Save Me: A TAT Novella

by Melanie Walker

  That thought makes me smile because that is who she was.

  I hate the sight though of those flowers.

  I rub the petals of the bright purple roses, the petals soft and in no way do they compare to the feel of her skin under my palm. I trace the ribbons and see the outline of …something beneath the flowers.

  I lift the spray and see something that could only have been painted, specialized, and I don’t care who is watching. I lift the photo and use my arm and swipe the floral arrangement from the casket and care less as the spread goes flying.

  I grip at my chest when I see the beautiful airbrushed design on the casket. Hot tears spill from my eyes and I fall. I knew the work of the artist as well as my own work, because it was my work. Like the old school design of tattooing, I had doodled one day, a banner that said ‘Noah and Candey forever’ and surrounded it with every type of candy and ribbon. I hadn’t thought much of it, until Candey brought it to me as a gift for Valentines day one year. She had taken the scrap that I had doodled on and painted it for me.

  That painting was now the mural on the top of the casket. Through tear thick lashes, I turn and look at my closest friend. Chad knows I know he did this and I see the look of pride in his eyes.

  “Thank you.” I say and my voice is thick with pain.

  He nods and makes his way toward me, and they all follow. I know they all knew and I know this was his gift to me. I don’t think they intended that I saw it until after the graveside services, and even through the mess I made I am glad I see it now.

  Candey’s dad passed a few years ago, so her mother wanted to hold the graveside services at his plot where she will be buried beside him.

  I once again step and step and step until I am at a small shade tent surrounded by flowers with little glittery ribbons on them that say daughter, friend, niece.

  I ponder the flowers. More fucking flowers.

  People are giving me the condolences as I make my way to the ugly ass green velvet covered chairs and wait to sit. People keep talking to me and I am nodding, ugh, hugging a few of them- and I even make the idle chit chat of ‘thank you so much for coming.’ ‘Yes Candey was a darling girl.’

  Through all of this all I can think about, is the fact that flowers are a dumb waste of money at a funeral. I decide then and there that I want a band, a live band, and AIC band playing. I don’t want anyone to talk for me. What’s the point? So they can say, “Oh he was never the same after that True girl died in his mother fucking arms, while his dick was still inside of her no less. No wonder he was so fucked up.”

  Well no, that wasn’t all they’d say. “Don’t forget the years of mental and physical abuse at the hands of their father. He did a number on that poor kid, the things he saw and the suffering, shudder to think. No wonder he went off the deep end and died alone. . .”

  Yeah- no, I would much rather have a band and a party. No flowers. Death is ugly. No amount of Iris, Lilly, Orchid or Rose can change that. Might as well get a bag of dog shit, light it on fire and call it decoration because nothing can make this beautiful.

  I notice that people are walking back toward the tent, and I see Pastor??? Well fuck, his name escapes me. But Pastor Ya-dee-da stands by a podium and an enormous picture of Candey.

  I want you here…with me.

  I shake my head. I am so fucking high right now. I don’t know how I am going to stand up there and make sense, but I am Noah Beckett and the world must see me grieve.

  A moment of clarity comes through and I am hit with the overwhelming sadness that I am so desperately trying to smother under my high. I had turned to take my ugly green covered chair and saw that still standing behind me … was, well, everyone. They hadn’t moved from my back. I am reminded of the scene a while back, when Jerry James died. Paps were everywhere, snapping flashes at Howies trying to get a picture of Shame in mourning. We had climbed from that limo and followed his every move and his back the entire time.

  Now they had mine.

  Oh …fuck…. No…. I felt tears burning my eyes.

  I looked to my lifeline, but Shame couldn’t see my eyes. I had no choice but to drop the shades down enough. That did it, he stepped up close, bringing security detail with him, and now I had a wall of friends and security blocking me. I reached in my breast pocket and grabbed my flask and chugged the remaining liquor.

  “You going to be able to talk?” Shame asked me and I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Gonna try bro. It’s all I got yeah?”

  “Yeah, Noah.” He says and doesn’t leave my side. Cassa is on his other side and his security as well as my own, make it impossible to see me. Never mind the misfits behind me.

  “We need to sit Noah. The Pastor isn’t going to start until you’re seated and we all ain’t sitting until you do.” Shamus was clasping my shoulder guiding me to the ugly velvet green nightmare.

  Pastor… ugh, whatever- started talking right as my numb came back and my pain pills were helping. I knew the numbness wouldn’t last long, but long enough to get me through this nightmare.

  It’s finally my turn to speak on behalf of the love of my life, and I will do it because I owe her that much. I hate this though.

  Hate it.

  I just wasn’t you here. With me.

  I know I can do this though. I have had to stand before thousands and let them judge me. I care when I am on stage. I give a million percent. Here though, I don’t give a fuck if they like what I say. She was mine and she is gone and this is all I have left to give her.

  “I lost Candey once before. I had been dumb and living the dream and made stupid choices. She came back to me though, and I swore that from then on I’d never let her go again.”

  I look out to the people watching me shed my emotions like a new skin. There are fans, family, industry reps and friends. But I am focused on the green chairs and one particular person in them. Just like my entire life, I seek her out to find my strength.

  I have tried to protect her in this. I am destroyed, not broken, but destroyed and I need Carrie happy. I have always accepted my pack with the devil to keep her safe, and now, with me ruined I just can’t let her see. I keep myself from her on purpose and shut her out. I know it’s killing her that I have turned my back on her, but in this moment I am weak and it’s her that has always kept me fighting.

  I need to fight this, I know I do.

  So I look for her and she see’s me.

  My sister is my rock, even when I am pushing her away. “My little sister has given me some pretty amazing gifts, but Candey Love True was by far the greatest one next to her trust in me to raise her. The one time I lost Candey, my little sister was there reminding me to fight for her. I wish that this was just a fight. That I had pissed her off royal and she dumped my sorry ass. I would take that, and though I would be miserable, I would rest knowing that her light was still burning.”

  I want you here. With me.

  “I miss her, so fucking much.” I pause when a collective gasp is audible from my ‘F’ bomb. But, I am me and Candey knew that. “Sorry for the language, I’m not on point right now, but I will try to be careful.”

  A few laughs, mainly from the TAT side, but those laughs remind me I’m not on my own. Alone yes, but only by my choice. “I miss her, but if I could take the loneliness and the missing her for my entire life, I would- just to know she was here and that her love and passion for life and family and art would be here making the world a little less drab.

  “I think of her now and I see how fitting her name was. She was sweet, sometimes too sweet and sometimes she was those fireballs burned you so bad, but God they were so good you just kept wanting more. She was taffy, sweet and soft and mushy at times. She was hard and determined to make you fight for a taste of her sweet. Candey was sugar. She was colorful too, so damn colorful. She would brighten a room with her presence and spunk. And if you couldn’t see how bright and full of life she was, then she would paint you a picture until you could see it in
front of you.”

  I watched as Carrie used a tissue to dry her eyes, but she still looked at me, not wavering and she was squeezing Chad’s hand so tight his skin had gone white around her fingers.

  “I don’t know if anything I have said made sense to any of you, other than my sister and my band, but they speak Noah fluently.” Laughter again, but I just continued because I wasn’t trying to be funny. “I can’t find words to tell any of you what her presence in my life meant to me. I know that since she left this world, I can’t eat and I can’t sleep and not a second goes by that I am not angry. I am angry and I am lost. I will never understand this, and no amount of consoling words or belief in an afterlife makes the anger ease up. I have heard the saying as well as the song, what if God was one of us.

  “He isn’t. If he was all the good people would be here and the shitty ones would get hit by drunk drivers crossing the medium. God, if he exists, is sitting and watching and doing as he pleases and calling it the big picture. The only picture that I see, that I will ever see, are the ones of her. Standing at a Christmas tree, holding my niece who shares her name…” I look to the picture on my lapel and shudder with sadness so profound that tears fall and I don’t care anymore. “Or of our first kiss in a photo booth… to our last kiss on a dance-floor just before she died.”

  Oh fuck, I have spiraled into my pain. I am sobbing and I can’t shut the fuck up. “All I will ever see are flashes of perfect eyes, her voice telling me she will always love me, her lips on the only place on my neck not tattooed. I want her here. With me.”

  I want you here! With me! God damn it!

  I am starting to lose the control I have fought to keep when I feel Carrie pull me from the podium and the microphone. I fall into her embrace and hold her, desperate to hide my pain from the world. This moment is not for them, it isn’t for anyone.

  As if they could read my mind, I feel their presence; though I don’t look at any of them. I am holding on to my baby sister, and they are all there holding us up. “Get me out of here Sissy...” I beg and want to fall to the ground, but they won’t let me fall.

  I feel her crying and the sob she lets free at my words. “I have you Bubba.” She says and pulls back from me. Her hands are on my face and she is forcing me to look at her. “I have you Bubba, trust me?” She says and I calm almost instantly at her words, they are my balm and my only balm. I feel Shamus scoop his arm around me and Cal do the same on the other side. Chad is blocking me from the back and Mike is in the front, and like a well organized swat team, they move in step together and before I know it I am in the limo.

  Carrie backed in first, followed by me, then Shame, Cal, Chad then Mike. I didn’t know where Tayla and Cassa were and all I cared about then was the squat glass of Vodka that Carrie was handing me.

  I leaned back against the seat and ripped the glasses from my face chucking them across the back of the limo. “Breathe Noah.” Carrie says and the calm of her voice does nothing to help.

  “I fucked that up so bad.” I groan and cover my eyes with my hand as I cry in a limo full of men, bad-ass men and my sister. “I wanted to honor her and be proud, but my head is so fucking foggy.”

  They knew it was half the pain killers, half the booze and half the fact this was killing me. “I humiliated her.” I say and those words suck. “I am not logical, most definitely not rational. I’m dark and drab and if I am lucky, I’m sarcastic from time to time. I tried being something I’m not today and it backfired.”

  “Noah, what you said was perfect.” Cal said and I was taken back by it. Cal hadn’t really spoken in this whole thing. The fucker had a way of reminding you he was always paying attention though. “You let it come out exactly like you saw it. That is you. You’re logical and rational Noah, just not in the typical sense and it works, for all of us. What you said, every last word was the Candey I love and the stories, they were you guys and the way you had a sync about you. Don’t shred that Noah, you nailed it bro. It was perfect.”

  I wanted to say something, anything but a tap on the window had us all, collectively looking at the window with curious expressions. And none of us bothered to roll the window down.

  Just looked at the window.

  Silently.

  Then I started laughing and slapped Chads leg since he was closest. “Are placing bets on who’s out there or are you gonna look sometime soon?” I ask and the tension and the emotion dissipate and for a brief fleeting moment we are just us.

  *

  I sit at the table and look around the room, seeing for the first time what sober and alone feels like. I feel it now, that alone feeling. I look at my fridge, there are so many pictures of Noelle; Candy holding Noelle, me holding her with Candy beside me. Everywhere I look I see her face, in every aspect of my life.

  The drawer in my kitchen holds what I need and I remove it without thought. This was the ugly side of me. This spoon now in my hand is the only solace I can have.

  Do I want to fall again? No. I accept that this is all I have left though. I miss her and frankly, I am tired of being strong. I do not want to feel. I do not want to face the changes. I do not want to look at these pictures and… feel.

  I want you here. With me.

  I hear the tune of Alice in Chains, Black gives way to blue and I crumple under the pressure, the weight of this pain.

  I don’t think it’s possible to recover from this. I have had crisis counselors calling and begging for me to seek help. I wonder if I had killed my father instead of leaving, I wonder if I would have turned out differently. Would I have gone to the needle? Would I have destroyed Carrie with this gravely addiction?

  I feel the leather against my arm as I tighten the noose to my vein. The resounding sound of the tap, tap, tap as I prepare my vein is a strange comfort. It tells me I soon will forget.

  I will forget the smell of her skin, the feel of her kiss… the happiness of what I had finally found. I will soon forget what it feels like to be free.

  I can now smell the drug, the hope of forgetting has a distinct smell and I am comforted by it. There! There it is, the prick of skin, the adrenaline has spiked and I pull back slightly and watch as blood splashes back in my syringe and confirms that I have a good vein.

  I press my thumb down as the heroin races in to take over.

  It is instantaneous, the relief I feel as my entire system shuts down.

  I continue to stare at her picture, I stare until I cannot recall her name, or my own. I remember the last second before we were hit and I am still blinded with pain. I will always be blinded with pain, but now I don’t care.

  I don’t want to feel this sadness, so I take it away and fall to my old imitation of Noah. I can only survive this way. I will forever be haunted by her, and all I have left I can only give to them. To her, my sissy and the small chubby arms of a child I worship. They will receive all the good I have left. They don’t see, see what I see. I am no more.

  Dust.

  Gone.

  Flew away on a broken dream.

  I stumble.

  I crumble.

  I fall away…

  I am no more, it is all gone, taken like her last breath. I stand and sway. I am so high. I giggle through hazy tears and laugh at her image on my fridge. I trace her cheek with my thumb. “Hi baby.” I slur and then turn, swearing I hear her gasp my name.

  As delusions go, I never want this to end. “Say my name again baby.” I am talking to nothing, no one and deep down I know this, but the haze over my brain lets me believe.

  But all I hear is music and I feel tears splash my cheeks. It is in that moment that I die along with her. I will walk and talk and play music…

  But Noah Becket is dead and gone.

  Six weeks later…

  Chad

  The room was a wreck of filth, grime and empty beer cans lining the floor. Needles and black spoons covered in nasty brown syrupy shit that reeked to high hell. We all knew it would be like this. Six weeks, and we hadn’t
heard a word from him. By the time Carrie was climbing the walls in an anger and anguish cocktail of crazy, I said enough was enough.

  Pays to be the lead singer in a kick ass band, even locksmiths are at my disposal. One autograph and a hash-tag of #OMFGchadblakeyesssssssss and we were in.

  Carrie stormed back to the room and I could hear her screaming and crying and could do nothing. Eight weeks and five days we were married and it was fucking hell.

  Shame and Sass were here now too and Sass was in her crack-head cleaning mode the minute she saw the house. Shame was on the phone getting carpet cleaners and dumpsters lined up. Everything had to go, not a stitch of fabric in this house that didn’t have the awful retching scent of heroin on it.