Chapter Two
The Front Man.
I ain't
gonna be just a face in the crowd
You're gonna hear
my voice
When I shout it out loud
It's my life
Bon jovi
Nate Warner sighed as he swirled the brightly coloured toxin in his cocktail glass. He was bored. The club was empty and silent but for the clangs and muffled voices from the opposite end of the room, where Cash and Drew and Jess were setting up and Mick was in the office of the insane American who owned the place, leaving Nate with nothing to do; placing the microphone wasn't exactly the hardest job in the world and the others were too protective where their instruments were concerned to let him help. Besides, placing the mic was the last thing to do anyway, that way he knew where everyone else was going to be.
He wasn't even sure why he always had to hang around while they set up anyway, all it ever left him to was boredom and drinking, and today was no different. No one had said anything to him the whole time they'd been there - too enthralled in what they were doing to pay him any attention, so in his boredom Nate had started mixing anything he could find in the bar. It was an occupation that had lead him towards the curious side of drunk and the band was still too occupied to notice when he decided he wanted to explore the club.
There wasn't much to it - just a corridor of three small changing rooms backstage where he found some old flyers for some Norse Electro Circus or something in one of the cupboards and a bloody tennis racket under a cabinet. The manager's office was upstairs, as were the bathrooms, strangely. The Velvet Onion was a weird place, he decided, an overly weird place, but Nate's manager had said it had been a field day back in its glory days, barely a night without a full book or a full house. These days it was in ill repair.
When at last he'd surfaced from his exploration, the rest of the band were arguing over the position of the drum kit and they hadn't stopped. Admittedly it wasn't an overly large club, but it would do. It would be good to go back to a smaller gig; they'd been getting a bit up themselves as more and more people started showing up to the shows, screaming their names and shouting their lyrics. Back in the early days, when Nate had only just taken over as front man, playing a gig somewhere half this size and reputation had been a dream. Not these days, these days they had a record in the works – close to getting signed, a quick EP already recorded to help booking gigs - something that had worked surprisingly well. In the last five months they'd been going up and up. Not that they were nowhere near ready to play the Astoria. But all the same, success was on the horizon and they were all happy as Larry to let it flow. Let it come. Still, no one was game enough to mention their luck, for fear of ruining it, destroying what they'd worked hard to achieve. And tonight, as dingy as the place was, was just another step towards a solid fan base and an actual deal. No one was about to brush off Bob Fossil and his gyrating body mass for fear of ruining that, no matter how disgusting the guy was.
Nate shivered before downing the last of his cocktail. It fizzled slightly on the way down and filled his chest with a nice, comforting warmth that nothing else managed to do these days; not even a good song made him as content as a drink working its way down his throat. It was calming; music and performing only made him hyper and strangely hollow, like a marionette on strings, empty with something missing. He didn't like that feeling, but it was surely just a phase between anonymity and success. Fearing the bust up. Surely that was it. Or perhaps it was the stress of the job now. Because that's what it was, music was an actual certified job for him now – not just a dream. Not just music for music's sake, to enjoy. It was more than that now. He'd always dreamed that music would be his career; getting paid to do something he loved. And now he was, surely there would be some concerns. If you got something so easily, surely you would question just how long it would last. And if you were aware it would happen, then the disappointment wouldn't be so ripe, right?
Wrinkling his nose he leaned over to the calico Woolworths bag dumped on the bar and pulled out the assortment of magazines and papers, rifling through the out of date fashion tips and celebrity stupidity, finally coming across a half folded newspaper. Opening it up he gazed loosely over the front page. He wasn't overly interested, but all the same whenever he saw one he had to flick through. It was strange, a compulsion as though he was looking for something. But whatever it was, not much really stopped him. There had only been a couple of articles he'd read and digested properly in the last six months that he could remember and none of them were overly relevant to anything at all. His constant travelling had made locating familiar homely stories somewhat difficult, and events such as a Gorilla in Manchester weren't really home orientated. It was a London-wide event that didn't have any real relevance to a wandering musician from the South. He wasn't even sure where he came from. London born and bred he'd skipped from foster home to foster home, so really the travelling life suited him. Don't get attached. That was ingrained on his brain. Don't get attached. But all the same, attached didn't mean he couldn't live, couldn't work – and work meant music, music meant band mates, band mates meant parties and girls and booze and the circle made Nate content for life as it was. But all the same, wary - as though it wasn't meant to be. Then again, he'd been feeling that for six months, six months at least, anyway. He vaguely remembered the same sort of feeling, narrated by the same sort of weird mantra before he'd left his relationship. But it was only after he'd walked in on Rahnee and some chav that he'd started running again, that he'd willingly returned to the mantra. Don't get attached. Attachment meant you got hurt. He didn't want that experience again.
Chewing half-heartedly on his thumb nail, Nate flipped the page, London wasn't really that exciting now that he thought on it. It had everything that allowed him to survive. But it felt empty. He felt empty. He used to scoff that it was impossible to feel alone in a room full of people, but he knew all too well. It had just taken him years to figure out what the constant disappointment had been.
Leaning over he peered down at the page, a small article in the corner catching his attention with the accompanying photograph of a small man in a turban, "Missing Man's Body Found," he murmured, reading the heading. "The Body of missing shop owner Michael Naboo was found yesterday just outside of London. The man went missing six months ago, along with his two co-workers, Harold Moon and Vincent Noir. Neither man has been found. The recent location of Naboo's body has left authorities concerned for the well being of the pair. All three disappeared from Naboo's privately owned boutique in Dalston – Nabootique- six months ago following a run of odd murders in London's outskirts. Their disappearance at the time was treated as suspicious, while the search for Noir and Moon continues, authorities now believe the hunt is for their bodies, following the current grisly find. Anyone with any information should call…"
Nate frowned, turning away from the paper. Just what he needed to cheer himself up, he sighed. Upside to it was that he was alive to read it. Bet any of them, Nore, Moon or Banoo or whatever his name was would've swapped anything to read it. He hated stories like that, but they intrigued him, they were the type of stories that usually caught his eye, interesting murders and robberies and disappearances. It was an odd obsession. Well, he wouldn't call it an obsession, but it was certainly a topic that caught his interest a fair bit. A reflection of his moods. He was happy enough, sure– at least on the outside, Cash and Mick had a habit of telling him to shut up – it wasn't healthy for someone to be so damn cheerful all the time. But that was only because they didn't see him in moods like this. He made sure of that. The mask had to hold. That was part of the charm and charisma about him. The mask never slipped, it never seemed to be a mask. He was the charismatic front man. The mask was the charm. It was something he'd learned from the foster homes; if you looked happy they didn't bother trying to interrupt the flow. They'd leave you to yourself and let it be. It was one of the ways he'd learned to protect himself against attachment. If you looked happy they didn't try and break that up by connecting, and if you didn't connect it didn't hurt when you got packed up and passed on.
It was an outlook that was both a hindrance and a help, not that he was about to change it. Not now, not when he was, not when they, were so close to stardom, to making it big and making something of themselves. Maybe if they made it big, if he made something of himself, then he'd be proud of what he'd achieved, then at least someone would be.
No, the mask couldn't slip.
"Ha! Done!" Drew crowed from on the stage, Nate turned to look at them.
"We are going to rock tonight, my friends! This place is gonna come down!" Nate half smiled. For a moment surrounded by Drew's honest enthusiasm he wanted the decaying nightlife of this old place to collapse in on him. Then at least it would all be over.
"Oh Drew shut ya hole!" Mick scowled coming in from the hallway that led to the manager's office.
Drew and the others on the stage sniggered.
"Enjoy the show, Mick?" he mocked, flopping down on the edge of the stage.
"That man is fucking insane," Mick scowled and this time even Nate couldn't help but laugh.
"You organised this, mate." Cash grinned, leaning against the mic stand.
"He sounded a little more 'there' over the phone. Not much – but a little. Besides, if tonight goes to plan we'll pack this place for the first time in six months. If that happens we'll get double what I had before – and that was enough in itself. The guy's mad – but if we can use it to our advantage I'll do it."
"You sure this place will fill, though?" Jessica asked, a small voice timidly asking the question they all secretly wanted to know. Nate could see it in everyone's eyes and in the small tense silence that lasted no more than a second. But in that second Nate felt cold.
"Yeah. They've been out of luck with good bands for months apparently – ever since the guy's best front man went missing from some store up the road, Nabootique I think it was, ever since he disappeared the place has gone to the dogs, haven't had a good show for ages. Not enough publicity either, but tonight's covered. They'll come," Mick said with a false air of security that no one fell for, but in true style Nate knew every one of them wouldn't ask another question. Save him. Something had suddenly niggled in the back of his mind. Nabootique – the shop in the paper.
"So this front guy worked in this weird shop, did he?" Everyone glanced over, questioning him like he'd just gone and dyed his hair bright yellow. "What? S'just a question. Saw an article in the paper 'bout some guy who worked in that shop. It's an odd shop and I was just wonderin'." He shrugged; the sudden awkwardness broke with a bark of a laugh from Cash.
"Yeah, I drove past that shop on the way 'ere. When we were waiting to get past that crash. Weird arse name, it is. Old boarded up shop, paper on the windows an all." Drew crowed from on the stage, Nate turned to look at them.
"Fossil said they all just upped and disappeared one day. Weird it is. But I think we should be focussing on tonight, right?" Mick said with a clap of his hands zoning into Manager Mick Mode, as Nate had dubbed it one night. The others seemed to forget the subject immediately and while something in the back of Nate's mind starting yelling and waving its arms frantically, Nate felt the thoughts fade, like someone was closing doors on that small lone screaming voice and he was drawn back into the desolation of the dying club.
"Nate – mate it's up to you tonight. Bring it all out, if we can rock this place we can rock anywhere!" Mick said with a grin, slapping him on the back and the last door slammed shut in his mind, the voice completely unheard. Nate grinned, the mask firmly back in place.
"No problem," he smirked pulling himself on stage and enthusiastically pulling shapes. The others on the ground resolved into laughter and in the corner of the club Bob Fossil peaked through a gap in the door and whispered something no one heard.
"Vincie..."
