Long Road to Ruin

Mike seemed reluctant to leave without a promise that I would tell my wife about my infidelity, but he knew as well as I did that there would be a lot of unhappy Green Day fans if we missed our flight. The concert wasn’t due to start until 7 p.m., but any delay would put us severely behind. I walked briskly out of the coffee shop and down the busy sidewalk, passing many business suit-clad citizens, caught up in the morning rush. Mike lagged behind me, struggling to keep up with my determinedly fast pace.

It was no short walk to the hotel. My breath caught in my lungs as I finally spotted it from a block away. I was the kind of person to enjoy a walk through the city, but Chicago had been ruined for me. It was now a charred spot in my memory, and I was more than ready to leave, to move on. I had always been somewhat of a drifter anyway, never burdening a town I visited with my presence for too long.

Once inside the hotel, I headed straight for the elevator that was located just around the expensively decorated and wallpapered corner. The door slid shut, and Mike and I were the only passengers. He didn’t say a word to me, and I gratefully accepted the silence. The digital red dot above the door moved from one to two, then finally to three. A buzzer indicated that we had reached our floor. I stepped out and walked in the direction of the hotel room door, which was ajar.

The tension in room 219 was so thick that you could almost feel it, feel the judgment of my peers in the air. I could hear some hushed conversation being exchanged between my band mates, but it quickly stopped when they noticed me slip into the room. I glanced at Tré, who was sitting on the velour striped couch, and he met my gaze for only a moment before returning it to the floor. Neither of the Jasons even looked up. They had obviously been filled in on the current situation. You would have thought they had stumbled upon a murder scene, not the site of the downfall of a man who had lost his way in life.

I had the feeling that the guilt would be easier to bear if I had killed a man.

“Good morning,” I mumbled as I slouched toward the bathroom.

“Morning,” was Jason Freese’s attempt at a normal reply.

Once I was in the bathroom I closed the door and looked in the mirror. I looked like hell, to put it mildly. I couldn’t say that I blamed Tré for looking at me like I was some kind of animal. Certainly he wasn’t hallucinating. There were heavy, dark bags under my currently dull, usually bottle-green eyes. The thick layer of eyeliner that had become my trademark had been smudged and smeared, leaving several faded black streaks below my eyes. To say I had 5 o’ clock shadow would be an understatement. All in all, I looked like a train wreck, and I didn’t feel much better.

Cold water, splashed numerous times on my face removed both the traces of eyeliner and the grime accumulated from a concert and a hard night. Shaving would have to wait, because it was nearly time to depart for the airport. Looking one final time at the wrinkled face of an aging man who almost looked like a stranger to me, I went back to join my friends in the main room.

“Not much for talk this morning, huh?” I remarked upon entering.

“Well, what did you expect? A welcome back party?” Tré said.

“No, “I said stiffly, “but what I did expect was for all of you to realize that we aren’t kids anymore. I’m a grown man and I can take care of my own problems. It’s none of your concern.”

“But,” Mike interjected, but I stopped him.

“But nothing,” I hissed, my patience waning, “My problem, my concern. End of story.”

From then on, they made an effort to not mention anything about the ordeal. Mike would attempt to confront me several more times, as is his nature, but it would be to no avail.

We carried our luggage down to the lobby and loaded everything into the waiting taxi. The driver made sure that we got through traffic fast enough to reach the airport on time, and after several agonizing minutes of waiting in the overly crowded terminal, we boarded our plane.

The strange sensation that leaving the earth brings came into affect as the plane made its ascent into the pearlescent blue sky above. I loved flying, always had. Lifting off gave me an adrenaline rush; however, I was feeling rather nauseated this time. I gazed out the small, rounded window at the skyscrapers, Sears Tower, and Navy Pier Ferris wheel until they became so small that what I was now looking at appeared to be a child’s toy city. Chicago faded into the rest of the landscape, and I drifted off into a daydream.

I hadn’t noticed that my phone, which I had forgotten to set to airplane mode, had received a text message.