The Man Who Lived by Night by David Handler Read Free Book Online Page A

about Rory’s brother Bob being away in Bremen. When he finished his conscript and came home we were telling him how much we loved Elvis and Bill Haley, and he said if that’s the case then it’s time you hear the real thing. He said Bill Haley didn’t invent “Shake, Rattle and Roll”—Joe Turner did. And he pulled out a bleedin’ trunk full of records he’d bought over there by black performers we’d never heard of—Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, James Brown, Elmore James, Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters—on labels like Chess of Chicago, and Sun of Memphis. Rhythm and blues, Hogarth. A lot of the rock ’n’ roll music we’d been into was nothing more than a cleaned-up white version of R and B, which was much nastier than Elvis. We freaked out over it, of course. Wore out Bob’s records. Went into London looking for more in the jazz shops on Charing Cross Road. Found some used ones—Otis Spann, Bo Diddley, T-Bone Walker …
    Hoag: Was anyone else listening to R and B here?
    Scarr: Mate, nobody here had ever heard of it. Except for a handful of us. There were a few other blokes at school playing skiffle, forming groups. It was when Rory and me were fourteen that we decided it was time to start a group of our own. (end tape)
    (Tape #3 with Tristam Scarr. Recorded in his chamber Nov. 21. Wears flannel shirt and faded denim overalls. Seems especially anxious to talk.)
    Scarr: There’s something I neglected to mention before. About myself. You should know about it.
    Hoag: Yes?
    Scarr: I can raise one of m’eyebrows. (silence) See?
    Hoag: How about the other eyebrow?
    Scarr: Other eyebrow?
    Hoag: Can you raise it, too? On its own, I mean.
    Scarr: No, that one doesn’t move. (pause) Are you saying you can raise either eyebrow? (silence) Bloody hell!
    Hoag: You decided to form a rock ’n’ roll band. How come?
    Scarr: To meet dolly birds.
    Hoag: That was the only reason?
    Scarr: That was plenty. First thing we did, right off, was work on a name. Had to have a name, didn’t we?
    Hoag: You know, I keep finding myself surprised when you and Rory sound like a couple of kids. But you were kids.
    Scarr: That we were. We talked it over real serious like. Came up with a number of possibilities—The Desperados, The Rebels, The Rattlers, The Rock Men, The Rough Boys. That’s what we settled on—The Rough Boys. Sounded, I don’t know …
    Hoag: Rough?
    Scarr: That’s it. Now that we had a name we had to have some proper electric guitars. Our acoustics just wouldn’t do, not for rock ’n’ rolling. We begged our mums and dads for the money to buy ’em, but they said no—Rory was about to get thrown out of Hampton, and I wasn’t doing much better. To them, rock ’n’ roll music was partly to blame. It was all we did.
    Hoag: So where did you get the money?
    Scarr: (pause) From the cash drawer of a fish-and-chips shop.
    Hoag: You’re kidding.
    Scarr: This old geezer, Murray, ran this little neighborhood shop near my flat. A trusting sort, he was—used to turn his back to the money drawer when he was working the fryer. The open money drawer. It wasn’t as if we planned it. We were just in there ordering chips one day, talking things over, and we saw this money sitting right there, and bam, that electricity I told you of passed between us. The geezer never knew what hit him.
    Hoag: I don’t suppose you paid him back when you hit it big?
    Scarr: Make a nice story, wouldn’t it? With interest, and perhaps a blanket to keep him snug in his old age? Fact is, it wasn’t so much as a consideration. Fuck the bugger. Never claimed I was an angel. Don’t try to make me out one. We took the money straight to Bell Music in Ewell Road, Surrey. They had gorgeous equipment there. It was a trip just to hold it. Made me feel like Chuck Berry. We had just enough for a pair of hollow-body Hoffman Senators and two old secondhand Vox fifteen-watt amps. Took ’em home, plugged ’em in, ran our fingers over the strings, and