THE DOTTED LINE

Even a best friend can be the devil in disguise...

Josh “Spikey” Bingham thrashed the last chord of the last encore and gazed at the jiggling, jogging audience that were clearly trying to resemble an erupting volcano as they roared their approval of his insanity. A row of girls, all young, all underdressed, were screaming, and he winked at them. It was like turning a volume-control knob. It made them scream all the louder.

Josh “Spikey” Bingham was a guitarist and knew how to make the instrument talk, all right. He could make it weep, make it snarl, make it whisper, make it bellow. And, above all, he could make it make love to his audiences. Now he'd given them enough, and they were reacting like they always did, with noise and the odd piece of skimpy female underwear.

He bowed like an old-time artiste and sauntered casually off the stage. The temptation was to run off, to thump the air in triumph, to crow like a peacock. But instead he took a deep breath, and sauntered through the wings and down the short corridor that led to his dressing room.

“That was something!” enthused Marty, his manager, friend and general dogsbody.

Josh sighed and winked. “And now for something special,” he grinned.

“Go easy, mate �" it's a long tour,” advised Marty.

“I'm in the peak!” protested Josh. “They love me out there. Christ, man, did you hear them? They worship me!”

“Not you, your talent,” sighed Marty. “You might be able to make that guitar sing. Why, man, I've heard you since before you could manage more than three chords and it still makes me want to weep! But I don't love you!”

“You're my best friend, Marty. You've just got to worship me! Now get in here and open that bottle before I kick you to Kingdom Come!”

They went into the dressing room and shut the door. Marty opened a fresh bottle of malt and poured himself a modest measure. Josh carefully and almost lovingly slid his guitar into its case and poured himself a tumbler full of the golden liquid.

“You have got a liver, you know...” murmured Marty.

“Sod that!” laughed the star.

“Josh, my friend, you trouble me,” sighed Marty. “I'm older than you and I've seen a bit more,” began Marty. “Remember Two-Hands?”

“Who could forget him,” replied Josh, staring at Marty through the whiskey in his glass.

“I was his mate once, back in the day,” sighed Marty. “And he was like you �" in fact I sometimes think you model yourself on Two-Hands.”

Josh nodded. “He could play all right,” he conceded.

“Well, I told him once … told him plain … he was at a crossroads. Yes, they worshipped him, too. The girls screamed like there wasn't going to be any tomorrow! Talk about madness! He could have started a market stall with all the soggy knickers they threw his way! And Two-Hands soaked it up. It seemed he was floating so far above the rest of us he'd never come down.”

“I heard he had some fans,” admitted Josh.

Marty shook his head. “They were crazy days,” he muttered, “And Two-Hands lived every moment of them. It's what killed him. The whiskey, the speed, the heroin, the whole bag of goodies... And the girls. They sought him out, he couldn't go anywhere without yet another pair of knickers being thrown his way. Boy, he even thought of retiring and opening a lingerie shop if he'd the time to pick them up! He fought against it, of course. He fought like mad. But they kept on finding a way. Poor old Two-Hands.”

“Poor? He must have had one hell of a time!” laughed Josh.

“No. It was the cheering, the screaming, the hand-clapping, even the crowd-surfing that he liked. And afterwards �" the booze and the drugs. But not the girls. They were teenies, only school kids really, and anyway he had his wife back home.”

“I never knew he was married!” exclaimed Josh.

“It was kept secret, a bit like yours,” murmured Marty.

“But Two-Hands married!”

“He was at the time, but she divorced him. Quietly. It didn't make the news �" that was down to me. But Two-Hands hardly noticed. He made a contract with the devil.”

“He did what?”

“Made a contract with the devil. He didn't know that was what he was doing, but to all intents and purposes that's exactly what he was doing. He swapped his marriage, the love he'd once felt for Fiona, and it had been a really deep love, and he swapped a normal kind of life...”

“You mean the nine-to-five drudgery?”

“If that's what it is. Yes. He swapped it all for three years in the mad house.”

Josh swallowed. “Three years?”

“That's right. He went off the rails good and proper �" that was his mad house. And then he OD'd, and that was that. It was me that found him. He had the glory, the insane three years. That was after he was at the crossroads. I told him. You're at the crossroads I said to him. He could have gone back. He could have poured the whiskey back into the bottle. He might still be on stage, wooing the lasses, even now �" after all, he'd only be in his thirties. But he made that contract, and that was that.”

“There's no devil, Marty,” murmured Josh, awkwardly.

“Tell Two-Hands that! He spent three hellish years with him! He smiled, he laughed, but always like it was a mask he was putting on. Deep down he was the most miserable person I've ever known �" and in this business you meet some!”

“Well, that was him. What made you bring this up, Marty?”

“You're at the same crossroads, Josh. I don't want to preach, but I've got a piece of paper in my pocket...”

“So what? You've always got pieces of paper.”

“Not so many like this, Josh. Here, pour yourself a really nice drink, go on, fill up the glass, and then you can sign here, on the dotted line...”

“What is it, Marty?

Marty grinned that lopsided grin of his. “It's a contract,” he whispered, “a really nice contract, just like the one Two-Hands signed for me...”