One could spend all night singing praises to the Strat or indeed to composing paeans to its inventor, the mighty Leo Fender. That Mr Fender never received the Nobel Peace Prize during his lifetime and seems unlikely to be canonized by the church of Rome just goes to show how little justice there is in this world.
And that is that is that.
But Omally was Stratless. An air-guitarist he. Not that that fazed him too much, for, after all, he had no talent. He could strum a passable “Blowin’ in the Wind” without looking at his fingers, but anyone could do that and you don’t do that on a Strat.
On a Strat you play rock. On a Strat you play the twenty-minute solo. And if you cannot play the twenty-minute solo you should not step onto the stage with a Strat strapped round your neck. Leave the Strat to Hendrix. Leave the Strat to Stevie Ray Vaughan[2].
So that’s how John Omally left it. He left the Strat to the great rock legends, whom he joined onstage in his dreams.
But the point of all this, and there is a point, or else it would not have been mentioned, the point of all this was that Omally had recently heard tell of a rock band playing pub gigs in Brentford that owned to a Strat-playing fellow who could, in the words of one who’d heard him play, “make that mother sing like an angel and grind like a thousand-dollar whore”.
Which is something you don’t hear or see every day, especially in the suburbs of West London.
The Stratster’s name was Ricky Zed, although his employers at the West Ealing Wimpy Bar, where he worked as the griddle chef, knew him as Kevin Smith. The band was called Gandhi’s Hairdryer and they were playing tonight at the Shrunken Head. Which was why Omally now sat in his kitchen. He was polishing his winklepicker boots.
For Omally wished to look his best tonight. Omally wished to see this band and if they were all they were cracked up to be and indeed if Ricky proved to be the new Jimi, or the new Stevie Ray, Omally hoped to make them an offer he hoped they would not refuse.
An offer to manage them.
Because Omally had also heard that the Gandhis were looking for a manager.
Now the fact that Omally had never had a day job, nor indeed knew anything whatsoever about managing a band, did not, in his opinion, enter into the equation.
John felt deep in his rock ’n’ roll heart that he was born to such a role. Wheeling and dealing, ducking and diving, bobbing and weaving and things of that nature were what he was all about. He was a man with no visible means of support who somehow managed to enjoy a reasonably comfortable lifestyle. Even if it didn’t run to any toys for boys.
He was management material.
If cut from humble cloth.
No, if this band had potential, he, Omally, would realize this potential. And if he couldn’t play the Strat he would bathe in the reflected glory of one who could. And also in the heated swimming pool into which he had driven his Rolls Royce[3].
Omally buffed his boot and hummed a little “Smoke On The Water”.
The kitchen clock had long since ceased to tick, but John’s biological counterpart told him that opening time drew near. He took his boots upstairs, shaved and showered and put his gladrags on. They were slightly ragged, but they were extremely glad. Omally chose for this special occasion a Hawaiian shirt that his best friend Pooley had given him for Christmas, a dove-grey zoot suit he had borrowed from this selfsame Pooley, and the aforementioned winklepicker boots, which in fact were also the property of the also aforementioned Pooley. And which Omally had been meaning to give back. Examining himself in the wardrobe mirror, Omally concluded that he looked pretty damn hot.
“You, my friend,” he said, pointing to the vision in the glass, “you, my friend, will really knock ’em dead.”
He teased a curly lock or two into a bit of a quiff, struck a pose and did the Townshend windmill.
“Rock ’n’ roll,” said John Omally. “Rock ’n’ roll and then some.”
Ring ring went the front doorbell as John went down the stairs. He skipped up the hall and opened the door and greeted the man on the step.
“Watchamate, Jim,” said John.
“Watchamate, John,” said Jim.
The man on the step was Pooley. Aforementioned Pooley and John’s bestest friend. Jim, like John, was “unemployed”, but where John did all that ducking and diving and bobbing and weaving, Jim applied himself to science. The science of horse racing. Jim considered himself to be a man of the turf and had dedicated his life to the search for the BIG ONE. The BIG ONE was the six-horse Super-Yankee accumulator bet. Which every punter dreams of and every bookie fears.
So far Jim had failed to pull off the six-horse Super-Yankee or, as future generations would know it, the Pooley.
But it was just a matter of time.
Regarding the looks of Jim. They were varied. He was much the same stamp as John, and but for the obvious differences bore many similarities.
“Come on in,” said John Omally.
“Thank you sir,” said Jim Pooley.
“No, hold on,” said Omally. “I was coming out.”
“I’ll join you, then,” said Jim.
And so he did.
The two friends strolled up Mafeking Avenue and turned right into Moby Dick Terrace. Jim’s face wore a troubled look which John saw fit to mention.
“What ails you, Jim?” asked John. “You wear a troubled look.”
“I am perplexed,” said Pooley. “I just ran into Soap.”
“Ah,” said John. “I saw him at lunchtime. How did his interview go at the Mercury?”
“None too well by all accounts. Soap seemed very upset. He said that the world was going mad and it wasn’t his fault.”
“Wah-wah,” said John.
“Wah-wah?” said Jim.
“As in wah-wah pedal. Go on with what you were saying.”
“Soap said that he’d expected things to change a bit while he’d been away. But he didn’t see how they could have changed before he went away, without him noticing at the time.”
“I am perplexed,” said John.
“It was about the Queen being assassinated. And Branson being on the poundnotes.”
“Who’s Branson?”
“The bloke whose face is on the poundnotes, according to Soap.”
“But I thought Prince Charles was on the poundnotes.”
“That’s what I told Soap. I showed him a poundnote and I said, ‘Look, Soap, it’s Prince Charles.’”
“And what did he say?”
“He said, no, it was definitely Branson.”
“He’s confusing him with that film star,” said Omally.
“Which film star?”
“Charles Branson. In the Death Wish movies.”
“I think you’ll find that’s Charles Manson,” said Jim knowledgeably.
“Oh yeah, that’s the fellow. Wrote a lot of the Beach Boys’ big hits and then went on to become a star in Hollywood.”
“You’ve got him.”
They reached the Memorial Library and sat down upon Jim’s favourite bench. Early-evening sunlight filtered through the oak trees, sparrows gossiped and pussycats yawned.
Omally took out his fags and offered one to Jim. “Soap will be all right,” he said. “It’s just all the excitement of getting back and everything. He’ll soon sort himself out.”
“I hope so. Some of the stuff he was telling me was seriously barking. He said a policeman had showed him pictures of a fat man in a black T-shirt and shorts walking down the middle of a motorway at one hundred miles an hour.”
2
2Actually, Stevie Ray Vaughan got an even bigger sound out of his Strat by fitting it with heavier strings. Some even up to .013 gauge. (These things matter.)
3
This of course being John's heated swimming pool and John's Rolls Royce. For managers get twenty-five per cent.