The stage was ablaze with lurid light and vibrating with keen sound, but for Mandy Slade the magic, alas, just wasn't there anymore. Peering out through the fairy dust and glitter, through phanes of bluish smoke adrift in the velveteen dark of the concert hall, Mandy regarded the robust figure of the glam rock star with a vague but palpable sense of regret. Curt Wild, she thought, looked real good, even past his prime, and that sexy swagger of his could still get to her—but the music, damn it, the music itself had gone hollow. He seemed to be faking his emotions, faking the love, the lust, the whole soulful welter—attempting to rage against the dying of the light, perhaps; but the light in him was dying nonetheless, his dangerous charm sinking like a (rhine)stone.
As the guitars whined out their supple chords, Mandy scanned the swaying crowd, searching the moist tangle of limbs for some spark of spontaneous life within these walls. Across this area of darkness she picked out the gaunt faces of derelict addicts paling into sickly vitality; she saw fragile teens weighted with nebulous angst, immersing themselves in music to stifle their pain; she glimpsed a few bandshell veterans like herself, faces taut with fierce nostalgia, aged bodies posing with arms outstretched, as if blindly grasping at the wispy last straws of their youth's brave illusions.
The band finished the set: guitars twanged out a mournful coda, replete with flashy drumroll. Curt Wild stepped back from the microphone, almost slapping it away from him, as if it were laced with filth or poison. He smiled wanly and stared out at the respectfully clapping crowd, a brief wince enfeebling his face. He was pained by the polite applause, Mandy sensed, just because it was so polite, so reserved. Curt, accustomed though he was to raucous receptions, had long ago ceased to be a cultural icon, and joined now the sad annals of faded celebrities. His outrageous, mythic high noon belonged to a vanished decade.
After the show was over, Mandy shuffled and spilled out with the bustle of bodies into the cool, fresh autumn night. The stars were shining, bright and pale in the seamless sky, such that Mandy loitered on the sidewalk for an interval, smoking a Player's Light and thinking about Curt. She realized she shouldn't have come to tonight's gig. The experience dredged up too many painful memories—not just of Curt but of her ex-husband as well.
"Mandy! Mandy Slade?"
When she turned, it took her several seconds to put a name to the cherubic face. Then she realized who it was—the Manchester journalist, Arthur Stuart. His face was flushed and he was breathing quite heavily, for a reason she couldn't ascertain.
"Arthur, what's the matter?" she said. "You look rather—um, worn out."
He made a convulsive movement, not quite a flinch, but clearly something was troubling him.
"I've been speaking with Curt," he said, "in his dressing room."
"Did you interview him?"
"I guess I did. I don't know if his remarks are enough for a full-fledged interview. He was pretty vague, you know, non-committal."
"This is supposed to be his comeback tour."
"Yeah."
"You don't sound too enthusiastic."
Instead of replying, Arthur asked her if he could have a cigarette, so she held out the pack. He took two, pocketing the first. She flicked her lighter but held it with uncharacteristic awkwardness, so that the little slant flame quavered in the night breeze. It took a while for the cigarette to light.
"I thought I'd have quit by now," Arthur said, gesturing with the cigarette. He held the stem at an odd angle, gripping it between his thumb and forefinger. "I've been trying, but failing, to shed all my old bad habits."
"I don't look at smoking as a vice," Mandy interjected. "It's part of who I am, know what I mean, Arthur? I don't wanna be giving up any part of my identity. For better or worse, it's who I am."
"Maybe when you shed your old ways, you find a new, better identity."
Mandy's eyes narrowed into intense, focused slits. "Why would I want to do that? What are you trying to tell me? What did Curt have to say to you, Arthur?"
Arthur looked like he wanted to say something important, but merely shrugged his shoulders.
"He said he was going to call it quits. Said it's too much effort for too little profit. He said he doesn't get satisfaction from the crowds now, and he's too tired to keep on with it."
He sounded remarkably bitter by the time he finished his paraphrase.
They conversed for some minutes, in a non-committal fashion, but not really about glam, or about the great world, or about anything else in particular, actually; they simply conversed, spilled forth a mutual soup of impersonal words, until Arthur got tired and restless and finally excused himself and went away from her up the starlit street.
She had an urge to call out to him, and she didn't resist it.
"Arthur!" she said. He shot a backward glance at her. "Do you think it was all worth it? Were we crazy to believe the wild stuff we did, back in the day?" Her voice was loud and strained, and she was surprised at how emotional she suddenly felt. But she couldn't identify her predominant emotion: was this bitterness, this, or was it the poignant pain of nostalgia?
Arthur met her eyes, and his dull, muddy irises looked suddenly lucid and rhinestone bright.
He looked like he wanted to cry. Or maybe it was just the effect of the wan streetlamp interfused with the glittering starlight.
"I think so," he said, with a broad smile. "I think we were real fuckin' crazy. I think we were damn lucky to believe such crazy dreams."
Mandy slept soundly that night, warm and easeful in her single bed. It was the best sleep she'd had in months.