The Only Living Boy in New York

TWO

VAN

Eight months after the final show

Mornings are different now.

I wake early, not entirely eager to start the day, more so eager to get it over with if I'm being honest. I don't struggle for sleep anymore, likely due to the anxiety medication I take before bed. She told I could take up to two per night when she prescribed them to me after our final show. I should avoid alcohol when I take them because one pill is the equivalent of a few glasses of wine...or something like that. I wasn't really listening to her instructions, I just wanted to leave it all behind and this seemed like the best route. The safest route, much safer than previous outlets.

I took two each night, swallowed easily with a glass of Merlot or Cabernet, or whatever is on hand otherwise. Usually it's wine, I'm not much of a beer drinker these days.

The nights are peaceful, empty cocoons of darkness where dreams don't even dwell. I fall asleep easily thanks to the medication, and I don't wake up until I hear my alarm. I've never slept so great in my entire life. Maybe I should have started this sooner. Maybe things would be different now.

LA is too much for me. I used to crave the never ending sunshine and the swarms of people more famous than myself brushing by me in the grocery store or out for a jog on Sundays. The LA scene died with Covid, even when the restrictions were lifted. Live music hasn't been the same since and too many venues along the Sunset Strip closed for good. Memories of sleepless nights where we pressed our backs into the sun after a show we played were all that was left of the boarded up venues that traded tour posters for leasing signs. Even if we were still a band, it wouldn't ever be like it was. It would never feel like 2016 again. All those pieces of myself and the band we used to be were scattered like broken bottles along the curbs of the Strip. I guess I don't really need them anymore anyway. I don't really need anyone.

I hadn't been to LA in months, and I didn't miss it one bit. It felt like a memory I didn't want to relive. I imagined this is how children of divorced parents felt when they had to go back to the place they didn't want to be. LA was stale and agonizing. It welcomed feelings of depression and addiction, and those were things I was trying to walk away from, not run to with open arms.

I'd been spending my time between New York and England respectively, sharing as much time with my parents as I could. When travel restrictions became less frightening, I hopped a plane to Heathrow with nothing but my bag, wallet and a phone charger. I had no plan, didn't even tell my folks I was coming, but I showed up and stayed through the winter. When New York started to thaw I decided to head there, back to the city that started it all in America for me, with the hope that maybe I'd find something I left behind. Something familiar, something that reminded me of better days. There was nothing there, all those memories were boarded up to, but New York still had a buzz to it, a humming below the surface of the streets that kept the little bit of creativity in me alive.

Back home, I couldn't do much musically. The town I grew up in wasn't the town my parents were living in anymore. And regardless, that town was flooded with ghosts of the boy I used to be, girls I used to date who grew up and had babies, and ex-bandmates from when we were just trying to get off the ground. I didn't have any desire to resort to my roots and I knew I wouldn't find any new content there anyway. But New York, now that sounded nice. The music scene was still alive there, even in the smallest way. The clubs along the Bowery and Madison Square Garden still boasted live music on the weekends and sometimes throughout the week. I'd grown accustom to the basement clubs of lower Chelsea and the small garage bands that came through. Sometimes, it felt like the early days, when we'd go to see The Strokes play a secret gig to fifty people. My ears would perk up at the way a new band from the East Coast sounded and I'd think about approaching them and introducing myself, maybe helping them produce some music instead of carrying the weight of a band. But I'd always retreat to my table, too afraid I didn't have enough to offer.

New York inspired me though, and I knew enough people there that I could get by. The relationships I shared with them seemed deeper. LA relationships were casual and shallow, too laxidazical for my liking. Benji, he fit in there, because that was his motif. I couldn't stomach it.

Benji.

The only one of my former bandmates I still spoke to. The only one that agreed to make music with me if I ever wanted to again. Sometimes, we'd plunk around on our strings and play bits and pieces of our unreleased songs, shoot the shit over a few drinks and roll a joint for old time's sake. But Benji had a new life, a fiancé he loved, and a plan to help produce records with a friend from Northern Cali. Our loyalty to each other would always remain and our friendship stayed intact, but I wasn't in LA often anymore, and I didn't expect Benji to move to NYC. I'd never ask that if him.

I was done expecting people to do things for me, done asking people for things to benefit myself. I knew I could be toxic, and I knew how the disbandment added insult to those rumors.

I'd spent a lot of years pushing myself and everyone around me, to do exactly what I wanted. I knew that about myself now, and I knew it was likely one of the main reasons Johnny and Bob both exited the band. It wasn't just the grueling expectations from management or the nonstop touring that led to their burnout and the band's demise, it was me. It was my lack of concern for everyone around me. I wanted to be the best, have the best, and celebrate every day of my life, and I'd chosen to hurt everyone around me in the process. The party scene had gotten the best of me and at the end of 2019, I wasn't doing the talking in interviews anymore and I certainly wasn't taking the time to talk to any fans. The band got sick of me, and to be fair, I got sick of myself.

I pushed my sunglasses up the bridge of my nose a bit higher as the LA sun tore through the windows of my old place. I did my best to push the memories of my former life out of view and focus on now. It was the last time I wanted to be in LA for a while, only passing through to make sure everything was out of my condo and shipped to the townhouse I purchased in New York's East Side. I'd done my final walkthrough of the place I shared with Larry, my old mate who didn't come through the pandemic as well as I would have thought. Our friendship was also strained, hanging on the balance of the band getting back together, and that was something that was never going to happen. He had no other plan other than being our roadie forever, and when there was no longer a need for a roadie, Larry jumped ship pretty quickly. Nearly fifteen years of friendship couldn't hold a candle to the fact that there was no money coming in anymore, and Larry needed to earn a living. Our casual text messages were the only parts of our friendship that were salvaged.

I wasn't going to miss this place as much as I thought I was going to. Now, it made me in an even bigger hurry to leave California altogether. The walls were stripped of paintings and photos and the kitchen island was clean and empty of dishes and mail. The windows overlooking the streets below were exposed, their blinds taught at the top to indicate to the next owner that the view here, was phenomenal. Sure...if you like looking at streets and thousands of people cramming them. Not that New York was different when it comes to people, but the neighborhood I'd be living in was full of quiet moments and less clutter.

And no heat.

I left the condo door unlocked just like the realtor asked, grabbed my small duffel bag and I dropped my key with the doorman who didn't seem interested at all in my departure. I slipped out the front door, wiping my brow with the back of my arm along the way. I hopped into the car that was sent to fetch me without a second look back at the place I'd spent the last four years in, and indicated to the driver that I had a flight out of LAX at four. He pursed his lips together and shook his head, likely aggravated by my lateness. Old habits die hard, I 'spose.

I was ready to let them die though.

It was time to move on.