"No."
My tone is flat and hollow like always. If there's one thing I've learned after an entire existence in this business, it's that you can't afford to show these people the slightest bit of enthusiasm. It's just cruel.
He'll ask anyway though. They always do.
"Aww Boss. Just one more encore. Jesus Christ, just listen to them out there!"
Sure enough, the roar of the crowd has grown, an undercurrent of unsatisfied nastiness rumbling below the surface.
I show him the contract again.
"12 oâ??clock. That's the deal."
"So I still have 6 minutes?"
A mad gleam of hope flashes behind his eyes as he checks his watch.
I shrug.
"Make it count."
ã??
And people will talk about those six minutes for decades to come; the hushed silence of anticipation as he trudged slowly back on stage, shoulders slumped, buckling under the weight of some unfathomable burden.
And when he strokes the first note from his Rickenbacker with an almost loving caress, he does it with none of the empty showmanship of before, none of the ostentatious windmilling or vulgar hip thrusting that I've grown to hate these last few years.
No, he just stands almost statically and carves out raw poetry from the air around him with almost negligent flicks of his fingers.
Halfway through his rhapsody, lightening splits the moody sky and the heavens open, enveloping everything and everybody below in a punishing deluge.
Nobody notices.
Tears flow freely from his half-closed eyes as he plays, mingling unobserved with the rain that's already coated anything within half a mile.
And when he's done, there's no rallying crescendo or sublime power-chord finale. He just lets the guitar sing out one final endless note that picks up everybody it reverberates through and carries them away onto some transcendental plane normally reserved only for God's own troubadours. That note, blissfully perfect and true, dies away so slowly that years later, people aren't even sure if they can still hear it or not.
And Freddie sinks to the floor, sitting cross-legged and head bowed. Empty. Drained.
And the crowd, dreamily mesmerised by whatever it is they've just witnessed, they don't even notice me when I walk across to Freddie. Most of them won't even move for next few hours.
I check my watch in time to see midnight strike.
"Happy Birthday."
He grins and sets his guitar down reverentially beside him.
And for the first time in millennia, curiosity gets the better of me, and I have to ask.
"Was it worth it?"
Freddie looks across at the sea of unseeing faces and smiles weakly.
"Yeah. It was."
"Well let's go then."
And I have to believe him, because when he sees my skeletal hand for the first time, moving inexorably towards his forehead and the dreadful conclusion to our deal, he doesn't even back away.
Not for a moment.
Word Count 550
rating: 17
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