exchange. "Well, what is it?"
She reaches into her overcoat pocket and pulls out a small glass vial of white powder held between her pointer finger and thumb and waves it in front of my face.
My initial reaction is hell no . I don't say anything though.
She's grasped my wrist and is pulling me to the back of the bus and into the small bedroom she claimed on the first day she joined us. "Come on. Just do one line with me. It'll help you get through the show."
This is where I should stop and actually articulate the words, " Hell no ," but I just keep following her like a goddamn dumbass.
While she's dispensing the powder onto a Vogue magazine that's lying on her bed and efficiently forming it into two small lines, I look at her face closely for the first time. There are shadows under her eyes that I can still see through her heavy makeup. Fine lines feather out from the corner of each eye. She's more haggard than I realized. I blurt out, "How old are you?"
She sniffs like her nose is already two steps ahead of her in its need, and looks up at me with wild eyes. "Twenty-five."
That's what I thought. Coke has aged her. I guessed her ten years older. I size up the powder lined up in front of us. "This isn't your first time, is it?"
She's rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. Her hand is twitchy. It reminds me of the prostitute that propositioned me at the bar back home the day of the funeral. "No. You're going to love it. It'll make you feel like Superman."
In spite of everything I'm looking at, which is at the very least a glaring anti-drug campaign and at best just plain sad, my mouth makes the decision for me. "Okay."
She goes first. She's quick. A pro. It makes me wonder how long she's been doing this.
I go next. I'm slow and it takes several passes. An amateur. My nose stings and my eyes are watering.
As the drug infiltrates my mind and body, I'm silently apologizing, "I'm so sorry, Bright Side. It's just one time. I won't turn into Janice." Bright Side's mom was a cokehead.
I'm justifying it away. I smoke weed on occasion and have taken pills a few times. I tell myself that this won't be any different.
Except that it is.
Clare goes with me, uninvited, to a pub around the corner. I eat, even though I'm not very hungry at this point. She smokes. She never eats. It weirds me out.
By the time the show starts I'm still flying high. I'm not lethargically going through the motions tonight. I can't say that I feel completely in control, because I'm sure as hell not, but there's this force driving me from the inside out. It amps up my anger and channels it into a fierce performance. Amazingly, the crowd eats it up. It's the strangest fucking experience of my life. It's like watching everything play out from somewhere outside myself, while at the same time feeling it so deep inside me that I swear it was never there before. It's completely surreal.
Time is inconsequential, irrelevant. Before I know it the band is telling me that's all we've got, the show's over, it's time to leave.
Franco stays behind with me while I smoke a cigarette before we get on the bus. "I'm not sure what that was tonight," he says, "but the crowd loved it."
They did. So did I. "It was the new Gus."
He squints at me like he's trying to solve a puzzle. "You okay, shithead?"
I smile at him. That's right, I smile . I haven't done that in a long time. "Fan-fucking-tastic, dude."
Tuesday, February 28
(Gus)
The past eight shows have gone off like clockwork. Clare has come through every night and fueled Superman. An unexpected perk of being Superman is that I don't think about Bright Side much anymore. I mean I think about her, but I'm not obsessing.
Sleep is an elusive motherfucker, though. Clare gave me some pills last night after the show. I don't know what they were, but I slept like a baby.
Monday, March 6 – Tuesday, March 7
(Gus)
No show tonight.
A free day.
It's a goddamn miracle.
I'm more and more tired
She reaches into her overcoat pocket and pulls out a small glass vial of white powder held between her pointer finger and thumb and waves it in front of my face.
My initial reaction is hell no . I don't say anything though.
She's grasped my wrist and is pulling me to the back of the bus and into the small bedroom she claimed on the first day she joined us. "Come on. Just do one line with me. It'll help you get through the show."
This is where I should stop and actually articulate the words, " Hell no ," but I just keep following her like a goddamn dumbass.
While she's dispensing the powder onto a Vogue magazine that's lying on her bed and efficiently forming it into two small lines, I look at her face closely for the first time. There are shadows under her eyes that I can still see through her heavy makeup. Fine lines feather out from the corner of each eye. She's more haggard than I realized. I blurt out, "How old are you?"
She sniffs like her nose is already two steps ahead of her in its need, and looks up at me with wild eyes. "Twenty-five."
That's what I thought. Coke has aged her. I guessed her ten years older. I size up the powder lined up in front of us. "This isn't your first time, is it?"
She's rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. Her hand is twitchy. It reminds me of the prostitute that propositioned me at the bar back home the day of the funeral. "No. You're going to love it. It'll make you feel like Superman."
In spite of everything I'm looking at, which is at the very least a glaring anti-drug campaign and at best just plain sad, my mouth makes the decision for me. "Okay."
She goes first. She's quick. A pro. It makes me wonder how long she's been doing this.
I go next. I'm slow and it takes several passes. An amateur. My nose stings and my eyes are watering.
As the drug infiltrates my mind and body, I'm silently apologizing, "I'm so sorry, Bright Side. It's just one time. I won't turn into Janice." Bright Side's mom was a cokehead.
I'm justifying it away. I smoke weed on occasion and have taken pills a few times. I tell myself that this won't be any different.
Except that it is.
Clare goes with me, uninvited, to a pub around the corner. I eat, even though I'm not very hungry at this point. She smokes. She never eats. It weirds me out.
By the time the show starts I'm still flying high. I'm not lethargically going through the motions tonight. I can't say that I feel completely in control, because I'm sure as hell not, but there's this force driving me from the inside out. It amps up my anger and channels it into a fierce performance. Amazingly, the crowd eats it up. It's the strangest fucking experience of my life. It's like watching everything play out from somewhere outside myself, while at the same time feeling it so deep inside me that I swear it was never there before. It's completely surreal.
Time is inconsequential, irrelevant. Before I know it the band is telling me that's all we've got, the show's over, it's time to leave.
Franco stays behind with me while I smoke a cigarette before we get on the bus. "I'm not sure what that was tonight," he says, "but the crowd loved it."
They did. So did I. "It was the new Gus."
He squints at me like he's trying to solve a puzzle. "You okay, shithead?"
I smile at him. That's right, I smile . I haven't done that in a long time. "Fan-fucking-tastic, dude."
Tuesday, February 28
(Gus)
The past eight shows have gone off like clockwork. Clare has come through every night and fueled Superman. An unexpected perk of being Superman is that I don't think about Bright Side much anymore. I mean I think about her, but I'm not obsessing.
Sleep is an elusive motherfucker, though. Clare gave me some pills last night after the show. I don't know what they were, but I slept like a baby.
Monday, March 6 – Tuesday, March 7
(Gus)
No show tonight.
A free day.
It's a goddamn miracle.
I'm more and more tired
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