Chicago, Illinois, 2009

The hum of noise came at me through the air vent overhead. The sound was low, pulsing in time with the backbeat of a drum, and started in like a quiet murmur that slipped around the crowd and funneled through the stage corridor, right into the dressing room.

“More!” The chant was constant and loud enough that the mirror in front of me rattled.

The crowd ached to be fed. The slipstream of sound filled something inside me, but it did little to make me whole. Not much would.

“They’re restless tonight!” Nico said, squealing like a band geek who just got felt up by the quarterback on prom night. “We’re gonna kill.”

“The fuck we are,” I said, because he was being a dumbass, stupid even by Nico standards. I didn’t bother watching him as I lit my cigarette. “Middle acts are filler. You should know that mierda by now.”

Mick Phillips stepped behind me, shooting Nico a look I’d seen before. It was the same look the guitarist got every time during the past month that I’d make piss-poor predictions about us sucking. But coño, it was the truth.

“Jamie, man…you gotta have some faith,” Mick said, fanning his fingers through his gel-stiff hair, pumping up his fauxhawk. “It gets old, you saying that shit.”

He didn’t need to complain. I knew what a pendejo I sounded like. It was a good shot, being on this tour, bookended by a band with even less experience than ours—which was saying something—and The Plebes, who were on their way to landing their first Grammy nod.

Still, the bullshit morose attitude was something that had taken root inside me a long time ago. As a kid, my mama made sure I knew how pointless it was to shoot for good things. They’d never come to her, why the hell would they come for her kid?

“Whatever, pai,” I told my guitarist, leaning back in my chair to puff out smoke rings into the air. “Same shit, same set, different fucking day.” He stopped primping long enough to shake his head and fan smoke from his face. I laughed at his frown, knowing I sounded like an ungrateful bastard, but finding it impossible to care much that I did. “Middle sets are when they grab beers and take pisses. We ain’t nobody special to them.”

“I hope you don’t really think that,” Ronnie Davies said, coming into the dressing room to lean against the table in front of me. As promoter, it was Ronnie’s job to get asses in the chairs and money out of pockets. He’d given me a shot based solely on what he’d heard of my last band, Omen, and set me up with this new group, but it wasn’t the same. We weren’t connecting, which added to my bitter attitude.

“Shit, Jamie,” he started, moving his head toward me after Nico and Mick disappeared from the room. The gray streaks along his temples glinted against the fluorescent light above us. “I hope you don’t think you landed this tour because I needed a bunch of assholes to play music while the crowds piss and buy shit.”

He didn’t seem to like my shrug, and I knew why. My mama may have planted the shitty attitude, but my cousin Isaiah and ex-girlfriend Iris had nurtured it into something thick, something that sprouted deep roots. I couldn’t shake this attitude and doubt that felt dense enough to choke me now.

“You know you’re not here because…”

“So why am I here?” I asked Ronnie, pushing the chair back away from the table. “I’m all that’s left of Omen.”

“Jamie, you were all that mattered in Omen.”

For once, I didn’t have a comeback. Ronnie’s admission deflated a bit of my attitude, and I was left with nothing to do but watch the man’s face. He didn’t smile. He didn’t do anything but nod, telling me with the smallest gesture that he wasn’t feeding me a line.

“You got the goods, man.” He stood, pulling a cigarette from my pack on the table, his thin lips wrinkling when he lit the smoke. “But even the best musicians need to earn their grit. Everybody has to figure out who they want to be on that stage.”

“I know who I am,” I defended, not liking the accusation behind Ronnie’s words.

“Dude, you got no fucking clue.” He smiled at me, those straight teeth marred by the faint yellowing on the enamel from twenty years of smoking and hard road life. The grin made me feel like a clueless asshole, beating his chest because he could. Ronnie seemed to find the glare I gave him funny and went on like some hyena when I hardened my features. “It’s not an insult. I didn’t say you sucked. Your ass wouldn’t be here if you sucked.”

“But I have no fucking clue?”

Ronnie lowered his thin shoulders, holding the burning cigarette in front of his mouth, head tilted toward me like he needed a second to consider his answer. Then the man shrugged, waving the smoke in my direction. “You’re what? Nineteen, maybe twenty?” He took my frown as confirmation and continued. “You got chops. I’ve never seen raw talent like yours. You can write, and you’re comfortable on the stage, but your own shit? Your own mark? You haven’t figured that out yet.”

“Dude what the hell does that even...”

“You’ll know it when—” But Ronnie didn’t elaborate. His dark complexion paled, and his narrow eyes hardened as he went silent, standing from the table to glare at something behind me. “Shit…”

There was something in his tone I recognized. It had been there two weeks earlier when my cousin Isaiah had tried getting back stage in Indy. He’d still sported a scar along his bottom lip from our fight months back, but seemed determined to get my ear. It had been a long time since that tussle over Iris, but I still had no plans of ever talking to his ass again.

Ronnie’s low mutter meant drama none of us had the time for, but as I stood from the table and faced the door, catching sight of the small woman stumbling toward me, I realized that this shitstorm would be tempest-sized.

“Hell, no,” I told her, holding up my hand when she smiled, chin lifted like she was convinced I was a meal ticket she intended to cash.

“Papi,” my mother said, coming to stand in front of me.

She seemed to be shrinking. The last time I’d seen her had been six months before when she banged on my Uncle Hector’s door, trying to see me. The fight in Isaiah’s room where I’d found him and Iris naked on his bed had ended things for me with my cousin and my mama. Hector was the only one I could ever depend on, and he kept my head clear and my ass busy, distracting me from the drama those two pendejos put me in. Since I was cutting ties, I’d made a clean break from everyone except Hector. That night at my uncle’s, with my mother wailing into the darkness like a perra loca, had been the first time in my life that I’d walked away from my mother and stayed gone. She’d spent two hours calling to me from the storefront below Hector’s apartment at 4:00 a.m. My mother had never been good at taking care of herself and hadn’t liked the fact that I’d quit doing it for her.

Next to me, Ronnie let out a low sigh, as though he knew the drama we were heading for. “I’ll get security.”

“No.” I pointed at him when he stepped toward my mother’s slouching, drunken form. Ronnie had taken a chance on me, God knew why. The least I could do was sort out my own shit. “I got this.”

He watched me as I popped my neck, a distraction I told myself I needed to loosen my limbs in case mama decided to take a swing at me. “Fine,” he said, nodding once, before he jerked his attention to the clock above the dressing table. “I need you on that stage in twenty. Handle this shit, or I will.” He took half a step away from me before he turned. “And Jamie, make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

“Not a problem.”

Ronnie didn’t touch her as he moved out of the door or acknowledge her when she made a weak attempt at grabbing his arm. She looked thin, paler than I’d ever seen her, and pathetic in the tight, black skirt that barely touched her thighs and the black halter loosely tied at the neck and around her waist. She looked just like the person she was—a washed-up addict groupie who hadn’t been told she wasn’t hot and twenty anymore. Though she’d never be ugly, she was still a mess, with wrinkles cornering her big eyes and stretching across her forehead. Her skin was flaky, with a small cluster of pimples on her cheeks. The outfit she wore left nothing to the imagination and emphasized how thin she’d gotten—her collarbones stuck out, and when she turned, rolling her head against the door, her ribs protruded as though she’d gone months without something substantial to eat.

“Papi,” she said, her voice coming out in a gravel-soaked rasp. She sounded congested, tired, and fell against me when I stood in front of her. “Ay nino, I knew you’d see me. I knew you’d take care of your mama.”

But this wasn’t like her forgetting a parent/teacher conference in junior high or sending me to school in dirty jeans with an empty belly and no lunch money. Her being here, following me to Chicago and sneaking backstage, went further than even hocking my Gibson or stealing a hundred bucks from my wallet because she needed to score blow. Now she was threatening the only thing I had left in life—my music.

“No,” I said, pushing her away from me when she tried resting all of her body weight against me—as though just my presence, my solid form, gave her relief. “I’m not taking care of you. Not this time.”

“Jamie, I’m…I’m your mama…” she tried, managing to steady herself with one hand on the doorknob when I held her back, my arms stiff and straight to put distance between us. “It’s your job…you have to…”

“No,” I repeated, not hiding the disgust I knew moved my mouth into a curl when I looked down at her. Those heavy-lidded black eyes blinked slow, as though it took effort for her to keep them open. The whites were yellowed and streaked with red. “My only job is to handle my business out on that stage.” When she started to wobble, I stepped back, pushing down the instinct to reach for her and keep her upright. “I don’t owe you a fucking thing.”

The dulled features went sharp then, transforming into something I recognized as anger. I’d seen that expression more than any other on her face, and now it was back, telling me in seconds that she would lash out—that she was ready for a fight. I didn’t have time for that shit.

“Listen to me, you pendejo…” she hissed.

“No, I don’t think I will.” The crowd beyond that dressing room had gone loud again, the small lull between the first act and the intermission dying a bit more with the stretch of minutes. I didn’t have time for my mother or her anger, and I was well past letting her bully or guilt me. She reached out, attempting to slap me, and I caught her wrist. “And hell no to that, too. I’m not some little punk you get to slap around anymore. I’m not gonna run after you because you’ve fucked up yet another relationship, and you can’t be bothered to handle your own shit. I told you that night at Hector’s, and I’ll tell you again now, I am so fucking done with you. Done, Juanita.”

She made a noise then, something rough and angry. She never did like me calling her by her first name. “Don’t you…”

“Mierda, no. Don’t you. Don’t you come chasing after me while I’m on tour. Don’t you dare expect me to clean up your messes. Don’t you fucking ask for money or a place to crash or bail money. You won’t get shit from me. Not anymore. Not ever again.”

“You’re just as selfish as your father…”

I blinked, surprise making me pause. She’d never once mentioned my father. God only knew who he was, because I was pretty damn sure even my mother didn’t know. But I also knew it was a tactic. She was trying to bait me. She always did when things weren’t going her way.

“Yeah, well,” I started, ignoring her taunt about whoever the bastard was that made me, “if he was anything like the other pendejos you let in your bed, then I’m not surprised.”

“I am your mama, Jamie. You can’t…”

“No. You’re just the woman I got landed with. You were just the warden. I’ve done my time, and now, I’m done with you.” The crowd was louder still now, the shouts and chants stirring into a frenzy, and I felt my pulse race and my fingertips itch to play. I looked out into the hallway, catching the gaze of one of Ronnie’s security guards, nodding for him to come my way. My mother’s stare was cold—steady—and I could nearly feel it on my skin, like a frozen breath as biting as her tongue, as frigid as her heart.

“You owe me, papi. You can’t deny that.” She sounded sober now, not as weak, and the difference in her tone had me glancing down at her. It only took that glance to make her grin, and it was a sick, venomous gesture that held no warmth. “I’m in your blood, breathing inside your veins. You can’t extract me, no matter who you become.” One long, red nail scratched against my temple when she poked at me. “I go deep and won’t ever leave you, hijo. Trust that.”

Two large guards stood behind my mother as she stared at me. Her expression never changed, even with the promise she made, but I didn’t let her see me upset. She didn’t deserve to know that she could still affect me. Instead, I nodded to the guards, stepping back when the largest one tugged her into the hallway. “No,” I said, arms folded. “Trust that when I say I’m done, I mean it. I’m done with you, mama.” One quick nod and the guards pulled her out of the dressing room.

I walked back to the dressing table, trying to ignore my mother’s rattling screams, cursing me and my father, shrieking promises of vengeance and payback and that she’d never be gone from me completely. She was a battle I had to fight, and sometimes I thought I’d never get a break from the carnage. She wanted me to be a soldier and never stop fighting.

Scrubbing my face, I glanced in the mirror, a little disgusted at how gaunt I looked, how my skin had gone nearly as pale as my mother’s, and I wondered if it was the road or the circumstance of my life the past year that had made me look so different. I wasn’t dark anymore. I wasn’t as fit as I’d been just a year before when I finished up high school. So much of what my mother had given me—the cheekbones, the eyes, the curl of my full mouth—all of it was a reminder of her, the woman who made me and would never stop reminding me that she had.

I lowered my head, gripping the back of the chair in front of me as I inhaled, trying to focus on the crowd out in that auditorium and the energy I felt them radiating.

My mother was right about one thing: she was in my blood. They all were. Isaiah, Hector, Willow Heights and, as much as I hated to admit it, Iris was, too. They made me who I was. They built me like I was brick and mortar. Every lie, every deception, every wasted hope, they stacked them inside me, one by one, until I ended up here, in an empty dressing room, angry that my mother could still get under my skin.

“They ain’t ever gonna leave,” I whispered, head shaking as I tightened my grip onto the chair.

Ronnie had sworn that’s what I needed. Grit. Experience. All the shit leveled at me by my own blood, by the girl who’d owned my soul, it was mine. I needed to own it. I needed to claim it, even though I wanted to forget. My lungs felt tight when I inhaled, trying to keep my breath level. All I wanted was to erase that shit and become something…someone else…It was then that I realized I was the only one standing in my way.

To my right, The Plebes’s stylist had stashed her large bag with a collection of makeup and shit she used to fix their pockmarks and guy-line their eyes. Above that table was an assortment of posters, all bands who’d showcased at the venue. There was Green Day, and The Pillocks, and, the smallest of all, set off to the right of the mirror, was a modest poster of a man dressed in priest’s robes. Some Swedish band just making waves, but they had theatrics and style that got them attention. The lead wore a cardinal’s hat and face paint that gave him a skeletal feel. An instant glimmer of an idea formed.

I stood in front of the mirror, digging into the makeup bag, slathering white over my face, smearing black around my eyes and down the curve of my cheeks, liking how a few layers of paint gave me the anonymity I wanted. Fingers in the black, I smudged and smeared until I looked wasted, until I looked like a demon from someone’s nightmare. Until someone else stared back in that mirror—someone dark and free of the burden of memory. Someone strong. Someone vicious, void of anything that mattered. Blank and ready to run, cut loose from the past and anything that filled him up inside. I wanted empty. I wanted nothing and liked how this someone made me feel. Like someone else…someone I decided, right then and there, I’d call Dash.