The Love Song of Jonny Valentine (37 page)

I was on Level 100 of Zenon, so I could’ve even finished the game before the concert started, but I also didn’t want to distract myself when I was in the Jonny Zone. Jane came in and told me I had an hour to kill and I should just relax. Her telling me to relax so much made me
not
relaxed. Someday before a concert she should tell me to get super-nervous, and then I’d probably feel totally relaxed. She was wound up, too, because I could tell she wasn’t looking up presale numbers today on purpose. They had to be low still, or else Stacy wouldn’t have cared about my late-show interview. The label doesn’t mind what you do as long as you’re moving product.

So I walked around the Garden tunnels with Walter, and barely anyone was in them yet. There were a lot of tunnels, but with maps everywhere telling you where you were so you didn’t get lost. Walter didn’t talk while we walked. In the middle we found a side entrance opening to a path to the stage, and I poked my head out for a second to take it in. It was the same size as any regular arena, but it seemed a lot bigger. Empty preshow arenas always look huge, though. In my head I ran through the set list for the night at first, but then I tuned out and didn’t think of anything besides my breathing, except every few minutes my brain would be like, I wonder if I’ll see my father tonight, or if he’s actually coming, or if it’s all a prank, or what I’ll say if I see him, and I’d notice I wasn’t breathing too good. I kind of wished we could keep walking around like that in the tunnels forever. Most of the time on tour, I went in cars from hotels to venues to the bus. I never got to explore.

I was lucky that so much more of my life now was recorded than a normal kid’s, so in the future, if I ever wanted to think back on something, I could find footage or an article about it. But there were some
moments that no one was recording, and it was up to me to remember them, and maybe sometimes you had to
tell
yourself to freeze a moment in your brain or else it would just file it away with all the others. Most people would remember how it felt when they were about to debut at Madison Square Garden, but I told myself, Remember what it’s like to walk around these tunnels with Walter when no one else knows you’re there. When you’re not Jonny Valentine the singer. When you’re not even regular Jonathan Valentino. You’re not anyone, in a way.

And this could’ve been my last big show, if the label dumped me or I went back to school. Then I’d be not anyone again, in a different way. It could be nice, like walking in the tunnels the rest of my life.

I was happy Walter was with me, though. It’d be scary down there if I was on my own.

After what I guess was an hour, Walter told me we were due back. If I didn’t have my show, I bet he wouldn’t have minded walking around for a lot longer. I know he’s paid to hang out with me, and if I wanted to keep hanging out he basically had to until a certain point, but you never worried about wearing out your welcome with Walter. If he didn’t feel like talking, he said he was tired, brother, but he never needed to go away for alone time.

It took us a little time to find our way back to the star/talent room, and we ended up on the opposite side of the entrance in another hallway and I thought we had to go all the way around, but Walter noticed there was a back door into it, and he found a maintenance guy to unlock it. That’s something Walter’s good at, figuring out what to do when your first option doesn’t work, especially for building entrances and exits to avoid crowd interference. I should do those walks before all my shows, but not every venue has an underground level that’s hidden away like that.

My sound check was strong, and even Jane, who usually doesn’t say a sound check went good because she doesn’t want me to get lazy, said it was my best one yet. Before I went back to the star/talent room, she bent her knees to talk in my face.

“I know this has been a rough tour,” she said. “I want you to know I’m very proud of what you’ve done on it. And no matter what happens
tonight, that’s what matters.” Her voice cracked at the end and her eyes crinkled up.

“I know,” I said, and I hustled away to the star/talent room before she might cry. That was the last thing I wanted to see before the most important night of my life.

On the hundredth level of Zenon, every character I met told me how the Emperor was on this level and was this invincible tyrant that no one could defeat. It was only a game, but it
was
sort of intimidating, the way they talked about it. I had a few hours until my start time, and if I didn’t play I’d get worried about if my father had made it and how I’d see him, which I still hadn’t figured out, since Jane was popping into my room every twenty minutes to make sure I had everything I needed, so I got into the Jonny Zone for Zenon. The Jonny Zenone, where you’re in a Zenon zone because you’re no one. I’d tell that one to Nadine for a Creative Stroke credit if she wasn’t already in Paris with her boyfriend.

Soon I’d worked my way through the level and up to the entrance to this dungeon where the narrator announced that the Emperor lived, which surprised me. First of all, I hadn’t found the level’s gem yet, but maybe the protocol was different since it was the last level, and second, I expected it to be a huge dungeon that takes days to find your way through, but it wasn’t. After you climbed down into the dungeon, there was a door right there, and when you walked a few feet in, the Emperor was in the middle of a room. He was just a normal-size soldier with a giant halberd in his hands and covered everywhere in armor. I couldn’t believe they’d make the Emperor this easy to get to. It’s funny how the tunnels under the Garden were more complicated than the final dungeon in Zenon.

But I soon figured out why. The second I ran up to the Emperor, he deflected my two-handed-sword attack, and with one swing from a halberd damaged me enough to depart the realm. I started over from my saved game and tried again, but the same thing happened. I tried casting spells, using invincibility potions, everything. He blocked my attacks or they didn’t affect him, my potions didn’t do anything, and he damaged me to zero percent with a single halberd stroke. Not everyone
had a Major Vulnerability, but everyone had at least a Minor Vulnerability, except this guy. He was like Tyler Beats is as a performer, only Tyler
does
have a Minor Vulnerability, which is food and his metabolism, and also picking at his acne.

Before I could get too worked up about it, Walter knocked and told me 3 Days Dead was finishing up and it was time. I was sort of glad the Emperor was so tough, because it really did distract me, but once I remembered I had to give a show on live-stream to a ton of people, including maybe my father who I was somehow supposed to meet without Jane interfering, and if it wasn’t a ton of people then that was even worse, my stomach got queasy again and my legs shook like they were postcardio. Walter walked me to backstage, and he must have noticed, since before Jane came over, he said, “Who gives a fuck, right?”

Walter had a way of saying the opposite of what I was thinking and getting me to believe it. “Right,” I said.

Jane brought me over to Bill, who handed me the mike and had me do the last-minute microphone check. I was saying, “Microphone check one-two-one-two,” over and over as he fiddled with the sound device. Jane went to talk to the guy helping with the heart-shaped swing, like she did every show now. I quietly said into the mike, “Microphone check you like being my little slut.”

Bill jerked his head up, with his eyes narrow and wide at the same time. “What’s that?”

“Microphone check one-two-one-two.”

He stared at some equipment a couple seconds and chuckled and made some final adjustments and said I was all set. “Break a leg,” he added.

“If the swing messes up again, maybe I will,” I said, which was stupid, because he probably
could
screw the swing up if he wanted and make it look like an accident, but it wasn’t worth him getting sued and losing his job and ending up in jail and getting raped by adult predators who were more muscular than him. Maybe he didn’t leak Jane doing cocaine to the press, either. It was probably just some lower-tier staff. People will sell anyone out for money, whether they work for them or not.

I could tell the house lights dimmed as the countdown timer ticked
to zero and I heard the announcer go, “Now, what you’ve all been waiting for—”

The crowd buzzed and the tech guys backstage were more worked up than usual since it was the Garden and it was going to be seen everywhere, and I bet even that asshole Bill was getting excited and wanted the show to go perfect.

“—on his last concert for his
Valentine Days
tour, singing tonight on the day of the year dedicated to love and romance, please welcome . . .”

“Go!” Bill said, like we’d practiced, and I ran out through the entrance.

“Jonny Valentine!”
the announcer boomed, but I hardly heard it because my fans were already chanting my name and the piano of “Guys vs. Girls” was louder than usual since the audio engineers expected the ambient noise to be so high. It’s got a strong instrumental buildup, eight bars where the crowd gets more and more amped to hear my voice, and by the time I get to the first verse, they’re insane. Musical foreplay, Rog used to say. Stroke the crowd. It’s easier live, when you can dance and use your charisma, but the best songs find a way to drive the listener wild with anticipation in the studio version, too.

So I danced in place while waiting for the lyrical explosion, and sniffed the candy in the air mixing with that sweaty arena smell, and thought about the iconic concerts that were held here and now I was part of that, and felt the hot spotlights on just me that were saying, You’re the most talented singer and dancer in the world, everyone loves you, and I unleashed my instrument:

Girls and guys, burgers and fries

All gets ruined with a coupla lies

They couldn’t even hear me sing, I’m sure, but it didn’t matter. My blood was pumping hard and I was as excited as I was on my first tour, not the nervous excitement I normally get but the kind where you’re like, I can’t believe three years ago I was busking in the Central West End and now I’m singing at Madison Square Garden. A few things can still do that.

The same way I wanted Zack to somehow see me with that girl Dana, I wanted my father to be there to see this. Even if we didn’t meet, I hoped he saw what I’d become, and not just on the Internet, but in person.

When it was time for my banter interlude, they’d written me some stupid lines I really didn’t want to say, so instead I was like, “New York City! Will you be my valentine?” They all said yes, and I got down on one knee, like I was proposing to the crowd, and said, “I’m so in love with all of you, but it’ll break my heart if you’re not in love with me. Are you?” They hollered yes again, louder this time, so I said, “Then let me know . . . by sending an—”

I held out the mike and together we all went, “ ‘RSVP (To My Heart)’!”

A lot of times when I told girls I picked out in the crowd that I loved them, I’d get caught up in the moment and convince myself I did, but I never believed it when I told a whole stadium that I loved them. This time, I sort of did. Like, for a few seconds I had this crazy idea of what it would be like to be in love with twenty thousand people and have them love you, if we all lived together in this stadium and ate the vendor food inside it and wore the clothing merch and every night I’d sing to them and we’d all sleep out here wrapped up in Jonny Valentine beach blankets. We’d never have to leave the stadium.

I kept telling the crowd how I loved them during the interludes and that I’d dreamed about performing here since I was a little kid, which was a lie because I only heard about the Garden before my first national tour when Jane was trying to book it, and I almost told them about the fantasy of us all living there together, but I checked myself. Even my most rabid fans would probably be like, Um, Jonny, we can’t spend
all
our time with you, we have to go to school and see our families.

If it wasn’t my best work of the tour, it was close to it. But about halfway through, I realized for the first time that every single one of my songs makes me sound like a real loser. In all of them I’m either asking a girl if she likes me or sad that a girl turned me down. Even on “Summa Fling,” it’s a fling because the girl wants it that way, not me,
and she dumps me at the end when school starts. It’s never me telling a girl I can’t be with her anymore or saying I’m sorry for breaking up with her. I guess most songs are like that, and it helps craft my one-girl image for my fans, but still, it’d be nice if in
one
song I sounded like a cool guy who was fighting off girls and kept moving on to the next one. That’s what every song is like in Mi$ter $mith’s library. I didn’t want my father to go from thinking his son was this famous singer at the beginning to a lame whiner whose songs were all about girls telling me I got served.

I was getting near the end of the show and I had no clue, even if he
was
there, how I’d be able to meet him. Just saying “Al” again wouldn’t work, because there was no way he’d have gotten a front-row seat at the Garden. It was such a stupid idea, emailing him. It could’ve been a child predator who made a fake ID on his computer, or anyone else faking it, and if it was my father, we could be breaking the law by writing to each other. And it was all Jane’s fault. If she’d let him see me, or even
talk
to me, I wouldn’t have to do it this way. I could just meet him, like taking a regular business meeting.

Then I knew how to do it. It would mean Jane would figure out I’d been in contact with him, but it was the only way. And I realized I didn’t even care anymore if she knew. Stacy wouldn’t like it, either, but who gives a fuck. I was just another client to her.

When it was time for the final medley, right before I stepped in the heart-shaped swing to sing “U R Kewt,” I ignored the interlude banter I was supposed to say as the swing descended. “I’m looking for someone,” I said, which was a mistake, because a line in “Summa Fling” is “I’m looking for someone, someone I can crush on,” so the crowd sang, “Someone I can crush on!” even though I already sang “Summa Fling” earlier in the show. But crowds love repetition, the way really young kids do.