Joel tried his hand at acting,
appeared as one of the gravediggers in Hamlet,
an amateur production on the Isle of Man.
Audience applause remained polite.
Backstage, Albert, the other gravedigger,
was reading Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents.
Joel looked at himself in the dressing room mirror —
Nose broken in a lunchtime fight with Higgins in Year 11—
Joel had asserted that the Beatles’ music was more varied,
more ‘questing’ was his term, than that of the Rolling Stones…
There’d been a reconciliation,
both agreed about The Kinks, that is,
before they tried to conquer America,
their subsequent albums uneven…
Joel had spotted Higgins, last month,
downing a pint at The Pelican,
wondered whether he still sported
that photo of Ray Davies in his wallet…
Left fist clenched, a scowl on his face,
Higgins looked unapproachable.
Best to steer clear.
