Believers Never Die Pt. 1

Touring was an interesting experience. Never had I ever expected people to be so crazy about me. It didn't make sense to me. My mother hadn't wanted anything to do with me before, so I couldn't fathom why anybody who didn't even know me would pay money to see me sing. I liked seeing people. I liked meeting them. I found that a lot people who saw my shows were kids my age or women older than my mom. I remember how much my parents stressed that I had to impress all my fans. My mother told me that my image is everything. She said that I always had to be polite, that I should only speak when spoken to, that I should respect my elders, and that I should always be obedient. Nobody liked an unruly child.

So I did my best to be the perfect child for my mother. She expected a miniature adult. Perhaps that explains why I grew up so fast. Well, I tried to at least. I pushed myself at rehearsal. It took awhile to get used to the strenuous routine. My father, who was nice most of the time, turned into a completely different person when I was on the stage. I liked it better when Charlie directed rehearsals, even if it only happened a few times. If I made the tiniest mistake, my father went into fits of yelling and anger. Even if somebody else messed up, he did the same thing. I remember the third day into rehearsals, he went off on tangent, and I burst into tears. My father walked up to edge of the stage. He picked up me up and held me at eye level. "Leave your problems backstage," he told me, and he left it at that.

My life became smoke and mirrors. I applied what my father said to me in everyday life. I wasn't happy, but it appeased my mother, and it made my performances better. I did everything I could to hide myself. I wore a mask around mostly everyone. I didn't want anybody to see what I was underneath. It wasn't good enough.

People loved me though. They didn't even know who I was, but they loved me. I grew addicted to the feeling. I wanted to talk to my fans every chance I got. This explained a particular moment in Chicago. We had to drive through Northbrook in order to get to the venue. It was a little out of the way, but the bus driver said it was the easiest route. To the pass the time, Evan and I were playing Uno. My newly hired bodyguard, Von, was sitting across from us, watching a DVD.

"UNO!" I shouted.

Evan frowned. "Max, you can't do that."

"Yes, I can."

"You can't put a green four on a red five."

"FINE," I shouted and threw my cards on the table. "I don't like this game."

"Only because you suck at it," Evan teased, grinning at me.

"No, I don't. It's just a stupid game." I crossed my arms and looked away, out the window. Up ahead, I caught sight of a rather large crowd of people gathered outside of a home. They were on the lawn, holding signs and... singing my songs? I reached over the small table and tugged on Evan's sleeve. "Look! Look, Evan!"

His eyes grew wide as he spotted the crowd in the distance. "Whoa! Max, that's a lot of people."

"I know." I let go of Evan's sleeve and rushed to the back of the bus to find my dad. When I saw him sleeping in his bunk, I nudged him. "Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Wake up, Dad. Daaaaaad. Dad. Dad. Dad."

He groaned slightly and shifted. "What, Max?"

"I wanna get off the bus and say hi."

He nodded and dragged himself out of the bunk. "Alright, alright..." Rubbing his head, my father stood up, grabbing the wall for support. "Stop the bus where the people are, Dave," he commanded, still groggy. "Von, can you take him outside?"

Von nodded and followed me as I darted toward the doors. Why were these people out here? Was it for me? I wanted to know. I was practically jumping up and down behind the bus doors, waiting for them to open. When they did, I heard everything go quiet. I hopped off the last step and looked around. There were quite a few people out there. There was a very pungent smell of clam chowder, which at first distracted me. Then, I noticed the woman with dark brown hair standing closest to me. Her face was fixed in shock. There were four boys on the steps of the house who looked like they couldn't have cared less. One was on crutches, so that explained his misery. One had long black hair, cut in a swoop over his forehead. One was sitting on the steps, kicking the one on crutches repeatedly.

"Stop it, Hayden!" I heard him quietly retort. The boy, "Hayden," just laughed. The boy behind them had shaggy, scruffy brown hair and was walking around like what I thought was supposed to be a dinosaur.

The boy on crutches looked at me. Stared at me, actually. He wasn't fascinated like everyone else. He just looked at me like I wasn't real, like he didn't think I actually existed and that there was no way I was standing in front of him. I just grinned before looking at everyone again and waving. "Hi everybody! My name is Max! What's yours?"

Unfortunately, these weren't the nice people I was used to. One of them shouted, "HELENA! IT'S REALLY HIM!"

The woman named Helena squealed. "IT'S MAX J!" Then I saw her eyes flutter closed as she just dropped to the ground. My eyes widened as they all started rushing toward me. Just in time, Von scooped me up and threw me back on the bus.

The doors closed behind us as he yelled for the driver to get out of here. I scurried back to my seat across from Evander, breathing heavily, still in shock. He looked out the back window. "Oh Mein Gott," he said, absolutely bewildered. "They're following us, Max."

I looked out the window and saw that he was right. They were chasing the bus. I sunk into my seat and tried to catch my breath. I was never allowed off the bus in Chicago again.

That wasn't the only interesting thing that happened while I was on tour. I remember going to Reno and watching my father laugh so hard he choked on a chicken bone at a diner. My mother took Evan and I shopping. Evan and I ate Baked Alaska in Yellowstone on our birthday.

Touring became synonymous with fun to me. I wasn't aware that the happiness my family was experiencing was only temporary and that things would crumble to the point where my father tried to take my brother and I to Laguna Beach with him. He never did it, but I always wondered how my life would have turned out if he had.

I wondered if I would still end up as fucked up as I am right now.