~*June 2002*~
“C’Mon,” Joel griped, Joel, Billy, Paul, and Benji enjoying a night out on the town in NYC for Billy’s big 2-1, their first stop a bar called ‘Tiki Room’, funky red and yellow lights brightening up the place, the bar taking on the whole Hawaiian theme with staff dressed in flowered shirts, furnature made of bamboo, authentic Hawaiian music diffusing through the establishment. “Why don’t you want to go?”
“Maybe you guys enjoy watching women dance around naked,” Billy responded nonchalantly, sipping on his rum and coke, drumming his fingers along the bar to some unknown beat, “But I hold women in a higher esteem.”
“You aren’t gay, are you?” Paul asked consciously, a smart-ass drunken smile spreading across his pudgy face slowly as he swallowed down another shot of vodka.
“Paul,” Benji jumped in, sitting sideways on the bamboo bar stool, checking around the place for potential bedtime buddies for tonight, “Out of everyone’s sexuality here, I question yours.”
“Mine?!” Paul asked innocently, pointing his shaky finger at Benji defiantly, “Why do you say that, fucker?”
“Well…” Benji began casually, raising his eyebrows and fixing the brim of his MADE baseball cap, sipping from his Sex On The Beach, “Someone as oversexed as you, and yet who barely gets any, maybe hiding something?”
“Releasing sexual frustration with some…other people,” Joel backed Benji up, leaning forward over the bar to see Paul’s reaction, a devilish smile on Joel’s face as Paul frowned, feeling defeated.
“Damn you twins. You guys sure got the twin-gang-up-on-everyone-else thing down,” Paul moped, catching the young Italian bartender’s attention for another shot.
“It’s a gift,” Benji shrugged with a smile, Joel nodding in agreement.
“Let’s move on?” Billy asked, not really into the whole getting drunk on his 21st birthday.
“Let’s,” Joel agreed, taking one last swig of his beer before descending off the stool.
“Waaaait uuuuuup!” Paul slurred, chugging down one last shot before tumbling off the stool…
~*~
“I wanna go in! I wanna go in!” Benji whined, tugging on Billy’s Level 27 Sweatshirt as they passed a strip club called ‘Leather and Lace’ on 75th street, its name illuminated in the bay window in hot pink neon lettering, the sign alone about to catch the attention of passing hormone-driven males.
“No one’s stopping you,” Billy responded emotionlessly, motioning towards the black front door, his feet beginning to throb from all of the walking they were doing. He saw no point in taking a cab or a bus when the season was so warm.
“Billy, this is your night,” Joel informed him, feeling guilty for thinking the same as Benji, watching a drunken Paul sway back in forth to music in his head as he gazed inside the tinted windows of the strip club. “What do you want to do?”
“I’m sorry, guys,” Billy sighed, scratching the side of his head, his blue eyes falling down upon his black-painted nails, “I guess I’m not in a partying mood. I’m just so…tired. Exhausted is more like it.”
“It’s only gonna get harder,” Joel reminded him gravely, shoveling his hands into the pockets of his baggy jeans, rolling his eyes as Benji joined Paul at the window, both of them leaning over and gawking in, only silhouettes of the raunchy action making them antsy. “The album comes out in a few months and even before then it’s promote, promote, promote.”
“It’s just such a radical change, I suppose,” Billy responded, glancing up at the twinkling midnight sky. “I mean…there’s so much hype about our follow-up album and it isn’t even out yet.”
“We might be on TRL!” Joel joked heartily, strolling over to the drooling Paul and Benji.
“We might get to meet Carson!” Paul squealed like a lovestruck 13 year old, the alcohol obviously taking over his brain.
“OK, I think it’s time to tuck you in, Sonny,” Joel responded fatherly, leading Paul away from the window.
“Let’s head back to the hotel,” Billy suggested, the four of them setting back off in the warm, restless night…
~*~
Billy stepped into the bathroom of his room in the Hilton, the maroon door slightly ajar, bashe walls surrounding a white tile floor, his eyes droopy from fatigue, his black hair hanging limply from his head. He didn’t know why he was so tired, considering this was the rest period before promotion kicked in, but he supposed practicing everyday and recording everyday for the past 2 months really took a toll on him. He didn’t know if he was prepared for the backlash or reward of this next album.
“You better not be going to bed, mister!” Benji warned Billy, Benji jumping on Billy’s waterbed that laid in front of a bashe wall, Joel coming in from Benji and Paul’s room through a connecting door.
“Why not?” Billy asked, turning on the cold water and collecting it in his cupped hands, splashing it in his face as if to revive himself, a few rebellious drops diffusing through his black Puma windpants.
“Your birthday present hasn’t...arrived yet,” Joel informed him, Benji and Joel eyeing each other and snickering.
Billy poked his head out of the bathroom, his black converses sinking into the plush green carpet, squinting his eyes with a frown on his face. “Why not?” he repeated, ambling out from the bathroom, taking off his Level 27 hoodie, and throwing it on top of Benji.
“A young lady is coming over to spend the evening with you,” Benji informed Billy, wrapping Billy’s sweatshirt around himself as if he was Little Red Riding Hood and batting his eyes.
Billy pondered for a second. “You bought me a hooker?!” Billy suddenly shouted, throwing his hands against his head, his blue eyes dialating in misbelief.
“They prefer to be referred to as escorts,” Joel corrected him, heading over into the kitchen-area for a bottle of water on the left.
“But…why? You think I’m that desperate to get in someone’s pants?” Billy asked incredulously, anger beginning to simmer beneath his pale skin, Billy following Joel to the refrigerator.
“We don’t want to see you in a sexual slump like Paul,” Benji corrected Billy, bouncing like a little kid on the bed, his brown eyes following the green floral border surrounding the bottom of the walls. “It messes with your mind. God knows what it’s done to the poor boy.”
“Did you ever think that I don’t endure in casual sex because when I have sex, I want to have it with someone I’m serious with, to show she’s worth it?” Billy asked matter-of-factly, stiffly placing his hands on his hips.
“Who says you’re going to have sex with her?” Joel asked innocently, Benji and Billy shooting him a look.
“I’ll just call and tell her not to come,” Billy informed them defiantly, heading for the white phone on the brown nightstand between the two queen-sized beds.
“Billy!” Benji protested, leaping off the bed and cutting him off at the phone, “You can’t!”
“Why not?!” Billy asked, pushing Benji onto Joel’s waterbed.
“First off, she’s probably on her way and you don’t know who to call. And, secondly. How would you feel if you were sent away for just showing up to do your job?” Joel piped in, wedging himself between Billy and the phone, Billy’s hard eyes softening as Joel continued, “How would you feel if you were turned away from a gig? You’d feel pissed, rejected, ostracized. You’d feel like someone just called in to waste your time, to play with your mind. Why would you want to put such emotions on a woman?”
Billy thought about that, and although he was pissed at Benji and Joel, he couldn’t embarrass the “escort”, waste her time, and send her away without pay. “Damn you twins!” Billy growled, running his hands through his hair, “Ganging up on people.”
“Such a gift,” Joel beamed, crossing the room with Benji in toe as they took the adjacent door back to Benji and Paul’s room, leaving Billy to await his escort.
Billy felt absolutely awkward just sitting there, like he was back in junior high and didn’t know the answer to a math question when he got called on. He couldn’t believe Benji and Joel hired him a hooker, but he knew they were just trying to get Billy to loosen up. Billy was brought up with the highest respect for women, thanks to his liberal parenting. He didn’t see them as objects as the guys usually did when they saw scantily-clad fans waiting in the lobby with hungry eyes and massive cleavage. He figured a little TV would calm his nerves.
Billy sat down on his waterbed and took hold of the black remote. He aimed for the TV on the brown dresser next to the connecting door and began to channelsurf, finally deciding to stop at an old “Rugrats” episode, the show flooding good memories of his early years back into his mind, one girl sticking out as he sifted through years of childhood, a girl who he lost touch with over the years.
Half-way through the first episode, three thunderous knocks shot through the hotel room, causing Billy to jump up with a fright, his hands beginning to convulse nervously, as his brain began to bounce questions against his skull left and right, ‘What will she say? What will we do? Do I look OK? How can I let her down easy? Will I be able to let her down at all?!” “Umm…” Billy began softly, tapping his fingers together to think as he walked over to the door connecting his room to Paul and Benji’s and locked it, “Just a second.” Billy was thankful that he was a clean as he was that he didn’t need to run around the room like a teenage girl hiding a boy or condoms when her mother was pounding at the door. Billy switched on the bathroom light to give himself a quick glance-over when he heard the woman say in a sultry, playful voice, “You gonna leave me out here all night, sugar?”
Billy swallowed the hard lump of coal pulsating in his throat as he stood behind the maroon door, and thought to himself as he reached for the gold doorknob, ‘It’s now or never…’