I was only in New York for the weekend, stopping in to do a performance on a Late Night show, although I cannot remember now which one. After that, I was to be sent straight back to Los Angeles for further promotion. My slumber that Saturday was interrupted by my manager ripping the comforter back, allowing a chilled breath to rust over my body. He had apparently been bashing on my door for the last hour and finally bribed the clerk at the front desk into providing him with a key. I hadn’t heard even a peep until this moment when I was dragged from my bed, completely nude and useless. He slapped my cheek, babbling to me about how I must focus up and prepare for the day ahead. 

“We’re going to be late. You hear me, Joe? Big day—big day—we need to get going,” he yapped. I heard him going on about how, in all the outrageousness from the day prior, I had been spotted walking into the hotel room at half past two that same morning. Now nearing nine, a crowd had formed outside at the valet, awaiting my presence, a groundhog meant to see my own shadow. 

	My manager shoved underwear around my waist and attempted to stuff a sweater over my head. I stared dimly at the bed and noticed a red stain across the pillowcase. I squinted at it curiously, unsure how or why I had bled or where it was coming from, but there was no time for questions. My manager, Ant, and my assistant, Hal, came up with ways to get me into the black SUV waiting for me beyond the lobby. 

	“Maybe they have a backdoor or an entrance through the kitchen?” Hal optioned. He seemed timid with his offers as if Ant might explode on him at any given second. 

	“Suitcase,” I muttered. 

	I received blank stares. 

	I coughed, pulled the sweater off my neck, wearing nothing but a loose pair of underwear. I began plucking every article of clothing from my suitcase. Jumbled Levi’s, wrinkled trousers, a winter overcoat. Socks were flung out through the suite like mullets on the coast. Once the suitcase was empty, I sat inside of it and curled myself as small as possible. 

	“It’ll do. Quickly,” Ant huffed, pink in the face.

	I crammed my body into the fetal position and all around me I could hear the zipper growling as Hal secured me inside. The suitcase stood up and my kneecaps pressed against my eye sockets. 

	“Can you breathe?” Ant questioned. I could hear him already opening the door to my hotel room. He didn’t actually care, I thought; he cared only enough to get paid and I was his paycheck. 

	“For what it’s worth, I can,” I growled. “I couldn’t bother either of you for a smoke?” 

	The top of the zipper peeled back and something dropped in my hair. I managed my hand onto my head and felt it was a cigarette and a lighter. The suitcase began to move, feeling the rolling vibration of the hardwood floors all around my body. 

	“Thank you, Hal,” I continued, “Not a bump but this will do.”

	I was rolling down the hallway, half awake, hungover, and disoriented. The vibrations paused and I knew I was on the elevator, the inertia of the sinking space felt queer and unusual while curled so fetal. Then I was thumping over the tile of the lobby, then surrounded by countless voices, all at once hit with the cool outside air. Distantly there were sounds of cars honking and a general roar of engines as I rolled and clicked on the concrete. I was lifted into the trunk, more thrown, to keep my cover. After all, I was luggage to anyone’s concern. I kneed my eyes, likely to leave a bruise but the makeup department would fix that. I pushed my index finger against the zipper, birthing an opening no larger than my thumb. The SUV began to zip off into the city traffic. Still stuffed in the suitcase, I lit the cigarette and held it to my lips. I tilted my head up and pushed the cigarette's tip out of the little hole. 

	I smoked, holding the butt on my lips the way a hamster gets water, although this was far more insulting. A song played on the radio— “Mess Around” by Cage The Elephant—I focused on the track as the car sped and halted around the city traffic. This may have been one of my most listened to songs as a Freshman in college. Strange now to think only months later I joined a band of my own, and before I knew it, I was in this situation. The overall fast-rock style of the song felt fitting for our endeavor. Time was slipping nastily and we still had three miles to the studio. I huffed a little too generously on my zoot for at the same moment we went over a pothole and the damn thing left my mouth and out of the suitcase. I coughed, catching a wad of mucus in my teeth and was forced to swallow. I hadn’t even considered what could go wrong with lit ash sitting on the rented SUV’s carpeted interior, but instead wondered what they did with all my clothes in the hotel room. 

	The drive was less than two miles then and we were agreeably gaining on the studio, but two miles still took far too long in the city. The smell of smoke eventually grew stronger, I was incapable of telling anyone unless I were to become frantic. If we could just make it to the building before the SUV were to catch fire, I thought, there would be no need for a dramatic episode. The smoke surpassed the potency of smell, and was then capable of taste or lining a scratched heat within one’s throat. 

	“Motherfucker!” Ant snapped, muffled in the front passenger seat.

	I knew what he’d been on about as the warmth and the smoke only grew heavier. Rightfully hot-boxed. I was fine, crinkled up in my polyester cocoon. Moreso a cheap casket in hindsight. And yet, the car slowed to a halt, I heard the back hatch unlock. All at once, I was yanked and thrown out from the trunk, slapping the street, hitting my entire crunched body on the asphalt. I winced, the bag unzipped. 

	“You fucking idiot, stand up,” Ant continued. I did as I was told, rising from the bag. The icy January air stung my body, standing in the middle of 53rd and Broadway mostly naked. But more alarming was the trunk snaking with flames, not only that but my suitcase had also caught fire. I blinked rapidly at the sight, Hal tossed a polyester petticoat on my back and grabbed my shoulders. 

	“Two more blocks—Stop it—Stop looking at it. Two blocks and we’re there. Understand? Let’s just get there,” he ordered. I paid him to do this, I had no reason to do anything but accept and trust his demands. He pushed his hands through his sharp, black hair and wandered his eyes at the crowd of spectators who had stopped in shock at our situation. 

	“Best you keep your head down,” he added softly. 

	I walked barefoot through the city, stepping over fast food bags and kicking paper cups. My feet slapped and I watched them, trying my best to navigate around the mysterious stains imprinted on the cement. The petticoat covered my entire body, I folded the collar up to conceal a bit of my facial features. I heard scattered voices, some young women, some men, yelling out my name. I’m not him, I thought, as if it would change anything. I am not Joe Henley.

	Before long I was in the building and sent up to the eighteenth floor into a green room. I asked an eye-bagged stagehand if they might perhaps have a shower but regretfully they hadn’t one. Instead, I received wipes that I could use to scrub myself down. I was also gifted deodorant and told to be ready for a rehearsal in half an hour. I would spend the next eight hours in that building. My assistant retrieved me enough coke for a line and a cup of coffee, both of which I was sure he’d attained from within the building. This mixture was how I had to jumpstart the engine every morning. 

	I nursed on the cup of black coffee when the door swung, in crossed Autumn, the drummer in the band. She looked considerably better than I did, her makeup done and her auburn hair freshly shampooed. Autumn, generally quiet, shielded, but had a real bite to her when she was upset. 

	“What the fuck happened to you?” she grimaced. I was still in my underwear, remains of white powder on my vanity and my thick, brown hair curled and greased. 

	“Rude awakening,” I explained briefly. 

	“Get dressed. God, you’re skinny as shit. Go to craft service and find a bagel. You need the carbs otherwise you might blow away.”

	I did as I was told, putting on my outfit, a designer suit. White linen blouse and navy dress pants with a matching necktie. Next Tommy came rummaging through the dressing room, he was lanky like a scarecrow, wiggling through the room while chomping on an apple. 

“Hey, Slick,” he said, his movements were languid but he was so tall, he almost moved like a pirate. He sank into a chair beside me and crossed his legs, he leaned back leisurely, scratched at his buzzed blonde head. Tommy was the most interesting person I knew. He was not nearly as sophisticated as he let on, and he wasn’t as stupid as he tried to make everyone believe. Not to mention, the best guitarist I had ever seen. 

“Wild night. Glad you’re okay. How’s your nose?”

“My nose?” I questioned. Suddenly I was reminded of the dried blotches of red on my pillowcase back in the suite, and how they’d rusted overnight. 

“Yeah, you don’t remember?”

“No, do you?”

“We made it off the roof of RT60. We were about a block away from the hotel when you ate shit on the sidewalk. You tripped on the curb and landed right on your face. You looked like Wile E. Coyote, I swear.” He hummed a chuckle to himself, cracked another chalk into his apple and slurped. I remember standing on the rooftop with our first gin and tonics before deciding it was too drab and frigid to be standing up there. We looked over the edge at the vessels of 48th before heading back into the candy-colored lounge. I remember our conversations, those about how film had changed in the last decade, reviewing the current art scene in New York, how it all related to an art recession. “Just tell me, Slick, you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m alright. I don’t even feel it.”

He was quiet, grinning like a pantomime and tickled his nostrils. “A spoonful of sugar, Old Soul, eh? I’ll see you in the green room.” With a pounce of a hand on my shoulder, he patted my cheek and exited. I wiped my face—splashed it with a sting of cold water—I quickly shoveled a bagel and was pushed onto a side stage across from a giant wooden desk where the talk show would take place later that same afternoon. I stared at my keyboard and placed my fingers on the keys, for the first time all day feeling any sense of familiarity. 

	I pressed into an F minor chord with my right hand. It rang out through a speaker system and as it faded, the sound was replaced by plucks of a guitar and soft taps on a snare. I turned my attention around the room, finding the rest of the band at their places. There was Sophia on the bass, Autumn on the drums, Tommy on guitar. They looked back at me. We’d all aged quite a bit since we’d met, being a band for more than half the last decade with two studio albums and a third releasing in two months. Staring back at me were the people I loved most in my life but all their faces shadowed a look of worry—slight but present—and a fear rinsed through me as I watched their mild eyes. The metronome clocked through my earpiece. I counted them in. 

	Our latest single sprang out in the room, reverberating off the walls. An empty audience, but we played with heart. The languid push and pull of the rhythms rocked every chord, following Autumn’s kick drum on every fourth, and Sophia filling the half notes with the bass. The piano was riding the bass but my vocals were seemingly on their own, following the tempo only in a pattern I created. 

	The song ended abruptly rather than a fadeout, a newer trend but classic all the same. Music is less about trends than other art forms. I was herded back into the green room, I sat with the others this time. The four of us—Tommy, the lanky, spacey pothead with a buzzcut, high cheekbones, a devilishly basso voice and incredibly well-read in the realms of philosophy and comics; Autumn, the silent empath who hid behind a mask of sharp insolence, round faced with ginger strands and short enough to walk under a ladder without ducking; Sophia, the brunette, well proportioned starlet, excitable and optimistic while tame and collected, cheery grin and sleeves of black-ink tattoos, and on the constant pursuit of perfection in her life—which leaves me, the greaseball they allowed into their lives for whatever reason, a full head of hair and practically skin and bone; a lungful of smoke and an aimless set of eyes. 

We watched a screen mounted on the wall of our green room as it spit a picture of famous celebrities laughing and chatting to the host who I was entirely unfamiliar with. I recognized only one of the actors, having seen him at a party, I was certain of this. It was Freddy Richardson, the lead actor in The Call, the biographical film based on the life of the writer and journalist, Jack London. He was nominated for best actor for this film at the previous year’s award show. I tilted my head, curious to see it now on regular television. Suddenly bored, I directed my attention to the band. They were in the midst of a discussion when a curious thought leaped to the front of my mind. 

	“If I were obsessed with cheetah print, would I still be the lead singer?”

	“Sophia would,” Autumn began, she was used to the nonsense I spouted day in and day out.  Sophia glanced up from her phone, passed a movement of the eyes to the two of us. Autumn continued, “Plenty of bassists double as the lead singer and she would have better style than you. If you were in constant cheetah print, we’d have you seated off to the right of us.” I wasn’t thrilled by her response. 

	“Joe’s the lead singer?” Tommy asked in his sarcastic, low tone. I ignored him and did my best to ignore Sophia’s false grin. 

	“It’s sort of chic though isn’t it? If you pull something like that, and you stand up for it, maybe call it a statement in camp, regardless if it is or not, in five years' time it will be camp.”

	“When did you become so involved in fashion?” Autumn squinted.

	“I would consider myself involved but not contributing.”

	“Same thing.”

	“I disagree.”

	We watched the talk show in silence. I lit a cigarette when a woman with a headset opened the door, she said something and I followed the rest of the band through a hallway and back out toward the stage, this time completely dark. People in all-black outfits—assistants, interns, stagehands—some of these bodies held flashlights and walked beside us. We were to follow the dim puddle of light and stare at our shoes but I wanted to make sure I didn’t bump into Autumn directly ahead of me. I might end up with a pop to the nose if I threw her focus. Someone plucked my cigarette and killed it as I walked onto the dark stage. I found my seat back at the keyboard and thought it must be around 5:45pm at that point. 

	Lights hung ungodly; they grew and cast an intense warmth on us. I knew from the countless mirrors on the way up I was sweating and now the golden light would make the sweat sparkle on my face. Still, I understood the routine, the performance that could not go wrong; I counted them in and we were off. 

	I found myself when the song ended, the crowd gave the same applause and freckled cheers. I was standing, the mic had moved from the keyboard to a mic stand, I was doubled over, bowing for the packed audience. The lights muted, my smile faded, and we were escorted off the stage. I never ended up meeting the host and I had a dinner plan with a producer and vague acquaintance who lived in Queens an hour from then. A man by the name of Ellis Young, whom I had only met briefly at a party or two over champagne and polite handshakes. He was a good contact, however, and we both managed to schedule a dinner. In his fronting charm, he offered to cook at his own Long Island City apartment.

	The car was gone so I took the subway with Hal as my parent. He studied every sign, triple-checking that we were heading in the right direction. Once on the plastic orange seats of the N train, I noticed a dimly lit advertisement for a Broadway musical—Jazz Canal—I knew the musical well. I knew the songs after listening to the soundtrack in college. The stained placard was a deep red color, with the title in blocky white letters. I pointed at the sign and asked, “Could we make it to that?”

	“No,” Hal replied. 

	I dipped my head and stared at the dusted floor of the cart and my dress shoes. The makeup was still on my face, mostly to hide the black eye I received after being flung out of the trunk of the car. 

	Before long we were back up on the street in Queens, and into an apartment building. I knocked on a door on the fifth floor and a moment later stood Ellis with his shoulder-length, ginger-red hair in a ponytail, holding a cup of tea. 

	“Joe, it’s good to see you,” he said in his distinctly English accent. His voice was charming, and devastatingly deep. He would have better suited a career in broadcast or narration had he not been such a genius in music composition. He was from Manchester in the United Kingdom but his voice was devastatingly rich, likely due to cigarettes and not being a singer himself. 

	He wrapped me into a hug and asked if the two of us were doing alright, an alternative to asking why I smelt of sweat and smoke. Upon entering his apartment, I noticed first the spectacular selection of books he had lined on a shelf that took up the entire back wall of his living room. He had a sagging leather sofa, twin armchairs, and candles placed in every dead space. Elaborate, blooming crown molding etched the ceiling, plant life lived on every window in fine pottery, and the vinyl floors chirped with weight. The apartment seemed fit for a poet two centuries ago rather than an artist and music producer today (he always said he was an artist first, producer second and I found this to be quite honest). 

	“I understand you’re just finishing up from a performance on Late Night, is that right?” he shouted from the kitchen. He rounded the corner not a second later with a teapot clutched in one hand, cups and saucers in the opposite.

	“Yes,” I replied, and wondered what else to say. Luckily, Ellis continued, “Ah, wonderful. It went well, yes? That was over in 30 Rock, yes, I worked as an intern in that building. Coffee runs and such. Hooked up with Victoria Redding in that building. ‘You know of her? She was the love interest in Breaking Bread and, yes, she was the lead in Chasing Windmills. That was back—oh—must have been 2014 or so? Fuck, nearly a decade already. Enjoy your beauty while you have it, Joseph. And the fame! With the sounds you’ve been putting out recently, you must be busy every night with a different body.”

I nestled on his leather sofa and before even being offered, Ellis placed two fresh teacups on the coffee table. He sat across from Hal and I in an armchair, more of a throne, going on and on the sound of our new single, raving about our techniques and sound. I stared off at his bookshelf. 

	“You have a lot of books by Charles Dickens,” I observed out loud. 

	“I do, I really enjoy his writing,” Ellis replied. He directed his attention to my interest. 

	“David Copperfield…” I read aloud. Ellis nodded, swallowing his herbal blend, “Ah, yes. That’s one of his best. A bildungsroman—it is a difficult genre to guide but Dickens is a master of his art—he always said Copperfield was his favorite child.”

	“Mm…”

	The room fell quiet as I studied the spine of the book, my head tilted at an angle. I must have looked insane with my head askew. A bent neck and increasingly inquisitive eyes. All of which I did without saying a word. 

	“Joe,” Ellis muttered. He was hushed so as to break the silence gently. “You don’t think Charles Dickens wrote a novel about the magician, David Copperfield, right?”

	I had. 

	“Of course not.”

	“That novel is nearly a century older than the magician, mate,” Ellis explained. 

	“Yes, yes, but the magician is quite good.”

	“What are you suggesting?” Ellis squinted, I sipped the tea, too ashamed to carry on with my speculation. The apartment was quiet, I noticed his excellent stereo system, a Pro-Ject Debut Pro turntable on his vinyl record display stand. He had records scattered everywhere, some on the coffee table, under the coffee table, stacks on the floor, stuffed crates in the corner of the dining room. With a soft clearing of the throat, Ellis fled the previous conversation, “I wanted to talk to you about your new record.”

	I sighed audibly, “I thought we were having dinner.”

	“Your album is good,” he began. 

	“Yeah, yeah,” I blew, barely listening to anything he was saying. 

	“But your album is also incredibly forgettable.”

	I clicked the teacup back to my saucer, swallowing, and found a place for it on the coffee table. The soft meeting of wood to porcelain may have been the only audible sense aside from the outside traffic. It was devastatingly clear that Ellis had my full attention. He stood up from his throne across the living room and began pacing about. 

	“I listened to it all the way through twice and I began to feel as if you and your band had no sense of direction this time around.”

	“That’s sort of what we do. Without direction, we have the freedom to go anywhere. Our band has no blueprint, we just are what we are,” I argued.

	“This is just my opinion but I’m afraid your songs are too outlandish. Each song picks a different genre, yes. There’s no cohesiveness to the record whatsoever. Occasionally, you would tap into something really special but then you’d shy away from it a track later. I mean, if this was your intent then I applaud you but I know what you’re capable of. And in all honesty, the wandering lack of attention made me— somewhat worried—about you, mate.”

	He was right and so I sat in silence. 

	He continued, “Did you set out to create a novel or a collection of short stories?”

	I had avoided all reviews of the record and now I knew why. Ellis felt the same way I did, only I hadn’t been able to face this anxiety until Ellis said it outright. I remember at that moment I wished to either be alone or intoxicated. 

	“Have you got any wine?”

	“I do. There’s salmon in the oven as well. Again, Joseph, you’re a friend so I don’t mean to offend you with any of this. You understand, I’m sure. It’s all only honest critique from a fan. I used to be Robert Horowitz's personal assistant and he always told me that fans will give the best reviews because nobody cares nearly as much as they do.”

	I nodded. Robert Horowitz was a famed film director, now in his sixties but had created an extravagant run of science fiction films, as well as thrillers and biography pictures. Ellis enjoyed telling many people about the many red carpets he attended as a young man and how he met nearly every celebrity through his connections with this director. Ellis had even once gotten to see an early cut of Richard Lebber’s The Billionaire Tragedy at Horowitz house on a summer Saturday night in 2013, a full year before it won Best Picture. This was, to my understanding, after he had already broken into the music industry. He worked with The Inbetweeners on their historic Sophomore album, Dream No. 99, and skyrocketed into fame as a young music producer. The Prince of Dissonance, a quote from the aged tabloids. He grew bored of the music industry after a few years (restless, as most driven young men are) and tried to pivot into filmmaking, only to fall back into music sometime later. 

Ellis retrieved a rosé from a cabinet and between the three of us, the bottle was gone in half an hour. He uncorked a chardonnay; it was gone in an hour. I drank most of the chardonnay, and before long I felt a burning pleasure between my legs. The sun glazed tangerine stripes across the wood flooring as the day drew close. Ellis slumped in his armchair with his wine glass held below the bowl; he observed me for a moment as if I were some sort of art piece. 

	“Meandering,” Ellis graveled. I said nothing, unsure what he meant. 

	“Your album. It’s meandering,” he worthlessly added, “I believe the meandering is a result of fear. You were afraid to do something wrong. As if there is a wrong.” 

I listened without giving my attention. Instead, I spun the liquid in my glass, the legs stretched and fell. I repeated the act over and over again as if studying it.

	“You got so caught up in the idea of creating a masterpiece that it started to fragment itself, falling inward, losing sight of intention. Implosion,” he rang, “In result, the work you created feels afraid. Afraid to pick an identity, afraid to be nurtured in simplicity.”

He paused, perhaps awaiting a response or gathering his thoughts. He played, “The moment you second guessed what you had, deciding the sound needed more, and the lyrics needed ambiguity, that was the moment you lost simplicity. You lost a clear path, and the project grew branches. Meandering. I’ve worked with many artists, Joe, I don’t want you to think I’m singling you out with the critique.”

	I blinked to soak tears sheathed on my eyes. Heat pulsed in my face and I started gnawing tightly at the insides of my cheeks. To my surprise, Hal spoke to my left, “Well, we both know there’s a lot going on in that brain of his.”

	The three of us chuckled, mine louder than theirs. Thank goodness for Hal then, breaking up the conversation like that. Soon we went out and smoked on his fire escape with the window open, allowing strings from a spinning record in the living room to accompany us. His record of choice was Odelay by Beck. 

	By dinner, the sky was a chromatic landscape. The salmon was the best I had ever had, both flavorful and sweet with whatever he’d marinated it in. I hugged Ellis goodbye and thanked him but inwardly felt a wicked jealousy toward him. Ellis was a respected artist. He had no need to hide his face much in public. Someone would only recognize him if they were a genuine fan of his, which meant any approach from a stranger would make for real conversations on music and art. He knew most everything on the topics of philosophy, history, random anecdotes (he chose his cleanses to include black tea as it benefits a shine to his hair, and the black tea did as such; he had a glimmer to his hair, the color of changing leaves). He knew everyone worth knowing and had accomplished more in the last decade than I had in my entire life. Ellis had once mentioned in passing that he thought he had a keen eye for Rembrandt as he could name each of his paintings if presented to him. He could too recall the year it was finished, which resulted in Ellis going as far as referring to himself as ‘a Rem-brat.’ This made me sour. Cross. Aside from this, he was a man of natural talent, sprinkled with a stroke of charmed luck to assimilate all things he took fancy in. Such was not the case for myself, having to teach myself for years how to do anything I admired. Aside from this, he had an elegant physique, a natural-toned face and despite being nearly eight years my elder, his hair was still to the likes of a Greek or Roman sculpture. He was without flaw and to make matters worse, he was unwillingly kind. 

	I sauntered along the street with Hal at my hip. Hal was twenty five then with black hair combed to the side, clean shaven, always in leisure suits. It had been his first time being anyone’s assistant and my first assistant. I met Hal at university as a Senior, the same place I had met the rest of the band. He wrote a column on our band for the college paper, GW Today. He was majoring in Journalism with a minor in Marketing. Howard (Hal) Walsh always intended to write for magazines to the likes of Billboard, Rolling Stone, Rock Sound, NME. The piece he’d decided to write on us would mean attending our shows, interviewing and spending time with us. After he’d submitted the column, Hal continued to stay out with us on weekends and sit in on rehearsals. He’d become a close friend of mine with his gentle yet straightforward demeanor, someone I could talk to about anything I needed to. I believe his column in our school’s paper helped propel us into fame, and so, I’d decided he’d be my assistant if success granted it a necessity.

	A blue-white moon spun above us, the rest of the buildings rocked like masts of a ship. My head bobbed, the wine sloshed in my stomach creating a pleasant warmth. I was still in my suit, riding the subway back downtown and to my hotel suite where I would stay another night before leaving early the following morning. Off the train and out into the dimly lit city, we walked a handful of blocks closely. We’d stopped at a street corner, awaiting the passing cars to shuffle by when a young lady approached with her phone already in hand. She looked younger, perhaps in her early twenties, sporting a white top and bleach-washed jeans. Her brown hair braided in two, falling on both her shoulders and golden rimmed glasses pressed over her little round face. Her puffy black jacket made it seem as if she had her shoulders scrunched to her ears. 

	“Uh, hi. Are you Joe Henley?”

	“Yes, that’s me.”

	“Wow,” she started to say as her cheeks flushed red, “I hope it won't bother you to get a picture?”

	I nodded, she extended her phone toward the sky, the camera flashed, she reviewed the photo. Her eyes lit up when she saw the photo as if I were some sort of New York attraction or an animal in a zoo. She now possessed a picture she deemed valuable. Although, much less valuable if nobody knew who I was. It begs the question—Would she still have approached me for a photo if she were the only person to listen to my music? Would a photo of an artist with their only admirer be worth it to them?

	“Do you like my music?”

	“I love it! I listen to you when I make breakfast in the morning and sometimes on the train going to my classes,” she said.

	“What do you make for breakfast?” I asked. She blinked, as if perplexed by such a question. 

	“Well, I usually have toast and tea. Sometimes I make bowls of fruit for myself.”

	I huffed, “That sounds nice. Do you go to school around here?”

	“NYU—I’m studying theater—I’m an actress.”

“What’s your name?” I titled my head. 
	“Aubrey,” she replied, her eyes wide and mouth gaped. The light changed, the red glow of the pedestrian sign morphed to white. 

	“It’s lovely to meet you Aubrey, and I’m flattered you enjoy the music we make. I hope college is treating you well and please be safe out here,” I grinned. Hal gestured a friendly wave to Aubrey  and threw his arm around me. She stood in place as Hal and I marched toward the hotel. I looked over my shoulder and she was staring at her phone, perhaps at the picture of me, evidence of having met her, or of her having met me.

	Back in my room, I thought about Aubrey for longer than I’d cared to. Thinking how if I’d been just a few years younger, I would have taken her up to my room, undressed her, and slept with her. But for me, nearly five or six years older, I had much less interest in strangers, even less a fan who thought they’d known me on any sort of personal level. I knew more about her personal life than she knew about mine. This was, of course, by my design. Nobody knows me except perhaps my band. My bandmates were the only people I loved.

	I undressed alone in my room and got ready for the nightly routine. I brushed my teeth, stared at my body in the mirror, a decomposing mess. I washed my face, the tan grime from the city clung on my facial pads. I climbed into the king-sized bed, masturbated, wiped myself clean with a hotel towel, and fell asleep staring at my phone. 

—

	Strange how only last year, I would go out in search of any substance I could get my hands on, stay out until first light, and continue until lunch before an unavoidable crash. I had hollowed eye sockets and pimples dotted over my face. Now my skin was clear, my hair was healthier and I looked decently put together aside from the black eye, swollen and the color of a plum. Perhaps I’d gotten it all out of my system, perhaps I was growing introverted, perhaps I was becoming tired. 

	The wake up call came at five in the morning. A blaring shimmer, a click, and a woman who I knew was seated down at the front desk wished me a good morning. She had a beautiful voice. It was motivation to get up and quickly get myself together just to see what she’d looked like down in the lobby. I cannot remember what she looked like now, instead I remember being pushed through lines in the airport and onto a plane, back to Los Angeles. I was to attend numerous interviews for our latest album, Music to Die to. Our previous albums date back to four years ago, beginning with our self-titled album, Beach Sirens. This was followed by our most recent release at the time, Island Walkers, put out two years later in the summer of ‘21.

I had countless names for records that were rejected by my bandmates. They gave criticism to my harsher reality despite living the rock and roll lifestyle, supposedly I could conclude their input kept me grounded. For instance, on Island Walkers, I wanted a single titled, “Am I Gay? And Other Suicidal Thoughts.” Instead, we opted to use a line from the song, titled, “Don’t Get Too Close,” but I felt my title had more consequence—a misdemeanor but an earnestness—je ne sais quoi. 

Island Walkers was nearly named Romance Empire which later became a six-track EP put out after the album. We had to release something to keep the newfound craze for our band satisfied while we toured and worked on our next album. Island Walkers went platinum in just over a year of its release, with 1.2 million copies sold in the United States by August the following year. We followed it with a single aptly titled, “Oceanic,” going gold in a matter of months, which became our thesis for the following EP. The rageful success of our music was relentless, headlining festivals across the world and finding ourselves unable to turn on the radio without hearing our single from the album, “Loose Ends.”

We were on the cusp of stardom. We had already come to terms with being just another indie band. It was when we went from traveling by van to a gig in Georgia to flying private to Brazil less than a year later, we had our senses beat to death and knew we must have become celebrities. Now, three years into the lifestyle and work ethic of a rockstar, a real genuine one, I wasn’t quite sure what to feel. If I felt anything at all. 

Every word I said in the press junkets and interviews for Music to Die to rang false in my conscience. Since my dinner at Ellis’ apartment, I couldn’t help but wonder if my own lack of focus, of course, transpired onto the sounds of the record. If I or even my bandmates were in a state of disarray, surely our collective work of art would portray our state of mind. At this point in my life, I had turned to the stars before me. How did they manage their careers? 

I came to the conclusion that many musicians were working in a machine, teetering between creation and exploitation in a cycle of push and pull. These artists, caught in a trap by a corporation to replicate themselves in varying fashions to suit an audience while revealing a fresh sense of growth, all embellish a state of disorientation. Some artists rise in this scenario but many fall. 

I am reminded of the myth of Sisyphus, and his attempts to cheat Death. In doing so, he is caught and punished to push a boulder toward the peak of a mountain. Sysiphus would eventually reach this great summit, but just as he is about to push the boulder over to the other side, it inevitably tumbles back to the base. A curse was bestowed on him to push the boulder infinitely. I always thought it to be a humorous story. That is until I found myself, the reputable character of our own post-modern mythology, to become a twisted Sisyphus. 

What a drag, in all senses of the word, with my power of stardom, I have cheated Death in my own rite. Irony would have it, I am granted the punishment of my own rock, in the form of rhythm and sound, and as I attempt to conquer the summit, it rolls back to the bottom. Call it Sisyphean, my many efforts to play Death. This desire to reach the unreachable. Call it rock and roll.