Category: Music

Well, here it is, folks. My first novel. Read it if you dare. You may be forever changed, but not necessarily for the best.

I owe a lot to a number of folks who helped make this happen but, notably, from the infamous KSWNO itself, thanks to: Gorman Moloko, Horatio Von Darkfaulker and Dave the Bodyguard. Ozzy, Gaylord, Willie, Joe, Stig, Melma, Shalla, Chippy, Dwight and Stamford.

Oh, and, yeah. Ken Socrates, too. He pushed me to get this out there to an audience. Maybe he wanted the notoriety he’d receive from it. Maybe he was just bored, who knows. Or maybe, just maybe. He thinks it’s an alright novel about two aging men rediscovering the passions they held dear in their youth and refusing to go quietly into the sunset.

Chances are it won’t be my last novel, however. I seem to be onto something and, as long as Ken is dragging me from place to place for God knows what purpose, there will be more to tell, I’m sure.

So stay tuned.

You can purchase the book at the following link, for which I would be forever grateful, and please enjoy a sample chapter below.

A Pocketful of HELLFIRE: A Ken Socrates Novel by Alan LaRue

CHAPTER NINE: OLD SONGS

The pub was dark. You couldn’t see into the back corners. In fact, it seemed like the only light there was gathered in a small pool around Ken and I, reflected weakly off the stained woodwork of the counter surface before us. It was as if we had been photographed in sepia.
We sat side by side at the bar and hadn’t spoken in a half hour or so, each of us sipping a drink, mine a lime seltzer-water the bartender had put down with a sour look on his face like I’d forced him to suck the juice right out of a lime to make the fucking thing. I think we were both reflecting on how things had gone sideways.

For my part, I had a bit more on my mind. Something that had been bothering me for a long time. The incident at Spackler’s had only made it worse, had only unearthed more doubts in me. Thoughts that lurked in the back recesses of one’s consciousness, peering around dark corners, waiting for the right moment to sneak out. This was that sort of moment, as I nursed mental and physical bruises, feeling lost and unsure of the future. Nagging questions begged for release. Dark secrets sought the light.

I felt like I had to ask him. The words came slow and thick. I wasn’t sure I wanted answers, honestly.

“Ken.” I felt hesitant, emotional. “Was any of it real? Were any of them real?”

He raised his glass and knocked back the rest of the Old Soldier. Made a small grimace like he was bracing for some pain, like someone about to pop a dislocated shoulder back into its socket. He stared across the counter at the bottles all lined up, perhaps assessing which one to empty next. Then I realized that wasn’t it at all.

Ken was looking at his own reflection in the glass behind the rows of whisky.

“They were real, Alan. Real enough. They were there with me. Not as passengers on the ride but drivers in their own right. Conductors of their own chaotic symphonies. And I loved them for it, all of them. I still do. Maybe they don’t know that because I became a reclusive asshole. Maybe I didn’t hold onto them tight enough and that’s on me. But god, do I love them and what we did together. I think back on it every damned day.”

I felt like I was in a trance as I listened. Time had stopped. The Nick Cave song on the jukebox had ended and there was just a faint swish of static in the background. The television jammed between two stations, but the volume turned low.

“Some of them are still out there, still riding, like me. Still playing those old songs. I can sometimes hear their distant sounds, like a haunted ice cream truck passing through your neighbourhood at dusk. No one wants that ice cream, yet onwards they drive.

“Some of them are gone.” His hand briefly went to the top of his hat, as if checking to see it was still there. “Faded or vanished or just wandering down strange, different pathways on a new adventure.” He paused for a moment. “Some of them are here with us now. They know what we’re doing and, I dunno, maybe they’re proud. That we never gave up on it. Or if we did give up, at least we came back in the end. Before it was too late.

“Horatio…”

He trailed off like he tended to when Horatio came up. We all knew about the Darkfaulker but we mostly felt it best to not talk about it too often. I gave him a few moments.

Then he whispered a bit in a soft growl, the low warning of an angry dog or perhaps the sound of faraway thunder. “So long beaten. But here I stand.”

The bartender seemed to take this as a cue and came by to fill his tumbler. Ken raised it to the murky image in the dark reflective facade in front of him. I wiped away a dampness in the corner of my eyes and turned to the old man with the bottle.

“Give me a fucking double.”