Rock On Read Free

anything there.
    “Hey, look,” said Cornelius. “Why don’t we try putting the bass part of ‘Stormy Weather’ with the high part of ‘Crying in the Chapel’? I tried it the other night, but I can’t—”
    “Shit, man!” said Slim. “That ain’t the way it is on the records. You gotta do it like on the records.”
    “Records are going to hell, anyway. I mean, you got Motown and some of that, but the rest of it’s like the Beatles and Animals and Rolling Stones and Wayne shitty Fontana and the Mindbenders and . . . ”
    Leroy took the cigar from his mouth. “Fuck the Beatles,” he said. He put the cigar back in his mouth.
    “Yeah, you’re right, I agree. But even the other music’s not the—”
    “Aren’t you kids up past your bedtime?” asked a loud voice from the darkness.
    They jerked erect. For a minute, they hoped it was only the cops.
    Matches flared in the darkness, held up close to faces. The faces all had their eyes closed so they wouldn’t be blinded and unable to see in case the Kool-Tones made a break for it. Blobs of faces and light floated in the night, five, ten, fifteen, more.
    Part of a jacket was illuminated. It was the color reserved for the kings of Tyre.
    “Oh shit!” said Slim. “Trouble. Looks like the Purple Monsters.”
    The Kool-Tones drew into a knot.
    The matches went out and they were in a breathing darkness.
    “You guys know this turf is reserved for friends of the local protective, athletic, and social club, viz., us?” asked the same voice. Chains clanked in the black night.
    “We were just leaving,” said Cornelius.
    The noisy chains rattled closer.
    You could hear knuckles being slapped into fists out there.
    Slim hoped someone would hurry up and hit him so he could scream.
    “Who are you guys with?” asked the voice, and a flashlight shone in their eyes, blinding them.
    “Aww, they’re just little kids,” said another voice.
    “Who you callin’ little, turd?” asked Leroy, shouldering his way between Zoot and Cornelius’s legs.
    A wooooooo ! went up from the dark, and the chains rattled again.
    “For God’s sake, shut up, Leroy!” said Ray.
    “Who you people think you are, anyway?” asked another, meaner voice out there.
    “We’re the Kool-Tones,” said Leroy. “We can sing it slow, and we can sing it low, and we can sing it loud, and we can make it go!”
    “I hope you like that cigar, kid,” said the mean voice, “because after we piss on it, you’re going to have to eat it.”
    “Okay, okay, look,” said Cornelius. “We didn’t know it was your turf. We come from over in the projects and . . . ”
    “Hey, man, Hellbenders, Hellbenders!” The chains sounded like tambourines now.
    “Naw, naw. We ain’t Hellbenders. We ain’t nobody but the Kool-Tones. We just heard about this place. We didn’t know it was yours,” said Cornelius.
    “We only let Bobby and the Bombers sing here,” said a voice.
    “Bobby and the Bombers can’t sing their way out of the men’s room,” said Leroy. Slim clamped Leroy’s mouth, burning his hand on the cigar.
    “You’re gonna regret that,” said the mean voice, which stepped into the flashlight beam, “because I’m Bobby, and four more of these guys out here are the Bombers.”
    “We didn’t know you guys were part of the Purple Monsters!” said Zoot.
    “There’s lots of stuff you don’t know,” said Bobby. “And when we’re through, there’s not much you’re gonna remember. ”
    “I only know the Del Vikings are breaking up,” said Zoot. He didn’t know why he said it. Anything was better than waiting for the knuckle sandwiches.
    Bobby’s face changed. “No shit?” Then his face set in hard lines again. “Where’d a punk like you hear something like that?”
    “My cousin,” said Zoot. “He was in the Air Force with two of them. He writes to ’em. They’re tight. One of them said the act was breaking up because nobody was listening to their stuff