Do you see that guy sitting on the couch with his head in his hands? Not the hungover one. C’mon, I’m better looking than that dude. That’s Ledger. He’s had a rough night, but I’ll get to that a little later.
I’m the one with the dark brown Mohawk covered in ink with a beer in hand. That’s me. The crazy looking motherfucker drinking before noon. Sadly, the drinking isn’t even surprising.
I bet I can surprise you. Listen to this. I once read the entire dictionary all in one sitting. Took me forty-seven hours and I read it out loud which made me sound something similar to Eminem’s raps. Although I did learn some cool words like Barmecide, which means illusionary or imaginary and therefore disappointing. And meacock. A cowardly or effeminate man. Both of which I can relate to.
“Hey, dumbass.” Scarlet slaps the back of my head. “Some chick has been calling the house asking for you all morning. The next time the phone rings, answer it and tell her to cut the shit.”
Scarlet’s always riding my case, and after the night I had, I hate the sound of Scarlet’s voice. Not her in particular, I actually tolerate Scarlet. Probably like her better if she’d let me fuck her, but the chipper sound of her telling me what to do is like fingernails on a chalkboard. It makes me want to punch her.
Not that last night was any different than any other night, unless you count being Tased. Then I guess you could say last night turned into something I’d rather forget. You don’t need to know the details, but it involved a nun and a Taser and a party to celebrate me not dying. I like to celebrate.
I stare up at her, trying to focus on her face, but I can’t see it. Without my contacts in, she’s just another blurry figure. “Who the hell are you talkin’ about?”
Sighing—like she can’t be bothered with my miniscule questions—she shrugs, tossing the house phone in my lap. “Fuck if I know. Wouldn’t leave her name. C’mon, get dressed. I’m hungry and we’re meeting Rod for lunch”—she waves her finger in my face accusingly—“to talk about what the hell we’re gonna do now that you’ve decided to ditch the tour.”
Fuck that shit. Explaining myself is the last thing I want to do today. “I’m not going.”
“Yes, you are!”
I wave her off. “Leave me alone.”
“I would, but it’s my job to bother you. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just leave.”
My dismissal means nothing to her. “Get dressed.”
Tossing the house phone on the table, I reach for my cell underneath a bag of weed. Squinting at the screen, a familiar number appears. It says I have twenty missed calls. And while we’re at it, that’s actually a low number. I once had seventy-eight missed calls before I checked my messages. I’m not a talker, I barely even text, but for some reason, people don’t get it and keep calling me expecting I’ll answer. I’ve gone weeks without checking my phone.
All twenty calls are from the same person. I only have to look at the number to know who it is. Why is that? Well, that’s fucking predictable.
Predictable because everyone has addictions. You’ll soon find I have several, but one in particular owns me in more ways than one. Funny, I used to give my younger brother, Shade, shit about his strung-out calls from Rhya, when I’m no different when it comes to Amberly.
The only difference between Rhya and Amberly? It’s usually me who needs her. Amberly doesn’t get high and call me to talk her off the ledge or bail her out of jail. That’s what I do to her. She calls to check on me, make sure I’m not using again. I’ll straight up tell you to your fucking face—drugs or drinking—it’s something I chose. I can’t call something I chose addiction, can I? It’s a choice I’m making knowing damn well what it’ll do to me. Addiction to anything, drugs, alcohol, adrenaline. . . it begins and ends in your mind. What you give power to has power over you, because you allow it.
I did coke for the first time when I was nineteen. I kept doing it, and as with anything, it formed something I couldn’t, didn’t want to let go of. I’m not saying I’m one of those pale, jittery fuckers with holes in their arms who can’t function without a line or shooting up. That was Rhya, not me. I’m more of the good-time user. If it’s at a party and available, I’ll do it. And that leads me to the girl who keeps calling.
Amberly Sky Johnson. . . just thinking her name sends a rush through my blood even the purest of coke can’t give me. I’m talking about the legit pure shit too. Not the “Trust me, man. This shit bangs.” She’s like the premium grade you find inside a Peruvian jungle lab.
This girl, fuck, she’s wild, unattainable and nothing someone like me deserves. She’s loyal to my demons and I crave her madness because I can’t stand to be inside my own head. Her and I, we don’t see what it does to us, but underneath, there’s beauty I can’t explain. She’s not just a girl I can’t have. Don’t see it like that. She’s a feeling. Angst. A desire for more. She’s too much, not enough, and in my head. I hate her but love her for the same reasons is the only honest answer I can give you.
If you ever saw the tiny purple-haired girl, you would never think she was capable of doing anything illegal aside from destroying my heart. Although, there was that one time where she was protesting animal rights and was escorted to jail. When she’s not calling to check on me, she calls because. . . well, I never really know. It’s crazy shit like, I need you to go to a party with me. . . or can you pretend to be my boyfriend, fiancé, whatever. I once pretended I was a pimp so she could get money out of her friend’s ex-boyfriend, who owed her rent money. How did I pass for a pimp and get the money? That’s a story for another day. Just know I can be very convincing when I want to be, and you don’t ever want on my bad side.
So you see, there are more differences between Amberly and Rhya—my brother’s cocaine-addicted suicidal friend who eventually killed herself. Amberly does all that shit for other people. She’s like the Mother Teresa of bullshit.
Throwing my phone back onto the table, I lean back against the couch and stare at the ceiling. I don’t have it in me to call her back.
Beside me on the couch, Ledger sighs, lifting his head, bloodshot eyes focused on nothing in particular.
Oh look, he’s still here. I forgot the bastard was there contemplating his royally screwed life. I’ve known Ledger for about ten years. He suffered a broken back a couple years ago when he took a fall in Las Vegas. The accident left him with partial paralysis and ended his riding career. Just not his sex life. Apparently. Now he builds tracks and ramps for motocross tracks. And fucks strippers.
“I can’t believe this. I’m totally fucked.”
“Nah.” Turning my head so I can look him in the face, I smile. “Not unless you tell her.”
He gives me that look. The one he always gives me that screams, you’re an idiot. I know this look. I get it often and from almost everyone I know. “How am I not going to tell her, Tiller? She’s my wife and I fucked another chick.”
If you ask me—and no one usually does—it’s his stupid his fault for getting married in the first place. How the hell did he expect to remain faithful when she’s off working all the time and he’s here, with an endless supply of pussy on hand?
I’m not bragging. It’s a known fact—spend enough time around this house and you’re bound to get laid at some point.
Hell, I’m pretty sure the neighbor’s kid, Camden, has been offered up a chance and he’s eleven.
“Shouldn’t have gotten married.” I notice my cigarettes on the table in front of me. Pulling out one, I smile at him and reach for my lighter next to it. “Then you wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“I love her.”
“Bullshit. What’s love, anyway? You’re a fuckin’ idiot, man.” Lighting the cigarette, I take a drag and blow the smoke out with a laugh. “And your dick doesn’t love her enough.”
I know what you’re thinking. Jesus, dude, you’re an asshole. Tell me something I don’t know.
Would you believe me if I told you I was shy?
Didn’t think so. Despite what you think you know, or what you might have read about me, I am in fact shy.
I’m shy out of fear. But let me be very clear here. It’s not because I’m embarrassed or fearful of your opinion of me. Far from it. I don’t give a goddamn what you or anyone else thinks of me. I’m fearful of conversations that lead to the demons hidden inside me. You don’t want to know the bizarre shit going on in my head. In actuality, I’m crazy. No bullshit. Certifiable even. Hell, it’s the reason I connected with fucked-up Rhya far more than I ever have with my brothers. I was the last person she spoke to on the phone that last night. Shade doesn’t know this, but he’s also never asked me about it. If he had, I’d tell him. Straight up. No fucking around.
Most people are a little bit crazy, but me? Twenty-three and out of my goddamn mind. When I was eighteen, I locked myself in a basement for a week. For 168 hours, I pretended I couldn’t get out. Do you want to know the bizarre part? I had the key in my hand the entire time. Hell, I had my phone, and my brothers were upstairs. I don’t know why I did it, maybe to protect me from myself. If that makes sense. Maybe it doesn’t, and at this moment in my life, I can’t explain it. That week, I did nothing but watch YouTube videos and eat saltine crackers, and I gotta say, I didn’t mind being alone.
Plagued with a gamut of gnawing unease that never leaves, I have something deep inside of me. A knotted soul. A frightening window to a world I don’t understand. Or is it me being paranoid? Or is it just anxiety? I’m not sure there’s a difference. Is there?
I’ve had what most would call anxiety for as long as I can remember. Twice it’s tipped over into severe depression. The kind that imprisoned me for weeks at a time where I locked myself in a basement or read the dictionary because reading words was better than being inside my own mind. When it happens, the anxiety, the crazy, my thoughts are all over the place. They teeter and control my mind, and I think to myself, will this time make me psychotic? Am I bipolar like my mother? How many of those sleeping pills can I take to sleep for the next three days and not die?
I ask myself these questions all the time when I’m stuck in a tornado of negative thoughts.
For the most part, I never know when it’s going to start, how long it’s going to last or what provokes it. It seems to come out of nowhere.
Actually, I can peg one of the reasons, which is part of why I skipped out on the first round of After Dark in Houston, Texas. The bullshit industry of freestyle motocross. If you’ve never heard of things like Nitro Circus, Red Bull X-Fighters or the Nuclear Cowboyz, it’s the world of professional freestyle motocross. Essentially a sport that began as “free riding” is now commercialized bullshit where you’re scored on your techniques and for things like crowd participation. Whatever the fuck that is. Last time I checked, it was my ass sailing through the air seventy-five feet above the ground while holding up a 250-pound bike. I don’t see that dude in seat 34-A doing shit but drowning his face with beer and screaming “Booo!” when I flip his frat-boy ass off.
I travel all over the world, competing for a living. And while it certainly pays well, the only thing I enjoy about the sport is pissing off the officials, and sometimes other riders just for the sheer fun of it. On more than one occasion I’ve provoked another competitor with a wild, and yet completely ridiculous, confrontation between our respective pit crews. I live for that shit. I’m not happy unless I’m thriving on anger and chaos.
For that reason, the stiff-collared motherfuckers of mainstream motocross (in particular Rod Milan, as the After Dark promotor), hates my guts. Of course, I can’t say I blame them. I’m disrespecting their sport.
I also don’t give a fuck.
I’m not my younger brother/model/freestyle gold medalist golden boy Shade. And I’m certainly not my older Erzberg Rodeo champion brother, Roan, who will do anything to prove he’s the world champion of enduro’s, even if it means handing out rim jobs to the stiff collars.
I haven’t always been this jaded. Before I could walk, there are pictures of me floating around, naked, on my dad’s dirt bike. There I was, straddling a Kawasaki KX500, my bare ass in the wind with the biggest smile on my face I haven’t seen since then. Once I discovered the thrill of the adrenaline when you turned it on, I was hooked. I started out riding motocross with my brothers. I rode every day, without fail, trained mostly by my supercross world champion uncle and his elite group of friends. Over the course of my childhood career, and going pro at eleven years old, I became wildly unpredictable as a rider. I never rode in a manner that reflected my ability. I can’t tell you what was going on inside my head back then, or even now, but the tremendous pressure building every time I got on a bike had something to do with it. I didn’t want to disappoint Ricky; he gave up everything for us, but then again, I didn’t like where my career was heading and, easily distracted, I was bored with the structure of motocross.
Eventually a pattern of self-sabotage emerged and I chose not to do well at certain events. I’d let things like poor track conditions set me off. I didn’t love motocross, so I reached for anything that gave me an excuse to lose, which, this would prove to be a reoccurring problem in my life.
It wasn’t about riding fast, doing well and collecting prize money. It was more about kissing corporate ass and behaving appropriately in order to attract sponsors.
That was a problem for a defiant little fucker like me and eventually, I said fuck that shit, and went into freestyle. Now look at me, dealing with the same shit I did in motocross. There’s no other sport in the world pushing progression and balls-out tricks that will kill you like freestyle does. It’s a game of who can do the best trick and when it’s been done, you have to constantly push to outdo the next guy. It’s a vicious cycle.
My phone rings on the table, vibrating on the wood and then buzzing its way to the floor. Only it’s not my phone that’s ringing. It’s Ledger’s.
Panic drains the color from his face and he looks to me for advice. “Do I answer it?”
I don’t know why he’s looking for advice from me. If I remember correctly, I told him he shouldn’t get married and did he listen to me? Nope. “You’re a pussy. You need to nut up.” If he had any balls, he’d tell that wife of his it’s over. It has been for a while. He just doesn’t want to admit it because her dad scares the shit out of him. “So you fucked another chick. Big fucking deal.”
“It is a big deal. It’s adultery.”
I sigh, standing and realize I’m fucking naked. That’s not surprising when you remember I was Tased last night and probably a little out of it by the time I made it to the living room.
Beside me, Scarlet blushes. “You’re naked.”
“I have socks on,” I point out, lifting my foot and effectively angling my body in her direction just to get a reaction. It’s not surprising, to most, but we’re not clothed around her very often.
Scarlet’s lived here a little over a year. She’s certainly seen me naked before and turns on her heel, walking the other way. “You have an hour to get ready, Wild Cat.”
I chuckle at her calling me by my nickname and stare at Ledger. “Probably not, unless you’ve thought of a lie to tell her uptight ass.”
He pockets his cell phone in the front pocket of his jeans and takes off out the door without a shirt on. I’m assuming he’s going to beg for forgiveness, but I’m not sure. Knowing Ledger’s straying yet honest dick, he’s going to tell his wife of his recent infidelity and his soon-to-be-divorced ass will be crashing on our couch for the next month.
As I’m standing there, still naked, thinking I should shower, my phone rings. I glance at the number and walk away.
The truth of the matter is I’m burning out on this shit, losing my mind, and descending into a world of drugs, hatred, and eventually death if it doesn’t change. Don’t look at me like that. You didn’t think this would be a Cinderella story, did you?
It’s gritty and a true-to-life portrayal of talent wasted by addiction. Welcome. Hope you’re along for the ride.