a forty second story...'changes'

The tour had been cancelled half way through out of respect.  A giant skull and cross bones had crushed the drum technician to death.  The skull and cross bones had been part of the tour set design.  At the time of the accident, Paul was on an errand - his errand to procure eleven bags of honey coated Spanish almonds for the bass player of the group.  The bass player of the group was called Pulex Irritans, or rather this was his stage name.  Pulex Irritans' real name was Clive. 

Clive liked honeyed almonds.

..By the way, the group were called Capsicum Pubescens!  They were world famous!!

~

Paul had been a roadie for various bands in his life, but Capsicum Pubescens, was, to use the trade venacular, his best 'gig'.  Travelling the globe with Capsicum Pubescens, Paul had seen so much of various cities and cultures, as well as developed an extraordinary, and probably unrivalled knowledge of international health food emporia.  Then again, he still didn't know Holland & Barrett began life in 1870 as a clothing store.

But until of late, neither did I.

Anyway, Paul loved the 'gig', and the tragic accident that befell Capsicum Pubescens' drum technician cast a long shadow over the future of the group, and the 'gig' - three fourths of the group believed in Karma, there was it seemed something in the waters, and the whole incident was an omen. 

The omen said: 'Stop Touring.  Pack it all in'.

As it turned out three fourths of the group were only too delighted to retire to the luxury of their rock star pent houses, and, coincidentally the music cogniscenti all thanked their lucky stars and pin badges for the omen as well!

~


The omen, of course, did little to suit Paul.  He was forced to return to the Birmingham suburb where he had been living and resume his job alphabetising vinyl in his mate Tony's record shop: 'Tony's Records'.  Unfortunately, he returned home to discover in the few months he had been away, Tony's record shop had started selling women's lingerie instead.  It was now called 'Fig Leaves'.

'What on earth did you do that for?', asked Paul when he and Tony hit the pub on Paul's first Friday home.  'Why?', replied Tony, supping a pint of stout.  Why!!? Paul asked again, only for Tony to explain that while Paul had been away he realsied his days selling old, unwanted Deacon Blue LPs were over - he too had seen an omen (ironically, Deacon Blue, with his partner, at the Birmingham Symphony Hall, on their 'Hipster' tour!). 

Enough was enough.

Closing Time!!

..And so on.

~

Poor Paul was at a loss.  He didn't know what to do next.  And a visit to the Job Centre did not help either - Paul sat together for two hours with a plump, bespectacled spinster called Majorie, and the only skills relevant to the world of work Paul could muster on paper were as follows:

Lifting and safely storing heavy objects; shopping for health food items - honey coated almonds, in particular; driving a minivan; doing as he was told.

Marjorie had then pushed her horn-rims back onto the bridge of her nose, adjusted her butterfly broach, stamped a couple of official documents and suggested Paul try for another job as a roadie.  Paul sighed. 

Once a roadie always a roadie! 

~

 
For the next four weeks Paul exerted himself scrutinising the local classifieds, but there was nothing he seemed fit for.  Nothing whatsover.  And as far as trying for another job as a roadie, well, as Paul told Tony when they hit the pub on Paul's second Friday home, Paul wanted to bow out on a high.  'I had the best gig in the (roadie) business', lamented Paul, 'I'll never get better one, and I'm not one for (roadie) come backs'.  There was an element of logic in this - Capsicum  Pubescens really were the biggest band on the planet (at least according to their fanzine, The Chili Sauce), and the only way for a roadie was down, even if Paul was forgetting the main, or perhaps the sole reason for the comeback: money.

~

Then a few days later, as Paul was eating his morning breakfast cereal, his eye fell on an advert in the weekly classifieds.  Paul hesitated, droplets of milk shuddering from his spoonful of cornflakes: the money was good, the hours were..good, the location was..within walking distance, the job description seemed to involve..doing what one was told.  The name of the place was..

..wait for it..

..

Fig Leaves!

Paul, resubmerged his spoonful of cornflakes into the bowl from whence it had just been raised.  He gazed at the job advertisment for a full two minutes, hardly blinking at all.  Next, Paul pushed back his chair from the breakfast table, stood up, walked over to the sideboard, took a pair of scissors from the kitchen drawer and returned to sit down.  From here, Paul made an incision with the scissorblades around the job advertisement for 'Fig Leaves', and, as if examining a banknote, held it up to the light. 

A moment later the job advertisement was tacked to his pinboard and he had edited and updated the contact details for what had once been Tony's Records in his mobile telephone.

   ~

On Paul's first day working as a shop assitant at 'Fig Leaves', he had firmly to resist the temptation, when processing stock, to hang on what might be considered rather too long for a man of his appearance and bearing - Paul was a dead ringer for Jimmy Nail - to the knickerlace being passed through his hands.  That is not say temptation wasn't staring Paul in his long, hangdog face.  How he wanted to feel with his big, rough hands the fine weavings and intricate, fiddly little patterns that he was discovering seemed to characterise women's lingerie, but like Jesus in the desert, resist temptation he did!

On Paul's second day as a shop assistant at 'Fig Leaves', he was arranging a window display for the new stock of plunge balcony bras they had just received in when he looked up to find one of Tony's Records' most loyal, obsessive, and generally irritating customers staring at him askance through the glass.  Paul, ex roadie and friend of the hard rocking Capsicum Pubescens, and their bass player, Pulex Irritans, was deeply, deeply embarrassed; Roland, on the other hand, who had spent the fullness of his sexually active life as a fully active and fully incontinent member of Record Collector Magazine was deeply envious.

(the closest Roland had got to getting his hands on women's lingerie was Roxy Music's third album cover - Stranded)

But get this: on Paul's third day as a shop assistant at 'Fig Leaves', he was asked to remove the knickers from two female manekins in the centre floor display.  Paul felt fifteen all over again!  It was like being reborn (albeit as a teenager in a hairy, forty something year old body undressing a giant, sexless barbie ).

Needless to say, it felt good.

~

After a month at 'Fig Leaves', Paul was an expert in women's lingerie.  He found he could talk at length about Camisole Vests, the virtues of the Big Wave Break Chemise over the Pandora DD Chemise, the difference between Bamboo Leggings and Contour Tights.  To eavesdroppers in the pub, Paul might have sounded like an Executive Transvestite; but Paul's audience, a motley crew of ageing, sex deprived rocksters, were able to fulfil their erotic fantasies through his chatter (at least up to a point - when they opened their eyes they were still faced with a Jimmy Nail lookalike).

Indeed, with time, Paul began to view his former career as a roadie as something rather uncouth, as some kind of interlude in his life before he found his true calling.  Where before he had only an appreciation of leather and cotton, now he dealt in satin and silk.

Rags to riches!

And so, dear reader, Paul's little story is proof we can change, we can change, we can
change!

You just have to be open to it.