Brando (12 page)

I
break down fully. The cracks too wide to close up. Pain and
heartbreak flowing through every vein in my body. Brando pulls me
toward him tightly, squeezing me as if he can push it all back out.

“Haley,”
he says, as I weep into his
chest, “I’m
sorry.”

I
gather the pieces of me that remain and stand back upright to breathe
in the cool night air.

“Maybe,”
Brando says, his hand still
brushing my wet cheek, “he
didn’t get the
letters? Perhaps he had a different address? Or it just got stuck
with all the other fan mail?”

“All
he had to do was look, you know?!” I
scream, loudly and angrily, as if it’s
him standing in front of me rather than Brando. “All
he had to do was look! We weren’t
on fucking Mars; we were six hours away in Santa Cruz! Twenty-four
fucking years and
nothing
.
Not one fucking word! I thought maybe he was staying away, scared to
come back after all this time. He
had
to know. Who could
spend twenty-four years without checking once –
just
once
– to see
what his daughter looked like? And then tonight… He
just looked right through me, like I was anybody, and I knew. I knew
I was lying to myself.”

Brando
says nothing, but his eyes show it. He wishes he could take this pain
away, wishes he could do something, but he can’t.
Instead, he reaches down to the six pack of beers he brought out onto
the balcony, cracks two open, and hands me one. I gulp almost half of
it, hoping the cold fizz and the alcohol will help clear away the bad
taste that all the memories left behind.

“Thanks,”
I say, drying the last of my
tears with the edge of the blanket.

Brando
nods and leans back against the balcony, twisting the bottle in his
hands as he searches for something to say.

“You
know, I can’t tell
you how to feel, or how to think about any of that. I can’t
tell you how to stop hurting – I’d
be a therapist if I could. But the one thing I do know, for sure, is
that it’s the shit
that hurts the most, which hurts the longest and the deepest, that
makes you tougher.”

I
lean over the railing, dangling my beer above the empty street below,
watching the shadows of strays slide around the garbage cans of the
alleyway.

“I’m
sorry,” I say. “I’ve
just never really spoken about this before.”

“It’s
okay,” Brando
replies softly.

“Let’s
talk about something else. Please. I don’t
want to think about this anymore.”

“Okay,
let’s see…”
he says, moving closer and
leaning in.

I
look up at him, searching his gaze. “Tell
me about you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah.
What’s your story?
We spend so much time together, and I still have no idea where you’re
from.” I snort a
little laugh. “Did
you just emerge out of thin air as the very charming, incredibly
handsome ‘Brando
Nash’?”

“Yes?”

I
laugh. “Funnily
enough, I’d believe
that.”

“Actually,”
Brando says with a sigh, “the
truth is a bit messier.”

“Oh?”

He
turns his face back toward the skyline, as if he can almost see his
past still happening way off beyond the city’s
lights.

“I
don’t really know
where I was born, or who my parents were. They gave me up for
adoption when I was two.”

“Jesus.”
For some reason, this was the
last thing I expected to hear. I turn to look at Brando. “You
didn’t try to find
out?”

“I
didn’t have time to
try. The first ten years of my life are just a blur. One group home
to another, friends you make and lose in a single day, foster parents
I eventually gave up on hoping would be long-term. I was always the
new boy, always the stranger. I got bullied pretty bad. I learned
pretty quickly to just keep my mouth shut and get through the days.”

I
study Brando’s face.
He stares outward, his expression stony, as if reciting a history
textbook in his deep monotone.

“I
had nothing. Owned nothing. Even my clothes were ‘borrowed’
from other kids in the homes.
Except music. That was free. You couldn’t
steal airwaves.” He
takes a long draught of beer.

“True,”
I say, starting to see the pieces
of Brando come together. “You
can’t.”

He
shrugs. “I started
hanging out in places I could hear music. Snuck into clubs, sat
outside bars. Sometimes I’d
just stop outside someone’s
house if they had the radio on loud enough.”

Brando
laughs at the recollection.

“Then
something clicked. I realized that these songs weren’t
just some alien thing that came from another planet, but that you
could actually
make
music. Kids rapping on street corners, dreadlocked guys on the subway
banging on drums. It was expressive, moving,
powerful
.
And it made me feel powerful.”

Brando
looks at me, a little embarrassed.

“I
loved music, but I knew I couldn’t
make it. That wasn’t
where my strengths were. I was a smart-talker, a connection-maker –
a hustler. I could
see
things. Make things happen. That’s
what I was good at. I put on some showcases, networked like hell, and
then started a small label, got a few local acts together. Persuaded
people to give us some studio time, brought people together I thought
would work. It was good. Underground, nothing major –
but good.”

He
drops his gaze to the alleyway a hundred feet below us.

“Then
I met Lexi, and I knew it could be something huge. She used to make
these tapes of her just humming melodies, and you’d
have sworn they were classics. She wrote songs like that, just
singing them into a cheap tape deck. And her voice was…mind-blowing.
She was working in a fast food joint at the time, just doing the
music for fun, for the love of it. It was me who convinced her it
could be something more.

“I
dropped everything. Gave the label over to some associates to handle,
forgot all about the hustling, and from then on, it was all Lexi. I
did everything for her.”

“You
fell in love with her?” I
ask, gently.

Brando
nods. “How could I
not? She was amazing. We moved into some shitty apartment in the
Bronx. I started doing everything I could to get her demos together,
get her in front of the people who mattered. But I was jealous,
possessive, a control freak. Lexi, on the other hand, liked to party.
We argued about everything, money, the music, us. But we knew we
needed each other.

“Things
started moving, and we both came to LA. I didn’t
know anybody here, but I knew how to make friends fast, how to move
in the right circles. It was coming together. I had the songs, had
the connections. I got a job at Majestic Records. Everything was
lined up.”

Brando
smiles widely, but it’s
a macabre smile, a smile that he’s
putting on to stop the other emotions from coming out.

“And
just when we were about to do it, about to make it big, the labels
already making offers, the studio time already starting, the songs
already there - Lexi left.”

He
turns to me and stares, as if I might have an answer, might be able
to explain why, or how. I shake my head slowly, in disbelief and
sympathy.

“How?
Why?”

“I
asked myself that same question every day for the past three years,”
he says. “Maybe
I’d been so focused
on her career, I forgot about her. Maybe I underestimated how much I
hurt her; how much she hated me. Maybe we never had the same ambition
all along. She disappeared for a week. I found out through somebody
at the label that she’d
signed with Davis. He’d
promised her a number one record, mega-star status. She even cheated
on me just to make sure I got the message – some
pretty-boy from Davis’ label
who I know she never even liked.”

“Brando…”

“It’s
alright. I fucked the pain away, pretty much. Went out every night,
making up for lost time. Became somebody else, in order to survive.
Still a hustler, but even more so. If I stopped to think it would
only hurt, so I kept moving – only
faster. I started to treat women the way I treated my acts. I cared
for them, had fun with them, gave them what they wanted, and took my
share of that. But I didn’t
get attached. Didn’t
get emotionally involved. In that sense, I moved on. Or at least, I
thought I had, until she showed up again.”

It
takes a second for me to piece it all together.

“So
that’s what you guys
were doing at the open mic I played?”

“Yeah.”

We
turn toward LA, the city that gave us our dreams, and then took them
away.

I
start laughing. It’s
slow at first, but it gets crazier and crazier. I try to stop,
covering my mouth, but the more I do, the more maniacal it gets.
Brando watches me with confusion, until he starts breaking out
himself. For a full minute, we howl like schoolkids, doubled over and
clutching our stomachs.

“We
are quite a pair!” I
say, laughing harder.

“Two
abandoned strays!” Brando
shouts into the night. “Coming
for revenge!”

“You
hear that, LA?!”

“We’re
coming!”

Brando

Though
my card still says I work for them, Majestic Records and I have a
somewhat complicated relationship. Not least involving their CEO:
Jason Rowland. When they offered me a job, it was based on my success
with my own NYC-based label. But it was also assumed Lexi and I came
as a package deal. Majestic would get an A & R guy who had his
ear to the streets, and also his hottest prospect. When the hot
prospect decided to go with their biggest rival, Davis Crawford’s
Hypersonic, and when I turned out to be more interested in partying
than finding them someone to replace her, the tension didn’t
take long to creep in.

Still,
I managed to hand them a couple of good acts, a few indie rock bands
whose sales are slow but steady, a hot girl group with an urban
sound, and most recently an R ‘n
B singer who has a small, but creepily-obsessive fan following. So
they let me keep the office and the cards, but in truth, most of what
I’ve been doing over
the past few years has been the same as ever. Hustling to get small
bands signed to other labels when Majestic –
specifically Jason Rowland –
rejects them.

Not
this time. Only a fool would pass up someone as hot as Haley. This
time I’m the one
who’s going to be
setting the terms.

I
roll up to the skyscraper that houses the Majestic Records offices
and wink to the always-smiling receptionist. A long elevator ride
later and I step out onto one of the highest floors.

“Here
for your ten-thirty, Brando?”

“Early
as always, Siobhan.”

“Not
always,” the
beautiful blonde says, knowingly. We have history.

I
take a seat on the leather couch outside Rowland’s
office and settle in for the inevitable waiting period. Rowland
always makes people wait; he thinks it makes him seem more important.
I guess he read it in a book.

My
phone rings. I don’t
recognize the number, but I pick up anyway. You never know when
opportunity’s gonna
give you a call.

“Well
hello,
Brando.”

Shit.
“Davis? How the fuck
did you get my number?”

“I’ve
always had your number, Brando. You know that.”

“Well
do me a favor and delete it.”

“Come
on now, why so prickly? Getting a little jittery about our little
bet, now that there are only two weeks left?”

I
can’t help the smirk
that creeps into my voice. “Actually
things are going pretty well. I’m
guessing you know that already, though.”

“Ah
yes. Everyone’s
talking about Brando’s
new girl. If I hear that damned song one more time I’ll
be tempted to steal her off you, too.”

He
snickers at his own joke and I swallow the flush of anger that rises
in me.

“We
done?” I say,
curtly.

“With
a little bit of the right guidance, and a big push behind her, she
could be quite the little star in a year or so.”

“She’ll
be a star. In two weeks.”

Davis’
croaky laugh sounds even worse
over a phone line.

“Come
on Brando, you know that’s
impossible. It took you this long just to get some songs together.
Nobody outside of the LA has any idea who she is. Look, I thought I’d
be my typically gentlemanly self and offer you an out. I made the bet
just to see you squirm, but you’ve
done admirably. So in a way, you’ve
won already. Frankly, I wouldn’t
want one of your acts even if you did decide to go ahead and lose it.
I wouldn’t know what
to do with them.”

I
chuckle.

“Davis,
I don’t back out of
bets, but even if I did, Haley would still be a star by the end of
the month – and you
know it. Seeing the look on your silicone-stuffed face when you have
to pay me ten grand is just the very sweet cherry on top of an
incredibly satisfying cake.”

Siobhan
raises her eyes to meet mine and nods toward Rowland’s
door.

“Now
Brando, you’ve
always been a wonderfully confi—”

“Bye
Davis. Gotta run. See you at the end of the month.”

I
hang up and smile. I stand up, send another memory-inducing wink
toward Siobhan, and push through the pretentiously large double doors
that lead into Jason Rowland’s
office.

In
case it wasn’t
obvious, Rowland and I have never seen eye-to-eye. He’s
a young guy, tall and slim. He dresses sharp, but he has the cold,
clinical manner, and the doll-like hair, of a serial killer. To me,
he always looked like the kind of guy who owns a dungeon and gets off
on making sex-contracts with women. We come from completely different
worlds. Though he likes to tell people he had a tough childhood,
anyone can see he was born rich, and never worked a day in his life.
He started Majestic himself, but it’s
still a subsidiary of ‘Rowland
Enterprises’ – his
father’s company.
Nobody knows much about his private life, but I met a girl once who
swore she saw him watching her from across the street almost every
day for three weeks after she slept with him.