Karaoke An addicts tale Based on a true story* By Paul Cunningham *Characters, names, places and events have been changed to protect the innocent Chapter 1 Danny Singleton, or Dan as he preferred to be called lay there in darkness, unable to move, feeling ill. At first he didn’t remember how he ended up in the wheelie bin, but the stench of rotting fish quickly began to bring him round. Trying to think back to the events of the night before, everything just seemed either very hazy or very unbelievable. His last memory was that of being slumped on the pavement sobbing, and someone passing by dropping a bottle of vodka in his lap before walking out. "You look like you need this more than me," he remarked matter-of-factly. Normally Dan didn’t drink vodka, it had a habit of making him retch after each swig, but following the events of the last few weeks, he found it a welcome opportunity to drown out his thoughts, needs and memories. Events that had left a sick feeling in his stomach and a bitter taste in his mouth. He began to drink, and next thing he knew, he was here, in an industrial sized bin. Without a watch, he had no idea what time it was, his only knowledge of the fact it was daytime being the thin beams of sunlight shining through. They lit up the inside of his temporary home with a dull grey light. Particles of dust floated through the light, as though they were attracted to that part of the air (if you could call it air), and didn’t exist outside of the beam. Dan thought back to his childhood, where he used to pretend that the stream of light coming through his bedroom curtains was a tractor beam from a spaceship. His young and innocent self would spend an entire afternoon playing with his Star Wars toys, letting them get sucked up to the mother-ship, towards the window. It was a life that seemed so far removed from his world now. So innocent, so naïve, and for a moment Dan looked around and wondered exactly what had happened to him. The inside of the bin was dimly lit, but his eyes had adjusted to the light enough to see quite clearly. Most of the rubbish he lay on seemed to be cardboard boxes, plastic wrappers and polystyrene packing. It wasn’t actually that uncomfortable, and he understood why his drunken-self chose to sleep there. Much better than the usual drains and broken alleyway floors he had become accustomed to recently. Each of the walls were covered in a sticky white residue. It had begun to drip down the sides, and then dry, leaving a freeze-framed liquid state. Dan tried not to think about what it might actually be. There were a few catering sized tin cans, empty of course, but filled with a residue of sauce and mould. It didn’t really contribute to the overall pleasantness of the bin. On the other hand, however, it wasn’t as bad as the pile of seafood his feet were lying in. That’ll be the stench then he thought A small beam of sunlight shone through a pencil sized hole next to his head. It began to flicker. Something must be moving outside, and Dan didn’t really feel like making conversation right now, so he lay quietly. He listened quietly to the world go by, trying to think of a way to block out the smell of fish, when he heard a noise. It sounded like two men arguing … or perhaps they were just talking? Dan couldn’t tell. Whilst attempting to sit up, his footing slipped in some aquatic slime, and he spectacularly squashed one of the fish against the side of the bin with a loud squelch. It promptly exploded under the pressure, splattering fish guts, and releasing a stench greater than he had yet experienced that day. The stench, coupled with his increasing hangover suddenly overwhelmed him, and he threw up. Lying in a pool of vomit and fish guts, he curled up and moaned. Just as Dan thought his situation couldn’t get much worse, it did. Someone lifted up the lid of the bin, letting the glaring sunshine of the day outside into his hideaway. He saw a silhouette of a man holding open the lid, the only thing to stop the glare of the sun going straight to his own eyes. "Ahh for fucks sake" came a voice from the man, "here Frank, there’s a guy in here. He’s puking. Help me pull him out" Dan could hear the second man, Frank, give a muffled reply from some distance away. "Well finish up then and fuckin’ get over here" replied the first man All the while Dan felt a little bit like a startled rabbit trapped in the headlights of a on-coming car. After a few more moments of bewilderment, Dan felt himself being hauled up out of the bin and dropped roughly onto the alleyway floor. Lying in a heap on the floor, the two men towered above him like parents about to tell off their naughty toddler. The sudden movement had sent his head spinning, and he threw up again, this time on the first mans shoes. Judging by the roughness of how he was pulled out of the bin, and the tone of his ‘rescuers’ voices, he knew this wasn’t a good action as soon as it happen. Unfortunately he had no choice in the matter. Bugger. he thought, as he continued to send projectiles of vodka and stomach acid onto the shoes. "You little shit, I just bought those" exclaimed the man, and with that kicked him hard in the gut. Dan convulsed and instantly threw up again. He felt like helpless observer as he watched the foot swing back ready to kick him again. It stopped. " Whoa hold on, what the fuck do you think you are doing Jim?" asked Frank "I’m beating the shit out of this fucking waste of time" "Ease up on the guy a bit," said Frank to the relief of Dan, but his relief was a touch premature, "at least check his pockets first" All Dan could think right now was that the day really wasn’t going as he could have hoped. "What the fuck is the point in that Jim? We’ve just pulled the guy out of a fucking wheelie bin. Are you expecting him to have a winning fucking Lottery ticket on him? Look fuck this, let’s go to the pub." "All right all right, it’s your round" "Whatever" Dan looked over to them as the men began to walk off. He breathed a sigh of relief, but then a look of panic came to his eyes. A craving suddenly erupted deep inside of him. An uncontrollable urge that told him that he was missing an opportunity. He sat up and raised his hand to the men. "Wait!" he cried in the loudest voice he could muster up. The two men looked back to him. "Let me sing to you!" pleaded Dan. By now he was sitting upright on the floor of the alleyway, leaning against the wheelie bin that had been acting as his bedroom for the previous night. He forced himself to stand up. It was a real struggle, but he felt he had no choice. This could be his only chance of a fix all day, and despite the unpleasantness of his potential audience, he needed to take any opportunity he could get. "Now what the fuck is this?" asked an infuriated Frank, more to himself than anyone in particular. "Picture your self on a boat on a river," sang Dan, and it felt oh-so good. He could feel the rush of adrenaline wash away his hangover, and all his pains. For one sweet moment, he forgot about all the horrors he had experienced, the suffering he had had to endure. The two men began to walk back towards him. "With tangerine trees and marmalade skies" continued Dan. The intense pain across Dan’s face was instant, as Frank, or maybe Jim, threw his fist at it. Dan crumpled to the floor in a pathetic heap. All his pain, suffering memories and horrors came bursting back to him in an mental wave. The shock was so sudden that he shook, retched and vomited yet again on the feet of his attackers. He felt the force of a foot collide against his belly one more time, before the men started to walk away. Half-conscious, his body limp, Dan closed his eyes and groaned to himself. "if there’s one thing I hate more than karaoke," muttered Jim as they left the alleyway, "it’s fucking karaoke addicts". Chapter 2 Dan sat in the alley, leaning against a wall, behind the wheelie bin he awoke in. The area was clear now, so he took a moment to soak in his surroundings. It was a fairly typical city alley, dank grey stone walls, a permanently wet ground, covered with that unexplainable greasy film. There were unidentified lumps of slime slowly making their way down the walls, getting ever closer to Dan and his head. The air had a kind of thickness to it, that left a bitter choking sensation in the back of your throat, triggering your gag reflex if you breath in too deeply. It wasn’t much, but to Dan, for now, it was home. A phrase that Dan had recently come to embrace is ‘Home is where your rug rests’. Lacking a rug, Dan preferred to think of it as ‘Home is where your cardboard box is’. That, however was on the nights where he could find a cardboard box that he could convert into his home. A lot of the time he simply thought ‘Home is where you happen to be when you need to lie down and sleep’. Not quite as catchy as the original phrase, but certainly more in tune with his current physical state. It was much like every other alley he has spent most of the last week living in. In fact, wait a second, Dan had just come to have a revelation. He had actually spent an entire week homeless, all because of Karaoke. If he could go back now and undo his decisions he would. He never thought it would have come to this, but now he was lost. He has a gremlin inside of him that needed to be satisfied. The only way to do that was to find people to sing to, people that would let him sing to them. If only he hadn’t said that phrase. The phrase that started it all off. I'll try it if you do. It sounded like a cliché, as he said it back to himself, but it all began with that line. Over a year ago now, back when he lived in Cornwall. A time when he was happy. He had a steady job working as a beach lifeguard, a good circle of friends, and spent many an evening frequenting his local karaoke night. Karaoke was something his friends would often use, and frequently they tried to peer pressure him into it, but at first he never really felt the urge to try it himself. Dan had seen the state that it seemed to get people into and for years was very happy to be an observer. I'll try it if you do. That fateful night however, something changed and to Dan, it was an honest accident. A colleague, Bob, came up to him that night, another man who had never stooped so low as to try it, and asked, only jokingly "You'll try some karaoke tonight won't you Dan?". What would have happened if he just said "No". One word, simple and to the point. But he had to be clever didn't he. He had to say it; "I'll try it if you do." It was one of those slips, based on an assumption, the mother of all fuck-ups. Dan knew this now. What a fuck up this one had been. He thought he was safe in the knowledge that Bob knew better than to try Karaoke. Like Dan, Bob was aware of it's side affects and dangers, and he knew that he was sensible enough not to try something as full on as this. Bob just wasn’t capable of doing it. As far as Dan was concerned, saying this was as safe as saying no; I'll try it if you do. That statement, those six simple words, were the start of Dan’s downward spiral. To this day, He truly believed than Bob didn’t ever intended to try it that night either. Quite simply, Bob was stitched up. It was a classic ‘talked himself’ into it situation, he stitched someone else up. he pushed a song onto another friend, and then in guilt, volunteered to share it with him. He felt sorry for him. In that single act of chivalry, Dan found himself looking down the barrel of a metaphoric gun. Being a man of his word, and even though he meant it as a joke, those cursed words came right back and slapped him right in the face right then. Slapped him in the face with a wet kipper, before flushing his head down the toilet and hanging him out to dry off a third floor window. Or perhaps that was another night entirely. Either way, he had just committed himself to trying his first song. I’ll try it if you do. It took Dan a while to build up the courage to do the deed. Spending around an hour flicking through the song book, he never knew that there was so much choice. Surely people just take a hit song and sing. How can you choose which hit to take, when there are hundreds of different types of hit songs? Well, eventually he picked one he felt to be fairly safe. He knew that this song had come from a good source, was of good quality, and hadn’t been cut by anyone else. He had picked ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’. There was nothing left to do now, but order his musical hit and wait. Another hour passed. People got up, sang their hit, and sat down again. Some seemed to really enjoy it, some just stated to look ill, but the people kept coming. Even then, he noticed the addiction in peoples eyes, the craving for the buzz. It wasn't long before Dan’s name was called. It was now his turn to take a hit. His turn to stand up, take that hit, and sing it as best as he could. As he walked to the front and took hold of the microphone, a strange thing happened. The lights began to dim, and a band began to play the tune. A smoke machine began to spew strawberry scented smoke across the stage, lit up by the few blue lights circling about him. It was eclectic. Then as he began to sing, a spot light shined upon him. Slowly more and more lights started as he built up into the first chorus. Dan could even hear people whispering already; "Is that the second coming of John Lennon?"; "he’s amazing …"; "it’s beautiful". Dan continued into the second verse ... Women’s hearts began to melt, as he witnessed every female gaze upon his body longingly. He had never tried to sing before, and so never realized quite how good he was. Perhaps I could get a record deal out of this ….he thought hopefully Dan awoke with a start as Bob gave him a nudge, "Mr. Singleton, wakey, wakey, it’s your turn now" he said with a smile Shit. He stood up and walked to the corner of the pub. Karaoke Kev handed him a microphone, and he stood facing a grim looking crowd. The pub lights glared in his face, and suddenly he realised that he was the centre of attention. The music began to play, and within moments Dan found himself singing. Without knowing what to expect., he simply gave it all he had. In his heart, Dan knew he couldn’t sing, the only key he recognised being the car key in his pocket. But he gave it his best shot. He started slowly, cautiously, nervously, building up towards the end of the first verse. Yet, it was at the chorus that his singing took a sudden change. He began to sing with all his might, at the top of his voice. By this point he had figured if you can’t sing, then put some effort into it. It had a profound effect on the crowd. People began to laugh, not at him, but with him. He carried on to the end, singing the best that he could, trying not to laugh at himself as he did it. As he finished and walked away, the crowd gave him a standing ovation. All ten people in the pub stood up. Even a random punk came running over to him from the corner and grabbed his hand. He shook it vigorously; "Mate that was spot on…Can I get you a drink?" he said Dan’s heart was pounding, He felt great, the buzz of that first hit was like nothing he had ever experienced. The rush of adrenaline, the applause, the free beer, it was all fairly overwhelming. Dan had become hooked, and right then, he was loving it …. It all seemed so perfect back then, back in the early days, there were no after effects from taking Karaoke, yet Dan knew better now. But he had gone past the point of no return. Sitting in the alley, homeless, penniless, and hooked, all he could bring himself to do was pull a flattened cardboard box over himself and try to go over where it all went wrong in his head again. Chapter 3 Dan’s Karaoke life had started so well. He had always been told it would do him harm eventually. Mess with his head. But Dan wouldn’t listen. After his first night he had spent the next few days with a huge grin on his face like a Cheshire cat. Never quite sure why Cheshire cats were supposed to grin, Dan supposed that perhaps they put something in the milk down there, completely unaware that cats were lactose intolerant, and would probably get explosive diarrhea. This was certainly something that would wipe a grin off any creatures face. Blissfully unaware of this fact, however, Dan stuck with his simile’s explanation, and felt content. During this early time there were only two things going through his mind. The first being the words to ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ and the second being the thought "I’ve tried Karaoke". Unfortunately for the former, he hadn’t quite grasped the entire lyrics, and couldn’t sing it all without the aid of the karaoke lyrics. This left his mind with sporadic burst of random lines, and often left him confused and disorientated. People had always told him that this sort of come down can get quite heavy, but Dan didn’t think too much about it, he was on top of the world. The craving, however, started to brew. A karaoke gremlin had set up camp in the pits of Dan’s stomach, and it demanded more. And so when the following week came along, it really didn’t take much for Dan to take another hit. Soon enough, the weeks began to roll by. Tourist season came into full flow, crowds got bigger, and the gremlin’s lust for Karaoke suddenly could not be satisfied. One hit a night quickly became two, and before long, Dan was singing up to four or five hits a night. But the buzz was still good. Oh so good! Even now, sat in the alley, Dan started dribbling at the thought of those initial days. A time when Karaoke made him feel great, not just feel normal. He remembered the rush of Euphoria as he sang his opening lines, the spine tingling sensation starting in his arse (he didn’t understand that, but didn’t really care either), flying up his spine and exploding onto the scene at the front of his head. It usually made him dizzy, but that was all part of it. As he staggered off stage once completing a song hit, the adrenaline sent his heart pounding, his head spinning, and feeling better than a post orgasm joint. It wasn’t too long before Dan became something of a local Legend. The karaoke host, Kev, had nicknamed him ‘Mr. Microphone’. Probably due to the time he tried his best ‘Satan’s blow-job’ impression, by sticking the microphone in his mouth and making a kind of sucking screaming sound. In that particular song his had his hit turned off. A horrible feeling that he never wanted to repeat, and so he behaved himself after that. His name started being placed on the chalkboard outside his local pub. "Tonight: Kev’s Karaoke with Mr. Microphone" People were turning up just to hear him sing, and so inevitably it wasn’t long before the chalkboards began to change "Tonight: Mr. Microphone with Karaoke Kev" Tourist began buying him drinks, women threw knickers at him, and before long the pub began to pay him to turn up. The crowd loved him. But then it all changed. Well, not necessarily all of it. In fact it was actually all pretty much the same. With just one minor enhancement. One night, a regular Karaoke fix of a night, ‘Purple Man’ walked in. So called because his skin consisted of two possible colours. Sunburn pink in the summer, and hypothermic purple in the winter. A Goliath of a man, standing proud at six foot seven, with a build that would look better suited to an alcoholic construction worker than a kayak instructor. Yet he seemed to defy all logic and gravity in his chosen career, with swift, and elegant movements in all that he did. The imposing figure that he is, Dan noticed him straight away as he entered stage left into the pub. With all the grace and charm of a smooth talking ladies man, Purple Man walked straight up to the most beautiful woman in the pub, bought her a drink and began to chat her up. Dan was walking on stage to sing a rendition of ‘Five Hundred Miles". As he began to scream the chorus, Dan watched amused as his metaphoric Gremlin friend jumped out of his mouth, ran across the room, tweaked Purple Man’s nose before punching him square in the face. Purple Man threw his drink over the girl in question, exclaimed a loud "fuck!". He had seen the light, and was soon to became an addict. An addict just like Dan. His partner in crime. Those were the days. Together they took Kev’s Karaoke by storm. Week in, week out, ‘Mr. Microphone and Purple Man’ would come and sing their repertoire, hit after hit, ‘Danger High Voltage’, ‘Song 2’, and of course ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’. On top of the usual hits, they were always in favour of trying different forms of Karaoke too, perhaps just to see what different effects they would have. Occasionally they would mix a little ‘ironic’ into the cocktail, or spice it up with a ‘Sid Viscous’ version of ‘I Will Survive’. A quick lesson they learnt was to never mix their regular songs with anything containing a it of speed. ‘Rawhide’ and ‘Johnny B Good’ all seemed like a good idea a the time, but they were only led to regret those decisions. They often left the duo stumbling their lines, and the crowd unable to be brought back from a feeling of confusion and anger. But, supposed Dan, if you want to experiment with something like Karaoke, you need to expect the occasional bad hit. When it came to the pairs Karaoke, however, it was the gremlin who was in the driving seat. Nothing could stop them, not even themselves. The months began accelerate. Summer quickly turned into Autumn and the tourist season began to die Down. Dan remembered his last ever night in Cornwall like it were yesterday. What a night to finish on. Around about 50 students had descended upon the pub, and for reasons to which neither Dan nor Purple Man could understand, they had all decided to take karaoke in fancy dress. Dan looked around the room, it was full of cowboys, gorillas , angels, devils and anything else they could think of. Purple Man looked at Dan with a puzzled look on his face. Dan looked back and tried to match the puzzled look with one of confusion. It didn’t quite work, and ended up looking like he was constipated. But then they both shrugged, and said "fuck it, why not?" They ran to the kitchen at the back of the pub, and began searching for anything they could find that could make a costume. After a few no go ideas involving cling-film and kitchen roll, they quickly came to find the only possible solution to their answers. Bin bags. And with that, they donned caveman style black plastic, and re-entered the pub. It was packed, people everywhere were gratuitously taking karaoke, openly in front of the startled regulars. But it was Mr. Microphone and Purple Man who took the night by storm. Suddenly their fun with Karaoke had turned into a serious undertaking. With so many people taking Karaoke around them, their lust overcame them. The Gremlin took control as they stole other peoples hits. They even shared microphones with complete strangers, never once showing concern for cross-contamination. They sang anything they could get their hands on that night, take any hit song in any form possible. They mixed their hits, took double hits, tried new Karaoke, and churned out the old classics. The reveling of the night soon became a hazy mixture of lights, music microphones and excessive consumption, all swirled into a pit of hazy pig swill. That was the last night that Dan had ever spent in Cornwall, it was the following day that he was packing up to move to away. But that night was also the night that Dan had realised that his habit had gone beyond just a bit of fun. He began to realise that it was turning into a serious addiction, something to which he would in future have to depend upon for happiness. The moment he realised this was not the excessive consumption, or the hazy debauchery that was displayed throughout the night. No. Not for Dan It was at the start of the night. His very first song. The moment he realised the potential extent of his karaoke addiction , was when he discovered that he could sing Karaoke sober. And with that thought in mind it was time to leave the lively, happy-clappy land of Cornwall, and move somewhere much darker, seedier, grittier. Karaoke would never be the same again. He was moving to Glasgow…. A cat walked up and began to piss on Dan’s face. He choked and spluttered, and took a swipe at the offending moggy. Dan lay under his box, in the Glasgow Alleyway, his thoughts had meant he had drifted off, unaware of his surroundings again. Reminiscing about the good old days gave him a warm feeling in his stomach. It even revitalized some of the buzz of those days. Yet one thing still eluded him. After moving he never did keep in touch with his partner in crime, Purple Man. It was as if he had just faded away into a purple haze. He often wondered if Purple Man had succumbed to the same fate as him, but somehow he doubted it. Being a monster of a man, Purple Man could probably take six hits a day, and still never miss a day of work. An unstoppable machine that quickly became the stuff of Legends. But Dan would never know if life had taken as bad a turn for Purple Man as it did for him after their split.