Chapter 4.
Chase
There’s nothing more terrifying on this earth than going up on the lyrics to your own damned song.
I spend half the second verse pretending I’ve added some new bridge while my brain plays catch-up. Wily keeps the bass going with ease. Fiona hits a bad chord as she tries adjusting on the spot, throwing me eye darts. Raj suddenly forgets how to blink.
Then I skip a song halfway through the setlist because I can’t fucking read apparently, and for the first fifteen seconds of “Love Burden”, a slow song, the lights are dancing like a damned disco.
There’s a resentment in the air.
I swear I can feel it in the audience.
Every face, grimacing, confused. Every set of eyes, squinting at me in disappointment.
Why are you still singing at us, Chase Holt?
What’re you even trying to say to us? What the hell are any of these newer songs about anymore?
Why is your music lately so trite and shallow? When’d you become such a sellout?
What the fuck about mine?
I can’t get off the stage fast enough after the last song. I stand at the door to the green room, Glorious still in my hand, hugging it against me like a damned blankie. I don’t know whether to vomit, scream my voice bloody, or just stand here in silence until I turn into a fossil.
Guess I don’t have a choice. Fiona’s on me the next second. “Is there something going on I need to know about?”
“Sorry. Off night.” Even now, I’m trying to excuse it away and shrug off my own responsibility in this. “Just too in my head.”
“You’re supposed to be the one who’s got their shit together.”
“I know.”
“We’ve still got an encore to do.”
“They still want one?”
She glances behind us at the sound of footsteps. “Buckle up.” Then she leaves my side.
A second later, she’s replaced with Ian. “Hey there, Chase.”
“I know, I fucked up.”
“Hey, hey, I’m not here to scold you. We all have weird nights. It’s fine. You killed the opener. Then just those few little flubs.” He puts a hand on my shoulder and gives it a gentle pat and squeeze. “Shake it off. They still love you.”
“Do they?”
“Of course. Not a question. Listen to them screaming for one more song. Take a breath and give them what they want.”
I grip Glorious tighter. Give them what they want … as if it’s just one thing, as if I can possibly know.
Feels like a riddle I’m trying to solve every night lately.
By the time the whole show’s over, encore and all, I’m in the green room staring at a bowl of completely neglected snacks the venue was gracious enough to offer.
No one else is here, the crew busy breaking everything down and loading out.
I used to help in our earlier days. Then Ian got all up on my ass about liability-this-n’-that.
You’re the reason we’re all employed, Ian would say to me, and you’ve done your part on that stage.
Now kick back and let us do ours. But what about tonight? Did I still do my part?
“I’ve been dying for these,” moans Raj, appearing out of thin air, racing to the table and snatching a bag of chips. It’s torn open so fast, crumbs go flying. “Can’t eat before a show. Too nervous. Is that ever gonna go away?” he asks before popping the first chip.
I’m not in the mood or mindset at all to flick on the mentor switch.
But I scrape up the energy from the bottommost corner of my barrel and lift my head.
“Nerves affect us all differently. Fiona has her pre-show rituals. Wiles, too. Cam—drummer before you—he used to dump a small bag of M&Ms out on a napkin, sort them by color, then eat them one at a time.”
“Ooh, I can’t do that. Chocolate and me on an empty stomach is a no-go.” His foot bounces in place. The guy has enough energy in him to power a small town. “What’s your pre-show thing?”
I give it a thought. “I like to sink my feet into the place before every show.”
“Sink your feet in?”
“Yeah. I walk around some. Explore the back halls. Sneak into some secret area no one’s at, like an explorer in a new land.
I claim a spot. Make it mine. I let the place tell me things.
It may whisper stuff back. We share secrets.
Sometimes I bring Glorious with me, strum a bit, give a little of myself to that secret place …
What do I expect to get out of a venue if I don’t give it something first? ”
“Ooh, like an offering. How spiritual.”
I smile. “Sounds like you get it.”
“Is that what you were doing at the Horseshoe?”
He catches me with that question. I’m actually more surprised he remembers the name of every venue we go to, like the guy’s studying for some pop quiz.
Apparently that’s another one of his secret talents: he remembers damned near everything.
He insisted one night over drinks that he doesn’t in fact have a photographic memory, despite reciting a fucking serial number of one of Wily’s amplifiers off the top of his head. Yeah, none of us are buying it.
And yeah, it was what I was doing at the Horseshoe.
I feel like I’m still lost in that maze of hallways.
I had found the perfect spot. World was far away, in more ways than I realized at the time.
I was about to hum a little tune—my “offering”, to borrow Raj’s term—when the commotion came suddenly at my side.
I nearly sprung away from the spot until I got a look at what it was.
Who it was.
The intense devotion his fingers had to clinging onto the rim of that dirty old trash bin—a strange detail I happened to notice, like his clinging fingers were representative of his fighting soul.
And then when he noticed he wasn’t alone.
The near princely courteousness of his apology.
It took me a minute, even after making eye contact, to come to the astounding conclusion that he didn’t know who I was. The way he spoke to me. No one ever speaks to me like that anymore. His brazen honesty. His raw, unapologetic invasion of my space.
Then his invasion of my character. Of my integrity as a song artist. Of the whole music industry.
Let those fans adore his clichéd love songs so he can strut back to his studio and shit out some more, while the rest of us out here in the real world continue to suffocate …
How did he know I wasn’t suffocating, too?
He’s so wrong. He has to be.
“You okay?” asks Raj, chip frozen halfway to his mouth.
Guess I must be saying the quiet part all over my face. And I don’t think I’m okay. I think I’m far from it. I’m fairly fucking sure Mr. Sweet Eyes in the hallway is all to do with it.
Before I can answer, Dee drops in with a finger pressed to her headset, muttering, “Uh-huh, yeah, okay … uh-huh … yeah …” as she helps herself to a bag of chips from the goodie basket, gives me a pinched smile for a greeting, then sits on the armrest next to a blinking Raj and finally says, “Alright, got it,” then cranks down her head mic and says to us, “Are y’all okay with Italian tonight?
There’s a restaurant across the street from your hotel and they’re staying open late just for us. Remember, we got tomorrow off.”
“Do we?” asks Raj.
“So that’s tonight and all day tomorrow at the hotel,” she tells us, allows herself a brief moment to sigh happily with a hand to her chest, then says, “and back on the road the next morning.”
“That sounds great, Dee,” I make sure to say, meeting her eyes with sincerity. “Thank you for arranging this.”
“Oh, shush, it’s nothing,” she says, always quick to dismiss her hard work, “and really, the restaurant is ecstatic to host us. I’ll let you boys be and …
What?” She flips her mic back into position and frowns, finger pressed to her ear again, listening.
“Yes, obviously Ian gave the okay. You need what now? Sorry,” she whispers to us, then quickly excuses herself.
I wouldn’t exactly say the restaurant is “ecstatic” to host us. It seems more like the manager, a longtime fan, is ecstatic, and the handful of employees who are being kept afterhours have no idea and can’t care less who the fuck we are and just want to go home.
I don’t blame them. Just hope the generous tip I plan to leave will make the hassle of our existence worth it.
I’ve stepped outside for a not-smoke-break and a view of the countryside stars—again—when Ian comes out to join me.
Oh, no, actually he’s taking a call with his wife.
“Hailey, I know, it’s just six more shows we added to the end of the tour, and I didn’t think about—Yeah, I know I never think.
Wanted to be back in time, too, but …” He takes a breath while pinching his forehead.
“I’m sorry. I understand ‘sorry’ doesn’t help.
Look, I’ll make it up to her during our two-week break coming up.
Please give her a kiss from Daddy, will you?
… Yes, I know that’s—I love you, okay? Hails …
?” He pulls the phone away and stares at the screen. Guess he got hung up on.
I hope he doesn’t turn this way and realize belatedly that I’m out here. The only thing I wanted to eavesdrop on are a bunch of balls of gas light years away.
Then suddenly Ian and I are staring at each other.
“Hails,” he says with a wiggle of his phone. “I’ll be missing the little one’s birthday with the shows we added. She’s turning five.”
His daughter was born the night my album Hate Me went live. It’s a thing we used to laugh about—our greatest creations coming into the world at once. Now it seems sad and twisted up, that my music is what’s keeping him from his family. “I told you—” I start.
But he cuts me right off. “No. I’m sticking by you. This is all for them. They’ll see that when this is over with. I don’t give up. This is gonna pay off, it will, it must. To the top.”
After a second, I nod. “To … the top,” I return less heartily.