11
It’s been almost a month since King went missing.
Funny enough, I haven’t had any desire to go clubbing or partying, not while he’s out there somewhere.
I even took it upon myself to go out in the morning and travel to Nashville or the surrounding towns to try to look for him.
There are a bunch of people in the cities that have Escobedos, so it’s hard to pinpoint which one is actually King.
He doesn't have any special decals on his truck, not even Christian ones, but I have his license plate memorized. It’s crazy.
I check social media, but he doesn't have any active accounts outside of the very old ones that are buried under years of new content. He’s not trending anymore; he’s no longer in the news or part of a band.
While I’m scrolling on the couch at my apartment, doing the "doom scroll," I look at Tyler’s timeline.
No idea why.
I had planned to go to New York to visit Zuzu and Kiki, but they’re so busy. I still want to be there to support Zuzu’s fashion, though. Apparently, she’s going to be relocating to South Korea or Japan soon, one of those places.
In the photos, Tyler’s hair is a lot longer.
Once again, he has another girl posing next to him in several of his pictures. He’s always at some club.
While I’m looking at his social media, I find myself drawing comparisons between him and King.
As wild as Tyler is, he has a bit of reservation and responsibility to him. But looking at King’s old content, it’s like the man had no filter, no holds barred about what he did.
Zilch.
There were clips of him doing really dangerous things, like hanging outside a car while smoking.
Or wait, no... hanging outside the car while he was driving, one hand on the steering wheel going about 90 mph on the asphalt.
He was taking a piece of hot metal, hanging his hand out, and scraping the asphalt so it would start sparking just so he could light his cigarette with it before getting back in the car.
There was a girl in the passenger seat screaming as his friends were probably driving alongside him, recording the whole thing.
What fucking "friends" they were.
I look through more of the pictures in Tyler’s latest posts. His band is really taking off now, and there’s Stevie standing next to him. But then, my eyes widen as I scroll back.
What the fuck is that?
As my eyes focus, I see a head of white hair somewhere in the crowd in the back, kissing someone.
That cannot be who I think it is. This is in New York, and the post was only two days ago.
I try to zoom in, but the picture’s blurry.
There are hundreds of people there, but that white head of hair just stands out.
It’s on a tall guy. I love this man, and the thing is, when you love someone, your brain memorizes their silhouette.
The way they walk.
The way they talk.
You can tell it’s them outside the door just by the way their feet hit the ground. Looking at this grainy, static picture in the background, all blurry since Ty and Stevie are in the foreground, there is no doubt in my mind that it’s King. Or maybe I’m just hoping it is.
He’s in fucking New York?
What the hell is he doing there?
Well, it makes sense; that’s where he and his band had settled down. If he’s there and getting mixed up with those old people, there’s no saving him. I have no idea how he even became the die-hard Christian he was before I entered his life, and suddenly, I feel like an absolute monster.
I should have left this man alone, but now I can't abandon him.
Without any planning, I head out and knock on the apartment door for the twins. Xander quickly comes out, smiling at me.
"Oh. I... I didn't know you wanted to come over," he tells me. "I kind of have company right now. Unless you want to—"
"No, I got to go," I interrupt. "Can you watch Giovanni and Troy?"
"Wait, where are you going?" Xander asks.
"I gotta head to New York."
"Why?"
"Something—emergency... something just came up," I stutter. "Can you do it or no?"
"Yeah, I'll do what I—"
"Thanks, Xander," I say, hugging him and kissing him on the cheek.
He quickly tries to kiss me back, but I’m already off, hopping in my car and speeding toward the airport.
It’s crazy.
Did King drive all the way there, or did he leave his truck at the airport?
When I get there, there’s no way to tell if his truck is in the vast lot, and it doesn't matter. My friend needs help, and that’s what I’m going to do.
Walking into the terminal, I immediately call Sister Paula.
"Sister Paula?"
"Hello?" she answers.
"Hey, this is Erica. I'm just letting you know that there was an emergency—a family emergency, and I had to go to New York, so I might not be in for a while."
"Okay. I hope everything is okay," she expresses. "I'll be praying for you. Be safe."
"Thanks, Sister Paula."
"I'll let you know if anything turns up with Brother King," she adds.
I hesitate. "I'll do the same."
I don’t want to tell Sister Paula that I’ve found him.
Not yet, anyway. If the man is spiraling, the last thing I want to do is embarrass the hell out of him, especially if we have no way to help him yet.
In order to get him back to Brackenridge, I need to find him first. But what if, like Tyler, he just up and moved back to New York?
How could he just leave without saying goodbye?
The fact that he’s been away for almost a month means he probably has no intent on coming back.
How could he just dive all the way off the deep end after he worked so hard to fix his life?
I know the man is broken, but I had no idea how bad.
I had no idea if he was broken so badly that he ended up killing someone, or if he became more broken because he killed someone.
It was a scandal, a horrible legacy to leave after amassing such fame, to be known as the "baby killer drummer. "
How sad that must be for him.
He was under some really bad drug influence, and whatever it was made him high enough to not even notice that he had hit someone. His whole windshield had blown out.
How high do you have to be to not realize something like that?
Even I have had some drug experiences, but nothing that ever took me to the point where I wasn't aware of actual danger or collisions.
Unless King was compounding the drugs or something.
Regardless, I feel undying hope of having some lead.
I’m coming to get you King. To rescue you.
???
I get to New York and go straight to the club from Tyler’s post. But once I’m inside, I realize it’s impossible to find King in this mess. I head back outside and scan for his truck, but it’s nowhere to be found.
He can’t be far. It just feels impossible to pin him down.
Damn it. Of course he’s not still here.
It’s not like he talked to Ty, but maybe King was at this club because that’s where Ty was playing. It could just be chance. I mean, King knew who Tyler was because of me, but… I don’t know. Just like that, I feel a twinge of despair. But I push it down. I’m here, and that’s at least a start.
I head to a nearby diner to regroup, trying to search social media for other clubs or leads. My mind keeps drifting to that woman he was kissing in the photo, and I feel a surge of jealousy. As I’m walking out of the diner, I bump into someone. When I look up, my heart leaps.
Holy shit… it's him.
"Erica?" the voice questions.
His hair is a little longer and shaggier than I remember, but other than that, he generally looks the same.
He still has those same spiked piercings that give him metal alligator teeth all up and down his lips, except for directly in the middle.
"What's up, Stevie," I say nonchalantly, wondering what the hell he's doing here.
He looks me up and down. "I thought you moved from New York."
The fact that he’s saying that means Tyler definitely told the group.
"Yeah. I'm not here to bother you or anything," I state.
"Well, that's nice. Especially after you tried to trash our van," Stevie says, and I close my eyes for a second. He must see the look of worry on my face because he adds with a smile, "Don't worry, all is forgiven."
"Sorry, Steve, I’m actually really busy right now. I'm looking for somebody."
"You're looking for Tyler?" he asks, following me slowly. He’s wearing an open V-neck, high-collar black sleeveless shirt and leather pants.
"No, I’m not looking for him. Somebody else."
"Ah," Stevie says.
I don’t know why the fuck he’s following me.
I turn to him and snap, "Do you need something?"
"Well, I kind of missed you a little bit," he tells me.
"Yeah, after you bad-mouthed me and made that horrible song about me with Tyler," I reply.
Surprisingly, Stevie looks a bit sheepish. "Yeah, that was kind of fucked up. We were really drunk."
I roll my eyes and keep walking, but he stays right with me.
"I missed you," he says. "I thought about you a lot."
I stop, my heart beating a little faster for some stupid reason, because I did have sex with this man.
"I'm sure you did," I say, still looking over the street and ignoring him.
He holds my wrist. "Who are you looking for? I'll help you find them."
"You can't help me," I tell him.
Part of me wants to tell him it’s Kingston Buchanan. Everyone knows who Black Marroh is, but maybe not enough people remember the original drummer unless they’re big fans.
Even then, most people think King is still in jail. He was supposed to be serving ten years from what I read. There isn’t much current info on him because his story got buried, and he looks drastically different now.
That mess of white hair would throw people off, though his good looks would still make him noticeable to a real fan. Even when people recognize him, they usually can’t point out where they know him from since he was the drummer and wasn't in the limelight as much as Malcolm.
But then I have a thought. Maybe he went back to see his old bandmates. I turn to Stevie.
"Hey, if you were in jail and you got out, and you had changed your life but you were in a rough spot, would you try to find your bandmates again?"
"Yeah, I imagine so," Stevie says. "They’re family."
I start doing something on my phone.
"What are you talking about?" he asks.
"Look, I can’t tell you anything, Stevie."
"Are you looking for someone that's in a band?" he asks.
"Nope," is all I say. I don’t want to give anything away.
When I call for a ride, Stevie offers me one.
"I can give you a ride," he says.
"No thank you."
"Look..." he says, and he pulls me a little closer by my wrists at the side of the diner against the wall. "I can go on my motorcycle and bring you anywhere. It's the least I could do after what I did to you."
Hesitation.
Maybe I should let him. He's right, and what's most important is finding King.
So, we drive around town. We hit different bars and clubs. I scan every street for the truck. I eventually show him a picture of the truck so he knows what to look for, and gracefully, he doesn’t ask any more questions outside of where I want to go next.
I have no one to stay with in New York. I don’t want to bring attention to King by contacting my friends; Kiki looks to be out of state anyway, and Bianca and I don’t talk anymore.
I have to get a motel. Stevie offers to pay for a nice, luxurious hotel instead.
Obviously, he has the money now. I take it.
The guy was a piece of shit to me, so why not?
He comes into the room and takes off his shirt, looking a little more muscular than he used to.
"So, is this a boyfriend or something?" Stevie asks.
"No. A friend," I reply.
"Sure. You came all the way back here running around New York to look for a 'friend' who happens to be a guy who drives an Escobedo pickup? Or maybe are you stalking someone else?"
I glare at him.
He smiles and says, "Just kidding."
"Look, it was a bad judgment call sleeping with you," I state. "And you're right, two wrongs didn't make a right in my case, but it was for the best."
"How do you like your new life?" he asks. "Where did you move, though?"
I don't tell him. "What, are you going to just go run back and tell Ty?"
"No. Ty and I don't talk all that much like that," he claims.
"Sure you don't," I say. There’s only one bed in the room. "I'm not sleeping in that bed with you."
"I'll sleep on the couch," Stevie says. "It has pull-out legs."
As I’m lying on the bed, I keep scrolling through platforms, trying to find anything, any searches, any place else I can think of. But it’s already getting late, nearly the middle of the morning. I’m not going to find King if I'm this tired.
???