Senor Nice (3 page)

‘If he ever gets here, yes. Just keep off his past.’

‘Shit! There’s nothing else I want to know about him other than his past. I’d better get to the venue; it’s five o’clock. I’m late as it is. Ian’s there already, I suppose?’

‘Yes, of course. He’s been there since two.’

‘I should have guessed. See you later. Good luck.’

Ian Johnstone was my tour manager. His duties, invariably executed with complete professionalism, included setting up the lighting, sound equipment and props, ensuring the dressing room had ample booze, fags and cigarette papers,
determining from the venue’s management their attitude to tobacco and dope being smoked on stage, in the dressing room and in the auditorium, and lastly every tour manager’s nightmare – managing the guest list and any after-show activities. The show had been hosted by venues ranging from subterranean ecstasy clubs to pristine theatres staffed by old-aged pensioners wearing evening dress. Rules varied. The Royal Pavilion, Porthcawl was a council-subsidised music and pantomime venue. The management might be difficult. It was time I called Ian.

‘They don’t seem too bad here, Howard. All the props are on stage, the dressing room is equipped as usual; smoking is allowed in the auditorium; but they want you to sign a declaration that you won’t use any illegal substances. Apparently, there’s going to be a demonstration against your appearing here. The management want to cover their backsides.’

This was nothing new. I had done well over 200 shows. At each of them I had smoked either a bong of marijuana or a joint of hashish on stage. Although venue personnel and the odd season ticket holder must have called the authorities dozens of times, local police had not once done anything about it. But it was always possible they might. Accordingly, licence holders and the like often wanted to ensure they weren’t compromised. This was easily achieved by my signing a piece of paper stating that I would behave myself. It never stopped me lighting up, obviously, but it made matters easier for them. And we actively encouraged demonstrations by out-of-touch parents; it was great publicity.

‘No worries, Ian. I’ll sign the paper as usual. There probably won’t be more than a handful of demonstrators. Just give them free tickets; it’ll liven up the show a bit.’

‘Well, I think we are more than sold out, Howard. I trust you don’t have too much of a guest list.’

‘I’ll bring it down with me. There might be a few, I’m afraid.’

‘Fuck! They might have to stand at the back. I’ll send a cab to pick you up?’

Outside the venue, the long queue waiting for the doors to open jeered at the small group of protesters carrying placards decrying the dangers and evils of drugs. A smaller line clutching copies of
Mr Nice
was outside the stage door. Ian was by an unmarked door, flashing his torch at the cab. He had done his research, as always. The door opened. Then an almost invisible figure jumped out of the shadows.

‘Hello, Taff. How are you? I didn’t expect to see you here.’

Taff was rarely seen working anywhere outside a festival or holidaying anywhere outside a tepee village.

‘Not so bad, How. Remember last Glastonbury you said I could come to one of your shows?’

‘Yes, of course I do.’

‘Well is it all right if me and six of my friends come to the show tonight?’

‘Sure, Taff. Just give the names to Ian here.’

‘But he’s the cunt who just told me to fuck off.’

‘OK, give them to me then. Ian probably didn’t realise you were a friend of mine.’

‘No, I suppose not. But I did tell him, like. Anyway, thanks a lot, How. Good luck for the show.’

I had a look at the stage. Cameras, lights and props were all in place. The microphone worked and was at the right height. The way to and from the dressing room was clearly marked by strips of shiny white tape stuck to the stage floor. I gave the OK for the venue doors to open, put my guest list into Ian’s hands, and walked off the stage as Ian began playing the first track from the walk-in CD, ‘I Just Want to Smoke It’ by the Super Furry Animals.

Leroy greeted me in the dressing room.

‘Hey, mon, di road signs a bullshit. Mi tek more dan six hours fi gu.’

Leroy Bowen is a mustee, fifteen sixteenths black and one sixteenth white. I first met him while serving my prison sentence at the United States Federal Penitentiary, Terre Haute, Indiana. Born in Jamaica, he survived a cut-throat childhood in Kingston’s Spanish Town and rose to become a sergeant major in the army, a special security policeman and finally the governor of Jamaica’s personal bodyguard. While holidaying in the United States Leroy inadvertently overstayed his visa and was sent to Oakdale Aliens’ Detention Center for deportation. He witnessed several incidents of physical and mental abuse of his countrymen by the institution’s staff and began to complain. The complaints turned into an organised prisoners’ protest; the protest turned into a riot. The prison was burned down, and Leroy sentenced to several years’ imprisonment at Terre Haute. We spent most of those years together and were deported the same day from Oakdale in Louisiana, where his problems had begun. It was the most important day in both our lives. I remember so well how we looked at each other and at the prison space we were leaving behind. Then we looked again at each other.

These were no mere glances; they were attempts to understand the intense emotions suddenly swamping our minds, the confusing but comforting knowledge of a common destiny, a shared future. Had I known Leroy in every previous lifetime but only, at that moment of intense farewell, just started looking through his eyes rather than at them? Would we one day work or scam together? We had both been shafted enough by those we had trusted in our respective lives, those for whom we would have gladly risked our lives, done our time inside, not grassed and never cheated. Could we ever trust anyone again, ever correctly predict anyone’s actions or ever even give a fuck? Leroy and I hadn’t dared talk about scamming – too many hacks, too many grasses, too many listening walls and far too many nosy troublemakers. But through those 10,001 games of Scrabble, chess and backgammon, we had learnt
each other’s deviousness, ruthlessness and courage. We had always respectfully looked away when the other had tears to be stifled; we had never dared share a bad mood and had always tried to find somewhere else to shit. ‘Su dis a Wales. Yeah, mon. At las. Mi finally dyah.’

Several decades ago Leroy’s family had set out from Jamaica for Britain, and had come to Tiger Bay, Cardiff for fortune and fun. That was the last Leroy had heard of them. Until we became friends Leroy had not even realised his last name was Welsh – Bowen is an abbreviation of ap Owen – or that Tiger Bay, the first-ever British Jamaican community, was in the heart of Wales’s capital city.

‘So dis a yo home town, mon. Yo mus feel irie.’

‘I feel more nervous performing here than anywhere else in the world, Leroy.’

Ian barged in looking hassled. ‘Howard, they’re saying sixty-five is far too big a guest list. There just isn’t room, even if they all stand. And they are absolutely adamant about no more than twelve in the dressing room at any one time.’

‘Don’t worry, Ian. Lots of them won’t turn up. You know what it’s like. And Leroy can control the numbers in and out of the dressing room. But can you ask them if they can put aside a special room for an after-show party? That will take the heat off a bit.’

‘Not off me it won’t. But I’ll do what I can. Some local papers want to interview you. I told them to wait until after the show and that I couldn’t promise anything. By the way, there’s someone called Polly outside. She says you know her.’

‘Oh yes. Get her in as soon as possible. She has something I need. Take Leroy with you.’

Soon afterwards, Polly walked in with a few of her friends, closely followed by Taff and his motley gang. Polly handed me a packet of skunk. I asked Taff to skin up while I got my scripts together. Leroy came in with some letters left for me at the
stage door. Most were invitations from people to go to their houses after the show for a smoke and a chat; some were requests for autographs and signed photographs; all wished me good luck for the show. But there was one long letter from an ex-workmate of my father’s about how Dad would turn in his grave if he knew the extent of my depravity in encouraging drug use among the youth of today. The twat obviously didn’t know my father very well; nevertheless, the letter made me even more nervous.

‘Twenty minutes before show,’ yelled Ian from the other side of the dressing-room door.

I offered drinks all round and downed a pint of bitter.

‘Here you are, How. You have this one, and I’ll roll one for us lot. It looks excellent stuff, by the way,’ said Taff, handing me an unlit spliff.

Ian yelled again as I sparked it up: ‘Ten minutes. Who the fuck is Psychic Dave?’

‘He’s one of my oldest friends, Ian; you have to let him in. Leroy’s on his way to get him.’

Psychic Dave was Dave Leatham. Back in the late 1960s he and Marty Langford were my first dope-smuggling employees. Unlike Marty, Dave escaped imprisonment and he became a fortune-telling fugitive on the streets of New Orleans. Now he was trying out his mystic skills in Tenerife in the winter and Cardiff in the summer. He had asked if he could come to my dressing room with his tarot cards and tell people’s fortunes and I had agreed.

Psychic Dave came in, accompanied by Leroy and Martin Baker. ‘Well at least Psychic Dave has agreed to do an interview, as long as I let him read my palms,’ said Martin, looking at my smoking spliff. ‘That smells fantastic. Can I have some?’

‘Sure. Be careful, though, it’s really strong.’

‘Five minutes,’ shouted Ian. ‘Everyone out of the dressing room, please.’

I always needed five minutes of peace before the show to collect my thoughts and calm the butterflies in my stomach. I achieved this in various ways: shouting at myself in the mirror, snorting a line of cocaine or briefly meditating.

My guests left, each wishing me good luck. I sat down and smoked the rest of Polly’s Super Silver Haze spliff. Christ, it was strong. I started giggling. I thought of my dead father and dying mother and cried a bit. I paced up and down and gulped some whisky.

‘Okay, mon. Dem a wait pon yo.’

I followed Leroy to the side of the stage.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome on stage Mr Howard Marks.’

Adrenalin pumped through my brain and body. Shouts, hoots and catcalls greeted me as I took my place behind the microphone. The noise subsided.

‘Are there any plain-clothes cops here?’ I asked the audience. ‘Because if so, now’s your fucking chance. Just fucking try it, motherfuckers.’

Loud cackles of laughter cut through clouds of marijuana smoke. I picked up my script and began reading ‘The Dope Dealer and the Terrorist’, my stage version of the passages in
Mr Nice
about my dope importing activities into Ireland with self-professed IRA gunrunner Jim McCann. September 11, 2001 had just happened, so the piece was appropriately topical and outrageous. My Belfast accent left a lot to be desired, but the show was working.

Relieved to be speaking to a responsive audience, I relaxed and looked around the stage. Behind his camera, which was pointing at the ceiling, Martin Baker had gone white. Leroy was at the side of the stage looking at him with concern and worry wrinkling his magnificent face. Suddenly, Martin lost his legs and began falling into a giant spaghetti of electrical cables. Leroy dived, caught him, saved his life, and carried him off. Martin had done a whitey on Polly’s skunk. Fuck! I hoped no one else had. It would be bad publicity. And what would happen to the DVD? Never mind, the show had to go on.

I announced the end of the first half and went back to the dressing room. The sight that greeted me was appalling.

Martin Baker was trying to convince two St John’s Ambulance men that he had suffered a migraine attack while Leroy kept repeating, ‘Im woulda dead, mon. Im woulda dead, mon.’ Polly was lying semi-conscious on a sofa and whispering over and over again, ‘Never happened to me before, and I’ve been smoking dope for over forty years, and I
grew this myself.’ Psychic Dave was reassuring three other comatose bodies with carefully worded predictions of their imminent recovery based on the tarot cards, while Marty and Taff at his side were crying with laughter.

‘Ten minutes to show time,’ cried Ian.

The ambulance men shuffled out scratching their heads.

‘Taff, can you skin up another joint?’ I asked. ‘Better use the hash this time. It’s for me to smoke on the stage during the second half.’

Ian popped his head around the door.

‘Five minutes. Clear the dressing room.’

This time I just snorted a huge line of cocaine.

Leroy came to get me, still repeating, ‘Im woulda dead, mon.’

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome back on stage, Mr Howard Marks.’

I decided not to read an extract about life in a United States penitentiary as originally planned. I would read the Egyptian delegate’s speech to the League Of Nations Second Opium Conference (1926) on the need to make hashish illegal. That always went down well and would be more in line with my legalisation agenda, which judging by the dressing room needed some support.