Public Secrets

eat his fruit and vegetables, he would smile and answer all their questions. He would lie to the pretty, cool-eyed psychiatrist. Then he would get out.
He dreamed of scoring again, of filling his veins with that glorious combination of Chinese white and top-grade snow. All that beautiful white powder. He fantasized about it—huge, mountainous piles of beautiful white powder heaped on silver platters. He would scoop it up with both hands, fill himself with it.
He dreamed of killing them, the doctors, the nurses. He dreamed of killing himself Then he would weep again.

They said he’d damaged his heart, and his liver. They said he was anemic and were ruthlessly dealing with that, and his cross-addiction to heroin and coke. No one called him a junkie. They said he had an addictive personality.
It had been hard not to laugh at that. So he had an addictive personality. No shit, Sherlock. All he wanted was for them to leave him and his personality alone. He was the best fucking guitarist in the world, and had been for twenty years. He was forty-five and twenty-year-old girls still wanted the honor of a few hours in his bed. He was rich, filthy rich. He had a Lamborghini, a Rolls. He bought motorcycles like potato chips. He had a twenty-acre estate in London, a villa in Paris, and a hilltop hideaway in San Francisco. He’d like to see any of the smart-mouthed nurses or holier-than-thou doctors top that.
Had they ever stood onstage and had ten thousand people scream for them? No. But he had. They were jealous, all of them jealous. That’s why they kept him here, away from his fans, away from his music, away from his drugs.
Wallowing in self-pity, he stared at the room. The walls were papered in a soft blue and gray floral. A thick gray carpet covered the floor, and the windows faced south. The matching drapes tried to disguise the fact that the windows were barred. There was a color-coordinated sitting area across the room, two cushioned sofas, and a spoon-back chair. Festive fall flowers sat in a wicker basket on the coffee table. A tasteful reproduction of a nineteenth-century wardrobe held a television, VCR, and stereo system. An entertainment center, Stevie thought bitterly. He wasn’t entertained.
Why had they left him alone so long? Why was he alone?
He felt his breath back up, then release slowly as the door opened.
Visit after visit, Brian tried not to be shocked by his friend’s appearance. He didn’t want to dwell on the limp, graying hair, the lines sunk deep around Stevie’s eyes and mouth. He didn’t want to look at the thin, brittle body—a body that had shrunken with misuse as a man’s shrinks with age.
Most of all, he didn’t want to look at Stevie and see his own future. A rich, pampered, and helpless old man.
“How’s it going?”
Because he was grateful for the company, Stevie’s smile was genuine. “Oh, it’s a barrel of laughs in here. You ought to join me.”

The idea sent a slice of fear up Brian’s spine. “Then you’d have competition for all these long-legged nurses.” He offered a five-pound box of Godiva, a fix for the junkie’s notorious sweet tooth. “You’re looking almost human, son.”
“Yeah. I think Dr. Matthews’s real name is Frankenstein. So what’s going on in the real world?”
They talked uneasily, and much too politely, while Stevie worked his way steadily through the chocolate-coated creams and nuts in the box.
“Pete hasn’t been by in a while,” Stevie said at length.
“He’s pretty tied up.” There was no use mentioning that Pete had his hands full dealing with the press, and the promoters. Devastation’s American leg of the tour had been canceled.
“You mean he’s pissed.”
“Some.” Brian smiled and wished desperately for a cigarette. And a drink. “When has that ever bothered you?”
“It doesn’t.” But it did. Every slight hurt like a seeping wound. “I don’t know what he’s being so tight-assed about. He got out the press release. Viral pneumonia complicated by exhaustion, right?”
“It seemed the best way,” Brian began.
“Sure, sure, no problem. No fucking problem. Wouldn’t want the public to know old Stevie mixed one speedball too many and thought about blowing his brains out.”
“Come on, Stevie.”
“Hey, it’s cool.” He blinked back tears of self-pity. “Only it burns me, Bri, really burns me. He doesn’t want to come see the junkie. He doled out the smack when he was afraid I couldn’t perform without it,