But the encounter with my idols was short-lived; Dave Dickson soon tired of the Soho scene. His experiences with Hanoi are money in the bank; this chaotic, clubby night must have felt like pennies on the floor. I had one more move to make, though. Whipping out an old Hanoi shirt and a red pen, I dropped the guise of the journalist and went at Andy as a fan. It was a nervous moment for me, but he took to it right away. Andy spent the next ten minutes drawing an elaborate autograph on my shirt that included a big heart with tears dropping off of it. For the first and only time in this piece, words escape me.

Not too long after that, Dave pulled into my hotel driveway, turned to me, and asked: "Was it all you thought it would be?"

Of course it was. It could have gone a million different ways, but it went this way. Dave isn't the type to express such things, but as I get out of the car, I can't help but wonder if he isn't as struck by this moment as I am. After all, the bulk of Dave's working life was tied to rock and roll, and now is not the best time to have a stake in rock music. We're talking about a guy who wrote key tracts about the early days of U2 and Hanoi Rocks. What does he write about now? Limp Bizkit? Justin? Lil' Kim? When life is gritty and modern rock has lost its power to captivate, it's hard not to look back. And you should look back. The art is to look back just long enough to remember, but not long enough to lose all hope.

I shake Dave's hand, briefly wondering if I'll ever see him again. As he drives off, I shake my fist and blow him a kiss at the same time. I try to freeze the moment: he's probably the closest thing to an angel a non-believer like me is ever likely to run into. Anyhow, he's gone now, but he really was here... and this whole thing was real... wasn't it?

Hanoi, as always, never lingers. No longer ghosts from my youth, I had hunted them down in their flesh and blood. And for one night at least, they were just about as real as could be.

But now the night is over. Upstairs in room 402, my beautiful beast of a life awaits me. As I stagger to the elevator, a mixture of delirium and jetlag kicks in. I clutch that t-shirt all the way up to my room. My life might be the same old beast, but I am not. Once more, Hanoi has pushed me beyond the world I knew. All too briefly, I have tasted a better one.

---

JR notes: This piece is dedicated to Lee, Mike, Rob, Will, Grant, and Jason, all twenty years older but still the great peers of my youth, and still the guys I think of first when I crank up the Hanoi Rocks. Lee and Rob: who would have thought that our Hanoi Rocks graffiti on the Broken Arrow Expressway would have led all the way to this?

-- a big thank you to webmaster Rachel Meyers for her invaluable role in the development of this piece. --