his side.

“Ellis,” he said, in a voice barely above a whisper, aggravating his aching brain.

“It's me, yes.”

Ellis was his agent and friend, with him from the earliest moments of his tepid stardom, first as a member of his band then later when he switched to promotion and became his agent.

“What happened to me?”

“You gave us a scare, Jimmy boy.” Ellis found a chair and slid it to the bedside.

“My head hurts.”

“You got real sick. Cindy called an ambulance.”

“What kind of sick?”

“You had too much to drink, got the shakes so bad your eyes rolled back into your head. Then you turned blue and passed out.”

“Not good.”

“More serious than your typical binges, but the doctor says you're gonna be okay.”

“Where's Cindy?”

Ellis looked away. Jimmy knew this gesture. It was his way of collecting himself before delivering bad news.

“Gone.”

Jimmy was not surprised. Lately, his relationship with Cindy was shaky. In the past few months his drinking had become more earnest.

“How was the gig?”

Ellis cleared his throat, stood and walked slowly to the other side of the bed, blocking the sun with his body. He wore a black suit with a black tee shirt and a few gold chains around his neck. On his wrist was a mammoth Rolex, bejeweled and glistening. His perfectly proportioned head was shaven and shiny, no doubt due to some sort of cream that had been applied with expert care. Ellis regarded himself as a stud and rightly so since beneath the exterior grooming was a lean, muscular body.

“Well, that's the issue, isn't it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Apart from the drinking and all, the music's not where it ought to be.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“You don't remember?”

“Not a thing.”

“They booed you off the stage.”

“And now? I'm laying in a hospital?”

“I think the booze compounded the effect of the beating.”

“Beating?”

“No black eyes or cuts, just a little swelling around the cheeks. I pulled Benson off and told him to go home.”

Benson again. “What about the others?”

“Mitch and Ralphie are with him. Sonny's back at the restaurant in the city.”

“Booed off the stage?”

“Yeah, not your best performance.”

“Tell me.”

“You didn't exactly hit the notes on some of the songs.” Ellis looked away again. “Of course, you were just the warm up. They all came to see VooDoo9 and maybe the crowd just wanted to get on with it.”

Jimmy felt a pang of embarrassment. A year earlier he was a headliner. A few minor hits had spawned a loyal following that filled small venues across the country. But the hits had stopped and lately Ellis could only find front-end gigs, warming up audiences for more popular groups. Jimmy wanted to ignore the truth, but he knew it was the booze.

“What does this mean?”

The agent flashed a nervous smile, not a good sign. “It's too early to know. The good thing is we don't have anything lined up so we won't lose a payday.”

“That's good? Nothing from nothing.” Jimmy dropped his chin.

“Yeah, ‘cause you need to heal and then I think you need to take some time to get straightened out. You've got a little money. Use it to clean up so we can get back on track.”

“Fine for me, but the rest of the band needs to work.”

Ellis looked away again. “Well, that's an issue, too. Benson refuses to work with you anymore. He's forming his own group, starting with Mitch and Ralphie.

“All this since last night?”

“Last night? Today is Tuesday. The gig was Sunday. Maybe I need to replay this for you. You drank yourself into a coma and came close to meeting your maker. You're in intensive care and you haven't opened your eyes for two days.”

A cute nurse appeared at the door with a tray of food. She carried it to Jimmy's bedside, set it down on a sliding table and maneuvered it over the center of his bed.

“How's the patient?” she asked, smiling with perfect teeth.

For an instant Jimmy forgot his headache. He noted how attractive she looked in white with short blond hair and a smile that said, ‘I'm interested if you are'. He had an antenna for this, well honed over the years. He looked down at the food.

“I'm not hungry.”

“You haven't had anything solid since you were brought in. You need to eat. I'll stay to help if you like.”

Ellis seized this opportunity to avoid delivering more bad news. He shuffled toward the door, mumbling that he ought to leave so Jimmy could eat and get some rest.

“I'll come back later when you're feeling better? We can figure things out then.”

Jimmy nodded, trying to smile in spite of his pain. He needed Ellis' friendship more than his professional efforts at that moment, but his agent plainly wanted to leave and he would not hold him just to take the edge off his own discomfort. Ellis was gone in a flash and Jimmy turned back to the nurse.

“Let's give it a try,” she coaxed. “It will help you feel better.”

She unwrapped the plate of food and picked up a fork. He thought she would hand the utensil to him, but she plunged it into some cottage cheese and lifted it to his lips, careful to hold her other palm beneath his chin to catch anything that might fall. He took the food chagrined that he had brought himself to this helpless state, but she was smiling and focused on feeding him so he let her. When he finished she took the tray and placed it on the chair, poured him some water and re-arranged the pillows behind his back.

“If you need me just call.” She pointed to a button intertwined around the railing near the tube running to his hand. Then she picked up the tray and turned to the door.

“I'm Marsha”.

He watched her leave then returned to pondering the fool he'd become.

On February 26, 1814, Jonathan Whitehurst reached his seventeenth birthday. Until that day he had spent his entire life on a small parcel of land his father rented on the vast estate of a local nobleman. Together with his six siblings of whom he was the second to youngest, Jonathan followed his father's orders, tending to a meager store of crops, fetching wood for the fire and keeping the thatched roof of the family's cottage in repair. His life was drudgery directed by an emotionless parent who showed his son no warmth.