Part Nine

‘…gonna join a rock and roll band…’

‘Come Senators, Congressmen please heed the call. Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the halls…’

 Darren softy sang.

‘…for he who gets hurt will be he who has stalled…’

He looked across at Dan and smiled. They were sat on Daniel’s bed, the rain beating down against the window panes providing a strangely rhythmic accompaniment to Darren’s playing.

‘Hey,’ Daniel said, suddenly remembering something, ‘Nearly forgot. I’ve got a surprise for you.’ And reaching into his back pocket he pulled out two concert tickets, the word ‘Fillmore’ clearly visible in bold lettering.

Picking up the tickets a look of incredulity crossed Darren’s face ‘Doors tickets? How could you ‘nearly forget’ something like that?’ Darren practically burst Daniel’s eardrums in his excitement.

‘How on earth did you manage to get these anyway?’

‘Now you forget. I work in a record store dummy.’ Daniel grinned. ‘So do you want to go?’

‘With you? YES!’ Darren put aside his guitar and launched himself at Daniel, pushing him over flat on his back, their lips meeting as Darren expressed his gratitude.

Once he had got his breath back Daniel was only too happy to open his mouth and grant entry to Darren’s hot, questing tongue. His hands found the hem of Darren’s flowing paisley shirt and moments later were roaming over bare skin.

The auditorium was dark and vast, the air heavy with the sickly sweet smell of dope, everyone pressed in closer and closer, waiting for the moment when the stage would be lit and the band appear.

Darren’s hands crept round Daniel’s waist, hugging him from behind. Leaning into the embrace Daniel smiled, delighting in the intimacy, knowing that no-one near them was paying them the slightest attention nor, he doubted would most people here care. At least he hoped not.

All around people started stomping their feet, calling for the band. They were already an hour past the billed showtime.

The chant grew, the noise increasing. Daniel and Darren joined in.

‘We want The Doors. We want The Doors.’

The crowd worked itself steadily towards fever pitch.

A few of the police trying to keep order down the front looked distinctly uneasy. To say the band had a reputation for inciting trouble was an understatement.

Darren felt Daniel involuntarily tense in his arms and risked a quick kiss to the base of his neck in silent reassurance.

At this Daniel entwined their fingers and gently squeezed his response.

Then, from the still darkened stage, a lone drumbeat started. It was soon joined by a guitar and then the unmistakable sound of Manzarek’s keyboards.

The shouting and yelling that accompanied this was deafening as the main stage lights went up and the leather clad figure of Morrison strutted out onto the stage.

Leering at the crowd, he grabbed the microphone and began to screech out the opening song.

‘Five to one baby, one in five.

No one here gets out alive.’

Bending down the singer picked up one of the many joints that had been thrown at his feet and lit it, a nearby policeman rushing over and telling him to put it out.

As usual Morrison completely ignored him, blowing smoke in the officer’s face in an act of defiance or was it just total disregard?

‘They’ve got the guns but we’ve got the numbers.’

The crowd cheered once more and Darren thought he would be lucky if he had any voice left at all come tomorrow.

The band, or perhaps more specifically Morrison himself, seemed to carry the crowd along with them. The songs had an anger to them. Anger at the establishment, the law enforcement officers who were present, anger at whoever happened to cross them, an anger it seemed at life it’s very self.

The music had a raw intensity to it that even now was not found in a lot of the music the two men usually listened to. Darren with his passionate, entreaty filled protest songs, no less angry but just it seemed in a more controlled manner and Daniel with his usual fare of local San Franciscan bands coupled with such English imports as The Beatles and The Stones.

Another draw for both men was the persona of Morrison himself, proudly dancing round the stage as if it was his own, which of course it was. A persona that literally radiated sexuality. Tight leather trousers, shirt open to the waist exposing his chest, the object of admiration for many of the audience both male and female. He had adorned the cover of practically every popular magazine at one time or another.

‘So is that for me or him?’ Daniel enquired as Darren pressed himself firmly up against him.

Darren’s fingers lightly pinching his arse led Daniel to the conclusion that Darren was trying to convince him that it was all his own doing.

The tightness in his own trousers made Dan suspect though that what he felt so teasingly behind him wasn’t entirely down to his presence.

He had to admit it was an incredibly intoxicating atmosphere. The music, the people, Darren, the smell of sweat, dope and incense.

‘and it’s all over for the unknown solider…’

Densmore rapped out a staccato beat and then silence.

A crash on the snares rang out eerily like the gunfire it was intended to represent.

Daniel felt a chill run the length of his spine. He wasn’t sure if they still shot people for desertion but in the current climate the song hit home with a striking accuracy.

Darren risked another quick kiss. ‘Ok?’ he shouted over the combined noise of the music and the crowd.

‘Yeah.’ Dan mouthed back, nodding his head for emphasis and once more he pushed any thoughts of the draft to the back of his mind. He had much more important things to concentrate on right now.