Jim crosses the channel in '77 and reveals himself to the most reviled band in England. Soon he's on the town with them and writing songs for the clash....

Morrison looked over the edge of the Dorchester. It was snowing and it was a
long way down; if he jumped now, it would all be over and done with.
Finally. Would they recognize the splat on the pavement? Would he get two
graves? He lit a cigarette and looked down at Park Lane, at the unceasing
lines of traffic. He'd come from Paris via boat and train- under a false
passport: L. King of the 14th Arrondissement, occupation: painter- to see a
Picasso exhibition at the Royal College of Art. Then, whilst examining
Picasso's African sculptures, he'd a had a mood swing- one of a series of
suicidal mood swings that he got on a monthly basis. Usually, his pretty
young French wife would dole out a valium and talk him down. However this
time, against her wishes, he'd travelled alone, relishing a sense of being a
solitary individual again. He'd headed for the Dorchester, because he
remembered staying there in the sixties, and because he knew that he could
always find his way to the roof of a hotel. It was a knack he had. He looked
down into Park Lane again and saw a limo pull up outside. He leant forward
and peered at it. Getting out were a collection of the most bizarrely
dressed young people. Morrison could smell counterculture. Smell it. He
reached
into his jacket and whipped out his spectacles, peering intently. Was this
the punk band he'd been reading about in the french papers? Nothing saved
Morrison from himself so much as having his interest pricked; he strode off
towards the exit hatch, determined to investigate; mood swing temporarily
forgotten.
  The strange thing about Jim Morrison in 1977, is that he was on a
reasonably even keel. Apart fom the occasional savage mood swing, he'd
manage to stabilize himself in his anonymity. As the painter L.King- a
rather
obvious nom de pinceau which he'd suggested as a joke and which his young
wife had found amusing- he'd had a small amount of success, selling some of
his surreal canvases to parisian dealers. In general he lived the life of an
arty bourgeoise: theatre trips, galleries; collecting Deutsche Gramaphone
classical recordings etc. Occasionally he was recognized and it amused him
to wink conspiritorially at the person, who would usually stare back,
dumbfounded; at which point Morrison would make his exit discreetly. He'd
visited his grave a number of times and was amused and gratified by the
experience. In his nocturnal ramblings around Paris, he would sometimes don
his old leather garb and prowl the latin quarter drinking red wine and
declaiming Bauderlaire. The truth was that he was a cult figure, and as such
went generally unrecognized. His hair was now styled in a meat and potatoes
way which he parted on one side and had cut fortnightly at a working class
Paris barbers. He smoked Gauloise and drank a moderate amount of Margaux. He
was thirty four years old. He was settled. But, rather like the incredible
Hulk comics he read on the lavatory, the beast of the lizard king still
raged inside him, like the green monster in Dr Bruce Banner. It rarely
raised it's smoking nose, but, when in the presence of the atavistic or the
visceral- and these days that was but rare- the crazy muse would stir in his
soul, and Jim Morrison's fire would be lit once again.
              Morrison prowled along the corridors and rode the lift down to
the lobby. Standing in the centre of the crowd were the crazy
looking people he'd seen from the roof; around them buzzed a hornets nest of
journalists, liggers, gophers and groupies. Morrison new that scene. Knew it
well. So these were the Sex Pistols eh? The new filth. The latest threat to
western civilization. Morrison grinned and strode into the crowd. Between
heads he could see the ringleader. Lydon. A pop eyed, leering cartoon come
to life. There was something about him. Something that made Morrison want to
communicate with him. Morrison had to get to him. It was the kind of single
minded autist-like obsession which Morrison was prey to. Here it gripped
him. The crowd moved slowly in an amorphous mass, towards the lifts.
Morrison extracted his membership card for Ecole de Beaux Arts reading room,
and brandished it in front him, declaiming his right to an interview in
french: 'le journaliste, le reportage! Entrevue! Entrevue!' Somebody bustled
him into a packed lift, and soon he was in the Pistols' suite, awaiting an
audience with the punk rockers.

           Malcolm McLaren, a weasel faced pop huckster with an auburn bowl
haircut, was vetting journalists whilst champagne and beer
was circulated. Morrison stood next to the cream coloured walls gulping his
complimentary booze and puffing on a cigarette. Eventually McLaren reached
Morrison.
"Who are you?"
"King, Le Monde."
"King of the World eh? You won't be after they've finished with you. Haven't
I seen you somewhere before?"

   Morrison was ushered into the sanctum sanctorum of the Pistols half an
hour later. John Lydon and Paul Cook sat on one sofa and Steve Jones lay
on the floor. They were all drinking from cans of beer. They looked
peculiarly evil in an ingenuous urchin-like way. Lydon's rolling eyes
patrolled the room, watching out for trouble, or for an opportunity to
incite it.
"Whose this old cunt?" said Cook.
"Fat cunt." added Jones.
"French cunt, apparently." said Lydon.
They giggled. Here was  seventies London's answer to the Stones. Young,
scruffy,
foul mouthed, loud, a musical abberation- a kind of sustained assault on the
academic would be classicism of bands like Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer-
and repellent to anyone over
thirty. Lydon, the apparent leader- McLaren of course being the true
ringmaster- a nasal voiced, demented looking young shaver whose blistering,
quavering voice was the vile pebbledash atop the pistols' raucous take on
Rock'n Roll, looked up at Morrison.
"What would you like to ask us? Eh?"
Morrison looked at them. They certainly were young. He could feel the sour
and surly undercurrent in the room. It was a long way from his early days on
the west coast. He wasn't going to let them get the better of him though. He
took his glasses off and sat down.
"Boys. Do you represent the counterculture?"
Lydon's huge pop eyes zeroed in on Morrison.
"I fort you was french?"
"No, I'm an American."
"Woss the counterculture?" said Paul Cook, "Is it summink to do wiv bein' on
the dole?"
Steve Jones, the frenetic guitarist, all spots and dirt leers, crumpled an
empty can of heineken in his hand.
"Course it ain't you stoopid fucking cunt issa about queueing up in the
fucking post office innit? Counter culture."
Cook threw the contents of an ashtray at Steve Jones. He was smothered in
ash.
"Fucking that's wot I said. To do wiv signin' on innit,"
Jones leapt up in a cloud of ash and began to wrestle with Cook. Lydon and
Morrison were still staring at each other. Cook and Jones crashed on to the
coffee table and then got up, dusted themselves off, giggling, and sat down
again.
"Why hasn't this French cunt got any tits?" said Cook.
"He ain't a bird is he?" said Jones.
"Well I ain't answering any questions unless I can see some tits and this
old french cunt ain't got none."
"Do you boys have any opinions on western civilization?"
"Wot?" said Cook.
Lydon swigged some Heineken.
"He means like Oscar Wilde and Superman."
Morrison grinned.
"Yeah, like Oscar Wilde or Superman."
"Have they got tits?"
"Nah. Oi why aren't you French?"
Morrison lit a cigarette.
"Because I'm American."
"Do they 'ave tits in America?"
"They certainly do."
"Have you had wank today?"
"Yeah froggy, you knocked one out today you fucking cunt?"
"As a matter of fact I made love to my wife."
"Oh, he made love to his missis! Fall asleep wiv it in there didja? Have you
got a picture of her tits?"
Lydon, who'd been quiet, leaned forward.
"Woss your name then Mr American?"
Morrison was shocked in spite of himself. Here was urban nihilism the like
of which, as a Californian, he could only imagine. In his time on the west
coast it didn't matter how bad things got, you were never that far from a
beach buggy, some music and sunshine. Here was the evidence of what
England's damp, meat and gravy atmosphere produced: spotty, mischeivous
spike headed gargoyles with no future.
"My name? Jim Morrison."
Lydon dragged on his Heineken.
"Hehehegh, I fort I recognized you. Oi lads, what we have here is a genuine
old Hippy."
Cook lit a cigarette.
"Fucking hippy. I fucking hate hippies!"
"Yeah, so do I. Fucking hippies with no tits! Oi Sid! There's a fucking
hippy in here you can stab"
From the next room came the sound of a long ripping fart, followed by a
groan, some shuffling and the scrape of a match. Sid Vicious, a snotty,
toothy looking misery slouched in. To Morrison's artistic eyes here was the
final abberation, the mad Mrs Rochester they had kept hidden in the west
wing. If Dickens had written about back street abortionists in his novels,
then Vicious would have resembled the doltish son of one of them. Externally
besmirched with scabs, snot and dried blood, his hidden orifices where caked
with decaying effluvia and diseased excreta. He moved in a kind of stunned
semi stagger, as if perpetually walking away from a mineshaft explosion or
car accident. Some short years later, after being gang raped in a US prison
whilst being held for the murder of his girlfriend, he overdosed on heroin
and died aged twenty one; he was probably the most famous person in rock &
roll who had absolutely no talent whatsoever; a crowded field I grant you,
but Vicious was indubitably at the top of it. Morrison beheld him with
shocked wonder. Sid peered back disinterestedly, sniffing back some phlegm.
Lydon stood up.
"Sid. Sidney. Meet Jim Morrison. The King of the Hippies."
Vicious spat a lump of greenish mucus on the ash covered coffee table.
"Fuck off hippy."
Lydon had shown no surprise at Morrison's revelation. The artist formerly
known as the Lizard King sat in his chair, looking mildly nonplussed.
Vicious got out a flick knife. He clicked it open and looked at Morrison.
"You want some do yer? You fucking want some?"
Lydon cackled and bade Vicious sit down. Vicious plonked down unsteadily
next to Steve Jones. Lydon cracked another can of beer open.
"So Jim, what brings you here then?"
Morrison drew on his cigarette.
"You think I'm joking?"
"No, you're Jim Morrison. I can see that. Excuse me that I don't fall down
and shit my pants. I told Pete Townshend to fuck off the other day."
"Yes, but Pete Townshend's alive. I'm dead."
Lydon began to speak in an exaggerated west coast American accent.
"Oh my gaaahhhd, I'm dead, ooooooohhhhhh fucking noohh maaaan. It's the acid
man! The aaaacid!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Morrison smiled.
"You didn't hear? I was supposed to have died in Paris in '71."
"Woz yer?" said Paul Cook.
"That's nice." said Jones.
"I'll kill you now you cunt." said Vicious
Lydon stroked his chin, brow furrowed in mock deep thought.
"Oh yeah.. oh yeah. So you ain't dead then?"
"No."
Lydon waved his hands around his head in the manner of a revivalist
preacher, his body craning around in a spastic manner, like his Ian Dury
inspired stage moves.
"Praise the Lord! Why James, have you chosen this precise moment to announce
yourself?"
"Because" said Morrison, trying to think an answer that wouldn't be shot
through with psychobabble, "Because you guys are like me. Like I was. I
wanted to talk to you."
Cook and Jones began to snigger; a horrible, infectious classroom snigger.
Vicious lit a cigarette. Lydon stood in front of Morrison with an evil smile
on his lips- clearly delighted. He spoke with a malicious quaver in his
voice.
"We're like you, are we?"
Morrison, his brain arrested momentarily in acid casualty evangelical
vision, looked up at Lydon.
"You're the counterculture."
Vicious farted again.
"Woss the counterculture?"
"Fuck off" said Cook.
"Well what is it?"
"It's to do wiv signing on."
"No it ain't..."
Lydon spun around on one leg ignoring his bandmates.
"We're the counterculture.... We're the flowers in the dustbin..."
"I like that."
"Oh you do do you? It's from our wonderful song 'God Save The Queen.'"
"I can't believe you didn't know I was supposed to be dead."
"Well, said Lydon, "you see I don't keep up with the comings and goings of
old hippies and the like. Excuse me if I don't get all my Captain Beefheart
albums out just yet..."
The debate raged on in the background.
"....it ain't nuffink to do wiv signing fucking on right, it's about all the
queueing everyone has do in England innit..."
"...I don't have to queue you fucking queer cunt.."
"..who you calling a queer you queer cunt.."
"Fuck off!"
Lydon, a raucous contrarian, assessed the situation. He wasn't particularly
impressed with Morrison's revelations. To Lydon, Morrison was a minor player
in the long ago and far off west coast rock and roll scene. The Pistols, on
the other hand were the biggest thing that had England since..... Bowie or
Bolan. Who the fuck did Morrison think he was anyway, coming in and
revealing himself? The fucking bloke thought he was Jesus Christ, didn't he?
Lydon sipped his beer.
"So, James. What do you want to talk about?"
Morrison scratched his chin.
"What are you trying to do?"
"We're not trying to do anything. How crass.... Trying...."
Paul Cook's ears pricked up.
"We ain't tryin' to do nothing mate, we're fucking doing it."
Morrison snapped round at him.
"Doing what?!"
There was a short silence in the room. Vicious farted and spoke.
"Fucking annoying people."
Lydon leant against a table.
"Well put Sid. Well put."
"Annoying people? And.....?"
Lydon got up and made an extravagant flourish with his arm.
"We're broadcasting to the world."
"Broadcasting what?"
Steve Jones stood up and looked down at Morrison.
"We're broadcasting a message of what a shithole fucking world it is. You
dirty fuckers left it like it. Wiv all your bollocks music.At the end, at
the death, there ain't nothing left."
Lydon made another flourish with his arm.
"Where have you been living then?"
"Paris."
"Paris. Well, I'll tell you what Jimbo. We'll go out on the town. We'll go
down to the Nashville or the One hundred. And I'll show you what we're all
about. If you want."
Morrison sat and looked at them. They looked worse than Paris urchins. They
were snotty and ragged, they sported safety pins through their clothes. They
stared back at him through a blue smoke haze. He was amused. Here were four
people who couldn't care less that he was Jim Morrison; they didn't even
know he was dead. He was feeling the call of the wild. Lydon leered at him.
"Well, you coming with us?"
Vicious stood up unsteadily.
"Woss going on?"
Lydon's voice curved into a Dickensian rasp.
"We're going to take Mr Jim Morrison on a piss up. You Sid, are going to
show him what it takes to be a flower in the dustbin of England. Intcha?"
Vicious curled up the corners of his mouth.
"Allright."
Lydon looked round at Morrison.
"Well, old man?"
Morrison grinned.

McLaren, a Fagin, with a Fagin's thudding practicality and rapacity,
dismissed Lydon's suggestion that Jim Morrison was in the hotel suite.
"Don't be bloody ridiculous" said the weasel faced manager as he looked at
Morrison through the door. " He's fucking on a wind up. Looks a bit like him
but he's just on a lig. Let me get rid of him."
Lydon crossed his arms in a pantomime of patience, fleetingly resembling
Alec Guinness in The Ladykillers.
"Malcolm. Leave it alone. Let us sort this particular ligger out. If he is a
ligger. Which I don't think he is."
MacLaren looked sceptical.
"Yeah, well, if he ain't gonna give us no publicity. I don't see the fucking
point frankly."
"Leave it to me."

The limo prowled through the streets of London; Morrison, sitting next to
Vicious on the back seat, was swigging from a bottle of Jack Daniels. He
passed it to Vicious; Lydon, sitting opposite, grinned.
"Glad to see the party starting in earnest."
Morrison felt strange. Strange days. He was supposedly dead, with a
gravestone in Paris and a cult following around the world; he had been out
of sight, living under a new identity for six years, and yet here he was,
riding in a limo with the most infamous and fashionable band in England. He
smiled. Sid Vicious nudged him.
"So you was in The Doors?"
Morrison swiveled his juiced eyes around to Vicious's dark, piggy peepers.
"That's right."
"How come you don't play wiv 'em no more?"
"Well, you get to a situation with a band, with fame, where you're in a
corner. Pure and simple. You either die or get out or carry on. Well I
didn't wanna carry on. I thought, you know, the point's been made, and made
well."
Vicious looked at him, sniffing mucus back up his crimson nose; toying with
the padlock round his neck. Morrison continued.
"So I faked my own death. It got me out of a lot of trouble."
Vicious thought about it.
"How did you do it?"
"I kinda took some heroin, my then wife, who was stoned out of her mind,
throught I was really dead. Called a doctor, screamed etc. Meanwhile, while
she was sedated, I bribed my way through the situation. It was easy. I
escaped an awful lot of shit that way."
"I'm gonna have to remember that."
Vicious seemed pensive. Lydon, Cook and Jones looked round at him, aghast;
was the wild one mellowing?
Morrison smiled at them. The smile said 'Hey, you just have to talk to
people."
He turned to Vicious again.
"So, you've heard The Doors?"
"Yeah, they were a fucking load of fucking shit, fucking sitting around
stoned on fucking hippy drugs, and you was a poncing fucking hippy mate."
Lydon, Cook and Jones started to snigger the horrible snigger again. For
once, Morrison was at a loss for words.

Morrison and the Pistols staggered into the 100 club in Oxford St. Hundreds
of pictures of jazz giants stared down at them from the dark red walls.
Morrison was thinking about how different this place was to the Whiskey in
LA. The kids all had that hard urchin look about them- spiky hair, sullen
stares, safety pins everywhere. Morrison noticed the women- well, the girls:
heavily made up and projecting the look of extremely cheap, utterly
debauched prostitutes. A band played on the small stage, a horrible crashing
buzzsaw guitar and skambling drums; people 'danced', slamming their bodies
together and pushing and shoving each other violently. This was no place to
request a Three Dog Night song! Morrison was starting to enjoy this. Sluices
of beer and spit flew through the air as Morrison and the Pistols were
chaperoned to a tiny dressing room. Morrison caught a pint of lager full in
the face. Lydon leaned across to him.
"Good 'ere innit Jim?"

The Clash lounged in the dressing room. Mick Jones, looking like an
emaciated capo from a Coppola movie, sat with his feet up on a radiator, his
brothel creepers steaming gently, damp from the evening rain. Guitar in hand
he was strumming the intro from the Stones' Street Fighting Man, his doleful
eyes staring at the ceiling. Joe Strummer, an incisive songwriter with a
hawk-like countenance, was reading The Evening News, spliff burning between
the fingers of one hand and a half eaten hamburger congealing on a plate
next to him. In a corner, Nicky 'Topper' Headon beat a small leather stool
with his drum sticks. Next to him, slowly playing a simple scale on his bass
whilst pulling James Dean poses in a mirror, stood Paul Simenon.  He looked
across at Strummer.
"Joe, the chords for this new song, it's in E innit?"
Strummer didn't look round. He spoke wearily.
"E. Then A. Then E. Then A. Then E. Then E. Then A."
Jones looked round.
"Then D."
"So it's E then A? Er, then what?"
Strummer rolled his eyes.
"E then A. E then A. E then A. Then E. Then E. Then A."
"Then D."
Simenon looked down at his bass, his brow furrowed in concentration, his
prehensile fingers moving painfully slowly across the neck.
"So.....E then A. E then A. Then E then......"
"E then A. E then A. Then E. Then fucking E again. Then A." barked Strummer.
"Then D" said Jones.
"Er right....."
Suddenly the door flew open, knocking Simenon out of the way. The Pistols
staggered in. Lydon spraying the obligatory can of lager around. Cook walked
over to Strummer.
"Oi wot the fuck you doing in our dressing room?"
Strummer looked up.
"Hang on lads. We're both in here, as well as a few others. Sham 69....."
"Well you can all fuck right off 'cos this our dressing room. You lot will
have to use the toilets."
MacLaren walked in. Simenon was doubling his fists. Jones hadn't moved.
"Cor blimey! What are you lot doing in my boys' boudoir?"
He looked back out of the door and inclined his head. Three burly henchmen
strode in and looked at The Clash. Hard. They got the message and stood up
and began to walk out. Slowly. Strummer caught Morrison's eye. Strummer
frowned. Cook sat down where Strummer had been sitting.
"Fank fuck for that. Got rid of them cunts."
Morrison slugged on the bottle of Jack and wiped the beer and saliva out of
his eyes. He could feel the mojo rising inside of him.
"Well, are you boys going on stage tonight?"
"We certainly are Jim." said Lydon.
A group of girls walked into the dressing room. They were screaming and
laughing. More people came in. Vicious was sick on a girl's breasts. Lydon
came over to Morrison.
"Well Jim, how does it feel to back in the land of the living?"
"This is a pretty crazy place John."
"It is isn't it? I was thinking: why don't you do a set down here tonight?"
Morrison brain, awash with bourbon, had been chewing it over already. He was
impressed with the atavism of punk, but was that as far as it went? A lot of
spitting, shouting and noisy agit prop? If so, he thought he could do
better. Far better. Standing there, leaning aginst the wall in his booze
soaked suit, he felt the old magic kick in: booze stripped the complications
away, Jesus, he could do better. He'd always had a love hate relationship
with fame. He was good at it, courted it; but tired of it so quickly. Here
however, he wanted to show these boys that even old acid casualties still
have ego and prowess.
"Who'd back me up?"
"Well" said Lydon "Obviously we can't. But if you ask Strummer and the boys
they might have a go. Got any songs?"
Morrison grinned.
"It's punk rock. I'll go and write some now."
Lydon's smile froze slightly.

Morrison could hear the roar of the crowded club, baying for the Pistols, as
he staggered out of the dressing room, past a small boy with a mohican who
was being sick on the floor. He heard Strummer before he saw him.
"E then A. Then E then A then E. Then Fucking E again!"
Morrison tapped him on the shoulder. Strummer turned from instructing
Simenon, running his hands through his quiff and pulling down the cigarette
from behind his ear.
"I know you don't I?"
"Follow me" said Morrison, belching, "and I will make you fishers of men".

"Jim Morrison eh? Fucking hell." Joe Strummer and Mick Jones peered at the
lizard king. They were squeezed in a toilet cubicle; Topper crouched on the
toilet chopping out lines of speed on top of the cistern; Simenon standing
on the toilet in the next cubicle, leaning over.
"You guys prepared to back me up?"
"What?" said Jones "Are you making a comeback?"
Morrison shrugged.
"I dunno, sort of."
Simenon lit a cigarette.
"How can we back him up? We don't know any of his songs. I ain't learning
any new ones tonight. Fuck me I've had enough aggro learning ours."
"Shut it Simmo." snarled Strummer, a plan forming in his brain. "You got
songs?"
Morrison nodded.
"I got 'em in my head. I 'll go and write 'em down."
"Wot about music?"
"Just do 'em all as E or A blues. Swop it around you know. I 'll follow."
"Woss an E blues?" said Simenon.
"Shut it Simmo."

Strummer made for a telephone and rang Tony Parsons, a bombastic music
journalist.
"Tony, I don't know whose down here press wise, but you better get down here
because we're going on stage in half an hour with Jim Morrison."
Parsons, who was at that moment receiving painfully inexpert fellatio from
his soulmate Julie Burchill, laughed out loud.
"Fuck off Joe, what have you been taking?"
"I kid you not. Get yourself down here, He ain't dead, he's just been
slumming it in Paris."
"You don't expect me do believe that do you?"
"Be here or feel like a cunt in the morning."
 
 
 

They decided that for this one off band, they should be called ' The Lizard
Queens'. Strummer, a sixties rock 'head' had been gobsmacked by Morrison's
revelation. He'd quickly organized a band huddle, seeing a publicity coup
that would have the Clash's name in every newspaper in the world by the next
day. Morrison had dabbed a gram of speed and locked himself in the toilet to
write three songs whilst the Clash played their set. Lydon, half pissed and
catching wind of the plan intercepted Strummer on his way to the stage.
"You playing a set wiv 'im?"
"Yeah" said Strummer, "I'm fucking surprised MacLaren didn't jump in there
for you lot. Biggest publicity stunt you lot ever missed out on. We'll be
the most famous band in the world by tommorow night. Got to go."
Strummer walked off to the stage holding his telecaster above his head.
Lydon suddenly realised the implications of the situation. What an idiot
he'd made of himself! Missing out on a coup like that, when it was his idea
in the fucking first place! He wasn't going to say anything to MacLaren.
Morrison was going to have to be upstaged, or stopped. Lydon slid away on
the beer and vomit slicked floor. He had to find Sid.

The Clash played a storming set. A roughhousing mutation of Bo Diddley, surf
music and the early Stones. Strummer strumming maniacally, giving his tele a
stiff amphetamine spanking, Jones staring ahead into the crowd like Keith
Richards' nasty little brother; Topper slapping the drums down and Simenon
hunched over his bass, peering at the neck; the crowd pogoed and puked,
punched and leered and bopped and elbowed and swore and pissed and shouted,
windmilling through the booze, piss and spit shimmering air, revelling
gloriously in this new assault on the tired old sensibilities of rock &
roll. They staggered off stage exhausted. They found Morrison in the
toilets, clutching two sheets of paper, his hair spiked up with soap and
having safety pins threaded into his suit by a tiny young female punk.
Strummer, sweat streaming off him, wired on speed and the performance,
grabbed the lizard king by the lapels.
"Come on. It's now or never!"
Morrison was now thoroughly inebriated and getting acid flashbacks at an
alarming rate. Strummer pulled him out of the toilets.

"Wotcha want me to do then?"
Sid was smoking a cigarette in the dressing room. Lydon's pop eyes stared
into Vicious'.
"Create a fucking diversion. It better be a good 'un."
"What? Like being sick?"
"Nah for fuck sake. Do summink outrageous Sidney. You've got a ....knife
haven't you?"
 
 
 

Morrison felt strange. Charged. On top of all the booze he could still
detect the buzz. Here was the stage, the arena. The ceremony was about to
begin. The emcee, a bearded drunk from the rhythm and blues band that had
been on first was announcing them.
"Tonight... is the debut of a new band.... some of the members you will
know.... The Lizard Queens."
The crowd was so speeded up and drunk they just howled, a long primal,
howling cheer.
The Clash were pushing through the crowd, with Morrison, staggering over
people's feet, being dragged by Joe Strummer. Simenon was bringing up the
rear, saying to himself:
"E then A. Then E then A, then E then A then..."
Strummer knew they had to work fast; all he wanted  do was get the
journalists to realise who was on stage. He looked out into the crowds. Not
one flashbulb went off. He pushed Morrison towards the mic. Morrison leaned
into it. A beer glass flew past his head and smashed against the wall. The
stage lights blinded him. Sweat streamed down his face. The crowd started to
boo. Strummer grabbed another mic.
"Shut up right, shut up."
Morrison sucked in a huge lungful of soiled air. It passed down his ravaged
throat and then he began to bellow. The fire was lit.
"Hoooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahooooooooaaargghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
OOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhhhhhharararararararaaaaghghghghghghghahahahaha!!"
It was an incredible noise. An ancient drone which seemed to feed back on
itself filling the room and stupifying the audience down to a drooling
contrition. Morrison looked around at Strummer and Jones and nodded. The
band crashed into a pounding rock & roll shuffle which hit the people at the
front like a punch in the face. Morrison began to swagger the stage, an
inebriated grin on his face, his rolling booming baritone annihilating all
in front of it:

"Jesus fuckers all. Jesus Fuckers all. We'ze left alone to contemplate the
night.
 Let's crucify the bores and kick down the doors, celebrate the whores and
fuck and fight.
And fuck and fight and fuck and fight and fuck fight.
And fuck and fight and fuck and fight and fuck and fight.
Holy fornication underneath a blackened sun
Two effluent mills of pink flesh joined together in a blissful moment
Release!!! Sweet release. Fuck and fight and fuck and fight and fuck and
fight.
Show me the way to patricide and regicide and mattress-cide on the lower
east side and fuck and fight and fuck and fight and fuck and fight.
Jesus fuckers all. Jesus fuckers all!!!!"

The crowd was slam dancing with a crazy abandon. The Clash steamed on;
another step forward in the history books as they saw it. Suddenly a leather
clad figure appeared stage left. Sid Vicious was staggering under an
internal weight of booze, speed and glue. He began to remove his clothes.
The crowd became ever more hysterical. Morrison hadn't noticed him and was
in a private exultation of his own; swinging his mic lead around his head
and screaming 'Jesus fuckers all' into it. As Sid removed each successive
piece of clothing, the screams and yells became louder. Morrison was now
staggering drunk, slurring slightly and staring into the crowd. Finally Sid
removed his T shirt and brandished his flick knife in his hand. It glinted
in the stage lights. The crowd had reached such a pitch that even the music
was being drowned out. Morrison was now ignored, leaning on an amp swigging
from a nearly empty Jack bottle, breathing heavily. Sid began to cut himself
across the chest and a tremendous roar broke out. Lydon, Cook and Jones
leapt onto the stage and the frenzy began all over again. Lydon walked over
to Strummer and grinned his Fagin grin at him.
"Heheheh. Ta Ta Joseph. I think we're on now."
He turned to the crowd.
"I am the anti chriiiiiiiiiiist-ah!"
There was a huge roar and a small satge invasion swept Morrison off the
stage into the crowd. The Clash jumped down and headed for the bar.

Tony Parsons arrived.
"Your idea of an April fool's gag was it?"
Strummer, buzzing like fuck on strong speed shook his head vigorously.
"I tell you, he was on fucking stage with us. Two minutes ago."
"Where is he now?"
"Somewhere over there."
Strummer pointed out into the dark club, where hundreds of punks were
milling and pogoeing to the Pistols.
"I ain't going over there" continued Strummer "It's a fucking madhouse. I
couldn't believe it. Not one fucking flashbulb went off when we was
playing."
"New band innit, said Mick Jones gloomily. "They was all probably in the
bar."
They all looked at Lydon, twisting and leering on the stage.
"That lot are starting to get on my wick. Fucking Sid. Cutting himself up.
Some people will do anything for publicity." said Strummer.