Walk on the Wild Side - By Karl Edward Wagner Page 0,67
always fancied stocking it with a few favorite items. Like the ancient Egyptians. I mean, being dead has to get boring.”
“Then do you believe in an afterlife?”
“Doesn’t really matter whether I do or I don’t, does it? Still, it can’t hurt to allow for eventualities.”
“Yeah. Well, it’s all bollocks anyway.” Nemo Skagg’s eyes had cleared, and Chase found their gaze penetrating and disturbing. He was glad when Nemo stared past him to watch the passersby.
Chase belched and glanced at his watch. “Yes. Well. Here we are in Kensington.” He had begun the afternoon’s adventure hoping that Nemo Skagg intended to point out to him his former house near here, perhaps entertain him with anecdotes of past extravagances committed on the grounds, maybe even introduce him to some of his whilom friends and colleagues. Nothing more than a bad hangover now seemed the probable outcome.
“Right.” Nemo stood up, rather steadier now than Chase. “Let’s make our move. I said I’d show you.”
Chase finished his lager and followed Nemo down Kensington Church Street, past the church on the corner, and into Ken High Street, where, with some difficulty, they crossed over. The pavement was extremely crowded now as they lurched along. Tattooed girls in black leather miniskirts flashed suspender belts and stiletto heels. Plaid-clad tourists swayed under burdens of cameras and cellulite. Lads with pierced faces and fenestrated jeans modeled motorcycle jackets laden with chrome. Bored shopworkers trudged unseeingly through it all.
Nemo Skagg turned into the main doorway of Kensington Market. He turned to Chase. “Here’s your fucking afterlife.”
Chase was rather more interested in finding the loo, but he followed his Virgil. Ken Market was some three floors of cramped shops and tiny stalls—records and jewelry, T-shirts and tattoos, punk fashions from skinhead kicker boots to latex minidresses. You could get your nipples pierced, try on a new pair of handcuffs, or buy a heavy-metal biker jacket that would deflect a tank shell. Chase, who remembered Swinging London of the Beatles era, fondly thought of Ken Market as Carnaby Street Goes to Hell. “Tell me again,” he called after Nemo Skagg. “Why are we here?”
“Because you wanted to know.” Nemo pushed forward through the claustrophobic passageways, half dragging Chase and pointing at the merchandise on display. “Observe, my dear Watson.”
Ken Market was a labyrinth of well over a hundred vendors, tucked away into tiny cells like funnel spiders waiting in webs. A henna-haired girl in black PVC stared at them incuriously from behind a counter of studded leather accessories. A Pakistani shuffled stacks of T-shirts, mounted on cardboard and sealed in cellophane. An emaciated speedfreak in leather harness guarded her stock of records—empty albums on display, their vinyl souls hidden away. An aging Teddy boy arranged his display of postcards—some of which would never clear the postal inspectors. Two skinheads glared out of the twilight of a tattoo parlor: OF COURSE IT HURTS read the signboard above the opening. Bikers in leather studied massive belts and buckles memorializing Vincent, BSA, Triumph, Norton, Ariel, AJS—no Jap rice mills served here.
“What do you see?” Nemo whispered conspiratorially.
“Lots of weird people buying and selling weird things?” Chase had always wanted to own a Vincent.
“They’re all dead things. Even the motorcycles.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t see. Follow and learn.”
Nemo Skagg paused before a display of posters. He pointed. “James Dean. Jim Morrison. Jimi Hendrix. All dead.”
He turned to a rack of postcards. “Elvis Presley. Judy Garland. John Lennon. Marilyn Monroe. All dead.”
And to a wall of T-shirts. “Sid Vicious. Keith Moon. Janis Joplin. Brian Jones. All dead.”
Nemo Skagg whirled to point at a teenager wearing a Roy Orbison T-shirt. Her friend had James Dean badges all across her jacket. They were looking at a poster of Nick Drake. Nemo shouted at them, “They’re all dead! Your heroes are ghosts!”
It took some doing to attract attention in Ken Market, but Nemo Skagg was managing to do so. Chase took his arm. Come on, mate. We’ve seen enough, and I fancy a pint.”
But Nemo broke away as Chase steered him past a stall selling vintage rock recordings. Album jackets of Sid and Elvis and Jim and Jimi hung in state from the back of the stall. The bored girl in a black latex bra looked at Nemo distastefully from behind her counter. Either her face had been badly beaten the night before, or she had been reckless with her eyeshadow.
“Anything by Needle?” Nemo asked.
“Nah. You might try Dez and Sheila upstairs. I think they had a copy of Vampire