Photo credit: mconnors from morguefile.com
It wasn’t like I told her I’d love her forever. Or any at
all. The posts she wrote about me on the public band forums were unforgiving,
at the very least. I carried on with my life, hoping she’d give up, find
someone else to obsess over but after fourteen months, I couldn’t take it
anymore.
She’d taken the very thing I held most dear and destroyed my
faith in it. The music in me was dead. My guitar sulked under a thin coating of
dust. My curtains remained drawn to the day, as if I was some kind of nocturnal
inhuman creature. I shied away from cameras while out and about, when before
I’d embraced them.
She’d broken my trust in her. The things I’d told her that
I’d never admitted to anyone. She’d poured my secret thoughts into the ear of
anyone with more than five minutes to listen. My private fears, dripped out of
her non-stop mouth. My voice died. The stage stood empty in my mind. There was
no melody to draw life out of my slumped and lanky form.
My wrist bones stood pronounced, my cheekbones so sharp they
could cut paper. Sunken hollows lay in half-circles under my eyes. I was frozen;
an effigy of what was once great and powerful. The women had once ran their
fingers through my blond hair. Now it flooded down my back like a road of
static. I knew I was bad. I was fully aware of what the shit I was on would do. I just
didn’t care. I didn’t want to want anything anymore, and I had plenty of money
to get it.
I lay prone on the ratty couch, with the old dust cover
haphazard, fingers brushing the raised rubbery buttons of the remote. I watched
TV with one eye open, the other buried in a pillow of tears of regret. I had to
pee. My stomach rumbled, pissed off that it’d been three days without solid
food. A half-glass of water and a bottle of pills beckoned from the low coffee
table.
It’d be so easy.
The thought hit me like a fully-loaded semi hauler. I didn’t
have to go through day after day. I could give myself over to the great beyond.
Past the tunnel and the blinding light. I knew there wasn’t a light. I’d nearly
died twice while on the road in Europe because of a deadly booze and drugs
one-two punch. Not the same booze. Not the same drugs. I was desensitized to
danger but I wasn’t completely stupid. Just ignorant of the fact I was still
mortal, just like every single one of my fans. The people out on the street.
The callers, pushers, hookers, and kids that came up to my knee.
I don’t think I did it because of her. I did it because of her. That she’d happened, and
that I’d let it. The case with her shit magnified my self-loathing to high
definition. Bile rose in my throat, looking at those pills in that cautionary
orange bottle. They were in arm’s reach. Mistake? Or solution?
I was irrational. I growled into the faded fabric and bit
the cushion. My heart pounded in my chest like a fist on an oak door. The urge
to pee became more insistent. I pushed up off the couch and swung my lowered
head in the bathroom’s direction. I let forward momentum carry me there,
slamming against the jutted ceramic sink. One of the twin faucets never stopped
dripping. I’d taken pliers to it once; I
could see the rings of effort still around the narrow chrome.
Pee. Right. I positioned myself in front of the toilet,
unzipped my fly and braced myself against the wall with one hand as I held my
dick with the other. Her pink-handled razor was still on the shelf at eye-level.
I glared at it until my eyes swam out of focus then swatted it into the
bathtub. The clatter was loud in that small room. After I zipped up, I turned
on the cold water and let it flow over my fingers.
I was a waste.
I dried my hands on a towel, avoiding my reflection in the
mirror. I was afraid of seeing myself worse than I already pictured in my mind.
My body had nearly atrophied in my year of seclusion and self-abuse. I
resembled Jesus on the cross, just give me a cloth diaper and a crown of thorns.
I didn’t believe in God. If there was one, he was an
asshole. Or a bitch. Yeah, that was probably it. A vengeful bitch that took
particular pleasure in tormenting those guys that would try to rise to the top.
I just liked singing.
Another woman had called me songbird once. I think I was
fifteen. I gave her the finger. Literally. I was lucky. I always looked older
than my real age. She thought I was eighteen. I may as well been. I never
finished school. I didn’t need to. I’d been taken under Precocious’ wing by
that time. He was the first gay man I’d ever encountered. Offers were made and
declined. I was only interested in pussy. Including when I was obliterated.
I put my hands on the doorsill and rested my head on them.
My knees trembled. Why was I thinking of my benefactor when he was gone eight
years already? Sweat beaded on my brow. Great, I was probably getting sick. It
didn’t matter. None of it did.
I’d eat, but only to make my stomach shut up. The growling was
reverb in my ears and I whimpered against my skin. It was over. All of it was
gone. I couldn’t reach out for my star any more than I could reach for that
bottle of pills. But they would be there.
I staggered back into the den and glared at the telephone
blinking stupidly with unanswered messages. My manager, my friends, wrong
number. I knew what they would be already. We have a contract, we miss you, can
I speak to Fernando?
I didn’t have a cellphone. I didn’t text or Tweet, or
Facebook like everybody else on the planet. I was old-fashioned in that way
even though I wasn’t old, despite the deep objection in my bones. It was just a
setback, I’d told my manager Mindy. She’d said she was waiting on new material.
I told her I was working on it.
I was a fucking liar. My name was Ren.
