Gray - By Pete Wentz Page 0,67
their mysterious, sonorous racket. The moon will come up, will shine yellow on the canyon floor. She will still be up in our penthouse, alone, or with some other guy, it doesn’t matter. I will still be sitting here, in this metal folding chair, with my best friend in the entire world. Maybe we will go out and explore, and maybe the Disaster will finally bag a coyote. Or maybe we won’t. We’ve got plenty of beer and some great stories to tell, when the time is right. I think we both deserve a night in.
24
Pretty much everyone saw the pictures. People I haven’t heard from since high school are texting me, my mom calls and tells me she doesn’t approve, says she’s read stories about that girl. I can hear my dad laughing in the background. Kids on message boards are talking about it, saying the usual stupid bullshit. I even get an e-mail from Her, a one-liner, “Star fucker,” followed by a smiley face. The smiley face was key . . . otherwise I would’ve thought she was mad at me. Not that I cared or anything.
She is also calling me every other day, leaving me voice mails that are getting progressively more insane. At first, she was polite, rasping that she had a great time the other night, and if the Disaster and I (she calls him “your friend”) want to come by the house again, just let her know. Received at 2:27 a.m. When I don’t return her call, she leaves me another message, her voice a little more agitated, wondering where I’ve been hiding, what I’ve been up to. Received at 3:52 a.m. I can hear Raw Power playing in the background. When I still don’t call back, she blows a gasket, leaves me a rambling message that says her cousin shot himself in the head, but he didn’t die; rather, he’ll be a zombie for the rest of his life. She says she’d call me bad luck, but I’d probably take that as a compliment. Received at 4:14 a.m. Worried, I finally call her back, ask about her cousin, and she sounds like she has no idea what I’m talking about. She calls me an asshole and tells me never to call her again before hanging up. Perhaps everything my mom read about her was true.
Our album is released and debuts. Heatseekers chart and all that. The first single is getting played on the radio, and our video is being shown on MTV (when they actually show music videos). The world is pulling me away from my hideout in the canyon, and I am obliged to obey. I pay the landlord six months’ rent, and the Disaster and I rent a car and drive down to San Diego, where our tour is scheduled to begin. Meet up with the guys for the first time in months. Everyone is happy to see that I’m not only living, but flourishing. I joke that it’s that good California air, and that they should all get the hell out of Chicago before it’s too late. They all laugh. That night, we go out and get absolutely shitfaced in the Gaslamp; the Disaster and the Animal get into a brawl with a bunch of dudes from the navy. The two get beaten up pretty bad, but it wasn’t a fair fight. The Disaster ices his face with a can of beer. The Animal swears a lot and says he’s officially an enemy of the state. The tour begins the following night, at the decrepit, old San Diego Sports Arena. Before the show, the manager of the place excitedly tells us that Elvis Presley played there once and gave a brand-new Cadillac to one of the security guys. We’re more interested in the Chick-fil-A across the parking lot. We haven’t seen one of those since our swings down South.
The show is great, the kids are loud, and the place is packed. I introduce a new song by shouting, “This one is for anyone who’s ever looked at their hometown and wanted to burn the motherfucker to the ground,” and all the girls squeal. I’m not sure if it’s because I cursed, or because they hate San Diego. Probably a combination of the two. Afterward, we hug each other and spray champagne around Elvis’s old dressing room. Our manager looks on with a huge smile on his face. None of the other guys see it, but he winks at me. We