Rock Bottom

by Michael Shilling

“That’s awesome,” he said, because he had lost his train of thought. Across the street, Darlo and Joey ran down the sidewalk.

  “Totally awe … some,” he said. “What the fuck?”

  It was them all right. Joey hobbled crazily, making some pretty amazing time, kind of pulling Darlo forward. And was that blood on their hands?

  “What’s wrong?” Sarah asked. “Bobby?”

  Amazing how the simplest image can grow monumental, sum up everything. Amazing how you can just float in oily understanding.

  His drummer and his manager, running down a leaf-blown, five-hundred-year-old street, their hands covered in blood. And he, bearing witness.

  What were the chances?

  “Bobby?” she said again.

  A chill ran through him. A chill and a splash of melancholy, curdling on contact, like milk when it falls into a cup of tea with lemon.

  You look familiar. Are you in a band?

  He’d had a feeling like this the day they signed to Warners. No blood was involved — in retrospect it was a pound of flesh — but he’d had that sense of complete emotional summation. The drummer and the manager sprinted from an invisible terror, and he wanted to sprint with them; whatever lay ahead, he wanted to be part of it. Their terrors were his terrors. He felt left out of a big secret; the solution lay in falling in line. But the gravity of the female fantasia kept him still.

  “Hey.” She shook his jacket. “Are you OK?”

  “Yeah, sorry.” They locked eyes. “I don’t … Forget it.”

  “You sure?”

  If he was going to miss out on being where the real action was, then he sure as shit was going to throw caution. He kissed her, and she leaned in, whispering his name in her cute little accent. Buuby. Buuby.

  So far, so good. But then under the museum’s pleasant lights, Bobby went numb. Under normal circumstances, numb would have been nice, giving his hands a break, cutting out the itchiness, the discomfort, the damp grossitude of flesh taking its time to spume and rot. But this wasn’t nice. He had just witnessed his drummer and his manager running down the street in dreamtime. Their hands were bloodied, which in said dreamtime was incontrovertible proof of a higher symbolism. Not that Bobby understood the image; but nonetheless he was possessed by it, and suddenly unsure of the, you know, dude, the reality of things. When does the myopic vacuum of living the touring life change one’s perspective into unreliability? When do you cease to trust what you see?

  “Isn’t this lovely?” Sarah asked. They stood in front of a painting called The Potato Eaters. Bobby did not think it was lovely. At that moment, a new job as Pete Townshend’s valet would not have been lovely.

  “Yeah,” he said, and couldn’t feel his neck connecting head to torso. “Sure.”

  “What I love about it,” she said, leaning against him, “is the way that the people seem to be decaying right in front of us. The toll of their unhappy lives is right there on their faces.”

  “Totally,” he said.

  “And the colors too,” she continued, pointing. “The tones are so … how do you say it in English? Mournful. It looks like a family planning a funeral.”

  He really had no idea what she was talking about. It was just some bunch of peasants looking bored. He could smell the mildew, though.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  She hit him and smiled. “That’s what all guys say when they’re bored with a girl in a museum.”

  But he was already moving. He walked into the bathroom for show and then snuck outside. He had to have another look at the scene, had to understand why he felt as if part of him had disappeared. And so he stood, staring into the street, a series of questions coming at him. Where the fuck were those two running, covered in blood? How come he never got to play the dramatic moments? How come he got the shitty role? How come his only talent was to be the guy who was abrasive enough for the assholes, and smart enough for the artists?

  Because I can’t play the bass very well and I’m not talented. Because I was just the guy who was around that owned the right equipment. Because I’m the one who bought the dream wholesale and I didn’t even deserve to dream it.

  He knew these realities to be hard and true, but still, the desire to ditch was there. But then if he ditched there would be no new Euro life with the Euro cherry blossom. And so, while his mind was already bolting after them, his feet stayed put.

  Those two, running right by him while love kept him stuck in place.

  What were the fucking chances?

  He couldn’t stand being left out like this. As feeling returned to his hands, he dialed Joey’s number.

  22

  SHANE HAD DISCOVERED SIDDHARTHA on the candle-wax-covered table of a girl he had fucked in Austin. Her name was Lana. She was an English major at the university and had nipples the size of small pancakes. Blood Orphans was on its third tour of America, the one that gave them bragging rights that they’d humiliated themselves in the entire lower forty-eight. Even North Dakota. Even Vermont. Even fucking Wyoming. Warner Bros. was using them to game out every bad tour-routing idea. They were free R&D for the label.

  So, Austin. Princess Goth Big Nipples grabbed the book, sitting up in bed. Candles guttered all over her apartment. Black light was giving off faint rays. The smell of sex, sandalwood, and cloves. Amateur dread-mats of hair slathered in aloe vera gel fell over her face. The bed sagged.

  “Oh, man, this’s a beautiful book,” she said, her big tits firm, apples on the tree of carnal knowledge. “Changed my life.”

  He swept back his hair, which had been dyed black a week before by some hairdresser he’d slept with in Kansas City. “What’s it about?”

  “The awakening of a spiritual being that changed the world.” She did some stupid little hand-dance. “You should read it.”

  “But what’s it about?”

  “Are you religious?”

  “Not like I used to be.”

  She made moony eyes. “What happened?”

  “Just tell me what it’s about.”

  She climbed on him, ending the conversation. Later she gave him the book, which he read in the break before the first trip to Europe, while killing time at his aunt’s house in North Carolina. His aunt, a librarian and Southern Baptist, could not believe what had become of him.

  “You have copped quite a bit of an attitude,” she said. “Is that what being in the spotlight teaches you?”

  “We’re not in the spotlight,” he said. “That’s the problem. May I please take my dinner to the TV room?”

  “No. You’ll say grace and eat with us. Your mother would faint if she saw you like this, Shane.”

  The book blew his mind. Such a simple story, told with such quiet force! Siddhartha, a seeker like him. A kindred spirit trying to find his way through the morass of worldly desires. Touring had leached the seeker out of him, or so he had thought. But it was still alive. His desire for a higher truth had sprung from the cover of this blessed tome; he’d outgrown the angry father bit, the one God hanging over all of us. It made the beauty of Jesus seem like a good-cop sham, running interference for an ugly majordomo in the sky. But Buddhism, this was more to his liking. He was desperate for a fresh way to organize his life, something to counteract the filthy, rotting reality of Blood Orphans. He needed a new engine of hope, something to propel his singing back into a place of caring, eyes on the prize, out of the filth and lust.

  Siddhartha. Buddha.

  He told everyone about his magical discovery, his new path. All the time. From the stage. No one cared.

  A few weeks later, Shane tacked “Tantric” onto the front of “Buddhist” after sleeping with a skinny American girl studying abroad in Edinburgh. She introduced him to this age-old sex strategy at her flat in Old Town. She chose him over Darlo, quite publicly.

  “You’re a pig,” she told the drummer, and grabbed Shane’s arm. “Let’s go.”

  For that, Shane was ready to do anything she wanted
, even if it meant holding off on coming for like a fucking hour.

  “Hold still,” she said, and slid slowly up and down his cock. “Breathe with me. It has to be synchronized. A hundred times, a hundred breaths.”

  Her muscle control made Michael Jordan look like a stroke victim.

  “I don’t think I can —”

  “Hold it, Shane. Slow, slow. Your lingam and my yoni. Tighten, then loosen. Tighten. Then loosen.”

  Belle and Sebastian sussed from the stereo. Judy with her dream of horses.

  “Breathe with me. Put your hand to my chest.”

  She started to go.

  “Your ha. Nd. On my. Ch. Es. T.”

  When he came, he kicked back like an old shotgun, cried out like he’d witnessed the Revelation. “Hoh-whoa-whoa!”

  There was fear, too. He wasn’t sure if his heart was going to be able to take such an intense, all-body rush.

  “Yo-haha-yo-God-whoa-God!”

  On top of him, an almost perfect stranger grabbed hold, her body shaking in waves, and took out whatever chest hair he had. Years of tension rushed out of his crotch.

  He cobbled together two autonomous philosophies into a theological Frankenstein, one that would never walk. Darlo indicated his approval.

  “If it’s sex, that’s cool. I tried Tantra. Fuckin’ A.”

  Shane wondered what had happened to that girl. Maybe somewhere in the back of his sour suitcase, a little sheet of paper held her number, blurred with sweat, Gatorade, and beer. So many numbers, castaways, in every pocket.

  He called Adam and got Joey’s hotel info. Adam sounded the way he always did, as if the misery through which the rest of them swam never touched him. Shane envied the way Adam could keep his head stuck in his art, as if the band were merely a cloudy day in an otherwise beautiful summer. He had that thing, what was it called, he learned it from a French girl he’d had in Lyon …

  “Joie de vivre,” he grumbled, and stomped down the street.

  A shower, a shave, a few hours on a hotel bed watching a television in a white hotel robe, and then everything would coalesce back into recognizable shapes. His ears ached, and he felt something squish in his boots. Peanut butter? Dog shit? He couldn’t bring himself to look. But he did pull out Danika’s panties from his pocket, take one last delicious whiff, and chuck them in the trash.

  When he saw the Krasnapolsky, looming in Dutch glitter, a fresh wave of Joey-hatred crested over him. “Freeloader,” he said, walking through the palatial lobby, where people laughed and rejoiced, simple like new snow.

  He planted his ass at an e-mail kiosk and drummed up Yahoo. The Proust Personality Test from Rachel — with a different, longer cover letter from the one the others had received because Rachel thought Shane was so cute — awaited him. The first fucking interview in months. Shane couldn’t help but be excited.

  “Thanks to Buddha,” he said, and opened the file.

  Boy, was Rachel a friendly-sounding girl. A girl this friendly, Shane thought, must be fat. Without pussy power, you had to rely on the lesser weapon of personality.

  “… and I think,” she wrote, “that people miss the joke, in the best sense of the word! People think of Blood Orphans as a parody, but my friends and I, we see the sincerity in what you do …”

  The guy next to him curled his nose at Shane’s stink, but Shane would not take the worldly bait. He was firmly back in Buddha-state and could resist the disgust.

  “Seriously, Rocket Heart is mos def the mos underrated record of 2004 and 2003 and 200 — you get the picture. I mean, I’m not gonna say that my friends and I weren’t, ahem, challenged by the lyrics — I still don’t really get ‘Hella-Prosthetica,’ sorry! — but soon the utter rock-and-roll awesomeness had me hooked, lined, and sinkered. So, on to Proust!”

  His eyes were heavy suddenly, and his hands felt like lead. Why did this praise unsettle him? He inhaled deeply, which attuned his nose to the radical, utterly godless nature of his body odor, and addressed the questions at hand.

  What, for you, is the idea of total happiness?

  He remembered when Warners had put them up in the Four Seasons in Seattle to make their video. That was happiness, all right. Shane had never been in a hotel that didn’t have a Bible in every room. Warners had been all too happy to put them in swank hotels back then. Now he stared at the lobby chandelier and imagined Joey hanging in the glittering filaments of light.

  His attention was diverted by the sight of a band checking in. They hauled in suitcases and guitars, joshing around, wreathed in denim, scarves, and cowboy boots, framed by groupies. They had that alt-country-boogie thing going on, the love child of Johnny Cash and Rod Stewart, post-irony Black Crowes. They wore their dirt and filth in an elegant, offhand way. Posers, Shane thought. I bet they smell like rose musk. I bet they smell the same as every promise-ring-wearing, Awesome God–worshipping coed at Pepperdine. That’s how authentic they are.

  One of the groupies, wearing a cowboy hat and a buckskin jacket, slapped her own ass to demonstrate a point. “And then he went like that!” she said, and they all laughed.

  These fuckers were at the beginning of the journey and he was some carcass on the side of the road, miles from the finish line. The knowledge circled him in a predatory way.

  He went back to the e-mail and answered the question: “Total happiness, for me, would be a greater understanding of the spiritual forces that guide life. Such happiness would provide me with more love for my band and a compass to guide me, and hopefully us, in figuring out …”

  Jealousy distracted him. Who was this band? He wanted to bust in, get some of that new shine.

  He walked over and grabbed the guy who appeared to be the drummer by the shoulders. When trying to insinuate yourself into a band, always hit up the drummer first. With the glaring exception of Darlo, the drummer was always more than happy to have a stranger talk to him. Chances were he’d spent the last month being ignored.

  “Hey, what’s up, man?” Shane said. “What’s going on?”

  From under that floppy cowboy hat, the dude’s eyes lit up. Bingo. “Oh, uh, hey!”

  “Where’re you playing tonight?”

  “Oh, uh, the Paradiso.”

  A dagger in his heart. The Paradiso. That big beautiful hall.

  “Oh, that’s awesome!” Shane said. “That’s the fucking place to play!”

  “Yeah?” the drummer said, a little unsure. Drummers could be so cute. “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah, totally.”

  The drummer’s nose wrinkled. He smelled what Shane’s body was cooking, but Shane didn’t care.

  “You guys going to party before the show?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Excellent,” Shane said. “What room are you in?”

  “Uh …”

  “Probably got the suite, huh? Probably gave you the best room in the house, overlooking Dam Square.”

  “Um, yeah.”

  “I know, man. We stayed there the first time. It was sweet, no pun intended.”

  Shane watched as none of the bandmates took notice of him. Someone talking to the drummer? Who cares.

  “You stayed here?” the drummer asked. “Are you in a band?”

  “Yeah, what room are you guys in?”

  So many calculations running behind those naive drummer eyes. To invite the letch or not invite the letch, who maybe wasn’t a letch after all, who maybe was in, like, a famous band, and wouldn’t the rest of the band think it was cool that he befriended a famous guy? Wouldn’t it be great, the drummer was thinking, if they paid attention to him for once?

  “Sorry,” Shane said. “I didn’t get the room. What room?”

  Wouldn’t it be great if they actually acknowledged his fucking existence?

  “What room, man?”

  Wouldn’t it?

  “Three-two-two.” He glanced at the key. “The Rodin Suite.”

  “Sweet, I’ll bring all the boys!”

  And then he scurried awa
y, fast, because he knew from the plaintive grunt that the drummer knew he had made a mistake, was thinking, What am I doing, that guy smelled like old peanut butter and doggy doo. Jesus, they’re gonna give me such shit for this. I just want them to like me.

  “Hey!” he yelled to Shane’s back. “What band are you in?”

  I just want them to like me. The lament of drummers worldwide.

  “Who was that?” someone asked, and Shane escaped into a stairwell.

  23

  WHAT SHOULD HE DO NOW? Stop a policeman, stop some strolling tourists, stop anyone and tell them what had happened, get help, be a good person, do the right thing?

  No. Ride, Adam, ride.

  Two years and change he had been in cahoots with Darlo Cox. For over two years he had been under the control of the caveman, but always he had found some dishonest elegance to paint on the drummer, even just the thinnest membrane of vibrant color to humanize him, put the noble back in noble savage. Now he knew what was real. He wished he had not seen that horror, that misery, wished he had not been the instigator for the truth laid bare. He cursed himself for entering into this den of idiot thieves, for willingly sharing the gold forged in the mint of complete denial. He cursed himself for ever having met Darlo Cox, Joey Fredericks, Bobby Campbell, and Shane Warner.

  Two cars swerved around him as he went through a red light.

  “Shit!” he yelled, his front wheel going every which way. He lost control and headed into a group of pedestrians, but then at the last moment they parted, revealing a side street, and sheer luck rolled him through, good fortune threading the needle. At the other side of the traffic was an alleyway, and he turned in to it before he half smashed into a perfectly restored fifteenth-century brick wall and skidded to a stop.

  Dutchies crowded around on this pretty alley, built when men wore chain-mail slippers and women wore bone corsets. All the Dutch people who’d almost run him over all day, who’d kept their noses high as he moved through them, focused upon the boy with the Fu Manchu. For the first time their eyes acknowledged Adam’s existence. A face smeared with blood will do that.

  “Oh my Gott!” said a middle-aged businessman. “Gott!”