Rockoholic (35 page)

He laughs.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. I just can’t believe I screwed things up again. I finally meet people I can get along with and then it ends in disaster. Grohman’s right. Everything I do turns to shit. I can’t make good of anyone’s lives, especially my own.” He launches a lump of moss high into the night.

“That’s not true. You made my life better.”

His laugh is sour. “Did I? How bad was your life before you met the wonder that is me? What single aspect of my miserable wasted shit of a life made
yours
better?”

“Well, you’ve certainly made it more interesting for a while.”

I bite down on an already throbbing nail that I’ve been chewing since the car ride home from Weston Park. “Maybe I
should
come away with you, Jackson. Maybe
that’s
what
‘Don’t Dream It, Be It’
means. Me being out of the way. And Mac doesn’t seem to care one way or the other.” Before I can speak again Jackson pipes up. He’s smiling.

“I was clowning, Jody. I don’t want you coming with me. Why would you want to? You belong here.”

“No I don’t. Not anymore. I was so rude to Mac’s parents. They started laying into him and I just went mad. I’ve never seen Mac so upset. He probably hates me, too, after what happened with Cree.”

“Poor, poor you. Poor tough-luck you.” He jumps down onto the flat roof to stand before me. I wait, holding my breath, waiting for the sound of the back door opening. Waiting for Mum to appear below and ask me what I’m doing up here. He struts to one end of the roof. My blood runs like mountain water in my veins. “These GCDC tests you didn’t pass, were any of them in getting the hint?”

“I don’t —”

“Mac’s a guy. I’m sure the only way he can talk you out of coming with me is if he tells you how he feels about you, and he can’t do that. He’d rather face an entire audience, his hometown, wearing stilettos and fishnet stockings, than do
that
.” He’s smirking at me as if he’s so clever.

I try and win back a point. “So he’s just going to let me leave, is he? That’s how much he loves me?”

“What am I, a therapist? But I saw the way he kissed you in the park.”

“That was just . . .” I stammer, glad he can’t see me blushing in the dark. “That was just because of Cree.”

He doesn’t say anything more, just shimmies back down the rose trellis and along the wall at the edge of the yard and jumps down onto all fours at the end of the flower bed. I follow him down and we creep back into the garage and close the door. “Where do you think you’ll end up?”

He shrugs. “Who knows? It’s exciting. Not knowing every single tiny detail of where I’m going, where I’m gonna eat my next meal, how I’m gonna get there. I don’t care.”

There’s a hideous silence, during which I have a hideous thought. “You’re not going to kill yourself, are you? Is that what you were going to do on the roof? Were you just waiting for me to watch or something?”

He shakes his head. He reaches across and picks up one of the dog-eared Stephen King books I got him from the thrift shop.
Different Seasons
. He opens it at the last page of “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.” “You ever read this?”

“Yeah, of course. Well, I’ve seen the film. I didn’t know it was a book, too.”

“It’s a novella. OK, you remember Andy, the main character in
Shawshank
? How he had everything set up in a different-name bank account just waiting for him when he got out of prison so he could disappear into a whole new life?” I remembered the end of the movie where he’s digging his escape hole in his cell wall, behind this huge poster. “Well,” says Jackson. “I kinda been digging a hole behind my poster, too.”

“Huh?”

He finds the key string around his neck and holds it out to show me. I’ve seen it a thousand times but it doesn’t mean anything until that moment — the moment he tells me where the lock is.

“About a year ago, we did a European tour to promote the
Strapped for Cash
album. Around the same time, I got depressed and I knew I wanted out. We did a couple of gigs in Zurich and I opened up my very own clichéd Swiss bank account.”

“Why?”

He points at me. “You’re the only person in the world I’ve told this to. I opened the account in the name of Tom Gordon. That’s what I wanted to be known as if I ever got out of the band. My new identity. I think it’s about time I went and unlocked that box, don’t you?”

Realization slams into me like a punch. He had it all planned. He had a whole new persona already laid out for him that nobody in the world had a clue about. That was the name he’d wanted on the passport. Thomas Gordon. The name of the man who opened the offshore account. Thomas Gordon. The name of the man in the photos I’d given the BFD. Thomas Gordon.

I smile. “You bastard.”

“What?”

“You’ve had this planned all along, haven’t you? You were never going to kill yourself.”

“I don’t know about that, I came pretty goddamn close a couple of times there. But call it my rainy-day escape plan. I always dreamed it’s what I’d do. I never got the chance to, until now. Thanks to you. That time before, when they said I was in rehab in New Zealand?”

“Yeah?”

He shakes his head. “I’d tried to do a disappearing act then. Had it all planned. Access to money no one knew I had. Got the documents through an ex-roadie Grohman fired years ago. Ran into Pash at the damn airport. So I was whisked safely back into the limelight. Balls-deep in limelight. Grohman did some damage control with the press and all was well, though he certainly kept me on a tight leash after that. Son of a bitch. That night in Cardiff, though I didn’t know it at the time, another door was opened for me. Another way out.”

“You’ll never be in The Regulators anymore, will you?”

“As far as everyone but you is concerned, Jackson Gatlin will never walk this Earth again.”

I reach out and wrinkle up the sleeve of the black Calvin Klein T-shirt —
Mac’s
Calvin Klein T-shirt — to reveal his burning-rose tattoo. “What about that?”

He looks down at it and sneers. “That’s the least of my worries.”

“But won’t you miss any of it? Singing? Performing?” He shakes his head. “I used to pretend you were my boyfriend,” I tell him. “At night, whenever I couldn’t sleep, I’d listen to Regs on my MP3 and close my eyes and imagine you right there with me. Singing just for me.”

“You won’t do that anymore?” he says.

“No way,” I say. “Well, I’ll still listen to rock. I don’t know if I’ll listen to The Regulators again. It would be too strange. You’re like some weird brother to me now.”

He smiles his dimpled smile and pats the feathers next to him. “Come here.” I crawl across the feathers and sit next to him. “You’re making my dream come true. So, I’ll do the same for you. I’ll give you an exclusive, backstage, all-access pass to Jackson Gatlin’s final performance.”

He lies down on the feathers.

“What?” I say, not quite sure what he means.

“Lie down here.”

I shake my head. “No.”

“I’m not going to do anything, Jody. Come on, humor me.” He pats the feathers next to him. I lie down, staring into his eyes. “I’ll sing for you. What would you like me to sing?”

“Ooh, this is way cringey!”

“Come on, pick a song. One of our slow ones? ‘Tortuous’? Everyone always wants ‘Tortuous.’”

“No,” I tell him, looking dead into his eyes. “Do you know any Fang Morrison songs?”

“Van Morrison? What one? ‘Crazy Love’? ‘Brown Eyed —’”

“‘Brown Eyed Girl,’ yeah, that’s it.”

“OK,” he says and starts to sing. And for the first time ever, I feel his breath on my cheeks. The breath I’ve been imagining for so long. Hot and perfect. And I close my eyes. But he doesn’t stroke my hair as I’ve always imagined. And in my mind it’s not him singing anymore. It’s Mac.

Friday arrives with gray skies and drizzly windows. Mac’s phone is off all morning. I’m guessing he’s still not talking to me so I leave it, and once Mum and Halley are out of the way, Jackson comes in the house and I finally tell him he’s leaving tonight. I push all thoughts of never seeing him again out of my mind as I help him pack my black rucksack with a few items of spare clothing and a new toothbrush. I gulp down a rush of tears as I’m raiding the cupboards for long-lasting foodstuffs to take with him — beans, crackers, cheese. All morning I daren’t look at his face for too long, because it keeps catching me — that thought. That unbearable thought that after ten thirty tonight, he’ll be gone forever. Before the concert, I’d look at the posters and the magazine articles and the TV interviews and I’d know that I’d see him onstage again some day and I’d know he really existed. But after ten thirty tonight, that’ll be it. He’ll get in that car as Jackson James Gatlin, but when he gets out again, he’ll be plain old Thomas Gordon. Nobody.

Jackson can’t wait. He keeps talking about all the things he’s going to do. These cliffs in Indonesia he’s going to jump off. This art gallery in Australia he’s going to visit. That blossom tree in Japan he’s going to sit beneath again. The day goes so fast, like galloping horses I just can’t hold back, no matter how hard I dig my heels in the dirt.

At four o’clock, I walk into town and buy Mac a large good-luck card. I write it in the shop. Then I walk around to the posh flower shop. They’ve got into the
Rocky Horror
spirit, and I buy Mac the nicest bunch of black roses. I take both around to the Playhouse. I want to see Mac, even if he doesn’t want to see me. I open the stage door. I’m confronted by a group of people in white makeup, corsets, and garter belts. They’re holding plastic cups and chocolate-chip cookies and are coming up from the room under the staircase, the actors’ canteen. They meander past me like a long multicolored river, all giving me funny looks, like I’m the freak. I stop a short fat bloke, who turns out to be Ann Rackham in a wig.

“Have you seen Mackenzie Lawless?”

“Yeah, he’s in his dressing room,” she says, and then rejoins the group of players as they disappear up the stairs to the first and second floors.

I walk along the corridor that runs parallel to the back of the stage to find Dressing Room One, all on its own at the very end. The door is shut. I can hear music. I lean in closer. It’s that song again — “Brown Eyed Girl.” I knock. After a little while and a lot of clunking around, the music disappears and the door snaps open. Mac stands before me. And for the first time ever, I know what I feel when I’m looking at him. I feel the thunder.

“Oh,” he says. “I thought you were Geoffrey. Just done my opening song about six bloody times. I’m sick of it.” He returns to what he was doing before my interruption: changing. He flicks off his sneakers. I walk in, still clutching the oversized card and bunch of black roses. He turns back to me and twizzles a finger in the air to make me turn around so he can take off his pants.

“Why?” I say. “I’ve seen you naked before.” And then I wish I hadn’t said it cos suddenly I remember I was sneaking a look at him when he took a shower at our house once. I know it’s a bit pervy but he was coming out of the bathroom, I was coming out of my room, his towel slipped, he grabbed it, I saw his ass. That was all I saw. Honestly.

“I’ve never been
that
drunk in front of you,” he says. “Go on, turn.”

I turn. “Why have you done your opening song six times? You know it backward.”

“I did,” he says quietly. “Nerves are kicking in today, just when I least need them.”

“You don’t get nervous.
I
get nervous.”

“Are you coming tonight?” he asks.

I turn back around. He’s in a long-sleeved black mesh top that’s threaded through with silver and there’s a bath towel around his waist. “Course I am. Front row. And I’m picking up my costume from Fancy That on the way home and Jackson’s going to do my makeup for me.” I present him with the card and flowers. He smiles at them, not me, setting the card down on the neatest dressing table I’ve ever seen and the flowers in the sink along with another bouquet he’s got. I walk over to them and fumble with the other card. “Who are these from?”

“Sorry bouquet from Mum,” he says, sitting down in the towel in front of his mirror. The flash in his hair is red. “She’s only coming to the first half tonight.”

“She’s actually coming?” I’m amazed.

He picks up his hair straightener and starts running it through his hair. “Yeah, I don’t know what’s come over them. She’s going home at the intermission and Dad’s coming to the second half. They don’t want to leave Cree.” He pokes about in his makeup bag, pulling out his hand sanitizer, foundation, and tube of mascara. He unscrews the mascara and starts fluffing it about his lashes. “He’s never
ever
seen one of my shows.”

Wow. What I said actually made a difference. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe they worked something out for both of their kids. I want to hug him but he’s busy applying the mascara. His hand is shaking.

“Do you want me to do it?”

“No, it’s fine,” he says. I suck in a big deep breath and let it out. He turns and looks at me. “I daren’t ask if you’re OK, after the last time I asked.”