Rock Bottom (12 page)

And who was that girl who had been giggling behind Bobby, giggling at everything the Mummy said? Fucking Bobby, always picking up the scraps at Darlo’s endless sex feast.

He sat down on a bench, cracked his back, wiped a piece of peanut butter out of his eye, and tried to meditate. Buddha taught that money and issues of the material world were just —

“Oh, fuck that,” he said.

The scene before him felt insidious: the well-dressed Dutch looking at him as if he were a gob of acidic spit burning a hole in their newly painted Euro bench; the pitter-patter of rain that fell from the Goth sky; the barking of Dutch pugs, running in circles with their crushed, buglike faces as their owners chattered, their posture excellent.

His mother had a pug named Rosie. Once a week you had to dig the slime out of the ridges in the dog’s face.

It is not good to blame others for the fault of one’s self, he thought. You can make of this day an opportunity, not for self-pity and misery but for taking stock. You could make this day a meditation on modesty, and be humble, like Buddha, and integrate your failings. You could practice Shamatha, and devote an hour to Vipashyana, and perfect the task of Vipassana.

You could also make of this day a time to reflect on how badly your quasi-religious bullshit has served you, and how perhaps just once it would be better to think like the people who surround you, think like Darlo or Joey or Bobby, with nothing but your own interest at stake.

He checked the time on the pink Swatch that Donna, his ex-girlfriend, had given him as a peace offering the day he left for tour.

“I wanted to let you know I cared,” she said. “This way we’ll always be together.”

He held a soft spot for her. She was the representation of all he had forsaken to take on this life, and though he thought she was hypocritical, judgmental, and wouldn’t take him in her mouth, he still associated her with cleanliness and clarity.

He breathed deep, trying to clean out his bad karma, just like that Seattle yoga instructor he’d fucked had told him to.

“I wish you lived here,” she’d said, pointing out the window at the snowy peaks of the Cascades. “You have such a clear aura. Totally clear. Even on coke!”

Though it was unpleasant to sit destitute in a foreign country while your ears ached from the percussive talents of some crazy foreign stepdad, it was less unpleasant than waking up next to girls like that yoga instructor, who looked at you after one night of amphetamine passion like they were going to turn you inside out, find everything they thought was wrong with you, and change it all while you were sleeping. And it was also less unpleasant than waking up in hotel rooms next to Bobby as the bass player scratched his hands and cried.

“Bobby,” he said, and made fists.

He tried to recall what day it was but could not. Being on tour took you out of civilization’s circadian rhythm. A weekend was meaningless, a respite from nothing at all. At first all of them thought this was the best possible proof that they’d escaped the clutches of society’s grinding ways, but as time went on they mused aloud that it would be nice to have a part of the week to have something to look forward to. Their lives were suspended, floating, and they were never sure which direction they should be headed in, borne by currents that had long ago turned into a churning rock-and-roll riptide.

“Friday,” he said. “It must be Friday.”

He exited onto the street. Before him lay a Starbucks inside an old mansion. Through the windows, he watched hot Barista-Frau serve more superswank Dutchies, who then repaired to tables to read their crisp, perfectly creased newspapers, not a bit of ink on their hands. Shane was in the habit of pretending he knew something about art — why should Adam have all the fun? — and he tried to compare the scene to that of a famous painter, as if someone were there waiting for him to prove he was smart. He scratched at some peanut butter itching his ear.

“Edward Hooper?” he said. “Is that his name?”

Some church bells rang, off in the clouds, bringing to mind his decision to give most of his advance — which, after everyone got his cut and his taxes approximated, was a hundred and twenty-three thousand dollars — to the New Fundamentalist Baptist Church of Anaheim.

“Sounds like a bank,” Bobby had said. “Why would you do that?”

The two had been sitting on the Venice pier, eating hot dogs. They were leaving the next day for their first tour, and Shane felt compelled to tell someone about his decision, to, yes, fine, show what a selfless seeker he was. He would rather have told Adam, but here he was with Bobby, and he couldn’t hold it in.

“I want to give back,” the singer said. “The church has provided me with the moral backbone I’ll need to make it through this journey with my integrity intact. I can’t even imagine the temptations we’ll find.”

“I can,” Bobby said, and smiled. “Can I ever.” The bass player chewed thoughtfully on his hot dog. “I think that’s admirable, really,” he said. “But it sounds like guilt money to me — like you’re just trying to make yourself feel better about what you’re doing.”

“Well, it’s not,” Shane said, indignant. “I am honoring His works by tithing. Tithing is a practice by which the —”

“You know I’m an atheist, right? Like, I have no idea what you’re talking about and I don’t care.” Bobby lit a cigarette and shook his hands, which at the time showed only traces of eczema. “I don’t know, man. Giving all your money to some fascist church sounds pretty stupid to me. One day you’ll really regret it.”

That day, at the dawn of the Blood Orphans anti-empire, Shane’s bank balance showed twenty thousand dollars. This was spending money; the band received a per diem check once a month, a direct deposit in the amount of four hundred and fifty dollars, which broke down to fifteen dollars a day. The balance, fifteen grand, was the part of his advance he hadn’t tithed.

Now, seventeen months later, all of his remaining money, all two hundred tax-free euros, lay, most probably, in a gutter. The rest of it sat in a vault beneath his childhood house of worship in Anaheim.

Squatting against a Dutch wall, his stomach growling and his wallet empty, he thought his decision to give back was the dumbest thing he could have done.

“Pride comes before a fall,” he said, and went into the Starbucks.

How strange it was to be looked upon as slime. So much of his life had been spent pronouncing upon the failings of others. One does not see one’s own vanity until groveling in personal decay. He thought of the Buddha before he became transfigured, a prince dressed in the finest silk, awaiting his enlightenment, and tried to meditate while standing in line, now a pauper, now one of the outcasts asking for alms.

I am a beggar, Shane thought, free of material want. I am sweetness and light, joy and radiance. He imagined chirping birds perched on his shoulders. The beggar approached the barista.

“Hel
lo,
” he said in the most joyous voice he could. “Hel
lo.
I come to ask for coffee. I come … to ask … for coffee.”

The girl — short, blond, and looking as if she’d just jumped out of an ad for Dutch waffles — did not regard him as a fallen prince receiving enlightenment. A beat-up scarab, maybe. A frayed Teutonic leaf, perhaps. A peanut-butter-stinking American poser with matted albino stubs for hair, most likely.

“Bathrooms are for the customers only,” she said in a rattled English. A black-suited businessman pushed ahead of him.

He wondered which noble Buddhist truth this beggarly moment qualified as. Was this dukkha or nibbhana? Then again, perhaps it was tanha. It was hard to keep track of these things. He had to eat something.

“Please,” he said. “I’m a … starving … muzish-an.”

He wanted to sound like one of his prophet-heroes, but mainly he sounded like Captain Kirk talking to an alien life-form. His ears ached.

“I … must eat … some … food.”

He understood that he had devolved. He had indulged. He had lost his way. But wasn’t losing your way part of the way? To go against nature is part of nature too?

“Please,” he asked the little Dutch barista, nudging his way up. “Please give … me some cake … and coffee?”

She smiled politely, as did the whole counterful of green-aproned and black-polo-shirted Dutchies, and said nothing.

He looked around at the line of pensive, productive people.

“Please?” he said, smiling. “I’m in … a rock band. My bank account is empty. I’m … so … hungry.”

The Starbucks employees spoke to each other, staring at him. Then their noses wrinkled. Peanut butter could really get rank. All in line kept a healthy distance from His Royal Aromaness.

What would his mother say if she saw this? Oh, why did he have to think of his mother now, driving through Orange County in her yellow Miata, listening to James Dobson’s latest book on tape, nodding along with every fifteenth-century idea he threw out there.

“Here,” the girl at the counter said, handing him some coffeecake, reeling at his stink. “Take it and go. Please go.”

Outside, he wolfed down the burnt offering. It couldn’t be just the peanut butter that had them so revolted. There had to be something else. And then he looked down and gagged.

Dog shit. On his leg. On his shoes. At some point he had fallen in a mighty fresh steaming pile.

He thrust his head into the bushes just a few feet from suited Dutch people enjoying their civilized morning and vomited. Right in the middle of the pretty Dutch scene. Welcome to the jungle, baby.

A businessman almost tripped over him. He stared at Shane, let out a volley of curses, and kept walking.

He needed to get cleaned up, go to Morten’s place and get a fresh set of clothes and a shower, but he had exactly no idea where Morten’s was. Danika had pulled him into that closet backstage, and then they had run off, drunk and cavorting, before he got the information. And he had no idea where Joey was staying, either. He dialed, but Joey wasn’t answering. He left a message that made everything sound a lot better than it was.

“You know, so, no biggie,” he said. “But if I could use your shower before the show, that’d be great.”

Joey would not get the satisfaction of hearing him beg.

He belched up some cake that he hadn’t puked. A car drove by, and he heard the Sharpie Shakes jingle.

… creamy and smooth, it’ll getcha!

That really hurt.

Shane ran across the street to a little park, grabbed some leaves off the ground, and wiped off as much of the dog shit as he could. Nothing brought failure more into focus than wiping manure off yourself. Bile bubbled up in his throat.

A few bicyclists zoomed by and knocked him over.

“Assholes!” he yelled, and rubbed his shit-stained hands in the grass.

There had been triumphs, hadn’t there? There had been moments of glory, sweet glory, where it all seemed worth it, right? He scoured his memory: the time they played in Times Square on the
Carson Daly Show;
that three-night opening slot for Motley Crüe at the Henry Fonda, right after they finished the record; the photo shoot for
Rolling Stone,
and their cover story which never saw daylight because of that stupid charge of racism, that prick editor of
Spin;
the first American tour, rolling thunder in summer, everyone getting along, before Darlo got beat up by that crippled girl’s brother; doing LSD in the desert outside Tucson with those twins, taking off their clothes, mixing his lingam with their yonis, piercing them, a live wire into their energy fields, and the greatest good time of all, whether or not he cared to admit it, the money, that insane advance, and why did he have to remember that now, goddamnit? Why had he given all that money away to satisfy his shame?

Bobby being right galled him.

But all of that still didn’t even begin to explain how he had gotten to this wretched place. It didn’t explain shit. And speaking of shit, some of it had gotten on his hand. He wiped it on the ground, scratched his arm, and felt a little lump in the chest pocket of his jean jacket. That lump was a counterweight to his light wallet, a key to another door, behind which lay calm and happiness. He pulled out a twenty-euro note. He had no recollection of putting any money there. The flimsy scrip was a gift from the universe, a reminder of fortune.

“Thank you,” he said to his arm. “Blessed be, thank you.”

He shed a few tears of relief, making promises in his head and apologies to the sky. “I am so sorry,” he said, “that I let my anger divert me.”

The Buddha didn’t let anger get him. The Buddha didn’t get consumed with rage, step in dog shit, and lose track of the money he had in his pocket.

“O thanks to the peaceful ways of thee,” he said, and stumbled on.

The first food establishment he saw was where he would eat, he decided, even if it meant he would have to eat meat. So hard to find anything vegan in this town. So hard to find anything vegan anywhere in Europe. And there, like a mirage, stood a McDonald’s. He hadn’t eaten McDonald’s in years. It was the vegan Antichrist, the herbivore’s Beelzebub. But philosophy seemed like a luxury that cost a lot more than the twenty euros in his pocket, and suddenly he missed meat even more than he missed his long-lost sense of who he actually was. The golden arches beckoned like the arms of Shiva.

6

YOU PEOPLE ARE CRAZY!”

Joey bobbed and weaved in the tangles of another throng of cyclists.

Ring ring ring! Dutch Dutch Dutch!

“Jesus fucking Christ!” she yelled, but they didn’t give her the satisfaction of a glance. “Gonna kill me!”

Her brain floating in a pool of Stella, she stopped at a soup bar and sucked down minty split pea while a trio of teenagers made a bunch of noise about how great Ryan Adams was. “So cute!” one of them said. “So talented!”

She hobbled out, dry-popped a few more Tylenol, and approached the line at the Van Gogh, which ran halfway down the block. Adam stood near the front, reading a copy of
Siddhartha,
looking like an extra in Cirque du Soleil. Joey frowned. “Oh God, please don’t fucking tell me that you’re getting into that Tantric Buddhist bullshit too.”