Renegade
Tim Lebbon
In memory of Phil Lynott (1949–1986)
IT WAS THE FIRST time I ever cried at the death of a stranger.
The reaction startled me a little because it was so unexpected, and because I was a teenaged boy sitting on a bench in a busy bus station reading a newspaper. This was way back before social media and the internet, and mobile phones the size of house bricks were wielded by rich businessmen eager to be seen as different or important. I was halfway through an hour-long stop between coaches, and I filled the time with a bar of chocolate and a read of the day’s paper. His picture was on page 4.
A rush of emotions swept through me. Shock, because at that age I was still mostly immune to the effects of death. I hadn’t even lost a grandparent. There was also a sprinkling of anger that he’d abused life so much that death was his new friend. Most of all, it was sadness that someone so great was no longer in the world. I looked around the bus station, newspaper open on my lap and half-eaten Mars Bar in my hand, and realised that I was seeing a new world through watery eyes. This was a place without him. Yesterday he was with us, having a physical effect on reality, the reverberations of his music filling the air and travelling around the planet. Today, he was no more. His music lived on, but only on replay.
. . .
