Afraid of the Dark

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"Oh, man--" Wentz choked out between laughter, "remember when--when--we ordered you a lapdance for your twenty-first birthday?"

"Oh my God..." Stump's face flushed a brilliant shade of red as he shook his head in mortification, but he laughed along with Wentz despite himself. "That was horrible. The most awkward experience of my life." He turned to me to add, "And I've had a lot of awkward experiences."

Wentz was still laughing hysterically. "Anyone else would've been excited, but you were--you were--so upset--"

"I didn't know what to do!" said Stump, throwing his hands up in the air. "What do you say to some girl you've never even met before while she's giving you a lapdance?"

"You don't say anything! You just sit there and let her give you a lapdance!"

"It was so awkward," Stump complained. He glared at Wentz warily, his expression resentful. "Especially since it was a surprise. I had no idea what was going on."

"You kept trying to call me." Wentz was grinning so widely now that I could see almost every single one of his big, white teeth. "I was like, 'Dude, we hired a stripper to give you a lapdance for your birthday, and you can't even enjoy it because you keep calling us to whine about it!'"

"Well, she was determined to give me your money's worth, I'll give her that much. She wouldn't stop. I kept asking her to stop, and she just kept going."

"He was like, he was like--'She won't stop! How do I get her to stop?!'"

Stump didn't seem to find the memory nearly as funny as Wentz did. "I felt so violated. It was like being raped or something."

Wentz just kept on laughing, clapping Stump on the shoulder. "You're one weird dude, you know that?"

"So are you."

"I know. That's why we're so perfect for each other."

Still gripping Stump's shoulder, Wentz leaned in closer with wistful expectancy, as if he were about to kiss him. Stump grimaced and scooted as far away from him as his seatbelt would allow, craning his neck in the opposite direction of Wentz's face. Wentz backed off.

"Patrick, are you asexual?"

"Yes."

"See," Wentz said to me, jerking his thumb in Stump's direction, "Patrick's such a snob that he'll only have sex with himself, and yet they call me a pompous douchebag."

"It's a conspiracy," said Stump.

And so the drive from the hotel to the radio station passed by quickly with their rambling banter to keep me, the driver, and the two of them entertained. Instead of trying to conduct a formal interview in the car, I had just asked Wentz and Stump to tell me some funny stories about Fall Out Boy and its members. That certainly got them talking.

Stump was much easier to talk to now that Wentz was around. Based on everything I'd heard about both of them from various other sources, I had been expecting Wentz to overshadow Stump in joint interviews, but it was just the opposite: Wentz's presence alone seemed to give Stump an automatic boost of confidence, while Wentz quieted down and retreated to the background when there were other people talking. Stump was motivated to talk more, whereas Wentz didn't feel the need to monopolize the conversation as much.

They were a dynamic duo if I ever saw one. They balanced each other out well, playing off each others' strengths and weaknesses naturally. When I had first met Fall Out Boy, I had assumed that Wentz was the backbone of the band, and he was--but I don't think that he could have led Fall Out Boy as well as he did without Stump there to support him.

"Patrick's the only one who really understands me," said Wentz. He turned to look at Stump for a long moment, patting his arm appreciatively--satirically. "Other people think they understand me, but they don't understand me."

"I don't understand you," argued Stump.

"Sure you do."

"No, I don't. I really don't."

Sighing, Wentz slid his hand off of Stump's arm and turned to look at me slowly, shaking his head in exasperation. "Now you're just being difficult," he said to Stump out of the side of his mouth.

Stump grinned, and his smile was pure glee--like a baby's smile. "I'm just telling the truth, Pete."

"Yeah, whatever, man. You're dead to me."

-----

We arrived at the radio station half an hour before Wentz and Stump were set to go on the air. A few of the people who worked there led us into some kind of lounge with plain white walls and no windows, where they briefed Wentz and Stump on what to say and what not to say and how to say it--how to play the game.

Stump nodded along obligingly; Wentz just stuck out his lower lip and looked bored. I'm sure both of them had heard the same monotonous spiel a million times before.

After they were finally finished talking, the Official Radio Station Employees left the three of us alone for a while, promising to return for Stump and Wentz once it was time for them to go on the air. Judging by the look on Wentz's face, it was a promise he hoped they wouldn't keep.

"I hate radio shows," he muttered, once we were alone in the whitewashed room.

"I like them," said Stump.

"You like them?" Wentz's tone was almost indignant in its disbelief as he jerked his head around to stare pointedly at his bandmate. "How can you like them?"

Stump shrugged, avoiding Wentz's eyes--which he did often when speaking directly to me, but not usually when he was talking to Wentz. "No one's looking at me. They can't see me. They just hear my voice."

Wentz just blinked at Stump a few times and then suddenly his expression smoothed over with understanding. Slowly, he turned away from Stump to look at the floor instead with a certain bitterness in his face, muttering, "Don't start that shit."

"I'm not starting anything." Stump's tone was light, but the little quivering hum to the lie--I'm not--betrayed him.

"I know you," said Wentz darkly. Without moving his head, he glanced over at Stump out of the corner of his eye. "And you need to give yourself a break with that shit."

Stump just shrugged again, defensively this time, and went back to avoiding Wentz's gaze. Meanwhile, Wentz was still glaring at the floor, a pained but determined look on his face. Their silent conversation was bizarre to watch; in its private outward secrecy, it sort of reminded me of the subtle between-the-lines arguments couples have at parties.

It didn't take long for Stump to excuse himself. "I'm gonna...uh, go find something to drink...or something," he mumbled, wringing his hands out as he stood up from the couch he had been sitting on. He glanced around the room a few times--at anything other than me and Wentz--and adjusted his cap before adding, "I'll be back in a few minutes."

That left Wentz and I alone, sitting on opposite ends of the same stiff, lumpy couch. The silence was significantly less awkward now that Stump was gone, but the happy, upbeat atmosphere that had surrounded us on the way up here was long gone.

I shifted sideways so that I was looking straight at Wentz. "What was that about?"

He glanced at me, so quickly that I almost didn't catch it, and then became supremely interested in his hands clasped together in his lap. "Patrick has self-image problems," he said.

"...Oh." I wasn't sure what to say to that, but luckily for me, now that Stump was gone, Wentz was back to monopolizing the conversation.

"Which is ridiculous when you consider the fact that he's probably the best singer, musician, and all-around nice guy I've ever met. I mean, when you've got a set of pipes like that and you're just a fucking good dude, who cares what you look like?" He paused and then answered his own question, bitterly: "Well, no, that was a stupid question. Obviously people care. But they shouldn't."

He fell silent, his eyes still fixated on his own hands as they fidgeted in his lap. The look on his face was full of reigned-in rebellion.

"...Sorry for ranting at you," he said after a moment, his tone more subdued. "I just... It pisses me off."

"I know. It sucks."

Wentz surprised me by flashing me a sheepish grin out of nowhere. "I'm very protective of my Patrick," he explained. "If you make him cry, I'll go mama bear on your ass in a heartbeat."

"Don't worry," I laughed. "I won't make him cry. Promise."

"I know. Just sayin'." He smiled at me a little, his pleasant expression contradicting his grim tone as he said, "I don't care if you rip me to shreds, but 'Trick's a fragile little dude. I gotta look out for him. You know?"

I couldn't help but smile at him. "That's kind of sweet."

"Well," he said, shrugging, "it's the least I can do. He takes care of me, too. It's just not as obvious."

And then, as if to indicate that he was done talking about this subject, Wentz looked away with a certain finality to the turn of his head. His eyes drooped shut and he slumped forward to brace his elbows against his knees, rubbing the dark circles under his eyes and sighing.

He looked tired. Sad. Alone. And in that moment, I suspected that what he had just said was more true than he let on--that, in fact, Wentz was a fragile little dude, too.

And then last night...I still couldn't forget last night. He had certainly been fragile then, as he yelled and swore and cried, to me, a stranger...

In a way, I admired him. If our roles had been reversed, I wouldn't have been able to face him today, knowing just how much of my soul I had bared the night before; Wentz, on the other hand, treated me just as he always had, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened last night. He had been grotesquely exposed, and he didn't seem to mind.

Then again, maybe he didn't remember any of it. He had been drinking (which was probably the only reason why he ever said those things in the first place, to be completely honest), so maybe his memory of the night ended before his little rant about Ashlee. Maybe he wasn't upset about what he had said because he didn't know he had said it.

Or maybe he just didn't care. Maybe that was why he liked interviews. Maybe he liked being vulnerable. An emotional masochist.

I shuddered at the thought.