a twenty eighth new story...'short sad ballad of jon bon jovi'

They found Jon Bon Jovi slumped against a wine palette in one of the back rooms at Majestic. He was sound asleep, passed out, surrounded by the detritus of the previous night: two half finished bottles of red wine, the chewed over remains of a ham and cheese baguette, and a supermarket salad bowl of tabbouleh – JBJ hadn’t made a start on dessert, a now defrosted, and slightly dewy cardboard packet of Viennetta.

Staff in their air-tex shirts tried to wake him: first with gentle cajoling, then with rather less gentle slaps to the face, left, right, then an ice bucket (which one of them filmed for social media), and when this didn’t work, Ivy suggested messianic chant; she had been reading up on black magick and or the Carthusians once again.

Finally JBJ came around, blinking determinedly.

Chris offered him a banana, Ivy stopped chanting and blushed crimson. JBJ rubbed his face, it was stinging for some reason.

And then he remembered his wife, and the dispute over pancakes, First it was lemon, sugar or Nutella (JBJ favoured the latter), then she wouldn’t let him toss the damned things! And then awkwardly he recalled how he had thrown a cake tin at her head. Not strictly rock and roll. There would be making up to do. And probably some extra demands for Lent (JBJ and his wife had already agreed to give up Swiss cheese, and JBJ had promised to stop watching television in the lounge with nothing on. ‘You are trivialising the news!’, exclaimed his wife, as another article on Putin and the Ukraine unfolded before JBJs naked eyes).

‘Where am I?’, slurred JBJ, pulling himself into a sitting position and adjusting his faded blue jean jacket.

Ivy bit her lip, and Chris, in between mouthfuls of banana, told him: Majestic, Richmond Road, Putney. 

‘How did you find me?’, JBJ asked woozily.

Chris pointed to the bowl of tabbouleh and the trail of wheat grains leading to the fire exit.

JBJ looked accusingly at the tabbouleh.

If hadn’t been on special offer, he thought miserably, regretfully.

Then his mobile phone rang: it was Richie Sambora.

‘I wanna rejoin the band’, Sambora spluttered from speaker phone.

And JBJ spewed into his lap.