by Allen, Jade
I’d been sticking with the group, handing with Gerard and his newfound buddies, overseeing their game of dominoes; anything to avoid being in a situation where Mary could comfortably pull me aside to talk about my reasons for rehab. “Been a good boy, Alex?” one of Gerard’s friends, a fifty-something man named Juan, asked me archly.
“Must’ve been, if they’re letting me see something other than your ugly mug,” I said with a smirk. “Maybe one of my adoring fans is here to show me her tits and remind me of what I’m missing.”
“Or smuggle you some coke,” Gerard commented, clinking dominoes on the table.
“I’m not that fucking lucky,” I replied, standing and walking to the front desk. On the other side of the security glass, I saw Mary at a desk, working on some paperwork. She glanced up and from the dark look in her eyes I could tell she hadn’t forgotten her earlier promise to me. “Where do I go?” I asked the orderly who had called me up.
“Outside,” the man said, giving me a little grin. “Hot as hell out there, so grab a bottle of water. You get an hour.” I nodded. The orderly searched me quickly, giving me a pat-down to make sure I wasn’t trying to smuggle anything out and I didn’t have anything like cash on me to pay for drugs someone might have sneaked in. After a minute or two, I was able to go down the hall, through the doors into the little courtyard area, my pack of smokes in my pocket with the scarred lighter I’d brought with me.
“Yo,” Nick said as I came into the sauna heat and bright sunlight. The other guys in the band looked up, waving me over to the table they’d taken. It was one of only a few that offered any shade, so I rushed over to it gladly.
The guys stood up, slapping me on the back and squeezing my shoulder as we exchanged hellos. “God I’m glad you assholes came,” I muttered, reaching into my pocket for my pack.
“Missed us?” Jules asked, smirking.
“Extra cig break,” I replied, bringing a Parliament up to my lips and flicking my lighter to life. I took a drag and exhaled, looking from one face to another. They all looked the same as they had a week before, but also weirdly different; there was a look of fear in Nick’s eyes, and Mark glanced around, tapping the edge of the table in an unsteady staccato. “So, tell me the news,” I said, taking another long drag of my cigarette.
Jules shrugged. “The label put out something about the canceled shows last week, and supposedly we’re in the studio culling songs for the album,” he said, looking away from me. “Bunch of people on the site have figured out you’re in rehab though, and they’re putting together a care package for you.” I rolled my eyes, though I had to admit that it was at least a little bit touching that the hardcore fans we had hadn’t abandoned me.
“What else?” I asked quietly. Nick fished his own pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one up.
“Big J has people out looking for you,” Nick told me in his quiet, slightly accented voice. “He doesn’t believe you’re in rehab; thinks the label’s got you socked away in some hotel like they’ve got us.”
I nodded. “What happens if he finds out I’m here?”
Dan, my bass player, gave me a level look. “He flips the fuck out is what happens,” Dan said reasonably. “Probably sends someone in to kill you.” I swallowed against the dry, tight feeling in my throat. I wanted to say that there was no way a guy like Big J could smuggle someone into the rehab place the label had sent me to; but I knew better. Big J was in charge of meth, coke, and E for most of Miami. He hadn’t gotten that position by being afraid to flip off the system.
“I almost wish I had taken it,” I muttered, finishing my cigarette and stubbing it out in the ashtray before lighting another one. “Then at least I’d have had a good time before I got locked up here.” Nick rolled his eyes.
“You’d have OD’d and we’d be without a lead singer,” he countered. “You’re sure you didn’t steal it, North?”
I shook my head. “No idea who did, but it wasn’t me. I had just bought enough to last the weekend; what the hell would I want to go stealing more for?”
“Germany,” Jules said flatly. I cringed; he was right. We’d played a few festival shows in Germany the year before, and I had nearly landed myself in the hospital on cheap, easy coke.
“I learned from that,” I told him, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t overdo it anymore.”
“So you mean you’re not getting clean in here,” Dan said, his voice making it almost but not quite a question.
I shrugged. “I’m sober now. They gave me benzos for the first week and took me off ‘em two days ago.”
“Not a bad place to clean up,” Nick said, looking around. I saw his gaze come to a stop and followed it as his lips curved in a smile.
“Fuck.” He was looking at Mary, who was seated oh-so-innocently at another one of the tables, paperwork laid out in front of her. Nick glanced at me with a grin.
“You don’t like her? Looks good enough to eat to me.”
I rolled my eyes. “She wants to get me alone and plumb the depths of my addiction,” I said, taking a hasty drag of my cigarette. “I’m not interested.”
Nick glanced at her again and then looked at me with wide eyes. “Maybe sobering up was a bad idea, if it makes you turn down something that good.” Mark snickered and Jules smirked.
“She’s my counselor,” I protested. “She’s not even interested in me like that, and even if she was, she’s a total basket case.”
“So then you wouldn’t mind if I got her number to keep personal track of your recovery?” I glared at Nick.
“How do you know she’s a basket case?” Dan asked, and I realized every single member of my band was staring at Mary. I rolled my eyes.
“She told me. Her mom’s an alcoholic, relapses all the time. Anyone who sticks by that has to be fucked in the head.”
Jules turned his head to look at me, his lips twisted in a wry grin. “We’re sticking by you, aren’t we?”
I slid my tongue along my teeth and took another drag of my cigarette; I didn’t really have anything to say to that.
“Point is that you need to stick around here, and you should probably tell the pretty counselor to keep the staff on the lookout for a plant,” Mark said, looking out from under the mop of intense, inky curls that fell around his face. “Ron is trying to figure out how to either get the money to Big J, or get him off your case, so hold tight.”
I nodded. “Not like I have much choice,” I pointed out, glancing at Mary. “Unless she gets me kicked out, I’m stuck here for at least thirty days, whether Ron can get the heat off me or not.”
“Let’s talk about something else,” Dan suggested. “Been working on anything in here?” I shrugged, and the conversation turned to the album that we were due to work on as soon as I was able to come back to the band. In the back of my mind, I thought about what the guys had said; they’d been surprised that I hadn’t taken the opportunity to actually get clean, instead of just being sober for as long as it took to get out of the jam I was in. Even after Mary’s comments, I hadn’t really given it much thought. After all, I’d never really had a big problem until the situation with Big J had come up; the Germany incident was in my past, and I’d never come that close to OD-ing again since.
We talked about the album, about the shows the guys had gone to with their sudden time off; I’d missed a Mission Veo show, one of the rare few that happened in Miami since half the band had moved to New York to be closer to the label. I’d missed a great after party—though Jules had given Mark a look when Mark started to mention the weed Jonny had managed to scrounge up for the occasion from his brother in California. Life was going on without me, even if the fans were worried and the label wanted me out as soon as possible.
“North! Almost time to say goodbye!” I looked up resentfully at the orderly; I’d almost managed to forget the situation I was in, joking around and chatting with the four guys I had spent the past ten years practically living with. I got in one last cigarette, and to
ld the guys to come back next visiting day if they didn’t have anything better to do.
“Hey, man,” Nick said, pinning me down with his bright blue eyes. “You should think about actually getting clean in here. Not that we don’t all love a party, but I think we all know that you’d have ended up in hot water somehow, even if Big fucking J hadn’t gotten involved.”
I shrugged. “Nothing’s in my system besides nicotine and caffeine right now,” I said. I could hear the defensiveness in my own voice and muttered curses in my head; some of the group work about denial patterns and deflection had filtered into my brain whether I’d wanted it to or not. “We’ll see what happens at the thirty day mark,” I said more quietly. “Maybe I’ll enjoy being clean and healthy.”
“Eating salads,” Jules joked with a little grin.
“Oh yeah, I’ll go totally raw vegan on your asses. Nothing but juice and dehydrated lettuce.” Dan and Mark snickered; Nick was still watching me intently. “And hell, if you want to bang my counselor, give her your number. I’m not supposed to fuck anyone until after I’m out anyway, and she’s probably dying for a lay.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “You saw her first,” he said, shrugging his broad, skinny shoulders. “I’m not going to break up the band over a girl you clearly want.”
“I don’t want her,” I insisted. “Go for it. Seriously.”
Nick grinned. “Taking any suspiciously long showers, North?” he asked me with a raised eyebrow. “I can see it all over your face, dude. Don’t even fuck off about it.”
Jules nodded sagely. “You want her, whether you want to want her or not.”
With that, they rose and gave me a few more back slaps and shoulder squeezes, and I was alone at the table, a half-finished cigarette between my fingers.
****
As much as I tried to avoid her, Mary eventually caught up to me. I was in the “art room,” tuning a guitar and hoping the aging strings still had enough juice in them not to snap, when I heard the door close. “You’re missing snack time,” she said as I looked up.
“Always sounded too Kindergarten to me,” I told her, plucking the G string and tightening it a fraction.
“It’s part of a plan to get you guys to eat regularly,” Mary said, coming further into the room. She took up a stool a few feet away from me. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what a problem addicts and alcoholics tend to have with not eating.” I shrugged, twisting my arm to look at the F-hole tattoo permanently painted there, a souvenir from my first Festival gig that I’d gotten at Love Hate almost as soon as I’d left the stage.
“I eat like a fucking pig,” I said quietly, turning my attention to the B string. I cringed at the sour tone. “You know, if you expect anyone to make anything of these instruments, you should probably keep them tuned.” I looked at Mary. She smiled slightly.
“You’re probably the only one we currently have here who’s capable of playing a guitar decently,” she told me. “The rule is if you can tune it, you can play it.”
I rolled my eyes. “You could at least get some fresh strings.”
“It’s low on the priority list, but I could see if we could get some, if it fits in the budget.”
I went back to tuning, carefully not looking at her. I finally settled the B string and moved on to the bottom E, closing my eyes to catch the tone as it shifted. This was a tricky one; the three bottom strings were all likely to snap—but the high E was the likeliest of all. After a few moments, I got it in tune and opened my eyes.
“So,” I said, strumming a quick chord. “I take it you’re here to follow up on my situation?” I shifted my fingers on the strings, moving into another chord, and began to idly pick out an old Elliott Smith song. This is the place you end up when you lose the chase/ where you’re dragged against your will from a basement on the hill…
“I was checking up on you, sure,” Mary said, watching my fingers moving across the neck of the guitar, my other hand plucking the strings in the familiar melody. “You didn’t think I’d forgotten, did you?” I shrugged, humming the vocal melody to myself for a moment. If it’s your decision to be open about yourself/ be careful or else, be careful or else… I decided it was good advice.
“My lead guitarist thinks you’re hot,” I said with a little smile. “Did he get your number? He was going to try.” I knew Nick had given up the idea; but his words—his suggestion that I was into Mary—still rankled.
“Was he the tall one who looks a little like a bird, with the long hair and the blue eyes?”
I nodded, shifting into a different song; Frank Turner’s “Fisher King Blues.” Lovers don’t be sparing with the truth/ break their hearts if that’s what you must do/ Fill them with remorse, tinged with hope of course/ and let their baser instincts pull them through…
“He’s cute enough, but he knows it already.”
I laughed in spite of myself. “Yeah, he’s definitely aware.”
Mary took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, looking down at her hands.
“Do you have any tattoos?”
She looked up sharply. “Why do you ask?”
I took a brief break from strumming and picking to spread my hands, indicating the ink marking my own skin.
Mary glanced away, her lips twisting into a wry grin. “I do, actually, but you’re not likely to ever see them.”
I raised an eyebrow. “That sounds like a challenge to me,” I pointed out. We were born without reason/ We’ll die without meaning/ and the world will not shrug all that much at our passing/ you can try and try and try, but no one ever makes it out alive…
“It’s not,” Mary said flatly, and I smirked to myself as her cheeks flushed pink. “I got them in specific places for specific reasons and part of that was so that I could cover them up easily.”
“Where are they, then?” I stopped strumming, trying to decide which song to play next. My fingers were starting to ache from the strings; I hadn’t played for a couple of weeks before being admitted, and my calluses were almost all gone.
“If I tell you, will you talk about why you’re here?” Mary looked at me intently, and I looked down at the guitar, smiling to myself. Not one to miss a trick like that, is she? I started playing OK Go, “Let it Rain,” since the acoustic part wasn’t very complicated. I tapped my sock-covered foot on the linoleum tile floor in time to the waltz beat, running through the lyrics in my mind. I’d played the song at an acoustic gig Molly Riot had had at a coffee shop a month before, while the rest of the band except for Nick was pissing or grabbing refills.
“Sure,” I said finally. “You tell me about getting inked, I’ll talk about why I’m here.” I looked up and raised an eyebrow, inclining my head towards Mary to tell her silently to go ahead. She looked away for a moment and her lips twisted in an expression that wasn’t quite a smile.
“I have four,” she said quietly. “All of them are along my hips and thighs.”
My eyes widened as I tried to picture it.
“What are they?” I asked, shifting back into Frank Turner, “I Am Disappeared.” I keep having dreams/ of pioneers and pirate ships and Bob Dylan/ Of people wrapped up tight in the things that will kill them… I shook my head, not to dismiss the question but at the aptness of the lyrics. A different song entirely tugged at my sobriety-addled brain; something about Mary. I ignored it and played faster than the song actually went.
“I have a blue lotus,” Mary said, her voice barely louder than my playing. “A peony. Some song lyrics. A yellow rose.”
I nodded.
“All below the belt,” I confirmed.
“None of them are where you’re thinking about right now,” she said firmly. “Now stop playing and talk.” I finished the song with a little flourish and pressed my fingers to the strings, silencing them.
“What do you want to know?”
Mary sighed, shifting on her stool. “I want to know what the situation is, and how exactly I can help you. There’s no point in you being here
if you’re not actually trying to get sober; you could stay somewhere else just as well.” I considered it. The rehab was a secure facility, they did bed checks through the night, it would be difficult for Big J to get to me in any direct way. Also, I thought that in spite of the band’s warnings, it would be difficult for him to persuade someone to go clean for even a few days for the sake of getting in and killing me.
“My dealer wants me dead, my band thinks I’m not quite in control, my label figures I might as well take a break while they try and get the heat off of me,” I said, ticking off the reasons on my fingers. “As for me? Fuck. I don’t know.” I looked at my hands; they trembled from the effort of playing, and my fingertips felt like they were swelling. Everything that happened to me seemed to be so much more intense—twinges of pain, feelings of sadness, feelings of happiness.
“Are you willing to at least give it an honest try?” Mary crossed her arms over her chest. I closed my eyes, willing myself not to notice. Okay, Nick was right about one thing; she’s hot as hell. Fuck. Fucking tattoos. Fucking hips. Think about something else, North. I clenched my teeth until the wave of heat finished washing through me, willing it to stop pooling right above my cock.
“Are you willing to show me your tattoos?” The words left my lips before I had even fully thought them and I opened my eyes. Mary stared at me, her cheeks red, the blush spreading down along the little scoop of skin her tee shirt showed of her chest.
“You know I can get you kicked out for coming onto me,” she said, licking her lips. You say that when you’re licking your lips like you wonder what I taste like. Fuck—fuck, fuck, fuck. Bitch is crazy.
“You should call Nick,” I said, breathing slowly. “I’ll give you his number.”
“Why should I call him?” Mary’s dark eyebrows came together as she frowned in confusion. It felt like I had a bar of molten lead in my pants.
“You need to get laid, if you think me asking you to see your tattoos was a come-on,” I told her, trying to keep my voice level.