HOMO KARAOKE

Operate all mechanisms! I am Girlforce 7 of world-famous PERFUME SWORD team. With my special gadget handbag I am best ever invincible. Especially note my deadly poison love ballad! Play game with me. Together we save Moonchester from all contagious evil.

Tonight, the city wears dirty slut perfume and matching outfit. The rain has stopped, leaving the streets with wet greasy hair, strands of pulp blocking the drainage. All the flyers of every party of all time have gathered at the plughole of life. I'm standing on the balcony of Dubtek's nightclub, holding my hand over my mouth. High above me, projected from the roof, lasers paint a dark cloud with colour, chameleon to the beat. I've come out for some air, but even the music has got a serious hygiene problem and there's no escaping it. It's my first ever gig in Manchester, and the place is one giant filthy arse-wipe loudspeaker, zero panache. There's no sign of my challenger. When I walk to the edge, look down, waves of people are streaming out of the club, epileptic under stuttering lights. A purified canal runs back of the club. Some tables, chairs, a couple of sun umbrellas, all wet and soggy but no matter; it's the small gaps between the rain that count, and learning how to live amongst them. Clouds of cheap, shop-bought hormones lift from the young bodies. A girl screams. Another flings her drink at a waiter; the liquid passes right through, creating radio shimmer. Some boy falls in the water. It's all very flesh-core, very human-human, and it's all I can do to stop from retching.

'Would sir be requiring assistance?'

'What?' I turn round: a waiter is grimacing at me.

'Is it the humidity, sir?' His face is twitching badly, struggling like a bad flow diagram.

'I'm fine,' I say.

'A drink? To calm the nerves, perhaps? Courtesy of the management?'

'Leave me alone.'

'Young man, I wish you luck tonight.'

Yeah, right. Put the emphasis on man there, why don't you? A final nod and he's gone, flickering on and off a few times before he manages it. Shit, there's still some bugs in the system, all I need. A gang of lowlife casuals stagger on to the balcony. I'm feeling pent up as it is, and I can't shake the mood, I mean, this is supposed to be the VIP zone, DJs only. The kids are crowding in, pressing close, laughing at me about how I'm gonna be a pile of melted vinyl when the killer housebass gets a hold of me. One of them hits me, a hard testing blow to the shoulder. I wouldn't mind but I'm the same age as they are; just another kid from nowhere. I look up at the opposite roof, over the canal, trying to catch a glint of corporate security, let's have some freezer-beams down here! but the cameras are blind and all the goons on locoweed. More system-glitch. Or else the whole place is against me. There's never any shit when you need some, plenty when you don't. Stick that on my gravestone if I lose tonight.

And the rain falls once more.

Operate all mechanisms! I am M.O.R.phine of extra famous PERFUME SWORD hero squad. With my special loudspeaker eyes I beam out E.Z. listening rays of Muzak power. I will dull all supervillains this intriguing Death Lounge way. Play game with me. Together we fight off evil Skinvader menace.

Getting into Manchester only this morning, pitching up at the Piccadilly Hotel, rooms paid for as promised, everything laid on. Separate rooms. Leave it be, for now. Margo celebrating with a gym workout, sauna, massage, the works, and a serious noontime session in the bar, everything on the club tab. Knowing what the drink would lead to, but like I said, leave it be. Me, up in my cell, going over possible tunes for the night, checking all the ghosts are happy, checking the weapons.

Ten past one, I look in on Margo. She's flat out, buried deep in the fog. Beside the bed, the usual nasty gear. And all the broken promises. I kiss her lips. Like smoky bruised peach, the smell of her breath. She stirs at the kiss, opens her eyes, softly.

'It's good here, isn't it?' she whispers. 'Here in the city?'

'It's fine, Margo. Just fine.' She's never even left the hotel yet. 'You get some sleep now.'

'Lullaby me, one time.'

What the hell; I sing her favourite number, all about the physics of angels, and the weight of the clouds, and when it's done, she says, 'Don't forget the deal, Perfume. Do it good.'

And then gone with a slow, slow smile, back down into limbo.

Sure thing, the big deal: Margo driving the car, Margo making decisions, finding gigs, doing the talking, counting the money. Margo getting dirty, me keeping clean. But what about the deal with the heart, eh Margo? The stupid, unsigned deal with the heart. How much longer has she got? If I can only come good tonight, collect the winnings…

Yeah, and all the other promises.

We're supposed to be at the club, two o'clock, for a sound-check. I really need to make it, because the decks will be way beyond my usual span. I call the desk, arrange a four o'clock alarm call for Margo, and then set off walking, alone across the city. Through the crowded heart, some rain decides to fall.

This is the start of it.

The club's on Whitworth Street, half redbrick, half-chrome. Just the pink word, Dubtek, in discreet turned-off neon. Discarded flyers litter the doorway. I see my face there on the ground, handfuls of my scattered eyes, blurred by the rain already. Me, with my tiny satellite talents, OK, pitched against the house on DJ-it-Yourself Night. Nineteen years old, loose at the edges, only the music keeping me glued.

Becoming pulp.

Some guy lets me in and straight away I know something's wrong. A frazzled technician is running around with sparks in her hair. The faltering lights, popping like broken stars, and the stench of burning flesh hanging over the empty dance floor. And the shiver, like the building's sizing me up, making fun of me, moving in. The technician comes close; I tell her who I am, and what I'm here for.

'Soundcheck?' she says. 'Oh, I doubt it, not at this rate.'

'What's the trouble?' I ask. 'It's not a virus?'

'Get out of here. Sweet as a virgin, we are. Nah, just a technical thing, be clear by tonight, sorted. But like I said, no soundcheck, buddy. You'll have to fly blind, eh? What's the name again?'

'DJ Perfume Sword. Four times champion of my local league.'

She looks at me as though I'm smalltown-dead already. 'Well, we do things a bit different in the city. No-one's ever beaten him, you know? No-one ever. Skinvader's a maniac. He'll swallow you whole. Still, always a first time, eh? Always a first time.' And she laughs like crazy. 'Got work to do.' Leaving me alone on the edge of the floor, with the air turning heavy around me, tracking my heart.

I should have left right then.

Instead…

I mean, the size of the floor, the circumference and the haze and the far horizon of the floor. I step on to the boards, kinda fearful, feeling the expert suspension give gentle breath to my weight. All around me, hanging from the walls, the projection system glimmers with wanting. Somebody tries a record out, making a hole in the air where the bass prowls loose. Hits in the stomach, like a deep-sea memory; bells in the head as the treble makes wing-glitter.

'What do you reckon? Bit better than Blazer's, eh?'

It's Margo, of course, bending close to whisper above the music. Always makes it, doesn't she? Taxi-sealed, looking like she's never been away. But how can I speak? Blazer's Nitespot was where I learned my trade, spun my baby grooves, called up my first ghost. The bleak suburban long dark disco of the soul.

To which this is the mothership. Under the spasm-lamps, inside the music, which breaks into sick, dark crackle even as Margo moves closer still to kiss…