In My Hour of Need

Chapter 1

Tears taste like salt. They're hot, too. But that didn't help me at all right now. I tried thinking about anything that could keep my thoughts from Cliff, one of my best friends, who had just died in a bus crash. With him was the rest of stupid Metallica. Why didn't they die along with him? Or at least get terribly hurt. The bus could have fallen on Lars instead, then I wouldn't have been sitting on the floor of my apartment, trying to get high on whatever I could find. People came and went on the other side of the door. Junior knocked a while ago, but took the hint and kept walking, just like everybody else. Everyone leaves me behind, just because I drink too much. And that, by the way, is the stupidest apology in the fucking world to leave someone behind. I tried to stop drinking, but fuck that, it's the only thing that calms me right now. Well, that and if Cliff came flying down from the sky, which would probably just have scared the living shit out of me anyways. I think if that happened, anything could happen, and I could just leave this fucking place, take Junior with me and keep doing Megadeth somewhere else. But who cares what I think anyways? I've got no friends left, who is there to talk to, who is there to spend the nights with, who is there to get drunk with? Nobody, that's who. Fucking Junior is my only friend, and his sober ass is nobody to spend time with. Or is it me who's the nobody? I guess so, nobody ever leaves Junior behind, but that's only because he's so shy and nice, and shuts up the bigger half of the time. But who cares about fucking Junior, when this story is about fucking me? Anyway, I got up from the cold floor and wiped my tears away. I never cry, just so you know. This is an exception. When someone dies, it doesn't count.

The year was 1986, September 28th, the day after Cliff died. I stayed up all night writing a song called "In My Darkest Hour", which is dedicated to him. Me staying up at night isn't unusual, since I suffer from Insomnia. Junior is used to it, since we share apartments. The reason why he knocks though, is because he knows me too well; I like my privacy. I usually knock too. For all I know, he might live a double life, and I don't want to walk in on him while he lives it. However, it might be funny to see what he's up to when I'm not around. But since you'll only get to read my point of view in this stupid story, I'm not going to backbite him completely, or start any rumors and shit. Junior is cool I guess. Anyway, before this gets way too awkward and I start to babble about his personality, I'm going to move on. So yeah, I got up from the couch, which was where I had been crashing last night, and went over to Junior's room to wake his stupid ass up. Junior slept on a mattress on the floor, we weren't exactly rich if that's what you think. So I kicked the side of his mattress, which really fucking startled him. I laughed, even though I knew he was sick of being woken up that way. "Fuck you", he said in his sleepy voice, killing me with his eyes. To be honest, I'm kind of jealous of that dark voice he has when he's only been awake for a couple of seconds. Mine is all raspy and sounds like I'm choking. But I never sleep, so I don't have to worry about that. I looked down at the now sitting up, grumpy, tired bandmate of mine. I finished my laugh and fixed my eyes at his messy hair. "You look like shit", I commented. He glared up at me. "Why, thank you", he spat. Note: Junior's always sarcastic in the morning, but it improves during the day.

After getting coffee at the café downstairs, we stopped giving eachother death-glares and started talking like normal people, if you could even call it that: normal. "So what did you spend the night doing?", he asked me. I shrugged. "I wrote a song", I replied, "We could use it for our next album". Junior nodded and took a sip from his coffee. "Title track?" He just asked the obvious question. "Who cares?", I said, "Every album doesn't need a title track, you know". He rolled his eyes. Not typical Junior, but it didn't surprise me either. My rude comebacks would seem to make anyone roll their eyes. "What's it called?", he went on. "In My Darkest Hour", I said, with no sign of interest. Junior raised an eyebrow. "Where your mind seems to be all the time", he said, and took another sip from his cup, "But smooth though. Might be killer as an album title..." He dropped me a million hints, but I didn't fall for any of them. I just rolled my eyes, like he had done only a minute ago. We were like that: serious conversations never happened without rude comebacks or eyes rolling to the back of our heads. But hey – all friendships can't be spotless.