The screams of the crowd were pounding in my head. God, I was so trashed. We were sitting around backstage together, the band and the sound crew. Jak was sitting on a violet velvet sofa and glaring at me from across the room. I’d had too much to drink already and he knew it. I tried to avoid his gaze by playing a few aimless notes on my bass, watching my fingers move across the frets so I didn’t have to look at him.
Suddenly there were bodyguards yelling orders at us. They pushed us toward the stairs. I tripped and the world spun. The head of my bass smashed into the stairs leading onto the stage. I cursed, hoping the tuning pegs hadn’t shifted, and walked out into the glare of the Technicolor stage lights. Menni was behind me, smiling, looking out into the crowd. She waved and they screamed, making my head whirl. God there must have been thousands here, you could practically feel the adrenaline seeping from their skins.
I played a few notes and cursed to myself. Damn, it’s out of tune. I tried to catch Menni’s eye. Kit saw me and tapped her on the shoulder.
“My bass!” I yelled. “I need time!” Menni winked at me and she and Kit stalled by yelling random incoherencies at the audience while I tuned my bass. We started off slow, and heavy, making a dramatic entrance into the first song by only playing a few notes. Then Menni grabbed the mic and we kicked it up.
By the end of the third song, I really wasn’t feeling so hot. The alcohol was beginning to wear on me. Things doubled, tripled, quadrupled. I swayed back and forth. I turned just in time to see Jak drop his drumsticks and jump off his stool. I briefly wondered why before I heard a loud smack! and my eyes closed for a very long time.
Waking up is not an experience I think of lightly. I can remember there being total darkness, then a red tint, as though someone were holding a flashlight against my eyelids. My limbs were tingly; they felt as though they had fallen asleep. I couldn’t move them. I slowly pried open one of my leaden eyelids. There was Kit, standing over me, searching my face. Her normally short, blond, spiky hair was lying flat across her head. Her eyeliner lay in thick black tearstains down her cheeks, and her blouse was crumpled and unevenly buttoned. I stretched the corners of my face into a half-smile and then she was yelling, yelling for Menni, yelling for the doctor, yelling for anyone. Then my eyes closed again.
The smack I’d heard was my head against the speaker. I ended up with 23 stitches and a fractured skull. On my third day in the hospital the whole band came into my room and said they needed to talk with me. Menni grasped my hand lightly and paused, looking for words.
“You know how much we love you,” she said quietly.
“Cut the shit Menni, what’s up?” I responded.
“Do you always have to be such a hard ass about everything Andie? Christ, can’t even have a decent conversation with you.” Kit snapped, her eyes blazing. Jak was behind them, sitting in the doctor’s chair and drumming nervously as always. That man could never sit still. Menni glared angrily at Kit.
“Don’t mind her, she still hasn’t slept much since your, um, accident. And she hasn’t gotten laid in weeks.”
“Yeah screw you too.” Kit spat back.
“Anyways Andie, there’s a reason why we’re here. We need to talk. It’s your drinking. You’re doing way too much of it, and it’s ripping you apart. I mean, look at what happened at the concert. You wouldn’t have those stitches if you hadn’t been drunk.”
“Well… yeah, but… I mean, everyone gets a little drunk sometimes,” I stammered.
“Andie… You need help. When was the last time you were sober?” I looked at her, at Kit, at Jak who was avoiding my eyes. Menni was practically begging me here. And she was right, I couldn’t remember being sober. I relented.
“Alright. So what now?”
“Tour’s been cancelled,” said Kit. “You’ve got all the time in the world babe. Rehab, cha-ching.” I smiled at Kit, trying to hide my feelings.
“Now who’s the hard ass?” I said playfully.
I checked into rehab for three months in Maui. Hell in Paradise. It was my little joke, a way to stay lighthearted about the whole thing. I went to all the meetings, the support groups, earned all the little key chain tabs. I never took a drink while I was there. I learned to chew gum when I wanted a drink, or to swallow soda. I think my dependence on soda became almost worse than my dependence on alcohol. I began to wish they had rehab for caffeine too.
I’m not going to lie; the first weeks were hard. Oh god, if I could count the number of times I wanted a drink, needed a drink. I went through all the typical symptoms of withdrawal, the shaking, the moodiness; you name it I was there. There was one night where I almost gave in. The only thing that kept me going was the memory of Jak in the hospital room, the way he wouldn’t look at me. It was as if he was ashamed of me. I didn’t want that, I couldn’t stand it. I loved Jak, how could I make him ashamed of me?
I went home on the 15th of January, to a very, very cold house. No one had been here for five months; it was feeling empty and vacated from the tour and rehab. I walked over to the answering machine, which had been shut off, and turned it on. I picked up the phone and dialed Menni’s number. I hung up after the first ring. Not yet, I needed to be home first. I would tell everyone later.
The first thing I did was go to sleep. I stripped off my clothes and crawled between my sheets, letting the cool silk cover my naked body. I slept for four hours. My dreams were strange, black and white but extremely lucid. I had brief memories of screaming, and death, but nothing else. I woke up sweaty, turned on the shower and let the warm steam fill the bathroom and cover the mirrors while I called Menni.
“Hello?” She picked up the phone sounding sleepy and unreal.
“Did I wake you?’
“Andie! Oh my gosh, you’re home!”
“Yeah, home and clean,” I paused and smiled to myself. “Sober,” I said.
“Oh Andie that’s wonderful!”
“Mmmm, yeah, it really feels great. But listen, I was about to get in the shower, I just wanted to let you know I was home.”
“Oh yeah of course. Listen if you want to do something tomorrow, just let me know, I can clear out my schedule no problem.”
“Ok, um, I want to call Jak and see what he’s doing, but let’s think about lunch?”
“Sounds great! See you then.”
“Yep, bye,” I hung up the phone and walked back into the bathroom, thinking about Jak, and how good it would feel to see him again as I stepped into the hot water.
Jak, Kit, Menni and I had lunch the next day. We discussed plans for going into the studio within the next two months.
“We need to make a come back. Canceling the tour like that damn near ruined our album sales.” Kit said. She hadn’t changed much. Same in-your-face attitude, never afraid of hurting someone’s feelings. Kit’s words were like knives sometimes.
“Mmm, I agree,” said Menni. I jumped in with some of my own input; to remind them we weren’t stuck in the same old rut like before.
“You know, being sober has really given me a new feel for my bass. I even wrote some songs while I was at the clinic. I want you guys to hear them, see if we can go anywhere with them.” I felt Jak squeeze my hand lightly under the table and smiled. I’m going somewhere, I thought. I really am. I’m not going to be the same anymore.
“You know,” said Menni, “I was thinking. With the war and all, maybe we should do a benefit concert.”
“Oh god, I’d almost forgotten about that while I was in Maui,” I said. “The war.” I put my head in my hands. A gap of silence crashed between the four of us. We said our goodbyes and promised to discuss plans for our next CD in one week.
The next six months flew. We spent almost 16 hours a day in the studio, just recording tracks. Now that I was out of rehab everyone wanted interviews with our band. Scandal really will make you famous, I won’t argue that. My birthday came and went; Jack threw me a party with just him and me. He bought a whole acrylic paint set, complete with brushes, easel, and palette.
“I know you haven’t touched these things in years,” he whispered in my ear. “But I figured since you were starting over and all, maybe you could find the time.” He lightly nibbled, driving me wild.
“Of course.” I smiled. “Of course I can.”
On the news, things weren’t so wonderful. Menni’s idea of a charity concert seemed more and more plausible, more and more likely with every passing broadcast. On March 23, a Russian bomb fell in Morocco, obliterating a whole city of innocent civilians. The Swiss were invading Germany, France had dominated Spain. The maps had become deranged; no one flew anywhere anymore. Everyday I became slightly more certain that the world was going to end.
The U.S. had employed the draft again. I could remember watching on T.V. during the old wars, how they would draw numbers from a tumbler like the lottery, like there was some wonderful prize you were going to win by murdering the masses. Now they randomly generated birth dates with computers, cold and heartless, as it should be.
Still we toiled on, pretending everything was fine. Now and again we threw some anti-war political message into the interviews, letting the greedy press demons eat it up like candy. We started pressing our album really hard, before it ever hit the racks. There were 16 all new tracks and four new remixes. Seven of the songs I had written in Maui were being used. I had only written nine.
Kit got engaged, and pregnant. She was due in 7 months.
“Oh perfect,” I joked with her. “Just in time for our album to hit the shelves and for us to go on tour. Great timing, Kit, great timing. I know what YOU’RE getting at the baby shower.”
“Oh? And what’s that?” She replied.
“Condoms! That’s what!” We had a long turn of laughter about that, but the mood quickly fell serious.
“Andie… I’m scared out of my mind,” she whispered. “I mean, look at the news. What am I bringing my baby into?”
“Oh Kit,” I sighed. “I’m sure everything will work out in this world. I mean, it always has before, right? With all the other wars? And besides, if you’re baby is anything like you, they’ll know not to mess with a hard ass when they see one,” I said, lightening the mood again.
Oh god, if only I would have known how wrong I was.
Every night, Jak and I would sit in front of the T.V. like the rest of the citizens of our country, and watch as the broadcasters read the numbers the computers devised. Birth dates, dates to die by. Every night we held our breath, and exhaled loudly when it wasn’t his.
One night wasn’t the same. I was in Sacramento for an interview, and he was at home in New York. That night, just like any other, I sat down in front of the T.V., only this time Jak wasn’t beside me. I held my breath as the flickery green numbers appeared across the screen. June 4, April 17, February 19, April 21… I waited for the last number, thinking my lungs would explode, and let them release in a long shriek as it finally blipped across the screen: June 12.
Jak was headed to war. That was it. I was never going to see him again.
The phone rang, startling me, and I shrieked again. I answered it shakily.
“H-hello?”
“I’m going to die.” It was Jak. He sounded numb, as though he couldn’t believe it. Then I heard him crying.
“No! No Jak you’re not! You can’t think that way!” I yelled frantically.
“I love you Andie.”
“I love you too Jak. Nothing could ever kill that, nothing.” We stayed on the phone for five hours that night, whispering secrets and prayers, promises to each other that would never be heard by another person ever again.
Jak was sent for deportation on June 15th, exactly six months after I had returned home. I saw him through the process of leaving. They shaved his head, used a small gun to embed microchips in his neck and chest cavity, for identification. In case he died. Oh god. They lined the draftsmen up in two lines and sent each one to a separate plane. Kit and Menni were there, with Kit’s husband. We each kissed Jak goodbye quickly, and I quietly held his hand as long as I could. The bodyguards stopped me at the airport exit, told me I couldn’t go any further.
“I love you,” I mouthed
“I love you too,” he mouthed back.
I had my first drink in half a year that night. I went to the bar alone, drank two shots of Black Velvet and a fifth of Captain Morgan all on my own. I stumbled home drunk and found my cabinets empty, so I crashed out on the couch instead. Menni called me the next morning, could hear I was still drunk, and abruptly hung up on me. Kit called later that day crying, asking me how I could do this. I didn’t care; all I wanted to do was drown my sorrows.
We didn’t release the CD at first. We were too afraid Jak would come back, and be disappointed when he found we’d done it without him. Now that I look back, I think something was telling us to wait.
I got the call at 5:15 a.m. I jumped half out of my skin and scrambled for the telephone that was shrieking for my attention. I said hello, listened for a moment with widening eyes, then screamed and threw the phone into the wall, letting it shatter into thousands of tiny pieces. I paced the room back and forth, letting the shards pierce the soles of my feet, numb to the shatters that were embedding themselves inside me. My eyes fell across the easel and the still-blank canvas. I picked up the paintbrush, squirted violent red across the canvas and began spreading color like blood across a clean slate.
I painted for seven hours, and finally collapsed on the floor near 12:30 p.m. I lay there, crying, until Menni called. I didn’t answer.
I never cleaned up the broken telephone. It lay disemboweled on my floor for days. I walked around in a bleary, grey haze. I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep. I didn’t talk to anyone. I started thinking I saw Jak every time I turned around. He was there, by the cabinet, then gone, next time I looked. One night I drove over to Menni’s in a feverish delirium, ranting about death never killing it, never killing it. Death couldn’t kill anything. She called the ambulance, and I went into the hospital a second time.
They drugged me and put me on tranquilizers to keep me stable. They feared I would commit suicide and locked me in a ward. They kept me there for five months; terrified I’d never recover from the trauma of Jak’s death. But I learned in time. I couldn’t whisper to Jak unless we were alone, or they thought I was crazy. I couldn’t tell anyone about him, he was my secret. Eventually I realized Jak wasn’t there, that he really had died. My world, as I knew it, had ended.
I checked out of the hospital with a prescription for more tranquilizers, to be used as needed. I lived my life in a world of grey mist, empty and useless. Kit’s baby was born screaming, just as I had imagined she would be. Always screaming, loud like her mother. Kit would be happy. Menni continued on with a solo project. All I had was grey mist, and interviews, and the shatters of a broken phone. The CD was forgotten about by everyone. Everyone but me.
One night I called Menni and Kit. I asked them to meet me at the same café where we’d had lunch when I got out of rehab. They both agreed a bit unwillingly. I was almost certain they wouldn’t come, but they showed up all right.
“Menni, Kit… thanks.”
“Cut the shit kid, what do you want?” grinned Kit, bounced Niasha on her knee.
“Damn, do you have to be such a hard ass?” I said meekly. The joke died on my lips. “Listen, I want to talk about our CD. I know it’s been pretty much forgotten… but… I really want to get it back out.”
Menni lowered her eyes, Kit looked away. Both of them cleared their throats, and then laughed nervously at each other. Menni touched my hand.
“Andie, I think some things…”
“This isn’t about ‘some things’ Menni, there’s a reason for this. I have a reason. Hear me out, ok?”
Niasha began to squawk in her mother’s arms. Kit settled back in her seat and rocked her. Menni nodded her head slowly.
“Alright, lets hear it.”
“I want to dedicate it to Jak. To his memory. And I want… I want all the proceeds to go to the Jak Frintz Foundation.”
“There is no Jak Frintz Foundation,” said Kit. I smiled happily.
“There will be,” I said.
