by Sidney Bell
Thus bolstered, he pours a single shot of añejo tequila, sits down at his dining room table and breathes in the scent. He sits for three minutes, no more, no less, studying it, before he pours it down the sink. The shot glass is washed with soap and set to dry in the rack. It never goes in the cupboard. It is made of clear, good-quality glass, and sits heavy in his hand.
Once that’s done, the rest of the day is his.
On the morning after he sleeps with Anya, there’s another first time. He skips the tequila ritual for the first time since he instituted it four years, ten months, three weeks and eight days ago.
Instead, he checks the calendar in the kitchen junk drawer. The best he can do means a trip to Echo Park. It’ll be an hour’s drive at least, but he can probably make it. He gets in his car.
When he came here from Nebraska, his expectations of LA were primarily the product of movies, heinous news stories, and his mother’s worried admonitions about drugs and crime. He imagined starlets in every coffee shop, criminals in every alley, palm trees on every corner. After twenty years of living here, the only thing 100% consistent with his initial outsider-perceptions is that the traffic is shit.
LA isn’t a city so much as it’s a collection of eclectic towns all smushed together pretending that proximity means they’re related. Brentwood, where Cal lives, is a completely different beast from Venice, where Anya and Zac live. Yet, for someone like Cal, someone whose job means he gets a lot of attention wherever he goes, the various neighborhoods do share one trait—they’re all filled to overflowing with people who’re always looking at him.
Zac feeds off the adoration. He loves that no matter where he goes, he’ll have eyes lingering on him, fans calling his name. But for Cal, being noticed makes the world feel loud and busy and too bright, and sometimes he dreams of a small house in a small town—a small life, really—with a fervency that scares him. He has to try not to flinch when the paparazzi take pictures of him walking out of Starbucks; he inevitably stammers when fans ask for pictures and say that they love him; he hunches his shoulders at the sight of his own face on music magazine covers on newspaper stands.
But at times like this, when his vices have him on the road at seven a.m. on a Sunday morning, he can’t help loving LA for being the kind of place that’s ready at a moment’s notice to acknowledge her citizens’ flaws, for good or ill. Whether you’re trying to hang yourself or climb out of a hole, LA will provide the rope.
Turns out Cal didn’t need that much help to do the first; he’s still working on the second.
Community centers tend to blur together after a while. They all have brown carpet for some reason, and plastic chairs with metal legs. He takes a seat in the back, his ballcap tugged down low in a defense against being recognized. The preamble is a Pavlovian trigger for him by now, his heart rate slowing at the familiar refrain. He joins in during the Serenity Prayer—something he didn’t do the first year—and then listens absently to the rest of the readings and the chairwoman’s introduction.
It’s a step meeting. Faith. Cal winces. Figures. He doesn’t add anything to the ensuing discussion. Despite being raised Methodist and being hauled to church by his parents every Sunday of his childhood, he doesn’t believe in God.
No one has been chosen to speak officially, so the chairwoman opens the floor at that point.
For what might very well be the thousandth time in the last eight years, Cal braces himself. Then he opens his mouth. “I’d like to say something.”
The chairwoman nods. Sometimes, with small crowds, they sit in a circle, and he wouldn’t have to stand up. This meeting is bigger, probably twenty people. He hates standing. Even with the ballcap on, the young woman with the tattoo on her throat and piercings that run the length of both ears recognizes him—her mouth goes round as an O. He tries to ignore it. This is a safe place. He hasn’t been outed so far, and this isn’t even close to the first time someone’s realized who he is.
“I’m Cal, and I’m an alcoholic.” He waits for the chorus of voices to welcome him, and then adds, “I’m in a relationship. I think. As of last night. And I really want a drink.”
He talks for a handful of minutes. He doesn’t name names, obviously, and he doesn’t mention that it’s a relationship with a married couple. He can barely tell himself that, let alone strangers. Instead, he mentions that he lacked the fortitude to look his demon in the eye this morning, for the first time in almost five years. He’s angry that his streak is broken, but he thinks he’s going to make it. He sits back down. He’s sweating and shaky. The man next to him smiles and nods, reassuring, and Cal nods back, grateful.
One of the weirdest things about AA is how good it can feel to have a total stranger be proud of you.
Cal ducks out at the end, avoiding socialization—and the woman with the tattoo, if he’s honest, even though she’s not making any sign of wanting to track him down—but he leaves a handful of twenties in the donation basket before he goes.
* * *
It’s still early when he gets home—barely eleven. He feels both exhausted and antsy. He’s tempted to take a nap, but he won’t sleep tonight if he does. Instead, he heads for his home studio.
He bought the house for this room alone, seduced by the high ceilings and hardwood floors. The real estate agent was apologetic that there wasn’t a single window, not realizing that was part of the appeal. Cal barely had to do more than insulate it and put up sound absorbing panels to get the acoustics every bit as good as those at the label’s studios. Zac was so jealous that he enlisted Cal to help him set his up too.
If the rest of the house is prone to echoing and he’s got a good half-dozen rooms that are still sitting empty after fifteen years of living here, well, he’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. It doesn’t matter that in every other way, he preferred the dilapidated old house he was renting in Boyle Heights when he and Zac started their careers. The studio makes up for it. It may seem dour and claustrophobic to anyone else—there’s a lot of equipment in there, none of it made for aesthetics—but it’s so perfect in its functionality that it provides Cal with a near-physical sensation of satisfaction anytime he walks inside.
He stops in the doorway today, though, second-guessing himself. He could work on mixing one of the early tracks on the as-yet-untitled album, but he’s too distracted to put his full critical attention to the sort of precision craftsmanship this step requires. He’s feeling like he needs to put some of this garbage in his head on paper.
He walks past the studio to his instrument room.
This room isn’t quite as big as the studio, but it feels less cramped, less heavy. Other than the treated windows, meant to keep sunlight from warping the wood in any instrument left in the glare, everything here is meant to be creative rather than practical. If the studio is a tank, the instrument room is a Lamborghini.
His keyboard and drum machines are set up in the corner, out of the way as he uses them fairly infrequently. Two rows of guitars and basses hang on pegs along one of the long walls. Closest to the door is his Schecter Hellraiser, a five-string with a crimson red-burst satin finish that provides just a hint of color to a mostly black body and neck. It sounds so gorgeous it’s a steal for what he paid for it. That’s the bass he uses the most often in the studio and when performing.
But for brainstorming, he picks up his old Fender Standard Jazz, his very first bass, and one he can’t let go of even though it can’t keep up with the demands of his work or his ear anymore. Years ago, Zac slapped a sticker on the back that he got from a Hot Topic in the nineties that says If mean people suck, nice people swallow. Cal finds it embarrassing every time he looks at it, but he’s never been able to bring himself to try to peel it off. He tells himself that he doesn’t want to destroy the finish, despite that finish already bearing countless tiny age cracks that stretch like spiderwebs beneath the gloss.
He sit
s down with the instrument in his arms and tugs his wheeled writing desk over. Then he sets his fingers on the strings and thinks.
The new album is a concept album, a series of thematically interconnected songs that tell a story. He has a main character—an old man looking back on his life as he contemplates suicide, thinking about the successes and the regrets and his long history with substance abuse. In the end, the old man will realize that he wants to live, only to die of a heart attack that same night. Or as Zac snottily explains it: it’s a mean God that’ll bitch-slap you when you’re wearing your robe and slippers.
Cal prefers to think of it as the futility of man’s plans for existence. No matter how much planning you do, there’s an element of life that’s simply beyond your control. It’s why you can’t put things off forever and still expect to get the job done. Whatever the job in question may be.
Yes, it’s depressing. Yes, it’s possibly nihilistic. The third track on the album is, so far, the kind of song that would’ve once prompted his mother to ask why anyone would “create such aggressive noise on purpose.”
That doesn’t bother him so much. He’s an industrial rock musician. Half the shit he writes is depressing, nihilistic, aggressive noise. He’s made a career out of it.
But the concept isn’t working. He’s not sure why.
The basic threads of the plot seem fine in theory: in track one, the old man thinks back to the halcyon days when he was young, back before age and disappointment kicked him in the gut. It’s a melancholy piece of music with a big, operatic chorus.
Track two is a love ballad, an ode to his perfect girl and his certainty that eventually she’ll return his devotion, but there’s an underlying dread suffusing the whole thing, because anyone who’s listened to track one knows that everything goes to shit in the worst possible way. Zac says it’s the most upsetting love song he’s ever heard, and Cal secretly thinks it’s one of the best things he’s ever written. It’s also the song that had Zac kicking Cal out of the studio while recording, because the vocal riff is so tricky.
Track three is a quiet piano piece, haunting and instrumental. The working title is “Cherry,” which in Cal’s head is a reference to a loss of innocence—the young man’s introduction to the bleak reality of life. Zac keeps pushing for lyrics, but Cal isn’t going to bend. The song is better without, as the young man is too inexperienced to put what he’s feeling into words.
Track four is all about the young man’s desperate turn to substance abuse as a way of trying to cope, and Cal can’t seem to get it to be anything but chaotic. He’s not sure that’s necessarily a bad thing. Havoc is a key part of being under the influence, so maybe the most honest version of this song requires chaos.
That’s where the album really starts to fall apart, though. Track five is about hitting rock bottom, and it’s full of rage and grief. It’s more of a violent crash of instruments than a song, and though the lyrics aren’t written yet, Cal knows what he wants, and what he wants will scare the shit out of Zac. Track two’s vocal difficulties will be a walk in the park compared to this one. There’ll be a lot of screaming and growling to go along with the heavy bass line and thundering drums, and the demands on Zac’s voice will be considerable. Cal’s been putting it off because he knows it’s going to lead to a blow-up fight, and he doesn’t have the energy for it right now.
He wishes Zac could remember how good he was in the early days. He’s only gotten better with time and training, but at some point he started to think that Cal’s the only one in the band with talent, and Cal wants to shake him sometimes, he’s so wrong.
Cal fell for Zac’s voice way before he fell for Zac.
He puts that thought away with the skill of long practice, then pauses, wondering if thoughts like that are actually allowed now. The three of them agreed that they were serious last night. But perhaps serious only applies to Cal and Anya. Cal and Zac didn’t even touch, after all. Zac only wanted to watch. Cal was tempted to reach out to him, especially when the three of them were crushed together in the hot shower, with Anya sleepy-soft between them, but he was afraid of Zac’s reaction.
He’s still afraid of it. Afraid to ask. Afraid to know.
God, he’s thirsty.
He can picture the tequila in the cabinet. He can picture the glass on the drying rack. He doesn’t feel bolstered. He feels weak. He presses his face against the cool ebony neck of the bass. The strings and frets press into his cheek. He can smell guitar polish and metal and wood and he closes his eyes for a moment before sitting up and trying to get back to work.
For track six, he wants a brief clash of discordant sounds. Like glass breaking or metal scraping. Not a song at all really, just something that’ll capture the agonizing stab of true adulthood: the knowledge that this time you might’ve broken something that can’t be repaired.
Track seven is about the hell of recovery—Cal’s thinking of water imagery for that one, although he’s not sure how he’ll fold it in yet. Track eight is basically about sitting at home alone in your house while your friends all go to a party to get fucked up without you. Cal’s still working on the melody to that one—he wants something pretty but piercing and sharp. Violin will do, but he’s tempted to try to make a flute work. He’s not sure how heavy distortion will blend with classical flute, and he kind of wants to find out.
Track nine will be the old man’s suicide letter. Cal has no idea what he’s going to do there. The last song—track ten—is going to be mostly about the old man’s realization that he wants to live anyway, only to have him die in the last verse. Cal has a riff and part of the bass line done for that one, but not much more. He does know he’s going to call it “Bullet.” Might work for the title of the album too.
Cheery stuff. They’ll either win another Grammy or crash and burn and their careers will never recover.
He sighs.
Zac’s probably still mad at him for leaving last night. Cal didn’t know how to explain, that was all. His morning routine—run, shower, breakfast, tequila test—is crucial to his mental health. It’s how he knows he’s ready to meet whatever challenge lies ahead, and yes, part of that is the challenge of remaining sober.
Maybe skipping the tequila test was a bad idea. Sure, when he’s tempted, it’s a risk to have it right there in front of him, but not doing it has him feeling unsteady, like he’s missed a step on a staircase. Uncertainty is big in his head, hinting at doubts about his strength, about whether he’s ruined everything with Anya, about what she’ll think when she finds out. He’s embarrassed that he ran last night without explaining, but he was already shaky. What was he supposed to do with Anya sitting there, watching him, her damp tawny hair still tousled from his fingers, blue eyes huge in her face, patiently waiting, leaving him terrified of all the things he might say if he stayed?
Will she still want him once he tells her? Will she still feel safe leaving PJ with him? Oh, that one sends a static crackle of fear down his spine, and it brings all of those old whispers of inadequacy along for the ride.
He gets up and very carefully hangs the Fender back on its pegs on the wall. He goes into the kitchen and takes the bottle of tequila down from the cabinet. It’s Herradura Selección Suprema, his favorite. He sets it on the counter but doesn’t let it go. He tells himself he’s about to do his tequila test—later than usual maybe, but better late than never, right? The test is important, that’s all.
The glass is cool against his fingertips. He can feel the ridged edge of the horseshoe logo beneath his thumb. He stares at the other things in the cabinet for a good thirty seconds—olive oil, vinegar, unopened jars of salad dressings and condiments. He has a bottle of Worcestershire sauce, the kind with the brown paper wrapper, and he doesn’t even like the stuff. Who knows where it came from?
Every cell in his body is listing toward the tequila in his hand. He settles his palm on the cap—just a twist of the wrist
and it all gets easier, the whole world steps back and lets him breathe for five fucking minutes, he won’t have to think about Zac or Anya or the music or the articles that will ask what the hell he was thinking trying a concept album and he definitely won’t have to think about what June would say if she could see him now, because all of that’s just an extension of this twisting inside him that can only be fixed by one thing—and then he’s throwing the squat, heavy bottle across the kitchen in the general direction of the sink.
He misses because he wasn’t aiming, and it crashes into the island instead and smashes. The sound is loud and startling. Glass and liquor fly everywhere. A shard hits him in the cheek from a good five feet away. He assumes it’s tequila trickling down his skin, but when he reaches up to wipe it away, his fingers come back bloody.
He surveys the mess he’s made. He can’t walk barefoot through the kitchen with all this glass on the tile, and the fumes of the tequila are already heady enough from here that the idea of going closer makes his heart beat in his throat like a hummingbird’s wings. The longer he stands here, the less he cares about how pathetic it would be, how dangerous, to try for those last few drops coating the larger shards. The twisting need inside him argues that it doesn’t matter that the bottle is broken. He’s not too proud to suck liquor off the goddamn floor, is he?
He turns instead and vaults himself up and over the counter into the living room, scattering a couple of cookbooks in the process. He has to get out of here. He grabs his phone and keys and his shoes and his wallet. His hands tremble as he dials Tracy’s number from memory.
She answers with her characteristic bluntness. “Holy shit, he’s alive.”
“For the moment.” He gets outside, slams the door behind him. Locks it. It takes a few tries, the key going tink, tink, tink against the metal of the dead bolt because he can’t—his hand won’t—it’s just—God.