And, at last, the end:
It's Only Rock 'N' Roll, Part Six
New York City, 1981—”Coming on Christmas,” thought Spike, idly, as he made his way from the small, Manhattan graveyard where Nikki Wood was buried. Small grave, simple marker, but cemetery space—like all Manhattan rents—goes for a premium.
He didn’t know why he felt drawn to visit. Reminiscing, perhaps. It’s not like he thought about her much. Holidays made him sentimental.
There was a pall over New York, one the encroaching holiday couldn’t quite lift. Spike felt it, too. Someone once told him that they could see a hole in his soul. The words burned at him for a long time. Pricked at him like bee stings. He was a dead man walking. He knew this. He couldn’t drink it away, or pummel it into submission, or drown it in music. Sometimes, he just couldn’t see the fucking point.
He strode across Central Park to the make-shift marker recently erected. A small crowd hovered near it—despite the late hour and cold—lighting candles, praying, singing songs. The body wasn’t here, of course, but that didn’t really matter. Spike glided through the crowd, patiently stalking his way toward the marker. One word was emblazoned there, in mosaic tile: “Imagine.” A young couple in tie-died shirts were weeping and waving incense.
Bloody Hell.
Spike stared at the marker for a long time, lost in thought, when a woman wearing too much patchouli asked him, “Where you a fan?”
Spike met her with a sideways glance and a thin grin.
“Of sorts,” he said. “We met once, a long time ago. He gave me a right bit of advice. Took it to heart.”
“What sort of advice?” she asked.
“Doesn’t matter. Like I said, it was a long time ago. But I’ll tell you one thing, I don’t think he’d appreciate us lot sitting around and moping for him.”
The girl looked struck. Spike pulled a flask of whiskey from his coat—Nikki’s coat, once—and took a pull from it.
“Don’t look like that. If I were trying to be cruel, you’d know it.” Spike knew an easy mark when he saw one, but decided to let this one go.
“Get out of here,” he said, raising his voice, “The whole lot of you. He’s the one who’s dead, not you. Go off and sodding live. With another pull of whiskey, he stormed off, all the while feeling their stares boring into the back of his head. He began to laugh.
“All we are saaaayyyy-ing,” he sang, as loud and as gloriously off key as he could muster, “is give peace a chance.”
And maybe, he thought, someday he would.