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“Dude, why is your toothbrush, like, yellow?”
“I dunno.” Aron shrugs in the mirror, flattening his hair with an equally nasty-looking comb. “It’s old.”
“Yo, I think it’s moldy.” Jorel holds it up close to his face, furrowing his brow at the mildew at the bottom of the bristles. “That’s fucking gross, dude. I’m throwing it away.”
“I don’t have another toothbrush,” Aron whines.
Jorel drops it into the trashcan anyways. “Then buy another at CVS or some shit.”
-
“Yo, what flavor is this?” Jorel asks, wiping his mouth on his forearm.
“Banana.” Aron takes a swig.
“No wonder it tastes like shit,” but Jorel reaches for the bottle again anyway.
Aron scowls. “I haven’t gotten my paycheck yet. We’ll buy something better when I do.”
“A’ight.” He props his feet up on the coffee table in front of the couch they’re sitting on, slinging an arm around Aron’s shoulders.
Aron leans into him, no questions asked. It’s normalcy at this point. They day-drink, fall asleep together, and they’ll wake up before sunset to go out and get fucked up again, and again, and again.
-
In their bed (Aron’s bed) under the window, in the dusk’s last drops of sunlight, Aron spreads like a blanket on top of Jorel as they share a blunt.
“Is that Jeff’s shirt?” Jorel asks, hand resting on Aron’s hip. He presses his fingers into the skin, feeling like soft stone, bones solid and unyielding underneath his flesh.
Aron blows smoke in Jorel’s face and giggles. “Yeah, why?”
“Are you guys fucking or something?”
“No.” Aron brings the blunt to Jorel’s lips, letting him take a drag before taking it for himself again. “He just says I can’t, uh, y’know, walk around in my clothes ‘cause they’re weird or something. He’s a bitch about it.”
Jorel hums in affirmation even though he has no idea what Aron is talking about. He palms the back of Aron’s head, scratching the hair that grows at the base of his neck.
Aron chuckles, nose bumping against Jorel’s chin when he swings his head as he laughs. “Don’t pet me. I’m not a dog. You’re supposed to be the dog.”
-
Imagine you are nineteen and it’s 2003. It is a year until your best friend is going to release his first shitty EP that you don’t have the guts to say is not as good as he thinks it is. It is four years until you’re going to get massively popular on MySpace with your other childhood friends. It is five years until you’re going to release your first studio album with them. It is seven years until you’re going to wonder if any of it was worth it at all.
But don’t worry about that right now. Your girlfriend just broke up with you over phone call of all ways and you would’ve thrown your phone had you not remembered last second that you don’t have the money to replace it.
Your friends are having a shitty house party and you realize it’s the perfect excuse to get blackout drunk and not have to think about that bitch at all.
It backfires, and now you’re sitting on the steps of the back porch with a bottle at your side and trembling lips holding a cigarette in your mouth, thinking about the way she tasted like cherry chapstick and how coarse her dyed hair felt in your fingertips.
The door opens behind you, but the person who’s caught you doesn’t make any noise. A few steps forward, and then crouching next to you is your best friend.
You don’t look at him despite his gaze boring into your profile. In your peripheral, you can see that his face is soft with understanding and more than a few shots.
“Jay?” he murmurs.
You just look down and wipe your hands down your face, then keep them there in a sudden urge to not let anyone see you.
Then your best friend tries to hold you in his arms, his ridiculously thin arms, which don’t even reach around your shoulders completely because you might as well be a behemoth next to him.
It’s really, really unbearably cute, but you’re probably just desperate for someone and don’t give the fleeting idea too much thought. He noses the side of your head like the family dog begging for scraps.
He’s now sitting down next to you, legs flush against each other, just doing his best to be near you because his words no doubt will come out jumbled and nonsensical if he tries to comfort you verbally. You know how he is. He knows how he is. No use in trying when an alternative exists in the form of a good ol’ hug.
What matters is that it helps. His sweat-damp skin is warmer than the night air and his slow breath in your ear reminds you that you’re not alone in this world— in this world of wild animals, in this world of unforgiving dogs.
-
He’s J-Dog on stage. He’s Jorel at home and church, but he’s Decker at work. With new girls, he’s JD. In Aron’s eyes, though, he will always be Jay.
Jay, his rough-and-tumble best friend since childhood. Jay, the kid dressed in dorky sweaters at the back of the pews.
Jay, who wasn’t allowed to shave his head at bootcamp and got called “monkey boy” by everyone when he got home. Jay, who came back with a different kind of hunger.
Jay, who smells like cigarettes and sweat and motor oil. Jay, with broad shoulders and hazel eyes and itches to fight because well, how else do you get faggots to stop talking shit?
Jay, who puts his arm around anyone he sits near. Who puts his mouth on anyone who will listen, and then gets his heart broken a week later.
Jay, who talks with his fists. Jay, who buys cat food for strays. Jay, who coos at the bulldogs that named him when they shiver nervously in their cages.
Jay, who sometimes screams so loud for songs that it peaks the mic. Jay, who makes music like his life depends on it.
And Aron, who watches him stare through his chest like a fish tank at posters on the wall.
-
“He called us Hollywood Undead,” Aron says for the nth time, chuckling.
“I dunno.” Jorel shrugs. “It’s kinda cool.”
“Whatever you want, Jay. Whatever you want.”
-
“Fuck, Jorel.” Aron hisses. He tugs at the sheets in frustration. “Slow down.”
He submerges his face into the pale expanse of exposed neck beneath instead of answering. How can he slow down when everything is already going in slow motion?
Aron whimpers when he bites down instead of showing any mercy.
-
When Jorel first sees it, it’s when Aron walks out of the shower, wet and steam-sticky.
“No fucking way,” he guffaws, eyeing Aron’s stomach, which proudly displays the name 3tears.
“What?” Aron asks, blinking droopy brown eyes. He brushes a bit of sopping hair out of his face (Christ, does Jorel need to give him lessons on how to dry it?) and crawls under the covers, huddling into a tight ball.
“You got a tat of our band name.” Jorel pulls down the sheets to gawk at it, ignoring Aron’s annoyed whine at having lost the warmth of the blankets.
“It’s cold, bitch,” Aron groans, wrestling the duvet back atop of him.
Jorel’s jaw is still slightly ajar. “Are you really not gonna explain?”
“What is there to explain?” Aron grumbles.
Jorel just blinks rapidly, then shakes his head. “Y’know, fine. Forget it. Go to sleep, dude.”
“G’night, Jay.”
A beat of silence in the dark as the bedside lamp is shut off.
“Yeah, goodnight, Aron.” Then, quietly added: “Love you.”
-
“That bitch really did a number on you,” Charlie teases, poking the dark spot on Aron’s neck.
He glances at Jorel with far less subtlety than he realizes. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, she did.”
“Why’d you look at Jay? Did you have a threesome?”
“Sure. Sure we did.”
“That’s not an answer, but fine. Be a faggot, then.”
-
They did it. Swan Songs is finally done. Nearly three years of hard work, and finally they can rest. At least for a week.
Jorel spends most of it in a drunken haze, sloppily shoving his tongue into Aron’s mouth immediately after vomiting half the time and then clumsily attempting to roll some blunts the other half. Aron comes to his rescue, thankfully.
“Here.” Aron sticks the joint between his lips, like he’s a baby who needs to be spoon-fed. “What would you even do without me?”
“Die,” Jorel answers simply, not being melodramatic at all.
Aron snorts with laughter. “You just might. I’m basically your nanny at this point, dawg.”
“I would not fuck my nanny, dude,” Jorel protests between chuckles.
“Sure, you freak.” Aron sits back with a joint of his own. He lights Jorel first (how considerate), and then his own.
“Okay, fine, I would,” Jorel concedes all too fast, his inebriation lowering his threshold.
“See.” Aron elbows him, but his smile is fond.
Their world returns to momentary peace when the air falls still, and all that’s present is the cloud of smoke surrounding them, Aron’s cheek against his shoulder and his hand on his thigh, and their heartbeats entwined.
“We did it,” Jorel murmurs, wrapping an arm around Aron.
He thinks about all the concerts, all the tracks he loves, all the gorgeous girls, expensive alcohol and more hedonistic distractions that come with the freedom of wealth and fame. He has never been one for glory or money, but he might as well enjoy it while it sits in his lap.
“Yeah.” Aron cuddles closer. “We did.”
Jorel’s such a liar. He’s a fucking liar. The only thing he thinks about is Aron.
-
Now, let’s go back to 2003. No future events worry you. You only exist here and now, on the steps of a cold porch, in the dark, partially covered by a threadbare sweater of thin arms.
The noise inside has died, and you figure everyone has either left or passed out. Probably the latter. The bottle’s contents remain stagnant, and the cigarette lies snuffed out on the concrete below.
“You feel any better?” he tries tentatively, his voice whispery as if there’s anybody around to eavesdrop, like their embrace is sacred.
You nod, but he doesn’t pull away like you expected him to.
“Good,” he murmurs into your ear. He sighs, long-suffering and exaggerated. “You wanna listen to somethin’? I downloaded some new songs on my iPod earlier.”
Without waiting for your answer, he shoves an earbud into your head and then puts the other one into his.
It’s nice to shut your brain off for a moment, to just exist next to him and listen to whatever is trending in the rap genre. He’s got such basic taste that it’s almost painful, but you’re not going to complain about the offered reprieve.
Then, he asks you a question softly, like he’s afraid of being judged. “Do you think we could be like them?”
“Huh?”
“Like, famous and shit,” he murmurs, fidgeting with the headphone jack. “Never mind, I’m just bein’ dumb.”
“No,” you protest, “it’s not dumb. Like, maybe we could. Why?”
“It’d be nice to not worry about money, to change people’s lives. Save people’s lives.”
“I mean, sure,” you agree, not certain you understand what exactly he means.
“Would you help me do that?” He smirks like it’s a joke, but you have a feeling that it’s not. Like you’re signing a contract you haven’t read.
But he’s your best friend. And you love him, maybe more than you should.
So, you take his hand and promise you will both be famous.