by eden Hudson
“Standard legal stuff.” Depending on whose definition of “standard” you use. I shrug. “Everybody’s got to do it, they tell me.”
“What was the rush to get Razor Wire Roulette recorded and released?” he asks. “I mean, a month from start to finish is insane for a studio album—especially while you’re breaking in a new drummer.”
This is a common thread for reporters since the wreck, so I have a rehearsed, vague answer that sounds like it means something and doesn’t mention the forces of Hell or me protecting myself from my own songs.
“I was really feeling the muse right after the wreck,” I say. “I couldn’t stop writing songs and I felt like we needed to get something out since we pulled Bullet Proof back, so we got in the studio and just cranked it out. And the number of takes was pretty minimal—solar eclipse minimal—because Bro just kind of fit with our sound. And anyway, people are really responding to the rougher feel.”
“Will Bullet Proof ever be released to the general public?”
“No.”
“But based on the number of illegal copies floating around and the talking-up the underground critics gave it—I mean, to hear some of them talk, Bullet Proof is the album that you’re never going to top—there must be something really insane on it to keep the label from refinishing it and putting it out there. Especially after the dive V&R stock took last year when their CMO went to trial. You’d think they’d be doing everything they could to recoup losses.”
The hair on the back of my neck stands up and my stomach tries to kick up that slice of pizza I had for lunch.
“I can’t say for sure what their investment strategy or whatever is,” I say. But I do know it’s going to have fuck-all to do with any of the tracks on Bullet Proof or I’m legally allowed to sue their dicks off. Thank God for lawyers who work fast and deadly. “Do you have any questions for me, Branton, or would you rather talk to an exec? Because Jenny can probably get somebody down here.”
Branton gives me a smile and switches tactics. “Some people are saying that you’re stealing old emocore tropes for the new album.”
“Some people are jealous liars who think that if a judge orders them to give my shit back, the easiest way to attack me is by lying about music they haven’t even heard,” I say.
“Yeah, I heard that Philly was holding your famous tattooed acoustic guitar hostage,” Branton says, shaking his head as if he thinks that’s a jerk thing to do and he’s on my side. “So you’re saying he has no idea what’s on the new album?”
“How could he?” I don’t even know what’s going to make the cut yet. We have more than sixty new songs to wade through with more coming every day. Then I notice Jenny giving me the sign to direct the interview away from the unfinished stuff. “Shouldn’t we be talking about Razor Wire Roulette, anyway?”
“Excited about the tour?” he asks.
“We’re always excited to cross the pond,” I recite, even though Branton’s not listening to me. He’s digging in his messenger bag for something. “The Scottish fans are my favorite—the energy on some of those crowds is insane. But you got to love the Londoners, too. It’s always a party over there.”
Branton finds what he’s looking for—a piece of photo paper he’s not letting me see yet—and looks back up at me.
“You were arrested last night for jumping from the walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge to the roadway,” he says. “Based on the lyrics to ‘Day Break Worse,’ chances are that people’re going to say that was an attempt at suicide.”
Then he waits, staring at me. In my first solo interviews, awkward silences like this used to throw me. I would talk until I said something stupid or gave something away. I’ve grown up a lot since then, thanks mostly to Jenny and fines from the label. Now I just stare back.
After a while, Branton prompts, “It might be a good idea to get the truth out there before the speculation gets too crazy. I mean, if ‘Finally I find my peace at the bottom of the East’ isn’t actually what you were doing.”
I tilt my head back and look down my nose at Branton.
“Did you know that ‘Day Break Worse’ is about the sun coming up?” I say. “Everyone assumed it was about suicide-by-river because I had just moved to Brooklyn. Not that I don’t get why you’d want to kill yourself in this city sometimes.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jenny touching her watch. This interview must almost be over. Branton either sees her or has some way of knowing because he picks then to spring the picture on me.
“Was your trouble last night related to this screaming match you had later at the police station?”
I take the picture from Branton. It’s a shot of Danny and me. Had to have been taken by that guy with the telephoto lens. From the looks on our faces, “screaming match” is putting it mildly. How did I get that close and not see the scrape on Danny’s cheek?
But the guy took this picture just as Tiffani stepped in between us and that’s what saves me. The image of her true age is floating like a ghost just above and a little bit to the right of her body. As usual, it’s a shock to see how gracefully she would have matured if she hadn’t become a vampire.
“Who is this?” I ask, tapping the smoky image. “The old woman. I feel as if I’ve seen her before.”
“Just a messed up exposure,” Branton says. “I’m more interested in who that man is.”
“She looks like a ghost.” I’m not as good of an actress as Tiffani, but I’m all right. I let recognition dawn on my face. For once I can put the shake in my hands to good use. I reach up to touch my lips. “Oh, dear God. Grandma Bess?”
Branton looks at the photo, then back at me. He’s thrown, but he’s not giving up yet.
“So, who is this guy that your bodyguard had to intercede and your grandmother needed to keep watch over you while—”
Nice try, Branton.
“You’re right,” I say. “She’s watching over me.” I stand up and look all around me. “Grandma Bess? Thank you, Grandma Bess. I love you. Thank you for being my guardian angel, Grandma Bess.”
Branton starts to say something else, but Jenny cuts him off.
“Thank you very much for making time for us today,” she tells him. “Okay, Shan, we really need to get going.”
As she hustles me down the row toward the stairs, I tip my head back and yell at the rafters, “Grandma Bess? If you can hear me, let me feel a cold spot. Move one of the seats.”
“That’s probably enough, don’t you think?” Jenny whispers in my ear.
“You’re the publicist, you tell me.”
Crazy rocker chick Shannon Colter haunted by the ghost of her dead grandmother. It’s tamer than some of the National Enquirer stuff I’ve seen about me. I like that magazine. It makes me look totally sane.
Danny
During the morning session, the auditorium is only about half full, but when Noah, Clare, and I come back from dinner for the afternoon session, the place is packed. We have to go up to the balcony just to find seats. Looks like everybody turned out to hear Ravi Zacharias speak.
“I knew we should’ve just grabbed something quick from that cart,” Clare says.
“Hot dogs are not food,” Noah says. “I’m not even convinced that they’re trash.”
The lights turn on up on the stage and the doctor of theology who spoke yesterday comes out to introduce Zacharias.
Clare and Noah are still grumbling at each other about what constitutes real food.
“Guys, shut up,” I say. And I’m not the only one. The whole auditorium is quieting down.
If the world of apologetics has a star, it’s Ravi Zacharias. His book A Shattered Visage: The Real Face of Atheism inspired me to change my major to emphasize apologetics. I’ve got tapes of most of his lectures. I can’t count how many papers I’ve written on his life and work. Zacharias’s commitment to speak at the conference was how Clare and Noah sold me on this trip out of state five weeks before our final theses are due.
; If someone had asked me two days ago what the highlight of my week was going to be, I would’ve told them this lecture.
But at some point while I’m sitting there, trying to listen to arguably the most influential Christian apologist of our time, my mind wanders back to those concert tickets.
The last time I saw Shannon play live, we were seventeen. It was the Lost Derringers’ last home show—at KillPop down in Columbia—the night before they left to tour and promote their first indie album, My Lucky Bullet. The Derringers had been making a lot of buzz on the college music scene and KillPop was jammed full of Mizzou students. And somewhere jammed in with all of the students, Shannon had told me on the drive down, would be a couple of guys from a major label.
I remember thinking when the band first came out on stage that Shannon looked terrified. She had played a few hundred live gigs, but this time she looked like she was about to throw up. I don’t think she took a breath before she hit that first chord. Her pick snapped off of the strings, out of her fingers, and flew into the crowd.
For a second, I couldn’t breathe. My face got hot and red, embarrassed for her. Then someone in the front was trying to hand the pick back up and I saw Shannon turn on like a light.
“That one’s yours, honey,” she said, digging another one out of her pocket. She held the new pick up and yelled, “Free drinks to the next person who catches one,” then tore it across the strings. KillPop went crazy for her.
From that second to the end of the show, every note Shannon hit was explosive, full of power. The rest of the band fed on it. I remember feeling like I was in a whole other plane of existence, where just the music and the moment mattered. It was like when you’re worshipping and the words you’re singing suddenly become something else—not just a song, but a prayer, your prayer, and you mean it with all your soul. Dancing and singing along and watching Shannon that night…it felt like nothing would ever be as real as that again.
Applause snaps me back to the present. The lecture’s over. I missed the whole thing.
“Didn’t take many notes,” Clare says to me.
I jam my notebook down into my backpack. I can’t believe I just daydreamed away the whole reason I came out here.
Clare digs his elbow into my side. “What’s the deal? I thought Ravi was your rock star.”
Noah’s just giving me that stare again and I know that even though he had no idea who Shannon was before last night, he’s already figured out that my rock star is always going to be her.
Shannon
“A little closer,” Corey directs us. He’s waving one hand at me and Bro and holding a disposable camera, trying to take a picture for the teenage girl who won some contest or other to meet us before the show. “Little closer. Almost—” Bro and I haven’t moved. Corey points a finger at us, keeping up his public face, but warning us silently of all the gruesome ways he’ll murder us if we don’t move our asses.
Bro takes half a step and I put my arm around him and pull him closer to me and the girl. On the girl’s other side, Anna and Terrie lean in closer, too. The Lost Derringers—one big, happy family.
“Don’t be a stranger, Bro,” I say, smiling a big, fake smile.
“Don’t worry, Shan,” Bro says, smiling just as big and fake. “I’m not the strange one.”
“Perfect,” Corey yells and snaps some pictures.
“Can I have one with just me and you?” the girl asks. “Please?”
She’s probably fifteen or sixteen, but the big brown eyes and hollows in her face make her look skeletal. Looking at her makes me wish I could force her to eat everything on the food services table. But if I offered, she’d probably just say no thanks, she already ate.
The shaking in my hands gets worse, but I smile even wider.
“Sure,” I say, wiping my palm on my skirt. “Corey, wind that camera. Me and—”
“Eve.”
“Me and Eve need another couple pictures!”
I put my arms around Eve’s bony shoulders like we’re best friends. Corey snaps a picture. I lean my head against hers. We wait for the camera’s flash to power up again. God, she feels so fragile. I was never that tiny, was I?
“It’s going to be okay,” Eve says in a low voice.
I turn to look at her.
“I know you’re scared, Shannon.” Eve says my name as if she’s afraid I’ll be mad at her for not calling me Miss Colter or something, but she doesn’t look away from the camera. “I don’t blame you. But he won’t let you die before you fulfill your purpose in life.”
“Shan, look at the camera,” Corey says.
“What are you talking about?” I ask the girl.
“I don’t mean to get you all nervous before a show, I just wanted to let you know that no one goes before their time,” Eve says.
“Shan,” Corey barks at me. I look at the camera, but I’m seeing my sister’s bloodless, wet fingers wrapped around that clump of black feathers. I don’t know what kind of look I dredge up, but it must be pretty bad because Corey sighs and says, “We’d better do another one.”
“He who?” I ask.
“All right, girls, look over here,” Corey says.
“You know,” Eve tells me.
“No, say it.” I step away from her. “Say his name. Say what he is.”
Eve looks like she’s about to burst into tears.
“And what about Charlotte?” My voice is getting louder and out of the corner of my eye, I see Corey let the camera down from his face. “Nobody goes before their time? That’s some bullshit if I ever heard it. She was only eighteen, Eve. Nobody should die that young.”
Corey runs up to me. “Shannon—”
“No, Corey, we’re done here,” I say. “I told you I didn’t want any more pretend psychic wannabes bothering me before the show—”
“I just wanted you to know it’s going to be okay,” Eve says.
“Go!” I almost choke when I realize I’m crying. “Get her out of here.”
Corey says something to Eve and starts leading her away.
“I know what it’s like,” Eve yells over her shoulder. “It’s okay to be mad.”
The press in the room—two reporters and a photographer—go shark-frenzy over this disaster. Jenny’s trying to do cleanup. Bro, Anna, and Terrie just shake their heads like I’m the biggest jerk in the world. I probably am, flipping out and screaming at a teenager. What the hell is wrong with me?
When Corey gets back, he grabs my arm and drags me into a corner to Time Out.
“What the fuck was that about?” he snaps. “Screaming at a fucking cancer kid like—”
“I thought she won some kind of contest!”
“Damn it, Shan, don’t you ever fucking listen to me? She was a Make a Wish fucking wish-granted thing.”
My stomach drops out and my brain feels like it’s full of cold water.
I know what it’s like, she said. It’s okay to be mad.
“I never heard you say she was dying of cancer!”
Corey’s eyes go wide and crazy. “Lower your fucking voice right now. As if Jenny doesn’t have enough work to do every single day trying to cover up your shit. You know, it’s not just you who gets reamed when you screw up. It’s me, Jenny, your band mates, the label—”
“Fucking fire me, then.” My voice hasn’t lowered at all. I’m practically screaming.
Corey’s lips twist together as if he’s the only one who feels the helpless rage. They can’t fire me. I’m the cash cow that makes the Lost Derringers—I always have been—and they won’t get rid of me. There’s nothing I can do to get out. I’m trapped. I can’t breathe.
Oh, God, not a panic attack. Not now.
I squeeze my eyes closed, try to shut everyone out, but I can hear them.
“Shan?”
“Bitch.”
“Prima donna.”
“Shan?”
My heart clenches until my chest aches. I’m going to die. I grab my chest, willing my heart t
o beat again.
“Fucking drama queen.”
“Shannon!”
“Here.” It’s Tiffani. A pill bottle rattles and she shoves two pills into my mouth. “Shannon, it’s me. You need to swallow that.”
Tiff waits until I force them down and open my eyes. When Corey takes a step toward me, she stops him.
“Get lost,” she says. “Everyone.”
Everyone but Corey listens.
“She’s got to go on in twenty-four minutes,” he says.
“She will.” When Corey doesn’t move, Tiffani shoves him toward the door. “Just give her a damn minute. She can’t breathe with you crowding her.”
The door slams behind him. I slide down the wall and pull my knees up so I can lean my face on them.
“I’m trapped,” I say, but the pills must be working. No deadly panic. Just a cold certainty that I will never, ever get out.
Tiffani sits beside me and runs her fingers through my hair.
“It’s my fault,” I say.
Growing up, I hated those piss and moan loser rock stars who self-destructed as if they had any right. They got everything they ever dreamed of and then they put a gun to their head, overdosed, jumped off the boat in the night. Now I envy them. Piss and moan loser Shannon Colter—too much of a pussy to end it all. Someone should write that article.
Danny
Clare tugs at his ripped t-shirt again.
“This is ridiculous,” he says. “I can’t believe we couldn’t go back to the hotel for five seconds so I could—”
“There wasn’t time,” Noah says. He’s mad because we had to park the car eight blocks away in a garage that’s still charging us fifteen bucks an hour. “It’s not like you’re on a date.”
“Yeah, well, I’m still meeting Shannon Colter, okay? So, forgive me for wanting to look halfway clean.” Then Clare looks over his shoulder at me. “Not like I’m trying to ask her out or anything. I just want to look presentable. Like I didn’t just get kicked around by a demon.”
“You’re the one who wanted to go hunting before the show,” Noah says. He nods at another group of people in grungy clothes. “Besides, we blend right in.”