“Then, one night, I met a woman. Just another one of the groupies who hung around, I thought. She seemed nice enough. I can’t even remember her name now, how awful is that?
“I expected the usual, she’d leave the hotel and I’d never see her again. I probably made her all kinds of promises, the dick things a guy says. I didn’t think she’d take them seriously.
“I left her behind without a second thought. A week later, in the next town, we were sitting around backstage after the concert. I had a few drinks, the guys were horsing around. I had another woman...”
I nodded but I didn’t like where this was going.
“She turned up. With her bag and all. Said I’d promised to take her on tour. She stood in the doorway trembling.”
“She stammered out some stuff that I’d promised her, staring at me. But Fred blocked her way.
“‘Stupid bitch,’ he said to her. ‘Of course, he didn’t mean any of it. What the fuck kind of idiot are you?’”
“‘But you said... I quit my job. I packed it all in to come with you.’ Her lip quivered and she turned really pale.”
“The woman I’d been with came back from the bathroom and sat on my knee. The girl, still in the doorway, stared. Her face crumbled. You could see the realization of what I was come over her. The disgust and the hurt. She turned and walked away. I got up to go after her, to try to make it right, but Fred grabbed me.
“He told me it’d do no good going after her. I’d just create more problems. What could I say to her anyway? She knew the truth now.”
Jackson shuddered. Although he sat beside me, he could’ve been a million miles away. He didn’t look at me, he stared at something in the distance as though he was back in that place.
“That was the night it all fell apart. No, actually, it’d been falling apart for a while. That was the night I stopped trying to keep it together. I stopped trying to stop the fights, stopped trying to keep Fred off the gear. We were going to hell in a handbasket and nothing I did could stop that.
“I thought about her a lot after that. We were on the road for another month or so before we came back here. Every night, I’d get off stage and sit in the band room, thinking of her face. I’d really hurt her. It wasn’t like I even knew her but she’d triggered something in me. I’d always known I was a bad person and she’d seen through everything to the blackness of my soul. That look she gave me, the way she fell apart...”
He sighed.
“The first night we got back on stage after the break, I was worse than ever. It was a blackness. That’s all it was. Everything in my life had a fog around it and I couldn’t feel. The music, my playing, it was all just going through the motions. I wanted it to end but I couldn’t see a way out.”
I took his hand. I didn’t want to keep listening. I didn’t like the way he looked and wasn’t sure I wanted to hear this, but I knew he had to say it.
“I lied to you, Gina. When I said it wasn’t suicide. The fog was so bad that night, I just wanted it to go away. While the other guys got wasted, I took a knife and tried to end it. I never even thought about what would happen if I failed. I just wanted nothingness.”
We sat there, him staring into nothing, me holding his hand, for a long, long time. The dark outside turned to light. We barely moved. In the end, I had to get up to go to the bathroom. When I got back, he was gone.
Chapter 36 Jackson
I WASN’T SURE WHAT I had in mind when I left Gina’s apartment. I got outside and the city was bathed in the cold, blue light of dawn. Everything looked harsh. I walked down the street with no plans, I just wanted to get my darkness away from her.
I heard footsteps behind me. I knew they were hers but I didn’t turn. She didn’t race behind me either. She just followed, watching over me.
I’d wanted to connect with Gina. I’d wanted to take her in my arms and tell her it was all going to be fine from now on. But love doesn’t conquer all. Something in my head blocked that connection with her. At the same time, there was a spark, something vital inside me that refused to die.
“I told you, I’m going to fight. I don’t care what – I’ll fight you, I’ll fight this darkness inside you. You once told me you’d give me anything I want. I want you. I want you well and whole. Nothing else matters.
The lights around the city were slowly going out, the day got brighter. I looked at Gina.
“I can’t see any way out.”
“Let me help you,” she said. “Let me fight. Together, we can do this.”
The determination on her face was scary. She didn’t understand but she wasn’t going to back down.
“I’m only something when I’m with you,” she said. “Don’t take that away from me.”
She took my hand and led me to a bench. We sat there, together.
“Did they ever mention anything at the hospital? About getting help?”