The Late Gig

THE LATE GIG PART 1.

A FEW WORDS IN THE NIGHT

Steff and Eric were coming back in the car from a gig late one night, up the A1 from Birmingham, with Ian Dury chirping through Reasons To Be Cheerful on the tape. Whoever had gone on first (Eric) got to have a few pints. Whoever closed the show therefore had to stay sober and did the driving. Tough luck Steff. It was September 98 and they had already talked through how Steff’s commitments to the family business would mean less trips to away gigs and how Eric’s full week’s teaching AND the gigs still wouldn’t pay for the holiday that the family so desperately needed. Steff moaned about how expensive the Motorway Services were getting and how even stopping for a coffee seemed to put hours on the journey anyway.

Eric was mulling something over quietly for a few minutes as exhaustion and alcohol seemed to be setting in and then said,

‘I was coming back from a gig late one night, three or four years ago when I decided to stop off at Ferrybridge for a coffee.’

This came completely out of the blue and seemed like a new topic Eric had never raised before. It didn’t sound like the usual set-up line so Steff listened carefully.

‘The gig was at Cuddly Dudley’s in Manchester. Some gag-nicking Scouser had died just before I went on, but I absolutely killed. Stormed it mate.’

‘Did he nick any of my gags?’

‘No, he’s a bit fussy that way.’

‘Bugger off!’

‘Then, afterwards, well you know what it’s like driving home, over the moors isn’t so bad but then there’s that 90 - odd miles to go, and boring ones at that, up the A1,’

Steff nodded, so Eric continued,

‘That time of night in the services you sometimes get the place to yourself. It was almost 2 by then and there was only one other guy in the building. I got my coffee and I looked around at the same time as this guy looked up, so, what the hell, I sat down at his table and said ‘Hi’. I’m good with faces and I didn’t know him but he was getting a real-good look at me. I just thought maybe he had seen me on stage somewhere, so I was braced for the question should it arrive, but it never did. I asked if he had far to go and he just looked at me, as if he was weighing up the options. I was just about to shrug, pick up my cup and walk away when he piped up.’

“No, not really going anywhere tonight.” he said.

I looked him pretty square in the face and said that the coffee here wasn’t THAT good.

“No,” he said, “I’m just killing… … a few minutes….

…. then I’ve got a bit business to take care of.”

“What, in the middle of the night?” I said.

It was like he decided there and then to open-up to me.

“Thing is see, I work nights just a few miles up the road. My pal’s company. Best pal in fact, although he’s more of a boss now. He usually calls in about half one, asks if everything’s ok, it always is, then he goes. Until one night about three I get a stinking migraine and have to lock up for a bit while I go home for tablets. However I stop at the top of the lane and reverse back so I can see down the backfield. Something had caught my eye.”

‘He paused here for dramatic effect.’

“There’s his van, parked outside my backdoor, and the lamp on in the back bedroom.”

“Ah man you’re kidding!” was about the best I could manage.

“I’m not.” he says, with the barest shake of his head.

“And so I find out this happens three times a week, while I’m building his little empire for him. Then I found out that the house I put in her name, is up for sale. Night-time viewings only.”

“You’re very calm about this.”

“Well … I’ve got a course of action now. I‘m a man on a mission.”

“Burn the company down?”

“Better than that. I’m off to catch him in action and kill him.”

The atmosphere in the car chilled a little, even with the heater blowing away quietly. The overhead information screen passed by blank. Nothing to say.

‘Obviously I was shocked, but I didn’t show it. Just asked him if he was sure he wanted to do it. He said yes. We both put down our cups, which had been empty for a while. I looked at the clock, it was coming up ten past two. I wished him luck and he said,’

“Keep an eye out for me in the papers.”

‘... before he walked out to the car park. I watched out for any news stories but to be honest, not very … erm … closely. I was busy and just wanted to forget about it.’

The car was quiet. Steff eventually said that Eric had never mentioned it before. Eric agreed, and added that to this day, he had never told anyone else either. Moments later the beers he’d drank at the gig sent him off to a warm and fuzzy nap. Steff felt Eric had shared something pretty major with him, and truth to tell, he had. Although to be honest, Eric had pretty much made a real effort to shut it out of his mind until just then.

On the night in question, sometime in March 94, Eric, driving solo, got back home on Tyneside around 5 am. With pictures of murderous beatings in his head all the way home. Those boring 90 miles up the A1 passed like a ghost on a breeze and before he knew it, he was turning up off Old Durham Road and onto Split Crow Road, up the hill for home. He placed the gig fee, £70 to open minus the petrol, on the mantelpiece as usual. He had a long cool shower and tried to wash the night’s weird ending out of his head. Which he managed to do, almost completely.

Back in the car in 1998, Eric had woken up in time to see Penshaw on the hill off to the right. They decided to forego the Comedy Breakfast routine at Washington and push on home as they could both be in bed around three. Within 25 minutes, Steff was making a U-turn on Split Crow Road and Eric was waving bye and heading for the front door. Once inside, he left the gig fee of one hundred and twenty pounds on the mantelpiece, showered lazily and flopped into bed, wondering what on earth, after the twentieth or thirtieth journey home together, they’d managed to find to talk about.

THE LATE GIG PART 2.

THOSE FEW WORDS IN THE NIGHT

Steff and Eric were coming back from a gig late one night up the A1 from Nottingham in October 06. Ian Dury spat his way through Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick on the CD. They’d exhausted all the topics, ran through some new ideas, dissected the gig, and were settling down for the last tedious stretch up through Yorkshire into Durham and Northumberland.

‘We could stop for a coffee at Ferrybridge,’ said Steff.

‘Naw, I’d rather not mate,’

said Eric after a few seconds of squirming and hesitancy.

‘It’s years since I’ve been there.’

There was another long silence, which Steff eventually broke.

‘Can you remember telling me about a bloke you met there one night?’

No reply.

‘….some guy who was going to kill his best friend? … you’d met him at Ferrybridge.’

A big silence, then

‘Yeah Ok, I remember that. I don’t remember telling you though mate.’

‘It was one night we were both a bit weary, driving back up this very same road I think. You were really tired’

No reply.

‘Anyway, you said he’d decided to kill his boss, who had been his pal, because he was … playing around … with his missus while he was on night shift.’

‘Yeah what about it?’

‘This was 93 or 94 then wasn’t it?’

The lack of reply encouraged Steff to continue. They knew each other well enough to just say ‘shut up’ when it was necessary, without it causing any offence.

‘Well I looked it up on the internet a few weeks ago. Couldn’t find a company owner killed. But something similar. I guessed it was within maybe a 10 mile radius of Ferrybridge?’

‘….Yeah, mebbe’s…’

‘…Anyway, once I’d sorted through the obvious lies and porn traps, only thing I could find was soldiers from Catterick going on a rampage with some bar doorman’s head, and a botched burglary gone wrong.’

Only the light of an oncoming car lit up Eric’s face in the darkness, which prompted him to speak.

‘ ….well, that wouldn’t be it then. He probably didn’t have the nerve to go through with it, man. Or else it was all a wind up. He’s mebbe’s in there tonight, telling some other sucker the same story.’

said Eric as Ferrybridge loomed into view.

‘Anyway, this one I found. It seems that the guy was killed during a break-in.’

‘Yeah well, these things happen.’

Eric said philosophically, but it was again impossible to see if any emotion played around his features.

‘Not usually when you are breaking in to your mate’s house. Your best mate. Not when your best mate is on nightshift in the little factory you own.’

‘…. Really? What, no shit man?’

‘I’m telling you. Real odd case. Apparently, the bloke, the burglar like, was found, barely-clothed, he may have even have driven there in his sleep, the police thought.’

‘May have? What, no witnesses like?’

‘No. His mate’s wife was found dead as well. Apparently, they thought he had broke in, or something, and she had killed him with an ornamental sword. Thing is, he must have come out of it, if he was sleepwalking, or recovered or whatever, like, because he killed her with a bar from his van or factory or wherever.’

‘….so they killed each other like?’

‘Apparently. So the police thought anyway. She hit him, he collapsed, but before he passed out, he lashed out and hit her, they both lay there bleeding and were found dead next morning by the milkman.’

“It’s always the milkman isn’t it? Or a …’

‘…bloke walking a dog. If they arrested all the dog-walkers there’d be no more murders.’

The road stretched out north, ahead of them. Suddenly it seemed a long and lonely place to be.

Back on that night in 94, Eric had sat silent as the guy’s back disappeared around the corner.

Suddenly he rose and strode purposefully after him. They met at the closed-up, shuttered -down Newsagents.

“Can’t I talk you out of this?” said Eric.

“No, I’ve got to do it now, there’s no other way.”

“ But you will of course get caught.”

“Yeah, obviously. But I’ll deserve it.”

“Seems like you are the victim here mate,. So far anyway! You could just do him at work one day, make it look like an accident.”

“No, thought it all out. I’m never on days, he’s always got the two dayshift girls there with him. I don’t want them to even see what’s going to happen, they’re lovely lasses, and I’m just a decent bloke in a desperate situation. Thanks for listening and all that mate but you can’t talk me out of it. You don’t know who I am, or where I’m going. Anyway, like I said, I’ll deserve it.”

“What makes you keep saying that? And do you seriously think she’ll have anything to do with you afterwards? Oh Darling I see it all now! You are the only one for me. I suppose all I’ve ever wanted was a murderer! See you in thirty years!”

“Ha. Very good. You should be a comedian. You are totally missing the point though mate. I’ll deserve it for the same reason she won’t be waiting for me afterwards. Obviously I have to kill the _______ bitch as well.”

They were standing in the car park now. A mist had fallen and gotten quite heavy. Heavy enough to hide the tops of the lamp-posts and CCTV poles. A lorry’s wet tyres could be heard pushing north. Eric watched the guy take his keys from his jacket pocket and stop at a white van. The man stifled an ironic laugh, which emerged only as a weary smile.

“Bye.”

Eric spoke emotionlessly.

“ Is he a big fella?”

“Say again mate.”

“Is he a big fella? Just I’ve got an idea for you. Seeing as I don’t know you and you don’t know me, it might just work. But you’d need a hand.”

So around 5 am and almost two hours later than it should have taken, the journey was over and Eric pulled up off Old Durham Road onto Split Crow Road and drew up outside his front door. He entered quietly, not to wake anyone.

He pulled out a large roll of notes and put £70 on the mantelpiece. Then he placed £250 in the holiday-fund-jar. It was more than twice his best gig fee so far. The rest of the fat wad in his inside pocket he would filter in with his gig money a bit at a time over the following months. Come August he would forget about Edinburgh and he, Alison and the boys would be on a beach in Greece.

Then he carefully took off his gloves, dumped them in the pedal bin and pushed them under. He quietly climbed the stairs to wash the night’s events out of his head. And the blood from under his fingernails.

Eric Scarboro.