One Three One: A Time-Shifting Gnostic Hooligan Road Novel (33 page)

Whoa, how my mind travelled backwards now. All I could feel at the time of the awards ceremony was this great gushing of human sympathy and emotion pouring over us, especially after our weeks of abandonment huddling naked and alone in those white stalls. But now, from the blissful feet-up comfort of the hearse’s rear section and the vista of Blessèd Anna’s neck, how I drifted back to that peculiar between-time of public demand and sanatorium yearnings.

Stu was not a natural rapper, nor would he have been treading the boards at all had it not been for the blessings of the Rave Era. Stu was a scenester primarily; someone who bound projects together and facilitated other people’s great ideas. But mostly he was just great to have around, great at hanging out, and had one of those unforgettably malleable Sam Kydd faces that cracked people up. His featured spoken bits in Brits Abroad’s videos always got rewound and watched again and again; his role as the feisty ticket collector in the Kit Kats’ first single ‘Second Class to Dottingham’ was even a bit classic. And despite being all-but-ignored for the actual recording of Full English Breakfast’s soon to be Mega-hit, Stu had added so much to that video’s Mexican Revolution charm with his strutting, autocratic gringo cameo – and on peyote the whole time, I might add – that his presence at the Rapativity Awards was greeted by universal thumbs-ups and hearty slaps upon the back from even the hippest of rapping types. Indeed, that year’s compère – the cricket rapper MCC – even pulled one of Stu’s Kit Kat Rapper expressions halfway through the ceremony.

But what none of us were to anticipate, as Stu sat tidily through the hot food and schmoozing of the early evening, was that he was in no fit mental state whatsoever to receive some big meaningful MTV-televised award. Therefore, when rapper MCC pronounced ‘Her Majesty’s Pleasure’ the winner of 1991’s
Smartprize, the thunderous hoots and hollers, the rapturous applause and standing ovation, the impromptu syn-drum salute from ‘Corridor of Uncertainty’ rapper Ian Both-of-them … well, it all conspired to fill Stu’s manic brain not with confidence and the chilled feeling of being surrounded by homeys, no, dear me no. Instead, fresh from the too-quick despatch of a greasy white-hot cheese platter care of the Ritz catering department, Stu was suddenly overwhelmed – or so he told me much later – by the feeling of utter wrongness at his role as award collector. Where was Leander the rapper? Where was M. Goodby the composer? Stu knew that Have-a-laugh considered it politically compromising to make the speech himself, therefore now Stu must be the voice of the Kit Kat Rappers’ decimated camp. And thus did Stu ascend the award scaffold, buoyed up only by the snorting, bullish Gary Have-a-laugh and the vicious dairy overload of twenty minutes previously.

Now, as we headed further down the fast 389 in the Anarchist Armoured Car, rarely hitting 50 m.p.h., for some very stupid reason, the prospect of reaching Fonni was now somewhat overwhelming to me. Who was I to tread where D. H. Lawrence had only yearned to roam? Had I done enough in my own life to deserve this? What pressure I felt to make a good account of myself up there. So when it became clear that we’d got plenty of time today for fun and frolics, I acquiesced immediately when Anna confessed to having wished since childhood to visit the streets of Mamoiada. Aha, the other hilltop Shangri-la! And this one a real centre of kidnapping! I reminded Anna to keep an eye out for Meat-, sorry, for Meltburger stands and caravans. And, thus did we take a brief detour, hanging a sharp left up into the mountain fast lanes of Mamoiada, and taking extra care to avoid the masked
mamuthones
and other festival goers as they bumped and barged their ways through the highly decorated streets. On our first attempt, the Buick hearse glided fairly effortlessly up the long, curling Via Asiago, which snakes right around the village into Via Tagliamento. But the sheer weight of people littering the roads ensured that we soon lost sight of our position and blundered into a tightly drawn net of white churches and domestic roofs. Now, we found ourselves surrounded by bullet-headed football fans dressed all in the blue-and-white of
Folgore Mamoiada, who beat out a death chant to the people of Fonni upon our roof and threw themselves across our bonnet, gurning drunkenly against our windscreen. Now, sliding down the inappropriately named backstreet Via Nuoro, we freed ourselves at last from the grip of F.C. Mamoiada and groaned back up the steep hill into Via Dante.

Onwards through the disobliging crowds we struggled, like driving through an IRA funeral with British numberplates, struggling onwards, ever onwards up to Via Tola. This time Anna navigated the hearse splendidly between two poorly parked estate cars into a tight blacksmith’s yard – a dead end. Four
mamuthones
danced wildly in the yard, each clad in their traditional dark wildebeest brown, each laden down their backs with great metal cowbells, each somewhat benevolent in their solemn near-beaked pewter masks. Gingerly, Blessèd Anna reversed 1948’s heaviest metal back into the street, where an old boy in a donkey jacket guided her inexpertly into a too-tight corner. Utterly stuffed. He walked away. Catching a gorgeous glimpse of the despondent Anna, I climbed down from the passenger seat and, like Luigi in
Wages of Fear
, rolled my sleeves up and spat on my hands melodramatically. But the lovely one was far too het up by the set up to get my movie fundamentalism. Nevertheless, as this dodgy too-tight new situation would only force us back down the same road that we already knew to be incorrect, Anna and I now took our opportunity to extricate ourselves properly from Mamoiada’s myriad ravers, cheekily executing a nine-point-turn amidst
mamuthones
galore. Thereafter did our Anarchist Armoured Bobsleigh scurry and slither back downhill the same way we had arrived. Appropriately, the ‘Leaving Mamoiada’ metal village sign was riddled with shotgun pellets.

Barely one hour later, we were already parked up and Anna was pulling the keys out of the Buick’s ignition once more, as I stared out north-northeast across the Fonni hillside towards Mamoiada’s conical hilltop now – by distance – made more inviting. Around us, hurrying festival goers were parking their cars far more shambolically than I’d ever previously witnessed even in the Mediterranean. And right there behind the parked cars, three dingy Meltburger caravans doing a roaring trade. I gave their cashiers all a cursory glance but, recognising none of them, I took Anna’s hand and we took off uphill in a state of high excitement: there were barely fifteen minutes left before Neon Sardinia commenced their grand performance. And nobody at the festival wanted to miss Fabrizio Arra’s grand entrance. Anna and I headed uphill towards the stage, unencumbered by bags and determined to dance the afternoon away. But staring back at that massive blue hearse parked up beside the stream, I knew I’d be foolish to leave my last remaining worldly possessions to the mercy of randomers and festival goers. So back I ran to retrieve my bag.

The steep, uphill high street into Fonni was rammed with fancy dancers and dozens more spectacular
mamuthones
, who cajoled festival goers and slowed up egression towards the stage. But Blessèd Anna and I soon located a dubious pedestrian rat-run behind and across an undefined garden area, wherein an ancient motor coach was parked up beside a whitewashed meeting hall advertising ‘Bible Classes’ in hand-painted lettering. Upon its too-large destination board – writ in gold painted letters with black drop shadows – read the ominous declaration:
No stranger uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall
enter
my sanctuary
(Ezekiel 44:9). Now,
that
all looks worrying enough to investigate later, Anna. Let’s give it a shot.

Thus we found ourselves plonked very nicely directly next to the sound desk opposite the stage, which had itself been built into a natural amphitheatre overlooked by two valleys. And then began the great ritual, the great re-enactment of the shamanic hilltop verbal war between the painted bruxos of Mamoiada and the painted bruxos of Fonni – their
my village is better than your village
battle. First came on to the stage a great warrior
mamuthone
, who whirled around then played a simple, single epiphany on an ancient analogue synthesizer. The sound across the valley was epic and cavernous. Then, he raised his arms to the heavens, screamed thrice into the microphone: ‘Fonni! Fonni! Fonni!’ and dragged back his great mask, thrusting his smiling blond head out into the sunshine. A great roar went up throughout the crowd: ‘Fabrizio! Fabrizio! Fabrizio!’ For this was the first time since Fabrizio Arra’s infamous kidnapping by F.C. Mamoiada hooligans years previously that the famous Fonni–Mamoiada contest had been allowed to take place. Next on to the stage, amidst more bruxo roars and synthesizer bleeps, walked Neon Sardinia’s other favourite Arturo Vaca – son of famed movie director L. A. Vaca – who was today taking the vocal role of Mamoiada’s own bruxo. Now, how he roared out his chauvinistic holler: ‘Mamoiada! Mamoiada! Mamoiada!’ And so, amidst cheering and drinking and whooping and declarations of local allegiances, had the concert began. But as even a cursory glance around the Fonni festival had already revealed to me three of Bugs Rabbit’s Meltburger caravans, I knew – what with the added presence of that Bible bus – that poor Jim Feather’s antagonists had to be in the vicinity; I would have to act at some point. Nevertheless, such was the atmosphere here
and such was my pleasure at Anna’s company that I deferred any real action until after catching a goodly portion of Neon Sardinia’s ambient panto. Gradually, as the ensemble’s bizarre organic epics unfolded across the afternoon, so the bare sprinkles of audience upon the green hillside filled to a throng. But such were the comings-and-goings of Neon Sardinia’s mentalizing stereo P.A. system and bowel-crunching sub-bass woofers that Blessèd Anna soon headed off with some Cágliari associates, whilst I tripped out bolt upright on the grass, occasionally leaning against my bulging bag for balance.

And then it happened! My bag took off into the air and rushed uphill towards the village, rocketing off between seated festival goers at a horrendous speed. Indeed, the thing was travelling so fast that most people mistook it for a concert effect, and I was slow as a bastard to come to my senses. Off I chased like a desperate sluggard, but was soon pushed faster and faster with every personal effect that I remembered to be within the bag. Fuck me, my passport, my phone, my stencils, my home! But the bag was entangled now in festival goers still entering the site, and I had caught up to within a few feet when – zoom! – off it jolly well trotted again, apparently still of its own volition. But now a clue! For the flying bag was approaching the self-same meeting room where I had clocked the ‘Bible Class’ sign. And as I raced around the corner, I saw it flying up the steps of the meeting room into a scattering of old people, most unconvinced that salvation truly lay within. Knowing now that my bag was inside the room, I quickly cut through shrubs and bushes into the backyard where – through a half-open side entrance door – I observed that fucking idiot Loon from Slag Van Blowdriver appear out of thin air, looking much much older now but holding my bag! And wearing Jim Feather’s magic cloak all along, I presume!

The Bible Class tableau that greeted me was a perfect picture of early Victorian hierarchy: a prim middle-aged lady this end of the rust-coloured flagstones down on her hands-and-knees scrubbing the waxy flagstones with an old-fashioned tin of kerosene, at the far end of the meeting room up at the bar, well, they looked to me mostly like Scando ferry workers. All of them tall, all biggish louts, several of them smoking and certain protagonists speaking very loudly. Across the far side of the room, trying to keep away from the smoke, was a small wiry weasel-faced guy, Cowtown Unslutter. He still looked like I remembered him aged seventeen back at Slag Van Blowdriver. And from the expression on his face, that fucker still looked about as yes as no. Skinny and mean and sure of his endgame, he clearly ruled this place – and what a place! Loon dropped my bag on to the floor next to the coffee table and took a Dutch Caballeros cigarette from a wide hairy bearded bastard that everybody referred to as Walter-Under-The-Bridge. This was Jim Feather’s nemesis – the thief of the magic cloak, no less! In truth, he was a colossal letdown: like Benny From
Crossroads
-meets-Benny From Abba with a secret military fetish, but not enough dosh to explore it far. He had a high voice and wore medals upon his tan tweed jacket. Next to him danced a skinny figure in faded urban blue camo pants, a black-and-white striped Newcastle Utd shirt, hat-on-sideways, toothless almost with a grinning slit for a mouth and fiery red eyes. Why-aye man, it’s fucking Pit-Yacker MC AKA Akkrum Sneek himself, Barry Hertzog’s old Spion Kop compadré. This was the Northumbrian twat who’d jumped on the Alnwick Pit-Yacker phenomenon back in ’87 and eclipsed even its originators. Nevertheless, Akkrum Sneek had – merely by association as Hertzog’s erstwhile collaborator – suffered mightily in the press after Italia ’90. The Pit-Yacker community
had turned against him as one man, the cops had monitored his palatial residential compound far up on the northeast coast, and even his speedway racing circuit up at Hayden Dean had come under scrutiny by the Customs & Excise. Was the Pit-Yacker living down here with this lot? Was Mr Sneek working down here for the Lord? Or was he just over for the party? I soon found out.