Running to the Edge of the World...

Disassociative

Chapter 11: Disassociative

Twiggy sat beside me, fiddling with my hair even as I swatted away his hands. They had been discussing the upcoming The High End of Low  tour, but the conversation had long since taken a very different direction. I hadn’t been aware of what cocaine and whiskey in large amounts in one sitting could do to a person… my new found knowledge was sitting right next to me now… still playing with my hair.

“Mmm…pretty,” Twiggy giggled next to me as I gazed off into the middle distance. “You have really soft…pretty hair, Shan.”

“Mmm.” I answered half-heartedly. I wasn’t really in the mood to be around people at the moment, and I didn’t want anyone to know why.

Somehow though, through his intoxication, Johnny noticed. “You okay, Shan?”

“Mhmm,” I lied, closing my eyes and resting my head on Twiggy’s shoulder. “Why?”

“You seem…a bit out of it tonight…” Johnny tip-toed around asking my things; uncertain how annoyed I really was. “Anything you wanna share with the class?”

“No…at least…not right now.” I replied, shrugging off a now passed out Twiggy, and stood up. “I’m gonna… go for a walk…”

“Where?” Johnny gave me a look that said ‘yeah, right’ and I shrugged.

“Around the house…” I turned towards the lounge-room door. “Stretching my legs…and all that Jazz.”

I found that wandering around Marilyn’s house actually did help me to think. My pottering around the enormous house lead me, quite by accident, to Marilyn, who was staring angrily at the song sets for the upcoming tour; now the only member of the band doing any work. I made my way over, wrapped an arm around his waist and leant my head on his shoulder.

“Hey.” I murmured quietly.

“Hey.” He replied in the same tone, now glaring at the sets written in front of him.

“What’s up?” I asked looking over the sets myself now in an attempt to see what was wrong with them. He’d been happy with them two days ago…

“The sets for Mainz, Moscow, and Jacksonville are all…wrong!” He shoved them away in a huff and went to sit in his new comfy chair.

I looked at each of the sets he’d mentioned in turn and noticed something. “These three sets have no songs at all from your ‘Mechanical Animals’ era… they need something to… pick them up so-to-speak…” I suggested, instinctively cringing at the thought of how he might receive this criticism.

He frowned at the carpet for a moment before turning his gaze to me. “What would you take out, and what would you replace them with?”

I stared at him, wide-eyed, for a moment before looking back at the sets. I picked them all up and went over and sat on his lap to share my idea. “If we took out White Trash in all three and replaced it with New Model it would lift the end of the show a bit…in Jacksonville, I’d throw in This is the New Shit somewhere…and in Mainz, if you sang The Beautiful People first and the Fight Song last, then you’d start – and leave with – a pumped crowd…” I watched his expression closely as he thought it over. I smiled, leant in, and kissed him sweetly. “Just a thought, dearest. You do as you see fit.”

I made to get up, but his arms ensnared my waist. “I’ll consider all input…but you could persuade me to do it anyway…”

“Mhmm?” I smirked, turning in his arms to straddle his legs. “Does this persuasion involve a bed?”

“It does…” Marilyn grinned.

“Well then,” I smiled seductively, pulling him backwards towards the bedroom. “I better get persuasive.”

“Not until you tell us what’s wrong.” Johnny’s voice interrupted our mood.

Marilyn looked worried now. ‘Crap.’ “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I leant against the wall beside me and folded my arms.

“It’s not nothing, Shan. Your friend Emily called to make sure you were alright…” Johnny replied smugly.

“Okay. Ya got me!” I threw my hands up in mock surrender before crossing them again. “I don’t want to talk about it just now… give me some time to deal with it myself, please?”

“Fine…but you will tell us when you can, right?” Johnny asked, a smile returning to his face.

“Sure.” I answered, looking at the floor.

“Okay…I’ll be down here!” he said, stumbling out the door and down the stairs drunkenly.

“Shan? Will you tell me what’s happened, please?” Marilyn asked pulling me back into his lap as he sat down.

I sighed, resigned to the fact that he’d wheedle it out of me anyway. “My parents divorced.”

“Sorry…but, lots of people do though-” Marilyn attempted to comfort me with logic, but I wasn’t done.

“My parents divorced…and they didn’t tell me…”

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