DARK LIGHT:
A WORLD WITHOUT HEROES II
By Dale Sherman
Peter Criss pulled another piece of hard-candy from the package and popped it in his mouth.
It was his sixth piece in less than a half-hour and Peter could feel a buzzing ache in his head from all of the sugar he had digested. That was still better than the coughing attacks he had been getting with cigarettes. It had gotten so bad three months before that he had thought he was having a heart attack in the middle of the night. Fortunately, the doctors at the hospital found nothing wrong with his heart, but they certainly were not thrilled with how Peter's lungs looked and had advised him to stop with the smoking. He would not listen to them until they showed him the x-rays.
Then he decided to stop.
To do so, he had gotten into the habit of pulling out a piece of candy to suck on when he felt the urge to light up a cigarette. He had remembered a friend trying it back in the 1970s. His friend had gotten it from seeing Kojak always sucking on a lollipop on that old television series.
Then again, he also remembered that his friend fell back into smoking after only six months and never stopped again. He also remembered that Kojak was a fictional character.
Nevertheless, he was compelled to give it a try.
It certainly was trying, Peter thought, as he looked at the man across the table from him who was blowing out smoke from his Marlboro and stubbing it out in the overflowing ashtray in the middle of the table. Although Peter had asked the reporter not to smoke, the young man with short-cropped hair in front of him seemed to take delight in lighting up a series of cigarettes and blowing smoke in every direction around the room. At least, it seemed that way to Peter. Peter was deciding whether to stub the next cigarette out in the man's face when the reporter looked up from his notepad.
"So, whatever happened with Led Zeppelin," the man asked, a bemused look on his face. "Why weren't you invited to join Plant and Page when they played on MTV in '94?"
What did that have to do with anything, Peter inwardly asked. Instead, he went for his rhetorical answer to the question -- one that he had used a hundred times or more already on this tour.
"Well, it was fun touring and doing LIVE AID all that, but you've got to remember I was only in the band for a few years after Bonham died. We had fun and put out a good couple of albums, but I was never 'part of the unit' that really made Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin. Don't get me wrong, they really made my career at that point because I was really going from band to band at the time. Without them I wouldn't have the success I have today. But I can't base an entire career out of something that happened 10, 15 years ago. I have to do my own stuff. Besides, why don't you ask Jones why he didn't play with them on MTV?"
The reporter smirked, ignoring Peter's question. "And your 'stuff' now is Jazz?"
Peter crunched down on the mint in his mouth, shattering it. "My stuff has always been Jazz. I know that people think I'm just jumping on a bandwagon of some sort, but before I played with Rod Stewart or Elton John, I was playing jazz. I grew up listening to it. I even got taught by Gene Krupa himself. I mean, it's what I breathed when I was learning the drums, so I can't say it's 'what I'm doing now,' like it's just a fluke of some kind, y'know? This is what I want to do and what I have done and what I will continue to do."
"Gene . . . Krupa . . .?" The man seemed to hesitate with the pronunciation.
"Krupa," Peter said with a growing hint of exasperation. He leaned forward in his chair and spread his arms out on the table. "K-R-U-P-A. For God's sake, he was one of the legends. That's like asking who Miles Davis is, or who Louis Armstrong was."
The reporter noticed Peter's reaction, shifting in his chair as he wrote. He decided to try a different line of questioning. "So, how has the tour been going so far?"
Peter could tell that the man was hoping to change the subject. He shook his head in acceptance. "It's been going very well. We've been on the road for about two months now and we've been having a great time playing places like this," Peter pointed around the club where they sat in a circular motion. "It's a great chance to really get close to the people and bring them some music that just doesn't get played enough anymore."
"Anything about Columbia that you've noticed since you've been here?"
"Well, South Carolina is a great state anyway," Peter leaned back in the chair, warming up to the conversation once again. "It just enough south to make it great to visit after a long winter in New York, yet not quite as congested as going down to Florida. Besides the University of South Carolina's right here, so there always a great college crowd at these type of gigs. I'm happy with it."
"And your album?" The reporter relaxed a bit as Peter's voice fell back down to a normal volume again. "How is that doing?"
"Pretty good. Pretty good. We have a good label behind us," Peter lied, "and people are buying it. I'm happy with the album no matter what, though. It's a good album and I worked hard on it."
The reporter finished a line in his notepad and flipped it shut. "Okay, that's all I need," the man scooted the chair back as he stood, creating an echo in the empty club. He held out his hand to Peter.
Peter remained seated as he shook the man's hand. "When will this appear," Peter asked, not letting the man's hand go.
"Uh, tomorrow's paper." The man tried to release Peter's grip, but Peter was not yet ready to let him go.
"By the way, why didn't you guys talk to me yesterday when I was in town? Then it could have been in today's paper and advertised the show instead of after we're done and 200 miles away."
Peter released the man's hand and the reporter fumbled for words. "Uh, it -- it wasn't my decision. Sorry. But look for it tomorrow!"
The man grabbed his gear and jacket and walked quickly out of the club, his footsteps echoing as he moved. White, blinding light shot into the room as the man opened the front door of the club, making Peter squint as he watched the man leave. The door slammed shut and Peter shook his head as he adjusted to the lighting of the club again.
"Got to talk to Carol again about promotion on this tour," Peter mumbled to himself as he stood up from the table. He stretched his arms and back, then turned to see the half-finished drum kit on the stage at the end of the room. It was a tiny stage and the skeleton of the drum kit seemed to fill about two-thirds of the stage, making him realize again how small the club was. He sighed as he moved over to the stage and grabbed a metal rod that he had placed at the foot of the stage when the reporter had interrupted him a half-hour before. In his mind he could already see the morning paper the next day, with a small paragraph about him appearing the night before and nothing more. Not even a review, most probably. Or the interview. Hardly worth the time to bother.
Not that the club was really the type to draw a lot of people anyway. It was small and probably would only hold about 150 to 200 people at the most, if they got that many people that night. It also reeked of stale beer and bad cheeseburgers and was obviously a hangout more for college students wanting to get drunk than a crowd waiting to hear Jazz. A broken-down mechanical bull by the front door that was almost hidden from view by a large coat-check room next to the bar on the left hardly made him feel more at home in the setting.
No, Peter thought, as he picked up the metal rod and stepped on to the stage, it was not a good feeling at all about this particular stop on the tour. The show before it was hardly any better, with the tour bus breaking down and the equipment van's brakes totally shot. It was decided by everyone involved to have Peter drive down from their last stop with their road manager and with the small hitch containing his drums connected to the back of the manager's station wagon. It was a tight fit, but they had made it into town the day before and they could at least fulfill their contract even if it was just Peter and his drums the next night in the club. Meanwhile the tour bus and van was still in Tennessee somewhere being fixed and should be following them down to Florida for their next gig, which was at least four days away.
At least they hoped so.
George, Peter's road manager, had helped bring in the equipment earlier that day and had gone off with the owner of the club to get some lunch when the reporter had shown up. The barkeep that had come in earlier had also stepped out to lunch about 15 minutes ago after Peter told him that he would explain it to the man's boss if there were any questions. With no transportation and no one around, Peter was left with the only activity he could do and that was get his drum set ready for the show and wait for someone to return. After all, he did not want to leave the drum set unattended and there was no one else there to keep an eye on things if he had wanted to step out for a few minutes.
At least he thought he was alone until he heard a sound from off in the distance, near the front of the club. At first, Peter thought it was someone finally returning, but since he saw no one enter he believed it to be merely his imagination. Then another a sound came from the where the mechanical bull was hidden that sounded a bit more like someone speaking.
By the time Peter had turned around, the sound was gone and the club still looked empty. He turned back to the drum-kit only to be instantly bathed in a flash of white light coming from behind him.
Peter spun around so quickly that he almost fell off the stage. Yet there was still nothing unusual to see in the darkness of the club. The light had made him believe that someone had entered the building however, although he could see no one in the room.
Grabbing part of a microphone stand, Peter cautiously hopped off the stage and began working his way through the tables and chairs of the club in a precarious manner. He tapped the metal rod lightly against the palm of his left hand as he moved, his eyes darting left and right as he approached the center of the club.
He then heard what sounded like shuffling coming from the little room next to the bar. The room had been converted from a coat-check area years ago and was now typically used as a booth for selling T-shirts and other paraphernalia during concerts at the club. Because it was partially enclosed, Peter could not see into the booth or beyond the other side of it where the mechanical bull sat.
Moving even slower, Peter crept up to the booth with the microphone stand and pressed his back against the wall of the booth. Twisting his head and leaning over, Peter looked into the booth and saw nothing but darkness inside and realized that it must have been his imagination again. He let out a sigh as the tension left his body.
"Hi," came a voice of a man who walked out from behind the far end of the booth. He appeared to be a bit taller than Peter, about forty or so with long straight black hair with just a touch of gray in it. The man had a lanky frame that could not be hidden by the tan, oversized leather jacket he wore that went down to his knees. Peter could also see that the man was wearing brown cowboy boots, blue jeans and a T-shirt that had Mighty Mouse on it.
Peter jumped back about two feet after hearing the voice, yet still held on to the metal rod and looked up to his left to see the man approaching him. Upon startling him, the man stopped and put his hands in the pockets of his coat.
"Uh," the man spoke cautiously. "Sorry about that, Curly. I thought the club was opened already. Didn't mean to make you jump like that."
Peter let out a long breath of air. "No, man, that's okay. You just surprised me there, that's all."
"Well, hey," the man continued. "My name is Paul Frehley and I've been a fan for a long time, man." Frehley stuck out his hand to shake Peter's.
Peter felt even more relief when he realized that he was just dealing with a fan and not possibly a robber of some type. He was about to reach out to Frehley's hand, but noticed what looked to be a sequined, blue gauntlet around Frehley's wrist. Peter moved in for a closer look, but upon further inspection he saw that the ceiling lights must have reflected off of the buttons on the sleeve of Frehley's coat. He clasped Frehley's hand readily and shook it firmly.
"Frehley," Peter turned the name over on his tongue as he spoke. "That name sounds familiar." He released Frehley's hand and then point at the man. "I remember, now! You used to play guitar back in the Village in the old days. I used to see you hanging around a lot back then."
"Wow," Frehley said, obviously impressed by Peter's memory. "That's right. That's great that you remembered something like that."
"Yeah, people were always talking about you back then. I remember seeing you play a couple of times back then as well. Where have you been keeping yourself?"
Frehley hesitated with an answer. "Well, I, um . . .."
"Oh, man," Peter broke in. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry like that. I mean, I hate it when people start talking like that to me."
"No, no, it's okay, uh, Mr. Criss," Frehley fumbled on the words.
"Hey, call me Pete. We're from the old neighborhood, there's no reason to get formal, y'know?"
"Okay, Pete," Frehley continued. "Actually, I was in a band for a time back in the mid-70s that you probably heard of, but y'know how that can go sometimes."
Peter shook his head, thinking of many other musicians that he knew of who had started out on top of the game with a hit record and then disappeared without a trace after that.
At that moment, the door of the club opened and two older men walked into the room. One immediately waved to Peter as they entered.
"Hi, Peter, we're back," said the man.
"Hey, George," Peter replied. "Man, I'm glad you guys are back. The place was starting to give me the creeps with no one around."
Peter turned back to Frehley. "Hey, man, have you eaten lunch yet?"
Frehley smiled. "No, not yet. In fact, I was on my way to grab a burger when I walked past the club and saw your name on the marquee outside."
Peter slapped a hand on to Frehley's shoulder. "Great. I'll tell you what; let me talk to George, my manager, for a second and I'll be right back. It'll give us a chance to talk about old times."
With that, Peter turned and walked over to George and the club owner, whom had both already moved to the far-end of the bar area near the stage. As the three talked, Frehley turned back to behind the coat-check room and where he had been before Peter had originally spotted him. When he did so, he frowned.
He could still see what remained of the hideous creature's dead body he had killed just seconds before Peter had made his way back to the room in the club. Fortunately, Frehley was able to get there in time and subdue Peter's would-be assassin before Peter stumbled upon it or both it and Frehley together. Being able to transport half of the creature's torso to Limbo, while the other half remained behind the mechanical bull was the easiest way of handling the problem, but it sure did leave a mess on the hardwood floor, Frehley thought.
He wondered when the rest would disappear in the flash he had seen so many times before; yet, as the thought occurred to him, a bright, whitish blue light circled the remains in half a second and within another half second the remains were gone. Frehley smiled to himself as he heard footsteps coming towards him.
"Okay, it's all set, Paul," Peter said as Ace turned back around toward him. "Let's get something to eat."
"Sounds great, Curly," Frehley said and they both turned to the front entrance of the club. "Say, Paul," Peter said as he opened the door to the club, filling the room with the bright sunlight from outside. "I was talking to George and I was wondering if you would like to sit in with me on stage tonight. I'm missing my band and having a guitarist on stage would certainly help me out a bit."
Frehley grinned. "Well, we'll see what happens, Pete. We'll see what happens. Oh, and Pete?"
"Yeah?"
"Call me Ace."
Ace put his hand on Peter's shoulder as the two men walked out the door and disappeared into the bright light outside.
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Copyrighted (c) 2000-2001 Dale Sherman / KISS ASYLUM
Artwork by Larry Blake
We kindly ask that you please not reproduce this feature without prior consent!
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