“I’ve got lots of school work to keep me busy, and I’ll see you guys in two weeks, in Portland. It’s not so long.” She looked at her watch, and sighed. “I guess it’s time to go.”
“Yeah, all girls off the bus!” Ramiel said as they spotted their bus driver walking down the path. A quiet and solemn man named Davis, he had introduced himself, said he would be their driver, and hadn’t really said another word. He seemed to prefer solitude and quiet, which he certainly wasn’t going to get on a bus full of rock musicians. The label said he’d been a tour bus driver for 30 years, and he was one of their most trusted employees, whatever that meant.
The boy gathered outside to say a final goodbye to their families, more excited to start their new adventure than really be sad at parting. They had already tested everything on the bus, including the internet connection, where Gabriel planned to Skype Isda all day long. Their first stop was only four hours away, tonight, but when it was over, they would be driving 12 hours through the night. There was no soft opening to get them used to tour life.
And in two weeks’ time, in Portland, they would be playing their own show, as part of a music festival, not opening for anyone. That was the one they would really be looking forward to.
The hardest part, Gabriel thought as he climbed on the bus and the doors closed, would be every night on stage when their introduction played. They had argued and haggled until the record company gave in and rolled their eyes. Isda’s spotlight would remain in the intro, even if no one knew who she was, and even if no one ever saw her. They had also agreed for Whore of Babylon to be played in some sets with Isda, but so far, it hadn’t began to appear on the set lists, made three months in advance.
Once they were alone on the bus and the doors closed, Jinn began unpacking his bag, putting things away in order, and neatly. The other two, however, were more interested in raiding the fridge and pulling out six different kinds of chips, dipping their hands into each one.
“My new favorite,” Ramiel declared after a full minute, chewing on roasted chicken flavored chips. Jinn raised an eyebrow.
“Didn’t you guys eat lunch?” He often forgot how much younger they were, that they were teenagers with metabolisms of cheetahs. At 25 to their 18, he already had to keep a strict exercise routine before the muscles built from drumming turned into pure fat.
“Yeah,” Gabriel said, through a mouthful of chips.
Jinn rolled his eyes, and gave Gabriel’s back pack a little nudge. “Can you unpack your stuff?”
“No.”
“I see,” Jinn headed to the back, the biggest bunk, and the only one sectioned off by a door. With a wicked grin, he wrote his name on the whiteboard of the door, and then went back to the couch, sitting down.
It took an hour for the boys to head back there.
“HEY!” They cried, almost in unison, making him smirk. “Not fair!”
“Well, maybe you guys should have put your stuff away first, because my stuff is already in there,” he smiled, sheets of music laid out in front of him. “Lesson 1. Never try to outsmart me.”
“Just wait till you see what I have planned on stage tonight,” Ramiel smirked, and although Jinn didn’t show it, he was slightly worried about the comment.
Nevertheless, they didn’t kill each other on tour, nor did they hate each other by the end of it. The boys fell into a routine, sleeping, eating, leaving the bus only to play shows or attend church. On the road, on Sunday mornings, they stopped for an hour if they could at a local church. Sometimes, they were happy to offer their services of playing. Sometimes, they simply listened. And when they were in a particular rush, they listened online to streamed church services from around the world.
Every night, they holed up in private in their bunks, ear phones in, chatting on Skype, browsing the internet, or simply just enjoying the silence.
No one expected the level of success they achieved, not even the record company. Their first two month tour was such a success that they were slammed with booking requests for the New Year.
Christmas was a welcome reprieve, spent at home, with family, in quiet. Their families treated them no differently than when they left, and on Christmas Day, the thing Gabriel thanked God for the most was waking up beside Isda, and being able to roll over and go back to sleep, her in his arms.
On the message boards and forums about the band, they found an uproar of fans who were suddenly converting to Christianity, which made them feel torn.
“I mean, it’s what we want but…not because of us,” Gabriel said, in a press conference just after New Years, when asked about it. “If you are going to do it, do it because you know it’s the right thing to do, in your heart.”
“In modern society,” said the reporter, microphone in his face. “There’s so much pressure to have no religion at all. Will any of your songs reflect this?”
“Probably never,” Gabriel replied, and Jinn grinned at him, proud of the boy child finally growing up. “We signed the deal to spread the word of the Lord and the day it becomes something more than that, we’ll walk.”
The tour was extended, and then extended again, and before they knew it, they had been on tour for almost a solid year, and had achieved a huge fan base. Girls screamed and cried and even fainted when they saw them. The largest and biggest churches offered them sums of money that they had never heard of before to come and play for their thousand person congregation, packed to the rafters.
They could no longer eat lunch in their favorite café without paparazzi pressed outside the window, and fans stopping them on the streets. The wives visited every few weeks, and the money now in their bank accounts meant they could take them on fantasy dates, booking the best tables, seats and even, as Jinn had promised, a limo to take Christie everywhere. Before long, his new-born daughter, Shauna, joined them as well.
But it was the day they booked the Staples Center that they knew they had made it. Graced with such talent as Michael Jackson, Madonna, U2 and so many more, the Staples Center was one of the biggest and most famous arenas out there. And when Isda, who was still handling their bookings, called to say they were headlining, Gabriel nearly dropped the phone.
“I love you!” he screamed and she giggled, across the phone line.
“Ok, save your voice for it.”
“Are you coming?” he asked, and she winced.
“I can’t, love. I have an exam that day. But I’ll watch it, televised, I promise.”
He felt his heart drop, “Can’t you change the exam?”
“No,” she said. “I can’t. I know this is super important, love, but school is important to me.”
“It’s ok,” he said, trying to be as calm as she was in the face of disappointment. “It’s ok, really.”
“It’s not, but you’ll be awesome anyways.”
He certainly didn’t feel awesome the morning he woke up for the show though. He had another cold, this one lingering for weeks with a dry cough that would not flee the scene. He hadn’t been to work out with the boys for over month, feeling that exertion brought it on. He had tried every remedy the doctors gave him, inhalers, antibiotics, garlic tea, avoiding dairy, everything. But it would not go away.
By 7pm, an hour before the show, he looked like he was about to fall over. Jinn, half way through makeup, glanced over at him, the makeup brush nearly hitting him full in the eyeball.
“Gabe, dude, are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Gabriel brushed it off, taking another sip of water. “It’s just a cold, I don’t know why you guys always act like it’s the end of the world. I can still hit all the notes just fine.”
“Because you get colds more often than I eat pizza,” Ramiel said, plopping himself down in the chair in between them. “And no amount of makeup can make you look pretty when you looked like Rudolf the Reindeer.”
“Thanks,” Gabriel rolled his eyes. “I’ll be fine, really.”
“Can you stop moving? For the Love of God,” the
makeup artist blurted out, clearly annoyed.
“That’s why we do it,” Jinn replied, sharp as a whip. “Although we should cooperate, we need to be on stage in an hour.”
When they were finally though makeup and wardrobe, Gabriel sweating right through his shirt and glad it was black, they headed over to sound to get their mics hooked up. This venue offered the headpiece mics, which made Ramiel pose for a few photos with a goofy grin.
“I feel like a backstreet boy,” he replied, and Jinn shrugged.
“We could be the backstreet boys tonight. Do you guys know their songs?”
“Because I want it that way!” Ramiel burst out hopping up and down, and causing the other two to smirk. Gabriel reached up to cough into his elbow, a hacking cough that took him a minute to get his breath back. Jinn glanced at him in concern.
“Gabriel…?”
“I’m fine, all right!” he snapped. “What’s a guy got to do to get some water over here?”
“All right,” Jinn rolled his eyes, and left him alone for a few minutes, letting the sound guy hook up his microphone. But right before they were cued, he pulled them both back. “Um, we don’t pray anymore?”
“Sorry, forgot. Busy being a backstreet boy,” Ramiel said, and Jinn shook his head.
“We never forget to pray. Bow your heads before I knock it off your shoulders.” The boys were growing a larger ego every night, but he prided himself in keeping them grounded. “Dear God, thank you for our success so far in spreading your message, and reminding us why we are doing this, every step of the way. Thank you for guiding us, for bringing our music in tune, and for letting it be well received by the people. Thank you for tonight’s booking. And Dear God, I pray for Gabriel’s health, that he may be well, and safe tonight, and that you let your music pour through him as easy as ever. Amen.”
“Amen,” the other two echoed.
“War in Heaven, you’re up!” called a stage hand, and they headed over, walking through their curtain, and taking their places in the darkness while the intro played.
The way the crowd screamed, they knew it was going to be a good night. And when Jinn launched into his first drum solo, they practically stormed the stage. Ramiel slid onto his knees, hands dancing across the strings like he was born to do it, and the crowd exploded, girls screaming their names, and boys chanting along with the music. There was a whole mix of people in the audience, their music and stage show meant for all ages, and even moms and grandmas had their hands raised for the attention of the boys.
Their final song before intermission was their title song, War in Heaven and Jinn knew it would let them go out with a bang. They were overwhelmed before the lyrics even started.
Gabriel had a death grip on his microphone, waiting his cue. This song had a 24 note hold at the end, and he was taking deep breaths, expanding his lungs in preparation.
“The Lord’s kingdom, held up high, perfection everywhere, was once disrupted by, the angel we’ve been made aware,” he started, grinning at a girl in the front row. The lyrics flowed out of him until the solo, and he took the deepest breath he could, and belted out the note.
That’ when the spots began to form in front of his eyes, and he felt his lung power rapidly failing. He tried to hold it as long as he could, but he only got 8 beats in before his throat dried out. He coughed, hoping it was just once and he could pick it up. But it happened again, and again, and he doubled over, hacking and trying not to vomit. His coughs racked the arena, and the spots in front of his eyes spun. He reached out for support but found none. And then his world went to blackness.
* * * *
Isda rushed home, turning on her TV without even taking off her shoes. That exam had taken longer than she expected, and they had started late as well, annoying her to no end. She had rushed through it in a way that almost guaranteed mistakes, her heart pounding as she kept looking at the clock. The walk home seemed to take forever, and now, the TV was showing just static. Fantastic she thought, getting up to hit it. As if anything else could go wrong tonight.
It took a few tries of smacking the TV and unplugging and replugging it before she got it to work. Only then did she realize that she was so caught up in turning it on that she forgot to check the channel.
She grabbed her guidebook, practically ripping it apart until she came to the proper page.
War in Heaven Concert: Live at the Staples Center. Channel 22.
“Right,” she pushed the button on the remote, and when it didn’t work, she flipped to 22 manually. But on 22 was a sitcom, not the concert.
Confused, she rechecked the guide book, but 22 was right.
She began to flip through the channels manually. She almost didn’t stop on the news, but something caught her eye, the scrolling text on the bottom on the screen as the newscaster spoke. She recognized the Staples Centre in the background.
“And in Entertainment news, War in Heaven singer Gabriel St. Clair was rushed to hospital today after collapsing on stage at the Staples Center. Gabriel was brought out on stretcher with oxygen just before intermission. We will update you on the situation as information becomes available.”
“Oh my God,” Isda brought her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide in shock. Gone was the calm resolve that normally inhabited her. “Oh my God. God please help him.”
Chapter Four
Isda felt like she lived in the hospital by the end of the month. It was just one thing after another with Gabriel, and every time something happened, she was sure she would die from fear. When he was admitted, it was 4 days before they could even consider doing any testing. He could barely breathe and he had a fever through the roof. And so she sat beside him, for four days, holding his hand and listening to the hiss of the oxygen machine as it breathed precious air into his lungs.
At any given moment, one of the boys was on the other side of the bed, encouraging him to get better and helping her pray. She felt like she prayed more in those four days than in her entire life, for his recovery, for answers, for peace. There was a chapel down the hall that she spent hours on her knees at, until they were scuffed and raw and she felt like a nun from the days gone by.
Isda had never really faced anything bad in her life. Her family was close, alive and well, and the worst thing to hit her was being told she could only sing occasionally in the band. But now, the reality of losing her husband, the only man she had ever loved, scared her so badly that she couldn’t think straight. She didn’t eat, didn’t drink, barely slept. Had it not been for Jinn’s brotherly strength at her side, she might have needed hospitalization herself.
On the fifth day, when his levels had finally risen high enough to do some testing, they began to really investigate.
At first, no one would tell her what they would looking for. It was one test after another, a chest x-ray, breathing tests, and then a CT scan. Since he was an inpatient with no sign of leaving within the next few days, they waited on the results. But finally, the young doctor that had been seeing them, who was probably in his thirties but looked no older than them, came in, a bunch of test results in his hand.
“Hey guys,” he said, sitting down on one of the chairs. “How are you feeling, Gabriel?”
Gabriel nodded, sitting up. Isda did have to admit, he looked better than the past few days.
Jinn was down stairs getting coffee, and she clenched her husband’s hand, turning to the doctor.
“Do you have the results?”
“I do,” he said, crossing his legs and opening the chart. “Gabriel, is it ok if I tell you them while your wife is in the room?”
“Yes,” it was one of the first words he had spoken that day, but already it sounded stronger than the day before. Isda gave him an encouraging smile and squeezed his hand.
“So is it just pneumonia then?” Isda asked, hopefully. She had a feeling no one was telling her anything because of her age. Twice, they had asked her to leave the room so they could speak to Gabriel privately, and she was wondering whethe
r they were trying to force a drug habit out of him, along with a teenage marriage.
“Um…When we listened to your lungs, Gabriel, they sounded crackly. Like Velcro strips, and crackling can lead to pneumonia. But the chest x-ray was inconclusive and that’s why we did the CT scan.”
“And?” Isda prompted, trying to remind the doctor that she was there. He sighed, flipping through the paperwork.
“Normally, we would do a lung biopsy to be sure, but your case presents so clinically, I don’t think I need to, especially on someone who uses their lungs as your profession. I’m pretty sure this is idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, in the earlier stages. What you had is a cold that was made so bad by this condition, you landed here.’
Both of them stared at him blankly.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that your lung tissue is scarred. The scar tissue causes inflammation in the lungs, and the damage causes your lungs to stiffen. Your vocal captivity and training have assisted you greatly so far, in being able to breathe well. I doubt that you would have gotten this far without it.”
“What?” They were both outraged, and Gabriel coughed at the effort to be in such shock. “How?”
“Given your history, Gabriel, and your youth, it’s safe to say your condition is idiopathic, meaning it has no known cause. It just…happens to some people.”
“So what do we do?” Isda asked. “He’s a singer, he’s in the middle of a tour. What’s going to happen?”
“You’re in the very early stages. A cough, some shortness of breath is all that you notice. Eventually, it’ll get worse, and worse.”
“Worse?” Isda paled. “How bad?”
The doctor held up his hands.
“This was a death sentence once, but not anymore. Today, it can be mild, and may never progress past this. We have a lot of treatments available, and you have years left before you start to see any serious signs, Gabriel. There are lots of management programs available, and as I said, it may never progress. With steroids and proper therapy, it won’t affect you too much.”
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