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“Is this what you wanted?
Did you get what you wanted?
Is this what you wanted?
Did you get what you–”
Johnny wasn’t sure who he’d written the song about. It was a medley of himself and everyone he’d ever known throughout his twenty-three years on the planet; it was every person that he’d grown up alongside in the suburban wasteland of his hometown, the one that chewed him up and spit him back out again, guiding him out of the frying pan and into the fire of the city. He felt the sweat on his forehead run down his cheek as the bright yellow lights dangling from the ceiling seared him from where he stood on the small, slightly raised wooden stage overlooking the rest of the bar. It was a gig, a real gig, not him getting drunk and singing karaoke; he got no enjoyment out of that anymore, and either way, no one paid attention to him. He thought that maybe he was a ghost, and had overdosed half a year ago, when he was still on heroin, and that’s why he was practically invisible to everyone in the establishment.
“You’re hard tonight;
The teeming life of those excusing cocaine use on Thursday nights
Explodes from bars into swerving cars
And all the while you ask yourself just who you are.”
He’d been an addict for five and a half years. Those years were gone to his memory in a haze of cocaine powder and reused needles; he thought he only had maybe three distinct memories for the entire time period. He’d gotten his six months clean medallion from his Narcotics Anonymous committee; it was shiny and yellow, his least favourite colour, and he felt it weigh heavy in the pocket of his worn-out jeans, although he knew it couldn’t have weighed more than a normal quarter. Cocaine, heroin, PCP, uppers, downers, hallucinogens; it was an act of God that he hadn’t died simply from the amount of drugs he’d used over the years; it would’ve made anyone else’s heart stop, for certain. Still, he wasn’t convinced he was all that lucky. Now that he was sober, he was alone – he’d been alone for half a year, with absolutely nothing to show for his sobriety; his apartment rent was always late and he spent his days busking. Without even the energy to pray for something other than what he had now, Johnny felt hopeless.
“I knew you when you went to shows and had more pins than a cushion,
Now you work at some vaguely purposed startup
And spend your weekends spinning Best New Music tracks
And not calling girls back.
So tell me, man...”
He used to have friends. He missed having people in his life, but now he felt as though he were only a shell of a human being, like a broken mechanical toy that couldn’t function as other humans did, as though he’d be permanently outcasted. The drugs had branded a fierce sort of shame on him and he didn’t want to have to face any human being on a personal level again. He fucked up everything, everything, that he’d ever had between himself and other people. Will had been left in the dust in Jingletown, trying desperately to care for his girlfriend and a baby he never thought would’ve existed at all, and Tunny had fled the city, opting for a “heroic” role in the military rather than waste his time watching television. Even Johnny’s ex-girlfriend – a woman he’d been with during his drug-fueled glory days, and whose name he couldn’t remember – had left him after a violent confrontation that was the catalyst to his sobriety, although he knew that she had always been right about his drug habits.
“Is this what you wanted?
Did you get what you wanted?
Is this what you wanted?
Did you get what you–
Stricken of meaning by sickening evenings
Is this what you wanted?
Did you get what you–”
As for himself, Johnny believed he was the most wretched person on the face of the Earth. A high school dropout at seventeen, a drug addict at eighteen, a mediocre musician who’d lost his will to live at twenty three. What was the use? He had all the free will in the world; he could walk off the stage at any moment, find his old flip phone, contact his saint of a drug dealer, and be throwing up in the bathroom with a needle in his arm in half an hour. He felt like a civil war; on one hand, nothing would make him more pathetic than relapsing, but on the other, he was convinced he really couldn’t get any more pathetic than he already felt he was. After all, he had no one to be clean for and no job to fund any fun; he’d pay in prostitution and half-assed favours and he could so easily overdose and be gone from the world.
“Your all boys’ school where you learned to fool around
Helps you overcompensate when you’re feeling down;
Years of acne cream and fever dreams
Cut the courage from you like a laser beam.”
The song was called The Bret Easton Ellis School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It was a bit of an odd title, but a nod to the novel American Psycho – no, Johnny hadn’t read it, as he hadn’t been a great reader at any period of his life, but he’d seen the film adaption and thoroughly enjoyed it; sure, he wasn’t exactly actively homicidal, but there was something in Patrick Bateman’s character that he empathized with. The latter half of the title, recognizably, was a reference to the Harry Potter series, something else Johnny hadn’t read, but did remind him greatly of the friends he’d left behind so many years ago. It wasn’t his greatest song, but it was the kind of quiet melancholy he felt had sent his soul into unrest that evening; he thought that the title was the best part of the whole thing. Tonight, it was more painful than cathartic to perform.
“I knew you when you had a poster of Katie Holmes in your room
Because you thought she was the kind of girl who might
Realistically like you if you play your cards right;
Where’s that shoddy hope tonight?”
Everything hurt. Johnny promised himself that this was the last song of his set and he’d soon settle down at the bar for a few beers to attempt to calm his uneasy heart; it wasn’t good for him to look back on his past, it seemed, but at the same time he believed he had no future to look forward to, and his present only depressed him further; there was nowhere for him to turn. Although he felt sick, he told himself that he wouldn’t relapse, not tonight. He’d have a drink and make his way back to his rat-infested apartment and fall asleep on his couch with the television blaring static; the resilience of his brain wanting to protect his body overcame his want of using the drugs as a coping mechanism again.
“Is this what you wanted?
Did you get what you wanted?
Is this what you wanted?
Did you get what you–
Stricken of meaning by sickening evenings
Is this what you wanted?
Did you get what you…”
Johnny let his voice trail off as he leaned back from the microphone, looking blankly down at his guitar as he wiped the sweat from his face and slid down from the stage to the floor as he earned applause in pity from some of the bar-goers. Carrying his guitar safely in his case with him, he sat himself down at the furthest corner of the bar and ordered a beer for himself, digging his Narcotics Anonymous coin out of his pocket and holding it gently in the palm of his hand. The word “freedom”, engraved in capital letters on the flip side of the medallion, stood out to him, and he took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment while the bartender placed a bottle of beer in front of him. He put the coin on the bar counter while he took a sip of his beer, and a voice belonging to someone he didn’t notice had sat down beside him brought him back to the present.
“Six months, huh?”
Johnny nodded, staring forward at the wall of alcohol ahead of him, and glanced back down at the coin.
“I’m two years,” the man said, pulling out a bronze medallion and placing it on the counter next to Johnny’s. It wasn’t a Narcotics Anonymous one, but an Alcoholics Anonymous one, and Johnny squinted in confusion. He looked up at the man, intending to ask him what the hell he was doing in a bar if he was recovering from an alcohol addiction, but seeing the man’s face made realization smack him in the stomach so hard it was almost painful, and he couldn’t get any words out; he sat there with his mouth open in shock.
It was Will. It was honest to God Will, whom he hadn’t seen since he was eighteen years old; it was Will, older, with deeper bags under his eyes and a few days’ worth of stubble on his jaw. “Oh God,” Johnny managed to say in a shaky voice, unable to swallow a lump that formed almost immediately in his throat. The smile that spread across Will’s face was so familiar and so dear to him he barely managed to stop himself from bawling suddenly; he had acne scars on his cheeks and the blue streak in his hair had been replaced with simple blond but by God, it was Will. Johnny could see his own emotions reflected in Will’s expression, and at once, he found himself held in Will’s arms and his nose shoved into Will’s shoulder as he clung so tightly to the back of his shirt he thought his hands would break. “What the hell–” Johnny began, his voice breaking and muffled by Will’s hoodie, “what the hell are you doing here?”
“I saw your name on a poster in the window,” Will answered softly. Johnny could feel him shaking against him as they spoke, still unwilling to let each other go. “I had to see you. It’s been… it’s been way too fucking long. I thought I’d never see you again. I thought you were gone.”
“I was gone,” Johnny said, pulling back from the hug but holding onto Will’s wrists as though he were afraid that if he’d let go, Will would disappear. “I was gone, for so fuckin’ long, Will. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m sorry–”
Will shushed him gently, pulling one arm away from Johnny’s grip so he could tuck a strand of Johnny’s hair behind his ear. “I know. I… six months, Johnny? What happened?”
A fresh wave of shame washed over Johnny and he swallowed sharply, wanting to turn back to face the bar to hide the tears that were welling up in his eyes, but Will was grasping his own arm now, too, and he was frozen. He didn’t want to admit what happened, didn’t want to tell Will that he’d completely lost his fucking mind – despite it being obvious by the second sobriety coin on the counter that Will had gone through something similar, Johnny thought that Will was definitely a much stronger person than he was, and he didn’t want Will to know he was so pathetic. “Nothing.”
Will was tearing up as well, but he was trying to blink it away; he wrapped his arm around Johnny and pulled him back towards him, resting his chin on top of his head as Johnny buried his face in his chest, trembling in his efforts not to start sobbing. “Your songs are gorgeous, Johnny. You haven’t lost your touch.”
“Why are you here?” Johnny asked. Will didn’t smell like Will; reaching back into his long-discarded memories of high school, he knew that Will used to smell like weed, cigarettes, and beer that he’d spill on his clothes and spend the next half-hour trying to scrub out; now, he smelt like Tide and some vague sense of comfort.
“In the city?” Will asked, and Johnny pulled away again so he could hear his response. “I… we moved here. Heather and I, we’re – we’re not raising Rowan together, I guess you don’t know that…” Johnny shook his head, his eyebrows furrowing. For the first time, he realized that he really had no idea what had happened to anyone he used to know; he assumed Tunny was still in the military, but he didn’t know that for a fact, and until tonight, he thought Will was with Heather in Jingletown, raising their child. “We broke up. It was bad,” Will explained, “but it was after a really long time that was even worse, because… I just – I just took a complete nosedive after you and Tunny left. I can’t even explain it, I… I started drinking and I was a complete dick to Heather, so she was right to leave. And I’m so fucking lucky, Johnny, because I’ve been helping to raise Rowan since I got sober, and Lord, she’s perfect. She has Heather’s eyes, you know. And she’s got my nose. She’s five now. She’s in first grade. And Heather – she’s going to get married, can you believe that? I was fucking terrified of her boyfriend when I first met him, but hell, he’s a good father figure to Ro’, and that’s all I care about.”
“Jesus,” Johnny said. He couldn’t imagine having a child – the thought made him queasy, especially thinking of his own parents – and he nearly couldn’t imagine Will having a child, either, but the animated way he spoke of his daughter and the way his eyes were suddenly bright with enthusiasm instead of tears convinced him that ultimately, Will had pulled himself out of his slump on account of caring for her. A new unrest was stirring in him, something different than the suicidal apathy he’d fallen into during his set, and he grabbed his medallion in his hand, squeezing it tightly. “I – I’m a heroin addict, Will, I fucking… I shouldn’t have left you in Jingletown, y’know, and it… karma really kicked me in the ass on that one.” He laughed, for the first time in what felt like years.
Will’s facial expression had totally changed and Johnny caught him glancing down at his arms as though he expected him to see track marks bruising the crooks of his elbows. “Heroin? Johnny…”
“I mean, it wasn’t just dope, it was, y’know, you name it, I tried it,” Johnny explained, shifting on his stool as though he couldn’t sit still, “but I can’t remember most of it, so… the days and nights just blended together and I was too fuckin’ high to remember any of it, but… I had a girlfriend, y’know, and then my addiction just took over, and she was the one to really drill it into my fuckin’ head that if I kept on living the way I was living, I was just gonna hurt more people, and, y’know, soon enough I wouldn’t be living anymore.”
Will looked horrified and he shook his head slowly. “If I had known…”
“You couldn’t have,” Johnny said firmly.
“Are you still with your girlfriend?” Will asked, and Johnny shook his head with a bit of a sad smile on his face.
“Nah. She left. I put her through a lot of tough shit. It’s not easy to love someone who’s using, and I – I mean, I fuckin’ loved her, man, I loved her so much it hurt, but I loved the drugs more.” That was hard to confess, and he felt shame boil in his stomach again; he wanted to take another sip of his beer, but decided not to touch it in front of Will. “It wasn’t pretty. I had a lot of bullshit to deal with once I finally got off my ass and decided to get clean.”
“I know the feeling completely,” Will said. “Hell, it was hard walking in here and not knowing whether to risk the temptation of drinks around. Every time I want to drink, though, I think of Rowan, and I swear, as long as she’s in my life, I’ll never touch alcohol again. But I wanted to see you, and it was definitely worth it. I never would’ve guessed, Johnny, I never, ever would’ve guessed…”
“I know,” Johnny said, looking down at his coin. “It’s pathetic. But you know what’s funny?” He lifted the medallion up and held it between his index and thumb so Will could see it clearly. “I was considerin’ throwin’ this away tonight. I really, really was. I think you might’ve saved me, Will.”
“I don’t think it’s pathetic,” Will stuttered, taking Johnny’s hand in his and folding his fingers over for him so he was holding the coin in his hand, “and, Johnny, please don’t. I’ll help you. I can call the hospital if you really think you’re in danger of relapsing. I know you’re kind of embarrassed about it, I can tell, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of, I promise. Six months is a long way, you know that. Don’t throw it away.”
Johnny laughed again, rubbing his forehead with his free hand. “You haven’t changed at all,” he teased him. He remembered Will’s anxious long-windedness from high school, when he was afraid he’d said something that might’ve offended someone or if he was nervously trying to persuade someone of something; the same pleading was coming from him now. “I won’t. Not while you’re here. Just promise me you’re here.”
“I’m here, Johnny,” Will said, grasping both of his hands and holding on tightly. “I promise. I’m not going to let you go again. You and Tunny aren’t allowed to abandon me like that again, you hear?”
Johnny froze completely, his half-smile falling. Tunny? Did Will know where Tunny was, too? This was completely insane; just fifteen minutes ago, Johnny had been on the verge of relapsing because he felt as though he were completely alone, and by the grace of God, both of his best friends from so long ago had reappeared like guardian angels in his life, and, better yet, Will had forgiven him for his sins. “Tunny?” he managed to say, and Will grinned painfully and nodded.
“I didn’t realize that you must not have known about him,” he exclaimed, “I met up with him a couple years ago – and trust me, Johnny, we looked for you, we tried to find you everywhere, but you’d disappeared – and he’s… he’s better now. He received an honourable discharge from the military because he’d severely injured his leg, and he’d had to get it amputated… and get this: he’s dating the woman who was his nurse! Seriously! Isn’t that the most Tunny thing you’ve ever heard?”
“I bet he spent the entire time in the hospital flirtin’ with her and talkin’ about how he was the captain of the football team in high school,” Johnny said, rolling his eyes but unable to hide the massive grin on his face; he was shaking with anticipation and excitement now. He wasn’t sure whether he should be shocked at the news of Tunny’s injury, and he almost wanted to be, but he frankly couldn’t overshadow the exhilaration that was flooding him at the thought of himself and his best friends reuniting. It felt as though no time had passed at all, as though he were just as comfortable now with talking to them as he was in high school. “Can I see him, Will? Can you text him or something?”
Standing up, Will pulled Johnny along with him and entwined their fingers. “Come with me. I’ll take you back to my apartment and make you some tea and see if he’s awake enough to visit.”
Johnny slipped his Narcotics Anonymous coin back into his pocket and picked up his guitar case, beaming hopelessly as Will kissed his forehead and new tears sprung to his eyes. “Please.”
Will gestured towards the bar counter. “Don’t forget your beer.”
“Fuck it,” Johnny told him, tugging on his hand and leading him towards the door of the bar, eager to find somewhat of a new truce within himself and to rekindle the friendships that had kept him alive when he was younger and dumber.