Page 61 of Shame Me
Braden still looked dubious but, with the full support of Cy, he was on board. Now I just had to put my thoughts in order and find the courage to talk to my friend about a difficult subject. It would likely be the hardest conversation I’d ever had with a man who was usually quite easy to talk to.
But it had to be done and the time was now.
That night after dinner,Cy and I met in the hall with our luggage and swapped keycards. When I entered the room—which looked almost exactly like the one I’d left—Zack wassitting on his bed, guitar on his lap, a motel glass sitting on the nightstand filled with what I was certain was vodka. Was he spending his entire per diem on alcohol?
“Hey. What are you doin’ here?”
“Cy and I are trading rooms for the night.”
“Oh. ‘Cause the bed was killing him?”
Clever Cy—trying to give Zack a reason to not immediately go on the defensive. “Yeah, I told him my bed was super stiff.” After putting my stuff in an empty chair, I sat on the edge of the bed next to him. “What are you playing?”
“A new riff. Tell me what you think.” He started playing a few notes, slowly at first, and they had a real bluesy feel to them. But then he got into a heavier, faster groove, and I could already hear the drumbeats in my head.
“Wow. That’s fucking amazing.”
“That’ll be on our next album.”
If we could survive our first.He kept playing for bit, and I listened, wrapping my mind around a sound much like we played every night…yet different.
“Want a drink?”
I shook my head and gave it a few seconds before asking the question I planned to start with. “How are you doing, Zack?”
His response was immediate. “Fine.”
“No…I meanreally. How are youreallydoing?” His eyes stayed focused on his strings as I waited for him to respond. When he didn’t, I said, “I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t.”
“I can’t help it, Zack. You’re my best friend. If you’re hurting,I’mhurting.”
He still hadn’t picked another string—and, when he looked up, he was the most vulnerable I’d ever seen him. His eyes were full of unspilled tears, and there was a crease in his brow that reflected the rift inside his soul. “How could you tell?”
“How could I not? It’s so clear to me—and I want to help.”
“I don’t think you can. It’s not like a cut you put a Band-Aid on.”
I let out a soft sigh as he lowered his eyes again. Scootching closer on the bed so that my thigh touched his, I searched inside my brain looking for the right words, thinking back to the psychology class I took during my senior year. Although I’d found the subject fascinating, I hadn’t really applied any of what I learned to my own life—and yet there was so much there to learn from. So I said, “Talking about it can help.”
“I don’t see how.”
I had to take a different tack. “Well…even though I’m nervous about the money situation, we’ve made it. We made it, Zack, and it really didn’t take that long. You had this dream back in high school of making it big—and we are well on our way. The fans love our music.”
“Yeah.”
“So what tells me you’re hurting is that you’re…engaging in self-destructive behavior. You’re not drinking a little to party, to celebrate what we’ve accomplished. Instead, you’re drinking a lot to drown out—something.” He just shrugged, moving back into that safe space of pretending nothing touched him—soItouched his cheek, hoping to make eye contact again. When his eyes connected with mine, I continued. “You’re killing yourself…almost like you don’t care about your life, like you believe it’s not worth living. And you need to know you are. Not just to your mom or grandpa or our fans or even our band. You’re more important tomethan anything else—anything else—and it’s killing me to see you punishing yourself.”
Again, he dropped his head—but this time, a tear did fall. I so wanted to hold him, but the guitar in his lap was in the way. So I put an arm around his back. After letting a few more tears drop, he said, “I don’t know exactly how to explain what I feel—butyou’re close. I…sometimes wonder if maybe my dad didn’t care about me because there was nothing to care about.”
“That’s not true, Zack. You’re an amazing human being—and if he’d ever met you, he would have been proud to call you his son.”
Grabbing his guitar by the neck, he slid it off his lap to lean it against the bed. Then he wrapped his arms around me, pressing his forehead into my shoulder. “I wish I could believe that.”
“I want you to try. I…” Pausing, I tried to assess the next words out of my mouth. I knew Zack adored his mother, so I didn’t want to ruin the progress we’d made by immediately putting him on the defensive—but I had to ask. “Did your mom ever even tell your dad you existed?”
“I never asked. Part of me didn’t want to know. I thought hating my dad gave me a well of creativity and anger to draw from.”
