Day One

First class flight. Monique to the left, Jim and John and James to the right. Seat's too small, always too small, everything's too small.
Monique leafs through the Skymall, the boys listen to iPods. Can't keep their names straight: they are interchangeable. Same hair, same voice, same clothes. I hate them. I hate the way they talk, I hate the things they say. I hate the cars they drive and how they drive them, their music, their opinions, their friends, their girlfriends, their families. Maybe they hate me too; they would if they knew me.
Monique: legs crossed, tapping her toe, tapping her fingers on the magazine. Bag of Skittles on the meal tray, she takes one every couple minutes, pops it into her mouth. Music in her head, thinking it so loud I can almost hear it.
Stewardess comes by for drink orders, the boys get beers and hard liquor. Monique orders a gin and tonic, a ginger ale for me.
Monique pushes the magazine in front of me, points to an article: "Russ, look at this, they sell security cameras in this thing. Who buys this crap?"
I shrug, smile. She smiles back, puts the magazine away, pulls a pad of paper from her purse. Starts to scribble words, lyrics. Her handwriting: illegible, but lithe, languid. Loops and lines of ink crawl across the page. I watch her, I always watch her when she writes.
Absent minded, she scratches something out. She bites her lip and closes her eyes. Her head tips back and she clenches her fists. She finds the word she wants and opens her eyes, writes it down.
Sleep comes slow, but thirty minutes later I'm in deep.

Don't sleep easy: dreams, bad dreams. High school homecoming, gym-turned-dance floor. Surrounded, faces, distorted, blank, closing in. Twisted smiles, missing eyes, hollow skulls. Fingers grabbing me, nails turn to claws, rip and tear at my skin.
I fight through, push them away, but they come faster than I can fight them off. I get past, head out through the doors. Outside it's abandoned, vacant. Eerie stillness in the dark, dark night.
I see Her coming, I knew I would. She walks towards me, past the parking lot.
The ground starts to peel away, brick by brick falling into infinite darkness. She doesn't break stride as the buildings crumble and tumble into the abyss. Everything plummets into nothingness, leaving one long pathway between me and Her.
She comes at me, and I pull back, step by step I stumble backwards. I come to the edge of the world, one foot slips and I fall back. Down, down, down. Down into the blackness, to the empty void.

I wake up in Orange County.

First class is first off. We get out of the plane fast, but we get our bags slow. Waiting around in the airport, a crowd starts to form. Autograph hounds harass Monique. She plays the game, smiles a smile, signs some CDs. Always diplomatic.
We don't stay long, get our bags and go. Car waiting outside. Got to get to the hotel, check in before the show: first one tonight. A mob follows us out the door.
Nicer than we expected: stretch Escalade. Monique is big time now, deserves the limo, the hotel suite. The boys hit the vodka in the cooler right away, start screwing around, pushing and punching each other, messing with the radio. Me and Monique sit in the suicide seats. Scenery slides by outside the windows. Starbucks and Savon, schools, churches, all too familiar.
Hometown shivers. Three years since I've been back here. Everything looks the same, just how I remember it. Love and loathing roll together. Places I went and things I did force their way into my head. Sights stir memories, mixed emotions. Hate and sadness and gut-wrenching terror.


And the limo goes on. A mile later everything is new: freshly developed shopping center. The unfamiliar sight sucks me back to the present. Monique is still here. The boys are still here.
I'm still here.
I don't talk: too shaken. Monique doesn't talk: too busy reading the itinerary. The boys don't talk: too tired and too drunk. Silence the last six or seven miles.