As it’s allegedly Summer, here’s a bit of Christmas cheer from last year’s Classic Rock magazine. Merry Christmas!
It was Christmas Eve and Ebenezer Doherty was ripped to the tits on heroin again. His assistant, young Mr. Willoughby, had spent all day mopping up his employer’s shit and wasn’t exactly full of Christmas cheer.
“I can’t say I’m happy about this, sir,” grumbled Willoughby, “I wanted to get home to the wife and kids but instead find myself clearing shit off the floor because you’re too deranged to go to the toilet, you dirty bastard. I wouldn’t mind, but it’s Christmas tomorrow.”
Doherty fixed Willoughby with a gimlet eye,
“Christmas indeed?” he muttered, vomiting on his shoes, “Christmas be-damned sir! What need have I for Christmas when I have drugs and booze and some sort of career in the music industry?! Have a care to keep your blasted Christmas to y’self Willoughby!”
“Oh, don’t you worry, I will sunshine! I’m off! Feel free to wallow in your own filth on someone else’s time you ungrateful runt!” bellowed the assistant as he thundered out the door.
“Christmas!” Doherty laughed to himself as he farted blood across the carpet, “A shallow time for baubles, broken promises and empty-headed sentiments! I’ll have no Christmas in this house unless it comes heroin-shaped and out of a syringe!” At which point he collapsed into a coma.
* * *
Several hours later, Doherty was awoken by an eerie noise. Appearing before his crusty eyes was the ghostly apparition of his ex-business partner Carl Barat, who had died from obscurity the year before,
“What manner of devilry is this?” said Doherty, reaching for the scotch, “Why d’ye plague me, Barat? Are you a fiendish trick of the light p’raps? No! I’ll wager you’re nothing but an illusion of the mind brought on by a surfeit of ecstasy tablets and eight-balls!”
“Silence Doherty!” wailed the ghost, “Take heed of these words, vagabond! This night ye’ll be visIted by three ghosts of such fearful countenance they’ll have ye trembling in your boots! Expect the first ghost when the bell tolls one, for this night ye’ll learn the true meaning of Christmas, my friend … that’s if you can keep awake long enough, you fucking waster.”
“Away with ye, spirit!” replied Doherty, “Your ethereal threats hold no terrors for me! Why, I’ve held witness to visions so horrifying they would strip the sanest man of his mind! I fear not your spectres!”
And with that he went to bed, unaware of the curious events that awaited him this night.
* * *
The sounds of the city did not disturb Doherty, but when the bells of St. Martin’s tolled, he awoke with a start, caked in excrement. In amazement he beheld, at the foot of his bed, the ghostly figure of old Keith Moon.
“Merry Christmas Doherty,” said the spirit, “I am the Ghost Of Christmas Past and I think I’m ‘ere to show you the meaning of Christmas. To be honest my memory’s not what it was, so if I’ve got the wrong bloke, I apologise. You are Ebenezer Doherty aren’t ye?”
“Yes I am, damn you! Away with ye, ghost! And where’s my crack-pipe, blast your eyes?”
“No time for that,” replied Moon, “Unless I’ve completely got my wires crossed, you’re booked in for a journey into the past! Come along …”
“I’ll swim through blood first!” shouted Doherty. But before he could grab even a bottle of laudanum, the ghost had him by the hand and out of the window.
* * *
Through the night they flew, Moon giggling all the way as Doherty cursed him for a knave,
“Damn and blast, but will you let me down demon?! The clouds are no place for a man lest they be chemically induced within his fevered mind!” he cried, “And more to the point, I haven’t had a fix in two hours!”
“Oh stop your bleedin’ natter will you?” answered the ghost, “We’re ‘ere now!”
And as they descended from the clouds, Doherty was witness to an incredible sight,
“Behold!” said the spectre, “Before your eyes are the spirits of those who chose the path of excess over the wholesome, family message of Christmas! These men died early because they saw getting blow-jobs off schoolgirls as more important than the festive message of Jesus and the Queen and that. And unlike Clliff, Daniel O’Donnell, The Corrs, and Slade, they’ve paid the price with their lives! In their tormented faces you see … oh hello there, Jimi, is that a Creme de Menthe? Give us a gleg, I’m spitting feathers ‘ere.”
And with that, all hopes of using ghosts to forces Doherty to see the error of his ways were dashed. Keith Moon was gone, disappearing among the throng in pursuit of a bird with really, really big tits.
“Hey hang about!” cried Doherty, somewhat perplexed, “How am I meant to get home then eh?”
“Oh don’t worry about that, dear boy, ” said Brian Jones, “Pull up a chair and relax, man. Here, have a double vodka and lemonade …”
* * *
“Hell’s bells and buckets of blood!” roared Doherty as he awoke in his own bed, “What hell-spawned creature of the night had the nerve to break into my house, mess up my hair, steal all my money, and shit in my mouth?”
And then he remembered his journey with Keith Moon. He remembered the netherworld of the past. He remembered the dead rock stars he’d got bladdered with. He remembered the famous supermodel who’d sucked his balls dry (and whose name has been removed from this tale for legal reasons).
“Ye Gods, the party!” he cried, “My, but a lesson or two about Christmas was learned that night, I fancy!”
And with that he ran to the window and pushed the panes ajar. Upon the pavement he espied a young lad, on his way to work this wintry morning,
“You there, boy!” he shouted, “Tell me, what day is this?”
“Why sir, I thought it common knowledge what day it is? ‘Tis Boxing Day, sir! One day’s hence from Saviour’s Day!” replied the boy.
“Ha Ha! I’ve missed it! I’ve missed it! I’ve missed damnable, accursed Christmas with its mince pies and Only Fools & Horses Yuletide spectaculars! No chestnuts roasting on an open fire! No Jack Frost nibbling at my nose! No figs-in-a-box, no arguing over Monopoly! Without Christmas’s malignant influence, I can carry on doing what rock stars do best – snorting coke off a whore’s arse before drowning in a bath of piss! Oh thank you cheerful spirit for showing me the excellent ways of my errors!”
And he hollered down to the boy,
“Say there lad? Would you care for this shiny sixpence I have in my hand?”
“Would I? You bet I bloody would sir!” cried the lad.
“Well whistle, you little shit! Whistle and get away from my fucking house while you’re about it!”
And with that Doherty slammed the window, got back into bed, and drank a bottle of Wild Turkey so fast it liquidised his kidneys on the spot.
Merry Christmas!
