Beyond Paradise

Billie's cracked, stinging lips parted a fraction of an inch, his body resisting the effort to draw in a breath as if it knew the fatal consequences, and his fingers curled involuntarily into the safety of his palms. In a split second's time, he thought how ironic it was that he would die as he had lived, fists balled up and fighting against the demons of his own personal hell.

And then, as suddenly as he had been snatched up, he was falling, tumbling through fresh, cool night air, and he gasped as he sucked in lungfuls of the precious oxygen, barely caring when his body slammed hard into the flat surface of the stage. He lay stunned for several seconds, his scorched throat croaking as one breath after another whistled in and out, and finally the dark veil that blurred his vision began to clear.

Stroud stood above him, and behind him were two of the Zieleter, mouths gaping hungrily. His black eyes were deadly, all trace of sarcasm gone now, his mouth a thin line of malicious intent. One long, thin arm reached down for Billie's shirt front and lifted him almost effortlessly to his feet. The aquiline nose wrinkled in fury.

"I find I have lost patience with you," he hissed through perfect white teeth, his breath cool and scented with clove. "This game has been entertaining, but it is time for me to claim what is mine."

Icy fingers slid up Billie's throat to grip him just below his jaw, and another hand pressed cold fingertips against his forehead and temple. His mind screamed at him to pull away, to run, but he was paralyzed, unable to move or even to speak.

"Let me show you the sad remains of the wonderful life that you insist on clinging to so desperately," Stroud said, and his face began to fade from sight, blackness creeping across it like the mist over the river Styx.

I must be dying, Billie thought, and found that he was less afraid than relieved.

A dull glow began to chase the darkness away, and in the distance, he was shocked to see that he could make out the familiar outlines of his house. As though he were running toward it, the image grew larger and clearer, until he was looking at the door that led from the garage into the kitchen. An invisible hand reached out to swing it open, and his heart raced as he saw his beloved Adie, bent over the counter with her elbows resting on the edge, phone nestled against her ear. He strained to hear her velvet voice, wishing he could speak to her and let her know he was right there, just over her shoulder.

"I really don't care anymore, Mike. He's done this so many times I'm just sick of putting up with it. It doesn't matter to me if he's out getting drunk, or off with some slut he's decided is younger and prettier--I just don't want to keep living like this. It's not worth it." She sounded repulsed just talking about him. "If this is what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life, then I'd just as soon he never come back."

The shock was something tangible, a bolt of lightning that he could feel beneath his sternum. He would have expected anger, but after having been gone for two days, he hadn't dreamed that she'd be completely indifferent to whether he was alive or dead.

"No, not really," she went on. "If it weren't for the boys, I'm not sure I wouldn't have ended it before now." A pause, and then a faint, sly smile, one that made the hairs on his arms stand on end. "Well, I guess that would be his misfortune, wouldn't it? You always were the strong one, Mike. You've been there for me through thick and thin. I think about you a lot these days, especially when I'm alone at night..." Her voice softened, and as she curled the phone closer to her neck, the dark cascade of her hair fell forward, and he couldn't hear her any longer.

Is it possible to feel your heart literally breaking to pieces inside you? he wondered.

His vision dimmed again for a moment, then as if from far away, he heard Joey's voice, cracking occasionally with the advent of his teenage hormones. Other voices laughed and chattered in the background, and somewhere in the distance a dog barked continuously. When he could see again, he found his son sitting on a battered wooden box, his back against a grafitti-splattered brick wall, surrounded by several other boys about his age. Joey held a pocket lighter in one hand, the flame dancing beneath the bowl of the spoon he grasped in the other. One of the other boys teased the contents of the spoon with the tip of a glistening needle at the end of a slender syringe, and when he nodded his satisfaction, he drew the plunger up, filling the barrel with an amber liquid.

"Tie 'im," he barked to the red-haired boy sitting beside Joey, and the boy quickly knotted a rubber tube tightly around Joey's bicep. The needle slid smoothly under the skin of his forearm, and Billie watched in horror as his oldest son's eyelids drooped shut and his head lolled toward his chest, a thin line of drool snaking from his bottom lip to the filthy pavement between his feet. Long moments later, he lifted his head slowly, the whites of his eyes still all that was visible between the lids.

"Good, huh?" said the boy, still holding the needle. "Man, I bet your 'rents would shit if they knew baby boy was gettin' his wings down here with us sleepwalkers!" The rest of the boys laughed as Joey struggled to focus on their faces.

"Fuck no," he slurred, wiping his chin with the back of his wrist. "My dad's probably one of the biggest meth heads in Oakland, and who knows what else he's done. What the hell's he gonna tell me?"

Even as Billie's mind screamed "NO!," the vision began to fade, and moments later he was watching little Jakob, pink-cheeked and golden-haired, playing in a square of sunlight on the floor of his bedroom. He held a GI Joe in one chubby fist, and a Yu-Gi-Oh action figure in the other, deeply absorbed in an imaginary conversation between the two.

"Dad, can you come watch me Saturday? It's my first game, and I get to play goalie," he chirped, Yu-Gi-Oh bobbing up and down in pantomimed excitement.

"No, Jake," the GI Joe replied in a deeper voice. "You know my band is practicing that day." His eyebrows furrowed sternly as he said it.

"But it's our first game!" the childish voice pleaded. "Don't you want to come and see me play?"

"Don't whine, Jakob," the older doll replied. "It's just a dumb game. If I don't go help Uncle Mike and Uncle Tre make the record, we won't have any money and you won't be able to play soccer at all."

"It's not dumb!" he protested, and the emotions on his face were anything but pretend. "It's the only thing I'm good at!"

"That's right," he scolded himself. "Maybe if you were good at baseball or football, like Joey, I might feel like watching, but who the fuck cares about soccer?"

"You mean who the fuck cares about me." His cherubic little lip trembled, and the dolls sagged forgotten into his lap as he lowered his head, tears streaking his cheeks.

If there was agony worse than this, Billie couldn't imagine it. He would have given anything, suffered any pain, to have been able to turn away, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't break the hold that Stroud had over his mind and body. He was helpless, a captive audience to the worst fears he could possibly imagine.

Darkness, again, then the solemn, hollow sound of wind blowing through leafless trees. No light this time, but a voice, deep and resonant, so familiar it made him recoil.

"Billie Joe."

His eyes strained to make out a face, but the blackness was unrelenting. He knew who was speaking, knew it as well as he knew his own face in the mirror, and yet... It was impossible. His pulse was racing, though whether from terror, disbelief, or the desperate need to hear it again, he couldn't tell.

"I've missed you," the voice said, now he could hear the sadness in the words.

He could only cry out in his mind. "Dad?"

"You let me down, Billie Joe. I taught you better than this. But you were so selfish, so wrapped up in being a star that you forgot your family. You let your sons see you acting like a fool, drinking and getting up on stage naked in front of people. And the worst part was that you made it plain to all of them--Adrienne included--that it was more important to you than they were. How would you have felt if I'd behaved that way? I love you, son, but I'm ashamed of you."

The sound of the wind rose to a howl, almost drowning out the last words, but Billie heard them anyway. Poison, withering his heart, deadening his soul, and he could do nothing to change it...

With a sucking sound like something huge pulling free from deep mud, the light rushed back, and Stroud's hands released their steely grip on him. He stood reeling, feeling as if his knees would collapse beneath him, and the Zieleter inched closer, snakelike tongues darting from their mouths.

Stroud peered triumphantly into Billie's anguished eyes. "And so you know the truth. This wonderful life you believe you can go back to, the one you would so bravely use to taunt me--all a lie, all illusion. You have nothing. You are nothing."

Far away, a million miles away, Billie could hear Jabril shouting to him. "Don't listen to him! If you let go, your soul is his to keep, but he can't take it unless you let him! Billie, can you hear me? He can't take it unless you give up!"

It made no sense. It was only empty words, useless hope in the face of utter despair, and he was so tired, so lonely, so hurt and sad. Letting go was exactly what he wanted to do. There was nothing to keep him here any longer. Confusion was muddling his thoughts, exhaustion sapping his will, his strength, his reason.

It was over.

Like some punch-drunk boxer, he staggered unsteadily, eyes half-focused and sweeping across the faces that watched in horrified fascination. Odette, whose tiny fist was pressed against the "O" of her mouth; Mischa's motionless bulk lying in a heap at her feet; Sabeil, bloodied and bruised as Tabib squatted beside him, tending his wounds. So many eyes, all staring at him expectantly. Where was his guitar? Where the hell were Mike and Tre? He wasn't ready to do a show--he hadn't practiced in forever, and he was hungover, or sick or--something, some awful thing that had sucked the life out of him.

His incoherent eyes caught another pair, ancient and pale blue, peering back at him from behind thick, round glasses. A wisp of white hair floated in the breeze above them, and below, two thin and wrinkled hands clutched a huge book--or, no--a folder, bound with a rubber band, filled to bursting.

"Max?" he rasped.

Somewhere in the depths of his being, something raised its head, refusing to stay down.

It wasn't over. Not yet.