Fix My Feet When They're Stumblin'

Chapter 6

    Looking out the tour bus window at the sights of downtown Kansas City through the grimy water spots on the glass as they made their way to the night's venue, Brandon felt a sudden rush of intense homesickness - not for Utah, where he had been living with his family for the past two years, but Las Vegas. Beautiful, beautiful Las Vegas. He knew there was no point dwelling on it, he would never live there again and he would choose his wife's health and happiness a million times over the city of lights, but still...it still felt like he had left his home behind in the Nevada desert, sometimes.  Utah was absolutely beautiful in its own right, though, and at least the city they had chosen was much larger than the tiny town he'd been forced to move to by his parents as a child. Besides, Ronnie and his wife had a home just twenty minutes away that they lived in sometimes, so they were neighbors when they were home...for part of the year at least.

    He sighed quietly, drumming his fingers on the side of the bus beneath the window, and leaned his forehead against the glass, enjoying the cool feeling on his skin. He hadn't slept well at all last night. After finally making it to his hotel room past dawn, what rest he did get had been disturbed by fragmented nightmares involving airplanes. It usually happened after a rough flight, but now he was starting to feel the effects of his emotionally taxing evening and poor quality sleep. A headache pounded dully behind his eyes, which burned and felt heavy; he had to fight to keep them open. It was only noon and he'd already bumbled his way through a phone interview before even getting the chance for breakfast. He had two more interviews - one with Ronnie, thankfully - soundcheck, and a gig to get through in the next twelve hours.

    The interview he had done for Q had been published in the night while they had been on their hellish flight, and when Brandon had finally awoke late that morning, he had spent nearly an hour in bed on his laptop, trawling the internet for fans' first reactions. He and Ronnie had dropped hints about the potential lack of Mark and Dave throughout the process of making the record, but that had been the fans' first confirmation that Dave had not worked on the album at all, that Mark's role had been limited, and that the album was now finished and those circumstances would not be changing. As he'd expected, the fans were very passionately divided about the album, but the reactions he'd seen to a few widely-circulated poor quality clips of the new songs they had debuted had been positive, just like the live audience.

    "Brandon. Brandon...Brandon!" He jumped and raised his head off the window, blinking blearily to see who had called his name. Jeremy. He sighed, grabbed his backpack and scrambled out of the car, then stood by the door as the group collected all of their equipment and luggage. He silently followed his tour manager through the venue's anonymous back corridors to his and Ronnie's dressing room. A few crew members came and dropped off various trunks of luggage, and then finally he was alone. Brandon pulled his crumpled press schedule out of the back pocket of his faded jeans. Phone interview with some blog at 10 am...check. He had a joint interview with Ronnie for Magnet Magazine in less than thirty minutes, then an interview alone with Rollingstone in person, then soundcheck, and then finally two hours of downtime and preparation before showtime. He sat down at the vanity and ran his hands through his hair, grimacing at his reflection. Dark circles under his eyes and stubborn, slightly-too-long hair sticking out every which way. Not his best look today. He splashed cold water on his face at the sink, then fished a comb and a can of hairspray from his bag and went to battle.

    As he was putting the hairspray away, Ronnie came bursting through the door, a bit wild-eyed - kind of the opposite of how he felt himself, Brandon mused, admiring his friend's energy. "Sorry - I forgot about the interview - sorry, I'm sorry," Ronnie gasped, leaning on the door frame. He looked around and paused. "Oh, wait, I'm not even late?"

    Brandon smiled and held up his phone, wiggling it to draw attention to the time shown. "Nah, still ten minutes early, we don't even have an interviewer yet. You're good, man," he added, stifling a yawn.

    Ronnie sighed in relief, breathing hard - he had clearly run to their dressing room. "Oh, good...hey, how are you feeling, Bran?" He asked, making his way to the old, battered sofa against the concrete wall - a very homey place, this dressing room. "Because I feel like I haven't slept in days," he added as he collapsed onto the sofa and it gave a gasp of discomfort at his weight.

    "Kinda the same," Brandon admitted. "I'm not even excited about the fucking gig, I just wanna be done so I can go to sleep. We have two days off tomorrow, at least. That'll be good."

    "Oh, man, will it ever," Ronnie agreed, tipping his head back over the top of the couch to stare at the ceiling. "You know...I know I keep saying I miss these little venues, but I sure don't miss the dinky dressing rooms."

    "At least it's not a closet," Brandon shrugged, settling down on the sofa next to Ronnie.

    "Ohh, true, remember - " The dressing room door creaked open and they both sat up a little straighter as a bespectacled man in a grey button-up shirt and black jeans entered.

    "Hello, Brandon, Ronnie, I'm John King with Magnet..." The interview passed in a blur, with Brandon deferring to Ronnie on many of the questions, finding it more difficult to string together coherent setences as the interview wore on. Finally they thanked him and said their goodbyes, and Brandon slumped back into the sofa as soon as the door closed behind the reporter. He heard Ronnie cross the room and open the mini fridge in the corner, then felt something hard, cold and wet thump against his thigh and opened his eyes.

    "Ah, bless you, Ronnie, thank you," he sighed, cracking open the can of Redbull and downing half in one long draught. Ronnie just laughed and shook his head, opening his own as he stood by the fridge.

    "You wanna go get some food? They've got a buffet set up on the other side of the venue, on the crew side."

    "Yes," Brandon groaned, finishing his Redbull and tossing it halfheartedly in the direction of the trash can - it missed and clattered to the floor. "Maybe..." He yawned, then rubbed his face. "Maybe that's my problem."

    Closest to the door, Ronnie held it open and followed Brandon out, then led the way to the buffet, set up in a larger room about five minutes' walk from their dressing room near the stage entrance. They both piled their plates with offerings and sat at a rickety table with mismatched plastic chairs - only Erica, one of their background singers, shared the buffet room with them, and she sat at another table with her headphones on as she finished her lunch, oblivious.

    Brandon had barely eaten a quarter of his food when a harried-looking Jeremy stuck his head around the doorframe and sighed in relief. "Brandon, what are you doing? You're supposed to be doing an interview, the guy from Rollingstone is waiting for you!"

    Brandon dropped his fork in mid-bite, pushing his chair back aggressively and jumping up. He tripped over his feet in his haste. "Fuck, fuck, I'm sorry, fuck! Fuck. I can't do my fucking job today, Ron, you should just fucking fire me," he called over his shoulder as he sprinted out of the room and down the hall.

    "Brandon, the other way!" Jeremy yelled after him, and Ronnie heard the fading footsteps skid to a halt and then grow louder as he ran back towards them and away again, towards their dressing room. The drummer shook his head with a laugh, regarding his friend's barely-touched plate with regret.

    "Hey, is he...okay?" Jeremy asked quietly, closing the buffet room's door behind him for privacy. "He seems...weird today. Off."

    Ronnie shook his head again, more serious this time. "Nah, we had a rough flight last night and then he hardly slept afterwards, and today is just a very busy schedule on very little sleep. And you know Rollingstone already kinda hates us, they'll just use this to paint Brandon like he's got his head up his ass or something. But he'll be good for the show, he always is."

    Jeremy nodded, then grabbed tin foil from a crate of supplies under the buffet table and wrapped up Brandon's abandoned plate. "Well, just let me know if either of you needs anything. Maybe you guys should do something fun tomorrow, recharge," he suggested as he replaced the box of foil in the crate.

    "Yeah, that's a good idea...thanks," Ronnie added thoughtfully to Jeremy's retreating back.