Chasing Chaos

2009

My head was going to explode. While I locked up the shop, I was convinced that I was on the verge of a total meltdown. On a usual day, when I’m in a usual mood, I’m pretty neurotic. I overthink things and I get unnecessarily worked up. I’m fairly unstable. So under the moments complete mental disarray, I was probably just going to blow up.

And I’d spent the better part of a week this way. Following the events that had transpired between Oli and I, they had been off to another round of shows on the continent. I had not had to face my demons directly; I did not have to see Oli around the flat and I did not have to see Tom either. Tom would know something was wrong with me. He would be able to sense that my balance was off; he was fine tuned to my temperament. The only way he wouldn’t know something was wrong was if I tried very hard to keep it from him. This would take a substantial amount of effort, an amount that I was perfecting as I made my way to meet up with everyone.

Tom had called me asking me to come out with a group of our friends. I was at work and said I’d meet them at the bar for a drink afterwards. This sent me into a flaring panic. I did not know if this meant Oliver would be there. But the possibility shunted me. I collected my nerves considerably on the walk over to the bar. A Jack and Coke was on the night’s game plan; I figured this would sooth my raw worries.

Gracie was the first person I saw when I walked in. She was very loudly talking to a guy in a fitted hat. Her dress dipped low in the front and the guy was staring directly at her chest. It would be prudent to note that while Gracie can be a bit chaotic and careless, under normal circumstances, she was not a slut. She maintained a pattern of monogamous relationships tracing from her Matt N time to the present Chris R time. She was not the sort of be flaunting her goods so recklessly in the middle of a bar full of people. She was generally more tactful in her gallivanting.

“Gracie Lou!,” I took her arm, pulling her from the loser’s sneaking eyes.

“Anna Boo!” She shrieked. “I love yeh Annie. I’m so glad yer finally ‘ere.” She hugged my waist.

“Babygirl, ‘s barely nine… ‘Ow are yeh this hammered o’ready?” We made our way up to the bar.

“I’ve opened a tab.” She grinned.

“Oh, right…” I nodded.

Gracie leaned on the bar, giving the bartender a fabulous cleavage shot. “Can I’ve two shots of J&B, another Stella and…” She looked at me. “Yeh want a Jack and Coke?”

I nodded once more. “I can buy—“

“Bullocks, I’ve it.”

I didn’t turn down free drinks. Ever. That was just poor manners. “Love yeh, Gray,” I said. When the drinks were placed in front of us, Gracie didn’t even wait for me to take the shot. She took the liquid down without hesitation. “Gracie, wha’s goin’ on with yeh?”

She handed me my two glasses. “Chris broke up with me—Oy! Tom!” She called, waving her hand at my best friend, who was crossing the room.

“He broke up with yeh?” I asked, concerned.

She didn’t responded because Tom had joined us.

“O’reight?” He put an arm around my shoulder. This was his sort of silent greeting to me. It washed me with comfort, safety. If only I could have him next to me all the time, then I wouldn’t worry about my crazy neurotic nerves driving me mad.

“’M bloody tired,” I told him.

“Aye,” he nodded. “Me too. ‘Ve spent the last three fuckin’ days babysittin Oliver, the fuckin’ sod.”

My chest seized up. But in an attempt to remain casual, I said “Babysittin’?”

“’E’s over the blinkin’ top. E’s lost it…” Tom gulped his drink. “E’s been too pissed to do anythin’ for ‘imself. For three fuckin’ days,” he reiterated.

Taking deep calm breaths, I said “Partyin’?”

“This ain’t jus’ partyin’,” Tom said. “It’s fuckin’ alcoholism.”

“Wha?”

“Yeh’d think e’d ‘ve grown outta this bullocks. ‘S not funny anymore.”

Struggling still, “Is ‘e ‘ere?”

Tom nodded stiffly. “’E’s in the toilet. ‘E ‘ad a whole bottle o’ wine when we went to dinner.”
“Classy fellow, ‘e is,” Gracie said.

“Then ‘e wanted to come out with Matt and me.”

Gracie let out a long exaggerated grown and swigged her Stella.

Tom continued “’E were o’ready pissed when we got ‘ere an’ e’s been chasing Jameson with Patron for an hour.” Tom was clearly flustered. “I definitely won’t be doin’ this when we’re on the road next month. Three days in one thing…”

“Oh, let him alone,” Gracie chimed in. “Yeh party pooper.”

“Gracie, yeh need to slow down too…” I hummed anxiously.

“No fuckin’ way. No boyfriend, nothin’ holdin’ me down! I don’t give a fuck ‘bout slowin’ down!” She shouted this and received several cheers of approval from around the bar.

“Every’un’s gone mental.” Tom threw up his arms and shook his head, then proceeded to wave at the bartender. “Can I get another one, mate? A double, yeah?” He looked to me and said “Ef every’un else is gonna act irresponsible, I might as well do it too.”

Somehow, all this felt very strange. Like it wasn’t really my life. Everyone’s problems were relentless and real and without solutions. It didn’t feel like the way things had always been. But when I considered it, I realized that things had always been really confusing. Nothing really changed when you grew up.

“Fuckin’ bullocks!” A fourth person joined us at the bar. Nicholls, unlike the rest of us, didn’t have a drink in his hand and he intended to change that. “I need a beer after that adventure.”

“I’ll buy!” Gracie insisted and Matt, like I, wouldn’t refuse that.

“What adventure?” I asked him.

“The fuckin’ twat in the toilets. ‘E’s puked all down the front o’ ‘imself.” Matt stood next to Gracie, shoulders touching.

“Who? Oli?” I continued.

Tom picked up in Matt’s place. “I told yeh. E’s a fuckin’ mess… Gonna ‘ave to call some’un to take the bastard home… Wha a fuckin’ piece o’ work.” Tom groaned and rubbed his forehead. “Unless yeh’ll do it,” Tom said hesitantly. “I hate askin’ but yer the only one sober enough…”

“Umm…”

Gracie immediately hopped at this. “I’ve parked my car out in the lot,” she said, withdrawing a key from her bra. “Put it there so I’d find it in the morning. Yeh jus’ gotta make sure the car and the key are in the same place I put ‘em before when yer done.”

“Well…”

“I can come with yeh,” Tom said. “Dunno ef yeh’ll be able to get ‘im up to the flat yerself anyway.”

I did not like the idea of being alone with Oli, no matter his stage of consciousness. “Sure,” I said. “Let’s get ‘im home.”

“Thank you, Anna. I owe yeh major, love.” He swooped down and kissed my cheek. “Love yeh… Be right back.” He shuffled away to the toilets. I sat my barely touched drink down on the bar.

“Yeh ain’t gonna finish that?” Gracie pointed to the whiskey and cola.

I shook my head. “Guess not. ‘Ave at it.”

“Why’ve yeh got such a sour look on yer face?”

“Wha? I’ve no look.”

“Mmhmm, ef yeh say so, lil’ mama.” She drank my drink and raised her eyebrows. She was a clever drunk. Too clever sometimes. But she kept her thoughts to herself this time. “’Ave fun playin’ DD.”

“Yeah, I will.” Though my mumble went unnoticed as Gracie began yammering to Matt.
I met Tom and his straggling brother at the door, Gracie’s car key in my palm. Oli was leaning on Tom and when he saw me, his seemed sharper “Whasshedoinere?” His slur was ugly and near offensive to me. I knew I’d been rather short with him after his sneak attack kiss but his willful hate hurt. Though I knew he only meant to shake me up with the kiss, I still felt unsettled. As always, the Oli and Anna pieces didn’t fit right. Things didn’t shift into place like they did with so many things in my life.

“She’s drivin’ yer sorry arse home, yeh lousy fucker.”

“’M not goin’ anywhere with ‘er… She’s fuckin’ toxic.” Oli tried to pull away from Tom but only managed to trip over his feet.

“Anna’s toxic?” Tom shook his head then looked to me. “Ignore ‘im. ‘E probably don’t even recognize yeh. I’d be surprised ef ‘e can see at all.”

Oli definitely recognized me and it filled him with some sort of abhorrence, apparently. That seemed very unfair to me. “Can we go?” I asked. “Longer we stand ‘ere, the greater the risk ‘e pukes on one o’ us.”

“O’reight.” Tom agreed, tugging on Oli, who continued sending me venomous looks for the rest of our journey.

--

2005

I was a staple at every Bring Me the Horizon show that summer. Sometimes I rode with Gracie, driving in her tiny falling apart lemon of a car, a Gin Blossoms cassette in the tapedeck. I rode with Ian and Carol for the shows that were closest to home. And on a couple of occasions I rode with the guys in Nicholl’s Mum’s mini, wedged between Oli and a snare drum. It was insanity of my favorite variety.

On one such occasion, Oli and Lee were passing a steel flask back and forth, periodically handing it to me. Whatever was in the flash was a vile substance that burned all the way down my throat. Curtis was squished into a corner, breaking up weed on the head of the bass drum. It was total chaos as we arrived at the venue. Loading in, my responsibility was to take the boxes of t-shirts and lay them out on a table in the corner of the club. Previously, this had been Tom’s job. But he had been very obviously absent from the shows.

After I’d draped the t-shirts on the table, I went outside with Curtis to smoke a cigarette. I’d never been much enthused when it came to nicotine; it made me light-headed and jittery more frequently than not. But there were so many intimidating people walking around that I felt I needed the distraction. I didn’t the small group of friends I’d recently obtained. I was perfectly okay with the guys and Gracie but my anxiousness had not been all put to rest. I still had a long way to go before I deemed myself socially capable.

“So,” Curtis said after I handed him his lighter back. “Yeh’ve not made up with Tom then?”

I shook my head. “No. I’ve not even tried in weeks to talk to ‘im.” I took a sharp drag of the cigarette in my hand and tried not to cough. “’E hates me an’ I don’t even know why.”

Curtis just shrugged. Though Tom was a common discussion topic, no one ever really had any solutions to the problem. And no one but me would bring up the subject with Oli. He was ultra-irritable over it most times. I wondered what it was like at home for them. Did they argue? Were they civil?

“Wha’ the fuck are yeh doin’, girl?” Oli came up to where Curtis and I stood. “Give me tha’.” He swiped the ciggie from my fingers. “Shouldn’ be smokin’.”

I rolled my eyes as Oli dragged my cigarette. He looked much cooler than I did doing it anyway. With the cigarette in his hand, he was like a death metal James Dean and I was trying my hardest to be the beautiful Natalie Wood. Or something.

Curtis shuffled off before we did. He left us standing in plain sight of the door line. Without even a twitch, Oli slid an arm around my waist and kissed the side of my head. It was the sort of PDA behavior that would confuse onlookers. It was too sweet to be casual and too innocent to be sexual.

“Doors are opening,” I said. “I’ve gotta go sit at the table.”

He tossed the cigarette butt to the ground and put another arm around me. “Just stay for a minute.”

“Do yeh want me to make yeh money or not?” I asked.

“’S a tough choice: money or more Sav time…”

“I’d pick money any day.” I kissed his cheek and wiggled out of his grasp. I didn’t like that so many people could see us. I knew he had absolutely no inhibitions about anything. He would have probably taken the chance to do much less innocent things to me if he’d been given it. He didn’t care what people saw him do. But half the time, that’s all I thought about when I was in a large group situation.

Sitting at the merch table afforded me the opportunity to watch everything and everyone without having to stand around looking like a wanker. And most of the kids in the venue looked this way, with their girl pants and super processed hair. It was far from the way I looked, with my tangled rusty curls and loose hanging thrift shop dress. Gracie had coaxed me into buying several such frocks when we’d gone shopping together. She had dubbed me, very gently, a little plain. And just like a real friend, she’d offered me words of advice. Advice I tried my best to follow. Though following it caused me to stand out a little, just as Gracie did, among a sea of bleach blonde skunk chunk hair and Chuck Taylor’s. It wasn’t any sort of superiority I felt, just like maybe I was not meant to be playing this part. Sitting at the table, in my quirky dress, handing out black t-shirts, I felt like some cliché. Like a typical band girl. At every show, I saw them. Hanging off their respective drummer or guitarist or whatever. They stood out and flocked together, looking like a TopShop ad.

A group of such girls spotted me as I sat at the table. I’d seen one of them with another band’s guitarist earlier in the evening. The others had only been batting their eyelashes at the boys of every band on the bill. They were slowly inching towards my table, tossing glances in my direction. It made me nervous and I wished that Gracie would hurry up and arrive. She was intimidating and would be able to scare them off. But without her, I was vulnerable to their attack.

One of them, a brunette with obvious extensions, looked over the t-shirts in front of me. “O’reight?” She flicked her eyes up.

“Yeah, good, thanks…” I nodded, eyes darting to the stage where the band before Oli’s was breaking down their equipment.

She lingered. I knew she wanted to speak to me but was hesitant. I was not entirely sure why she wanted to talk to me or why she would be hesitant about it. Being the least obtrusive person on the planet, I was not one that people were often afraid to talk to. “This must be a borin’ job,” she said. “Sittin’ ‘ere all night.”

“’S o’reight,” I responded. “Rather be ‘ere than on the floor, riskin’ getting’ my head kicked by a dancer.”

She laughed. “Suppose that’s fair… D’yeh work at all their shows?” She asked.

“Jus’ lately, I ‘ave.”

“Oh yeah? I think I saw yeh at a show up in Sheff. ‘S where them lot are from, yeah?”

“Right. Sheffield.”

“They’re right good. Bring Me the Horizon… Bloody good.”

“Aye, they’re brilliant.”

“’S funny the brutal noises the skinny bloke makes. ‘E’s called Oli, isn’ ‘e?”

“Yeah, Oli.”

“’E’s right fit. Yer ‘is girlfriend, aren’t yeh?”

I smiled stiffly. “Oli’s not really the girlfriend sort.”

“No? I jus’ thought… Anyway, yer lucky either way. E’s proper cute.”

I was confused. “Why’d yeh think I were ‘is g’friend?”

She smiled warmly. “We jus’ saw yeh with ‘im earlier… Me and Becca and Jessica,” she pointed to her friends. “Yeh was outside with ‘im.”

“Oh.”

She seemed amused by me. “I’m Gwen, by the way.”

“I’m Anna.” I still introduce myself as such. Savanna was a secret sort of thing. One that I only shared with one person.

“Anna, cool… Will yeh be goin’ to the party later? It’s at my brother’s flat; ‘e’s in the band that was jus’ on.”

“Oh. Party?”

“Yeah. ‘E’s invited every’un ‘ere I think. An’ ef ‘e ‘asn’t, well, I’m invitin’ yeh now.”

“Oh, cool, thanks.”

“Do yeh lot party? Oli and them?”

I laughed sharply. “Party is Oli’s middle name.”

“Fantastic…” She was nice enough but there was still something about this Gwen that I didn’t like. She made me uncomfortable. Maybe it was the fact that she wouldn’t have even given me a second glance if she hadn’t seen me canoodling with Oli. If she saw me sans the boisterous band-boy friends, she’d glance the other direction. It was this lifestyle that made me noticeable. Before I spent all my time with Oli and company, I was invisible and boring. Unremarkable. I hadn’t wanted to be so invisible. I wanted excitement and adventure and bright blue skies instead of overcast days.

I’d gotten what I wanted. I’d wanted a different life. And suddenly, I had it. This was it. This was my life and it still wasn’t exactly right.

“Anna Lucy!” Gracie was stomping towards me, drink in hand. “Christ,” she sighed. “I o’most didn’t make it. My friend Chrissy gave me some Xanax this morning work and I was too fucked up to stay so I left, took some more and started drinking and I totally couldn’ drive so I came with Liam and Christ, I’m drunk—“ She took note of the girls standing near me. “Who the fuck is this?”

Gwen looked legitimately frightened by Gracie and she took a step back. Gwen’s two friends, Jessica and Becca, were looking equally anxious behind her.

“They’ve invited us to a party later…” I said.

“Party? Tonight?” Gracie mused. “Don’t yeh gotta be home, Annie?”

“I’ve no idea. Mum’s all but given up on giving me instructions.”

“I would too,” Gracie said, slipping sideways so that she stood between me and the girls. “Yer a regular fuckin’ delinquent, love. The trick yeh pulled with the police is totally classic.”

“I told you not to talk about that,” I blushed with embarrassment.

“’Ow can I not talk about it? ‘S bloody epic. Lil’ Anna Harvey gets picked up by the filth and somehow manages to not get into any trouble. Not even Oli the Great could ‘ave pulled that off.”

“Lucky ‘e didn’t get picked up. They’d’ve locked ‘im up for sure.” I still had a protective streak when it came to him.

“But they didn’t. Alls well, baby,” Gracie fluttered around in a circle and made me laugh. She then leaned over the table and whispered “We gotta lose the skanks, Anna. They’re no good.”

“I were jus’ tryin’ to be nice,” I said in an equally low tone.

“Well don’t be,” she instructed soundly. “Users, they are. Hanging around these shows like they own the fuckin’ place. Girls like that will chew yeh up and spit yeh out.” She spoke with the wisdom and authority of an old hat in the game. She had these girls pegged. I imagine she had herself pegged too.

“What about girls like us?” The question seemed like an important one. But one I knew I wouldn’t find an answer to.