How to Kill a Rock Star

  Copyright © 2005 by Tiffanie DeBartolo

  Cover and internal design © 2005 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems–except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews–without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following material:

  “The Day I Became a Ghost” by Douglas J. Blackman

  © 1977 Soul in the Wall Music

  All rights reserved. Used by permission.

  “Eliza” by Paul Hudson

  © 2001 ScrawnyWhiteGuy Music

  All rights reserved. Used by permission.

  “Rusted” by Loring Blackman

  © 2000 Two Fathoms Music

  All rights reserved. Used by permission.

  “A Thousand Ways” by Loring Blackman

  © 2002 Two Fathoms Music

  All rights reserved. Used by permission.

  “Save the Savior” by Paul Hudson

  © 2002 ScrawnyWhiteGuy Music

  All rights reserved. Used by permission.

  Excerpt from the novel Hallelujah by Jacob Grace.

  All rights reserved. Used by permission.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  DeBartolo, Tiffanie.

  How to kill a rock star / Tiffanie DeBartolo.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 1-4022-0521-X (alk. paper)

  1. Women journalists—Fiction. 2. Aircraft accident victims' families—Fiction. 3. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 4. Fear of flying—Fiction. 5. Rock musicians—Fiction. 6. Roommates—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3604.E233H69 2005

  813'.6—dc22

  2005012501

  Printed and bound in the United States of America

  VP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  We are the music-makers,

  And we are the dreamers of dreams,

  Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

  And sitting by desolate streams;

  World-losers and world-forsakers,

  On whom the pale moon gleams:

  Yet we are the movers and shakers

  Of the world for ever, it seems.

  —Arthur O'Shaughnessy

  This one is for the music makers

  and the dreamers of dreams.

  I was only a child

  when I learned how to fly

  I wanted to touch the colors of the bleeding sun

  and then I fell from the sky

  You never saw me again

  not even when I returned

  you never noticed my broken heart

  or how my wings were burned

  But if they tell you they saw me

  do a swan dive off that bridge

  Remember I've always been more afraid to die

  than I ever was to live

  And on the day I disappear

  You'll all forget I was ever here

  I'll float around from coast to coast

  And sing about how you made me a ghost.

  —Douglas J. Blackman, “The Day I Became a Ghost”

  Table of Contents

  Part One: Save the Savior

  July 24, 2000

  July 25, 2000

  August 1, 2000

  September 18, 2000

  September 26, 2000

  November 12, 2000

  December 7, 2000

  July 28, 2001

  Part Two: Everything Is a Complete Disappointment

  September 18, 2001

  January 14, 2002

  June 14, 2002

  July 4, 2002

  August 4, 2002

  October 11, 2002

  Part Three: Sometimes a Person Has to Die in Order to Live or (Why are the ones who need the most shelter always the ones left out in the rain?)

  October 21, 2002

  December 7, 2002

  Coda: Art & Love: The Only Things That Can Bring a Person Back to Life

  February 16, 2003

  Acknowledgements

  My oldest memory isn't one I see when I think back on the past, it's one I hear. I'm four years old, on my way home from a camping trip with my family. My eyes are shut tightly and I'm trying to sleep in the backseat of the car. My six-year-old brother, who is already asleep, keeps kicking me in the head, and I am about to kick him back when the song on the radio gets my attention. The smooth voice of a man is singing about a pony that ran away in the snow and died. Or maybe it was the girl chasing after the pony who died. Maybe nobody died. The girl and the pony might have just wanted to get off the farm. I was never really sure. All I remember is that before I knew it, I was sobbing so hard my dad had to stop the car so my mom could pull me into her lap and calm me down.

  The song was senseless and sappy, but it made me feel something. And although I couldn't articulate it at that age, feeling something—anything—made me conscious that I was alive.

  I would spend the rest of my childhood sitting beside radios, continually being transformed and exalted by a melody, a lyric, or a riff.

  I would spend most of my adolescence in pieces on the floor, only to be picked up and put back together by the voice of one of my heroes.

  It sounds silly, I know. But for me, the power of music rests in its ability to reach inside and touch the places where the deepest cuts lie.

  Like a benevolent god, a good song will never let you down.

  And sometimes, when you're trying to find your way, one of those gods actually shows up and gives you directions.

  Doug Blackman even walked like a god. I was standing near the elevator when I saw him enter the hotel. His arms moved back and forth as if set to a metronome, his torso stood erect and intimidating, and his eyes seemed a step ahead of his body, unblinking, taking in everything his peripheral vision had to offer.

  He stopped at the front desk to drop off an envelope, and seconds later he was standing beside me, fishing through his breast pocket. He smelled like red wine and cigarettes, and his dark hair had wiry gray threads sewn all through it.

  I told myself to stay cool. Don't stare. Act like the adult I was. But I had imagined Doug coming in with an entourage, had thought I'd have to fight just to catch a glimpse. And then he was beside me, our shoulders inches from touching—the radio prophet who had taught me almost everything I knew about life and love, politics and poetry, and was, in my opinion, the greatest singer/songwriter in the history of rock ‘n’ roll.

  In person, Doug looked every bit his fifty-seven years. His face was like a mountain range: he had deep fissures in his cheeks chiseled from over three decades of life on the road; dark, sharp eyes that could have been cut from granite; a small chip in his top front tooth that he'd never bothered to fix; and his rumpled clothes looked like they'd been won from a vagabond during a street game of dice, which added a soft, modest charm to his otherwise unapproachable vibe.

  I had a whole speech prepared, in case I got close enough to talk. I was going to tell Doug that in my twenty-six years on the planet, nothing had inspired me or moved me like his music. I was going to
tell him that for the past decade he had been both father and mother to me, and that “The Day I Became a Ghost” wasn't just a song, it was a friend who took my hand and kept me company whenever I felt alone.

  Nothing he hadn't heard a thousand times, no doubt.

  Before I could get a word out, Doug pulled a deck of cards from his pocket and said, “Pick one.”

  I turned and said, “Huh?”

  It would go down in history as the worst opening line anyone had ever said to their god and hero. I wanted to take it back and say something profound. The man had given me the truth and all I could give back to him was a dimwitted interjection.

  “Pick a card,” Doug said again, holding the deck with both hands, the cards splayed out like a fan.

  I was staring at him, wide-eyed, trying to will myself to speak. It should be noted here that I make my living talking to people. I'm a reporter. Evidently gods and heroes tongue-tie me.

  “Go on,” Doug said.

  I chose a card out of the middle of the deck, quickly checked Doug's eyes for some kind of explanation he clearly didn't think he needed to offer, and then looked at the card—the three of clubs.

  “This elevator takes forever,” Doug grumbled. “Four hundred bucks a night and it takes the elevator ten minutes to get to the lobby. Now, here's what I want you to do. Write your name on the face of the card. It's okay if I see it. You got a pen? Write your name on it and then put it back in the deck.”

  I'm dreaming, I thought. It was the only explanation I could come up with to balance out the surreal experience of participating in a card trick with Doug Blackman.

  “Do–you–have–a–pen?” Doug said again, as if he were speaking to a foreigner.

  The only pen in my purse had purple ink. Purple seemed frivolous and gay and not nearly rock ‘n’ roll enough; I cursed myself for not buying black.

  I put down my bag and began printing my name on the card. Doug was looking over my shoulder and I wondered if he could see my hand shaking.

  “Eliza Caelum,” he said. “You from around here, Eliza?”

  I nodded.

  “Put the card back in the deck.”

  I did.

  “You know who I am,” Doug said, not a question but a fact. He was shuffling the cards like a pro. “You were at the show?”

  I nodded again. I was acting like an imbecile, and I knew I was never going to get anywhere if I didn't snap out of it.

  “Okay, now pick the top card.”

  The top card was the ten of hearts, which devastated me. I thought Doug had messed up and I didn't want to have to tell him. Luckily he said, “Not yours, I know. Just hold it in your palm. Face down.”

  I held the card, and Doug made like he was sprinkling some kind of invisible dust over it. “My grandsons love this shit,” he said. His hands were weathered and rugged and powdery-white. They looked like they'd feel cold to touch. “Okay. Take a look.”

  I flipped the card. It was the three of clubs with my name written in that gay purple ink. I could feel myself grinning, and for a second I forgot who the man beside me was. “Holy crap. How did you do that?”

  Doug shrugged. “Magician, musician. Same thing. A little hocus-pocus and a whole lot of faith, right?”

  My insides were swirling. I was spellbound.

  As the elevator opened, Doug looked at me and said, “You wanna fuck? Is that what you're waiting for?”

  He'd asked the question as if he were offering me a piece of gum or telling me to pick another card. And maybe it should have disappointed me a little. Okay, it did disappoint me a little. Doug is married, and barring the Greeks and Romans, gods and heroes aren't supposed to be philanderers. But I'm not that naïve. I've read Hammer of the Gods and No One Here Gets Out Alive. I know about life on the road. I also know that people like to pretend it's all about sex, when what it's really about is loneliness.

  “Well?” Doug asked, stepping into the elevator.

  I shook my head. I hadn't gone there for sex. What I wanted and needed was guidance. Besides, Doug was a father figure to me, and I couldn't have sex with any man who reminded me of my father.

  I contemplated telling Doug I was a reporter, but I knew he didn't talk to reporters. And I guess you could say that what came out of my mouth next was the figurative, not literal explanation of why I had been waiting for him.

  “My soul is withering,” I said.

  Doug's eyebrows rose and he actually chuckled. “Your soul is withering?”

  Then I don't know what came over me, but I burst into tears.

  Doug kept his finger on the button to hold the elevator open, and I laid it all out for him in rambling, weepy discourse. I either had to flee the suburbs of Cleveland or suffer the death of my soul. Those were the choices as I saw them. My parents had died when I was fourteen; I'd feebly tried to slit my wrist at sixteen; my brother had moved to Manhattan with his wife a few years back; Adam, my boyfriend of six years, had run off to Portland with his drum set and Kelly from Starbucks; writing for the entertainment section of the Plain Dealer wasn't exactly a dream job for an aspiring music journalist; and, to top it all off, I only had four hundred dollars in my bank account.

  I was alone. In ways people aren't supposed to be alone.

  And sure, I could've stayed where I was, continued working my nowhere job, living in my nowhere apartment, eventually marry some nowhere man, have a few kids and anesthetize myself with provincial monotony like most of my peers had done, and before I knew it I'd be six feet under.

  I wanted more.

  And I had hope.

  “I'm more afraid to die than I am to live,” I told Doug, thinking that if I made my case using his prodigious lyrics, he'd be more apt to identify with my predicament.

  The warning bell in the elevator was ringing but Doug didn't seem to care. He contemplated me for a long moment and then said, “How the hell am I supposed to say no to those eyes, huh?”

  I lowered my gaze and tried to smile.

  “All right,” he sighed. “Get in, Eliza Caelum.”

  I took a deep breath, stepped inside the elevator, and focused on the numbers above the doors while Doug pushed the button for the eleventh floor.

  I remember thinking it was the second time in a decade that Doug Blackman would change my life.

  The day I got the job with Sonica—three months after Doug had granted me an interview, and the day I was certain I would be moving to Manhattan—I decided I was going to fly, not drive, to New York. When my brother, Michael, heard the news, he booked me a one-way ticket going nonstop from Hopkins International Airport to JFK. He also sent me a collection of audio tapes he'd found at a sidewalk sale entitled Discover Your Wings: Overcoming the Fear of Flying, which advocated the use of breathing techniques while visualizing run-of-the-mill takeoffs, uneventful in-air experiences, and smooth landings.

  The meditations were painless enough when I practiced them on the couch, but I couldn't foresee them being any help during a hijacking, a wind shear, or a catastrophic engine failure.

  “If I can fly, you can fly,” Michael lectured me over the phone.

  My sister-in-law, Vera, who was also on the phone, added: “It's the safest form of transportation in the world.”

  The day of my departure I awoke feeling like an inmate being paroled. I hadn't set foot in an airport in twelve years and I was afraid to look around, afraid I'd see something that would remind me.

  Walking through the terminal, focusing on the ground beneath my feet, I made it all the way to the gate, but then accidentally glanced out the window. As soon as I caught sight of the plane, my whole body began to shake, and the agony of memory bubbled and fizzed in my stomach like a box of antacid tablets in a glass of water—I was fourteen again, standing between Michael and our Aunt Karen, all of us waving goodbye to my parents, who were going to Daytona Beach for their seventeenth wedding anniversary.

  I remember wanting to see their faces one more time, but not being able to fin
d them in the tiny portals of the plane.

  I remember being afraid I might never see them again.

  The accident, we learned months later, was due to pilot error. A fan blade on the plane's number one engine had detached, causing the compressor to stall. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, shutting down that engine and descending immediately would have, in all probability, resulted in a safe landing. But the pilot had accidentally shut down the working number two engine instead of the failing number one. By the time he realized his mistake it was too late. The plane dove toward the ground and crashed into a field northeast of Akron.

  There were no survivors.

  The aircraft carrying me to JFK was supposed to have been a 777—a plane that, as of June 2000, had yet to be involved in a fatal accident. But there was a last-minute, unexplained equipment change, and the 777's understudy turned out to be a 737 that looked so old it probably made its inaugural flight when Jim Morrison was alive.

  FYI: Jim Morrison died on July 3, 1971.

  The plane also had filthy windows and needed a new paint job, and if the airline couldn't manage to clean the windows or update the paint, I figured there was no way they kept the hydraulics in working order.

  More than anything, I wanted to get on the plane—if for no other reason than to prove I had at least infinitesimal courage—but I convinced myself there was a thin, fragile line between courage and stupidity, and no one in their right mind would trust the aeronautical competency of complete strangers when the future they'd been waiting so long for was a mere four-hundred and sixty-seven miles away.

  I ripped my boarding pass in half and ran, stopping only to throw up on the feet of a dapper skycap standing near the curb.

  “Mother-of-Pearl,” Vera said when I called and broke the news. “You were so close.”

  “I'm taking the bus,” I said. “I'll be there tomorrow night.”

  The bus left the station at 7:02 a.m. and stopped in half a dozen towns between Cleveland and New York City. I kept my forehead pressed to the window and felt like I was watching a slide show, one in which the projector was broken and the same two or three photos kept clicking onto the screen. All the places looked the same: the same fast-food restaurants, the same strip malls, the same Wal-Marts at every turn.