I always think dumb stuff like that; it’s like an endless cycle that I always indulge in at the end of yet another night. But then I look at myself and my lifestyle, and I quickly push the thought of marriage and Nevada out of my mind. It wouldn’t work. Nothing halfway normal ever works for me.
It all started out when I bought some cheap recording equipment and other shit like that from some old guy who lived next door to me. He was moving away, and since I lived in such a backwater town, amusement was hard to come by. I saved up my money and bought everything he had. I was just one stupid 15 year old kid living in an even stupider town surrounded by nothing but desert and maybe some mesquite bushes. Home sweet home, Camp Verde, Arizona. I hated it. I threw myself into making some music, and soon I had some real low quality tecnho-wannabe stuff going on. I listened to bands like My Bloody Valentine and Captain Beefheart and wondered why I couldn’t have their genius.
When I turned 19 I decided I had had enough of Home sweet Home, Camp Verde. I packed what little I owned and gathered my money, and started off for at least a bit bigger city. Phoenix sounded too trashy. I thought maybe Tempe or Mesa sounded better. So I went, with a mattress, a small couch, a table, a TV, an Atari, and my equipment.
I found a real small, real cheap apartment somewhere near McClintock in Tempe.
How fucking boring the story of my life is. Let me speed things up a bit.
I met people. I started nursing a cocaine habit. I met more people. I made a bit of money. I lost a bit of money. Got a gig at some small club every Friday night, me and my low-fi techno-wannabe music. Met more people. Formed a band. Now not only did I have my low-fi musical talents; I had some guitars and whatnot to toss in there too.
Somehow, we got a deal with a small indie recording label.
Somehow, we started getting a little radio air-time. I think we were first played by some local Arizona alternative station, during their late-night show. I guess people liked it. They must have been as coked up as me to like it, but they did.
Somehow, we ended up here. People are saying we’re the hottest thing to come out of the so called ‘Underground Music Movement’ yet. Right now, we’re in Sydney, Australia. I’ve been here one time before, and it hasn’t changed. I still hate it.
I always end up getting the worst killer headaches after I do shows. Maybe it’s all that screaming I do, or all the lights, or the music, or the people in the crowd screaming. I don’t really know and I don’t really give a care. All I know is my head hurts like a bitch. A little tiny part of me always says that maybe it’s the cocaine. Which it probably is.
I guess I can be proud of myself. In the last year, I’ve cut down. Cut back. But that’s not really any doing of mine. It’s really her doing.
A couple years back I met a girl in a bar. Actually, it was a club after one of our shows. I was more interested in her figure at the time, but I guess she didn’t notice. She asked me to take a look at some of her poetry that she had written, and I obliged. I mean, who was I to pass up on some pretty college girl who said she absolutely adored my music and worshipped me reverently? I looked at her stuff. It was pretty good. I didn’t realize the full scope and depth of her works at the time, although I would later. I invited her to come to our next show in Baton Rouge with us. She quickly agreed, and Lo, Endearment had another member.
Her name is Anne. She said her mother had named her after Anne Boleyn. As time went on, my desire to get her into bed faded and was replaced with reverence. I think our roles reversed as time went on. I was turned into the worshipper and she started to see me as less of a demi-god and more of the flawed human I was. I started using her poetry as lyrics. I feel sort of hollow inside about it. I mean, people are so into the depth of the lyrics and all that other good shit. They aren’t even mine. I write stuff…that’s alright, I guess. People think it’s OK. Anne writes stuff and the people go fucking nuts.
I’m sitting here on some leather couch in some tiny yet posh lounge in the back of whatever venue we played tonight. I can’t remember the name. Sometimes I forget where I am, like, the country and stuff. I guess that’s kind of sad. The weird thing is that lately I’ve been wanting to take some time out and go back to Camp Verde for a few days. I think maybe seeing my family would help me get rid of my fatal little friend Cocaine once and for all. Plus, maybe it would be nice to have a little stability back in my life. Maybe I’ll take Anne with me. I think maybe she’d like it there. Or maybe I’ll pay for her to go back to New Orleans. She misses her home.
I run my hands through my hair and sigh, leaning forward to look at my feet. My hair. My hair used to be dark brown. It’s usually in my face, and I always have to shake my head or toss it to keep it off my face. When I started to get into the big time, I decided I liked the colour black. Now it’s basically all I wear. It’s also the colour of my hair. It goes nicely with my green eyes. I think so, anyways. I like my leather pants, too.
A couple months ago, while I was doing an interview with some magazine, they asked me to describe myself. I called myself a male slut. I guess that’s what I look like right now. I don’t mind. It gets me women.
I sniffle. Perpetual habit, you know. Cocaine will do that to you. I’ve always used the excuse that I have a cold or that my allergies are bothering me. Although, it’s starting to wear thin. I think everyone can see through it. I don’t really care what anyone outside Endearment thinks anyways. They all know I do it. They don’t care. Except maybe Anne.
Speak of the devil, look who’s walking in the room. She closes the door behind her and smiles, running a hand through the long brown hair that used to be red, a long time ago. I think fame makes people dye their hair. She looks basically the same as she always has. Her pale face is slightly rounded, looking at me, smiling at me as always. She’s got some sort of light purple eyeshadow on, and very light pink lip gloss. She always wears pastels. I think maybe that’s why she dyed her hair. Pastels just don’t go with red. She sits down in some velvety looking chair across from me, and crosses her white legs. Unlike me, who suddenly decided to start wearing black every day of my life, she still dresses the same. It’s always been a weird mix between grunger and retro-40’s style. Today it’s a pair of high heeled, strappy shoes—they’re very 40’s to me. One of those cute little knee length skirts; brown, and some old, faded shirt that says ‘Free Tibet’ on it with some sort of odd design. It looks too small, and I’m thinking maybe she bought it as a children’s size to better adhere to her curves.
“Rough night?” she asks me, folding her hands and setting them on her stomach.
“Where were you?” I ask her. I have a habit of not answering her questions and asking my own instead.
“Talking with the guys who opened for us. They’re really nice—I hope they go far. They were pretty good, too.”
I wince almost reflexively. The guys who opened for us sucked. Anne’s major flaw is that she’s too nice; she wants everyone to succeed and she thinks everyone’s nice. Maybe that’s why I love her. I guess the world needs people like her because the rest of us are people like me, pricks, who could give a flying rat’s ass about anyone else but themselves.
“Yeah. Maybe someday they’ll be right up here with us,” I say, unable to keep the cynicism out of my voice.
“I hope so,” she says. “Why so sarcastic?”
“Give me a break, Anne,” I say flatly, in an almost agitated way. “They couldn’t even get their guitars in tune, much less play correctly. The lyrics were shit and the drums were near non-existant. They should go back to the garage they crawled out of.”
There’s a moment of silence. She looks at her folded hands, her big brown eyes full of some quiet emotion.
“The head singer said he really liked the way you put emphasis on some parts of the lyrics in songs,” she says after I stare at her for a while. She has a way of making me regret what I’ve said and she was employing her method at that moment. “He said maybe if it’s alright with you he’d like for his band to open for us again some time.”
I’m suddenly upset at what I had said. Maybe their music was shit to me but maybe it had stopped someone from committing suicide the day before, or something crazy like that.
“You don’t need to answer,” Anne says, cutting me off cleanly when I began to speak. “I already told them yes.”
I sniffle. Anne looks up at me. I sniffle again. She looks back at her hands.
“You know that crap’s gonna kill you, right?” she asks me after a moment. Someone walks down the hallway past the door to the room we’re in, talking loudly. I glare at the door as a substitute for Anne. I don’t want to glare at her; I can’t glare at her. But I want to for telling me that.
“I’ve cut back,” I say. “I don’t do as much as I used to.”
“So?” she asks. “You’re still doing it. You shouldn’t really be proud of yourself until you’re totally clean.”
It’s times like this where I wonder how and why Anne got mixed up with this crowd. I mean, the fast paced-all evil-rock and roll crowd, consisting of people such as myself. Sometimes she seemed entirely out of place and seemed like she would be happier in a kitchen somewhere, with a child on her hip and one sitting in a high chair, while she cooked breakfast for her Any-Town USA sort of husband.
But instead, where was she? She was rotting away, right along with the rest of us, in Rock and Roll Hell. I blame myself. She had entered this Hell because I invited her. I wish again that I hadn’t done it, I wish that I had just screwed her and left her back in New Orleans with her family and her bright future. Let her have her CDs and posters and band T-shirts. I should have left her dreaming about the Rock and Roll lifestyle and not invited her into it. Sometimes when I look at her, I know she’s disappointed. I feel like hell for ruining her perfect vision of what the glamorous lifestyle was.
“Hey Anne,” I say.
“Yeah?” she replies. I’m amazed at the fact that her voice still has it’s lazy Louisiana accent, after all this time on the road and all this time around other sorts of speech.
“Wanna go to Arizona?” There. I’ve asked her. I feel better. Not really. I could lie to myself and say I felt better to try and make myself feel better. If that makes any sense at all. It did and does in my twisted mind.
“Arizona?” she looks at me incredulously. “We’re a long ways from Arizona, Will.”
“So?” I ask rebelliously. “I’ve got enough money. We can go to Arizona. We can disappear for a while, that’s what I say. I say screw all these people and we disappear.”
“Will,” she says a bit sadly. “You’re forgetting the band. Think of Endearment. This is your life’s work—“
“No it’s not!” I say angrily. What is wrong here? She’s always ratting on me about my lifestyle and when I try to break free of it she tells me I should reconsider? I’m mad now, I’m trying to change for her and it seems like she won’t have it. “I hate it and you know it. I’m trying to maybe change a little here. Don’t you want to help?”
She looks at me, pursing her lips. I guess she’s trying to think of something to say to me that sounds reasonable. “Will. I want you to change, but maybe you should talk it out with the band first. You can’t just leave them behind like they’re nothing. They’ve been with you for such a long time—“
I’m getting really upset now. I’m trying to make her see something; what, I’m not quite sure. I just want her to stop being so damn reasonable, agree with me, and then we can pack some of our shit and go. I suddenly feel like I’m suffocating. “I don’t care! They’re killing me! Anne, please, let’s just go somewhere. If you don’t like Arizona, fine! We can go to—hell, where haven’t we been? We can go somewhere nice. Let’s go back to Louisiana. Anne—Anne—let’s get married, alright? Let’s have a couple kids and I promise I’ll quit snorting—Anne—“
She looks fairly alarmed. “Will! Will, listen to yourself! You’re getting hysterical.” It’s true, I guess I’m mildly ashamed. I feel tears in my eyes. A little voice tries to pass it off as the cocaine, but I know it’s not. I haven’t had any for a few hours.
“Calm down, Will,” she tells me. “We…” She’s fumbling for some words. A few stutters come out, but then there’s more silence. Finally, “Do you seriously want to get married?”
“Yes!” I exclaim, suddenly joyous for some reason. I can feel myself starting to crawl out of the deep hole I’ve dug myself into. “I don’t need any other women—I never really liked ‘em anyways! You just tell me, Anne—you just tell me—when and where and who and how much or whatever and we’ll do it!”
“Jesus, it’s marriage, Will,” she says sadly. “You’re making it sound like a trip to the store.”
“But I love you, Anne!” I feel weird, shit like that isn’t supposed to come out of my mouth. She’s the only person I’ve ever said I love you to besides my mother and a pet cat I had when I was about 5 or 6. The cat was eaten by coyotes and my mother is slowly smoking herself into lung cancer. Anne is rotting in Rock and Roll Hell. Maybe I only say I love you to people and things that I know will eventually die.
“I love you too, Will.” This feels really weird, really freaky. I’m not supposed to be having interactions like this; this isn’t my way of life. No one is supposed to say I love you to me, except maybe some overly excited women who scream it at me while we’re going back to our bus or our plane. “We’ll get married. I get to chose, right?”
“Yes,” I say, suddenly strangely sober. I feel a bit sentimental. Kinda weird. Crap I’ve been wanting to do for the last 2 years or so runs through my head—crap I’ve wanted to do since I realized that Anne was a human being, a beautiful one at that, and not some cheap whore. Kiss the top of her head, hug her, maybe even think of some stupid yet somehow endearing pet name for her.
“Get clean,” she tells me, determined. “I don’t want you reduced, or even cutting back. I want you clean. You’re—you’re killing yourself. Can’t you see that? If—“ She’s getting choked up. I feel bad. Once again, it’s me who is causing these negative emotions on her again. “—if you want to take a vacation away from all this for a while, you have to be alive to enjoy it. You have to be alive to take it. So, please—“
“I said I’d quit,” I say flatly, also determined. “If I can cut down—I can quit just as easy. I don’t need it. I’m not dependant on it.” I’m lying, and she knows it. I can already hear part of my brain telling me to check myself into the nearest cleanhouse and stay there for about 6 months. Knowing my weak will, I see myself also maybe having a few relapses. I’m starting to wonder how this new life shit is going to work out after all. Maybe I was just destined to rot away, just me and my band and my extravagance, and my cocaine. Maybe it’s all I’m good for.
“Promise me,” she says.
“I promise,” I say, although I’m not sure what I’m promising for. I love Anne. I guess that’s good enough for her. I worry. I’m starting to see glimmers of the girl I met that night oh so long ago in the club shine through again. The big eyed, worshipping girl, who told me flat out over a bottle of MGD that she’d jump off the end of the earth if I told her to.
I tell myself I’ll be good to her. I make myself tell myself I’ll be good to her. Maybe that doesn’t make sense. But to me, in my twisted mind, it does.
7 years ago, at the age of 19, I started climbing down into this hole I call my fame. Now, 7 years later, at the age of 26, I’m going to start climbing out. I wonder what I’ll do for a living now. I’ve got plenty of money. Maybe I’ll pick up some obscure little job or something. Maybe I’ll open a book store. Anne likes books, and I think they’re alright too. Maybe I’ll write a book. I’ve got some ideas. Anne could write her poetry. We’d make it. And even if we didn’t, we’d have plenty of money to fall back on.
I’m starting to maybe think life isn’t shit after all.
I’ll live. I tell myself I’ll live. I make myself tell myself I’ll live. Maybe that doesn’t make sense.
But to me, in my twisted mind, it does.
back to the fiction dimension