Rockoholic (7 page)

“Are you going to be sick?” A girl about my age with a massive mop of fuzzy brown hair appears by my bed. She’s in a black uniform like the others. She stares at me, eyes like buttons. Her badge says “Farrah.”

“What’s your name?” she shouts in my ear, like I’m an old woman.

“I . . . want . . . to . . . go . . . back . . . out . . . there,” I squeak between breaths.

She shakes her head. “You’re not in your right mind. You’ve been going in and out of consciousness for the last hour. Can you tell me what your name is? Did you come with someone?”

I start sobbing again. She thrusts a small white bucket under my nose. I shove it back at her and it tumbles to the floor with a clatter. A fat woman with short legs and a face like a plate waddles over and offers me a cup of ice cubes. I’m guessing she’s the head Black Uniform. The Fat Controller.

“Did you find out her name?” says the Fat Controller to Farrah the Fuzz Monster.

Farrah shakes her head and goes to open the door a bit wider for three more Black Uniforms carrying in a blond boy who is wheezing like a pig stuck in a fence. They’re just saying, “Breathe, breathe, that’s it, just breathe,” and I feel like shouting,
If he could bloody breathe he wouldn’t be in here!
Farrah and the Fat Controller go over to see if they can help, leaving me with the cup of ice. I look inside. There’s a small black hair in it that looks like a pube.

I want to see Jackson. I need to thank him. I can’t remember if he touched my hand when he gave me back the moon rock. I moan as I cry, as somber as a ghoul. I drop the cup to the floor and make to get up off the bed, but my head spins and I can’t focus. Maybe the Jackson-giving-back-my-rock thing was a dream, I don’t know anymore. I close my eyes to stop the room from spinning and try to focus on the door. I make toward it quickly, hoping no one will see, but just as I think I reach the door, my head bangs against something. I’ve walked straight into the wall.

“Come on now, back to your bed, that’s right,” a voice says. An arm guides me back to my bed. It’s the Fat Controller. “You’re not well at all, are you? You’ve had a bump to the back of your head. You need to keep that compress on it.”

“What compress? I haven’t bumped my head. I just fainted or something. . . .”

“Yes, and when you fainted, you bumped your head. You need to keep pressure on it.” She leans me back on the bed and picks up a cold white washcloth from a cart, folds it over, and presses it against the back of my head. “Now, can you hold it there for me?” She guides my hand to it to hold it in place. For a second my face is in her armpit.

“Now you stay put while we wait for the ambulance. We don’t want you keeling over again.”

Something in my chest collapses about six stories. “No, I don’t want an ambulance.”

“We do it for anyone with a head injury. You just missed the first one so we’ll just wait in here for them to send the next, OK? Can you tell me your name now?” I shake my head.

Wheezy Boy’s being sick and she rushes over to see if she can interfere. I look at the compress. There’s a red patch on it, about the size of a fava bean. I put it back on my head and lie back onto it. I can’t go to the hospital. Today cannot end like this! I can’t stop crying. The room is still helter-skeltering around and I close my eyes briefly to make it stop.

The Fat Controller is arguing with another Black Uniform about how late the ambulance is and he’s all shruggy and end-of-his-tethery because all the ambulances are busy at some antiwar demo in the city center. Music thuds through the walls — they must be nearing the end of the set by now. They’ll be back on the tour bus and heading to the airport and far away across the Atlantic before I even know it.

After a little while the room slows down a bit and I can see who else is there with me. Wheezy Boy is being sick again. A blonde in a Paramore T-shirt is sitting on a bed nibbling a cereal bar. I overhear her tell Farrah the Fuzz Monster that she hasn’t eaten for two days. And when Farrah asks why, she shrugs and says, “For Jackson.” Then they start talking about something that happened onstage, something I missed.

“God it was great,” says Cereal Bar Girl. “The other guys stopped playing, and it was just Jackson and the crowd singing. ‘
I’m just a poor boy, I need no sympathy, because I’m easy come, easy go
. . . .’ And we did the Scaramouche bits. God it was sooooo amazing! I didn’t want it to ever end. I’m so getting a tattoo done tomorrow. I wasn’t sure but I’ve made up my mind now.”

“Bohemian Rhapsody”? Jackson sang “Bohemian Rhapsody,” my grandad’s favorite song? And I
MISSED IT
? I feel the tears come fast into my head and there’s nothing I can do to stop them. I pull my knees up to my chest. There’s a scrunching sound in my thigh pocket — the last Curly Wurly, untouched and sagging where it’s melted in its wrapper. I pull it out and look at it but get one whiff of the chocolate and suddenly I want to cry again. Last time I had one of these, it was before. Before the puke, before Jackson and the rock . . .

I have to get out of here. I have to get back to Jackson.

I hear more applause through the walls. I lean up again and sit on the side of the bed; my head’s going a little spinny but it’s not as bad as it was. There are little dark specks in my eyes.

It is then that I see a tall black blob in the doorway. I try and blink away the blur in my eyes and when it comes into focus I can see who the blob is. It’s Pash Fredericks, the bass player from The Regulators. I’m not even surprised to see him. I’ve read on the net that Pash does this sometimes, insists on being brought to the medical room to meet those fans who were stupid enough to faint after three songs. Lenny does it as well, sometimes. But never Jael and never
ever
Jackson. This could make up for it, I think, make up for my car crash of a day. If Pash comes over to me, hugs me, asks how I am, this might just save the day. I lie back, holding the compress to the back of my head with one hand, trying to will more blood to that part of my body, possibly even a bit of brain to come out, to get some sympathy. I’m clutching the Curly Wurly in my other hand and cooking up a plan to get Pash’s attention, to make him remember me. He’s always going on about chocolate and candy in his interviews — I’ll give him a bite of the Curly Wurly. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. And then I’ll keep it, take it home, and frame it, and then I’ll have my memento of the night. A half-eaten chocolate bar from the least popular member of the band. Better than nothing.

“Hey, kid, how ya doing?” says Pash as he wanders over to Wheezy Boy and gives him his last rights. Wheezy Boy laughs. Cereal Bar Girl is bawling her eyes out, at which point he goes over and gives her a really tight hug. As he breaks away he goes to light up a cigarette and the Fat Controller stops him just as he flicks up the flame.

“Uh, not in here, please. It’s against the law in this country, in case you hadn’t heard. And this boy’s had an asthma attack,” she says. He gives her a look, but tucks the cigarette behind his ear.

And it is then that another blob appears in the doorway. A white blob. Jael, possibly Jael. God, is it Jael? I can’t quite see. I blink. No . . . it’s not Jackson. It can’t be Jackson. Jackson never goes backstage to visit the fans.

But it
is
Jackson.

Oh fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, Jesus, please no. Oh no. Oh no, I’m not ready. Oh I look a mess. Do I still smell of puke? This is too much. I’m going to faint. What will I do, what am I going to do?! This man is
the
most perfect man in the world and I look like crap! My mind is blank. I should be squeeing. I should be about ready to bungee jump off Cloud Nine, but I feel sick. I do want to meet him, ask him if it was a dream that he gave the moon rock back to me, tell him how much he means to me, how I’m an outcast like him, how my parents got divorced, too, tell him about the Stephen King books I’ve read, about the thirty-seven times I’ve watched their DVD, how his birthday is twenty-six days before mine. Tell him I’m his Number One Fan.

“Hey, how are you doing?” I overhear him ask Cereal Bar Girl. He looks gorgeous, still wearing his straitjacket, though this time he has hands poking out through the sleeves and the front is wide open. I can see his hands. His three silver rings on his right hand. I can see his mood ring, his actual mood ring that he always wears. OMG. He has a black string necklace on with a key pendant. I can see his chest. It’s sweaty. He has hairs!

Pash comes over to me. “Hey, how you doing?” Pash asks. I look right past him to Jackson.

“OK, thanks, Pash.”

“What happened, you faint or something?”

“Yeah. I’ll be OK.”
Where’s Jackson, where’s Jackson, where’s Jackson . . .

“Well, thanks for coming, great to see y’all, man, great gig.” He holds his hand up to grab mine in a buddy way, then sees I’m holding the compress behind my head. I’m just about to offer Pash the Curly Wurly, but I’ve forgotten what it’s called. All I can think is,
Wow, he’s really cross-eyed. They don’t show that on the posters
. He smells, too —
really
strongly of cigarettes. It’s better than the hot meat smell of the mosh pit — armpit, more like — but it’s still rank.

I’m just thinking about going into spasms to attract Jackson’s attention when Pash moves on and Jackson makes the break from Cereal Bar Girl and heads my way.

But Cereal Bar Girl waylays him by trying to give him a hug (Jackson doesn’t give hugs, I know that) and she’s talking about this fan fiction she writes on her blog, but he’s not interested. He’s got strands of sweaty hair worming over his face and he looks like he’s about to be sick.

“That’s Claire with an ‘i,’ and I’m on Facebook,” Cereal Bar Girl’s going, but he’s so not listening. I can’t stop staring at him. He’s kind of smiling but he looks so tired. There are wet black shadows underneath his eyes where his makeup has run. He actually looks quite ill.

Another blob enters in a gray suit, his blond hair stuck solid with hairspray. He has a really nasty little face, piercing green eyes, and skin that shines like plastic. He’s flanked by two bulky security men in suits with curly earpieces.

He walks up to Jackson. He’s angry with him, but he’s angry in tones only I can hear, cos they’re right by my bed. They don’t seem to notice me, though.

“What was that about, Gat?” the man says to Jackson. “Why did you do that cover? I told you —”

“Yeah, well, you know me, Frank. Nothing really matters to me.”

“Fucking song, why you gotta test me like this, huh? Do I not pay you enough or something?”

“I told you I was gonna do ‘Rhapsody’ tonight and you weren’t gonna stop me,” says Jackson, wearily, like he’s about to climb up onto one of the beds and go to sleep for the night.

Blond Nasty Face glares at Jackson and digs him in the chest with his finger. He says something I can’t quite hear because the security men’s radios are crackling, Pash is laughing with a kid on a bed, and some first aiders in the corner are pulling back chairs to lie someone down on the floor.

“Don’t give me all that ‘You Don’t Own Me’ crap,” says Nasty Face. “One phone call and I could convert you to a carpet stain and don’t forget it.” He goes right up to Jackson’s face. “Don’t fuck with me, Gatlin. And why the hell are you back here visiting these morons?”

“To piss you off,” Jackson replies, all cool, but looking really sick at the same time. And not in a good way.

“You’ve had your take five to piss and pill up. Get back out there.”

“I’m out,” Jackson mumbles, rubbing his eyebrow. “I got nothing left tonight, Frank.”

“Get back out there. They’re screaming for an encore and you’re gonna give them one.”

Jackson removes a card of pills from his jean pocket and pops one out. “You said one night we could leave it as is. . . .”

“Not tonight. Did you know the guys from Glastonbury are here tonight? Oh yeah. Top row. They’re checkin’ you chuckleheads out.”

Jackson drops the pill and swallows it down dry, placing the card back in his pocket. “Well then they’ve seen us. We played for two damn hours.” Jackson rubs his eye. Frank cuffs him around the head. His hand is covered in big gold rings.

I recognize the blond guy then. I know his voice. He’s interviewed on The Regulators’
Behind the Scenes
DVD. It’s Frank Grohman, their manager. If snakes could talk, I imagine they would talk like Frank Grohman. All fast and raspy and chewy, cos Frank is always chewing when he talks. Pash jokes on the DVD that he’s chewing on the flesh of his last intern — that’s Frank’s reputation for being a badass. Frank took over from their last manager just under a year ago before they started recording their new album. He’s responsible for their faster, more frenetic sound, the longer touring schedules, big budget videos. He comes across as an arsehole on the DVD, too.

“You got five minutes,” he says to Jackson. “We’re playing videos to keep them happy. Wipe that shit off your face, get out there, and give it everything you got, you hear me? Keep thinking Glastonbury.”

“What if I don’t got nothing left, Frank, huh? What about that? Can’t we just go?”

“What’s the matter with you? It’s not the last train outta friggin’ Auschwitz. You do another fifteen and then you can sleep on the bus ’til next Tuesday for all I care.” Frank slaps him on the back. “Four minutes, Gat.”

Frank’s cell phone starts ringing and he takes the call, jabbing one chubby, gold-encrusted finger to his ear and disappearing out of the room, followed by the two bodyguards. Jackson is still for a minute. He wanders over to my bed, forcing a smile. Without thinking, I hold my arms out for a hug. He stays where he is and his lips have disappeared into his face like they’re stapled together.

“Sorry, I forgot,” I say. I thrust my hand forward instead. He holds his hand out and I drop the compress to take it. He has a very limp handshake, like a dead squid. But it’s his hand. It’s Jackson’s hand! I smile, he doesn’t. Doesn’t even look at me.

I have no idea what to say so I say the first thing that comes to mind.

“You look tired.” Which he really does.