Read Online The Alternative Hero by Tim Thornton - Free Book Online Page B

home.”
    Adequately reassured, I allowed myself to drift back, as the band swept into their finest tune, “Dreamtime.” One of those orgasm-points in gigdom followed, when everyone and everything seem to be as one: the Carlotti sisters’ harmonies, the guitars, the lights, the colourful, dancing crowd—all melted together, as I looked over to see (I mean, could life possibly get any better?) Lance Webster, looking pretty enrapt himself as he gently bopped next to the rather more animated Gloria Feathers. I felt fairly certain there were few places closer to the centre of the alternative-rock universe than where I was standing at that moment. I didn’t even wince with envy a little later when I caught sight of Dominic, who’d somehow got talking to a pretty girl in a Bomb Disneyland T-shirt.
    A girl who later received a lift from Dominic in his convertible Volkswagen Golf; unaccompanied, I hardly need add, by Alan and me.
    “Cock!” yelled Alan for probably the fourth time, as we sprinteddown the dark street towards the station. “I’m gonna fucking crucify him on Monday.”
    My luminous DM laces were flying everywhere as we pelted round the corner in time to see the 23:59 gently moving off in the direction of London.
    “No!!”
    We stood there hopelessly for a minute or so, trying to get our breath back. A recent regime of sitting in the park necking cider and vodka had done its work on our teenage bodies and we were now almost comically unfit.
    “What an unbelievable arsehole,” Alan finally summarised. “When the hell did he leave?”
    “No idea,” I responded, miserably doing my laces up.
    “He was still there after they came offstage?”
    “Yeah, he was there for ages, talking to that girl’s mates. I looked over at him while ‘Fatman’ was playing.”
    “They played ‘Sheriff Fatman’?”
    “No, ‘Fatman’ by Eat.”
    Alan blew his nose loudly, turned and started walking slowly away. “Of all the fucking gigs to do this, man.”
    “You sure that was the last train?”
    Alan didn’t bother to answer this, but simply carried on up the street.
    “Where do you think the motorway is?”
    A bloody long way away, was the answer. We trudged along the dual carriageway, halfheartedly sticking our thumbs out, the sickly yellow streetlights the only reminder we were anywhere near civilisation, singing various songs to keep us going
(“How was it for you, how was it for you?”… “I didn’t like you very much when I met you, and now I like you even less” … “You’re not the sort that I like helping
out … look who’s laughing now,”
etc.). My DM laces were perpetually giving me gip.
    “You should get longer ones, man. Tie ’em round the top of the boot, like I do.”
    I grunted in response. The inspiration for my outfit (black jeans, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin T-shirt, unbuttoned purple shirt worn as a jacket) was so far exclusively Alan, but there were certain things I was determined to avoid copying in the hope of remaining just slightly individual.
    “Nice bird,” he volunteered.
    “Uh?” I replied, looking around pathetically for any specimens of feathered wildlife. Alan giggled.
    “Knob-end. I was talking about the blonde before.”
    “Oh, right. Yeah.”
    Alan and I had been pushing our precarious luck before we left the Square by attempting to join the Webster circle again, which had expanded to include three of the four Heart Throbs, a pair from the support band, indie DJ Gary Crowley, the ubiquitous Gloria Feathers and the aforementioned blonde girl, who was near the edge of the group and seemed the most likely to give us the time of day. But the stupid thing back in those days was that we rarely had a drink in our hands, either due to diminished funds or over-scrupulous bar staff (I’ve a feeling it was both on this occasion) so we always looked more hanging-around than hanging-out.
    “I’m sure she was someone, man.”
    “Someone?”
    “The blonde.”
    We were