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Final Set

Posted on October 24, 2007
Filed Under The Stories |

The strobe lights gave him a headache but he understood after the first two minutes of trying to explain to the guy who spoke a different English from him, that he was going to have to live with them during his set. Almost as if on cue and in direct contravention of his instructions, within the first five minutes of his time at the decks, as the first set of beats skittered to a stop around all the people hovering on the edge of the dance floor, the strobes went off like a million paparazzi trying to get that celebrity upskirt. He grimaced and nodded along to the beats he sent after the first wave that lapped at the feet of the people who were waiting by the shore ready to dive onto the paneling that differentiated the dancing area from the standing area.

In no time at all, the girls with the deepest cleavage had their hands in the air like they just didn’t care and he was surprised to see them biting their lower lips and doing the shimmy-down shake like strippers enamoured of a slick shiny pole. He shook his head in bemusement. It didn’t matter where he was, from Ankara to Zanzibar, nothing got a girl good and freaky like the beats that she chased with a shot of whatever someone was buying her that night. And the strobes went off again and pinpricks of pain danced up his spine and streaked around the curves of his skull. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see them, like agitated graphical representations of the throbbing in his head.

As he segued into another track and nodded his head in acknowledgement of the roar of appreciation that went up from his dance floor marionettes he felt the first set of tremors. He was glad they had come when he was between tracks and not yet started on the skipping, scratching and general showing off people paid handsome amounts of money to watch him do. He clenched his fists and sent up a silent prayer [Not tonight please, not tonight!]

The reason he had finally agreed to play a club in India, in spite of the feedback he’d got from other DJ mates who had gone there and lived to regret it, was exactly the same reason he hadn’t gone when he was at the top of his game. He had agreed to perform as long as he was not expected to play for longer than an hour. And possibly an additional half hour if he felt that the audience response demanded it. In this corner of the world he was still a big enough name that he could get away with demands like that.

Every time a tremor hit he was instantly reminded of the time the British newspaper had carried, in it’s Night Out section, the statement, ‘It was as if DJ ActionKuttSpinn had been suddenly replaced by his evil twin. A twin with Tourette’s or some other inclement disease that took control of his hands and made them skitter, twitch and just generally muck up a record so good I’m actually tempted to use the F word instead of its marginally more polite cousin – the M word.’

In his world, they noticed. In this nightclub that doubled as a bar and who knows what else…not so much. It was a pressure free evening but he still didn’t need the tremors to try and make everything even a little bit more ‘interesting’.

Just as his set was about to wind down, he peered into the crowd and noticed her. Shoulder-length hair, slender hips, world class rack. He was instantaneously in lust. Almost at the point of eye contact she went for the back exit. He was so surprised he nearly skipped several beats. Training took over and he made it to the end of the hour without any widely obvious incident. When his time was done he went out the same door the girl had pushed through and sure enough, there she was, puffing away on a regular cancer stick.

She pointed with her only unattached, glowing-tip finger and said, “Hey, you’re the DJ.”

He fired up a blunt and grunted through a cloud of smoke, “And you’re the chick who walked out in the middle of my set.”

“I needed a cigarette.”

“No, you wanted a cigarette. You need culture.”

“What?!”

“You heard me. It’s disrespectful what you did.”

“Relax dude. People have lives over here.”

“People have lives everywhere. In polite company, in well-mannered societies, they learn to not think of themselves every minute of the day.”

She clicked one heel on the floor and gave him her best incredulous smile, “I can’t believe I’m arguing with the DJ!”

He smiled and put the blunt out, carefully so as not to blow the smoke from the ash back up into the tightly rolled bud. With one hand on the doorknob he said, “You think you’re better than me just because I was paid to come here and entertain you. Here’s the deal, this was my sign off gig. I came because I wanted one last shot at the decks before I wave goodbye. And you fucked it up for me.”

“Why?”

“Because you walked out during my set and insulted my hard work.”

“No I meant, why are you quitting? You’re good.”

“I was good.” He held his hand out to her, palm facing the ground and said, “I get tremors. Throws me off my game. Made me un-hirable back home.”

As he pushed his way through the door and back into the club she said, “But your hand is rock steady.”

He smiled, “It’s what I like to call, divine comedy.”

And then he was gone. She stubbed out her cigarette and went looking for him but he was gone. She never saw him again. Ever.

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