Categories > Celebrities > Guns n' Roses > Dance of Pales
Waking from the effects of the tranquilizers was always slightly painful. They made his head hurt, and the desire to throw up the minute he stood was overwhelming. Only the fact that he ate so little lately that he had nothing to throw up saved him on a regular basis. He felt a little odd this morning, but nothing had felt right since that night and…
…and someone was in his bed.
Prying his eyes open, Axl stared down into Izzy’s pale face. The young guitarist looked dead, and it was only by passing his fingers close to Izzy’s mouth and feeling the shallow, slow breaths, that he could detect any life. A bandage covering a fresh needle mark stood out sharply against the crook of one arm, and finally Axl saw his eyes roll beneath bruised lids. He wondered if Izzy had crawled into the bed on his own, or if Warren, their manager, had placed him there since somehow he doubted Izzy would be up and walking after being given a dose of Haldol. Either way, Axl wasn’t about to eject his best friend, settling back down beside him to both comfort and be comforted. Izzy had seemed like he’d be okay, but then he’d just… lost it.
They were, at best, described as the elephant in the room. In an era of manufactured teen boy bands and older rockers, they’d appeared as a mix of both, and a representation of neither. Parents couldn’t decide if they liked or hated them. A band made up of two runaways, two slackers, and a mall rat that were the embodiment of the “Fuck you!” attitude and did what they wanted. They were bad seeds, or at the least the result of bad parenting. Yet at times they seemed so cute, so innocent and young. Too young to even drive themselves to the studio, their first album rocked them to stardom, earning them fame and fortune. And fans. They all had their sets of fans, from screaming schoolgirls to older groupies, even moms and grandmas. And there were male fans, too. Lots of them.
The notes started coming via the fan mail channels. They all got them. The weirdo letters stating how much some fan loved them, wanted to be their lovers. Not the usual ones, but the ones that held a note of creepiness to the way they were worded, or to the length. Or repeated letters. The pedophiles wrote in droves, particularly to Axl, Izzy and Duff. The combination of both their pretty looks and that they could sometimes look younger than their actual already young years attracted them. Warren tried to filter those out of the bags of letters, hiring help to do it. The boys liked to read their mail, and for all their delinquent ways, he felt they were still too innocent to read pages and pages of what a 35 year old man wanted to do to them in the bedroom.
Occasionally, though, one got through.
The letters began coming to Axl through the usual channels, but then switched to arriving at the home the boys all shared. He wrote off the first one as some sick joke. And the second, and the third. He tried to laugh them off. They kept coming. The return address was a PO Box, and so finally, after a dozen letters and pages of perversity had arrived, he wrote back, telling the man to leave him alone. That he didn’t want to do those kinds of things with him. He knew he probably should have told Warren, but he wanted to handle things himself. He was old enough to take care of himself, after all.
…and someone was in his bed.
Prying his eyes open, Axl stared down into Izzy’s pale face. The young guitarist looked dead, and it was only by passing his fingers close to Izzy’s mouth and feeling the shallow, slow breaths, that he could detect any life. A bandage covering a fresh needle mark stood out sharply against the crook of one arm, and finally Axl saw his eyes roll beneath bruised lids. He wondered if Izzy had crawled into the bed on his own, or if Warren, their manager, had placed him there since somehow he doubted Izzy would be up and walking after being given a dose of Haldol. Either way, Axl wasn’t about to eject his best friend, settling back down beside him to both comfort and be comforted. Izzy had seemed like he’d be okay, but then he’d just… lost it.
They were, at best, described as the elephant in the room. In an era of manufactured teen boy bands and older rockers, they’d appeared as a mix of both, and a representation of neither. Parents couldn’t decide if they liked or hated them. A band made up of two runaways, two slackers, and a mall rat that were the embodiment of the “Fuck you!” attitude and did what they wanted. They were bad seeds, or at the least the result of bad parenting. Yet at times they seemed so cute, so innocent and young. Too young to even drive themselves to the studio, their first album rocked them to stardom, earning them fame and fortune. And fans. They all had their sets of fans, from screaming schoolgirls to older groupies, even moms and grandmas. And there were male fans, too. Lots of them.
The notes started coming via the fan mail channels. They all got them. The weirdo letters stating how much some fan loved them, wanted to be their lovers. Not the usual ones, but the ones that held a note of creepiness to the way they were worded, or to the length. Or repeated letters. The pedophiles wrote in droves, particularly to Axl, Izzy and Duff. The combination of both their pretty looks and that they could sometimes look younger than their actual already young years attracted them. Warren tried to filter those out of the bags of letters, hiring help to do it. The boys liked to read their mail, and for all their delinquent ways, he felt they were still too innocent to read pages and pages of what a 35 year old man wanted to do to them in the bedroom.
Occasionally, though, one got through.
The letters began coming to Axl through the usual channels, but then switched to arriving at the home the boys all shared. He wrote off the first one as some sick joke. And the second, and the third. He tried to laugh them off. They kept coming. The return address was a PO Box, and so finally, after a dozen letters and pages of perversity had arrived, he wrote back, telling the man to leave him alone. That he didn’t want to do those kinds of things with him. He knew he probably should have told Warren, but he wanted to handle things himself. He was old enough to take care of himself, after all.
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