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Encore

Wendy C. Williford

    You are the heavens, you are the earth; you are their god and the breath in their lungs. You hold infinite power in your hands. And you would give it up in a heartbeat for a decent night’s rest.
    Chanting fills your ears as you make your way through the long, dimly lit corridor. The forty-watt light fixtures shake gently on the chains holding them, flickering against the walls like a malfunctioning strobe light, shivering against the decibels of noise resonating through the venue. Your pace is steady, barely allowing time to soak it all in: the adoration, the love, the mantra of your name on their lips. It’s something you once reveled in, couldn’t get enough of, but not tonight. You want to convince yourself it will all be over soon. But you know better. It’s nothing more than a game you play with yourself night after night after night. And it breaks your soul to accept the fact that the game has become stale.
    You push open the door of the greenroom and make your way to the chair in front of your assigned dressing table. There’s already a folded white towel hanging over the ragged, imitation leather arm. You grab it, sit down, and start wiping off your bare chest, arms, around your neck and finally bury your face in the terrycloth. Breathing in, the faint odor of the laundry soap fills your lungs, calming you, preparing you for what’s eventually to come. You take a look in the mirror but keep your eyes away from your reflection. You haven’t the strength to look at yourself, yet in the corner of your eye you almost make out what you used to be, what they originally fell in love with, what they’re anxiously awaiting the return of.
    Jago. Jago. Jago.
    The door bursts open and your partners in crime file in: your drummer, your bassist, your lead guitarist. You can handle them, but it’s the others you don’t want to deal with yet – a few young girls, a few specially selected fans, a lone reporter – one you trust, along with a photographer who’s promised not to photograph you unfavorably. It’s not a bad crowd and you trick yourself into breathing a sigh of relief before Mal, your tour manager, appears in the mirror walking through the door. He drops a box of promotional t-shirts by the door and swaggers through the room.
    “Brilliant, mate,” he shouts to you, his deep, East End accent piercing the din rumbling throughout the room. “Fucking through the roof.”
    He makes his way toward you, stopping at the craft table to sink his hand into a bowl of peanuts before shoving them into his mouth. You look when he reaches you. He’s holding two freshly opened Newcastles in one hand. He swallows his peanuts, takes a swig from his bottle, and holds out the other to you. You take it although you don’t feel like drinking tonight. There hasn’t been any call for celebration over the last year and he knows it. Yet, true to his form, he makes every effort to cheer you up. It’s one of his many jobs.
    “What’d I tell you?” Mal finishes half his ale and sets the bottle on the dressing table. He leans against it and pulls a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. “Whole house, fucking sold out.”
    He lights the cigarette and takes a drag. The smoke wafts around and you take in a deep breath, teasing yourself with the traces of nicotine hanging thinly in the air. He blows out a thick cloud and you give in, snatch the cigarette from him, and ingest it into your lungs.
    “I thought you were giving up,” he says, taking out another cigarette. He scratches his balding head before he lights it.
    You shrug and take another drag. “I’ve never been good at quitting.”
    “It’s changing your voice,” Mal reminds you. He takes another sip of his ale. “You’re not able to hit the notes you used to.”
    You shake your head and rub your temple, weary of the conversation. It’s the same bullshit each night: Mal reminding you of what you were and what you’re becoming. If it’s not the cigarettes now, then it used to be the alcohol or pot. You know your limits, far better than he’ll ever realize, regardless of how many years he’s been by your side.
    Looking around, you’re relieved it’s not as bad as it could be. Across the room, Lee, the drummer, is relaxed in his chair, twirling a drumstick between his fore and middle fingers, chatting with the longhaired blonde on his knee. You noticed her in the front row during the fourth song, swaying to your music, mouthing the words along with your voice. She’s a typical American fan – ratted blonde hair, short black, leather skirt, stilettos, fishnet pantyhose with a tear in the knee – a tear which looks accidental although you know it’s deliberate. Lee places his free hand on her upper thigh and whispers in her ear. She laughs, tosses her hair over her shoulder, then starts twisting her finger through a lock of Lee’s long, black hair. Lee’s getting laid tonight. Hell, Lee gets laid every night. The thought makes you laugh, amused for a second you had a doubt. He likes to play the game, as if he has to actually work to get them. If he didn’t have the thrill of the kill, you’ve no doubt he’d be a monk by now.
    Dale, the other guitarist, sits at his table alone, eyes closed to his reflection, breathing steadily, contemplatively, calmly. Things have changed since he shaved his head and turned to Buddhism - so much so that you can barely deal with him on most nights, can’t stand to listen to his ideas about enlightenment, turning against life’s temptations and inner peace. It’s annoying, but you have to admit it’s made him a better guitarist. Now, he channels any negative thoughts into his playing. That’s the way it should be.
    In the other corner, John, your bassist, leans against his dressing table, carefully applying superglue to the latest lesions on his fingertips. With each application, he snaps his finger back, grimaces, and waves his hand back and forth before he settles on blowing on his finger. It’s evidence of what you knew all along: he’s not ready for the constant demands of the road. He’s new, he’s cocky, and he’s young, but you don’t hold it against him. He happens to be one of the best bassists you’ve ever come across, although you’d never admit it to him. And it’s not a bad thing that he idolizes you, everything you’ve written, and everything you play. But his presence was only meant to be temporary while Dutch finished up his third stay in rehab – a break that never came to an end when Dutch discovered he preferred the desert life to playing sold-out shows every night. He bought a farm and horses. You laughed when you heard, remembering the nights when all he wanted was horse, escaping to back allies, meeting up with the lowliest low-lifes of south London, knowing at any moment a knife or a bad hit would have ended it all. Now he’s changed and it’s brought him peace, it’s brought him serenity. It saved his life and you could never begrudge one of your best friends that honor. He’s one of the few.
    “Do you think he’ll make it?” Mal takes your attention again when he catches you staring at John. “He fucked up the bridge again on Blood Falling. Didn’t you notice?”
    “No.” You take the final sip of your ale before placing the empty bottle on the table. “It’s a tricky passage. It’s always been.”
    “Still, it’s time he played it right. This encore has to be perfect.”
    Mal takes too much upon himself. He’s spent years in this business, negotiating deals, getting you everything you’ve ever wanted, playing mother hen to you and the rest of the band. He’s a good friend, a rarity, but even he doesn’t have a clue as to the change that’s been coming over you. You’re not sure you know it yourself.
    Jago. Jago. Jago.
    The chanting is relentless. You know you’ll keep hearing it long after you leave tonight, when your head finally hits the pillow, alone, in whatever hotel they’ve put you. You’ll close your eyes and still see the multitude of multi-thousands in a sea as far as your eyes can see – your sea of tranquility. The sea is the same, no matter where you go. Christ, where are you anyway? Cleveland? Detroit? Houston? Are you sure you’re even in America? You remember getting on the plane last night. For the life of you, you can’t remember where it landed.
    “Right.” Mal stands and grunts, stretches his arms out as if he’s exhausted and walks away. “I need a piss.” He passes the craft table again, grabs another bottle, looks around the room and adjusts the straining waistband of his pants. “Okay, boys, you have five minutes before encore.”
    You finally look at your reflection in the mirror. So much has changed, so many things have gone away and you don’t know where. Your long, dark hair is thinning a little on top, the bags under your eyes are so heavy you wonder how any woman in the world can still find you attractive. If you didn’t keep up with your regimen of weights on the bus, no telling how out of shape you’d really be. You look down at your stomach and notice with odd amusement a few gray hairs surrounding your belly button. Oh yeah, that’s sexy all right.
    “Hey.” You turn around in your chair, catching Mal before he hits the door. “Did you check with will call? Did she get the tickets? Is she here tonight?”
    Mal gives you that dreaded look. He bites his lip and shakes his head. “Sorry, mate.”
    You nod and he walks out the door. Looking back at the mirror, you stare at yourself until your drying eyes fade into the haze surrounding you.
     ?It was all so simple in the beginning, when music was an exciting mystery. It didn’t take much to draw you in, to capture you, to make itself your first mistress. Who knew that young man from Memphis could draw you in as he did. You watched with fascination as you laid in front of the television, your Tonka trucks displayed in front of you and a small, black metal T-Bird still in your hand. Something changed in you. By the time the Liverpool boys came on the scene you fully understood your life’s calling. And when Dylan went electric, it burned in your soul and you stopped at nothing to become the best.
    You learned to play by watching the best at every opportunity, whether watching the fingers of each guitarist or studying their sound until your subconscious thought in notes. You learned to touch and handle a guitar long before you discovered how to touch a woman, making it sing, breathe, and moan with ease. It came alive under your fingertips and entered your blood.
    Others recognized it, too. You played every shitty club that would accept you, giving small samples of your gift until the right person came along who would undeniably understand your talent. His promises came a little at a time – first more gigs, second women, third drugs, until there was nothing left to offer but the record contract. But it came at a price, didn’t it? You could have fought harder on the name change, but something about Jago sounded heavier, deeper, more mysterious, more dangerous, more British, less Jewish. From that moment on, you were lost in a world that promised everything, would drain you of your last breath and turn away if you fell. You were at the beginning of a burnout when she came on the scene. And immediately you could feel the breath enter your lungs again.
    It was simple fate, that day on the crosswalk of Abbey Road when she first walked by. Something about her eyes caught your attention. She smiled gently, her auburn hair catching the breeze, a lonesome lock falling gently over her shoulder, inviting you to take in the sexiness of her neck framed delicately in an unbuttoned white silk collar. In your head, you named her Lovely Rita, committed her smile to memory and thought about it for days. Truly, fate was on your side when you found her again at the Tower of London, shuffling a throng of children past the Crown Jewels, her eyes sparkling as brightly as the finely embedded gems of the coronation crown behind her thin-frame glasses. Her hair was tied in a long braid, hanging over her shoulder, inviting you once again to take in the beauty of her neck, making you wonder what she smelled like. The surrounding children stared at her in wonder as she whispered the history of the jewels to them, and you hung on to every word she said, imagining what her whisper would sound like against your ear. Finally, taking a deep breath and running your fingers through your hair, you worked up the nerve to approach her. All you wanted was her name.
    “Have you ever wanted to be immortalized in song?” you said to her, realizing immediately it sounded better in your head.
    She looked at your ponytail, your leather jacket and boots, and gripped the hands of her students standing by. “I take it you’re a musician?”
    Captivated by her neck again, you saw the nervous lump form in her throat.
    “That’s right, love.”
    You could tell she was trying to let you down easy. She wouldn’t even give you the honor of her smile again. “I’m really more of a symphony girl. Sorry.”
    Then she walked away. It almost knocked the wind out of you. You couldn’t back down, not without a fight.
    “Did you ever stop to think that symphony orchestras are nothing but cover bands for the elite?”
    She stopped, turned back to you and stared, her light eyes sparkling as she worked out the epiphany in her head. Finally, that beautiful smile spread across her lips. You knew you had her and you promised then you wouldn’t let her go.
    Mara. Mara. Mara.
    It was simple in the beginning. Natural. You played and teased each other with nothing but your eyes, both too shy to go too far. The past had been filled with countless, nameless women, women who served their purpose, gave you what you needed while giving them what they wanted. You never had a single regret when you walked away. But Mara was different. It took all your courage just to hold her hand. And when that first night came, the night she invited you to stay at her flat, awake with each other until the dawn, she held you tight, breathing your name against your ear, her arms caressing your shoulders, fingers running through your hair, her legs still wrapped around you. You were safe in her cocoon – unafraid, no longer holding uncertainties, no longer searching for something you never knew you needed.
    She entered your world with ease. The invitations, the parties, the all-nighters proved she could handle whatever came her way. She was so damn smart, so damn sophisticated. She became more than a girlfriend. She opened to you a different world you’d never imagined conquering alone. When the record label got nervous, she put them at ease; when the venue managers tried to take higher percentages, she negotiated breakthroughs. When you and the guys argued over chords, melodies, and lyrics, she kept her mouth shut.
    When the tracks first appeared on her arms, you pretended not to notice.
    It wasn’t a big deal when it first started. Everybody experiments in some way. Hell, you had done it a time or two, but never went through that ever-rumored need it would take over. Your constitution and will were stronger than that. So why didn’t she possess that same strength? Why couldn’t you have been strong enough for both?
    A year has passed since you both hit bottom. It was noon, and you were still passed out when the phone relentlessly began to ring. Rushing to the hospital, you considered it luck the new tour hadn’t started. After dealing with the doctor’s questions, you found Mara lying on the bed, staring out the window, half asleep. The darkness under her eyes was barely discernible from the redness and vacancy they contained. Sitting beside her, gripping her frail hand, your eyes trailed up to the fresh marks and tried not to think about your son’s tiny body, deprived of his first breath. When she noticed you, the smile spread across her lips again, a pale comparison of what it used to be, her darkened teeth incapable of the brilliancy they once held.
    “Do you still want to immortalize me in song?”
    You hid your eyes, refusing to let her see the disappointment, the shame you felt knowing you were more responsible than she.
    “It’s no big deal,” she said, drifting out. You kept your eyes on the I.V. drip, unable to find the strength to look at her. “We can always try again.”
    But you knew better. From that moment you understood there was no trying again. God only gave these chances once in life and you had both blown it. Tears would have been easy to explain, but pulling your hand away from her desperate grip, getting up, and walking out the door was not.
    The fear returned. You ran across the planet and you couldn’t get away from it, couldn’t shake it, couldn’t loosen its stranglehold. You searched every corner to find some semblance of her, testing your sobriety every night, searching in unknown eyes, between unknown legs, for someone that reminded you of her and the way she was, the way she used to be before you entered her life. It’s only been in the last two months that you’ve heard she’s finally cleaned up, gotten her life back on track. She’s teaching again – this time to addicted teens. You can find yourself taking a moment from your own pity and despair to smile, your heart filled with relief that she’s still alive, and living again – living without you. In the same moment, despair returns when you realize you can never go back to her as you are, not as a star, not as Jago.
    You have to give it up. Wholeheartedly.
    It can’t be done, can it? There is no walking away, no matter what the rumors claim. Perhaps it’s the reason you think the greats had it easy, dying at early ages, forever young in the eyes of their fans despite the fact their deaths carried so many indignities: heart-attack in the bath, gun to the head, bottle in the hand, pills in the mouth, needle in the arm, choking on vomit, slouched over a toilet. Where would you be buried? What dark memorial stone would they erect for you? How long would it take before somebody claimed they saw you at Burger King?
    A peal of laughter fills the room, dragging you out of your stupor. The blonde on Lee’s leg slaps him across the shoulder and continues to laugh. You take the final drag from the cigarette and put it out in the ashtray. You settle back again and give yourself one last chance to get her out of your mind.
    The photographer approaches and takes your picture. You don’t smile, you don’t acknowledge him. He captures you the way you want to be remembered, sitting comfortably in a dark, leather dressing chair, the lights around the mirror casting a warm glow over you, your eyes lost in your reflection, sweat covering your body, your hair damp from the energies of the show, your elbow on the armrest, your forefinger against your mouth, lost in thought. It will be beautiful if it’s in black and white.
    Jago. Jago. Jago.
    The chanting returns when Mal pushes open the door. This time he’s carrying a bunch of roses. An amused expression covers his face and a faint streak of red lipstick is smeared against his chin.
    “Guess who these are for?” he says, throwing the flowers on your table.
    You lean forward, count the roses and settle back. “Fourteen’s an odd number.”
    “Can you guess what she did if I promised to deliver them to you personally?” Mal laughs and wipes the lipstick off his chin with the back of his hand. He’s being a complete prick right now. There’s an old saying in the business, if you can’t be a rock star, at least be on the road crew. The money’s not the same, but the chicks are free.
    Mal takes a long, hard look at you. You’re not being as fun as he’s used to. “What the fuck’s wrong with you tonight? You’ve been in this mood ever since we left Phoenix.”
    You take in a short breath, relieved you’re in the United States. You’re not so lost after all.
    Mal kicks the chair. “Seriously, Jay, what’s the matter?”
    “I’ve a lot on my mind.”
    “What? Mara?” He shakes his head, and rolls his eyes. “Again with this, you’re fucking losing your mind, mate.”
    You shrug. It’s pointless explaining anything to Mal. He tries to be understanding, often chucks it up to your artistic temperament, but he’ll never understand the fracture Mara left in your soul.
    “I have to know.”
    “Know what? If she’s passing out every night with a needle in her arm, if she’s blowing some bloke in the back of a pub for a fix?”
    The look you shoot him shuts him up. “She’s not doing it anymore.”
    “Right. A leopard and its spots, eh? What makes you certain?”
    You feel yourself giving in, unable to give a logical answer. You want to close your eyes, fall asleep, and block out the entire world until you’re able to find her, find her smile, rediscover the joy you gave each other until you wake up in her arms again and realize it was nothing but a bad dream. “I’m not. But it wouldn’t take much to find out.”
    Mal shakes his head and smirks. He’s hating this conversation. He breathes out deeply, takes out another cigarette and lights it.
    “Whatever.” He exhales his latest drag. In the mirror, you see the white cloud hanging ominously above you. It’s fitting. “You’ve got twenty-two more dates on this tour. After it’s over, do what you need to. But right now, you’ve got one minute to get back on that stage. There are over fifty thousand fans out there waiting.”
    Mal’s little tantrum amuses you. “What do you think they’ll put on my tombstone?”
    It gets the reaction you’re hoping for. Mal grabs his knee and lowers himself until he’s looking you in the eye. “Here lies Jago Brix, a brilliant bastard who lost it over a woman. What the fuck are you talking about?”
    You close your eyes and take in a deep breath. It’s the only thing that gives you the slightest tranquility these days. “I think I’m through.”
    “What are you on about?”
    You rise from your chair and throw the towel to the ground. You smile at him, the same smile that makes the women wild, cup your hand around Mal’s neck, shake his hand and whisper, “Hey, man, it’s an encore.”
    You want to laugh out loud and prove to everyone that maybe you’ve lost it after all. But maybe it’s better to take it one step at a time. You spread out your arms, wide enough to hold the entire world; you look at everyone in the room as you take backwards steps towards the door. You catch their confusion, their inability to understand your actions and the new madness that’s overcome you. Mal’s announcement that it’s time to head back to the stage hasn’t been made. It’s what they’ve been waiting for.
    “Goodnight, my beauties. You’ve been a lovely audience.”
    You take a bow, whip back up and salute them, an action they’ve seen you do every night since the band came together. Only this time, you’re doing it to them. You effortlessly pivot on your heels and head toward the door. You grab a t-shirt from the box and throw open the door, already breathing easier. Right before the door shuts, you hear Mal shout, “What the holy fuck?”
    The door slams, echoing down the corridor. The chanting continues, as loud as it was before. The voices are thick with desperation. They’re having doubts, you can sense it. They’re beginning to realize you might not come back. You don’t want to revel in it, but something about it feels good. It just feels right.
    The stage is to the left, the rest of the world is to the right. You’re really not sure what to do. You only have a few bucks in your pocket, but you only need a few for a phone call anyway. If you’re lucky, she’ll answer. If you’re luckier, she’ll forgive you. It’s a chance you’re willing to take. Either way, with a clearer conscience, you’ll finally get a good night’s sleep.

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