A Comparison to Kurt Cobain

Misha doesn’t even sleep that night at all, and when the front desk of the hotel calls he’s shocked to find that it’s morning. Hell, he doesn’t even know what city he’s in anymore. His suitcase is sitting on the dresser, unzipped and messy. His book is laying on the bed, facedown and covered in pen, doodles and notes, particular words or phrases underlined. It’s Alan Watts—again—recommended to him by Emerson. They’re pleasant to read, and his friend had been absolutely right; perfect for night. His guitar case is propped up in the corner, though he hasn’t played for a couple of days. Not that it’ll set him back any since he doesn’t think he even performs until a radio show next week.

He starts to pack up his bags, mind just as preoccupied as it’s been for the past few days. Promotional touring is a lot of alone time, as the rest of his band isn’t there. They all go if it’s leading up to a new album or a big tour, but this is how Misha’s spending their “off” time right now. The more idly he sits, the more engrossed he becomes in his thoughts. Reach gets worried when he doesn’t leave the house for a month at a time, even when Misha assures him that there’s nothing to be concerned about. This is fine too, though. He wouldn’t mind just being at home to rest, but he’ll get to eventually.

It’s more of a contemplative time than creative, though there are definitely products. Notebooks, mostly, filled and overstuffed, words and drawings spilling over the margins. His mind is hyperactive and it’s like his thoughts are all fleeting and on fire. If he doesn’t get them down right now, they’ll slip and he’ll lose them forever. Not only does it prevent him from sleeping, but he can’t even rest for fear of letting something go.

Misha’s not even done packing by the time his manager knocks on the door. He sighs and calls her in. She knows she can just come in. She’s got a key, and he’s told her it’s okay. He doesn’t mind. But something about privacy and boundaries and professionalism, she’d said. Misha doesn’t quite mind that either, of course.

She types out something angrily into her phone and her hair seems a little too tight to be comfortable, but when she’s done she looks up and meets Misha’s eyes so that he can’t help but think of how lovely she is. She’s a little wild, like a tornado with a manicure, but her job is absolute chaos. Whenever something—or someone—has her attention though, they have it fully. She meets Misha’s eyes, hers a sharp and clear brown, and she asks him if he’s ready. He motions to his half-packed suitcase but she waves it away. Someone else will come to get it for him.

“You’re going to be late,” she chides.

He sighs, not liking the idea. Someone else shouldn’t have to pack up his things, not when he’s perfectly able, but she’s right. He is going to be late, and that’s just as bad. That’s…is that worse? Because if he’s late to his interview, the kids waiting outside will know and think he doesn’t care.

Reluctantly, he nods and follows her from the room and to a waiting car. They’re staying in a nondescript little hotel. It’s decent enough to be clean but too small for anyone to really be looking for him in a place like it. It’s an unusual place to see a public figure. Not a place you’d expect to find Misha Kayne, so most people miss him altogether. They’re too busy going wherever they’ve predetermined to go, like programmable robots. It makes him sad, and if he had more time he’d stop and talk to some of them. Someone finally stops them outside and Misha has an excuse to tell someone she’s beautiful and give her a hug. She starts to cry and apologize, and then Christa starts to usher him into the car and they’re gone.

There’s a shake waiting in the car for him. It’s firmly pressed into his hands and Misha sighs in contempt for the liquid. Shakes are his least favorite. Pills are better, always better. Shakes are heavy in his stomach, they make him feel stretched and his skin tight. He drinks it anyway, even when he realizes it’s strawberry. The strawberry shakes smell the strongest. He looks out the window for distraction only to find police tape followed by a homeless man and then his face on a billboard. It doesn’t quite help to settle his stomach. He drinks most of it, really almost the whole thing, before setting it back down and taking a deep breath.

The drive hardly takes half an hour, and there’s a small crowd of people waiting outside the building. Misha waves, but they drive around to a back entrance and he doesn’t actually get to talk to any of them. It’s such a roundabout thing to him. If they just let him go out there all day on his days off, get to know the fans and answer their questions himself, then he wouldn’t even need to do interviews. They could just carry around a camera there and post it on the internet. The questions would be more original.

He has a nice conversation with the young man that does his makeup inside, but then he leaves. Someone comes and talks to him about what questions are “off the table.” People usually don’t ask him that though, so it throws him for a loop. Glancing around tells him that Christa’s not in the room, so he just asks if they’d been sent a list.

“Of course, of course,” chirps a little canary-girl with a clipboard and high heels. “We just like to double check is all.”

Misha nods and gives her what he hopes to be an assuring smile when he tells her that the list is all he won’t talk about. He doesn’t reiterate what’s on the list. That’s why there’s a list, so he doesn’t have to think about those things. Shuddering, he turns back and catches his own reflection in the mirror. Shadows have been added to just the right places to make him look a little rounder, and a healthy glow to everything else.

His hands itch and grasp at nothing. He wants his guitar…he wants Reach. He really just wants to go home. He needs a distraction or a place to be alone with his thoughts completely, but Christa’s firm grip lets his arm loose and he’s walking into the view of the camera that’s already rolling. He smiles instead and walks to his seat, shaking the woman’s hand.

It’s clear right away that she’s not a fan of 20 to Midnight, or at least not avidly. He’s heard many of the questions before and goes into a state like autopilot. He makes sure to vary his wording and give different examples and anecdotes, but it’s basically the same as every other interview.

“What?” he asks, blinking away his daze. Surely he hadn’t heard her right…

“Do you often hear yourself being compared to the late Kurt Cobain?” she repeats, the exact same as Misha heard the first time. His eyebrows crease and her gaze remains professional.

“Never…Kurt Cobain was a unique and complete individual. I’ve never thought—nor have I ever heard a fan compare me to him.”

“You’re both such influential people,” she insists, “and neither of you really asked for the fame or the image you became.” Misha opens his mouth to speak, but she doesn’t give him the time. “I’m sure fans are concerned that it’s affected you in some of the same ways. Do you think it has?” She stops to breathe then and leans forward to catch his answer.

Misha blinks again and swallows, very pointedly keeping his eyes away from the camera. His brain stalls for a moment. The silence seems to stretch on forever, but the second he realizes that duh, they can edit all of that out, he composes himself and the words come more easily.

“It was a different era,” he begins. “My fans never have to worry about my mental health because I would never—I would never—leave them. The spotlight is a difficult place to be, but all of those faces in the crowd are people with their own insecurities and strengths. And I’ve got my bandmates to help me through no matter how hard it gets.”

Something like an approving smile graces the woman’s lips and she moves on to her next question, back to the generic lineup. He makes it through the rest of the questions, sweating off his makeup and trying to hide the shake developing in his hands. Towards the end he picks up the glass of water provided to him and draws paths for the condensation to follow. The singular task and lone stimulus replaces his feeling of overwhelm and the million different ways his mind is pulling him.

Somehow he ends up in a back dressing room area where he got his makeup done, though he doesn’t remember moving from his overstuffed chair. Christa’s pacing and his eyes feel dry and he’s shaking worse than he was during the interview. He has to lift his pelvis off the couch to maneuver his phone out of his skinny jeans, but he finally does and calls the only number he ever dials.

With every ring his anxiety roots itself deeper into his chest, makes it ache a little more. Reach is busy this week, Misha knows. Something with a charity his cousin is a part of, but surely he’d still answer his phone? Misha doesn’t normally call; he hates phones.

After ten rings the call goes to voicemail and Misha hangs up miserably.

“He didn’t answer,” he mutters to himself dejectedly. Christa pauses whatever she’s doing to crouch in front of him worriedly. He doesn’t try to elaborate though, so she just glances down at his phone screen and sighs.

“Sugar,” she says fondly, “you were trying to call Reach…” She bites her lip. “It’s about four AM for him, you know.”

“Oh.” He swallows his own voice, the words I want to go home before they can escape his mouth, forcing them down like the shake he drank on the way here.

They leave soon after and the only time Misha speaks again is to ask Christa to add “Kurt Cobain” to the list. They drive longer and longer and Misha’s sure they’re on the wrong rode. Every time the digital clock on the dashboard changes, his heart picks up just a little more. It hits a paramount as they pull into an airport. The explanation he’s given for his anxious look is a talk show tomorrow morning. The plane will take five hours, and he’ll have just enough time to settle into their hotel before leaving in the morning. Misha sighs and curls in on himself in his seat right before they’re deposited at the lobby doors.

It’s not that he’s claustrophobic really or unused to airplanes (what a thought). What if Reach calls him back though and he doesn’t answer? And his guitar is probably already in whatever state they’re heading to next. There’s really no way for him to get out of this though. It’s the trapped feeling that gets to him, makes him feel powerless and like little more than a puppet. He takes a deep breath out on the pavement before popping his headphones in and goes through the motions of the airport, only taking them out to go through security.

During the wait in their terminal, he cranks the volume, slips his hood up, and gets out his phone. Twitter’s already exploded, indicating that the interview must be up already—they worked fast; he wonders if they even edited out his awkward pause. There are mentions of himself and Kurt Cobain in each of them, some saying that Misha couldn’t ever even compare to the great Cobain, 20 to Midnight isn’t even in the same league as Nirvana, and Misha agrees with this. Hell, they were infants or not even born at the time, but their sound has still been affected by the band. Others though, others side with him. The fanatics. They scream, caps lock on, and claim that if Misha ever left them like that they’d simply die right then and there. They claim that he’d never do it though, and beg for confirmation. With a twisted stomach and shaking fingers he taps out a single tweet:

I have never before seen correlation between the great/late Kurt Cobain & myself nor between 20tm & Nirvana. I aspire to his legend.

Just as quickly, he leaves that to brew a shitstorm before the inevitable fallout he’ll have to clean up too. He logs in to his private account then as they start to board the plane. He exchanges direct messages with Aaron until takeoff and his required power down, but is better off after the conversation. The kid, though in Europe, is awake for some reason, and perpetually and contagiously calm. Misha doesn’t quite get to sleep on the ride, but Christa’s seated next to him and doesn’t mind when he opens the shade to watch the scenery down below surrounding them. Halfway through he even finds himself wishing he’d had the mind to grab his Alan Watts book as carry on (not that he knew about the plane at all, but still).

They land on the East Coast sometime around dark and he powers on his phone almost deliriously. He still hasn’t slept, but plane landings make him feel like he’s just waking up. Two missed calls from Reach. Misha waits patiently, through the baggage claim. He waits through the crying fans that tell him about Kurt Cobain and suicide through bloodshot eyes and a hiccup-catching voices. He waits through the car ride with Christa and even takes the pills she sets in his hands. He waits, extremely patient, until they get to the hotel and he’s alone in his room before locking himself in the bathroom and returning the call.

“Mish?” the voice on the other end confirms.

“Reach,” he breathes out in relief.

“Hey…” Reach coos. “Hey, Misha, is everything okay?”

At that moment everything that’s definitely not okay comes rushing to the forefront of his mind, but he pushes them back and responds simply. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too. Where are you tonight?”

“Northeast?” Misha guesses. “I don’t…I’m tired.” His voice breaks on the last word, giving the perfect emphasis for what he’s feeling. Even if what he’s feeling and what he wants to convey aren’t exactly the same.

“Yeah…you need to turn off your phone tonight okay? And put the books down, get some actual rest, alright? I swear to God Christa’s not going to let you sleep in.”

Misha pulls the phone away from his face to sniffle. He hadn’t meant sleepy, which he is too, but he’s always sleepy. He meant tired. He’s tired. Exhausted with this.

“Okay…” he mutters, eyes stinging. There’s a beat of silence on the other end of the line and he almost starts crying thinking that Reach has hung up on him.

“Misha, look, you can come home whenever. You know that? The promo was just to keep your hands busy, but if you’re tired…”

“You’re not even home,” he objects. It’s the exact opposite of what his brain is screaming at him. Go home, go home! You’re not going to last another day if you keep this up. Go home! “I’ll feel useless just sitting around. At least this is something, right?”

“Rest is something too. You have to take care of yourself.”

“I try,” he whispers.

“I know,” Reach promises. “I know you do, and I’m proud of you.”

“I’m just tired,” he says again.

“What happened today? Everyone online is going nuts.”

Misha swallows past the lump in his throat and runs his fingers through his hair.

“Do people really think I’m like Kurt Cobain?”

“I’ve heard the comparison a couple times before. Amazing voices, both of you.”

Misha’s eyes slide shut. “I didn’t know.”

“But there’s a major difference too.”

“Hmm,” he hums back, too distracted to really form words.

“You’re alive. He’s not.”

“Reach…”

“It’s true,” he persists, picking up the pace when he realizes Misha’s actually listening. “He’s dead and encased in the fame that he had at the moment of his death. He’s like….the superhero of rock and roll. The martyr of the punk kids, or something. You’re not. You, Misha Kayne, are a living, breathing person, requiring nutrients and rest and love. You’re alive and he’s not, and the comparison doesn’t need to go any further than that.”

The lump in his throat overtakes him, tears falling from his eyes. “Thanks.”

I want to go home, please come get me, I want to rest I’m so tired all die on his lips and evaporate into the air vents as soon as the phone call has ended.

He runs too-hot water over his hands, melting the muscle under his skin until the shaking’s gone and his tears scared away. Then he enters his actual hotel room to find his suitcase and guitar. He takes it out and whispers something about going home and resting and Reaching. Instead of any of those things, he lays across the bed, shoes still on and everything so he doesn’t have to worry about it later when Christa comes knocking. The body of the guitar lays atop his hips and he plays a silent song to dead electricity as he drifts off finally, thoughts of greasy hair and lyrical pain.

Misha wishes he’d die right about now. He can’t uphold his image much longer and if he happens to grow any more he’ll destroy himself for sure. He wants to be dead, encased in musical lore and free. He wants rest, maybe some peace.

He promised the crying fans, though, he’d stay alive.

So he will.