Jag (Pandemic Sorrow #1)

by Stevie J. Cole

  She smiled, her unnaturally white teeth gleaming as she took her seat next to me.

  My eyes instinctually drifted down to the plunging neckline of her tight dress, and I watched her fingers trace along the thin material just before she adjusted her round, succulent breasts. I swear that dress was inches away from showing the edge of her areola. I could only hope the material would give and flop one of those suckers out. If one of those fake tits pops out, I’m gonna grab it. Possibly pop it in my mouth for a second or two. It would only be what was expected.

  “I’m Brittney. So nice to meet you.”

  Her blabbering forced my eyes away from her breasts and up to her face.

  She smiled. Her eyes pulsed open, and she tilted her head flirtatiously to the side. “I was thrilled when I was told I was going to be the one to do this interview.”

  “Thanks. Real excited to be doing it,” I lied, and leaned back against the hard cushion as I stretched my arm across the sofa.

  My tanned skin and black fingernails stood out against the plastic-like material. Glancing down at my hand, I realized I had on more jewelry than this chick. There were two leather bracelets on both my wrists, rings on just about every finger, and the silver necklaces wardrobe had draped around my neck weighed close to five pounds. I tugged at the sleeve of my shirt, covering up some of the lyrics to various songs I’d had tattooed up my arm. Crossing my foot over my knee, I dusted off the toe of my unlaced combat boot, dreading what questions they had written on her prompt screen.

  “Three minutes!” a voice shouted from the back of the room.

  People scurried in all directions, frantically trying to make sure everything was perfect. A woman ran over to Brittney and messed with her hair, sprayed something on her face, and adjusted her breasts one last time.

  Another woman, who looked pissed at the world, came over to me, roughly combing her fingers through my hair in an effort to make it look just a tad messier. Then she brushed some powder over my face and, without asking, unbuttoned most of my shirt.

  “Hey. Hey!” I protested, and leaned farther back into the sofa, the material squeaking as my skin slid over it. “I’m not a piece of fucking meat, you know!”

  The woman shot an annoyed smirk at me and snatched the last button loose before turning to scamper back across the room.

  “One minute!” the man yelled, and the cameras immediately came zooming up in front of us. I watched as a grey-haired man threw up his fingers, counting down until the tape would be rolling, and my stomach knotted up. My hands shook and my leg bounced. I knew trying to do this interview sober was a ridiculous idea, but it was too late for that; I’d just have to suck it up, remember what it was like to function under pressure without the help of my beloved cocaine.

  “Welcome to MTV’s Rockumentary on Jag Steele, lead singer and guitarist of the epic band Pandemic Sorrow.” Brittney turned to me, gushing, and said, “I’ve got to confess. I’m a huge, huge fan. I’ve been to so many of your shows, and to be interviewing you is an absolute dream come true for me.”

  Smile, you fucking idiot. I smiled. Now acknowledge that she complimented you. “Thanks, Brittney. I’m honored to have been chosen to do this interview. Glad so many people are interested in the music.” I sounded like a complete tool.

  “Well, Jag, you have to be, hands down, one of the most interesting – and sexiest – men in rock ‘n roll. Always in the spotlight.”

  I should laugh and say something. I laughed and slid my hand down my leg to fiddle with the laces of my boot. Forcing the edges of my lips up, I said, “Yeah. I’ve managed to gain quite the image, I guess.”

  “Legendary image. You are the epitome of a rock star. Amazing shows, gorgeous face, wild antics, and let’s not forget the beautiful women you’ve had fighting over you.”

  I swallowed. I really wasn’t prepared to go into details about the shitstorm that was my love life.

  Brittney tossed her cinnamon-colored locks behind her shoulder. “But, let’s start at the beginning. Tell me, who is Jag Steele? Really?”

  My mind swirled back, flipping through hazy memories and stopping on one of the few that was still pretty vivid.

  Seven years earlier

  “Jag. That sounds amazing. What are you gonna call it?” Stephanie asked when I’d finished playing the song I’d written earlier in the week. The song was sad, tortured – it was my life, my hurt, and completely raw.

  “I was thinking ‘Winter Solstice.’ ”

  “I love it! It’s perfect.”

  She had no idea what that song meant to me. No idea what that phrase symbolized.

  “Almost as much as I love you!” she doted. Stephanie pushed my guitar to the side and leaned across my lap to press her lips against mine. Giggling, she brushed my hair out of my face. “And I adore you with eyeliner on. So sexy.” She laid her head on my shoulder and sighed. “I can’t believe we’ve been together for a year, can you?”

  Placing my guitar on the table, I glanced over at her. Stephanie’s auburn hair was pulled away from her face, and her jungle-green eyes popped against her fair skin. She was beautiful, and I felt like I should love her. She had been my biggest supporter: Always listening to me try different riffs, helping me with lyrics, and she hadn’t missed one show of ours since we’d started dating.

  “No, I can’t. I’m a lucky-ass guy.” I pulled her into my lap, tracing my hand down her neck toward her breasts. I leaned over to kiss her, and she pushed me away.

  “Stop it.” She held my face and glared at me, her eyes pulsing open. “The rest of the guys are upstairs and’ll come down here any minute. Don’t get me all worked up and then force me to wait until after you’re done practicing. That’s just mean, Jag.”

  I felt a devious smile spread across my lips, and I quickly slid my hand under her dress to palm her. “Really? Me, mean? Nah.”

  Pushing my hand out, she continued to stare at me, and her eyes watered up. “If you guys ever get to go on tour, like a real tour, you promise you won’t leave me?”

  “What? Steph. No! That’s ridiculous. I love you, princess.” I heard the door open and then footsteps tromping down the stairs. “You really worried about that?”

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Well, don’t. Not that I would leave you even if I became the biggest rock star to ever exist, but I mean, what are the chances we’ll actually ever become famous? Sweet of you that you’ve got that much faith in us, but –”

  I felt a hand slap against the back of my head.

  “Hey, Jag,” Rush said, and fell down on the sofa. He had barely gotten situated before he brought out his glass bowl and crammed some pot in it. “You got a light, dude?”

  I pointed across the room. “Over there. On the amp.”

  My younger brother, Stone, walked up behind me and grabbed my shoulders. “What a fucking show last night. Man. It’s gonna happen. It’s just got to.”

  And so began each ironic moment of my life:

  I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket and pulled it out. My brow wrinkled as I stared at the number that had popped up.

  Stone squinted at me. “Who’s that, man?”

  I shrugged and hit the answer button. “Hello?”

  “May I speak to Jagger Steele?” a deep male voice on the other end asked.

  “Uh. Yeah, this is Jag.”

  “Jag, huh? I like that better. Yeah, real nice ring to it.”

  The man fell silent and then cleared his throat. “You’re the lead singer of that band, Pandemic Sorrow, right?

  “Yeah.” My heart slowly picked up its pace and soon enough threatened to punch through my rib cage.

  “You got a manager?”

  My mouth suddenly felt dry, and without even knowing, I’d jumped up and had started pacing across the floor. “No – no, we don’t have a manager.” Stone and Rush were staring at me, eyes wide and palms rubbing together.

  “You ever heard of Deviant Faults Records?”

  My
hand flew up to my mouth to keep him from hearing me gasp like a freaking girl. I blew a quick breath from my nose, straightened up, and tried to make sure I wasn’t talking too fast. “Of course. They’re one of the biggest rock labels out there.”

  I made eye contact with the guys and mouthed “Deviant Records.” Rush grabbed Stone by the shoulders and violently shook him.

  The man laughed and abruptly fell silent. I felt like he sat there without saying a word for ten minutes. My stomach was turning, sweat was forming on my forehead, and I felt slightly dizzy. Stone and Rush were both waving their hands around in the air, trying to get me to tell them what was going on. Their minds were going wild, and I’m sure they didn’t want their hopes smashed.

  He cleared his throat again. “Well, I guess I should tell you my name. I’m James Cooper and I work with Deviant. I manage new talent, and we’re interested in Pandemic Sorrow.”

  “What?” I screamed, and my fingers shook so badly I almost dropped my phone.

  “Yes. Saw you guys last week when I was in Savannah on business. Got one of your CDs from the front and let the group hear it. You busy this week? ’Cause we’re gonna fly you out to LA to meet with you, see if we can make a deal and get you guys signed.”

  All of the air in my lungs rushed out in one breath. “Fuck, yeah! We’ll be there.” My pacing had turned into a full sprint.

  “Great. My assistant, Jules, will be in touch with you tomorrow to make travel plans. Look forward to working with you, Jag.” And with that, James hung up.

  I stood there, completely slack-jawed with the phone pressed against my ear until the loud footsteps banging down the stairs jolted me back to the moment.

  “What the hell is it so quiet down here for?” Pax called out as he made his way toward the couch. He plopped down, and I let the phone drop from my hand, not even caring when my screen shattered on the floor.

  Running my hands through my hair, I bent forward and, in disbelief, shouted, “We’re going to LA next week to meet with Deviant Faults! One of their managers wants to sign us!”

  The guys just sat there, jaws unhinged and speechless for several moments before everyone erupted in shouts and “fuck yeahs!”

  By the time we’d all calmed down, I glanced back to the couch to say something to Stephanie, but she was gone.

  I’d meant it when I’d promised I wouldn’t leave her. Jagger Steele had meant it, and Jagger Steele kept his promises. But fame, well, she’s a real bitch. The pestilence that accompanied my fame buried Jagger. Over the years I’d forgotten who the hell he was; each day, each screaming fan, each show, each ridiculously large check that got deposited – it all chipped away at me. Within a few months of releasing our first album, Jagger was on his way out the door to make room for the rock star, Jag Steele.

  Stephanie and I lasted until the touring started, but she couldn’t take the life I’d been hurtled into. The girls screaming at me and begging for autographs, yelling that they wanted to fuck me – I guess it was just too much. Steph had always been insecure, and that just added to it. After only a month and a half on our first tour, she left me. I guess she just figured she wouldn’t give me a chance to fuck her over. I’m pretty sure she foresaw the train wreck I was destined to become barreling down some shit-covered tracks, and really, why put yourself through that? That guy she fell in love with was dead, forgotten; and the guy I’d become, Jag, lead singer to the number one selling band Pandemic Sorrow, he was an absolute asshole, and the word “promise” wasn’t even part of his profanity-laden vocabulary.

  My recollection of my plummet into the abyss of fame halted when Brittney crossed her legs and lightly touched my forearm. “So, let’s back up for a moment. I want to know about Jag Steele, the guy, not the rock star. Tell me what it was like growing up, high school…all that.”

  Pulling my lip in, I tore at the skin with my teeth. Could I even remember what all that was like, or should I just make something up? My eyes darted back over to Brittney, and I released a nervous laugh. “Ah. He was boring. Not much to say about him.”

  “Come on. Who are you, Jag?”

  That question echoed inside my head. How the fuck could I answer that when I didn’t even know who the hell I was? My reality had been permanently distorted, and, honestly, when you feel like you don’t have any more dreams to chase, you get lost in other things – things that start to define you and change you. I could go with what I’d been labeled: rock star, sex god, womanizing man whore, drug addict, celebrity…the list goes on, but she’d asked for what I was aside from all that. Strip me of all those titles, and there was only one word I could think to describe what I was: lost.

  “Well, I was born in San Diego, but we moved to Savannah, Georgia, when I was seven.”

  I thought back to how upset I’d been at moving and how I’d blamed that move on why my parents split. I guess the stress of having two small kids in a town without any family was too much to handle. My parents fought all the time, my dad stayed drunk, and then one day we woke up to a letter from him saying our lives would be better off if he wasn’t in the picture.

  I had a habit of blanking out whenever I rehashed those parts of my life, so I’m sure I was sitting there in a stupor. Brittney cleared her throat, probably worried I’d fucked up and gotten high before the show. No one ever believes an addict is clean. One mistake, one shitty picture, and you’re termed a junkie again. No one really trusts an addict – recovered or not.

  “Well, did you play any sports? I bet you were the most sought after guy in your class?”

  I snickered. “No. No sports, I was too uncoordinated. Girls barely paid me any attention because I was so shy. I usually just sat in the back of the room and stayed quiet. Rush, he was the loud one. Got all the attention.”

  “You and Rush have been friends for how long?”

  “Oh, thirteen years. Man. Can’t believe I’ve put up with him for so long. He really is a jackass.”

  Smiling, she arched one eyebrow and leaned in closer to me. “I bet you guys got into a lot of trouble?” Her voice was glazed with a seductive tone.

  I wiped my sweaty palms down my jeans. “No. Not really. At least not before we became famous. Been in plenty of trouble since then.”

  “Okay. So, back to when you guys met with Deviant Faults. There you were with a record deal in your hands. I bet you guys were stoked!”

  “Yeah. Stoked. Completely stoked,” I mumbled. “It was amazing how quickly people took to us. We’d gone from some wannabe band playing in rundown bars to playing in sold-out stadiums within a matter of a year. The high you get from walking out onto a stage, listening to the roaring crowd, feeling the vibrations of the applause, the scorching heat those stage lights flood your skin with – it is unbelievable.” I paused to swallow the pool of saliva that had formed in my mouth. “At first, I stayed so hyped up I couldn’t sleep. I was still in shock that I – that we’d actually done it. Sometimes I caught myself wondering if I’d completely lost my damn mind, you know, like had I just gone off the deep end and convinced myself I was famous. Kind of like that John Nash dude in A Beautiful Mind. Maybe I’d just imagined it all and everyone was just humoring poor, crazy Jagger.”

  Brittney’s stare went from the camera to me. “But it wasn’t make-believe. You are Jag Steele.”

  I nodded, huffed, and ran my hand through my hair. “Yeah. It was real life. Real fucking life.”

  “Bleep that!” I heard a man in the background shout out.

  I watched an uneasy look fall over her face, and I knew what topic she was about to bring up.

  Brittney smiled at the camera and then shifted on the sofa to face me. Tugging at the hem of her dress, she said, “So. Let’s fast-forward to when you met River. The two of you have been the topic of the tabloids off and on for several years. Hollywood’s hottest and most volatile couple. Are the rumors true that you two are officially done?”

  Heat traveled across my chest and up my neck. It felt like inse
cts were crawling all over me, and I could feel patches of red skin break out across my chest. Fidgeting in my seat, I looked at Brittney, then across to the square, three-dimensional frame of that damn camera lens that was prying into the pit of my soul. All I could think about was jumping up and sprinting to a vacant room to snort back a line or two…or five. The urge to do it hadn’t gone away. It gnawed at me every day. Cured, my ass. I’d just learned how to control it – somewhat. And this interview was going beyond testing that learned behavior.

  My fingers clenched into my knees and I tilted my head back. “River,” I groaned. “Ah. Yeah. That fucking bitch.”

  “Bleep that!” one of the douchebags in a suit called out from behind the cameras.

  “River James. I met her at a Victoria’s Secret party. Worst damn mistake of my life.” I glanced over at Brittney, who was trying her damnedest to force a smile.

  “You guys were pretty serious for a while there.” Brittney’s eyes widened briefly, in the hope that I would keep my shit together and make this work.

  Rolling my eyes, I said, “Yeah. We were. But then again, everything’s serious at some point or another, right?”

  Her lips twitched up into a slight smile. It was obvious she had been told to try to force answers out of me, and she was nervous about it. I had been known to fly off the handle during interviews in the past. Releasing a quiet laugh, she scrunched her nose up and cooed, “Oh, come on, Jag, River James – she’s a goddess. What was it about her?”

  A goddess? More like a psychotic, sex-crazed, pill-hoarding pain in my ass. Although I would have loved to dive into that ridiculous, verbally abusive relationship, the only response I could form to the question about River was, “Well, Brittney, she has a wicked pussy. That’s about it. And the only thing I was serious about with her was fucking.”

  “Bleep it,” the man shouted again, this time obviously annoyed.

  Brittney fought to control the laugh threatening to burst through her lips by clearing her throat and smoothing out her dress. “Fame. That’s what you say caused a lot of your problems, right? Drugs, girls?”