Plush (10 page)

up and down

where my life will go

not even Jack the prophet knows

ohhhhh

desire

oh desire

oh my life on fire

slow dance twinkling carousels

cotton candy clouds

love in the time of sadness and war

I don’t care who I am

I don’t care who or what I am

Anymore anymore

Slow slip trip drip moan blonde locks in between my fingers

boys switching sides on me boys kissing boys kissing me

All this beauty is killing me so slow slow

Click sigh a string section is tantalizing me to come to the other side

Close my eyes

Go into the light

Ohhh ohhh

In and out

forever

follow the light

forget your life

forget you were once no one

forget your dads friend touching you in the closet

forget all the torment from the school children

no I don’t care about anything anymore

slow

slow

in out ohhhhhhhhh ohhhhh

cumming

into the light

into the light

I go
…

22

Annie is staring hard. I’ve got sunglasses on. Fuck. I feel sick. She pours me coffee. I smoke a cigarette. I don’t know whose hotel room I’m in, but she throws a paper down. Page Six.

“LOOK AT THIS. Will you look at this… at yourself… Fuck. Jesus. Even Jack’s not this obvious. You HAVEN’T EVEN STARTED TOURING YET!” She is almost spitting. I have never seen her lose her cool, and she looks like she might be about to.

The bold at the top of the page reads: “
Overnight Sensation
–
Hayley’s Wild Night Out
”. Full-on photos show me falling off a stage, kissing the beautiful, blonde boys in the limo, puking out the window, falling into the elevator with their hands on my chest. I don’t like the way the evidence is building up against me. And my life. And my lifestyle.
I’m a twisted Picasso woman, in so much pain that no mind can understand
. I’m on a downward spiral with no lifesaver to find me.

“Did you know we had to have a doctor come to the room this morning to wake you up and make sure you were alive and not choking on your own vomit? FUCK man! What drugs were you on?” I don’t even remember last night. I don’t even remember my last name.

“Where’s Jack? I need Jack. I miss Jack,” I say. She pulls her long hair from her face to make sure I see the clenched jaw and evil mom like stare. “He’s fucking mad and he’s fucking scared. Come on, Hayley. Get your shit together.”

I look further down the page to early this morning’s photos. I see Bo and RoRo with two supermodels in a cab across town. Huh? Did they leave me somewhere? Or leave me dying in their hotel room? What? I feel so fucking cheap.

I don’t like the way the evidence is building up against me.

I’m a twisted Picasso woman in so much pain that no mind can understand.

I’m in so much pain that no mind can understand.

I don’t think I’ve ever made Annie cry. I see her fighting tears back, though none come out. She’s shaking her head. I feel like a royal-trux-super-fuck-up. This is the only woman who ever really loved me for who I am.

“Ok, Annie. I’ll slow down. I promise… Just bring me Jack. I don’t know who I am without him.”

23

On a bus. Me. Boys. No sleep. Equipment. I’ve been wearing the same clothes for a week. Jack and I are leaning against each other, staring out the window at a desolate landscape, an endless desert, red-painted rocks, and a cloudless sky. I wish I could fly. Life is good. Right?

We’re holding hands. An ear-bud in his ear, one in mine. We’re listening to the Swedish brother/sister duo
The Knife
. Digital shivers. We kind of smell. Town after town after. Town after town. Party. Sing. Pack. Bus. Go. It’s strange how this is everything I’ve ever wanted. It’s weird when you get your desires. I mean it’s great, and then it’s also exhausting. And then there’s the radio shows, press interviews, photo ops, free designer clothes, fittings, fan signings, and creepy stalker fans. I don’t know. I shouldn’t be complaining. I love it. But I’d love a break from the insanity.

“You ok, Hayley?” Jack’s head leans against mine.

He’s been around a little more than a lot lately – ever since that crazy, New York City, fashion week debacle – and is keeping an eye on me. Everybody says I look too skinny. Isn’t that how you are supposed to be as a star? Perfect? I’m far from it. And insane? Well, sometimes I for sure got that one down.

I squeeze his hand. So strong. We are the rock to each other’s hot air balloons, the anchors to the speed boats of youth and boredom and sorrow and lust.

“Yes. Just sleepy.” I close my eyes.

It’s the small things like this that make me alright,

that make me almost forgive life.

24
    Dec. 16, 2006

Seattle. Rain. Another sold out show. Things are insane. I’m on stage. Black feathers drape me, smoking and singing, while projectors shoot on a silk screen behind us images of fire, abandoned alleys, flights, galaxies, and the dream of what we should be. High-octane sugar lyrics spill from Jack and me as he sings the final chorus in harmonies into my mic. His powder-blue Fender Mustang wails, cries, elates an homage to Kurt. His leather vest studs dig into my side. This is us every night. Screaming kids. Shiny lights. “FUCK MICK & KEITH!” He shouts and the lights go out.

Back stage is back stage. Party time. DJ’s hit hard beats through subwoofers. Tables of fruit and Jack and rum and coke and little bowls of pink, white, yellow pills, ladies in glitter and lil’ dresses and ridiculous heels, bad boys hanging upside down on velvet couches, streamers in our party hearts.

Jack and I sit down in a royal cushioned seat meant for one, holding hands. Always. Sweat from the show make our eyeliners run. We only really have us. Only
we
know where we’ve been and how it all came about.

Donnie throws a magazine at us: Jack and me on the cover in matching devil twin outfits. We can’t get much bigger than this. But the insanity of everybody wanting things from us only inches us closer, and them farther from us – and farther from the truth of what we are as we are a fantasy, a facade, an anything your teen angst wants us to be.

Jack pops a mega bottle of Dom and pours it straight into my mouth. I gulp it down, some going down the sides of my cheeks, laughing, spinning. Bulbs flashing. Jack whispers in my ear. Our words are always one.

My hand is grabbed by Annie, and I’m thrusted up out of the chair and over to a quiet corner on the other side where a ridiculously hot Steve McQueen look-alike brandishes muscled arms. He has a silver recorder laptop out – Life is littered technology. My brain is melting. – I’m a little drunk as always; his eyes are so bad-boy bad-ass, and I feel so happy like
ohhhh
. This interview will be a lot easier if I get to stare at him. As soon as he stands up to shake my hands, I feel sparks shoot up my arm. He’s like the American ideal of what beauty in a man should be, except I still feel some art beneath the chisel.

“Hayley.” The way he says my name is like sugar melting on butter melting on me. I lay back in the seat and stare seductively at all this glory. I can’t remember what questions he was asking, because I was so high on looking at him, but I remember that I’m laughing and drinking and smoking and Jack is staring at me from across the way. Usually I look back – always checking in on each other – but not today. I’m somewhere else. Heart in the clouds.

I know Jack is hitting it too hard. Us and drugs seem to be taking over too much – and him more than me – but tonight I’m not going to babysit our doomed realities. I’m lost in the dream of this something, shiny and new. And Carter, the hot shot, Seattle Times and sometimes Vanity Fair reporter, mentions something about his books and shows me some of his words; this only makes me crazier, because he understands the world of words that I surrender myself too. For his blonde hair and blue eyes, he surely has a dark side for all of this obsession with serial killers, death, and suicide.

Sparks upon sparks. Questions. Childhood death sentences. Jack and my heroic escape from McShitville. No, we haven’t talked to our parents since we left. I’m giving myself and the mystery all away, saying things I’d never usually say. I just want him to stay. I try to make this interview last forever, finding excuses to keep chatting about this or that. The backstage greenroom party-people are leaving; the numbers in the room are dwindling. The sun is probably coming out.

I don’t need to leave yet – we have a few days off – and I don’t need to get on the tour bus, but Jack is now standing beside me pulling me to go. I don’t want to go, but there is no other reason to stay here that would make sense to him. One never says no to Jack. He’s all puppy dog eyes and pleading grins: “Hayley, come on. I got a present for you back in our room. Come.” One never says no to Jack. He scoops me up and puts me on his back. Piggy back ride Jack. I shout at Carter as Jack dashes us out the room: “Get my email from Annie!”

I’m laughing; he’s laughing. We’re swimming, naked and high, in the pool. 4:30 A.M. is the best time to have the world to yourself. The water is cool. My brain fast. The rose barrette Jack just gave me is still in my hair. Mascara is everywhere. I see in the inside on the other side of the glass a hooded guy in a black trench coat watching us… “Who’s that?” I point and Jack laughs… “Be right back.”

The two disappear. I’m left floating alone, staring at the Egyptian etchings in the ceiling: Pharos with hooked golden staff’s and tall eyed pyramids and lanky black cats. I think of the reporter. His muscles. What would have happened if Jack hadn’t taken me away… again. I do a tired dance. Languid. Butterfly wings in the water. The liquid world. Melting into myself.

Too much time passes, and I’m bored and want to go back to the room. I put on a white, fluffy, hotel robe and head to the lobby to ask for some sleeping pills, although I don’t think they’ll work. Too weak. Downers are the things I really need. The only thing for me right now is to black out for a couple of days and catch up on dreaming.

In the lobby I notice a man typing on a silver computer. I can’t see him, I just see that his fingers are moving fast. The front desk gives me the pills; I turn around then the typer’s head pops up:

IT’S CARTER!

“Hayley!” he says with so much enthusiasm, I am taken aback. But I know I’ve reeled him in. He gets up and says nothing, and I follow him into the elevator. He presses
15
. We start to go up. We can’t take our eyes off each other: an abyss of want and I’m falling hard inside myself and his eyes.

He pulls the red stop button. The elevator jolts – shakes me into him. His lips come down into mine. We are water with each other. I am swimming with his tongue, oh, and his strong arms pull me in like gravity to the moon. He lifts me up; my legs wrap against his. I’m on the handle bars, and my back is on the elevator wall of mirrors. I’m usually with waify rocker-boys, and he’s a Geronimo. I’m a feather molding myself to his wind. He pulls open my robe and, with one hand, whips off his belt. It flies across the elevator and lands on the fleur-de-lis-printed, blood-red carpet floor. While he sucks on my neck, his pants fall off, and his boxers are gone. Heaven and counting. I feel something open and… He’s so big. Almost too big. I am startled by his size. “You want me to go slow?” he asks. We are still together for a moment again, breathing in each other’s breath. Blue, blue eyes. Warm, wet fires. “Uh, whatever you like,” I reply.