Page 5 of Broken Melody
“Mad, let us in. We’re not leaving until you open the damn door!”
The angry voice of one of my band mates, Henley penetrates the aftereffects of another night spent overindulging in alcohol. His pounding on my bedroom door makes me regret ever giving them all a key to my house. I wanted them to have it in case of an emergency – not because I thought they would ever use it.
Stumbling out of bed I look down at my black briefs and contemplate throwing clothes on, but when Henley starts pounding on my bedroom door again, I shrug. Not like he hasn’t seen it all before. Rubbing my eyes, I unlock the door and swing it open to find the scowling faces of not just Henley, but Rocco and Nixon too. The three guys that I’ve known since we met during band in junior high school. The three guys that have known me the longest, see past all the bullshit I sling, and tell me like it is. From the looks on their faces, the latter is what I’m about to receive from them now.
“What the fuck, Maddox? You were supposed to meet at my place this morning so we can discuss the audition tomorrow. Jace is supposed to meet up with us at some point too to pass on some important information.” Rocco’s anger takes me off guard for a moment. He’s usually the calm one of our bunch, so I know he’s really angry if he’s yelling at me and actually saying the word ‘fuck.’ He’s frowning so hard it contorts his face in such a way that he looks like an angry Muppet - the one with the crazy red hair that scrunches up his face perfectly when he’s annoyed. The thought makes me laugh, which only manages to piss the guys off thinking I’m laughing about the fact I didn’t show up. Apparently that alcohol sucked up all my brain cells.
“I’m tired of this shit,” Nixon states with a shake of his head and a deep sigh. He begins rubbing his forehead and he looks tired. He turns and moves down the hallway, leaving only the three of us.
That’s all it takes. The guilt sets in and I feel ashamed. “I was laughing at the look on Rocco’s face, sorry,” I explain, but they’re beyond caring. They’ve been incredibly tolerant of my shit over these past few months while I try to work out this inner turmoil I have boiling inside. Like most things though, their understanding is drawing to a close. Isn’t that the way? Everyone cares and offers to support you, and love you through whatever you’re going through… up to a point. So, truth is, like everyone else, their understanding is running out. Until now, they’ve wanted me to deal with my feelings, get it out of my system, see and talk to someone about what I’m dealing with so I can heal. Truth is, they just need me to get past this already. It’s not only been affecting our band’s reputation, but I haven’t been able to write dick. I have writer’s block that won’t budge no matter how much I mentally push at it, or swallow alcohol hoping to push past it. But they’re obviously exhausted, tired of me too. But the guys just haven’t understood. They’ve wanted me to deal with my shit, but that’s the exact opposite of what I’ve wanted to do. I want to write, yeah, but thinking about, let alone talking about the other stuff, hell no. All of that stuff I just want to forget. And sometimes I need alcohol to help bury the thoughts.
“Look, I’m sorry guys. I completely slept through my alarm,” and as if on cue, my phone starts going off again. I head back inside my room, grab it, then show them that it’s going off at the nine minute mark yet again after I ignored it the last time. It’s a lame attempt to gain their favor, but worth a try.
“You always have an excuse, Mad, always. Get dressed and get out here so we can talk,” Henley tells me and without a word I do just that. I duck into my bathroom after grabbing some clothes, and start the shower. Under the warm spray, I rub my hands over my face and sigh deeply. The self-loathing and anger increases with each cleansing motion as I attempt to rid myself of the dirtiness I feel. I don’t want to disappoint my friends, my business partners, my family in every sense of the word, but I can’t seem to get hold of things. I can’t find myself underneath all this shit going on in my head. One moment I’ll be feeling great, and then something will stimulate a thought, a memory, and my anxiety, anger, and frustration flairs and my good day goes downhill quickly.
Of course it doesn’t help that the media is all over us like the disgusting leeches they are. I remember when we first thought the attention was so great, thought it meant we had finally arrived. We’d preen and pose in front of them like good little boys; eager for every morsel of publicity and attention they would provide. We didn’t care what they wrote. We believed that all publicity was great publicity. Those days are long gone. We’ve realized their true intentions – to get a story, any story – no matter the ramifications to us or anyone else.
It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. A girl claims to have a one-night stand and wants to share every single detail – and it’s published like it’s a fucking deposition. A fan claims to have had a negative interaction with me – forget the fact that he was shoving things in my face and being totally aggressive while I was trying to eat. A paparazzi who got in my face and provoked me with sick words and actions and then twisted it all to make it look like I instigated the dialogue and resulting behavior that lead to his black eye and broken camera as if he was the poor victim and then having the nerve to sue me. Admittedly, I did a bit of shit that straight up was my fault, I’m not claiming I’m blameless in all of this, but the sycophants, drama lovers, and money sharks don’t help. I’ve been called, “unstable,” “wicked,” even a “man slut.” I’ve ignored it all and kept doing whatever the hell I wanted to do, which was all well and good until our record label had enough. And now, the band is reaping the consequences even though the actions have been entirely mine. God, no wonder the guys hate me right now. Can I really blame them?
Trying to shake the thoughts away, I hurry out of the shower, dry off and dress in record time. No need to further provoke them; they’ll think I’m trying to avoid them by hanging out in the shower. Once I hit the stairs, the smell of frying food permeates the air and my stomach growls. Standing at the kitchen door, I watch as Nixon stands at the stove with eggs in a pan, bacon sizzling in another. Henley is buttering toast and Rocco is placing silverware and napkins on the table - all the while the smell of coffee comes from the Keurig. That alone would be enough to draw me into the room. Nixon looks at me out of the corner of his eye as I enter. I know all of this was instigated and directed by him, he can’t help but take care of all of us in some way, shape or form. Even when he’s pissed and probably doesn’t want to, his instincts have him doing it anyway.
After I pour myself a cup into my favorite mug that says “Rock Out,” I nod at Nixon, “Thanks.”
He shrugs, “Figured you would need some greasy food to help with the hangover you’re sporting.”
I almost hang my head again, but catch myself at the last minute. My stubbornness pushes through and instead I lift my head, jut out my chin, and smirk. Of course it doesn’t go unnoticed if Henley’s sigh is any indication.
“We need to talk about tomorrow, Maddox,” Rocco says.
“So, what you’re saying is that ignoring it and hoping it’d go away didn’t work?” I ask half joking. If only.
“You know better than that. We are way past that point,” Nixon pipes in from the stove.
“I don’t get how you guys are okay with this. This is our band,ours, it always has been. This whole idea is fucking stupid,” I spit angrily.
“Okay with this? Did you say that you think we’re okay with this? You’re fucking kidding me, right? It’s because ofyouthat we have to do this in the first place,” Henley yells angrily and Rocco murmurs under his breath to him most likely telling him to calm down.
“Poor choice of words, sorry,” I mumble.
Nixon separates the food he’s made onto four plates, hands me two and nods toward the table. I take them there as directed, and sit down to eat. We’re all quiet at first while we each take a few bites. I break the quiet first. “We don’t need a chick in our band. It’s ridiculous.”
“Maybe so, but as Nixon said, we are past debating that point. We no longer have a choice, so arguing about it is pointless,” Rocco says, always the peacekeeper and voice of reason.
“Look, it’s simple,” Henley says with a sigh after taking a bite of his eggs. I’m happy to see that he appears to have calmed down a bit. I hate it when we butt heads and lately we do it more than I would like. “The label is tired of the bad press we’ve been getting. And the truth is, while yeah, a lot of it is coming from you,” he points at me, not one to mince the truth, “we didn’t help things, and likely tipped them over the top, when we all got into that bar fight.”
“I refuse to be sorry for that shit. They called Maddox a pussy girly singer and said our music sucked ass. I simply was not okay with that comment,” Nixon says and I can’t help it, I smile. Henley smiles as well and Rocco rolls his eyes, but finally breaks into a smile too and we all laugh.
“We kicked the shit out of those guys,” I say.
“Pussy girly singers, my ass,” Nixon mumbles while Henley adds, “I’ll never forget the look on Nixon’s face when he pounded his chest like a gorilla after beating the shit out of that college jock. It was epic.”
“Well the whole world thought so since it ended up in the tabloids and on celebrity gossip shows across the nation,” Rocco says sobering us all.
“Well, it was a really great photo and video,” I can’t help but add.
“Fuck yes it was. I looked ripped,” Nixon says and we laugh again. God, it feels good to laugh with these guys. It’s been too long since we’ve done so.
“Truth is you guys, it no longer matters why or how we got here, only that this is where we are,” Rocco says. “They think that we need to clean up our image, and that adding a girl to the band will help us do that. Fact is, she will give us a fresh sound and it’s something different.”
