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They were pounding on the door, crying about how they loved us and wanted to be with us. So many voices. It was probably no more than ten, but it sounded like a hundred. Dillon and I hid in the closet absolutely terrified while our manager screamed through his phone to the hotel, the police, our private security. We had our arms around each other, but there wasn’t time to talk about what had happened earlier, no time to think about anything but how those fans might break down the door and there’d be no one to protect us.
I truly thought we were going to die that night.
After it was over, the fans arrested and taken away, the tour continuing as if nothing had happened, I couldn’t stop reliving it. I was always anxious, always waiting to be ambushed, and never felt safe. Every time I got on stage and looked at that sea of faces, listened to their screams and cheers, I was back in that closet, holding on to Dillon for dear life. All the joy, what little of it there had still been, was gone from performing.
It never got any better, and then I had a panic attack during a show and froze in the middle of a song.
Dillon and our backup group covered for me as best they could, and our manager got me a prescription for anti-anxiety meds that knocked me out so bad I was a zombie on stage. The gossip mags and social media started saying I was on drugs, speculating that I was having a breakdown. They were right, just not in the way they were portraying it. I wasn’t doing the rising star sex, drugs, and booze thing, but I definitely wanted off this ride.
Six months later, when the tour was over, I made it clear I was done, and retired to this winery one of my investment guys had suggested I buy. I never looked back. But I do regret that I didn’t try harder to get Dillon to follow me or at least walk away.
He didn’t. He wouldn’t. He loved the spotlight too much, and five years later I’m watching him come unraveled on every gossip site and fan account. He’s trending on Twitter under a dozen different hashtags—each blow up or public argument spawns a new one—there are videos on IG and TikTok with thousands of likes, an entire Discord channel dedicated to his every move. There are a million pictures of him with his brilliant blond hair and striking blue eyes. He’s like a rock star god come down to walk among us mere mortals.
I’ve tried to look away. Honest, I have, but it’s not that easy. I still care. Not as much as I used to. Not since a picture of us kissing at the club in San Francisco surfaced after I retired, and Dillon dismissed the idea that I’d retired because we’d broken up with a disdainful sneer and declaration that there was no fucking way he was gay. Then he proceeded to burn his way through groupies—always female—and other celebrities—again, always female, and stopped answering my texts or calls.
So, here we are. Me in my vineyard where I can be as anonymous as I want, and Dillon blazing through the heavens like Icarus about to fall from the sky.
Dillon Bard
My head’s spinning from whatever I took just before Miles the PA rang my doorbell for a meeting I don’t remember agreeing to. I can barely focus on his words, I’ve got to piss, and I’m dying for a drink, but Miles won’t fucking shut up. It’s not that I shouldn’t care about what he’s yammering on about, it’s that I don’t care. Not really. It’s the same stuff he was talking about yesterday and the day before that. I need to be more careful. I need to look out for my image. I need to…whatever. What I really need is to have some fun. Relax. Stop thinking for a bit.
I grin at the dude and tell him, “I ain’t got time for all that.” Which was Ben’s tagline from the old show. To which I’d reply, “It’s ‘I don’t have time for that’” because my character was the precise, anal one while Ben got to play the devil-may-care, always up to something Joey. I still have no idea how the director looked at me and thought clean-cut, straight-A student, while Ben should be the one always trying to get something over on people, but that’s Hollywood. At least I got to keep my own name. Ben Hollister was renamed Oliver Holt who played Joey Bridges on My Brother’s Keeper and was once part of Bridges and Bard. I have to remind myself that his real name is Ben because once we signed those contracts, the world stopped making sense. Nineteen years later, it still doesn’t, and sometimes I have trouble remembering I was anyone other than Dillon Bard.
The damn PA doesn’t pause in his recitation of my transgressions when I throw him a cue for the punch line, but that doesn’t surprise me. He doesn’t have a sense of humor, and my manager’s delegated all this shit to him. He’s tired of talking to me since he knows I won’t pay attention because I just don’t care. I’ll repeat that. I. Don’t. Care. I’ve been on tour for close to two years. I can’t stand a single one of the guys in my band. I’m sick of singing the bubble gum “I love you, please don’t break my heart” lyrics other people write for me. I just want to sink to the bottom of my pool and not come up again. Because, I have a pool now, and I haven’t even been in LA often enough to know that. Someone bought this house for me while I was away, decorated it in 21st century rock star, and I’m supposed to call this home.
I wander outside with the PA still talking at me and stare across the canyon at the other multi-million-dollar homes.
Do you remember that scene in one of the Muppet movies where they go to Hollywood and finally make it into the movie mogul’s office, and he offers them the “standard rich and famous” contract? Sometimes I feel like that’s my life. My mom took me to a casting call when I was ten, and bam! rich and famous ever since.
“Dillon, are you listening?” the PA asks.
I don’t even bother turning around. “No. Look, dude, how about if you just write all this up in a nice email and…” stick it up your ass “…send it to me so I can read it later.” When I’m not higher than a kite because I forgot about this little tete-a-tete. And, jeez, I hope I didn’t say that out loud.
When the PA doesn’t say anything, I know I’ve said the silent part out loud again. This is getting to be an unfortunate habit and part of the reason why I’m back in LA. I believe my manager’s words were so you can get your shit together. Only less polite.
“Look, Dillon…”
Even with my head floating somewhere in the endless blue sky above me, I hear the concern in his voice and words that should make me think twice about what I’m doing. Words like rehab and termination of contract. It sounds genuine, and it touches me. Truly. Or at least I think it does. Whatever. I want him to go away. Him and the sparkly lights that are hovering in the canyon because they’re both giving me a headache.
I raise my hand and flip the PA the bird. “Email, man.”
More silence. Only this time, when I turn around, Miles is gone, and I didn’t even hear him leave. How long was I staring at the canyon? No clue. Not a one. But I’m glad he’s gone.
I wander back into the house. I still need to piss. There are six bathrooms in this place, or so I was told when I got dropped off here two days ago. If I can’t find one of them, I’m gonna use the kitchen sink.
Somewhere in this house is the bedroom I crashed in the first night I was back. And somewhere else in this house is the couch I slept on the second night when I couldn’t find the bedroom. This house is too damn big. And empty. Way too empty. My footsteps echo as I walk around, and I swear it’s quiet enough for me to hear my heart beating in my chest. But that could also be whatever I took just before Miles showed up. It was something one of the roadies gave me before our final show. I have no idea what it was. I never do.
People shove things in my hands, my pockets all the fucking time — phone numbers, room keys, a bottle of water, vodka, whiskey, bourbon, pills, weed, blow — it doesn’t matter much to me what it is. I’ll use it, take it, drink it, smoke it, snort it. Anything and everything except shooting shit into my veins. It’s a thin line, but it’s the one I won’t cross.
There’s a bed in the room where I finally find a toilet, so after I take a piss, I stumble over to it and throw myself down. I lie on my back and stare at the ceiling. Those damn lights have followed me inside. Or maybe I’m outside. Maybe I’m flying over the canyon, and the lights are carrying me. Will they take me to Ben? I miss him. I wish he’d tried harder, or I’d tried harder, or…fuck. Something.
* * * * *
When I wake up, it’s dark outside, and the lights in the canyon are the lights from the mansions on the opposite hillside. This fucking house has too many windows, and they all look out on the pool and the houses and LA gleaming in the distance like some mythical promised land.
There are also people in my house. A lot of them from the amount of noise I hear. Music and chatter and the sound of glasses clinking together. I get off the bed, run a hand through my hair, and stumble my way towards the source of the sound, and find there’s a goddamn party in my living room. I don’t care that I don’t know who a single one of these people are or how they got in. I’m just happy I don’t have to be alone, and — cue the angels — the booze and blow are already flowing.
Ben
