by JB Salsbury
“Jesse—”
“It’s all right. I’ll talk to Nathan, tell him whatever he needs to hear to get us back into the studio.”
“Jesse—”
“Let’s get the fuck out of here.” I move toward the door. “I need to use your charger. Phone’s dead.” My hand is on the doorknob.
“Jesse.”
My hand freezes as well as my feet. I’ve never heard him say my name like that, half dying man and half drill sergeant.
I turn around, and Dave nods at the couch. “Sit down.”
I glare at the piece of furniture, imagining all that was done on it that I’m grateful I forgot. God, I slept with Nathan’s fiancée.
What can I say? I love women. They make me feel fucking awesome and they do whatever I want. Once I asked a woman to get naked and squat-waddle around the room while flapping her arms like a chicken and she did. I laughed my ass off at the time, but after the fun, whenever I remember it, something that feels an awful lot like guilt digs in. No matter how much I drink and drug up, that unwelcome shit manages to worm its way in. Every. Single. Time.
Like now.
Fucking Kayla. But come on, clearly she and Nate already had problems if she’d sleep with me. If anything, I did the guy a favor. He was going to devote the rest of his life to a woman who dropped him like a bad habit just because I told her I love her. If I could explain that to Nathan, he’d understand and we could go back to making music.
“We’ll talk on the way back to the mansion.” I jerk my head to the door.
“We’re not going back to the mansion.” He shakes his head and frowns. I have to give the guy credit—he doesn’t lose eye contact with me, not even to blink. “You’re killin’ your career, man.”
I suck in a shaky breath. “I’ll pull it together. I promise. I know I dropped the ball—”
“Dropped the ball? This is the first album you were set to put out that wouldn’t have had a single Jesse Lee original song on it. You used to be the best songwriter in the business and now we can’t get you to write one.”
I run both hands through my hair, and although my head throbs and my stomach is sick, I think I may still be a little fucked up from last night because his words should shake me up a lot more than they do.
Something’s wrong. I’m numb.
And getting more numb every day.
I’ve worked so hard to get where I am. Two Grammys, platinum albums, sold-out worldwide tours, and the monster in my soul is still hungry. No matter how much I feed it, it always demands more. So I pour into it. I snort happiness, fuck euphoria, and as soon as I think he’s satisfied, I blink and he’s hungry again.
“I get it. I’ve been fucking up. I know, and…” God, am I about to beg? “I can do this. I wrote ‘Massive Attack’ in less than an hour and won a Grammy for that. I can do this, I promise.”
He steps close. “You’re out of time.”
That’s okay. I can fix it. “I’ll call our label, tell them I had a stomach bug or—”
“You used that excuse three weeks ago.”
I jerk my head toward him. “Okay, well maybe I got strep, or fuck, I don’t know, help me out here. This is bullshit.” The monster in my chest yawns and stretches its reptilian arms, awake and gearing up to roar. “Have they forgotten how much money I’ve made them?” Oh God, the rumble of the monster’s putrid growl swirls in my throat and there’s no way to hold it back. I tower over him. “I need more time, and you’re gonna make it happen because you work for me. You hear me? You all work for me. Arenfield Records is my bitch, not the other way around. Call them and tell them they’ll get their fucking song when I’m ready to give it to them. In the meantime? Tell them to go spend the millions I’ve made them on some chill.”
He stares at me with dead eyes, as though he’s heard this tired-ass Top 40 song before and wants to change the station.
He’s not the only one.
“What?” I’m practically panting now. I need a shot of whiskey and a white line.
“They dropped you.”
“Excuse me?”
He shrugs.
“They dropped me?”
“Yes.”
“Bullshit.” I laugh, but the stern, no-nonsense look on Dave’s face sobers me. Maybe half-sober is more accurate. “They can’t fucking do that! My contract, they—”
“They can, they have. It’s over.”
My career, the band—oh shit, the guys are going to kill me. Chris has a wife and baby to support, Ethan would die if it weren’t for playing music, and Nathan’s already going to kill me. It’s over? I grip my stomach and stumble to a half-filled ice bucket. A cough turns violent as I dry heave and I feel my ribs protruding beneath my shirt.
When I made it big, I was two hundred pounds of muscle and stamina. Now I look like one of those skinny runway models in Milan. I embody the strung-out rock star and everyone who knows me wouldn’t tell me shit at the risk of evoking the monster. Everyone except Dave.
After coughing up air and mint-flavored spit strings, I wipe my mouth with my forearm and stare at my hands braced on the table. I’m covered in tattoos, but the little of my natural skin that shows through is the color of cocaine—pure fucking white. When was the last time I saw the sun for more than a mad dash from the back of a car to the front door of a bar? Years?
“What can I do?” My words drip with desperation and defeat.
“Nothing.” His voice is resolute. “It’s over. I’m sorry—”
“Please.” I cock my head to look at him but can’t meet his eyes. “I’ll do anything.”
Silence expands between us for what seems like forever.
“There might be one thing,” Dave says, and I hold my breath. “It’s non-negotiable. I think we can get the label to reconsider if you go.”
I pinch my eyes closed. “Go.”
I don’t need to ask where. I’ve been through it before. They’re sending me back to rehab.
I blow out a long breath and try to calm my racing heart. Breathe, Jesse. I’ve done rehab a few times. I can do it again. If that’s what it takes, I can do it. There’s always a nurse who can sneak me booze and pills. Twenty-eight days of wooing an orderly for travel-sized bottles of liquor is easy.
“All right.” I straighten up and roll my head around on my neck. “I’ll go.”
“Now.”
“What do you mean now?”
“From here. Right now. No negotiating.”
“Fuck. Like right now? What about my stuff? I need to get some things from my place—”
“Already done.”
Guess that’s the benefit of being a millionaire—I don’t even need to pack my own shit. Still would’ve liked to have one more night to get drunk, pass out, and pretend my life is awesome and not a complete shit-storm.
“Fine.” I shrug as I force the monster to accept this is what needs to happen to stay on top. “Twenty-eight days.”
“Ninety.”
My eyes burn as they practically fall from my skull. “Three months?!’
“That’s the deal.”
I lock my hands behind my neck and stare at the ornate wallpaper on the ceiling. Who the hell wallpapers a ceiling and how come I didn’t notice that before? Whatever. Ninety days. I can do ninety days. I’m sure I’ll be able to worm my way out after twenty-eight, good behavior and all.
“Fine.” I groan. “I want the private double at La Mar Recovery, top floor, and none of that group shit they tried to get me to do last time. I’ll agree only to one-on-one.” I make my way to the door, and this time, Dave doesn’t stop me.
He hands me a Dodgers ball cap and a pair of black Ray-Bans. I pop them on as we emerge into the hotel’s hallway and move toward the elevators.
“Dr. Hanson. Tell him I’m only working with him and make sure I have that blood orange Pellegrino on hand. Last time they only had lemon. I hate that shit, it tastes like I’m drinking Mr. Clean.” I smack the down arrow button. “I want my guit
ar too. Notebooks. Lots of them.”
Inside the elevator, I lean on the back panel as the doors slide shut and Dave silently hits the lobby button.
“And none of that California cuisine crap they tried to feed me last time. I want Anton cooking all my meals.” My private chef is the shit. He’s originally from Louisiana and can infuse chronic into almost anything. “I want the same bedding I have at home. Same brand, thread count. Shouldn’t you be writing this down?”
The elevator pings and we walk out into the lobby. Gasps and squeals erupt. I lift a hand and wave, smiling like the fucking rock star I am, and push through a crowd that forms before I duck into the back of a waiting limo. Dave crawls in behind me and closes and locks the door.
“Oh, one more thing—if I’m going to be locked up for ninety days, I want my fucking phone.” I snag a fresh pack of Marlboro reds that are always stocked in every car I’m in, rip open the cellophane, and pop one between my lips.
Dave flips open a gold Zippo like a good little manager, and the flame dances in front of my face. The guy doesn’t smoke, but he’s always got a couple forms of fire on him for when I need it. He snaps the thing closed and tosses it on the bench seat across from him. “There’s only one little problem with all that, Jes.”
I suck in a lungful of smoke and exhale until the back of the limo is lost in a carcinogen cloud. “Yeah?” I pull off the ball cap to rub my head, and I chuckle. This should be fucking hilarious. “And what’s that?”
“You’re not going to rehab.”
After weaving through the congested streets of downtown Los Angeles, the limo hops onto I-10 headed east. There’s only one thing east of LA. Desert. Lots and lots of flat, boring, brown desert.
I want to ask Dave where the fuck we’re going, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing I care. My concern is pointless anyway. My hope is we’re headed to some quaint little personal reflection center in Palm Springs. If my label wants me to pull ninety days in the desert—which, btw, is more than twice as long as Jesus Christ did—I’ll do it. I have to. For me, for my music, for the fans, for my band. Which reminds me, I need to call them.
“You got a charger?” I straighten my leg to fish my phone from my jeans pocket.
Dave holds out his hand, and I drop the device in his palm. I lay my head back and close my eyes while he takes care of getting it some juice. I hear the window roll down, and dry, hot air whips across my face. I open my eyes just as my iPhone gets tossed out the motherfucking window, and I whirl around in time to see it get sucked under a semi and blasted into a million pieces on the highway.
“What the fuck did you do that for?”
“No phones.”
The ugly beast inside me cracks an eyelid.
“I have to call Nathan! You want me to make shit right with him, but you won’t let me do it! My band needs to know I’m—”
“They know.” He won’t even look at me and speaks so calmly, as if he doesn’t give a shit that he’s ruining my life.
I practically belch as fury rises in my chest. I want to hurt him. I breathe through my nostrils and stare at my hands. My fingers clench into fists as I fantasize about wrapping them around his neck and squeezing hard. Unwanted images of my fingers on the frets of my guitar tease me and soothe a bit of the anger. I can’t kill my manager. I have to rein in it, so I move through the chords of “Hurricane,” the first song I ever wrote.
Six hours. Roughly.
It’s hard to tell since I don’t have a phone, but when Dave pulled out his, I made sure to take a peek. I’ve been stuck in the car for six hours. We passed through the Inland Empire, flew past Palm Springs, through Blythe and Quartzite, where Dave grabbed sandwiches I couldn’t even look at without wanting to vomit. How long has it been since I actually craved food? Years? I ate because I knew I had to, but when did I last enjoy it?
I push those shit thoughts away without regret. I’ll have three months to look back and question all the bad decisions I’ve made, and slowly starving myself won’t even make the highlight reel.
We stopped at a deserted rest area so I could take a piss without getting hassled by fans. When we reached the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona, the shakes kicked in and I desperately searched outside my window for the closest bar. My mind conjured ways to get away from Dave long enough to grab a quick few shots of anything. Another half hour and I was thinking I should’ve taken the mouthwash from the hotel this morning. It contained a little alcohol. Not enough, but something was better than nothing, right?
I am so fucked.
I have to close my eyes, hoping I’ll fall asleep and wake up at the mansion with my band. I don’t want these cravings. I want to write music. As those words move through my head, the monster laughs low, smoke coming out of his nostrils as he calls me on my shit. You’d sell your fucking soul for a bottle of Jameson and a line.
He’s right.
I must’ve dozed off, because when I closed my eyes the sun was up and now the limo is stopped and it’s dark outside. I rub my eyes and peek out the window. If it weren’t for the rocks and cacti in the front yards of these shitty houses, I’d think we were in a rundown Los Angeles neighborhood.
When I look to ask Dave where the fuck we are, he’s not there. I’m alone. My mouth waters at the chance for a drink. I dive toward the mini fridge, knowing it’s a long shot. Surely Dave cleaned it all out before I got inside. My stomach sinks with a mix of craving and disappointment when I find nothing but Voss water.
“Shit.” I search frantically out the windows. There’s got to be a little neighborhood bar around here. Or hell, I could knock on any of these doors, and once they realize Jesse Lee is at the door, they’d offer up all the booze in their liquor cabinet.
It’s worth a try.
Yes, this is the kind of shit that got me into this position in the first place, but what Dave doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
Convinced, I pop the door and hop out. Hot air slaps me right in the face and makes my skin wet. Either that or I’m suffering from withdrawal sweats. Either way, nothing a cold drink won’t fix.
“Mr. Lee.”
Son of a bitch. The limo driver is leaning against the hood with a smoke between his fingers. His eyes narrow on me as if he can read my intentions. Not that it would take supernatural skills—even I can feel the frantic crazy in my eyes.
So I drop the tension in my shoulders as best I can and scratch the few-days’ beard growth on my jaw. “Yeah, man.”
“You okay?”
“Great.” I shove my shaking hands into the pockets of my jeans. “Where are we? Where’s Dave?” Translation: How much time do I have to get my hands on a drink?
He jerks his head toward a small house with a crooked roof and a string of Christmas lights around the door. “You want a smoke?”
He holds out a pack and I take one then take his offered light.
Seriously, what are we doing here? Wherever here is. There’s an old, beat-up minivan in the driveway and the lights are on inside the house, but all the cheap plastic mini blinds are closed. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Dave was picking up some traveling weed from a poor white trash dealer in the middle of the desert, which would be fucking awesome.
I smoke the cigarette down to the filter in four drags then bum another one off the driver. I know him, he’s driven me around plenty of times, but I can’t for the life of me remember his name. “Thanks for the smokes.”
He grunts and nods.
“Hey, um… are you a fan of my music?”
He chuckles and takes a long drag off his smoke. “Who isn’t?” he says through a stream of smoke coming out of his nose.
“Cool, cool.” I take another drag. “I’ll get you tickets to our LA show for this next tour if you let me use your phone.”
He raises one thick black brow, apparently thinking it over, then shrugs. “Sure.”
He hands me his phone and I scramble to call my assistant/dealer before Dave shows his
face. I stare at the number pad, quickly realizing that I don’t know his phone number. In fact, I don’t know anyone’s phone number.
How can I not know any phone numbers? Not one?
9-1-1. That’s all I got.
Dammit to fuck!
I hand it back to him, and he chuckles.
“Real funny.” I take the last drag and flick the butt into someone’s yard. I wonder if that was the smartest idea, seeing as we’re in the middle of the very dry, very flammable desert. Or is it genius? A little scorched earth is a sure way to get me the hell out of here.
The door of the shitty little house opens with the sound of rusty metal rubbing on rusty metal. Limo Driver and I perk up as two men walk out.
The single string of Christmas lights casts the men in a weird orange silhouette, but I could spot Dave’s shape and walk anywhere—average size, walks as if he’s got a huge stick shoved straight up his type-A asshole. The guy with him is taller, my size. Something about him is familiar, but I don’t dwell on that too much as I’m sidetracked by searching his hands for a big fucking bag of hydroponic. My mouth practically waters.
“You’re awake.” Dave’s voice comes from the dark.
“Yeah.” Where’s the weed?
“Good.” His face comes into view, and when he steps aside, I check out his friend’s hands. Empty.
I groan and stare at my manager. “What the fuck are we doing here?” My pulse is kicking harder than usual and making me antsy. I need another cigarette, and if I can’t get my hands on something to make them stop shaking—
“It’s been a long time, Jesiah.”
My breath freezes in my lungs.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
Game. Over.
The monster jumps behind my ribs, electrocuted to life by the voice of my older brother using a name I haven’t heard since I was seventeen years old.
I don’t look at him. I can’t look at him. Instead I glare at Dave as claws rip at my chest, pushing me to beat the fuck out of the presumptuous, meddling asshole. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“This is the deal.” Dave’s voice holds no hint of the fear he should be feeling. “Take it or leave it.”