Nothing Else Matters

Chapter 1

That one night in Birmingham, I think that's about when they realized that it had gone too far, that they had crossed the line too many times. It started out as just pushing me around, but then it escalated to pushing me down, followed by laughter when I looked up at them, thinking that these were the people who were supposed to be my friends. They weren't hurting me physically, but they kept picking on me, telling me that I was just filling the hole Cliff left, that I wasn't more than a temporary guy, and that they didn't even want me there to begin with.

Lars and Kirk weren't so rude to me though, it was mostly James. The nickname "Newkid" was a play on my actual name, and wasn't really that bad, but James used it to make fun of me, and it wasn't funny anymore. I spent most of my days listening to them argue about whatever unimportant topic they had in mind that particular day. It was always the same situation though: Lars and Kirk against James, who always seemed to win anyways. There was no help in even trying to settle on one of their sides, the other side would only look at me with disgust, and faces that said: "Oh, so you picked his side? I look forward to the day I get to kick you out of the band and press your face down in the mud".

But what happened in Birmingham was so much worse than everything they had done to me before. I mean, they had only been bullying me, pushing me around and calling me names, but this... This was it. That's the story I'm about to tell you right now. All you need to know is: my name is Jason Newsted, don't you forget that.

It was July, 1987. I sat in my room, practicing my bass, when I heard loud laughter from the room next door. Having known my bandmates for almost a year, I could easily tell that it was James, probably crying from laughter. I sighed and put my bass aside. Walking into the other room, I spotted Lars and Kirk sitting on the bed, while James was bent over in front of them, holding his stomach, still laughing. "What's going on?", I asked, confused by the huge scene James was making. He stood up properly before wiping the tears that had been forming in his eyes. After finishing his laugh with a last "heh", he looked at me as if to answer. But he only walked past me, pushing my forehead on his way out, only giving me a "Figure it out yourself, Newkid". I sighed once again, looking at Lars and Kirk. The two of them were still sitting on the bed, Kirk in Lars' arms. I gave them a confused look. "So, what's up?", I asked for the second time. Lars scratched the back of his head, and looked at Kirk in hesitation. "Uhm, we were planning to tell you...", he said. "Yeah?", I replied, now even more curious than I had been earlier when I heard James laughing. I could hear Kirk whispering to Lars, something about just telling me already. "Uh, yeah", Lars answered him, then turned to me, "We – uh, we're kinda, uhm, gay..." I slammed my hand against my face. As if I wasn't already aware. Please, it had been so obvious: they were always all over eachother, I could hear them at night, and they had girly nicknames that they used at least four times a day. "I knew", I said, causing Lars to blush, and look at Kirk with the biggest eyes I had ever seen. "Its fine", I said, "It's cool, I don't mind".

As I went back to my room, I thought about it. Was that what James had been laughing at? Seriously? You don't laugh at stuff like that. I honestly accept the fact that they're gay, how could that possibly be a problem? James obviously thought that it was stupid. But that was rude; he could at least have pretended to think that it was OK. Poor Lars and Kirk... I wondered how they were taking it. Probably not too well, since they had been laughed at for the way they look at eachother. But I had other things to think about.