15th January: On this day in 1980, Sid Rockwell, the enigmatic lead singer of post-punk band Atrocity Exhibition, walked out of a gig at Newcastle City Hall and was last spotted heading towards the Tyne Bridge. A report from the band’s manager, Nigel Chatham, suggested that Rockwell had been suffering from blackouts in the days leading up to his disappearance. No evidence ever came to light to explain what had happened to him, and twenty-five years later, the case remains unsolved. Atrocity Exhibition went on to have several top ten hits without Rockwell, including their only number one single, Transmission.
#
“Sid! What the fuck are you doing?”
Nigel’s voice drifts into my consciousness, gritty black sparks exploding on a sea of liquid gold.
“Sid? For fuck’s sake, it’s time for your set. You’re half an hour late already. The crowd are getting pissed off out there.”
As I’m yanked upright, I open my eyes to see Nigel’s face swimming in front of mine. His skin oozes like molten clay. His eyes are empty black holes, and when he speaks again, his mouth yawns open so wide that I’m afraid his head might fall off. I resist the urge to grab hold of it, to make sure it stays on his neck.
“Bloody hell, Sid.” Nigel sounds like red. Red ribbon being sliced into tiny pieces.
“Wotter doin’ Nige?” I put my hands to my face. My skin comes off in clumps beneath my fingers. “Fuck.”
I turn my hands over, look at them, but there’s nothing to see. No clumps. That’s a relief.
“You have a show to play, Sid.”
“Time’s it?”
“Half ten. No, quarter to eleven. Why the fuck are you out here?”
“Out?” I look up from Nigel’s face. Behind him is only darkness. And an orange light, floating behind him. Must be God.
No. A streetlight. It’s a streetlight. I put my hands on the ground. Rough. Pavement. And it’s cold. Really fucking cold. It’s all coming back to me now.
I start shivering, and then I can’t stop. It’s like my whole body’s rejecting itself. I think I’m going to be sick. I am being fucking sick. On my hands and knees, retching so hard I’m sure I’m going to cough up my actual guts. Nigel waits for me to finish, then crouches down beside me and hands me a cup of water.
“What did you take?” he asks, as I slump against the wall and drink a few cautious sips.
“I didn’t,” I say, and the effort almost sets me off again. I take a deep breath before I carry on. “I swear, I didn’t take a thing. I just really needed some air, so I came outside, and…”
“And?”
“And… I dunno. It was like my brain exploded. Blinding lights everywhere. Next thing I remember is you waking me up.”
I’ve known Nigel since we were kids, and I know when he doesn’t believe a word I’m saying. He looks at me with his head on one side, arms folded. At least he doesn’t look as though he’s melting anymore. He seems to have solidified into his usual twatty self. In his v-neck jumper and skinny tie he could be my old geography teacher, except he’s only twenty-three. The man that style forgot. He’s even got the beginnings of a comb-over going on.
“D’you think you can still play?” he asks me.
I drag myself to my feet, crawling my hands up the wall. The abrasive brick surface sends a few sparks through my fingers, the last dying embers of the fireworks that shot through my body when… When whatever it was happened. Nigel might not believe me, but I know for a fact that I didn’t take anything.
So what the hell is going on?
There’s no time to think about it. The moment he’s satisfied that I’m not going to keel over, Nigel drags me back past the overflowing bin bags and crates of empty beer bottles that surround the back door of the club. Inside is a narrow, grotty corridor, beige walls covered with the scrawled signatures of all the bands who’ve played here before.
“I need a fag,” I mutter, patting the pockets of my jeans. Spotting a door, I stumble through it to find myself facing a wall of urinals. Above them is a row of mirrors, and for a moment I lean in, gawping at my own face, pale and waxy. My eyeliner is smudged, and my back-combed black hair flatter than I usually like, but, what the fuck, right? Looks kind of OK, actually.
I fumble with a roll-up while Nigel bounces on his toes behind me, wound tight with impatience.
“Hurry the fuck up, Sid.”
“I can’t go on stage without a fag.” But once I’ve got one in my mouth, and I’ve had a drag to calm the shrill buzzing in my veins, I take pity on the poor sod and lead the way out of the toilets, through to the backstage area where the rest of the guys are waiting.
A draped black curtain is all that separates us from the babble of the club’s crowd. They’ve been waiting a while, and they’re getting impatient. Shouting turns to chanting as I pick up my guitar and make a clumsy attempt to tune it. By the time the sound of smashing bottles reaches my ears, Nigel is physically forcing me through the curtain, and the next thing I know I’m in the heat of the spotlight, surrounded by a wall of incomprehensible noise.
I stumble up to the mic, manage a first chord on my guitar, and then, out of nowhere, the performer in me kicks in. As he always does. I know the words, the motions. They come to me like second nature; like being possessed. And, as I play, the formless roar from the crowd rises higher and higher.
The lights are glaring, sharp points firing into my eyes. The music descends into tuneless chaos; the notes, like black pinpricks dancing in the air around me, pierce my skin. My bones are on fire. Shit. It’s happening again.
You belong to us.
The voice is no more than a whisper, expressionless and flat, but it rings out with perfect clarity beneath the cacophony, like a radio transmission beamed straight into my brain.
I stumble. The guitar strings slip beneath my fingers. Somewhere in the back of my mind I’m aware of Nigel, yelling my name. My view of the crowd freezes, colours inverted like the negative of a film. Their faces are still, mouths gaping, eyes like empty sockets.
You belong to us.
“What are you?” I try to shout, but no sound comes out. I am immobile. Numb. The buzz of the transmission rises to a deafening screech. White light sears across my vision. The edges of the film curl, crinkle, and burn to nothing.
***
I’m bobbing on a cloud, drifting on the breeze. But there’s something covering my face. When I reach up, my hands float in front of me like balloons. A mask.
“Don’t.” A voice washes over me in a sea of turquoise. “The oxygen will help you wake up.”
That’s definitely not Nigel. I cast my gaze around, and the formless chunks of beige and mint green around me resolve themselves into something vaguely familiar. A hospital? Hovering near my side is a shape in white. A nurse. Young, dark-haired, with hazel eyes. Perhaps things are already looking up. After a few moments, during which she glances at her little upside-down watch, she lifts the mask from my face.
“How are you feeling?”
“Likeafuckin’… Sorry… Like a…” My tongue feels as slippery as an eel in my mouth. “Cigarette. I feel as if my brain was stubbed out like a cigarette.”
“Sidney…” She looks at me kindly. I attempt what I hope is a dazzling smile, although I’m aware that I probably look like shit.
“Sid,” I say. “Sid Rockwell.”
“Yes.” The nurse bites her lip, as if trying not to laugh. “Yes, I know who you are.” As I open my mouth to speak, she adds, “Your name is on the admission form.”
Of course it fucking is. Stupid of me to think she might actually have heard of Atrocity Exhibition. I mean, we do OK, but it’s not like we’re being played on Radio One or anything. Not yet, anyway. Nigel says he’s working on it, but then Nigel says a lot of shit.
“I’m Lisa.” She wraps a thick cuff around my bicep. “I’m just going to take your blood pressure, OK?”
“Lisa… How long was I out?”
She pauses, her fingers resting on the cuff. “About an hour. Can you remember what you took?”
“I didn’t take anything!” That comes out sharper than I’d intended, and I smile sheepishly. “Sorry. But I told Nigel this already. My manager, I mean.”
“No drugs?” Lisa raises her eyebrows.
“No drugs. I swear.”
“We’ve already sent a blood sample off to the lab, so…”
“So you’ll find out I’m telling the truth,” I reply, trying not to sound as irritable as I feel. Fact is, I’m shaken, and I can’t get that voice out of my mind. “But what else could it’ve been?”
Lisa gives me a sympathetic-yet-exasperated look that she probably reserves for her most troublesome patients. “One thing at a time,” she says, patting the blood pressure cuff as it tightens around my arm. “We’ll get those blood results first, and the consultant will take a look at them in the morning. Until then, you’re best off trying to get a bit of sleep.”
Fuck that. I watch Lisa in silence as she finishes her observations and bids me good night. Once she’s gone, I swing my legs out of bed and stand up. I feel pretty steady, so that’s good. Finding my clothes folded on a nearby chair, I discard the hospital gown they’ve forced me into and get dressed.
Out in the corridor, a row of plastic chairs sits empty. There’s no sign of Nigel, or any of the guys. I guess it must be well past midnight by now. Perhaps they’ve gone back to the hotel. I might as well go for a smoke.
I make my way down the corridor, following the exit signs. It’s like a fucking maze, this place. Turn left here, turn right there, through those double doors. The whole way round I see only two people: a night janitor pushing a trolley, and an old man lying across one of the rows of chairs, snoring. There’s no windows here—I must be close to the heart of the building—but the night is palpable in the sour taste of the air. I can feel it in the tingle that runs down the back of my neck when I turn yet another corner into yet another empty corridor. Am I going around in circles?
Above me, the strip lamps burn with a sick white glow, giving off a rising hum that becomes increasingly shrill with every step I take. The steady pound of my footsteps joins the squeak of my boots on the linoleum floor to create a disjointed rhythm. My breath, short and sharp, is the melody. Another corner. Another corridor. These signs can’t be right.
Sidney.
“It’s Sid,” I mutter, reflexively, turning to look over my shoulder.
Nobody there.
Sidney. You belong to us.
No. No, this isn’t happening. I up my pace, turn yet another corner, and suddenly, to my immense relief, the front door is right ahead of me. I burst out into the cold night air, watching my hot breath steam into crystals that glow, shatter, and break apart. There’s an ambulance unloading a few feet away. The blinking of its blue lights is mesmerising.
We need you.
“Like fuck you do,” I snap. One of the paramedics gives me a puzzled look. His face snaps from blue to white. Blue to white. Blue to white.
You have been chosen. You are receptive.
I wrench my gaze away and stumble in the opposite direction, out across the road and into the car park. It’s fucking freezing out here. I pull my pack of tobacco from my jeans pocket and try to make myself a roll-up as I walk, but my fingers are cold and clumsy.
Sidney. You will comply.
The whisper is pin-sharp, a bolt of pure white against the blurred background of my thoughts. If it were a real transmission, it would have the kind of audio fidelity our producers can only dream of. But it’s not. It’s in my head. My half-rolled fag slips from my fingers.
You belong to us.
No! No! I can’t do this. Get out of me. Get out of my brain.
“Sid?”
“Get away from me! Leave me alone!”
A hand comes to rest on my arm. I look down at it, trace a line from the slender fingers, over a wrist, to an arm covered in grey mohair. It’s Lisa. She’s thrown a big coat over her nurses’ uniform.
“What are you doing out here?” she asks me. “You should be resting.”
“I…”
“Let me take you back inside.”
Her touch is a lifeline, drawing me back to reality. My racing heart begins to slow. I look into her face, and nod.
***
“He’s in no fit state to play.” Pete, our bass player, jabs his cigarette in Nigel’s direction. It’s late afternoon, and the night’s show is rapidly approaching.
“This is the biggest gig we’ve ever had,” Nigel points out, from his seat in the corner of my hotel room. I can almost see him adding up the lost takings in his head. The cost of the ticket refunds. The cancellation fee to the venue.
“Yeah? And if Sid bombs out like he did last night?”
“I’m right here,” I say, sitting up in bed. I spent the rest of the night in the hospital, and when they discharged me in the morning I came back to the hotel and slept some more. Right up until Nigel barged in wanting to know if I was awake and ready to get down to City Hall.
“And what do you think, Sid?” Nigel’s voice is clipped. “D’you reckon you can make it through the night without…”
“Without what?” I say. “Cracking up?”
I catch his eye, hold his gaze, and wait. I’m looking forward to hearing what he’s going to say, now that the blood tests have proven I was telling the truth. I never took anything.
“I just want to know if you can get through the show.”
“Because that’s what matters, isn’t it?” I mutter, looking up at the ceiling. “Just get up on the fucking stage, Sid. Nobody cares if you feel like shit, as long as the money’s rolling in.”
“Well, if you don’t think you can do it, mate, that’s your decision.” Nigel’s not impressed. Well, fuck him.
“Lisa said I’m supposed to rest.”
“Who the fuck is Lisa?” Pete says.
I lift my head. “The nurse. You know, the one who found me out in the hospital car park?”
Nigel and Pete exchange glances.
“That was me, you muppet,” Pete replies. “I found you in the car park.”
“Bollocks. It was Lisa.” But even as I speak, cold tendrils of doubt creep over me. It was Lisa. Wasn’t it?
“Wouldn’t we be better off postponing?” Pete says. “Last night was a fucking disaster, and…”
“You’re allowed to admit you’re worried about me,” I say. “I promise I won’t take it the wrong way.”
The joke sinks like a stone. He’s not worried about me. He’s worried about the band’s reputation. That rankles. Nobody has worked harder to make this band a success than I have. The thought of getting up on stage again, facing those blinking lights, makes my skin creep like I’m being overrun by thousands of tiny insects. There’s a buzzing at the back of my brain that tells me this is a bad idea. But I’m not going to let this band go down and be blamed for it.
“I’ll keep my shit together,” I say. “It’ll be fine.”
I wish I could feel as confident as I sound.
***
As we wait for the support act to come off stage, Nigel watches me like a hawk, pouncing on anybody who tries to give me booze or—God help them—drugs. I’m strictly tee-total tonight. Not that I even want to take anything. I feel like I’m walking a tightrope over an abyss. Any slip, any tiny imbalance, could send me spiralling back into the endless black hole beneath me. The thought of hearing that voice again makes me shudder. Mind-altering substances are the last thing I need.
The preparations for the show go on around me. Guitars being tuned. Roadies coming and going, lugging heavy amps. The drummer, lounging on a moth-eaten old sofa trading banter with our small handful of groupies. I might as well be watching it all from behind a pane of frosted glass. If anybody notices that I haven’t moved or spoken for an hour, they don’t say anything. Eventually, Nigel hands me my guitar, and I follow the others on stage.
Newcastle City Hall. Our biggest gig ever. Fucking Blondie played here last week. Nigel’s invited radio execs. Music journalists. The place is crammed full of rowdy punks and kids in Atrocity Exhibition t-shirts. The air is thick with the stink of stale sweat and beer. A scream meets us as we step out of the wings. An electric energy crackles around the room, right up to the high ceiling. This should be the moment the adrenaline kicks in. But it doesn’t.
I stare out at the audience, and they gape back at me, full of anticipation. I feel like an empty shell, but I have to do something. So I go through the same motions I always do—even that bit that Nigel hates where I kick in the amp—like I’m wading through treacle. Every flash of the overhead lights rings out a resounding clack in my brain.
And then I hear it.
Sidney.
No.
I look out at the crowd. As one, they stop dancing and turn their blank faces in my direction. When they speak, it is in perfect unison, in that horrible whisper.
Sidney, absorb us.
This isn’t happening. If I can ignore it for long enough, perhaps it will all go away. I keep playing, one chord after another, but the music twists, spiralling into discordant flares of colour. Jade green and violent orange. The crowd advance on me, one synchronous step at a time.
In desperation, I pull the strap of the guitar over my head and hurl it at them. It disappears into the mass, devoured. The others in the band are still playing like nothing’s happened, but the bodies in the front row are clambering up onto the stage.
I back away.
Sidney.
They’re moving faster now, piling up on each other, the people at the back climbing over those in front, like a surging tidal wave.
Absorb us. Take our darkness.
I turn to run, but my bandmates are behind me. Glassy-eyed. Staring. Somehow the music’s still playing without them. Even Nigel’s there, blocking my way out.
A black fog floods my veins. My limbs grow weak. I can’t think clearly. I need to get out.
The crowd continues to advance, tearing at each other in their haste to get to me. Clutching fingers pull at hair, claw at skin, gouge into eye sockets. And finally, crawling, the first of them reaches my feet. Before it can drag me into the swarm, I bolt, forcing my way through the outstretched arms of my bandmates; off the stage and down the corridor, until I burst out of the back door and into the night.
***
We require a vessel.
I’ve no idea how long I’ve been walking, stumbling blindly on numb legs as the city streets flow past me like snapshot scenes in a movie. Pinpricks of cold needle at my bare arms, sharp and opalescent. Orange street lamps spit flame above me. I wade through a throng of drunken Saturday night revellers, their bodies pulsating with heat, mouths shrieking sharp pink sparks.
A girl gets up in my face, howling, her skin sliding off her bones. A spark catches on her hair and its ends start to blacken and smoulder. I push past her only to find myself in the road. A car bears down on me, headlamps radiating pools of acid. As it swerves, the horn blares, a single, violent shock of pure white.
The bridge looms ahead, and beneath it, the dark river. The black silence of the water sings to me. Relief. Oblivion.
You must accept us, Sidney. Absorb us. We need you.
I understand what it wants, now. What they all wanted. A vessel for their darkness. Someone to soak up all their fury, all their loathing. That’s what I became, the moment I stepped on stage. I’ve already taken all I can. My flesh is peeling off me in shreds. Their cancer is eating me from the inside.
“Sid!”
I turn, slowly, drawn by the familiar sound. Turquoise. It’s Lisa, standing on the other side of the street. She smiles, waves. From a million miles away.
For a moment, I feel the pull of her warmth, but only for a moment.
Sidney. You belong to us.
I can’t stop. I must keep walking. The bridge beckons me, its steel arch pulsating with a blinding green glow. Why the voice needs me there, I don’t know, but that’s where I must end up. Bathed in the radiant light, with the abyss opening out below me.
Transmission ends.
Text and artwork both copyright Antonia Rachel Ward. First published in BANNED by Black Hare Press, November 2020.