Plush (18 page)

Butch takes a sip of the water bottle that Annie handed him. He checks out her ass for a second. All men are misogynists at heart.

“How did you replace your brother on guitar?” Butch.

Ugh. I hate this reporter so much right now. I mean, of course I’m fucking scared as hell that I’m all alone in this world without my brother’s art to complete mine. I made a fucking real honest album, and it’s slower than our other stuff, and maybe they will tear me apart. I look up at a security monitor behind his head. A limo is pulling up. Time to roll. I grab my purse.

“Look, no one could ever replace Jack. EVER!” I have all my shit together: big sunglasses on.

“I can’t wait to hear it.” He shakes my hand. “Off the record, I’m a huge fan.” You don’t look it, you bearded fuck.

“Don’t be afraid to go on the record with that.” Me.

“Good point. I hope it all goes how you dream it, Hayley.”

I walk out the door and Annie is behind whispering with Butch. Carter is playing soccer with the twins. Some weird fate twisted this love into my reality. The day is warm. So nice, an imperfect me in a perfect day. Annie has her hand around Butch. Boy does that lady like to fuck. Well I appreciate it – fuck your way to the top for us.

Carter: “What are we gonna do kids when mommy gets too famous to talk to us.” Cody spanks me hard, then Benjy whacks my leg.
Woof! HOWL!
“Carter call off your attack dogs…” I get on all fours and start barking with the boys, rolling around. With grass in my back and warmth in my heart, the limo horn honks. The Guatemalan, grandiose-voiced, grass-stained, apron’d nanny, Mrs. R., wrangles the kids with her fat, beautiful, caramel-colored, grandmotherly arms.

“Don’t let them tackle you too hard,” I tell her and she laughs. I give her a bear hug, melting into her warmth. Finally another adult as short as me in my life. I can’t thank her enough for her stepping in for me. In order to be a good mom, I have to be happy and free, and leaving right now, it’s harder than it should be. I’m sad. She’s got a Padres baseball cap on sideways and my new pink and silver walking kicks.

“Are you wearing my new shoes, girl?”

She smiles and nods her hat: “Thanks, Mrs. Hayley!”

“Anytime.” Me.

I hug Carter. I don’t want to let go. His arms are so comforting. So strong.

“I need Jack on that stage. I’m so afraid. I wish you could come.” He kisses my forehead. Tenderness. “You know Lila has a play this weekend, or I’d be there in a heartbeat…” I wish I was half as good as him. He’s so fucking pure. “Austin is your home base – where you always start your shows. They love you there… Remember -- I’ll meet you in Miami.”

Ok. I can do this. I hug the kids and get into the limo.

Leaving the ranch.

I feel like I’m leaving the last part of whatever security I have far, far behind.

44

Plane on. Plane off. Limo up to the hotel. Shower. Limo to the show. We pass the golden dome; these are the streets where I got my first break. Texas.

We pull up to the show; I always love to see the marquee – “Plush –
Album Release Party”
– and all those amazing, screaming kids in way too much eyeliner and cut shirts. Jack’s face is on their clothes everywhere. Oh fuck, Jack. The line’s down the block. Sold out. People are howling. I love rock-n-roll.

Dressing room. Fuck. It’s weird not to share my dressing room with Jack, to not have him make me laugh over the nervous pain of turning from a mouse to the dream-wild-woman on stage. Fucking Xanax. I pop two and drink down some Jack in honor of Jack from his personal flask. It’s something of his I keep on me. The big boo-bed Aussie, black haired, leopard-wearing, 1986-sunset-strip-loving stylist, Casey, teases my hair really fucking big. I eat M&M’s, then add more eyeliner. Always more eyeliner. Casey leaves.

“Hayley, this is Dr. Ortiz.” Annie says.

I stick out my tongue. He looks at my throat – so many screams and cries and songs and pain and love all inside this crazy throat and mouth. The places it has been and shouldn’t have been…

Dr.: “It’s highly inflamed. If I were you I’d quit smoking…” He’s staring at my lit fag in the tray next to my Jack flask of Jack – don’t fucking judge me. “…and moderate the drinking.”

Annie: “Just give her the shot, Doc.”

Fucking cortisone – numbing spray. Tubes go down my nose and my vocal chords show up on his iPad screen: red, disgusting, and flapping like a rotting pussy. I can’t see myself in the mirror. I’m a fucking ghost, a glazed-eyed ghost. As the doctor inserts the syringe I flash back to Jack and grab Annie’s boney hand.
Don’t think of Jack. Not like that
.

45

Stage. Lights. Screams. Everybody’s screaming. Donnie’s hitting it extra hard. I’m hard; I’m a fucking star, invisible to the demons that await behind the curtain. In my lace and leather glitter cat-suit, I own the world.

Enzo plays Jack’s riffs but with more pedals and more electronics.
Bzzz ka-pow, ka-ching!
He’s a lizard lanky alien god in black and more eyeliner than Jack would ever wear. His metallic nails are a gender-bending confusion, strong and sensitive and fucking dark. He jumps hard. He is sex divine. He is exactly Jack’s height.

It’s an hour in and we go into our first hit: “The Look.” The fans are going really fucking crazy, some kids in full on
Plush
animal suits. There are so many
R.I.P. Jack
posters. And everybody’s singing along.

I belt into the chorus and Enzo jumps in, singing into my mic with me like the way Jack once did. Electricity shoots all through my body: the magnetic weight of him singing, standing, playing next to me. My heart is exploding. Even my soul is wet. He looks so deep into my eyes, I think I might die from the speed he induces in me. Oh, the tension is killing me. If I could, I’d rip his clothes off right here and set my body free from all this longing.

The chorus ends, and he just goes back to his part of the stage and fixes his pedals like nothing happened, like he didn’t notice a fucking thing. I sing back into the eyes of the people in the front who are pushing closer and closer, and there’s one fan in a trench coat and tie that is losing his mind and shaking and crying. His sign says,
“I <3 Hayley”
in blood red lipstick. It’s kind of freaking me the fuck out.

For the final refrain, I hold the mic to the audience, and they all sing it. I feel so fucking free, like I’m flying, like I can make it…

I’m in the moment-

– until the creepy, trench coat guy starts stroking the bare skin on my leg like it’s a holy grail. I try to kick it off. Where the fuck is Security? I take a few steps back, almost twisting and falling in my six-inch heels. I never asked to be born an almost midget, and yes, I do have a fucking complex about it.

The lights dim. My heart sinks. Here we go.

I take a swig from my Jack flask and step into the spotlight.

“Austin, I fucking love you! It’s great to be here again!” Pits in my stomach… “Our album came out today, and here is one of the new songs… Jack. This is for you. Always.”

The soft, twisted chords of “Half of Me” come in. The song is a slow dance towards death. I sing so high. Soft. Dark.

The audience is not moving, except some text on their fucking phones. I’m drowning up here, pouring out the world of sorrow and loss, and people are walking out. The fans are fucking ditching me when I show them who I am? Some start to sway. This is not what I thought. Oh fuck – the guitar solo comes in, and I turn my back to them.

I can’t handle this.

I’m crying.

I’m dying.

I’m a fucking failure, and nobody loves me – well, somebody did and he fucking died, because I abandoned him. I see my long pink tail dirty on the stage floor. Ok, mousey Hayley. You can finish this. I take a swig and turn around.

The spotlight blinds the mascara tears running down my face. I sing the final chorus. Drain. The song is over. The applause is soft. I walk off the stage, more lost then ever. I start to stumble on myself, on my losses, on the Xanax and booze. I fall, and Enzo grabs me. He stands me up, arm around me. I’m so torn, waiting to be unborn, pulling out the thorns howling at my flesh.

46

Fucking after party. Where’s the hard shit? I take a few Xanax. I want to black out. I want to black out this world. Drink, and drink, and drink, and you would too – you would fucking too.

Annie is doing her business thing, and what the fuck is Enzo doing flirting with that fucking blonde DJ guy? Their knees are crossed together on the red couches. What the FUCK! He’s frenching him? Ok. Fuck. Drink. Drink. I drop my glass.

“It’s OK; they just don’t know the new songs, so how can they sing along?” Annie says. I grab a bottle and head for the door. Fuck rejection on all levels tonight; I push through the door.

The hallway is long, so long, and dark. I’m loose, and I’m not quite a mouse yet. I sway, can’t walk straight. The pain keeps me crooked. There’s the ladies room – fuck, it’s locked. Aren’t I supposed to be the fucking star? Where’s the world when you need it? It abandons you like dirty, shitted-on, holey, hospital sheets. I spin around.

“Who’s there? Who’s there?”

I see a dark figure at the end of the hall… another ghost of Jack? No. It’s that fucking crazy fan with the lipstick ‘Hayley’ sign, the trench-coat-wearing creep. He’s running up to me. I’m too high to run or react or make sense of anything.

“Hayley, angel. Can you sign this?!” He pulls out an avalanche of photos of me and a tube of dark lipstick. Oh. Nobody is taking care of me anymore. Carter, I’ve lost the war. “Will you kiss them too? With the black?” His eyes don’t blink; they are staring so dark at me. I search around: no security, no roadies, no nothing to protect Hayley. He’s way taller than me, and I’m slow in heels. Please don’t panic. Don’t freak.

“What?” I try to sound as super tough and wild like I did to that crazy lady in that jail cell all those years ago. I wish I had taken those karate classes Carter was trying to make me take. I wish I had and hadn’t done a lot of things.

Creeeeeee
… His twisted clown face croaks a crooked voice: “Be my angel, baby, and just put on the lipstick, and kiss your beautiful pictures.”

Fuck. Uh. I wish I hadn’t drunk so much. Sway. “I don’t wear black lipstick.” Ok… Walk away…. I start to move my feet, but he grabs my arm and leans in so close, so fucking close, and whispers, “Just put the lipstick on.” His grip is harder than a man drowning at sea, holding a raft tight for life. My tiny arm is crushed, like butterfly wings under feet.

“Hey!” Someone yells.

We both turn, the god Enzo is standing there. Black knight in amour. My black prince. “She says she doesn’t wear black lipstick. It makes her lips look small.” Enzo shoves the fan hard; he spills all his photos and screams as he flies against the wall.

Enzo’s arm is on me; he leads me up, up, and way up the stairs, and that crazy guy is running up behind us, and everything’s so fucking foggy, and my heart is sick. We run down the hall and whip around the corner. Enzo pushes us into a closet and shoves me against the door, our bodies holding it shut. His pale, strong, beautiful hand smothers my mouth. Too hard. I gasp. Oh. My heart beats. He’s pressing into me. He’s staring down into the endless angst of my soul. I feel at this moment I will do anything Enzo tells me to do. I want to surrender into his strength.

I can hear the crazy guy running past the door outside.
Pow, pow, pit, step
. Ok. Almost free.

BANG!
– something in the corner falls. I try to jump and scream, but Enzo shoves me harder against the wall. His breath on me, lulling me. “One of us must have magic powers,” he whispers. We are frozen in this moment together, night in the land of endless nights.

It feels so right to be saved by the ghost of Jack.

47

Enzo escorts me through the service door and protects me against the hordes of fans; he opens the door to the limo and we jump in. Lights spin. Hearts spin. I’m a little more sober now. He’s right next to me in the limo, shoulder touching mine. I want to put my head on him, but I shouldn’t.

“I’m ok now… You can go play with your boyfriends.”

He laughs me off, dismissive. Deep in me he looks, like he knows who I am under it all; I mean, something more than how fucked up I am and how I get everything wrong. He sees through it. He sees INTO my raw self: my Rimbaud heartache, lost in translation.

“I’m walking you to your room, Hayley.”

The limo stops at the hotel. The driver opens the door. We search left, right, up, down, everywhere for crazy fan man. My head is under a sweater so they don’t see me and I walk quicker than ever. Heart, skip, scream. Enzo: dark prince charming.

I look back again: no one is there. Is it all in my head? Enzo takes me up the elevator and down the chandeliered halls. I feel guilty. Carter. Carter. I should talk about Carter. “I wanted Carter and the kids to visit this weekend, keep my head on straight.”

“But?” Enzo’s voice is so beautiful, like heroin. I can listen to him talk forever, and ever, and ever, and – Hayley, stop. This is your chance now not to fuck up.