Authors: Karolyn James
“Yeah. When we were
hanging out before all this mess happened with Rick, I was talking with him. He
told me that he was the drummer in his first band. But the lead singer had a
throat problem or something and they asked him to sing and drum. He did, and
they kicked the lead singer out of the band.”
“He’s that good at
singing or that bad at drumming?” Davey asked.
“One way to find out,”
Johnnie said.
He rushed to find his
cell phone. He had to call Peter and arrange for another audition. How embarrassing
it would be to have the opening band save the headliner. Johnnie shook his head
at the thought, refusing to believe that the time for Chasing Cross was
starting to fade.
(2)
Rick opened his crusted
eyes and didn’t bother to look at the clock. Time had no value. Nothing had
value, except the red cup on his nightstand. He blinked a few times and ended
up squinting because it hurt less than opening his eyes completely. Another
wild night and another rough morning. This was the lifestyle he earned and
loved to live. He reached for the red cup. The melted ice added too much water
to the vodka, but it was still a good shot to get the morning going.
Climbing from the bed,
Rick looked around the small bedroom to make sure nobody was in the room with
him. Nobody on the floor. No women in his bed. He left the bedroom and found a
scene of destruction in the small apartment but nobody was there. Although
there was no indication that anyone had been there, he refused to believe for a
second that he had partied all night by himself.
An empty bottle of vodka sat
on the coffee table. The fridge door was wide open, nothing on the shelves
except a half gallon of orange juice used to mix with the vodka, of course. A
pizza box was on the floor and when Rick bent down to open it, a small mouse ran
out of the side and scurried across the floor. Rick groaned. He’d slept in
worse conditions with worse critters infesting the places he and Chasing Cross
used to have to sleep in before they were signed. Before they were rich and
famous.
There were one two slices
of pizza missing. Rick had ordered it for himself and ate a couple slices.
He stood back up and felt
the room start to spin. He put his hands out and found balance. The apartment
smelled of death, sweaty laundry, and moldy food. He had grabbed the third
floor apartment the day he decided to skip the show and quit Chasing Cross. He
came to the apartment building - the most beat up place he could find - and
paid cash for six months plus a security deposit, telling the person in the
office that they’d need every penny of it. Rick then locked himself into a
private hell that came fully furnished with disgusting furniture, a coffee
table, an end table with a lamp that flickered, and a bed. It was the place to
come to die, but Rick didn’t intend on dying. He intended getting on back to
living.
A quick call to Peter and
then his lawyer ended his relationship with Chasing Cross. The guys had called
him a few times since he quit, but he didn’t feel like hearing the sedimentary
bullshit that Johnnie would spill about how important Rick was to the band.
Rick just wanted to drink until he got his fill and then move on to something
else.
To something basic.
Rick wanted to find a
house with a garage so he could start all over again like he had mentioned to
the band, but of course they had taken the idea and turned it into a way to
make money. Everything was about the fans, the shows, the money. Not that Rick
didn’t appreciate every single fan and every single show, just when did it
actually end? Was it so wrong to want to plug in a guitar and sit behind a kit
and just jam out? That’s how they got started, so why not enjoy it again?
Instead, it became a process. Sound checks. Set lists. Meet n’ greets. Posters.
Autographs. Contracts. Sure, at the end of that all came the royalty checks,
but Rick wanted the music, the life, the party, the fun.
But he was alone.
Rick grabbed his cell
phone and saw the texts he had sent out the night before. Almost thirty
messages to people asking them to come over and party it up. Half replied with
a maybe and the other half said no. A few offered Rick kind words and suggested
he take it easy or at least call the guys in Chasing Cross to talk.
What the hell did they
know?
What the hell did anyone
know?
Especially Peter. He was
a short, fat, money grubbing son of a bitch who saw nothing but giant dollar
signs on Chasing Cross. Wasn’t he the guy that tried to convince Johnnie to go
out on his own? Wasn’t he the guy that swept Chris’s secret marriage under the
rug?
Rick’s stomach turned and
he dropped his cell phone, heading for the bathroom. There wasn’t a clear path
to the bathroom and Rick had no energy to run. He hunched over and threw up
right there on the carpet. On a stack of magazines, pizza boxes, and an empty
case of beer. It hurt like hell to throw up nothing but stomach bile and vodka.
It did nothing to help his aching head, and when he stood up, he stumbled back
and fell backwards to the kitchen, reaching for the counter. He missed and
landed on the floor. The entire kitchen began to spin so Rick closed his eyes
to make it stop.
When he opened his eyes
it was four hours later.
It was already four in
the afternoon. Another day completely wasted but it was getting closer to party
time again. Rick appreciated the little nap on the kitchen floor because he was
now sober. He could sneak out and get some booze and food. Rick pulled himself
up and stood with no problem. He licked his lips and tasted something terrible.
He wiped his lip and saw the green ooze on his hand. He looked down at his
shirt and saw drops of it there too. Then it finally hit him... he had thrown
up while passed out. He looked at the floor and saw the small puddle of vomit.
His stomach ached again but there was nothing left the throw up. He touched the
counter and stared at the puddle, letting it really hit him. Tears filled his
eyes as he started to shake his head.
He was becoming that
guy... the burned out rockstar who died alone. The guy who would pass out and
choke on his own vomit. The guy who would end up dead, rotting in an apartment.
Rick hurried from the
kitchen and kicked through the garbage that was now his life, getting to the
bathroom. He leaned over the sink and splashed the coldest water he could on
his face and took deep breaths. Every nerve in his body felt like it was being
pinched. Every muscle shook and ached. The worst was when he stood up and
looked at his dripping face in the mirror. His skin looked pale, even
yellowish. His eyes were big and his eye sockets were embellished by the shock
and the bad nights of sleep. His unkempt face grew in uneven and messy and his
hair was a mess. Rick ran a hand through his hair and just stared at himself.
Was this what he really
wanted?
“No, man, no,” Rick
whispered to himself.
What Rick wanted was to
start it all over again. To jam in a garage and enjoy the feel of music and the
company of a band that had nothing but music flowing through its veins. No more
t-shirts. No more worries of the next album and how to write it. He just wanted
to play damn music.
Rick wiped his face with
one hand and left the bathroom. He picked up his cell phone and found the name
of a friend from California that had put him and the band up a few times.
He dialed and waited.
“Hello?”
“Jackson?”
“Yeah... who is this?”
“It’s... uh... Rick.”
“Rick. Rick who?”
“Chasing Cross, man,”
Rick said.
“Oh. Shit. Rick.”
Rick closed his eyes. He
felt like death again. Was this the reaction he was going to get from everyone?
The second someone heard his name he was suddenly the rock n’ roll bad seed.
The guy who drank too much, partied too hard. The guy who got into an accident
and broke a bone. The guy who quit the band in the middle of a tour.
“I need your help,” Rick
said.
“I saw something about
you online.”
“Can we meet up and
talk?”
“Rick, I can’t give you a
place to stay,” Jackson said. “It doesn’t work like that now. I’m not a kid in
my twenties anymore...”
“But you own your own
real estate company, right?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I need a house, Jackson.
A house with a garage.”
“You give up the rockstar
life for a house...”
Rick looked around the
apartment again. Hell had come. Hell existed. Rick wanted out of the apartment.
That didn’t mean he was leaving hell, it just meant he’d have more space to
navigate around it.
“Just meet me, Jackson,
and I’ll explain,” Rick said. “Okay?”
“We’re meeting as
clients,” Jackson said. “Nothing more, Rick. I run my own business now. I have
a family. If you need help, like serious help, I’m going to direct you to...”
“Just meet me in an
hour,” Rick said.
Jackson gave his address
to Rick and Rick hung up. He considered smashing his cell phone against the
wall just to prove to Jackson that he wasn’t going to take shit from anyone, but
what would it really prove? Jackson wouldn’t know. He wouldn’t see.
Just like the apartment.
It was Rick’s way of
showing defiance to everything Chasing Cross had become and where they were all
going, but it was only Rick who inhaled the rotten smell of the place. It was only
Rick who partied half the night, and it was only Rick who casually looked to
small pile of vomit on the kitchen floor.
I could have choked
,
he
thought to himself.
But he didn’t. Wasn’t
that part of the life? Cheating death? Tempting death? Flirting with death?
That’s what rockstars did. Some fell off the ledge and were gone, left to be
musical heroes and geniuses. Some were brought back from the ledge with some
killer stories to tell and a long life of battling with sobriety.
Rick was somewhere in
between that. He wasn’t exactly sure which path he wanted to take but he knew
one thing... it had been days since he played drums. The apartment was too
small for a drum set; he needed a house. A house with a garage. Then he could
fill one addiction to rid another.
He took a fast shower and
found the cleanest clothes he could find. He dressed and eyed himself in the
mirror. He certainly didn’t look like he was knocking on death’s door, anymore,
but he was still in its neighborhood, cruising the streets, waiting.
Rick drove with
sunglasses on even though the weather was overcast. Any kind of light hurt his
head. More so, he wore them because he didn’t want to look into Jackson’s eyes.
Jackson would read him like a book. The man had always been able to do so. In
fact, it was Jackson who pulled Rick from the ledge a few times in those early
Chasing Cross days and now Jackson had grown up into a successful businessman
and Rick had grown up into a rockstar.
Rick parked at the back
of Jackson’s small office and went through the back door. He didn’t care if he
was allowed to do that or not; he was the client and the guy with millions of
dollars at his disposal.
He caught Jackson, who
stood at a large copier, off guard. When he saw Rick, he jumped.
“Jesus,” Jackson said.
“No. Just me.” Rick
smiled and offered his hand.
“Holy shit, it’s Rick,”
Jackson said.
“In the flesh. Now sell
me a house.”
Jackson wore a black suit
and looked about thirty pounds heavier than the last time Rick saw him years
ago; long before Jackson met a woman, got married, started a business, and had
kids. When Rick first met Jackson, he wore jeans and t-shirts, just like the
band did. His father was rich and had offices all over California. He mostly bought
old, beat up properties in the hopes of someday either flipping them or
knocking them down and selling the land.
Jackson led the way to
his office. A clean office, too big for what it was used for, but it certainly
gave the impression that Jackson was really successful. A large mahogany desk
was where Jackson found comfort, leaning against it, crossing his arms. He
nodded to one of about eight leather chairs in the office, but Rick chose to
stay standing. His head was still pounding and his body felt like death. If he
sat, he’d probably fall asleep.
“Everything with the
band... I don’t know...”
“I already told you,
Rick,” Jackson said, “I’m not interested in any of that. You need a place, I’ll
sell you a place. Tell me what you want.”
“I want something with
stone and a garage.”
“Stone and a garage...
that’s it?”
“I’m easy to please,”
Rick said.
He watched as Jackson
eyed him up and down. The shower did not do much to help Rick out and he knew
he looked like he just crawled out from a pile of garbage.
“Okay,” Jackson said,
“I’m going to assume you have a budget in mind.”
“Jackson, I want a house
with a garage, okay? I’m not here to play games. I called you for a reason.
Just make it simple for me. Push everyone else aside for one day. For me.”
“You want a house in a
day,” Jackson said.
“That’s right. I have
this tiny apartment right now and it doesn’t work for me. I need the space. I
need my drums. I need my music.”
“Not your band?”
“I never had a band,”
Rick said. “I was part of a band, but it was never mine.”
“I’m sure the royalty
checks were yours though.”
“Just like your
commissions here,” Rick said. “But that doesn’t mean you own the properties,
does it?”
Jackson smiled. “You’re
still a son of a bitch, aren’t you?”
“And underneath that suit
you’re still dreaming of becoming a rockstar.”
Jackson let out a classic
Jackson laugh
as they all used to call it. A deep laugh that could shake the strongest
windows and wake the dead. He pushed from the desk and walked around behind it.
The chair protested with a groan as he sat down. In a matter of minutes, he had
a few properties for Rick to look at.
He started to turn the
screen but Rick shook his head; he didn’t want to see the houses on a computer
monitor, he wanted to see them in person.