Chapter Eight
Tristan
I took the fucking stupid paper out of Elly’s hand before I left. I have no idea why I took it; I was just pissed, and instead of putting my fist through the wall, I grabbed the papers. When I got out to the bike, I stuffed it in the saddlebag before taking off. I had no intentions of filling it out. I had no idea where she got her nerve. What made her think it was even close to being her place to pick up rehab papers for me? I’d met controlling women before, but this took the cake.
I put my helmet on and drove out of the lot wondering what she was thinking. Did she think I was going to thank her? She saw some paraphernalia on the floor, but she never saw me use it; she never saw me use anything. For all she knew, the pipes could have belonged to someone else. Hell, they could have belonged to my parents—who, by the way, are addicts. Neither of them can function in society any longer. I may not give a shit about society, but I can function in it just fine. She could go fuck herself if she thought I was desperate enough for a piece of ass that I’d agree to that. It was just like a woman to try to manipulate with sex.
I got on the on-ramp for the freeway and the words, “I care about what happens to you,” came back to me. I didn’t believe that. Why the fuck would she care about me? She didn’t even know me. We’d fucked a few times, but we’d never really talked about anything. There was so much about me that she didn’t know. I could have been an axe murderer for all she knew. She should have been more careful about who she attached herself to. I bypassed my exit and eventually veered off the junction for 605 towards Seal Beach. I didn’t have any destination in mind, I was just driving. I didn’t want to go back to my apartment. Brooke was supposed to be coming by; I didn’t want to deal with her.
I drove down towards the beach and rode along the frontage road where I could see the water. I loved the ocean; something about it made me feel calm. If Elly knew me at all, she’d have known that was why I used the drugs….most of the time.
Emotionally, I was jacked up, I admit that. I parked the bike and got off. It was cool out, but not cold. I don’t know if I’d have noticed the cold, anyways. Most of the time, I just felt numb….except when I was with Elly. Damn her!
I took off my boots and walked out onto the sand. I thought about the old saying, ‘Life is a Beach’; what a bunch of bullshit that was. If life was a beach, then I was drifting somewhere out in the tide, washing up every so often, and then being pulled back out and under. I always felt like I was waiting for something. I had no fucking clue what it was. I doubted that rehab was the answer. I’d been down that road; I didn’t know what good it could possibly do to take that route again.
I walked out to the edge of the ocean where the tide was just beginning to wash up. I stood there in the dark, watching the waves, and thought about how much like the ocean my life really was. Some days the tide eased in, slowly…like it was doing right then. It crept across the sand and up over my feet and around my ankles. Most days, that’s how I liked it. I didn’t want anyone to notice me, I just wanted to do what I wanted to do and have everyone around me leave me the fuck alone.
Then there were the other days, the ones where I wanted to come crashing in like when the ocean crashed against the side of the pier or pounded the rocks. I wanted to be on stage—center stage—and I wanted the whole world to watch me. I wanted to be loud, make noise, and get noticed. Elly and other people who knew me might have thought that change from day to day had something to do with the drugs, but it didn’t. That shit was in my head and I used the drugs to try to tame it. It would have driven me crazy if I didn’t.
There was one seagull picking at the shells and sea crap that had just washed up. While I walked along the beach I watched him fly in and out, searching for food…searching for something. I could feel his pain. I was always searching for something. He seemed to know what he was looking for and he would dive towards it. But every once in a while, he would get too close to the water and I would watch him struggle to keep from being sucked down. Every day felt like a struggle to me. The bird at least knew what he was struggling against and moving towards though. I had no fucking clue.
Sometimes when I went there, I would get inspired and go home and write a hot, new song. Other times, I’d leave feeling more lost than I was when I got there, like a piece of me got left behind. All I ever really wanted was to feel at peace with myself and my life. Most days, I didn’t think that was ever going to happen. The weed helped; it draped a peaceful veil down across my brain for a while and I didn’t worry about stupid shit when I was high.
Of course, I always over-did it. I’d smoke until I was nearly comatose. If I didn’t have a gig, I’d be just fine with that. I wouldn’t have minded sleeping through some of the shit. But days when I had to make a living, whether my heart was in it or not, those were the days when I’d put the powder up my nose or melt it into the pipe and bring myself back up. I knew that was drug abuse, I wasn’t stupid. But an addict? Did I have a problem? Could I stop if I wanted to?
I watched the colors of the moon bouncing off the ocean and I wished that I could look at it like other people and see the beauty in it. I looked at it and I saw the moon, and I saw the ocean. I rarely saw beauty in anything. Even the girls I fucked. I would look at most of them afterwards and I’d feel sad. Not for them, but for me. For how low I’d sunk. Did that make me a narcissist? A sociopath? Again, no fucking clue.
I did see the beauty in Elly when I looked at her. She was hot...but not the hottest girl I’d ever been with. Yet if any of the others had suggested to me that I went to rehab, I’d have walked away without even so much as a glance backwards—after I told her to mind her own fucking business, of course. With Elly, it was different. She’d opened my eyes back up to what it was like to feel good things. At first, it was awesome, but I realized in order to feel the good, you had to feel the bad. I didn’t want to feel that other shit. I wanted to stay high so that I didn’t have to. Did that make me an addict?
Maybe I was slated to be an addict from the start. Seriously, considering how I was raised, how the hell was I supposed to turn out? When I first started performing, my parents were renting me out for parties, weddings, and shit. I’d have to stay up real late and then turn around and go to school the next day. When I complained about it, my mom would give me one of her ‘happy pills’ to get me through the day. After a while, I couldn’t sleep at night, so then she’d give me one of her ‘sleepy pills’. After a while, I discovered that I could buy even better stuff on my own. I left the shit laying around my room for a while; I know she saw it, but she didn’t say anything about it. When I finally started hiding it, it was just to keep her or the old man from stealing it.
“Shit!” I yelled out to the dark sky. My words bounced off the ocean and back at me. Elly sticking her nose in my business made me have to think about all of this—and that pissed me off. I didn’t like thinking about it. I hated my fucking childhood, I hated my parents, and yes, I hated the way I was living my life. But who the hell was she to tell me what I should do? If I did go to rehab and get clean, was she going to stick around? In my experience, no one ever did. That’s why the only person I’ve ever depended on was myself. I’m the only one that knows what’s good for me. I don’t think that makes me a narcissist: I think it makes me a realist.
I finally walked back up to where I’d left my bike. It took me twenty minutes to clean off my feet and put my socks and boots back on. The salty air had made me feel calmer; for some reason, it always did. I climbed back on the bike and headed towards the freeway. I planned to get high and go to bed. I wasn’t going to think about that shit anymore, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to check into some fucking rehab where they would try and force me to talk about it.
By the time I got back to the apartment, it was late. I parked the bike and took the papers Elly gave me out of the saddlebag. I rolled it up in my hand and took the stairwell up. I was shocked when I saw Brooke sitting next to my front door. Damn! I figured she would have given up and left by. What the hell was up with these persistent bitches?
“Hey, what are you doing here?” I asked her, and not nicely.
“Seriously, Tristan? You invited me over, and then I take a cab all the way out here and you’re not home. What is up with you? Are you always this rude to people you invite to hang out?”
My fucking head was pounding again. A few days ago, I couldn’t wait to get my dick in this girl. Now, all I wanted was for her to go away.
“I had things to do. You should go, Brooke. I’m not in the mood for company tonight.”
“Too bad. Do you know how much the cab cost me? You can at least offer me a beer.”
“I’m all out.”
“I doubt that ever happens. Then let’s smoke some weed.”
“Damn it, Brooke! Can you hear me talking? I don’t want to hang out with you. I want to be alone, which means I want you to go the fuck away. Is that clear enough? I’m seriously not in the mood for this shit.”
“Screw you, Tristan! You came on to me just to make that bitch Elly jealous, didn’t you? You know they have rules against screwing around with staff—and she knows it, too. You’ll get disqualified and she’ll get fired. Don’t make me tell somebody what’s going on. You’re not above following the rules, and neither is she.”
I couldn’t believe she was actually threatening to tattle on me and Elly. I would have laughed if I wasn’t so pissed. She had the nerve to call Elly a bitch? These fucking women were giving me a headache.
“Do what you want to, Brooke, I honestly don’t give a fuck,” I told her as I went into the apartment and closed the door in her face.
Before I’d gone into the studio earlier, I had done a few lines. I couldn’t wake up that morning. I’d smoked too much weed and had a few too many beers. The mirror, still coated in dust, was on the table. There was a straw lying next to it. The bong I’d used to get high was on the counter next to the box I kept my weed in. There was at least a half a case of empty beer bottles on the counter; as well as half a bottle of Fireball, a bottle of Jack Daniels, and a vodka bottle that had less than a shot left in it.
I sat down in one of the dining room chairs and, as much as I hated to admit it, Elly was right. I definitely had a problem. I still preferred that no one refer to me as an addict. I hated that fucking word. But a problem, I had to admit, that I had. Not a day had gone by for years that I wasn’t drunk or high. I hated it, but I did it anyways. The reason I did it anyways was because I felt like I needed it in order to cope….to function…to block things out. The point was I needed it. The difference between wanting it and needing it was the difference between partying and being an….having a problem.
I dug through the pile of junk on the table until I found an ink pen. I opened the paperwork that Elly had given me and smoothed it out. The header said, “When you stop chasing the wrong things, you give the right things a chance to catch you.”
I laughed. I really was trying to take this seriously, but did they have to use the clichés? As I filled out the paperwork, I hoped that this place wasn’t like the ones they’d sent me to when I was a kid: more clichés than action. I wondered, if I took this step, would Elly prove she meant what she said about being supportive? To her that might mean one thing, but to me it meant her naked and in my bed.