All That Remains (Aftersound Part 1)

1

Los Angeles, CA

It must’ve been a hundred degrees. Sweat trickled down my ribs beneath the dinner jacket.

I was so parched my throat clung. Despite the temperature, I cracked the car window and welcomed the unseasonably warm air.

Drawing back the rubber band and letting it lash my inner wrist with such violence, tears leapt to my eyes. Eventually it broke.

At my behest, the driver whipped into the nearest parking lot and headed home.

The roar of tire and pavement righted something.

Stopped the cleaving in my head. The incursion of imagery.

The only way to get ahold of it was to introduce a greater frequency.

Something to outpace thought. White noise, brown noise—any noise would do, as long as it was continual.

Smoke in his cologne. It’d been there tonight, as ever.

Pervading all I knew. A blood-soaked exhumation of all I’d worked to forget.

Returning to our old code of discretion, the subject of us was immediately thrown off the table.

We side-stepped the weirdness of the past two years as if they hadn’t transpired.

No sober sincere discussion of us was welcome, and it had been that way from the beginning.

I was no stranger to this game when it resumed in the back seat of that car.

I caught my lower lip between my teeth, tracing the remnants of a scar that nearly split it in two.

It all came surging back like a spark in the dark.

The half-lidded eyes. The quiet bemusement.

The precipitous vault of falling in love.

So much, and then nothing. Damp sheets. Bloody fingernails.

Smoke in my hair. The twitch of a hand drawn rapidly into a fist. At last, the estrangement.

The billboards downtown were appallingly bright.

They snaked by the window as I struggled to get a grip, accompanied by loping palms and traffic lights.

We were slated to attend an afterparty across town, but I’d decided against it, still a little shellshocked.

Instead, we slipped from the city to the serenity of Laurel Canyon.

I observed the world unblinkingly. High-rises checkered with busy offices, despite the hour.

Taillights expanding in the fog. The heave and coast of vehicles along the congested artery.

At last, the buildings fell away. We were surrounded by lush hillsides and looming homes.

I’d been hermited away here since the move.

Rarely returning to the city, except to shop or visit colleagues.

Most days I’d cruise around the old neighborhood in search of inspiration, lost to the hypnotic bends of the road and dreaming of the 60s.

Soon we embarked up a private road that passed through the clouds, depositing us at a community of gated mansions. When the driver slowed to a halt outside my place, I didn’t budge—hesitant to be alone with my thoughts.

“Should we come in?” someone asked.

I flexed my jaw to unwind it. Blinking back boozy tears. Sick with the reek of Armor-All duct cleaner and the vodka spilled down my shirt.

"You good?" John asked, as I climbed numbly from the row behind his. The air was bracing. It chilled my damp shit. “Uh…earth-to-Ralph? Yo? Rafe, you alright?"

"Yeah, sorry, mate. Sorry, all good."

We watched each other over the headrest. He’d been my de facto therapist the past few years, preparing me for the album launch, grappling with my neurosis like no manager ever should. But I refused to lean on him tonight.

“Alright…but you’re looking a bit peaked there, bud.”

I shrugged, hyperaware of everything. The wind rustling in the cypresses bordering the drive.

The way the moonlight shone differently in the mountains.

The way his curls were inkier than usual, stark above the pale face.

My hair, according to my mother, had become insufferably long, giving prime Jared Leto a run for his money.

It kept whipping around my face at the slightest suggestion of a breeze.

"Should we come up for a bit?" Jen asked, Van Cleef bracelet glinting in the LEDs that bathed the Escalade floor. "Night cap?"

"No need. I'll be fine. See you Tuesday, innit?"

"No, tomorrow. Meeting with the label, remember?"

“Right…see you then. Cheers, mate.”

“Noon, pal. And get some sleep, alright?"

"Promise." I mustered a crooked smile, blowing kisses with both hands.

The truck slipped down the near vertical incline of my driveway, vanishing beyond the shutting gate.

On my way to the backdoor, I kicked aside a wet box that had tumbled from the heap accumulating on the terrace.

It had grown steadily from the moment I processed an official change-of-address last month, showing no signs of slowing.

The American postal service was a mystery to me.

Dozens of brands had tracked me down already, relentless in their pursuit of Ralph Rawlings’ colossal endorsement.

That’s what John called it. Apparently it bore the ability to shift market values and rescue companies from plunging into bankruptcy.

I was ill-equipped to wield that sort of power, so I kept it holstered, equally cautious of the things I publicly disavowed.

Still, they sent me unsolicited packages every month; prototypes and limited editions and loads of other useless shit I couldn't put a name to.

I was now the reluctant owner of over fifty guitars.

Hundreds of customized straps and picks, and thousands of emails begging me to take more.

Every Fortune 500 along the western seaboard inundated me with a mind-numbing regularity, most of which went right back out the door to the local Goodwill, that is, after my friends had foraged it first.

Inside, I kicked my boots off at the bottom of the staircase and slipped a new band onto my wrist. I doubled up in case another broke, briefly studying the vicious looking welt inflicted earlier.

John had left a bulk supply on the console table so that I’d remember to reload on my way out.

I always chose the thinner ones, as they were unforgiving.

And after a day’s abuse at my hands, they typically snapped.

I discarded them anywhere. With anxious self-disgust and little regard for common decency —in public restrooms, out the car window, down gutters and windowsills; so much like dirty needles.

I headed up without flicking the lights on.

I didn't want to be seen, although there was no one around to do the seeing.

Window cleaner cloyed halfway up the steps, combined with homemade furniture polish the prudish maids used to keep the woodwork agleam.

A biting, citrusy formula that reminded me of melting popsicles.

Most days it was just plain noxious. I held my breath as I passed through to the landing, removing the suit jacket.

I keyed up Damien Rice's "Cheers Darlin'" on the intercom so that it played throughout the house with a morbid ubiquity. As I showered and later toweled off, I let it run on a loop until the words lost all meaning. My nightly ritual took longer than usual, as I was unable to stop staring at my tattoos in the mirror. Meaningless hieroglyphs I’d overlooked for years.

Clearing the steam from the glass, I flexed my torso and arms to get a better view.

Some ungainly, fleshy-cheeked dweeb stared back.

Much unlike the poised, six-foot rocker who’d left the house earlier today.

Too many of the markings were awful, hardly distinct from the Sharpie figures I’d splotched on as a kid.

The lines smudged, the form so distorted I could hardly recall what they’d ever been.

Others were sheer art, like the warrior angel whose wings spanned the breadth of my ribcage.

Some had slipped my mind and were only recalled because the ink seemed to scintillate.

The longer I stared, the lines only emitted more light.

Satirizing me. The cringy kid I once was. My ideas, my ambitions.

I examined the anatomical heart on my right biceps, threaded thickly with veins and chambers, and remembered thinking it was edgy.

It was impaled with three crucifix-like nails that dripped with blood.

Already it brought back the compulsions of my teens.

Dr. Ehrmann would urge me to put it out of my mind, to try the rubber band—but she had no idea the sorcery it held over me.

I pressed a tremulous kiss to the ink. It began to thaw, seeping down my arm and splattering onto the tiles like a broken pen.

Next thing I knew, I was doubled over the toilet and spewing my insides onto the inner seat.

***

"Rafe? Hellooo…" Jen waved a hand in front of my face after I’d climbed back into the truck. "Who was it?"

I opened my mouth but shut it again. Then carefully, as though topping off a quaking house of cards: "Him."

"Shit..." she gaped, forever more fussed than John, despite him being the one on my payroll. She listened better, noticed more. The last altruist in all LA. Probably the last non-blonde. She elevated him somehow. I admired her clean-cut, ivy league sophistication.

"Again?” she laughed. “Twice in one night? That's insane, right? Did he follow you here?"

"'Course not. They just...happened to stop for coffee as well."

"Well? What'd he say? He act any different? Sound any different?"

"Uh…no, not really,” I tossed my hands up. “Not as far as I could tell, anyway. The accent's a bit heavier, y'know? A lot denser than I remember."

"So…what'd you talk about?"

"Fuck's sake, I already can't remember. Music?"

"That all?"

I’d been too self-conscious to venture further. Music was safe. It was our common ground.

"He looked good," I uttered, staring at my knees.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Really good."

Smoke in his cologne. Mingled with luxury soaps and the oaty underpinnings of his shampoo.

That's what I’d stumbled on tonight but had been unable to tell her.

An old friend. A composite smell. Heady, sweet, dark—bright.

That's all I ever remembered after spending time with him.

Hardly the face, always the smell. I could shut my eyes and pick him out of a room of a thousand silent strangers.

Or an arena. Like the ones in East Asia where the fans were too polite to shout, so it was like we were whistling past the graveyard.

I dreamt in arenas now. Murky spaces deep with constellations of faces. A careen of bodies. The hum following me for hours after each show. Still, that smell was remarkable. It opiated the craze of those days and I could find it anywhere, sleeping or awake.

As I stood in the closet, pulling on clean briefs and trying to ward off daydreams, I stubbed my toe.

That jarred me back to the here and now.

Ripped me back from the gala. Back from the car ride home.

Back from my conversation with Jen. The compulsions welling within me as I tampered with his memory grinded to a halt.

Now I nursed the wound, pulling broken bits of nail away until it stung.

Limping across the master suite, I flicked a switch, retracting the screen that covered the floor-to-ceiling windows.

A quivering cityscape lay beyond. The view is optimal—the broker had insisted.

It had been the subject of his email. The tagline whenever we spoke before the closing.

Like a seat on Mount Olympus, he’d assured me.

Despite only winning the bidding months ago, I’d already received a dozen unthinkable offers from enthusiasts dying to get their hands on the place.

More so now that I’d owned it. A few billionaires itching to secure it for their zealous daughters—proposals I couldn’t consider without second-hand embarrassment.

The closing had endowed me with a sense of potency the mounting numbers in my bank account failed to provide.

Something I’d lacked even as the lead vocalist of what Rolling Stone deemed one of the greatest rock bands of the past decade.

It was a 1940s, midcentury modern palace, steeped in true crime and golden age allure.

Far removed from the unrest of the city, though overlooking it like a seat in the gods.

It featured a sweeping vantage of Hollywood Hills and sprawling canyon views.

Every night the city shimmered out of the darkness like some fabled land of good and plenty.

I watched its innerworkings spring to life with a pang, like a quarantined leper from my gilded cage.

Frankly, I wasn’t the only new expat in LA.

It’d hit the news two years ago that Roman Jacobs, former lead guitarist of Invicta, had purchased a secluded, multi-million-dollar estate in Beverly Hills Post Office.

A one-story compound sequestered by verdant lawns and towering hedges, or so the articles had read.

Like everything post-band, his new place remained a mystery to me.

I’d stared at the photos in the real estate listing red-faced and limp.

Didn’t know I could ache for a place I’d never been.

Somehow, I’d walked its halls in my dreams, the rooms furnished by facets of fading memory.

Ideas of him. Remote theories of who I thought I’d known.

And as the years stretched on, the depth of our separation became more grievous and bizarre.

I wondered how many parties he’d thrown. How many walls had been graffitied indoors and out, like his London place. If he’d fucked in every room. If he also had a fort of sun-bleached packages accumulating on his terrace. If he had a view as spectacular as mine.

The P.I. told me he tended to move a lot.

I knew instantly it wasn’t by choice. He’d likely been evicted due to noise complaints.

The modus operandi hadn’t changed much. I didn’t take it further.

It was the only time I allowed myself to check up on him, apart from what I could find online.

I only needed to pin him down after he’d left the UK, and now that I knew where he was, I’d let him be. This was officially stalking.

From my perch in the hills, thousands of lights winked before me, mapping the lives in the region like an image of deep space.

He was but one of those atomic lights now, a needle in a pile of needles.

Despite my best efforts to mend bridges, his world recoiled.

He’d shed the headstrong Yorkshire boy I'd once worshipped and become a man with ways unknown to me.

Now I walked behind and he ahead. Light-years removed.