FicWad

Back at home, we had a few days to rest before the second leg of the tour in north America and I spent my time chilling out, just relaxing from the strain of touring. The first two days I didn’t see Kirk at all, as he dropped the luggage and then left home; when he came back, he looked like a wreck. He greeted me with a sloppy kiss and crashed on our bed. I looked at his sleeping form and asked myself once more what I should do.
Kirk didn’t like to discuss about his addiction, he even refused to recognize it as such; the one time I suggested to seek professional help, he became so angry he insulted me, something that had never happened before. He was sure he didn’t need any help; everything was under control, he kept saying, but I wasn’t sure how much of it was true anymore. He asked me to stop being so apprehensive and trust him, but it was hard. I couldn’t stand Kirk using cocaine but I couldn’t talk him out of it, he wanted to have his fun an me to accept it.
It wasn’t like every day was bad and unbearable, but the truth was that Kirk had somewhat changed and there was no point in denying that. Slowly but inevitably, our relationship was deteriorating, we were definitely drifting apart and Kirk didn’t seek my company like he did before. We were used to look for some time where we could stay alone and just enjoy each other’s company, cutting off the rest of the world; but now, that complicity we had felt was fading away.

“Kirk, I’ve found an old horror movie we haven’t seen yet, wanna give it a try?”
Kirk was sprawled on the couch with a comic book covering his face, but he wasn’t asleep, as I could see from his breathing. He uncovered his face and looked at me with a small smile on his lips.
“An old horror movie that we have yet to see? How is it even possible?”
“It’s a Brazilian film called ‘At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul’. I know nothing about the plot but it sounds promising, don’t you think?”
Kirk extended his arm, inviting me to take his hand; as I did, he pulled me on him and embraced me. “I love you, babe, you know that?” he said, nuzzling my hair with his nose. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t show you enough how much you mean to me.”
Kirk’s right hand gripped my hair, the other caressed my back; I kept silent and enjoyed this little moment of intimacy, such displays of affection from him weren’t all that common anymore. It was little gestures like that that still made me hope for the future.

˜΅˜

“Ok, I used to think that each one of you already knew it, but since a certain someone decided to prove the world that even a shaved monkey could do your job with better discernment, I’ve decided to illustrate you the basic rules of common sense. You may take notes and stop me if there’s something you don’t understand.”
Duncan, the tour manager, had gathered around all of us roadies to give us a little speech on how to behave with the external people; it seemed a little useless and condescending, but seeing what had happened with Jeff, that little turd, he might have his good reasons to treat us like a bunch of morons.

A week ago Jeff, a –former– lightning tech of ours had decided it was a good idea to ask a girl, not a day over sixteen, to give him a blowjob if she wanted to be introduced to the band; now, that would have been just sleazy if said girl hadn’t been the niece of a journalist who was there to interview the band. Long story short, shit hit the fan as the girl run crying to her uncle and told him what kind of horrible people worked for Metallica. The journalist was outraged and started throwing accusations to Jeff, then to the band and then to all the road crew; for once, not even Lars’s silver tongue managed to do the trick as he uselessly tried to blandish the man. As a result, said journalist published a vitriolic review, probably spewed in the heat of the moment without any second thought; the journalist had called Lars a “treacherous insect who’ll deceive you with mellifluous words and slimy manners” and the band “a barely concealed abyss of degeneration”.
That made the guys laugh their heads off, even though there was a point behind those words: Jeff’s behavior wasn’t acceptable, he had to be sacked. Metallica didn’t mind being considered ‘wild and dangerous’, but alienating the press wasn’t something they aimed for, never mind the curiosity it could draw from some people; there was also the issue of fan mistreatment: trying to score from some groupie was one thing, humiliating a normal fan wasn’t acceptable.
Anyway, Lars found a very shrewd way to solve the question: he mocked the prissy, over the top reaction of the journalist, and suggested the girl to adopt some of the band’s ‘fuck-you’ attitude to defend herself and keep away the sleazeballs.
“We care about our fans, but we also know that they are not a bunch of prim and proper princesses who can’t defend themselves.” Lars had emphasized the image of Metallica as a band of bad motherfuckers who, at the same time, weren’t so arrogant and conceited not to show any concern for their fans.

“…if you sell backstage passes, you’ll get fired, if you accept help with the equipment from some fans and something gets damaged or stolen, you’ll get fired, if you talk to someone from the press…”
“God, please, make him stop, this is pure cruelty.” Whispered Todd, Lars’s tech.
“Shut up, you want him to start all over again?” Duncan went on and on and if he saw that someone was distracted, he stopped and restarted from the beginning. The fact that we had to get everything ready for the concert didn’t seem to bother him, we were stuck in the parking lot getting reprimanded like children.
“Is everything clear? Ok, now let’s go to work!”

Before we hit the road again, Kirk had asked me to cut him some slack, not to always come after him and Lars when they went out; he had been kind and polite, very careful not to upset me. It was kind of reasonable, wasn’t it? I was smothering both of them with my mother hen attitude; I had to respect Kirk’s need to have some time away from me and I had to trust him not to do anything too stupid. After all, relationships cannot work without some level of compromise.
Sure as hell I didn’t want to become the nagging girlfriend who constantly pesters her boyfriend, but I didn’t want to be a pliant, meek woman who passively accepts everything neither; sucking up and pretending that I wasn’t bothered would have made me miserable.
You cannot help someone who doesn’t want to be helped. I remembered myself more than once. I still tried to involve Kirk in other activities when I could, without being too insistent, but he indulged me just for a little and then turned back to his new habit; I spent more time with the crew than with him.

One night, James, Jason and I went to a pub with a couple of people from The Cult and a bunch of other roadies; we had fun playing pool and darts until everybody gradually left and it was only the three of us drinking and chatting round a table.
“I just need to find two or three people with the right vibe and start a new band; I haven’t written anything new yet, but I’ve got a few ideas swirling around in my head.”
“You didn’t tell your smothering parents that your band collapsed, right?”
“Fuck, no! They already thought I was going nowhere, telling them that would just have made things worse. Luckily they don’t give enough of a damn to actively check out what I’ve been up to; they whine and moan whenever I call them, but never bothered to listen to my music or come to my concerts. They are sure I will come groveling to them when –not if, when– something goes wrong.”
“Wow, that’s tough.” Jason said.
“Maybe you should have accepted our offering to become our new bass player; you would be playing for the best fucking metal band of the world right now, and you could rub it in their faces.” said James sipping his whisky.
“Oh, shut up!” I laughed, “There’s no way I would have accepted, I’m a doomster through and through.”
He shook his head, “Metal is supposed to be fast and wild, it should hit the listener in the guts.”
“Say what you want, but doom metal is probably the kind of metal closest to the sound of our godfathers Black Sabbath. It’s slow, but in a scary way; like a bulldozer, it’s crushing and oppressive.”
“However, you dodged a bullet.” Jason said, “Think of all the bullshit I’m forced to put up with.”
“Stop whining, Newkid, you should have joined up the army, if you wanted to know what hazing really is about.” Replied James.
“Hazing stops after a while, what kind of rite of passage lasts three years? You’ve just gotten a taste for tormenting me.” Snapped Jason. He sounded really bitter.
“Well,” I interrupted, since I was in no mood for recriminations, “I’ve had some discomfort to bear too, remember? Even my mother, when she discovered that I was in a band with three man, was shocked; her first reaction was: “Oh my God, you’re having group sex!”.”
James and Jason burst into laughter.
It was really late when we got kicked out of the pub; James had tried to pee into the drink of another customer who had made some nasty remarks about ‘long haired juvenile delinquents’ while looking at our side, thinking he wouldn’t be heard.
We also were drunk out of our minds, so thinking straight was out of question; all we knew was that we had to get back to the hotel but that we were in no shape to go on foot.
“We need… a car, yes.”
“No, you dummy, you don’t take a car when you’re drunk!” I shouted, “We need a taxi!”
“Yes, a taxi, let’s find a taxi!”

Tap tap Urgh, what…what’s that? Tap tap Ow, my head, God, it’s throbbing like… Bam bam What the hell? What’s this noise? I slowly opened my eyes and raised my head. I was half lying on the front seats of a car; as soon as I realized it, I quickly sat up. Bad idea. My headache intensified and my guts threatened to escape from my mouth.
“Wake the fuck up, you morons!” I covered my ears with my hands to muffle the screams. They were too loud even though they were coming through the window glass.
“The fuck is going on?” Grumbled someone behind me. “Where are we?” It was James, who was just waking up.
I –slowly and carefully– turned my head an took a look at the backseats; I saw James rubbing his face with one hand and Jason sleeping with his head on James’s shoulder.
“Aw, how cute you two are.” I said in a mocking tone.
When he realized it, James pushed Jason away, waking him up too.
Other loud bangs at the window. “Get immediately out of here, you fuckers!” screamed the same voice.
“Fuck off, Lars.” Said James. “Give us a minute.”
We got out of the car and faced Lars, who was giving us his best pissed-off face. “What in the fucking hell were you thinking?”
“Hum, we weren’t?”
“Stop screaming, for God’s sake.” I whined, my head still spinning. “What are you even talking about? Why are you so upset?”
“What did you do yesterday night?”
“We went to a pub with a few people, but they left before us, we had a few drinks and then…”
“And then, fade to black.” Concluded James.
“Well, allow me to shed some light on the darkness of your memory.” Said Lars, pointing behind us. We turned around and looked at the car we were sleeping in. It was a taxi.
“Oh yeah,” said Jason, “we were drunk so we decided to do the sensible thing and take a taxi.”
“And we did it. Literally.”
“Is this supposed to be a joke?”
“More like drunken shenanigans.”
“This is not fucking funny! You could have died in a car crash! This little stunt may send you to jail, and that’s the last thing we need in the middle of a tour!” screamed Lars.
“Well, we’re here, aren’t we? What should we do now?”
“Just go to your fucking rooms, I’ll take care of it.” He sneered, then addressed me, “I thought you were supposed to be the responsible one.”
“Shut up, I get drunk so rarely…” I tried to excuse myself, but I knew we could have been in deep shit and we should only be thankful that everything went well. “At least, I’ve never robbed a post box of its innocence.”
“Oh yeah, that was a moment to remember. The most intense three minutes of passion I’ve ever seen. It’s a pity nobody took pictures of it.” Said James.
Lars turned as red as a tomato and pushed us away, shouting insults in Danish at us.
“Guys, doesn’t anyone of you remember anything from yesterday night?” asked Jason.
“Not after we left the bar, it’s all a blur, why?”
“I mean, how the hell did we manage to steal a taxi?”
“That, I think, will remain one of the many unresolved mysteries of the universe.”


Author’s note: Knock knock Is there anybody out there? Well, I’m back, albeit a little later than I hoped. I’m planning to restart posting regularly from now on.