Plush (14 page)

The kids sit at the table. I sit down.

“No plate for me?” Jack menaces.

Carter looks even angrier but is, as always, attempting to be the calm center in the storm that is being with me. Marrying me meant he married Jack. The sun is streaming through the windows. Perfect oak trees drop leaves outside.

“Sorry, Jack, I thought your golden rule of rock-n-roll was nothing before noon. I had no idea you would be awake this early, or I would have made you some pancakes too.” Carter’s voice sounds calm. The kids are scarfing down their food, unaware of the fog of fucked-up-us that has entered the room. It blankets everything: complications, love, teeth tearing us away from our truths. Desire is a noose. Ownership breaks us from what we could be. You’re trying to control other people because you can’t control yourself.

Jack storms out. I’m about to chase him, but Cody runs and clings to my leg: “Mama, Mama, Let’s dance. Dance with me, Mama!” Carter starts to sing a wild kid song. I sway Cody side to side, his feet standing on my feet, his hands in mine.

33

We’re backstage. Things are not the same. Jack has disappeared even more into himself. In the studio, there was the slow down of drugs. Today, the dam broke. Life in smoke.

Donnie is telling some stripper jokes about our good ol’ days: “remember, Hayley, when La Egg ran his car into the swimming pool after you fucked his wife?! Haha-haha!” Yes, indeed. Diego is rubbing my feet. Annie is in the lap of our hottest roadie named Chuck Insanity. We are hanging out, drinking Dom, but Jack is twitchy-eyed and keeps looking around.

I put my hand on Jack’s: “Jack… What’s wrong? You wanna go sunset disappear somewhere with me?”

And just like that, he waves at somebody else, gets up, and goes up the stairs with a guy in a knit skullcap pulled over his eyes. I don’t know who he is; I can’t see his face or anything. He’s all in black and shrouded in mystery, like how’d you imagine death in the cape with that tall, silver, not axe but that blade thingy. Yeah, how’d you imagine him to be if he was in modern times and dealing. Ugh. Mystery boy passes a plastic baggie of white powder to Jack. All I can see is that this man is lanky and wears a one-eyed, skull, chunky, silver ring and has skin paler than Jack’s. Fuck these ghost-sucker, demon-fucker, groupie vampires, death squads. These greedy bastards keep feeding Jack’s disease!

Upstairs they go, upstairs into a world not their own. They’re marionettes fed by the depravity that exists in all of us, and when allowed to do anything, well, you can destroy everything. Wars. It’s so easy to understand why man would kill man, would kill themselves. All you have to do is not listen to that little light inside telling you, “No.” Shut it off. Drugged up on drugs or power, all of our desires tornado. Desire – it’s killing Jack. And Jack’s sadness is eating me. I’m watching the other half of what I am fall so far down.

Hello? Hello?
Jack, where are you in that rabbit hole? I want to throw you a rope and white gloves. Our memories fall through. Blackness is eating you. The darkness, I know it hurts. Jack, come back to the light.

I feel in my gut that everything is wrong and everything is broken. I want to go up to stop him, but I don’t. I’m afraid. I’m afraid of his rage. I’m afraid to get in his way. Mousey me. I go quiet. And I drink a few more drinks.

They are laughing around me, this world.

It’s laughing at me.

The wolves howl.

I don’t know how to fix you.

34

A couple hours of chitchatting partying interviews pass.
Blah, Blah, Blah
. Jack is still gone, upstairs. We have a long haul night and have to head to the next city. None of us are allowed to sleep. I’m not in my body. I’m not really paying attention. I feel a squeezing in my heart.

I let Diego answer the Spin magazine reporter. When he speaks, the answers come out much more innocent and sweet than when Jack and I electrify our angst and aggression and passion into them. There is no bite with Diego. I have no bite right now. I still feel the sadness of Jack in his lost boy. Teeth scrape my heart.

That’s it; it’s been too long. I’m going to go bring him coffee. We need to leave. I go get some coffees and walk up the tall, crooked, labyrinthine stairs. Nowhere is everywhere. Diego helps me carry them up. He’s always helping. Donnie is filming us on top of the stairs. Why? I don’t fucking know.

I knock on Jack’s dressing room door, wood against knuckles. His coffee swishes and burns my right hand. The star on the door is
peeling off its gold, like a memory of what a star once was is all that it is
.

I knock harder. No one answers. I hand Diego the other coffees. He drops them – brown, milky liquid spreads everywhere. I push open the door:

Jack is sleeping. Beautiful prophet hair is all tangled in itself. He’s so still, he doesn’t even breathe. I go to his side.

Wait. What the fuck?

There’s A FUCKING SYRINGE IN HIS ARM? WHAT THE FUCK?! HE TOLD ME HE’D NEVER SHOOT UP… He’s fucking BLUE, BLUE, BLUE, BLUE.

And that little, one-eyed, skull logo is stamped on a baggy.

I thrust out the syringe and jump on top of him.

“JACK FUCKING JACK, WAKE UP… WAKE UP! PLEASE JUST FUCKING WAKE UP!” My head is to his heart. There’s nothing there. There’s nothing fucking there. What? Everything is gone. What the fuck? There’s nothing; his body is stiff. NO, NO, NO, SOMEOBODY SAVE US. Why can’t I die with him?

My lullaby is dead. JACK FUCKING JACK FUCKING Jack. I kiss his face. Tears and screams rain down. I won’t let him go. I won’t let him go. Someone is pulling me away, and I keep back. I am a wild animal.
I will cling to Jack forever.

they won’t take him away

they won’t fucking take him

they’ll have to bury me with him

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

STOP STOP STOP STOP PLEASE MAKE IT STOP

AHHHHH I’m DYING I’m DYING I’m DYING I’m DYING

I CAN’T BREATHE, I’m kissing Jack’s beautiful blue stiff lips

No no no don’t leave me, don’t leave me in this savage world

Alone, without anyone to translate who I am into my art
,

nobody knows, nobody knows, nobody understands

Scream, grasp, terror, knives, alone
,

everything is dying inside

everything

Ahhhhhh

Blackout

Fade

Disappear
.

35

Spin into the clouds.

Spin away.

Hayley. Hayley is not Hayley without Jack.

Jack. Jack. Come back.

I can’t do this world alone.

It doesn’t make any sense anymore.

I don’t sleep; I don’t eat.

I can’t be.

Jack, come back and rescue me.

Jack, Jack, JACK.

I can’t even speak.

You died, and I am just a mouse now. So small. So small.

Dead.

I sometimes wonder if I can get any sadder than this or

if I’ve cried all my tears out.

I’m busy inside trying to fill all of the spaces where you used to be, but I can’t.

Everywhere is empty.

I’m a ship with five million holes,

five million holes of Jack.

There is no use in swimming,

because all I am is sinking.

Mousey me.

Disappear
.

I’m a twisted Picasso woman in so much pain that

no one mind can understand

The darkness.

The darkness.

Eating me away.

Black holes, stars, and sadness are eating my body away and away.

They’re ravaging my faith away, away.