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west coast native persons had set up house with a mattress and some sodden cardboard. They drummed
and sang, on and off, through the drenching spring
nights. Just like Brixton, really.
There was a new, exclusive interview with Sage in one of the online glossies.
The splash had Fiorinda in a pink party frock, with a wreath of roses (sloppy: she
detests pink and she hates cut flowers) gazing up passionately into the eye
sockets of the living skull: a tempting yet decorous opening superimposed
SAGE ON FIORINDA
When they first met, she was fourteen years old She s the wildest, rawest talent in the Rock and
Roll Reich
Her boyfriend is the post-human, post-Muslim, post-modern king of England . . .
What does Aoxomoxoa really, really think?
He decided he didn t need to find out.
When the meeting came it was a damp squib. He sat in a spartan office with
half a dozen funky leisurewear types, five men, one woman, and they spent an
hour saying nothing. Lurch, also present, was deeply, deeply mortified. She
asked him to please stick around, more will come of this, give it a chance. Ax had
no idea what to do with himself. He had no money. He didn t care. He lay on his
bed in the hotel room, feeling no desire for food, alcohol or any other drug: a
million miles away from prayer, without a thought of God, gazing at the Les
Paul, which stood in a corner in its case.
On the third day of this themeless meditation the phone rang. He picked up
the handset (antique, ivory-coloured, to go with the Art Deco theme of the
room). ?Hi? He thought it would be Fiorinda. ?Hi . . . A male voice, a long pause. ?Are you Ax
Preston?
?Yeah.
?Uh, heard you were in town. D you want a gig?
Thus began the unofficial, low-down, Ax Preston US Tour. He played in the
back rooms of bars, in small venues; in the private homes of US musicians. When
transport wasn t provided he travelled by train and bus. He didn t want a car,
and even here, in the heart of empire, air travel was not for normal people any
more. He met famous names, he played the Blues where the Blues were born. He
slept in cheap rooms and unbelievably fancy rooms, and walked around semi
tropical towns at night when he couldn t sleep, talking to anyone who offered.
He felt like Johnny B. Goode. He knew that to many of the people he met,
punters, promoters and musicians equally, he was a curiosity (the post-Muslim,
post-modern king of England). But to others he was an interesting, pretty-good
guitarist; which was all he wanted to be. And the fingers still worked, though it
seemed to him he couldn t remember the last time he had really played.
Something drained out of him. Some kind of demon.
He knew for the first time how utterly, insanely burnt-out he had been before
he left England. He knew that his task as Dictator was over, but that he would
return to the struggle, in some way. He had lost everything, and he was happy.
He was in this mood when he got the call summoning him to Washington,
DC. It turned out Lurch was a genuine fairy godmother. Ax was going to meet
the President. She came to DC herself, and they had a rendezvous at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Memorial Park: FDR looking vulnerable and chipper in his
wheelchair by the gift shop, handsome walls of dark red granite, water features.
A soup kitchen line of poor people, executed in bronze (strange notion). I HATE
WAR, said the writing on the wall. THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR
ITSELF. Lurch was exalted, and jittery. They took the lunch she d brought to a
quiet spot by the water. He understood (with more sympathy than he d felt in
Amsterdam) that he was a figure of noble romance to this redoubtable girl; poor
kid. On the other hand, she was nervous as a mother hen about the impression
he would make on Mr Big.
?Don t wear yourit s the ecologyteeshirt.
?I was thinking of wearing my Deep Throat suit.
?Huh? said Lurch, looking seriously alarmed.
?Watergate, said Ax. ?Sorry.
?Oh. You can see the building you know, it s on the bus tour. Ax, Fred s truly
smart, but he has to have a handle to pick things up by, andhe thinks you re in
charge
Ax laughed. ?Whereas you know I m not. It s okay, I m used to that problem.
Two majestic, angular herons flew over, low and strong like cruising missiles.
Grey squirrels and the sparrows chattered in a wealth of green. A squirrel came
over and peered at them enquiringly. Ax broke off the crust of his sandwich.
?Hey, you mustn t feed them.
?Why not? ?It creates an artificial food chain.
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