The Double Line
Chapter 7
By: Erynn*Alice
I would love to just shake him and tell him that he is the biggest moron in the world.
Billy Martin is a moron.
There, I said it.
He sits in his bunk all day and just lays there. I think he gets high in there. I know he does when he’s alone in his hotel room.
And whenever that asshole, Steve, is around, it’s a definite ‘yes’ that Billy Martin is high on coke, pot, heroin, ecstasy, or whatever. He’s almost guaranteed to be drunk as a fucker when he’s doing that shit, too.
I can promise anyone on this earth that I will outlive him. He will probably die of an overdose before he’s 25. It’s a miracle that he’s made it this far. I think if he makes it over 25, then he must be bullet proof.
Billy will get shot by a drug dealer, overdose, destroy his immune system, get AIDS from either a needle or a whore, or kill himself.
He just seems so despondent and hopeless sometimes. It makes me just kind of want to take him out myself so that I won’t have to deal with the shock of it all. I never want to hear the news that Billy is dead.
“I’m Rene. You must be Benji.”
Don’t get me started on Joel, because he’s more of a mess than Billy.
Joel is my brother, my twin, and my best friend, but lately it seems like he’s just another stranger. I’ve known him my whole life and it’s just like one day he woke up and changed.
He won’t talk to me like he normally does. He’ll cut our conversations short, go to bed early, or make up some excuse to not be around me.
I know he loves me, but I just don’t know what’s wrong. He won’t talk to me, and he’s always moping around the bus.
It’s like when Dad left. Joel was always walking around this house under this big gray cloud and crying in his room at night.
I’ve seen this Joel before, the Joel that lives because he has to, but doesn’t want to.
He tried to kill himself the other night. He tried to play it off like he was doing pull-ups or something, but no one is that dumb to believe that.
When I walked into the bathroom after hearing the crash, I saw him lying on the floor with his head tilted up towards the ceiling and tears in his eyes.
Joel said he was crying because he hit his elbow. True, he did hit his elbow, but I’d be crying too if I failed to kill myself.
I knew before I even walked into that bathroom what had happened.
I’m his twin, his brother, his best friend. I know this stuff.
“You put out this tough guy act, you’re nicer than you seem. Why do you do that? Why do you fake who you really are? People would care more about you if they knew how nice you are rather than thinking you’re some good-for-nothing hard ass.”
Paul is the least fucked up of them all.
I mean, sure, he does have his seat of problems with Mina, but they aren’t as bad.
Paul’s great. I can talk to him about Billy, not about Joel, but about Billy. Paul’s always been worried about Billy and Steve. He just doesn’t express it as much as I do, which I guess is good because Billy still trusts Paul enough to tell him secrets about him and Steve.
We always talk about this stuff, and I’ll tell him my problems and he’ll tell me the truth, which is something I truly admire in him. I love that about Paul, he’s always willing to tell the blunt truth of every situation. I don’t know why people don’t tell me the truth more often.
Billy lies to me about Steve.
Joel lies to me about his suicide attempt.
“Why don’t you like to show off a little more? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being humble, Benji, but there is a thing as too humble. Show off with modesty.”
Chris lies to me about his relationship.
He lets me and everyone else in the band think that he really loves Ally.
Yeah, like hell he loves her. He’s cheating on her with some twenty-six cent whore, and he thinks we don’t know.
Well, he’s right in some sense. I’m the only one that knows. I only know because I could hear them have sex last night. It was disgusting.
I’m pretty sure this is the only girl he’s slept with besides Ally. At least he’s learning from Billy’s mistakes in that it’s not wise to sleep with so many girls.
Other than the fact he’s cheating on his girlfriend, he’s a good kid. I like him. He’s a great drummer and a nice guy, a hell of a lot nicer than Aaron.
Aaron was our first drummer. He says that he left the band to join his brother’s band, but that’s the biggest lie in the world.
We kicked Aaron out because he developed a nasty coke habit with Billy. Billy snorts a lot, but Aaron did it more often.
The kid was a little violent when he was that high, too. He pushed Joel up against a wall one time and just yelled at him. Paul and I pulled him off, but Joel was completely pissed. After that, things just got worse on stage and off.
He’s clean now, from what I hear, and I’m happy for him. Wakefield, his brother’s band, is doing pretty good. He’s still getting commission from us every time one of our first CDs sells, I don’t care, though. He can have all the money in the world as long as I don’t have to deal with him again.
"There's my number incase you're ever...well, bored."
I met this girl named Reggie. I asked her if she had a band called "The Full Effect". She laughed patiently and told me she gets that a lot. She was taking a few pictures for some magazine. She said her father was German, and Reggie is a German name.
She told me how it was, how I was. She told me that I come off harsh, but that I'm actually nice and she criticized me the way Paul usually does. Fans always criticize me, but she did it with grace.
She gave me her number, scrawled out of the back of a napkin. I kept the napkin in my shirt pocket.
I don't know if I should call her, because I feel like I'd be interrupting her life. I want to call her. I want to know more about her.
"Reggie Orwell 120-1201"