first few shows, I am tired and weak, and the guys have to carry me through the set. Kids hold up signs with my name on them. I tell them that I love them all.
The tour heads south, through Jersey, into DC. The shows aren’t getting any better. I can’t be bothered to try any harder than I already am. Everyone knows this is a mistake, but they’re all afraid to tell me. I’m too fragile. They are finishing this tour in spite of me. At night I lie in my bunk and wonder if tonight will be the night I get to see Her again, but she never visits. She probably can’t forgive me. I am so tired but I can’t fall asleep, so the doctor teaches me an old trick—try to be perfectly still, close your eyes, and attempt to locate the sound of your pulse. It may take a few minutes, but you’ll hear it, it will be there. It will grow stronger. It will envelop you. You will eventually fall asleep. Sometimes it actually works.
Maryland rolls by, Virgina, the Carolinas. Such great sadness. Cities stop mattering. They are just names on a spreadsheet. I check them off one at a time. We head through Georgia, and I begin taking girls back to my hotel rooms. Meaningless sex to fill the void. We shoot down I-95 to the Disaster’s hometown of Jacksonville. His parents and brothers come to the show that night. They all look like fatter versions of him. He is beaming and showing them around backstage, pointing out all the guitars that he’s in charge of, picking them up and tuning them as they watch in rapt silence. It makes me think of that show back in Chicago, when I grabbed Her and frightened Her. I want to go back to Her grave and apologize. But there’s no time. There never will be.
We cut across I-10, long stretches of swamp and nothingness. Alligator farms and air force bases. Through the great, sweaty South—Interstate 10 is a dire road. Show in Mobile, along the Gulf of Mexico. It never ends. I miss Her and she is never coming home again. It is beyond my control, and I have resigned myself to that. Someday my number will be called, and all I can do is hope she’ll wait for me up there until it is. I am not optimistic about my chances.
We leave Mobile in the middle of the night, bound for New Orleans, on the brown banks of Lake Pontchartrain. The guys are screwing around in the front of the bus. I am in my bunk, trying to sleep. I press my head against the pillow, close my eyes, and listen for my pulse, but the engine is too loud. We barrel through the darkness. The road hums beneath my head. The wind whistles against the window. Eventually, my heart stops racing and I drift away.
Somewhere in Mississippi, I can feel Her floating above me. I open my eyes and she is there, inches from my face yet still miles away. Infinite space and time are between us. Her hair is long now, the color of honey, and slowly waving in the night air. Her eyes are greener than they’ve ever been before, like pastures after a rain, and Her skin is the purest white. She glows softly in the dark, magical and ethereal, like lightning bugs in a jar. Just out of reach. She is the first ghost I’ve ever seen, but I am not afraid. I want to feel Her on my fingertips one more time. I want to tell Her that I love Her. But I am afraid to move or make a sound because I don’t want to frighten Her away, so I just lie there. She understands, and she smiles down upon me. Everything else falls away. I close my eyes and mouth the words I can’t bring myself to say. She can read my lips. We head toward the sunrise, together.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book and much of my (in)sanity would not be possible without: My dad for inspiring me to follow my own course in life, my mom, brother and sister: Andrew and Hilary, the tireless believer in me and single greatest supporter of Gray: Bob McLynn, Jonathan Daniels, Lauren McKenna, Ryan Harbage, James Montgomery for making sense of me when even I couldn’t and getting it right—for bringing this book back to life multiple times. Leslie Simon, CRUSH, Simon and Schuster, my friends in Chicago and around the world, my brothers in the band, and to the single greatest journey of my life: Bronx Mowgli Wentz.
PETE WENTZ rose to fame as the lyricist and bassist for Grammy-nominated Fall Out Boy, one of the biggest bands of the last decade. Currently the host of the TV series Best Ink, Pete is also an entrepreneur whose ventures include a record label and a clothing line, and he is the co-owner of Angels & Kings, a brand of popular bars and nightlife destinations in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Barcelona, Spain.
JAMES MONTGOMERY is a senior writer for MTV News, where he covers rock and pop music, politics, and popular culture. His work has also appeared in SPIN, TV Guide, Surplus, Stop Smiling, The Journal News, and several other publications. He has never been chosen one of People’s Most Beautiful People.
http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Pete-Wentz
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AUTHOR PHOTOGRAPH BY LAUREN DUKOFF
COPYRIGHT © 2013 SIMON & SCHUSTER
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Gallery Books
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Pete Wentz
MTV Music Television and all related titles, logos, and characters are trademarks of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International Inc.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First MTV Books/Gallery Books hardcover edition February 2013
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Designed by Renata Di Biase
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wentz, Pete.
Gray / Pete Wentz.—1st MTV Books/Gallery Books hardcover ed.
p. cm.
1. Rock musicians—Fiction. 2. Identity (Psychology)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3623.E593G73 2013
813'.6—dc23
2012022881
ISBN 978-1-4165-6782-0
ISBN 978-1-4165-7036-3 (ebook)
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Acknowledgments
About Pete Wentz with James Montgomery
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Acknowledgments
About Pete Wentz with James Montgomery