by Rob Rufus
I didn’t say anything. I was out of words.
I was empty.
5
“But they’re already on their way,” Mom said. “I literally have no way to tell them not to come, honey.”
I was hunched in the backseat.
“So I’m supposed to sit at a ‘party’ where a bunch of assholes come and feel sorry for me? I feel like I’m going to my own funeral.”
“That isn’t funny,” Dad said.
Mom turned around to face me. “I know that ‘bad timing’ doesn’t even come close to nailing this, but these people are only coming because they care about you.”
“Fuck them,” I snapped.
Dad turned onto our block. My Mustang sat on the curb, glistening under our oak trees. Nat must have moved it so the partygoers could cast jealous glances at it.
“Goddammit,” I said. “At least don’t say anything about this news—okay? Even to Nat. Just tell him I’m waiting on a test result or something. I don’t care. But no one can know. I won’t be able to fucking handle it if they know.”
With that, I opened the door and hurled myself toward the house like a cannonball ready to explode.
6
Everyone seemed to be having a good time at my fake just-beat-cancer party. The house was filled with guests—mostly relatives, standing in the backyard drinking Coronas and talking about boring adult stuff. Dad’s Sam Cooke LP was spinning.
My parents were doing a fine job of playing hosts. I was the only one who noticed the way they avoided people’s eyes. Old women came up to hug me. Strangers shook my hand and slapped my shoulder. I stood there lifelessly, taking it. I was exhausted in the very core of my being.
I stayed in the kitchen with my friends.
I watched as Doyle and Tyson scarfed down countless slices of pizza. Paul was pulling a Cool Hand Luke, trying to see how many slices he could shove into his mouth at once—he was up to three. Ali sat at the table, laughing hysterically at him. Her nose crinkled, making the freckles on her cheeks light up. She must have been stoned.
How am I supposed to tell them that I have cancer again?
Life was finally back on track—now I was supposed to drag them back into my bullshit? And the band? The tour. The album. The record deal. Everything was ruined.
They just didn’t know it yet.
I looked back at Ali. She looked so perfect when she laughed. She brushed her hand through her hair carelessly.
I sighed and shut my eyes.
“Hey there, sweetheart,” a voice said cheerfully.
I looked at a small woman with curly white hair. She held her hands out eagerly.
“I’m your great-aunt Liza,” she said, “Margie’s sister. You ’member me? I haven’t seen y’all since you were just little bitty things.”
She put her arms around me in a weak hug. She looked up at me, rubbing my shoulders.
“Margie told me ’bout the party, and I just wanted to come and tell y’all how thankful we all are that you had such a blessed recovery.”
“Thanks.”
“Did Margie tell you our congregation prayed for you? Every Sunday, twice a day, we did. Yep.”
“Great,” I mumbled. “Tell everyone thanks.”
“How happy they’d be to see you standing here like this. You’re our little miracle child.”
“No,” I mumbled. “I’m not.”
She smiled warmly. “But you are. God has saved you—his grace has shined on you.”
“Just please shut the fuck up,” I snapped without thinking.
Paul coughed on his pizza. She stepped backward, shocked.
I pushed past all of them. I stumbled away. All the oxygen had drained from the house. I felt like my heart was about to explode.
I pushed through the front door.
I steadied myself on the front porch railing, fighting for breath. It was all too much. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t deal. Not with this—not again.
“You all right?” Nat said. I hadn’t realized he was out there. I wasn’t sure I could handle him being there at that moment.
I shook my head. I was about to tell him, but I would have just started crying right there.
I finally pulled my shit together and managed a weak “I’m fine, man.”
“Well—you want to go cruise?”
“Right now?”
He shrugged again. “Why not? It’s your party—you can bail if you want to.”
I pulled the keys from the pocket of my jeans. Nat snatched them from my hand.
“No way,” he said. “I’m driving this time. You look like you’re about to keel the fuck over. Come on.”
He put his hand around my shoulder, steadying me as we walked through the yard. My breath was slowly coming back. Nat opened the passenger door and I slid in. The leather was warm underneath me. The dying sun cast a bright orange glare through the windshield. I strained my eyes into the firelight.
Nat put down the convertible top. And this time, the engine turned over on the first shot.
The roar of the 289 killed any thoughts in my head.
Nat put the pedal to the floor. We blasted through our neighborhood, past the park, past the school, and onto the empty highway.
The mountains swallowed the horizon before us and the sky dimmed overhead. I leaned back and let the air wash over the remains of my broken body. Tears stung at my eyes. Nat didn’t notice. The wind carried them into the night.
“So where do you wanna go?” my brother asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Anywhere. Everywhere. I just don’t want to stop. I’m not ready to. I’m just not ready to stop.”
The road stretched out through the small towns before us, toward the cities and skylines I knew lay ahead. The road stretched across those deserts beyond them, over all the empty space. The road stretched out into the nothing, to the place where the sky was blacker than black.
We moved faster now, away from it all. The road stretched farther away from my pain and straight into my undying basement dreams, where bright red stars lit a path up to heaven, and all the midnight girls of Hamburg sparkled under pink lights out in the streets.
EPILOGUE
And we never did stop.
Through the cancer coming back, through the pain, through chemo, radiation, and every ounce of bad luck under the sun, we never stopped.
I don’t think we even knew how.
I was finally considered cancer-free two months before my twenty-fifth birthday, five years after the last of the chemo was administered into my bloodstream. I spent that day with my brother, somewhere out on the West Coast. We celebrated by playing rock ’n’ roll.
Blacklist Royals—the band we formed from the ashes of Defiance of Authority—was touring constantly by then, covering ground like it was going out of style. The hospital’s shadow still loomed heavily across those years, and the only shelter we found was the road. So we played hundreds of shows in dive bars and basements all over North America.
Each performance was a form of recompense, but it was never enough.
As of today, we’ve toured in over eleven countries, and shared the stage with all of the bands that we worshipped when we were kids. I’ve played punk rock music with my twin brother all over the goddamn world.
In 2014, we put out Die Young with Me, an album that grappled with each of our battles over those years, shit we hadn’t even talked to each other about. We couldn’t. But turned out we could make music about it—go figure, right?
The record got love from critics, but a lot of our fans thought it was too sad. You can’t please everyone, I guess, but at least we got enough buzz to play on TV. Not too bad for a dumb crippled punk, if I do say so myself.
* * *
I live in Nashville now, in a little ranch house over on the East Side
. It’s nice here, big-city enough for good tours to come through, but still redneck enough to feel like home. My hallway is covered in photos and flyers, keepsakes from our tours and travels. Goddamn, I think to myself sometimes, we really did it, didn’t we?
But the walls of my bedroom tell a different story. The photos in there are faded and old, some torn and crammed into frames. Nat, Paul, and me in my hospital room. Onstage, singing with Pennywise. Mom and Dad on my eighteenth birthday.
And Ali. Of course, there’s always Ali.
Black-and-white smiles shine down from that old photo, still in its frame, tacked up on my wall. Me and Ali. Ali and me. Us, on that bad day, the day that it all changed.
Us, in another life.
We still talk on the phone, some nights. She comes to see me when I play down in Pensacola or New Orleans, or whatever port town she happens to live in at the time. She moves around a lot with her fiancé, an offshore oil-rig worker whom I still can’t believe she digs.
Ah well. At least she got out. Tyson got out of there too—like I told you, he was always the smart one.
Some of the others, though, they weren’t so lucky.
Doyle did okay for himself back home, all in all; he stocks shelves at the Sam’s Club down off Route 60. I heard Brody got a job selling insurance. He still keeps talking about starting up his own band.
But hopelessness is a birthright in West Virginia, as easy to slip into as a warm bath. It doesn’t matter who you are—if you stay there long enough, you see what’s on the dark side of those mountains.
I lost so many old friends because of it. Those sweet, bright kids who never hurt a damn fly. Most of them overdosed. Some of them meant to. The rest of ’em just drifted down into the nothing.
And Paul—goddammit, Paul.
Paul got hooked on Oxy, just like the rest. It wasn’t his fault—he broke his hand in a fistfight (his punches were always too damn wild) and got a prescription from the doctor who fixed him up. That hooked him in. That was all it took.
A few months later he ended up in jail, but Nat and I got word and bailed him out. Last time I saw him was Christmas Day, four years ago. He stole all the pills in my medicine bag. I haven’t heard from him since. I heard he’s cleaned up now, but I really couldn’t say.
But man, I miss him sometimes.
I miss all of them, my skeleton crew. I still see them so clearly in my mind, jumping and dancing to the punk-rock racket that blasts from our basement stereo. I see us bombing Fifth Avenue hill on our skateboards. I see Ali, smiling her smile for me, for nobody else but me.
People say it’s unhealthy to live in the past. But what choice do I have when it defines my every moment? It’s with me when I hurt, when I struggle for breath. It’s written on my skin, in scars and tattoos. It’s in the ’68 Mustang that’s broken down in my driveway. It’s in everything I do. It’s all around me, always.
But fuck it, that’s all right.
I don’t mind the past too much.
After all, it had one hell of a soundtrack.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My wonderful agent and dreamweaver, Shannon Hassan, for her unwavering belief in a cynical, foulmouthed first-time author like me. Shannon’s wit, perseverance, and empathetic spirit took this project to places I never imagined it could go.
My badass editor, Matthew Benjamin, for taking a chance on me. Matthew helped turn my insane, rambling manuscript into a coherent, digestible thought—all while keeping its spirit intact. He’s been my steady captain through these unfamiliar waters of the literary world, and he hasn’t steered me wrong yet.
Brooke Warner, who coached and encouraged me during my first days of writing. Funny how a little validation can keep you from putting down the pen.
Everyone at Touchstone Books and Simon & Schuster, for working so ridiculously hard on this project. Drinks are on me, y’all.
My family, for their unwavering belief in the strength of will, the power of knowledge, and the value of art. I love you guys big-time.
All those who appeared in Die Young with Me, and all those who didn’t but should’ve. Your presence in my life has been invaluable. Thank you for joining me on my disjointed, nostalgia-fueled morphine dream of the past.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© Emily Beaver
Rob Rufus is a musician and writer living in Nashville. His band, Blacklist Royals, has released two full-length albums and played in sixteen countries over the past five years. His new project, The Bad Signs, released their first single in 2015.
Check him out at robrufus.net.
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
SimonandSchuster.com
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Rob-Rufus
We hope you enjoyed reading this Touchstone eBook.
* * *
Sign up for our newsletter and receive special offers, access to bonus content, and info on the latest new releases and other great eBooks from Touchstone and Simon & Schuster.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com
Touchstone
An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Copyright © 2016 by Robert H. Rufus
www.SimonandSchuster.com
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Touchstone hardcover edition September 2016
TOUCHSTONE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected].
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Interior design by Kyle Kabel
Jacket design by Christian Fuenfhausen
Manufactured in the United States of America
Names: Rufus, Rob, author.
Title: Die young with me : a memoir / by Rob Rufus.
Description: New York : Touchstone Books, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016005363| ISBN 9781501142611 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501142628 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Rufus, Rob. | Punk rock musicians—United States
—Biography. | Cancer—Patients—Biography.
Classification: LCC ML420.R8932 A3 2016 | DDC 782.42166092
—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016005363
ISBN 978-1-5011-4261-1
ISBN 978-1-5011-4263-5 (ebook)
Certain names and identifying characteristics have been changed, including those of the doctors I saw in West Virginia.
