How to Kill a Rock Star

by Tiffanie DeBartolo

the power of music rests in its ability to reach inside and touch the places where the deepest cuts lie.

“Popular music is a microcosm of the culture, Eliza. It reflects the mentality of the population.

From across the tracks I read his expression as I have everything on my side except destiny, only his expression clearly hadn’t informed his head or heart yet.

His voice caught me by surprise. It was a confident voice pretending to be shy.

Tell me what you listen to and I’ll tell you who you are.”

Maybe that was the key to getting rid of the loneliness, I thought. Treating love as entertainment, not as salvation.

I’m almost thirty and my day job is folding shirts at the Gap. Have you seen my room? I’m not messy. I’m rebelling against folding.”

He and Vera were made for each other, I swear. They both thought the person who cared about them the most was the one they should inconvenience the least. They had everything backwards.

“And if my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle.”

I thought I’d be over the dizziness by morning, but there was no way around it: being near Paul Hudson made me feel like I’d just stepped off a fast-moving merry-go-round. It was either a good sign or a very bad one.

his arms were sinewy like the Jesus on the cross above my bed, and he had another tattoo, a Chinese symbol, on his right shoulder. The tattoo occupied my attention for entirely too long. “It’s pronounced wu,” Paul said, fingering the black ink. “What does it mean?” “To awaken to righteousness.” He paused. I’m not sure what he saw in my eyes, but he said, “Yeah, I know. It’s an ongoing process for me.”

“Nobody, and I mean nobody, ever started a revolution playing by the rules.”

He said we live in a country that values commerce over art, a country that allows mediocre talents to thrive and breed and poison the airwaves, movie screens, television, and printed word like toxic chemicals in the water supply.

“Save the savior,” I said. “You dig, Eliza Caelum?” “I dig, Mr. Blackman.”

I wondered how different New York would have felt if Adam had been there. Not that I wanted him there. I didn’t miss him anymore. But I missed the idea of him. I missed having a hand to hold. I missed the illusion of safety.

“No,” I said. “I just don’t drink.” “Why not?” I didn’t feel like getting into the meat of it. That is, how the majority of my high school and college classmates got drunk every weekend, and how watching them throw up and pass out depressed me so I refrained from participating, even though this turned me into more of an outcast than I already was.

“It just seems like a bad idea,” I said, “swallowing a liquid that can be set on fire.”

The question is one of faith. Faith in my talent. Faith in my decisions. And faith in the idea that the truth, even if it can’t pay my bills, can still set me free. I know. Funny. Ha. Ha.

I just want to sleep with a clear conscience and wake up with the ability to look at myself in the mirror. I also want my life to be my own. Even if it’s a shitty goddamn life, it’s still mine.

Feldman appeared out of nowhere and fed me one of those “you’ve got star written all over you” lines. I didn’t fall for it right away. My goals have nothing to do with celestial bodies.

No kidding, if you put me in a room with Eliza and a hundred beautiful girls, Eliza would be the one I’d walk over to. There’s something magnetic about her. And sad. And she does this thing when she talks—she dips her chin and raises her eyes and looks right into you. It’s a gift, really. I think she could make whoever she’s talking to feel like the only person in the room—the only person in the universe, even. But then it switches—when she’s not looking at you it’s like her mind is in another world, miles away, and her dark, falcon eyes point upward, like she’s in some kind of mesmerized state of flirtation with the sky.

swear I thought she was going to start crying, and normally that would have sent me hauling ass in the other direction, but you know what? I had a bizarre urge to put my arms around her and hold her until she fell asleep.

Remember this moment, my friend the tape recorder. Lying next to Eliza, I had the feeling I’d just found something I didn’t even know I’d lost.

“If a rat scurried up to you right now, would you feed it?” “No.” “Pigeons are rats with wings.”

The phrase what I want struck me. It contains so much entitlement, so many complications, but encompasses only what a person doesn’t have.

A while passed before he nodded toward my wrist. “Why did you do it?” he said. It wasn’t a topic I was particularly keen on discussing, especially with someone I hardly knew. But the way Paul was watching me, with the utmost level of attention, and no trace of judgment, made me willing to offer him a response. “I was depressed,” I said, shrugging. “I was a stupid kid. I didn’t mean it.” Paul stared at me like he wanted more. “I couldn’t feel anything,” I finally told him. “I couldn’t feel the truth. Does that make sense? Do you know what the truth feels like?” “I know what it sounds like.” We both smiled, and a moment of complete understanding passed between us before I had to turn away.

there’s also nothing noble about being fearless.

How much do you wanna bet the last man standing in a battle is usually the biggest fool of all?”

“Did you really want to die?” “No one commits suicide because they want to die.” “Then why do they do it?” “Because they want to stop the pain.” Once again, his lack of guile was unsettling. But his words resonated somewhere inside of me.

he asked me if I was happy. But before I had a chance to respond, he said, “Don’t answer that. It’s a stupid question. I don’t believe in the myth of happiness any more than you do.” This is where Paul had it wrong. I did believe in the myth. I had to. Otherwise I don’t think I would have been there. Happiness is elusive, for sure. But like love, and music, I believed in it because I could feel it.

“For what it’s worth, I think happiness is a fleeting condition, not a permanent goddamn state of mind. I’ve learned that if you chase after moments of bliss here and there, sometimes those moments will sustain you through the shit.”

“Personally, I don’t like inherently happy people. I don’t trust them. I think there’s something seriously wrong with anyone who isn’t at least a little let down by the world.”

I could hear my conscience chiding me to walk away. But Paul’s eyes, at times, had an entirely different personality than the rest of his face. They were needy and they pleaded with me to stay.

Dreams can change histories and songs can alter destinies—two ideas that on good days I believe wholeheartedly and on bad days I denounce as a bunch of bull.

I was having an epiphany. A moment of supreme clarity, leading to what I dubbed a “realization of solitude” that goes like this: I’m lonely.

I’ve learned that my mood remains steady when I’m completely oblivious to my isolation.

There’s a big difference between being alone and being lonely. And I’m guessing that once you’ve discovered this distinction you can’t go back to solitary confinement without serious emotional repercussions.

Is Eliza feeling even half of what I am? I don’t know. What I do know is that she’s searching for something too. It’s in her eyes. It’s in her scar. It’s in her reverence for music, which I saw all over her face when she listened to that Van Morrison song in the bar. The girl is a real believer. That she doesn’t yet believe in me is only a minor problem. If she’s the kind of person I think she is, I’ll win her over with one verse. One chorus. Maybe even one line. It’ll be a goddamn test. I’ll test her the same way she’ll no doubt test me—with a song. Because believers know the truth when they hear it.

Eliza has the sky in her eyes and I’ve always wanted to touch the goddamn sky.

She pulled me over until I was on top of the grate and I stood there for like, fifteen whole seconds. I’d like to say it was an act of bravery, but I was only able to do it because she was holding my sleeve. This is what I mean about epiphanies. With her, I’d had the strength to stand there. Without her, I would have run.

As usual, he was spewing a lot of crap, but I got the feeling he and I were on the same wavelength. I asked him if he’d noticed the way Eliza listened to the music, how she’d gazed at the speakers like God was talking to her. He told me terminal velocity is about one hundred thirty miles per hour. I could fall hard for a girl who listens to music like that.

That’s the only way I could describe the music. It was the sonic equivalent of flight.

“You know what I was thinking about on my way home?” he said quietly. “How different my life would be if you’d made that gash a little deeper. Or how different yours would be if I’d vaulted myself off a roof nine years ago. Do you ever think about things like that? Like, if either you or I wouldn’t have made it, where would the other one be right now?”

It was something I thought about all the time: how death changes every remaining moment for those still living. “Are you glad you made it?” “I’m glad you made it.”

“Oh, God,” I said in a panic. “Let’s just lay this on the table right now. Because I don’t want to think this is one thing and have it turn out to be the other. Is this real or is it crap?” “Jesus,” he said. “The sun isn’t even up yet.” “I mean it. I need proof. Tell me your real name.” “Proof?” He huffed. “You want proof? Give me your goddamn hand.” Skeptically, I did as he asked, and he proceeded to sing the chorus to one of 66’s meaningless songs, mimicking Amanda Strunk’s whiskey-flavored voice, pointing to my arm. Nothing had changed. Then he sang the last verse of “The Day I Became a Ghost” and every one of my hairs stood on end. “See that?” Paul said. “Ten goddamn seconds.” “I don’t get it.” “You didn’t even have to hear the whole song, just a few lines, and you still got chills and that swirly, happy-sad feeling in your gut, didn’t you?” “So?” “So?” he huffed. “That’s the difference between the real stuff and the crap. I know which one you are and you know which one I am.” He flipped over and buried his head in his pillow. “That’s all the proof you need. Wake me up in an hour.”

Eliza closed her eyes, swayed to the music, and I could tell she meant it when she sang, “Give me the beat, boys, and free my soul, I wanna get lost in your rock ’n’ roll and drift away…” I can say this because she’s my girlfriend, even if, at the moment, she’s only my girlfriend in secret—Eliza has one of the worst voices known to man. Swear to God, for someone so obsessed with music, she’s borderline tone deaf. But trying to describe how I felt watching her dance around and sing would be like trying to build a skyscraper with my bare hands. It made me want to marry her. Made me want to buy her a magic airplane and fly her away to a place where nothing bad could ever happen.

Made me want to pour rubber cement all over my chest and then lay down on top of her so that we’d be stuck together, and so it would hurt like hell if we ever tried to tear ourselves apart.

“Fate is just another word for people’s choices coming to a head. Destiny, coincidence, whatever you name it. It inevitably lies in our own hands.”

It was true love. In the truest sense of the word. I was in love with Paul and, more importantly, I believed he was in love with me. It was in the way he had of calling me at work and saying things like, “Did you know nondairy creamer is flammable?” or “The dial tone of this phone is in the key of F,” and for the rest of the day even Lucy Enfield would seem tolerable; it was in the way he had of ordering the spinach and ricotta pizza from Rosario’s because it was my favorite, even though he would’ve rather had the pepperoni; it was in the way he set one of my favorite poems, “The Still Time,” to music, and sang it to me when a plane would crash somewhere in the world or I would hear “Born to Run” on the radio or life would just feel heavy and I couldn’t sleep with all that weight on top of me.

Sometimes I would open my eyes when we were kissing, I would watch him and I could see it. I could actually see LOVE—not words, not an emotion, not an abstract concept or a subjective state of mind, but a living, breathing thing. I’d known for a long time that LOVE had a sound, but after Adam left, I wasn’t sure it had a face and body, too. Especially one that would show itself to me for the first time on a subway platform, fidgeting nervously, with pale, luminescent eyes, dark, limp hair, and a cocky-bastard smile that could boil water.