Chapter 1 #2
The end of my appearance on the show can’t come soon enough.
Kenny asks me a couple more bland questions, then after the cameras cut to a commercial, he shakes my hand, thanking me for coming on the show.
He offers to take me and Margie Thurmond to dinner sometime, which I simply accept without correcting him.
I walk off the stage as fast as I can, my pits damp through my shirt and jacket.
That same stagehand is waiting to take me back to the dressing room.
“You were great,” he says, walking beside me.
“Thanks.”
The stagehand unlocks and opens the dressing room door for me. The coke I’d left is still on the dressing table.
“Thought you might not want anyone in your stash,” he says.
I pick up the twenty and stick the little bag of powder in my pocket.
“You didn’t answer me before,” he says, leaning against the open door. “About where you’re going?”
Buried beneath all these masks, the real Austin Rivers knows where he’s going. He knows who he wants and what he wants. But I don’t know if I’ll ever find him. I don’t know if I’ll ever know for sure.
I look at the stagehand. Addictions are feelings, and I got addicted to being wanted.
In that way. In all ways. For no reason in particular, I remember the package I got when I was seventeen from a girl in Cincinnati.
It was a little box with her underwear and a lock of her hair.
I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t tell Bonnie or Floyd.
And even though I didn’t know this girl, and would never want her, I was addicted to her wanting me.
I shouldn’t have come here tonight. I shouldn’t have done this show. Because my addictions are going to get the best of me.
Again.
I reach behind the stagehand for the doorknob, which puts me in his personal space. He doesn’t even flinch. I close the door. He takes the headset off, and there’s squabbling through the earpieces.
I lean against the dressing table. “Does it matter where I’m going?” I say as he unhooks my belt. “As long as I’m here tonight?”
He gets on his knees. He unzips my fly. He looks up at me. “I always wondered about you, you know.”
My dick is out and in his mouth before I can tell him I’ve always wondered about me too.
The stagehand, who tells me his name is Don, calls me a cab. He asks if I’ll meet him at Studio One later tonight, and I tell him probably not.
Once I’m in the backseat of the taxi, I give the driver my address and pop another lude. I’m supposed to be laying off these, but I just want to be numb.
It’s a good twenty minutes from the West Hollywood Studio to my house.
I bought the place when I was eighteen and thought I was doing pretty good.
Mama Cass hung out there once, and some Olympic swimmer owned it before me.
I figured being able to buy it meant I was just as great as them. I was going places.
And then I wasn’t.
I lay back in the seat and close my eyes, my head foggy from the show and drugs. The cabbie tries to talk to me. He might recognize me, but I’m sure he sees plenty of famous people. Eventually, he realizes I want a quiet ride and falls silent.
Behind my closed eyes, I’m disturbed to see Harvey’s face. Why? And why did Kenny Kincaid have to ask about him? And why does Harvey fucking Laden keep showing up in my life when all I’ve ever wanted is to get rid of him?
I remember him on that first Teen Street cover. He lay on his side, surfer-boy hair in his face, and lips parted slightly, eye-fucking the camera. His unbuttoned shirt revealed his golden tan and matching chain.
I only saw him because Bonnie and Floyd liked to keep all the magazines and news articles I was featured in.
They’ve been so proud of me since the day they adopted me, so my closet is stacked with boxes of magazines that Bonnie packed up and brought over.
I guess she thought it would be a nice trip down memory lane.
It’s just a reminder, a terrible reminder, of how fast you can rise and how fast you can fall.
I knew who Harvey was because of his dad, but I didn’t know Harvey.
That cover was the first time I’d ever really seen Pete Laden’s son.
Everyone said Harvey looked just like him and would follow in his footsteps as a legendary rocker.
When I saw that picture of Harvey, I believed it.
I believed he’d inherited every bit of his father and would be a rock star one day.
I pulled out one of my Hot Night albums and listened to it as I flipped through the three-page feature they did on him.
It included a color, poster-sized image folded up in the center of the mag.
Harvey wore leather pants and a silky, paisley-print shirt.
From the background, I could tell he was standing in the same studio where some of my portraits had been taken.
He gave the camera that same sexy look with one hand twisting the gold chain around his neck and the other tucked into the pocket of those tight leather pants.
Mail came pouring in from love-struck girls.
It was kind of a big deal. It created a little controversy because some of the letters came from concerned mothers, complaining that Harvey was “too sexy.” Teen Street had him button up a couple more buttons and grin real cute a few times, but not much changed.
Riding the fence between controversy and the ever-changing tastes of teenage girls was just the thing to get Teen Street selling more issues and subscriptions.
The magazine was successful already, had been around for years before I was first featured, but having Harvey in it was the rising tide that lifted all the boats.
I don’t want to say I was jealous. After all, there was an endless supply of devoted fans for each of us.
I was busy with Love Thy Neighbor at the time because I was older, which meant Reggie was older, which meant I had more lines to memorize.
There were also promotions I did for charities and clothing brands.
Every week, I had photo shoots, table readings, rehearsals, and hundreds of letters from girls all over the country to read and respond to.
I couldn’t get to all of them, so Bonnie and Floyd helped out.
My star had risen and was firmly in place.
I shouldn’t have been jealous of another star rising alongside mine.
It didn’t help when, not long after Harvey began gracing the pages of Teen Street, the editors started doing something odd. They put Harvey and me together in every issue with some sort of comparison. It began with a “Would You Rather…?” kind of thing.
Would you rather date a bad boy or the boy next door?
Would you rather he had blond hair or red hair?
Would you rather your guy had brown eyes or blue?
Would you rather your guy bring you flowers or take you for a ride in his car?
I didn’t even know about it until I started getting mail from girls saying they’d pick me over Harvey Laden any day. Since Bonnie kept everything, I was able to find the last few issues of Teen Street to see what the editors had been doing with us.
The picture they used of Harvey showed him with that pouty look, his eyes locked with the camera in a smoldering stare.
Next to him was me, grinning in one of my promo shots from Love Thy Neighbor.
I looked wholesome. He looked dangerous.
It felt weird. I’d never seen the magazines do that with other guys before.
I didn’t understand why they’d picked me and Harvey.
But the girls loved it, and if teen girls love something, there’s money in it, so every issue they had some kind of Harvey versus Austin thing going on. It went on for a while. Then one day, he was in my house. At my birthday party.
“Sir?”
I open my eyes and turn my head to see the cab driver looking at me.
“We’re here.”
I look out the window at the stone-paved driveway curving around to the three-car garage where a Jaguar, a Mustang, and a BMW are parked. I pull out my wallet and a wad of cash. I hand it to him. “Keep the change.”
I slide out of the cab and walk up the driveway, giving myself some credit for knowing better than to drive anywhere tonight.
When I step inside my house, I always feel empty for a few minutes as I cut on the lights illuminating the high ceilings, huge windows, and sunken living room.
Bonnie and Floyd live in their own place a few miles away.
I’ve got plenty of room if they ever wanted to live with me.
I offered once, since my place is bigger, but they said all young men need their own place, and so do I.
I owe them so much. They took me in and loved me when no one else would.
It’s no surprise they’re not my biological parents.
Neither of them has red hair. They’re both barely over five feet tall, and I tower over them at six foot three.
And it’s always been out in the open. It’s never been a secret that they found me near Burbank and took me home, where I got to take a warm bath, eat a hot meal, and sleep in my own bed with clean sheets.
I take off the blue suit jacket and let it slip to the floor. I kick off my shoes and go over to the mini bar. I fix a drink and take a seat on the wide sofa. Then I take out the little bag of blow to cut another line on the glass coffee table.
I shouldn’t be doing this. Drugs and booze make me want to do things. Stupid things. I get a little flash in my mind of my New Year’s party again, and I shake my head to make it go away. I snort a line, then take a drink and think about the question the stagehand asked me, the one I never answered.
Where are you going?
Nowhere.
Absolutely. Positively. Nowhere.