"I know, and even if I didn't know, I would lie
So many would believe it
Stand up and resist the chains
Of all the people in belligerent sick restraint
I wasn't enough
You bled me dry, which way is up?
Oh, you're a lie and a fake
I hope that truth is not to late."
Nero Forte - Slipknot
--December 20th, 1990
Lita and Axl were spending their late December morning together in peace. Tour had wrapped at the end of November and, besides the conflicts that rose last month, Lita Monroe was doing swell. A 'Beatles' album, 'Rubber Soul,' was playing in the background as Lita took a set of peanut butter cookies down from the shelf to snack on.
Some of the popular Christmas specials were playing on the TV in the living room. Lita was currently watching 'It's a Wonderful Life.' The black and white screen contrasted well against the midday sun on this Sunday.
She wasn't really paying attention, not with Axl next to her on the couch, writing. He had a Mead notebook sitting on top of his thighs, which were clad in cotton sweatpants, and a cup of hot chocolate was before him, one Lita made him, sitting on the coffee table.
She opened the package of peanut butter cookies, pushing one into her mouth. They were so good, but still not better than anything fresh. The heater next to the sliding door turned on: the room temperature must've dropped below sixty-four.
Lita fondled the knitted blanket on top of the couch's backside, laying it over her legs for warmth. Axl took the frilled end and covered himself as well. They sat together that morning, simply basking in and enjoying the holidays. Axl hummed as he continued to list off words in his notebook-looking over, Lita could see words such as 'father' and friends' littering the page, but she didn't ask any questions.
It was just after three when an unfamiliar knock could be heard against Lita's door.
She was snuggled up into Axl's arm, it was encircled around her neck, and she was on the verge of sleeping. Subtle snores could be heard coming from Lita, her eyes fluttering open and closed every few seconds as she drifted off. The rest of her body lay adjacent to his, like they were glued at the hip.
Axl had passed out before 'It's a Wonderful Life' had ended over an hour ago. His notebook and pointed black pen sat next to the mug of hot chocolate; once warm, the cup was now cold and empty, a dark brown rim near the top still held remnants of syrup and marshmallows. Axl never told Lita that he hated watery hot chocolate, especially with the copious amounts of chocolate sauce she added, but he drank it anyway. If only to please her.
Lita was jostled out of her oncoming sleep and extremely annoyed, but she walked to the door anyway.
As she walked down the hall, Lita saw the stacked boxes pushed against the walls of her apartment. Every time she had ventured to Axl's apartment, she'd leave something there accidentally. Once this was acknowledged, Lita started to slowly pack up the apartment she and Jack had previously shared.
It made sense for them to move in together, but nothing was official yet. If anything, Axl and Lita would both prefer to buy some place together, somewhere their previous partners hadn't inhabited.
She made it to the hole in the door, peaking through it. Outside the apartment, a man stood. His back faced Lita's eyes, and he was positioned towards the door of her neighbor across the way. He turned slightly, revealing a paper in his hand, but Lita couldn't tell what it said.
This guy had light brown hair with blonde roots peeking out from under the hood of his jacket that was pulled tightly. It wasn't that cold, was it? For California? A large silver band was around his ring finger, obviously seen as he thumbed through the paper in his hand.
He turned again to knock, and Lita saw his face.
An exasperated squeal came from Lita's lips when she recognized her brother. She hadn't seen him in a few years, but Christopher was recognizable at every point in his life. His face didn't always look the same, but he always radiated a comfort that Lita always clinged to, something essential in her life, and she could point that, him, out anywhere.
Lita grabbed the door handle and pulled it open, immediately wrapping her arms around Chris' neck. He was a little terrified at this suddenness. All the tiredness obliterated Lita's spirit as she hugged her brother.
"Oh, Chris! It's you!"
"Hey Lita." He was equally as happy to see her, but his voice omitted that feeling, and he sounded sad, for whatever reason. He was gloomy, an emotion so un-Chris-like.
"Can I come in?" he asked, and Lita moved aside, still not registering his mood.
"Yeah, of course!" And Christopher followed his sister down the hallway, passed the entrance to the living room, and into the kitchen. Axl had moved from the couch and was now in the doorway, listening in on them. Lita saw him. "Just give me one second."
She pulled Axl into the kitchen, holding his hand and standing next to him (almost like she was glued to his side again) and she spoke: "Chris, you remember Axl?"
It took a moment for the older man to register the name. He knew who 'Axl' was, but it was hard to dissociate his Lafayette persona 'Bill' from the grown man before him. Last time Chris saw him, Axl was a scrawny teenager, his hair wasn't long, and he definitely didn't have the tattoos on him like he did now. He'd also seen the news, which included a photo of Axl and Lita.
Suffice to say, Christopher Monroe was caught up in all of his sister's drama, even if he wasn't in the picture.
"Yeah, yeah. How's it goin' man? I haven't seen you since you're a kid."
Axl nodded back to him in agreement.
It was undeniably awkward between the three of them, and Chris broke that tension: "Did gramma call you recently?"
"No, I haven't heard anything. I haven't really spoken to any of them since I left. Why?"
"Something happened to mom."
Confused, Lita urged him to continue. She didn't understand him; why would he come all the way from Washington to tell Lita something she already knew. What happened to her mom? What happened was the lady turned into a psycho bitch the last few years Lita lived with her.
Something 'being wrong' with her mother was nothing new.
"She died," Chris explained, looking at the tile floor.
"Is there a funeral?" Lita asked. "Any arrangements made for her?" Lita could be mean, insensitive, and she did down-right hate the lady. But her now-dead mother would probably appreciate some kindness while she faced her judgment somewhere up above.
"Gramma arranged her service down in New Orleans. I was just comin' to see you before I left to go, I wanted to know if you'd heard, if you were gonna go."
"Well, I never heard anything. Chris, I thought she was still living up in Washington near you?"
"She was, for a little bit. Mom moved back down to Louisiana after she couldn't get that restraining order on me."
"Oh." Lita nodded in understanding. She let the idea cultivate in her mind. Could this be good? Well, with both of her parents dead now, there would be no awkward encounters at a funeral, for Lita still held a good relationship with her grandmother. "It wouldn't hurt, I guess."
Christopher nodded at her. "Good, good. The funeral's next week."
"We'll see you there, then." The conversation was more and more awkward after Lita and Chris had finished talking about their mother. Axl didn't have any information to interject, so he stood there listening.
Chris left in a haste, saying that he had to catch his flight to Louisiana soon, wanting to get there early to console their grandmother. After he was gone, Lita quickly made a call to get two plane tickets, and she started to pack as well.
The suitcase was full within twenty minutes, filled with shorts and tees and withered sweaters. Their flight would be late at night, a red eye, and Lita wanted to get a head start to the airport.
When they got there, paparazzi circled around Lita and Axl. Someone had gotten word that they'd be there, on a public flight, for Lita couldn't arrange anything private in such short notice.
Once they got onto the plane, Axl said: "Are you okay, Leeds? This is all happening so quickly."
Mumbling, Lita Monroe spoke, "I'm fine."
"I mean, it was your mother after all."
"I know what you mean, Axl. Just don't even ask me about her...I just want to get this over with." And, without harboring any other thoughts about the woman, Lita drifted off into the quiet slumber she had missed that morning when Chris interrupted them
-
Touching down in the early morning, just after dusk, there were no paparazzi waiting for the couple as they exited the terminal of New Orleans' airport. Lita had called her brother from the payphone in Los Angeles, and now they stood idly by the sidewalk, waiting for him to pick them up (he'd gotten in only six hours before).
"I didn't know you were from New Orleans," Axl spoke, breaking the tension.
"Dad moved us around a lot, remember? And it wasn't like we stayed here long; only until I was five, and then we moved to Kansas. That was the longest I lived somewhere-Topeka. I don't ever remember living here, but mom always spoke of it like she missed it. No wonder she moved back," Lita explained.
"And your grandmother still lives here?"
"She never left. But she always visited us in Kansas, Washington, and in Arkansas. We weren't in Indiana very long, so you never saw her."
Then the conversation stopped from talking about Lita's grandmother and she shifted it to his own mother. "When was the last time you saw your mom, Ax?"
"The 80s," he joked. "1986, I think. We invited her, Stephen, and the kids out to see us play a show in Beverly Hills-just down the street from the Cathouse."
"Was that the last time you spoke to her?"
But before Axl could answer-and most likely deject the question-Christopher pulled up in a white sedan. Damn, he really lost his taste in cars, Lita laughed to herself. Rolling down the window, with his aviators perched on his nose, still a little tired from his flight and needing some jokes to quench his tiredness, Chris said to the pair: "Need a ride? I'll go as far as the French Quarter for a pack 'o cigs an' some nice Californian-hooker pussy."
"You're disgusting Chris," Lita internally barfed. But the pair got in the backseat anyway. "It was only a joke," he giggled. "Plus, I've had better hookers in Seattle. The grunge-hippies up there are basically in love with me!"
The three of them made their way back to Lita's grandmother's house, where her dead mother lived before her passing, and where Lita did as well in her childhood. The old woman, approaching eighty, hugged both of them. In her blindness, Lita's gramma couldn't tell and couldn't care who this stranger was, only that her little girl's girl was back, if only for a little bit.
It was awkward, but that night Lita and Axl slept tightly confined in the guest bedroom's twin bed. If either moved, blankets were pushed away from the other and a fit of insults were said until they both got comfortable again.
It was a very difficult and distressing time in their relationship.
Lita was up early the next morning, putting on a flowy, lacy, and long black dress, fit for a southern-bayou-funeral in the family plot. When Axl awoke, he was distressed to see that he was alone- except for the voices coming from the kitchen.
He left the room and slowly padded down the hall, down the stairs of the old woman's home, until he could see flickering black through the doorway. Lita was there guiding her grandmother to the table on the other side of the room. He didn't realize it then, but it made sense that, without her daughter there as a caretaker, Lita was the next person to fill in that role.
Observing this, Axl knew he'd never seen this side of his girlfriend before, not even her their early years.
Yes, she was always a loving, overly caring person (with a mean side if you really pissed her off) to every person around her. But it was different with family. Axl had never seen this type of interaction from his girlfriend with anyone before (likely because they weren't together very long).
But it made him love her even more, if that was possible. Just seeing the way she acted around the people she cared about-it made his heart swell.
Axl goes back up to the guest room to get ready for the funeral himself, and he doesn't see Lita again until she knocks on the door, confirming her presence. "We're all ready to go. Just waiting on you."
"I'm ready," he responded, and they exited the home towards Chris' white sedan. He and Axl were in the front; Lita, her grandmother, and the woman's little teacup poodle sat in the back seat. The air was humid for December in Louisiana, and a few bugs swarmed around them as Lit and Axl held hands, their black leather gloves laced together, walking behind the procession of altar boys in black suits carrying her mother's casket toward the family mausoleum.
It reminded Lita of church as a kid (she hadn't been in a long time, but this service would later prompt her to revisit the Sundays praying in the pews. Something she gravitated toward in her old age), but not as gloomy as it was now.
The bishop performed the service, and Lita couldn't help but notice the lack of people there. Her mother always seemed like a likable person, so why had she, her family, the servicemen, and a few old friends only shown up? Maybe Lita overestimated her mother by a few hundred miles.
Axl rubbed her arm, the small of her back, in consolation.
At this moment, Lita felt free-and it pained her to say so. She had spent so many years running to get away from her parents-her father mostly. But now, with both of them dead, no longer in her life, all she wanted to do was say sorry, hug them both again one last time before she crawled into the casket with them, hoping that they both could forgive her.
For, they were still both her parents, and no matter the hardships they put her through, they still had that unbreakable bond. And now Lita could finally let them both go, let the past go, and move on with her life like she had been meaning to (when she had made it halfway, her mom always came back into her life, always with a call from her or Chris. But that was gone now).
Lita Monroe wishes she could've gone back in time. There were so many things she'd want to fix.
It was hard to grasp, but she regretted running away if only it meant she got to keep her current fame. She might've been able to have more time with her mother and father, mend the broken bond that existed between the three of them, and still been able to be as successful as she was. Then at least it might've been easier to let her mother go, knowing that the woman loved her, and that there was no bad blood residing, even in death.
If she went back in time, maybe she could've pounded it into the head of her mother that 'dad was an alcoholic,' so that he might've been different, acted differently to her, so she wouldn't have to make the decision to leave the both of them.
But, also, if Lita traveled back to 1976, she would've pushed herself to pursue something with Axl. Maybe if only for the short-term.
His dreams were big and her hopes were bigger, and both could never settle for anything less, so it was stupid to assume that Lita and Axl could have a normal, cookie cutter life. But she would've started seeing him sooner; and maybe if she had, they'd be standing her now, not as a newly formed couple with a history of sex, drug, rock 'n' roll, an affair, and a poor relationship with her mother-but maybe married, and maybe with a young kid or two, kids that would've loved their grandmother and missed her terribly- unlike the feeling of resentment and acceptance churning in Lita's heart.
Oh, how she wished she'd gotten to have that 'young and in love' experience.
Also, maybe she'd tell the press to stop being as nosey as they were. That would really benefit her life.
They left New Orleans in early January, having spent Christmas there. It was an uneventful holiday filled with sadness on her grandmother's end. Lita and Axl didn't exchange gifts, only their love in the nighttime (Lita was sure her brother in the next room over could hear the squeaking of the bed as Axl gave her her 'gift,' and that was when they soon left).
In these times of solemn depression, Lita and Axl expressed their love, exchanging it through words and actions.
So far, the new decade had been shitty, but that wasn't going to be the worst of it, Lita hypothesized.
She just hoped she'd be able to handle it.
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