“I don’t think you’re cracking up,” Case said softly.
“Either way, I’m getting out of here.” Erin paused. “You might think about doing the same.”
“I can’t do that. It’s not like they can just replace me.”
“I don’t know if that matters anymore.”
Case shook her head. “It matters.”
Erin raised a skeptical eyebrow to show what she thought of that. “Watch the crowd,” Erin said. “Look for a thin man with a spiral notebook wound into his ear.
“I bet he’ll be right up front at the next show.”
She knows,
Johnny thought. It was an effort just to think those words clearly. His head seemed so cluttered lately, crowded with thoughts that were not his own.
Knows what?
the voice in his head said scornfully. Johnny winced. The voice didn’t whisper anymore—it spoke so strongly that sometimes he caught himself looking around to see if anybody else had heard it.
She wasn’t cut out for life on the road? Few are. Relax, John. Go back to sleep.
That sounded like a good idea. Sleep. “Johnny” probably had the right idea—it usually did.
Look what it’s done for me so far,
Johnny thought with genuine gratitude.
That’s right. We’re going places together, you and me. Now go back to sleep.
“Johnny” sounded irritated with him.
Well, we’re all tired in here,
Johnny thought, and he laughed. It sounded desperate and hysterical, even to him. In the other bed, Allen stirred.
Despite his leaden limbs and sluggish mind, Johnny forced himself to sit up. It was five-forty, which meant the newspapers would be out. He got out of bed and grabbed his backpack.
This is foolish, John,
the voice said, like a stern parent.
There’s nothing to prove, and you’re only making yourself upset.
Nonetheless, Johnny walked to the door. He reached for the handle, and for one dreamlike moment, his body stopped moving. His hand stopped in midmotion and wouldn’t go forward, and his legs were stuck in place. Then the moment was gone, and he moved forward just as smoothly as if he’d never stopped.
Did that really happen? Am I losing my mind?
No,
the voice said, though it didn’t seem especially sincere.
You’re tired. You need rest.
He ignored it as best he was able and left the room.
Downstairs, the motel staff was starting to set breakfast out. Johnny had no interest in that. He found a copy of the
Tribune
and settled in to one of the chairs in the lobby.
He found what he was looking for in the local section. A young man had been brutally killed late last night—beaten to death, apparently, though the article hinted that an animal had been at him after he was killed. The article also gave an address where the body was found, and though Johnny didn’t know anything about Chicago geography, he didn’t guess he needed to. It would have happened near last night’s venue.
It always did.
You’re being stupid,
the voice told him.
This obsessive fantasy of yours isn’t doing anyone any good.
He took his journal and a pair of scissors from his backpack. His vision blurred, but he shook his head and it cleared. A woman in a business suit walked by, giving him a wary look.
He flipped to the middle of the journal. Once, the journal had been a log of daily thoughts, events, fragments of lyrics, but lately it had become a grisly sort of scrapbook. At the top of each of the last thirteen pages was a city and a date. Below most of the dates, Johnny had taped an article from the local newspaper.
Atlanta. June 17, 2010. Two Concertgoers Killed in Apparent Parking Lot Brawl.
Raleigh. June 18, 2010. Woman’s Body Found Mutilated in Alley. No suspect in custody.
Richmond. June 20, 2010. Man Mauled to Death Downtown. Police suspect feral dogs.
It went on for thirteen pages, one page for each stop they’d made on the tour so far. Charlotte. Baltimore. There was no article on the page for New York—Johnny had combed the papers and found nothing. Perhaps nothing had happened that night, or perhaps New York suffered an embarrassment of riches in the violence department, rendering the nightly crop of bodies found in Dumpsters and alleys less than newsworthy. Boston. Columbus. Indianapolis. Detroit. No article for Cleveland, for whatever reason. Philadelphia. Milwaukee.
He cut the article for Chicago out with trembling hands.
Put it away, John,
“Johnny” told him, disgusted.
What are we doing, Johnny?
he asked it.
What are we doing?
We’re not doing anything. These are big cities, Johnny, and the human race is teeming with barely suppressed violence. That the cup should run over sometimes is hardly a surprise. It runs over nightly, everywhere. You’re looking for patterns in chaos, John. Save your energy for something worthwhile.
Numbness filled Johnny, but while he felt no pain, no guilt, there was a slight pressure reminding him that he
should
feel something.
Erin knows,
he thought.
Maybe not anything specific, but she knows something has gone wrong here.
Nothing has gone wrong here,
“Johnny” told him.
Put this foolishness away and go to sleep.
Through the fog in his thoughts, Johnny made a decision. The thing in his head wouldn’t like it—but fuck him. This was going to end tonight.
John, what are you thinking? I can’t hear you, John.
The voice sounded faintly alarmed, Johnny noted with satisfaction.
He taped the article in under Chicago.
***
Erin said her goodbyes at breakfast, and there were no tears this time. She gave Johnny a searching look before giving him a hug. He didn’t miss her hesitation, or the way she wiped her hands on her jeans afterward, but he tried to smile even as the voice in his head cursed and called her foul names.
They dropped her off at the bus station, and then it was on to St. Louis.
What are you thinking?
the voice asked him. He stared out the window at the cornfields and tried to tune it out.
Don’t hide from me, John. We’re in this together, you and me. All the way to the end.
Johnny didn’t like the sound of that, but he didn’t answer. That thing wasn’t going to get anything from him. Not again.
It called to him as they passed the St. Louis arch.
Talk to me, John.
Again as they got off the interstate.
John, it’s awful quiet in here. Let’s talk.
Again as they got to the venue.
Please, John? Don’t shut me out. We have so much left to do.
It was whining now, and Johnny took a grim joy in that. Maybe it couldn’t read his thoughts exactly, but it picked up on his emotions.
Why would you want to hurt me, John? We’re good together. We’ve done so much. Together.
“You okay?” Danny asked him as they got out of the van.
“I’m good,” Johnny said, though he could feel the strain in his face, his neck, and his back. The constant wheedling and the endless stream of entreaties were wearing him down, and “Johnny” kept getting louder and louder.
Sound check was awful. Singing was a tremendous amount of work with all that racket in his head. The band started running through “Burn” and the voice started up again, more insistent than ever.
Please, John? Don’t leave me alone in here.
“Goddammit, will you
shut up
?” Johnny snapped into the mic, right in the middle of the song. Everybody stopped playing, and he could feel the others looking at him.
“Pardon?” the sound guy said through the monitors.
“Sorry. Sorry. Can we take it from the beginning?”
He made it through with nothing more than raw, bloody-minded effort, but wasn’t pretty.
“You okay?” Danny asked him again after they wrapped up sound check. “You don’t sound too good.”
“I know how I sound, okay?” Johnny said. “I’ll get it together.”
“I didn’t mean
that
,” Danny said, though it was obvious that that was exactly what he’d meant. “I mean, you seem like you might be getting sick or something.”
He’s right,
the thing said.
You don’t sound too good. It will be all right, though. I can help. Let me help you.
Johnny gritted his teeth and ignored it.
He had to clench his fists to keep from shaking by the time they took the stage.
“You okay?” Danny asked him for the third time. Johnny was ready to hit him. “We can call this off if you’re too sick to go on.”
“Fuck that,” Johnny said, a trace of fire in his voice. “We came here to make some noise, so let’s rock this motherfucker.” That sounded good—he wished he felt it.
The thing in his head had left him alone for an hour, but he could feel its excitement as he stepped in front of the mic. Case played the opening riff to “Burn” and suddenly all eyes were on him. There were a dozen or so people in front that he’d come to recognize staring excitedly up at him. He thought of them as Johnny’s Fan Club, and he drew confidence from their cheers.
This might be okay,
he thought.
Then it was time to sing, and he felt the thing in his head push forward to work its magic.
NO,
he thought.
It stopped as abruptly as if it had hit a wall. He felt it slam forward again, and again he thought
NO.
Frustration and panic welled up inside the thing, and it let out an unearthly howl that rang the inside of his head like a bell.
Johnny missed the first line of the song, but he caught up at the second, and he—he, alone, John Tsiboukas—sang it with everything he had.
His pitch wavered, and the sound was anemic. It was as though eight months of practice and performing had peeled away in a moment, leaving him with the same lousy voice he’d always had.
A look of shock spread across the faces of Johnny’s Fan Club, eerily synchronized. Moments later, shock was replaced by a nasty look he didn’t like at all. They leered and sneered and booed him. The rest of the crowd didn’t follow their lead, thank Christ, but the rest of the crowd didn’t seem particularly impressed, either. Some people watched with interest, but others milled about in little clots, spread out across the floor, talking to each other over the music. Many of them, Johnny noticed, gravitated toward Case’s side of the stage.
He gave it everything he had anyway, screaming the words into the mic, moving across the stage with something like his usual swagger. He saw a few heads nod with the music, but mostly just indifference. His confidence faltered, and the thin sound of his voice coming through the monitor speakers was another devastating blow to his ego.
This is a fucking disaster,
he thought, and the swagger went out of him.
Somehow, he made it through the song. There was applause, but it sounded perfunctory after the deafening ovations he was used to. The howling in his head stopped.
The voice in his head took on an ugly smugness.
Go on, then,
it told him.
Let’s see what you got. This one’s all yours.
It stayed quiet for the rest of the set—not that that helped much. Johnny knew his voice just couldn’t cut it. It came back to him shrill and tiny, barely on pitch. The band went through one song after another to an audience that seemed to Johnny to be almost completely uninterested. Johnny’s Fan Club jeered and got so rowdy he wondered when they would start throwing things.
The band was tight and the beat was driving, and he knew that was all that carried the set. When it was finally over, Johnny slunk away as fast as he could, walking rapidly with his head down. Case caught his eye for one second, and he saw only pity on her face before he looked away.
Filled with shame, Johnny ran to the van.
***
“What’s with him?” Case asked Danny.
“Don’t know. He’s not feeling well, I guess.”
“Yeah. He sure doesn’t look so good. I thought he was going to puke onstage. Too bad. He started strong.”
“Yeah he did,” Danny said. “It’s hard to remember how terrified he used to be onstage.”
“Wish he’d have finished stronger, but you can’t have a perfect show every night.”
***
From the
St. Louis Riverfront Times
, July 8, 2010:
. . . Opening for Crashyard was up-and-coming Ragman, a hard rock quartet out of Dallas that’s been getting rave reviews as the warm-up act for this tour. We found the good press to be more than justified, as Ragman blasted the room with a set of scorching rock and roll. Heavy riffs and the lead singer’s raw sound imbued their set with a nice grittiness, setting the stage perfectly for Crashyard’s set. . . .
***
Johnny never saw a copy of that day’s
Riverfront Times
, but he made sure to pick up the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
before leaving town. There were no murders mentioned.