Songbirds
The
Ballad of Bridget and Brian 
Kitty Schooley
Chapter
7
Buzzards
Table of Contents
Chapter 11
Getting Cocked and Cock Fights
When I awoke, Mark was still in nearly the same spot, the same pose and shirtless. I wondered if he had sat there immobile while I slept. My mouth was pasty with an awful taste. “Do we have to go yet?” Incredibly, I was still concerned about the wanderings of the band.
“Soon,” Mark said.
“I’m going to need to get stuff from my…our room together.”
“Want me to go with you?”
“You’d better not.”
“Maybe I should go with you.” he insisted. Mark pulled on a shirt and shoes. I raked my fingers through my hair, but it was probably no improvement. All of my toiletries were in the room that Brian and I were supposed to have occupied together.
Mark tailed me as I walked out into the hall and down to the room. I pulled the key from my pocket and turned. I hesitated for a moment then also turned the doorknob. Brian was not in the sitting room area. We had a larger room than Mark since there were two of us. My things would be in the bedroom and bathroom, so I headed there with Mark still following. Brian was on the bed watching TV. His eyes had the glazed look of being stoned or drunk. “I came to get my things,” I said.
Brian’s eyes took a slow pan over toward me. His eyes rested on me momentarily. He shrugged, and then his gaze shifted back to the TV. He was too stoned to care. I began collecting items I would need to shower and dress. Mark said, “Hey, Brian, wanna smoke?”
Mark was the candy man of the group. He always had the best of any type of drug anyone could want. It was more than Brian could refuse. “Sure,” Brian said and pushed up higher against his pillow supports. The last thing I saw before closing the bathroom door was Mark sitting on the edge of the bed, lighting up, and passing the j to Brian.
When I came out of the bathroom, Mark was gone. Brian had fallen asleep on the bed. I continued to pack. When I was ready, I sat on the edge of the bed and shook Brian. “Don’t you need to get things together?”
“Hmm?”
“The band bus is leaving in half an hour. Didn’t Avery call?” I noticed the phone sat with the handset out of the cradle, so that was obviously Brian’s answer to Avery’s call. Mark had gotten Brian as stupid with drugs as I had been the night before. I am sure Mark thought he was making it safe for me, but now there was another problem.
I hung the phone up. Then I picked it up again. I dialed Avery’s number. “Brian’s not going to make it to the bus if someone doesn’t get in here.”
“What’s the matter?”
“He’s stoned out of his mind. I’ll pack for him, but you and someone else are going to have to get him down to the bus.”
“You two fighting?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.” News traveled faster than I cared. The whole band and associated entourage knew that Brian had been unfaithful to me, and that I had been unfaithful to him. They were all waiting with gleeful anticipation at the scene it would create. Their hope was that it would be enough of a ruckus to be entertaining, but not enough to pull the band apart and send everyone packing without jobs. Of course, the presentiment had been building since the very beginning of the tour.
I packed up Brian’s things and Avery came with Mark to haul Brian out to the tour bus. They threw him on one of the bunks to sleep it off. There was very little privacy on the bus, but I commandeered what little there was and asked Avery to join me. He would have been the only one aboard who would have any knowledge concerning my questions. After my conversation with Avery, I crawled in next to Brian since in the close quarters it was the only way to be there when he awoke. I continually wiped a hot stream of tears away and desperately hoped I would be at a resting phase when he awoke.
Brian finally did awake, and he said, “Hey, Bree.” Hey, Bree! We had just been through the worst twenty-four hours of our lives together!
“We need to talk.”
“Wait a minute, I gotta piss,” he said.
“But Brian…” I protested as he slid out of the bunk.
“I’ll be back. How long have I been out? I gotta piss like a race horse.” He patted my ankle affectionately.
I tried to compose myself and decide the best way to deliver the message I had decided on. Brian slid back in beside me and put his arm around me. “Brian, Avery said I could leave as soon as a replacement keyboardist is found.”
“What’d ya wanna do that for? You’re the best rock keyboardist in the business.”
I looked down, which meant my eyes were pointing at his chest. “I thought after last night, you wouldn’t want me around anymore.”
Brian lifted my chin up so that I was looking straight into those gray eyes. He kissed me tenderly. He nuzzled my neck and whispered, “I love you.” I was melting inside. He tilted back to look me in the eye again. “I’m sorry Bree. I can’t ignore all this pussy being thrown in my face. But you’re the one I love. If you have to be with Mark or someone else, well, I won’t like it but I’ll understand.” He kissed me again and thrust his hand up under my shirt. “Please don’t go,” he whispered. It wasn’t the way I wanted things, but he continued seducing me and I could not protest. I could not leave him.
***
I woke up next to Brian. Sunlight glinted on the gray and white strands mixed in with the brown. I should have known that being with him would not only bring up all the good old feelings, but also all the bad ones. The night I had remembered, the night I had been with Mark was the beginning of the end. The band would go on for years. As would the cycles of fighting and making up. On the road, some nights Brian would be desperate to get into bed with me. Others, he wanted to sample the flavor of the night. I had soon after asked that I always been given a room to myself. Sometimes I stayed in it alone, sometimes Brian was there, and sometimes there were others. Sometimes I wasn’t even there myself.
At times it was Mark. Being with Mark felt odd, though. Not because he was reputed to be gay or bi, but because he honestly had feelings for me. “Why?” I finally asked him one time, “why were you always there smoothing things out for Brian and me?”
“Because I love you. I mean both of you. You two, together, were the heart and soul of the band. I knew if you and Brian ever broke up the demise of the band wasn’t far behind.”
It was true. When Brian and I fought, the whole band began to fight. On the surface, it was over musical passages, chord progressions and differences of style. Deep down it was over the fact that Brian wouldn’t settle down and have a family with me. According to him, it was never the right time; we still needed to tour, he claimed, and we couldn’t have a baby if we were still touring. The fact that Paul and Linda McCartney had four babies and remained in the music business didn’t impress him. “We’re not that caliber, yet, Bridget.”
“We don’t have to reach that caliber to survive. We can write songs and record and have a family.”
“You just don’t get it, do you? Touring sells records.”
“Touring makes more bills. You and the guys just slosh around in drug and alcohol and bimbos the whole time. We get home and we just have to make another album and go out on the road and sell it. Let’s stop the cycle.”
It wasn’t always that bad. I was most happy when we were home in Los Angeles together. The infidelities we punished each other with became non-existent. The flow of alcohol and drugs slowed. We wrote songs together like we did in the early days. We went to the beach and for walks in the mountains. We saw movies together. We decorated our house. I was convinced at these times that Brian would want what I wanted. I remembered him at all of twenty years old, calmly convincing my father he would take care of me.
Then we would go into the studio. These times the band was congenial. We got along; we worked together as a team. Even Joey’s negativity couldn’t bring us down. Except the day would come, when managers, record promoters, lawyers and music publishers would bear down on us to promote the record we had just produced. The way of the recording industry to promote a record was to put the band on tour.
First the drugs and alcohol would start up full swing. I was just as guilty in the beginning. I wanted something to heal the tear in the fabric of my life. So I tried drugs. I drank. The more I did, the sloppier my performances got. Then Brian would rage about how unprofessional I was. Then he would have an excuse to sleep with someone else that night.
***
Brian blinked his eyes open. I managed a smile. He saw through it. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t like you drinking?”
“It was just a couple of beers.”
“Brian, you should know better.” When In Faith broke up, after our relationship had been pronounced dead six months earlier, Brian had binged enough to land him in the hospital but not enough to kill him or permanently disable him.
“That was drugs.”
“Alcohol is a drug.”
“Bree, please, we’ll work this out, just don’t harass me about it.”
I realized I had lost power by agreeing to being with him and not naming my full price. Brian had been in rehab for drug abuse after the band broke up. He managed to kick everything except alcohol. Since that came as a few to several beers a night he was convinced it was no big deal.
I sat up in bed with the sheet wrapped around me. “What did you want, Brian, besides us just being together?”
“I don’t know that I thought about it. I just love you. I never stopped, you know.”
“I know, Bri. You know me, though, I want it all.”
I felt his hand caressing my spine. “That’s my Bree-gee. Always going for the whole pie.”
I knew something at that moment. Despite Brian’s problems, he did see me for who I was and not what he could make me. Not like Roger who had seen me as a conquest. Ethan had seen me as a conquest also, in a different way. Ethan had also seen what he thought he could make of me. I felt a tenderness rise up in me. I turned around to fall into his arms.
“Hmm,” he hummed. “What was that last night you were too tired for?” He kissed me. He touched me in all the places he knew would stir me. “What do you want?” he whispered. “What’s the whole pie?”
“I want you to be serious.”
“I am. Very serious.”
“About me. As serious as you are about your music.”
“I am. Never loved anyone or anything like this. Except you and my music.”
I should never have started a discussion while I was being seduced. This was something better left to being fully clothed and discussed over a conference table. Preferably with a mediator or two lawyers present. His talent was showing fully, to reach me emotionally as well as he could reach an audience with his music. “Say you love me, Bree.”
“Oh, Bri, I do. I love you.”
Later, after showered and dressed, Brian looked content. I had only been temporarily satiated. I had been given a slice and left craving the entire pie. I missed Sonya. I decided to call her. She happily chirped about all the things she was doing, how daddy let her stay up late and she saw me on TV. “Are those men in your band, Mommy?”
“Yes, they are. They’re the same ones I was in a band with before I met Daddy and you were born.”
“The one Grandma said use to come over your house all the time?”
“Yes, honey.” There was a stabbing pain in my heart. If Ethan found out I was sleeping with Brian, he might gather sufficient momentum to take Sonya away.
When I hung up the phone, I said, “We can’t let anyone find out.”
“What? We’re neither one of us married right now!”
“He’ll take Sonya away. He’s tried before. He didn’t even like me going on the tour. Said it was the wrong sort of image for a mom.”
I was frantically pacing the room when Brian’s hand caught my elbow. “Who?”
“Ethan!”
“Don’t you think you’re jumping to conclusions?”
“No! I don’t know. I need to see my lawyer in LA.”
“So, we’ll keep it quiet until we get back to LA.”
“Who knows,” I thought aloud. “The band. Mark will protect us, he always has. Leroy, it’s his job. Greg? He won’t care; he’ll do whatever we ask. Joey?!?”
Brian guided me over to the sofa. He wrapped his arms around me. I was sobbing into his chest. “Joey will do what’s ever best for the band.”
“This is how it started,” I reflected. I looked up at his eyes—storm clouds and lightning. “Between us.”
“I knew what you meant,” he said and kissed me.
***
“Meg, Sonya saw us on TV.”
“We did, too, Birdie. The kids were really bragging about their famous aunt.”
“You don’t understand, if Sonya saw us, then Ethan did. If he gets any impression Brian and me are together, he could really make my life miserable.”
“I don’t think Brian wants you hurt.”
“I have no control over the interviews scheduled. Brian could get sloppy in front of a camera.”
Meg made a noise of exasperation. “Look, Ethan is way too thick to figure out something subtle.”
“He didn’t get where he is by not being able to read nuances. He’ll know. And he’s wanted some way to punish me ever since I said I wanted a divorce.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I don’t know. Moral support?”
“Look, you know you got that. Just have fun with your revived career, OK? Just be natural in front of the interviewers, don’t hold hands or make kissy faces. You’ll be fine.”
“I’m worried about Joey taking revenge.”
“Look, he’s always known that what’s good for the two of you is good for the band. And what’s good for the band is good for him. He’s grown-up. You’ve said so yourself.”
Brian and Meg were right. Joey had matured enough to realize if I was drawn into some legal battle it would not be good for the band. Brian and I cooled our affection outside of our room. Stage affection was deemed all right and necessary—the fans liked at least the illusion of us getting along. Leroy made sure we had adjoining rooms so that we could use separate entrances. We had survived this hurdle, but my mind was spinning over what it meant for Brian and me to be a couple. Couples want to end up living together my mind reasoned. Before I could think of what that would mean for us in the future, my thoughts wandered down memory land to the first time we lived together as a couple.
***
Brian had called me up. He asked me to come down to his house since he increasingly felt more uncomfortable at mine. His sister, Tracy, greeted me in and told me he was downstairs. He had set up a card table and a folding chair. His head was bent over papers spread out over the entire surface. It could be anything from working on songs to working on a budget for the band’s expenses. When I got closer, I could see that it was numbers that trailed off the pages in a disorderly fashion. Brian was good at math and seemed to have a natural feel for business matters, but the way he worked did not seem linear or orderly. More like an intuitive feeling that bubbled up through him. “Hi, hon, I’m here,” I said.
Brian barely looked up to say, “Hey.” I could see the hair at his temples pasted there. It was summer and although their house was air conditioned, it was not downstairs. Still, being below ground made it cool, but Brian’s intensity made him hot. “Sit down,” he indicated the empty chair.
I scooted the chair in close to his and sat down. I wanted more than to be consulted about mathematics or bookkeeping. We had very little time alone together and what we had was precious to me. The strange thing was that before Brian had ever kissed me, I had never considered it a possibility. Once he did, I could not get enough of it. “What cha figuring out?” I put my hand on his knee.
He sighed. “Bree, I wanna live together. Your dad’s becoming one major hassle...”
Before he could complete another word, I had thrown my arms around his neck. I kissed him and made my best play at being seductive.
“Bree, please,” he pealed my arms away. “We can’t now. You know people are upstairs.”
I pulled away, hurting from desire and rejection. He put his hand to my cheek. “This is why I wanna live together.”
“I want you now. When you called up, I thought...”
“I know. You’re sweet for wanting me. Help me figure this out so we don’t have to hassle with this sorta thing anymore.”
I sighed. It was the big picture as opposed to immediate gratification. My mind agreed, but my emotions pulled me away from the logical. “What’d ya got?”
“Well, I’m looking at places in the newspaper, right. You and me together, can’t afford anything.”
“Couldn’t we get other jobs?” I always pressed on this issue, and Brian always wanted us to concentrate on the band.
“That’s not my idea. Look at this listing.” From somewhere in the piles of papers he produced a classified ad. “If the whole band lived there together, we’re close to being able to afford it.”
It was in an older section of town. I was familiar with it. Older homes smaller rooms. “Three bedrooms. Who would you propose to double up beside us?”
“Dining room. We don’t need a dining room; we could make it into a bedroom.”
“Brian, dinning rooms aren’t private enough for a bedroom. Who’d want that?”
“You and me.” He grinned slyly. “I checked it out, Bree. The dining room has one of those folding doors between the living room and dining room. We could keep that shut all the time. There’s a swinging door between the kitchen and dinning room; we’d use that as the entrance.” Then he held up a key.
“Bri, how’d you get that?”
“Told ‘em I wanted to show it to my wife. They said they wouldn’t be available later, so I made out like I was all disappointed. Said I could just drop it in the mailbox after showing it to you.”
I pretend punched his arm. “They believed you had a wife?” He grinned and nodded. “And you think me, Mark, Greg and Joey will just go along with this?” His grin broadened. “You’re incorrigible!”
“So how ‘bout it, let’s go look at our new house.”
The house was mostly what I expected. The entryway shotgunned right into the kitchen and there was a small staircase on the left-hand side. On the right side, an archway opened up to the living room. “That’ll be our studio,” Brian said. Upstairs were three small but adequate bedrooms and a small bathroom. The kitchen was not modernized—no cabinets and no counters. The sink was old-fashioned, long and shallow with a small drain board attached. There was a large pantry and the nods to the later half of the twentieth century were the stove and refrigerator. Brian pushed open the swinging door to the dinning room. I looked at the large double folding doors that led back to the living room. He closed them and hooked the latch. “See,” he said. “We could even put the bed up against the doors.”
“Oh, you’ve already started decorating the bedroom.”
“That’s not all I’ve imagined in here.” He took me in his arms and pushed me against the wall. Passion exploded in him. He fumbled with my clothes and his.
“Brian, what if the people come back unexpectedly?” I tried to push him away.
“You were ready to take whatever you could get in my basement an hour ago. What if my parents or sister or brother came down? Isn’t it less likely we’ll get caught here?”
I sighed and acquiesced. The first time we made love in our new bedroom, we had no furniture, and had not even paid the rent.
No one in the band needed much convincing. They were all anxious to get out from under their respective parental roofs. When Brian presented the budget plan, based on what we made and supplemented by any day or part-time jobs any of us could find (I had finally won out on that issue, since it seemed like it would take five years otherwise to afford the place), we were on our way. We did bend the truth when filling out the lease. We said Brian and I were married, Mark was Brian’s brother, and I think Joey was my cousin and Greg was Brian’s.
My father scowled as we moved out the piano and other furniture I was allowed to take from my bedroom. My mother, however, bought us a bed. She said a couple shouldn’t start out on two twin beds. My father said, “They’re not getting married, ‘Leta.”
“Hal,” she admonished him. “Why can’t you remain positive about this? Why can’t you believe they’ll come around?”
© 2005 Kitty Schooley
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