the best often die by their own hand

just to get away

“49G 49G 49G…”

I repeated the room number softly under my breath, my usually calm hands shook as I held the gold elevator doors open. I had this overwhelming sense of dread I was going to fuck this up and my memory would fail me. If I tried calling a third time, would he pick up?

His text that morning simply read, “Did you leave for LA yet?”

I was unsure if he meant did I cut the NYC chord and finally live out my Malibu Barbie-on-Skid Row destiny or if he had simply remembered I had a trip planned there for the summer…all the same, the answer was no.

“I’m still in Brooklyn. Why, are you okay? It’s 6:30 in the morning.”

“I’m in New York. I’m home.”

I had seen him last two years ago, backstage before one of his shows. His family was still here, I was still here, but he didn’t come back to New York often.

Normally I’d have been ecstatic at the news that he had returned, if even for a weekend. This should be cause to celebrate the prodigal son’s return. Yet my stomach was in knots, the anxiety making me seasick standing on the city pavement. What kind of touring musician who is supposed to be working on his sobriety is up at 7am on a Friday during a “vacation”? Only the kind who never slept at all.

He reassured me he was alright, was home to recharge, asked if I could I come see him. The erratic tone of his voice told me strong coffee wasn’t the only thing keeping him awake. I recognized it all too well.

I knocked on the door of 49G, lightly at first. More impatiently a few seconds later.

The sound of the doorknob turning eased my worst fears. At least he was awake. At least he was still alive.

He greeted me with a bear hug and “Susieeeeee!” combo, his tall stature making me look like a Bratz doll even in my tallest platform boots. I had rehearsed the lecture I was going to give him damn near 3 times, and it was fucking perfect, but his British-Jamaican New York accent hadn’t lost its hold on me.

“Does anyone know you’re here?”

“No. I needed to get away. Insane right? Who comes to hide in a city of 8 million people? Are you drinking? There’s White Claw in the fridge.”

“If you’re drinking I’m drinking.”

---

3 black cherry White Claw’s and one game of FIFA ‘12 later, he confided he would be checking into rehab again come Monday. This weekend home was meant to be a cathartic bender of sorts, one last return to the scene of crimes and loves long past. For these three days he asked not to be the lead singer of a band. Not to be the owner of a new record label. Didn’t want to be anyone’s husband or father. He wanted to forget his stage name and go somewhere only his given one mattered.

“My family still calls me that …”

“Well then, guess we’re family.”

He shuffled around the hotel room in his Bob Marley t-shirt and basketball shorts, strangely at ease going over all the ways his life had imploded in the past few months. Glossed over the drug use, the suicide attempt, the legal issues. The therapy, the detox, the relapsing and the “90 meetings in 90 days” and the “one day at a time.” He had come to terms with it, all over again. At least it would be good for his music, we joked. That next album is winning a Grammy for sure.

“Hey Sus, I got this book for you. It’s signed, up in the front. Don’t mind those stains, I’m pretty sure that’s just blood.”

“Aw shit, thanks dude. Don’t worry about it, I’ve seen blood before.”

Yes, he really had come to terms with it. But I couldn’t.

I grabbed the book and excused myself while I ran into the bathroom. How is this happening, again? Twelve years ago we were just kids at a Depeche Mode show when he pulled me to the side to beg me to put the bottle and the drugs down. The first to say he was proud of me when I finally did. After he made it big, my heart burst when I saw him perform a sold out show, opened for bands we grew up emulating in the music wing of our high school. He was always a rock star to me, and now everyone else finally saw it too. He got to live the literal dream, beautiful wife and children included. Our hometown fucking glory.

How can you get everything you’ve ever wanted and still feel so alone and fucked you piss it away? If one of us had to make Friday morning drunk dials to friends who only hoped they’d still find you alive when they called back, it should have just been me.

---

Wiping away the now-smeared eyeliner, I plopped down on the couch next to him.

“Hey asshole, another round of FIFA? Best 2 out of 3.”