Page 15 of Unbound
“I’ll give you some advice here and you should listen to me,” Dylan says, handing me another shot at the bar, one he knows I don’t need but gives because he’s not going to tell me when I’ve had enough. He leaves that to me.
“Oh yeah? And why should I listen to your wisdom?” My voice is hoarse from all the smoking, drinking, and singing, representing another thing I don’t recognize anymore. I play three nights a week these days and combined with all the other shit, it’s done a number on my vocal cords.
He glares in my direction, but not directly at me and leans into the table, his hands spread about a foot apart. “Because I’ve been in your fucking shoes,kid.”
I laugh when he calls me kid. Dylan can’t be more than a few years older than me but when I see the solemn expression, I stop, wait, watching him, a thump beating wildly in my chest with the base of the music playing behind us. Though I’ve never personally seen it, I know Dylan plays here some nights. The walls are covered with him and his friends singing at shows, some more intimate than others, and some, large crowd venues like when he played at Madison Square Garden on New Year’s Eve. He was big time but for some reason left it all behind for something. Or more likely someone.
“Okay, what is it?”
“Be careful what you wish for. Once you’re worshiped, they’ll either love you for the things you’ve done or hate you for the things you didn’t do. It’s one or the other. No in between.”
“That all?”
“No. Read the fine print before signing anything with a promoter. That goes for Sam and his partner Nick. Hire an attorney to go over every line because in the end, they can and will end your career if you don’t honor it.”
I have the distinct feeling Dylan is speaking from experience and knows what he’s talking about.
I don’t know what he wants me to say, so I nod to let him I know I at least heard him. Turning my head, I look around the bar, a crowd is beginning to gather around us, wanting pictures and a chance to be alone with one of us. I realize, while Linc and Beck smile and enjoy the attention, I do nothing about it. These people, they don’t fucking know me. They could never understand the reckless bullshit controlling my thoughts.
I catch Beck looking at me from the corner of my eye. By the look he’s giving me, he’s begging me to play the game and give these people what they want. The front man of Torque. The guy who shouts on stage, rips his shirt off in the middle of songs and fucks countless women backstage or in bathrooms. I shouldn’t, but I give in and smile at them, giving them a small glimpse into whatever it is they think I’ve become.
In some ways, I guess maybe I’m craving a closeness I hope they’ll provide. Only it doesn’t. It gives me a darker emotion, a void, a sense of abandonment swimming through my veins.
