Two Hundred and Thirty

Everyone was acting like he was dead; he’d only been missing for three days.

Jared had become a regular visitor round at my place, occasionally accompanied by one of the other guys. When they weren’t out looking for him in their cars, they were round at my place asking me if I’d seen any sign of life over at his apartment. Initially, I understood that they were concerned of his whereabouts considering the bust up between Jared and John, clearly wanting to resolve it as soon as possible. But then it became clear to me that it ran deeper than that, they needed to find him, the franticness of their eyes when they’d rush through my door, the tiredness that would spring upon them when I revealed that I hadn’t seen or heard anything from him; they were sick with worry.
As much as I would have loved to have empathised with them, I just couldn’t. In my mind, John was partying somewhere in California or getting laid in Vegas, not lying in a ditch somewhere with his face in the dirt.

I couldn’t have imagined it, but then, what was I to know… his friends knew him better than I did.
Shrugging my hoodie around my shoulders, I headed towards the door in response to Jared’s usual four beat knock.

“Morning,” I greeted.

“Hey,” I closed the door behind him, he carried a laptop case with him today, “How are you?”

He asked me how I was every day, almost softening the blow of the real question he wanted to ask. He didn’t really care how I was.

“I’m good, yourself?”

He nodded with a sincere smile hinting through his thick facial hair.

“I’m guessing there’s no luck?” I shook my head at his words, preoccupying myself by pressing down the curled corners of the sticky note he’d left me on the side.

“He’ll be fine though, I’m sure there’s no need to worry.” I smiled, hiding that I really thought everyone was overreacting.

It was as if Jared was numb, nothing. Not even a flicker of response. He just sat down at the kitchen table, laying out his laptop case before him. I eyed it intently, much like John’s rucksack, words scrawled across it and random logos had been stitched roughly into the battered material.

“I’ve got something to show you,” He said, unzipping the case and lifting the lid of his laptop.

I felt uncomfortable, on edge. There was a chill in the air, like he was about to show me something worthy of a horror movie.

Almost.

The chair scrapped across the floor as I dragged it from the table. I watched his fingers rapidly hit all the right characters whilst his eyes scanned the screen.

“I figured that you didn’t know, because if you did, I think you wouldn’t think we were all crazy for worrying so much.” He chuckled, although nothing he said was particularly funny.

A tinge of guilt rang through my gut, watching him type countless passwords in to access the file he was about to show me. It was a video.

“It took outrageous amounts of money and time to get this removed off the internet.” Was all he said before he double clicked and pressed play;

A darkness, an overwhelming noise of voices saying nothing I could hear but still speaking none the less. The camera jerked from side to side with the movement of the bodies and occasional bright white flashes from cameras attacked the scene. This was a show. But although obviously familiar to me, it was menacing to not actually be the one behind the camera but the one viewing it sat at their kitchen table. The droning noise turned into cries of elation as the band filed out onto the stage.

My toes curled and I shot my head to Jared who sat beside me with his huge hands cradling his face. He didn’t say anything, he barely even looked at me as he was the first one to trot onto the stage on the screen infront of us. It felt like my skull was shaking. Garrett followed him, then Pat and Kennedy, then, the continuous cheer of the crowd erupted further as John took his place behind the microphone at centre stage, staring at his feet the whole time like he was scared that he’d trip.

They began to play and the camera jolted and lunged in every direction, making it frustrating to watch. After four, maybe five songs, people around began muttering to themselves, again, their words inaudible and chilling. Launching into the next song, the intro was gentle and delicate and I could sense the collapsing rib cages in the crowd. But it lasted too long and the muttering increased to a full blown conversation, all the while, John standing there with his hands clasped around the microphone and his head hung over his arm like the only reason he wasn’t on the ground was because of that microphone stand.

The camera jerked once more as the lens zoomed in towards John, the strands of his hair mangled in all directions as opposed to his drooped head. Finally, with a far from subtle rise and fall of his shoulders, he raised his head. My hand, like a magnet reached my mouth like it was on a spring. One side of his mouth curled up into what was supposed to be a smile, but his eyes did not flinch from their look of utter helplessness. The crowd that was once full of life and seemingly too loud to be silenced, had done exactly that… it was like they’d sunk into the ground and disappeared, something that, it seemed, John wouldn’t have minded.

His lips were pale and cracked and the darkness under his eyes implied that he hadn’t slept the night before. He didn’t blink, not once as his heavy eyes scanned the endless faces before him, looking for something, looking for anything. Then they closed and with a drawn out, mint filled breath, he opened them again, revealing a coat of moisture that wasn’t there before. “I’m sorry,” His voice cracked, the microphone twanging at the alien concept that was noise. He took a deep breath that looked painful and spoke again, his voice sounding nothing like his own, “I can’t do this anymore.”

The motive of the crowds vocals were this time made very clear to me as someone to the left of the camera let out an almighty cry like she’d just been informed of some horrendous news that mirrored a terminal illness. Gasps flooded over the space, followed by deep, unbreakable sobs. And with one final glace, John looked at each of his band mates before taking himself off stage with his right hand dragging down the side of his face.

Only when the screen flashed to a white screen with multiple files dotted across it did I realise that my teeth were sunk into my thumb. I drew it away from my mouth, rubbing the neat indents with my other hand before letting it fall down to my side where Jared wouldn’t see.

“He went missing for three months after that,” Jared said after clearing his throat, I was still staring at the screen with nameless files all over it. “when he came back, he didn’t tell us where he’d gone or even why he did what he did, just that he couldn’t be in the band anymore and that he was sorry.”

I didn’t speak, I couldn’t.

“It took a long while to come to terms with it… we had to give the fans an explanation, an explanation that we couldn’t give. Pat was the worst, he’d brought the band up from hopeless jams in his bedroom to playing shows all over the world… he couldn’t accept that it was over now, he still hasn’t accepted it. John’s changed though, he never used to be an asshole, he never used to be so… loose. So even if there was still hope, it’s all on his shoulders and-“

“He still sings you know,” I butted in.

Jared looked me in the eye for the first time in 20 minutes, “What?”

“I hear him all the time. I’ve heard him ever since I moved in, I’d crack open the windows so I could. He told me not to tell you but I don’t think that’s a fair request considering he hasn’t told me a lot of things.” Jared smiled, wrinkles forming at the corners of his eyes.

“That’s good to hear. But um, yeah, do you get it now? Why we’re so fucking worried about that little asshole?” I’d never heard such words be used in such a weak, exhausted way, but I nodded.
Jared talked me through how the band developed, the albums they wrote and the places they’d been.
And it all made sense to me, the rucksacks, the poster stains in his bedroom, the secrecy, the CD we’d listened to in his truck. He liked me because I didn’t know and now that I did, would he have a reason to speak to me?

Jared left soon after, saying goodbye with a hug rather than just a smile. And to stop myself from crying, I headed into my spare room and made some touches to some of my paintings. But the brush wilted between my fingers and the paint dribbled down the canvas, I couldn’t get it right. It was like I’d lost the touch.

So instead, I stared at the wall, knowing that I had to get my act together before Marcus came round probably armed with yet another bunch of flowers. My eyes locked onto the air vent just above the door frame and soon, the metal bars seemed to twist and flash in my vision, making no sense at all. I thought my eyes may fall out of my head through the strain until thankfully, the sound of my phone jumping around on the kitchen work top brought me to my feet. I hadn’t even noticed that I’d made the effort to sit on the floor, but regardless, I headed into the kitchen expecting a sweet yet sickly message from Marcus.

No. Of course not.

I need you to come and meet me. John.