by Holly Hall
Alcohol blurred things to the point that I lost sight of the man I wanted to be, the man my teenaged self wanted to be. Not only was I poisoning everyone around me, but I was staining my dreams with black, taking the future that was given to me, that I’d fought for, and crumpling it up like paper. I owe it to the kid who wrote songs instead of taking notes and daydreamed about giving his mom everything she’d given him. It just took time to realize that. Time, and maybe a certain dream catcher.
After quitting the band, I wanted to switch my phone off and shut myself in my apartment to withstand the first days of sobriety. Block everyone out, spare them from seeing the worst parts of me. But the best people in life want you and every one of your dark places. So I gave in to her longstanding offer of helping me through my struggles, and I went to my mom’s house.
It wasn’t easy letting her witness those early days—me vomiting like I’d either caught a stomach bug or was suffering a monster hangover, when really, it was neither of those things. I was fighting my demons but they were doing a hell of a job kicking my ass on the way out. My anxiety spiked and, considering I’d just thrown in the towel on a career that opened countless doors for me, doubt and fear of what was to come grew bigger when there was nothing keeping them at bay.
What’s worse is I couldn’t even sleep it off. I couldn’t sleep at all. So I was left awake, lying atop the quilt in the guest room while I sweated my ass off, reliving every questionable moment in my life. They played out like a depressing movie right before my eyes: my home, the one I’d provided for my wife, ablaze, everything we owned burning inside; Raven telling me with vacant eyes that she couldn’t do it anymore, my pleas and statements that I would be better for her falling on deaf ears; the fallout after she left, dozens of articles using her as the scapegoat for not being able to save me, and me not bothering to step up and set them straight when I knew the truth.
I hadn’t even made it to thoughts of Lindsey before I slumped over the edge of the bed and heaved the contents of my stomach onto the bedroom floor. Which reminded me that one of the first things I need to do after all this is over is get my mom’s home professionally cleaned—she’d need a biohazard suit to stay here otherwise.
I guess she’d been doing her research, because my mom urged me to ride out the withdrawals in a detox center, spouting off statistics about how serious cutting alcohol cold-turkey can be. Things like seizures and hallucinations came up. I met her halfway and consented to regular visits from a physician. I covered all the costs, of course, and it’s hard for me to fathom not being able to. The twice-daily visits and medications dispensed all make me much more aware of how dire alcoholism can be for those who don’t have the motivation or the resources to conquer it. Or just a solid support system. If I had drank more, been further down the rabbit hole, before receiving my wake-up call, I might not have survived this. There are people who don’t. So, even though they didn’t quite work before, I say my prayers and thank my lucky stars it wasn’t worse. It could always be worse.
And somehow, nothing my mom’s seen has chased her away. It seems twisted, being back in this position, under my mom’s care. After all, I’d vowed to take care of her the rest of her days after my career took off. I guess that was just another promise I lit a match on. She’s been relentless in her care for me. Making my favorite foods turned into putting together the blandest stuff she could find in an effort to keep it in my stomach. There was no shortage of wet wash cloths placed on my forehead during the fever stage, bottles of fluids touting electrolytes placed on the bedside table. She made, and still makes, single-parenting her bitch, and I pity the man who left my mom all those years ago. I pity he’ll never get to know that kind of goodness.
Ten days in, and I haven’t given in to stocking up on whiskey at the neighborhood liquor store. Ten days in and things have gotten a little easier. I begin venturing farther from the corner of the house I was confining myself to, joining my mom for meals and sprawling on the couch while she takes the armchair during her favorite nightly TV shows. They’re mostly trash, but I don’t care. My presence is the least I can give her, and, judging by the contentment on her face when I do, I can tell it’s all she ever wanted from me.
It’s the end of January when I crack open my notebook again and pick up a pen. I’ve been wanting to write my redemption for years. Now that I’ve taken the first step of it, maybe I can. I put the pen to paper, and I scratch out the first verse of a song. This one won’t be about women or drinking, it won’t be about getting high off the smell of dark hair or the softness of the skin on her neck. It’ll be about life, and living, and overcoming the things that once held me beneath their thumb.
It’ll be about rebuilding bridges instead of reminiscing on the ones I’ve burnt.
Lindsey
My first time meeting the band whom I’ll be spending several months on the road—and in the sky—with takes place at the airport at the crack of dawn. Their crazy schedules combined with the holidays made it impossible to coordinate anything sooner. We have plenty of time in between here and our first destination, Berlin, for making nice.
So, bleary-eyed introductions are exchanged over steaming cups of coffee and fast-food breakfasts. There’s Kingston, the tattooed lead singer; Bryant, the broad, bare-skinned lead guitarist who’s wearing fringe and might be able to crush me like an aluminum can; Nate, the tattooed and pierced bass player; and Natalia, the pink-haired drummer. They’re a diverse bunch, but at the present, they appear equally out of it.
All except one.
“So you’re the one who’s gonna turn us into America’s sweethearts again,” one of them says in a lazy drawl, and my eyes settle on Kingston, possibly the only one of the four who’s alert and concerned at all about the job I’m going to do. He’s a pretty boy. Those blue eyes and raven hair have, I assume, gotten him everywhere in life.
“Well, I’m not a fairy godmother and I can see you’re no Cinderella. So really, it depends on you,” I respond.
“But that’s the sole reason you’re here, yeah? To clean us all up, make us look better. Catch my drift?”
“I can edit a photo of shit all I want, but at the end of the day, it’ll still be shit. Catch my drift?” I snap my mouth closed, but the words are already out. I blame my bold tongue on sleep deprivation and briefly consider backpedaling, when Kingston responds with a slow, lopsided grin.
“Touché, spitfire.”
Ugh, again with the nicknames. My irritation aside, I’m grateful to have not been immediately fired after that comment, and I tell myself I won’t let him provoke me. “Nice to meet you,” I amend, and Kingston gives me a little salute before the band members follow their tour manager into a private lounge, and Sal and I take our seats with the normal folk.
“Was I overstepping my boundaries?” I ask Sal later, when we’ve boarded the plane and are safely out of earshot of the band. Coach is a long way from first class.
“Nah.” He shakes his head, untangling a pair of earbuds. “They need that. Good to set the tone.”
I just nod, hoping he’s right and it won’t be an issue. Our task will be difficult enough without battling the very people we’re supposed to be casting in a positive light. Otherwise, this trip, the majority of which will be spent in close quarters, will be exponentially more painful than necessary.
Our first layover is in Chicago, followed by a long connecting flight over the Atlantic to Madrid. We’ll recoup at the Madrid airport for a few hours, then, finally, head to our final destination of Berlin. After that show, we’ll zig-zag the country westward over a period of four-months. Along the way is a schedule packed with press junkets and appearances, music festivals and headlining shows. Dare and Fall’s team tried to schedule as many intimate events as possible to get the band members face to face with their fans, and Sal and I will have our work cut out for us to capture it all.
In Chicago, I try reading the paperback I’ve been meaning to get to for months, though focus
ing on anything in a crowded airport is a struggle. My attention is occupied just enough that I don’t notice anyone approaching until Bryant drops into the seat beside me.
“You have anyone back home?” he asks.
I do a double take to confirm he means what I think he means. “Don’t you cut right to the chase.”
“Is that a yes?”
“It’s a no,” I say too quickly, too harshly. The partial lie echoes between us, because although I don’t technically have anyone, we both know what he’s implying.
“Ah, cool,” he says despite my tone, his head bobbing. He can’t be flirting, not this early.
“You realize I’m basically a complete stranger, right?”
The corners of his mouth twitch. “Not for long, sweetheart. We’ve got a long road ahead of us. Might as well get to know each other.”
I close my book and give him my full attention. “Look, this is going to be a fun time. We’ll probably learn far more than we want to know about each other, but I just want to be clear that my focus is on one thing. I’m only here for one thing: to do my job. Let’s not make it harder than it already will be.”
His expression turns solemn, and for a moment I think he’s caught on. Then the dubious smile reappears, and he pats me on top of the head. “Whatever makes it easier for you to be in my presence, spitfire. I look forward to enlightening you.”
He stands and walks away backwards, his eyes still on me until he rounds the corner to go do whatever it is rock stars do when they’re stuck in an airport. So this is how it’s going to be. I open my paperback again and continue reading the same page I’ve attempted a dozen times.
This job is the stuff of dreams, I remind myself, and after our trans-Atlantic flight, I’ll no longer need a reminder. I’ll be experiencing it, living it, and things like Bryant’s pathetic attempts at flirtation won’t compare to what I’m about to see. I’m certain of it.
Chapter 27
Lindsey
The first couple weeks with the band were about as painful as I expected them to be. Despite our limited intimate knowledge of each other and them, Sal and I immediately set to work capturing the band members’ more personal moments, while at the same time trying our best to maintain some boundaries. Most of them respected that—all but one.
“If you were searching for a good time, you could’ve just asked,” a voice says from behind me. Though I believed I was walking alone down the streets of Amsterdam, I don’t have to look over my shoulder to confirm who’s following me. The owner of that voice has been taunting me since Chicago.
“You’re a walking, talking harassment suit, you know that?” I say. So much for a nice, quiet walk to find weird souvenirs for Blake and Landon. If I didn’t know Bryant was harmless, I’d be more offended, but in the short time I’ve known him, I’ve whittled him down to his lonely core.
He surrounds himself with mayhem—what he perceives as minor partying and harmless drag-racing—to overshadow the fact that he’s always been alone. He was abandoned by parents who preferred the high meth gave them over the responsibility of raising their kid, for days at a time. Bryant wraps it all in boisterous jokes and a persona that says he doesn’t take life too seriously, and he probably doesn’t expect anyone to look past that mask. What he doesn’t know about me is doing just that is the single biggest motivation behind my photography. And maybe the fact that he seeks attention because he’s lonely, while I sentence myself there because I don’t want to be disappointed by love, makes us kindred spirits in a way. I’ll die before I tell him that, though.
“Only if you’re threatened by me,” he says, appearing in my periphery, all sandy-blond hair and puppy-dog brown eyes—Dare and Fall’s token hippie/surfer kid. He’s wearing a striped poncho today, one he bought from a stall on a street in Mexico and, despite it being early spring in the Netherlands, a pair of tattered leather flip flops. He ducks closer to my ear, earning a sidelong glance from me. “Are you threatened by me?”
“No. I just wish you’d get the hint and take your pursuit elsewhere.” The comment does nothing to deter his usual confident swagger.
“You know I only do it to make you smile, don’t you? I’m not really a creep.”
“I know you’re not. I can read you better than that. I just wish the things that came out of your mouth weren’t so creepy.”
“Deal. No more creepy comments.” I get a few moments of peace as we walk silently across brick-paved paths. Then he says, “I can read you too, you know. I just can’t figure out why you never smile. Are we that much of a pain in the ass?”
“One hundred percent,” I say, and he barks out a laugh. Everything he does is big and loud. “No. This is the time of my life.”
“So why don’t you look it?”
“You’re annoyingly invasive, you know that? You remind me of someone back home.”
“Is that someone as devastatingly handsome as me?”
“Handsome, no. Pretty, yes. She’s a girl. Anika.”
“Anika.” He rolls the name around in his mouth and smirks again. Is it possible for someone to fall in love with a name?
“She’d hand you your balls in a purse.”
“A woman after my own heart. But I get what you’re doing, diverter. You’re trying to beguile me with tales of beautiful women.”
“Consider me impressed by your vocabulary.” The smells wafting from the next storefront lead me to it by the nose. We’ve reached a floral shop overflowing with tulips and hyacinths, and a woman in a long skirt is watering the ones outside with a galvanized can. It’s the quaintest thing I’ve ever seen.
“If all it would’ve taken was a bouquet of flowers to steal your heart, you should’ve told me. I’d have filled the bus with flowers.”
“And subsequently been murdered by Natalia,” I murmur. Natalia is the opposite of fun; I’m not sure why she’s even a drummer. But somewhere within her is this beast that only comes out when she’s holding the sticks.
“Ahh, she’s as harmless as a teddy bear.”
I exhale the nauseating scent of flowers and force myself to move on. “Then I guess I’m not doing my job correctly. I haven’t seen that at all, if it even exists. How do I get to her?”
“You want to know what makes her tick?”
I give him a look that says obviously.
“I want to know what makes you tick. Call it a trade.”
“I hate live flowers. I was wondering if they had any dead ones,” I deadpan.
Bryant’s smile fades, and a comical crease forms between his eyebrows. “One, that’s sacrilegious. Two, that’s not information worth spilling Natalia’s deepest secrets for.”
“Or is it?” I raise an eyebrow, amused at the way he’s concentrating on my words. Has confusion ever been so entertaining?
Bryant stops in the middle of the sidewalk, despite the flow of pedestrians, and squares his shoulders. “I want something good or I walk.”
I gradually slow to a stop, the glint of sunlight off the water of the canal up ahead beckoning me. “What’ll it take?”
“Tell me who’s got you wrapped around his finger. Or her.”
I roll my eyes, make a show of putting my hands on my hips and tapping my foot with impatience, but he doesn’t budge. Even the amiable natives are beginning to shoot him looks. “Ugh, fine, but can you come on? We’ve got to walk if I’m going to tell you.”
He all but beams as he strides forward and draws even with me again. I don’t speak until we make a right so we’re walking along the canal, watching the guided boat tours as they drift by. “Jenson King, a musician.”
He scoffs. “You don’t have to tell me who he is.”
“I thought you wanted to know.”
“No, I meant that the name says it all. The dude literally just threw away his career, but it’s not like he was obscure before that.”
My mind lurches at this news, and every part of me wants to ask him to elaborate, but that’d be like baiting th
e water. There was life before Jenson, and now there’s life after. I can’t confuse the two or else I’ll undo all the mending I’ve done to my lonely heart.
“So, he scare you off like he did his ex-wife?”
Who am I kidding? My heart isn’t mended. My instinct to defend him is proof of that. But an overly passionate response would be more telling than anything. “No. Not at all. I was in love.”
It’s possibly the first time I’ve said it out loud, and it’s the first time it hasn’t sounded completely ridiculous. It was fast, short-lived, but it was love. And if I had to list the reasons why it happened when I did everything in my power to push it away, I’m not sure I could. Yet, it’s undeniable.
“And?” he presses.
“And I couldn’t handle that then.” I shrug as if the matter is simple. It seems black and white now that I’ve said it out loud. But there’s an ocean of gray uncertainty that threatens to swallow me, and I’m not sure I want to be consumed.
“I feel you. Too young, you know. You have your whole life ahead of you.”
“But what’s sadder—having more years with someone you love because you were brave enough to admit to it, and possibly risk it burning out one day, or less because you were too much of a coward? Or, how about none at all because you were just too late?”
“More. Give me less, any day. Hot and heavy, know what I mean?” He elbows me in the side and I roll my eyes for possibly the thousandth time today. Bryant can have his intense moments, but an immature comment is never far around the corner. “But we’re different, you and I. Maybe I misjudged you, but I didn’t think you were such a chicken ’til now. No risk, no reward.”