Fallen Idols #1

"Don't mention that mans name to me...Just hearing his name makes my fucking skin stand on end. You can pack that in right now."

He stops making the sandwich, pulls the butter knife from the Branston and points it at me and for a second I see real fury lurking in his eyes. The knife is shaking.
He is bare chested, surprisingly muscular, the veins across his torso swollen; sinewy snakes course beneath his skin.
His trademark mop of tightly curled hair is present but no longer jet black, it is a steel industrial gray and looks wiry, coarse, like forgotten heather on a remote moor.

"I'm sorry Robert but I have to ask the question..." I say.
"You don't have to ask any fucking question lad...I said before I am not talking about that man," he shouts, his voice gruff and marinated in menace. "And if you mention his fucking name again your out of here and we're finished. Ok? Lets get that fucking straight."
"Ok." I agree meekly, like a scorned child.

My pathetic backdown is because I have become explicitly aware of how my life is suddenly in his hands, and despite the tales, I'm still surprised at his ferocious temper.
After a four hour trek into to the Welsh mountains with only a rumour, a sighting and a scribble on a beermat for directions we had finally found the dilapidated caravan he had disappeared to six years ago.
Thrilled at finding something we had previously thought was just legend, we had approached and knocked and had been reluctantly allowed to enter.
Then night had quickly set in.
Being thrown out now and forced to make our way back down the unforgiving hills in utter darkness, and not knowing who might be following, was not an option.
But what terrified me to my core was that I had brought the object of this feral hatred back into his life.
The man he warned me not to even speak of was sat opposite me.
I looked across at Tommy, posing as my sound man, his disguise brilliantly hiding his real identity for what should have been a moving and happy reveal.
We instantly both understood that my idea to bring him out here, to reunite the estranged pair had been the worst idea in the world.

As we shared a desperate look, a bang made us jump.
I looked back to kitchen.
He had stabbed the knife into a huge piece of raw meat. He brought it slowly up to his mouth.
His eyes met mine.
Slowly his tongue emerged and he began to lick the lump of blood red meat, almost sensually.

All the rumours, legend and tap-room tales down in the village were true.

My TV programme was over.

This had become a battle to leave this caravan and escape the mountain with our lives. "


- Excerpt from the book 'Finding Bobby Ball'