Selfie blue

Story creeping along...

Chapter 9 Walter
Suddenly everything, at least band wise, was normal again. Gigs could happen freely anywhere in normal venues and people could say and sing what they liked. The Y unsurprisingly were in great demand, probably more for their notoriety than any particular interest in their sound. Nevertheless they made the most of the new freedoms and played extensively throughout the country. However something had changed and despite the good times there was a sense that things had peaked and however hard they tried they were never going to reach the heights of the revolutionary Prague nights again.
Mo felt it most. The revolution had reignited a passion in him. He felt he was making a difference with his art and fronting a band, though still enjoyable, gradually started to seem limited and limiting. He wanted and needed more. Never had he experienced a time where art and artists mattered so much and not only to a educated intellectual elite. His ideas and words and constructions seemed relevant to and part of everyday life rather than just a bourgeois avant garde pastime.
He became very close to Vratislav and quietly started collaborating in a new venture with a few of his friends.
Jer was also unsettled but in a different way. He had started to feel the drag of middle class expectation. He had come to realise that there were two types of band he could be a part of. One was a successful one that provided an income and could be called a career ie a professional band and musician. The other was as a hobby, a bit of fun, a creative outlet along the lines of golf or restoring a steam engine. Since the former was unlikely he needed to contemplate what he could do to fund such an expensive hobby as the latter. He had met a couple of people after a gig in Liberec who, like Jorg in Berlin, had a shared passion for rare horror. Jorg came to stay for a few days and a discussion had ensued between them all about the feasibility of a business importing such rare items for a growing eastern European market. Similar items in music and fashion were added to the mix and the buds of a business opportunity started to grow.
There was an air of inevitability around the future life of Little Legs. It was unclear to him, or anyone else,what he could offer a fledgling Eastern European democracy. They had plenty of their own taxi drivers and van delivery men and anyway the van wasn’t even his. His limited funds had run out a long time ago and he was relying on the goodwill of the band and others to keep him fed, watered, housed and cigged up. He had received friendly overtures from The Otter, a phone call with Tracey indicated that he wouldn’t actually kill him if he returned. Dave had pretended the van had been stolen, happy to receive the insurance money so there were no repercussions there. The council had upped the taxi driving rates and with a new nightclub opened things were looking up for the local trade. The loop was curving, the circle closing again.
Steve and Brooksie were sorted. They had secured their place as players in the European independant music community. On the back of a small but significant history they would probably always be in the running for any rhythm section vacancies that would arise. There would be many bands but throughout a single thread of gigs, touring, beer, women, drugs and late nights and mornings. They would never be the mainman but mainmen needed support and they were now established as players with a history. They wasted time but were not timewasters. They were on permanent tour.
The slide towards entropy was interrupted by a major event to which ended things finally and abruptly.