When I'm able to sleep I have intense dreams. Sometimes they are gray, dark nightmares, sometimes they are beautiful, colorful ones, like the one I had last night.
I was closing big wooden windows on my house, with one of them illuminated by lovely neon lights. I woke up with that happiness only good dreams give you, and could see every detail of my home still, wich is funny because I don't have a home, I am as homeless as ever, I'm worst than homeless, I'm hiding from the cops. At least homeless people have the luxury to roam the streets freely.
This chick from the Troubadour has been letting me hide in her apartment, apparently with no hidden intentions but to help me and the band out, but fuck if I don't know what she's after, because I do. I'll keep it to myself until the moment comes, as in general, Vicky is nice enough, and as long as she doesn't want to fuck me, I'm fine with her hospitality.
Slash in the other hand, is gone to valley, staying with Steven and his new porn actress girlfriend. I swear I don't know how that mutt does it, but he does, and I'm hearing wild rumours about coke parties and threesomes while I'm confined inside this minute place, missing Slash like crazy, even when I'm too proud to admit it.
"Whatcha ya thinking?" Izzy asks, passing me a beer.
He comes everyday bringing food, newspapers, booze, drugs, gossip, and in all honesty, I'd gone crazy if I were to be on my own all day.
"I'm not thinking. I dare not." I answer drily.
"Has Slash been in contact?"
I look at him. "No. Why?"
"He knows you're here. And the number."
"How the hell does he knows it?" I ask Izzy, surprised. To me the valley might as well be another continent entirely.
"You don't think that perhaps somebody went to see him?" He says smirking.
"Who? You?" I ask.
"My band mate too, isn't he?"
I have no rebutt for that, so I sip my beer in silence.
"How is he?" I ask after a while.
"How is he? Better than you, I assure." Izzy says, giving me a lit cigarette.
"I doubt it, we are both locked indoors."
"Yeah but while you're here pinning for him like motherfucking Rapunzel, he's living his incarceration with a much more open mind."
"What the fuck do you mean by that? I'm not pinning after nobody! I'm tired of hiding! And what the hell does it mean open mind??" I ask, furious.
"You're not dumb, Billy. Figure out for yourself. " Izzy says, picking up his things and leaving.
I know Izzy well enough to know what he's capable off. Do I know Slash that well?
*****
As it turns, I won't have to wait too long to find out. The kid that accused us of rape has dropped charges, and suddenly, We are free.
A friend of ours is throwing a barbecue to our freedom, and Izzy is picking Slash and Steven from the valley.
Vicky and her house mate leave, but I linger behind. I should be the first one running for the door, but somehow freedom no longer appeals to me.
The phone rings.
"What the hell, Axl! Everybody is waiting for you! Get your ass down here!"
"Fuck you too Stevie. " I say, hanging up.
When I finally find the nerve to move, it's past midnight, and when I arrive at the Hell House, only the burnt smell is left of the barbecue.
The fist person I see is Duff, unusually drunk.
"Axl!" He greets me, smiling .
I give him a hug, almost buckling when his weight fall entirely on me. "Duff, what...move man, we'll both fall!"
He sits back again and I look at him, surprised by his teary face. "Duff bro, what's wrong?" I ask, crouching by the crooked couch he's sinked upon.
"M' fine", he mutters, and I pass my hand through his hair, but he swats me away, grimacing. Strange things happen all the time in the land of alcoholic stupor, so I let him simmer in whatever piss he's sitting on.
I search for Slashs face in the crowd, deciding against running over to him like a love stricken girl, and head for the punch bowl instead, observing how Izzy has a girl plastered on a doorway, playing with her tits, pretending to be into her while controlling the room from under his cap. I know the bastard too well by now to know there's no innocence in his actions.
A couple of friends come to talk to me, and I forget Izzy for a while, and when I turn around, I'm face to face with Steven, that wasn't smiling for once.
"Will you move outta my way, Axl?" He asks, hissing like a feral cat.
"The fuck bitten you?" I ask, mightly pissed, shoving him as hard as I can over the punch table.
Slash positions himself between Steven, that keeps screaming obscenities at me, and avoids my balled fists carefully, heading me towards the back door in the process.
"What the fuck is wrong with him? What the fuck is wrong with people tonight?" I ask Slash, furious at everyone. "Tell Steven to stay well out of my way or he risks wearing the punch bowl as a necklace for the next few weeks!"
Slash chuckles slightly at that, wich makes me relax a little, but his face falls serious again. "Steve thinks he's protecting me."
"Protecting you? From me?" I ask, gobsmacked.
He lights a cigarette and stares at me nervously. "Word came out you had a grand time these past few weeks." He says, sucking the smoke in.
"That's just what I needed to hear, that is. I had a HELL OF A TIME, YOU HEAR ME? A HELL OF A TIME!" I scream at him, at my wits end.
"Put you voice down!" Slash hisses at me.
There's people watching us from the inside, so I kicked the door shut.
"What makes you think I had a grand fucking time, uh?" I ask, lighting my own smoke, fighting with the wind.
"I mean, Axl, it's ok, it's not that we have anything going is it? You can screw whoever you want, I don't care."
"You don't?"
Fuck that stings. Not only the fact that he thinks I'm screwing another guy, cos a chick wouldn't be a problem, but that he doesn't care.
"I mean. We don't have anything, right?"
He looks up as he says that.
"I haven't fucked another dude, if is that what you're thinking. I haven't in fact been laid since we parted ways. I've been locked up and fucking miserable!" I say finally.
"I, I heard..."
"What the fuck have you heard ? From whom?"
"Forget about it." He says.
He has a particular look on his face, like he wants to look anywhere but at me, and suddenly I understand.
"You did , didn't you?" I whisper, closing my eyes. "You did it."
"Forget about it, Axl, like I say, we didn't have anything going." He says softly, lighting another cigarette.
"Who?" I ask simply.
"What? Fucking forget about, I'm telling you shit!" He says, pushing the door open and walking back to the party.
I stay outside a while, then go down around the house and through the back gate.
The party is over for me.
*****
Sitting on a wobbly stool at the Cathouse, my vision is starting to feel blurry, and I know I'll throw up soon, so I tread my way to the toilets, laughing at the prospect of puking in everyone's feet on the way there. I make it on time, just, but not before splashing my own feet with the regurgitated whiskey. I feel a pair of hands pulling my hair out of the way, and I know it's Izzy by the way those hands travel from my forehead to my neck, gathering the strands and balancing my body so I won't fall with my face down once I'm done.
He wipes my mouth with the hem of his untied shirt and flushes the toilet, and I give him a crooked smile.
"Got anything on you, Izz?" I ask, hoping for a fifth of whiskey, nevermind I've just been sick.
Instead, he fishes out a small plastic bag and makes two fat lines on his left arm. I snort one with the cut plastic straw he hands me, and he finishes off the other.
I rest my head on the wall, feeling the sweat run down my back, eyes closed.
"Do you wanna get out of here?" Izzy says, handing me the straw again.
"Where to?" I ask before I snort. There's just one line , so I snort half, and he snorts the rest.
"Somewhere we can dance", he says, packing his nose, "this place is too full and I'm hot."
I shrug and accept the lit cigarette from him, and let him drag me outside. We snort a couple more lines in the car, and by the time we arrive at the small, dated disco style bar, I don't feel drunk anymore.
One would never guess Izzy liked to dance if you didn't know him. I don't think he ever danced in front of the guys, and I watch him, fascinated as always, how he sway and spin, then comes over to me, doing his best Bronsky Beat impersonation, making me laugh heartily for the fist time in weeks.
"Oh so you're laughing uh?" He says, smiling.
"You're out of your mind." And I crackle again.
I cannot remember a time in my life where Izzy wasn't a part of it. He was always around, either causing me pain, or easing it.
I think about Slash, and my heart sinks, thinking on how on earth did I allow myself to get so attached. I thought he was the one. Ha.
"I hate to tell you this, but I fucking told you so." Izzy says, passing me a beer.
I lick the froth. "He's just a kid, really. "
"A kid? Nah. He knows too well what he's doing." Izzy says, scanning the place. "Fancy picking a chick up?"
"I'm not in the mood."
I don't remember closing my eyes, or even feeling funny, but when I open them again, I'm on a bed, an actual bed, with sheets and air con, Izzys arm wrapped around my waist.
"Where are we?" I ask, yawning.
"A friend let me a room. There's a bathroom over there." He said, pointing me a door.
I brush my teeth with Izzys brush and get the shower running. Hot water still strikes me as the ultimate luxury and I close my eyes and let the warm spray soothe my hungover body and my sullen mind.
I feel Izzys hands on my hair then, massaging shampoo with precise, slow movements.
"Feels good uh?" He whispers on my ear.
I just moan in confirmation.
"Forget Slash, Billy."
I turn myself to face him. "You don't tell me what to do."
"I'm telling you. You, we, all of us, we should concentrate on getting the band a deal, getting signed should be maximum priority. "
"The band IS maximum priority. "
"Good. We'll start scouting a deal for real then." Izzy said.
"When?"
He takes me by the waist. "Tomorrow. "
"Tomorrow?"
"Yes, tomorrow. "
He leant in to kiss me, fisting my hair with his hands.
Yes.
Tomorrow will be another day.