Gray

Chapter 22

I think everyone should go crazy at least once in their life. I don't think you've truly lived until you've thought about killing yourself. It's oddly liberating. I've called Her and apologized for my actions. Told Her I had gone off the rails a bit, but now I'm doing fine. Really, truly fine. She told me it was okay, and that I can call Her anytime I need to talk. She talks about school and Her job. Her voice is warm and comforting, like a blanket or the gentle hiss of the radiator on a cold morning. She sounded just like my mom. I am making peace with my past. I am moving on. I don't give a fuck anymore.

The shareholders liked the album. They heard a potential first single. And a second one too. It's coming out in May, I think. We're back in Los Angeles now—at least some of us are, Martin went back to Chicago—putting the final touches on the thing, doing overdubs and the like. Glossing it up a bit. I flew back here with no problems, made it all the way across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains without a sliver of anxiety medication, without a single tear. That chapter of my life is over. I'm tired of being afraid, and of being in control. I am officially on autopilot. I am leaving it all up to someone else. I am unchained and ready to live again. 

I call my landlord back in Chicago, tell him that I'm going to keep my place there, and I use some of the money from the record advance to pay my rent for the remainder of the year. He sounds surprised to hear my voice, says he's glad to hear from me. I haven't been back to the apartment in something like six months, and I may never go there again, but I like the idea of having a space in the city, a hermetically sealed chamber, untouched since I left it so long ago. Cardboard boxes are still in my bedroom. I will probably never unpack them. That's okay. 

I find another place in LA, up in the canyon, an old house with massive windows and a weath- ered veranda that overlooks the city, and the Disaster moves in with me. We are all alone up there, free to do stupid things, so we smoke tons of pot and get lost in the foothills, dry-mouthed and wandering among the scrub and the sago palms, leaping from rock to rock in the arid heat. At night, we explore with flashlights, twist our ankles in unseen crags, chase off coyotes with shouts and yips. We are like feral children, wild and free, unkempt. Except with drugs. And the handgun that the Disaster bought and now keeps tucked into the top of his jeans. He only shoots bottles at the present, setting them up on boulders and blasting them into oblivion, the sound of the gun echoing around the great walls of rock. He says he's going to bag a coyote one of these days. One time a jogger yelled at us, but for the most part we are left to our own devices. It's not too long before we stop wearing shirts, and the California sun begins to bake our skins. Imagine, a suntan in the middle of March. 

We do a run of shows that takes us from west to east, headlining stuff now with a crew and catering and the like. Our very own bus. It's good to see the kids' faces again. To hear their voic- es sing along, not just to the old stuff but the new songs too. Our band is better than it's ever been before, we are survivors, we have made it through the tunnel and emerged into the light. We are on the cover of a magazine. We shoot a music video, again with a crew and catering and the like. Folding chairs with our names printed on the backs. Friends are texting me from Chica- go to tell me they heard our song on the radio. My dad's clients are asking him if I could sign something for their daughters, since they're big fans and all. It occurs to me for the first time that I may actually be famous. You can't tell these kinds of things when you live in Los Angeles because everyone is famous out here. But in the Midwest, the Iowas and Ohios of the world, I can no longer go to the grocery store without having kids follow me, call out my name. I am signing autographs in the cereal aisle while the store manager apologizes. If we are out at a restaurant, we are asked to take photos with the waiters, to pose with the bartenders. Kids sit at tables near us, faking that they're snapping pictures of their friends, but tilting their cameras just enough to catch us in the background. Our manager is saying we might have to hire security pretty soon. I just laugh.