Gray

Chapter 24

Pretty much everyone saw the pictures. People I haven't heard from since high school are texting me, my mom calls and tells me she doesn't approve, says she's read stories about that girl. I can hear my dad laughing in the background. Kids on message boards are talking about it, saying the usual stupid bullshit. I even get an e-mail from Her, a one-liner, "Star fucker," followed by a smiley face. The smiley face was key . . . otherwise I would've thought she was mad at me. Not that I cared or anything. 

She is also calling me every other day, leaving me voice mails that are getting progressively more insane. At first, she was polite, rasping that she had a great time the other night, and if the Disaster and I (she calls him "your friend") want to come by the house again, just let her know. Received at 2:27 a.m. When I don't return her call, she leaves me another message, her voice a little more agitated, wondering where I've been hiding, what I've been up to. Received at 3:52 a.m. I can hear Raw Power playing in the background. When I still don't call back, she blows a gasket, leaves me a rambling message that says her cousin shot himself in the head, but he didn't die; rather, he'll be a zombie for the rest of his life. She says she'd call me bad luck, but I'd probably take that as a compliment. Received at 4:14 a.m. Worried, I finally call her back, ask about her cousin, and she sounds like she has no idea what I'm talking about. She calls me an asshole and tells me never to call her again before hanging up. Perhaps everything my mom read about her was true. 

Our album is released and debuts. Heatseekers chart and all that. The first single is getting played on the radio, and our video is being shown on MTV (when they actually show music videos). The world is pulling me away from my hideout in the canyon, and I am obliged to obey. I pay the landlord six months' rent, and the Disaster and I rent a car and drive down to San Diego, where our tour is scheduled to begin. Meet up with the guys for the first time in months. Everyone is happy to see that I'm not only living, but flourishing. I joke that it's that good Cali- fornia air, and that they should all get the hell out of Chicago before it's too late. They all laugh. That night, we go out and get absolutely shitfaced in the Gaslamp; the Disaster and the Animal get into a brawl with a bunch of dudes from the navy. The two get beaten up pretty bad, but it wasn't a fair fight. The Disaster ices his face with a can of beer. The Animal swears a lot and says he's officially an enemy of the state. The tour begins the following night, at the decrepit, old San Diego Sports Arena. Before the show, the manager of the place excitedly tells us that Elvis Pres- ley played there once and gave a brand-new Cadillac to one of the security guys. We're more interested in the Chick-fil-A across the parking lot. We haven't seen one of those since our swings down South.

The show is great, the kids are loud, and the place is packed. I introduce a new song by shouting, "This one is for anyone who's ever looked at their hometown and wanted to burn the motherfucker to the ground," and all the girls squeal. I'm not sure if it's because I cursed, or be- cause they hate San Diego. Probably a combination of the two. Afterward, we hug each other and spray champagne around Elvis's old dressing room. Our manager looks on with a huge smile on his face. None of the other guys see it, but he winks at me. We are off and running. We are catching up to the present. We are in top form. 

The tour snakes throughout the Southwest—Phoenix, Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Santa Fe—and down into Texas, skimming along the Mexican border (we campaigned hard to take a detour into Juárez), shooting east to San Antonio and Houston, a hard north to Dallas. The tour bus slinks along through the night, taking us up into Oklahoma and Kansas. Our bus driver is a chain- smoking, delightfully acrid road dog named Vincent, who used to drive for Ozzy Osbourne and doesn't have time for your shit. He stares out at the open road—the same road he's stared out at a thousand times before—and tells us stories about Ozzy snorting just about everything you can imagine, chasing women, and pissing on things, namely the Alamo. "Shit, you guys are pussies compared to him," he sighs. He's probably right. We are stopping at Indian casinos to play nickel slots, and places like Truckhenge, outside Topeka, where a guy named Ron shows us the rusted-out trucks and buses he's stuck in the ground for no reason. Admission was free. Some nights we stay in hotels—each of us in our own room, finally—and terrorize the staff and our fellow guests. We toss furniture into the pool. Run the housekeeping carts down the hallway. Flush bizarre things down the toilet. Vincent drinks beer in the hotel bar and shakes his head. The following morning, the managers always give us dirty looks, but they don't say anything. I don't even have to use the business centers anymore . . . we've got wireless on the bus.