So sick and tired of all these pictures of me
Completely wrong
Totally wrong
"Three days," the doctor says, and Joey nods, sure, yeah, okay. "For real," the doctor says. James is some old friend of Johnny's and he makes house calls no matter what and talks at them like they're his sons, not rich white guys who do whatever they want because they can. "You get your ass back up, dancing while you still got a hole in your leg, and I'm gonna tell Johnny to let the dogs loose on you, you hear me? You have any idea how painful a rabies shot is?"
"I hear you," Joey says, sincere but unrepentant, and as soon as James leaves he turns to Chris and says, "It was worth it, man."
Chris nods.
"It was fucking worth it, I don't care. Fucking Wade."
"You think he blew Justin to get a writing credit?" Chris says, and Joey smiles right on cue.
"It's gonna be one fucking expensive fuck," Joey says. "Hope Justin got his wad off pretty good."
Chris laughs, then feels a little shitty. It's kind of too easy to make fun of Wade, and Chris has never been a fan of the easy target. "That boy there, though, he's like example number one why it must suck to be a child prodigy."
"You and I never had that particular blessing," Joey laughs.
"Yeah. Yeah, and at least, I mean at least we got each other."
Joey fiddles with the dressing on his leg and nods once, then again, more emphatically. "Yeah, we do," he says, and smiles at Chris.
Chris is on Joey duty, on account of how after Joey got up and danced more than he should have he went out to a club and partied more than he should have and somebody's got to make sure things get back on track. Chris doesn't mind being that somebody. Sometimes there's only so much he can take of the kids and, yeah, he knows JC's got a few months on Joey but Joey's got a kid, Joey's got a big family that depends on him in one way or another, and he may like to get down but he knows how the real world works better than most of them. Chris and the real world are childhood best friends and sometimes he thinks Joey's the only one might have a taste of what that's like, of the things that happen when you don't mean them to, the things you can't take back.
Chris swallows. "I mean, yeah, at least, at least we all got each other. All of us."
Joey pats the bed next to him. "Yeah, I know what you meant."
"So." Chris leaps on the bed and Joey's leg bounces on the pillow where he's got it propped up. Chris tries to still the bed like he can stop the springs from going up and then down again. "Order some porn?"
"Order some porn, dude."
They order some porn, they order some different porn, they give up on finding good porn at the Ritz and order some half-decent food and watch Gladiator. They talk about women.
Chris likes talking about women with Joey because Joey gets it. JC likes pretty, thin girls all right, especially in pairs, Justin and Lance mostly like each other or sometimes JC or other pretty boys who look like them. They all think it's cool that people will sleep with them because they're famous and they've never really tried to sleep with people when that wasn't true. Joey'd be getting as much tail if he were in a band or not, Chris can tell, and he has a feeling that Joey's technique hasn't really been changed at all by having his face on magazines. It's direct and focused and in the full force of Fatone charm Joey pretty much gets what he wants, when he wants it.
Chris can't really work it like that but most of the time it's okay cause that's not really his thing. He likes women. A lot. Every other year or so he bumps against some guy who turns his head and that's not half bad, either, but somewhere around being twenty-seven it became a lot more important to be able to talk to someone after he fucked them and it only took another month after that for him to realize how unlikely that was gonna be.
So he and Joey talk about women. They talk about love, about loving every woman they've ever slept with, about how they didn't have a problem with Lou's God phase because, Jesus Mary and Joseph, all these beautiful women in the world had to come from somewhere, after all. No way that was a simple act of evolution.
"No fuckin' way, man," Joey says, laughing, finishing another beer in one long swig.
"No fucking way," Chris repeats. "No way."
Joey looks at him, looks right at him. "You think they know what they're missing?"
"The guys, you mean?" Joey nods. "Probably they don't think they're missing much."
"They don't know what the fuck they're talking about then," Joey says. "I mean, Jesus. You don't want to marry 'em and settle down, fine, you gotta at least, like, appreciate the fact that you could. Just knowing that they're out there is a good thing."
Chris thinks the reason that Joey gets women the way he does is he's smarter than all of them put together. Not smart like how Lance can glance upside down at a spreadsheet and know if they're getting screwed, or like Justin with a melody, or JC always knowing how to get them all on the same page when they're ready to kill each other. Not smart like how Chris is the only one in six years who's read a real book without pictures cover to cover and really known what the fuck was going on. Smart like he listens. Chris thinks Joey's technique works cause he actually gives a shit about whatever it is that the woman he's staring at wants from him, and even if it's just for a few minutes, an hour, he gives them that. It's not that different from what the rest of them can do in front of thirty thousand people except Joey remembers every one. Maybe. Most of them, at least.
"Oh!" Joey waves his bottle and a little amber suds over the lip but what the hell, if they were the kind of famous musicians who couldn't tell their mothers everything, well, almost everything that goes on during tour, then they'd have had to pay for a lot more hotel room damage than anything he and Joey are likely to kick up tonight. "Oh!" Joey says again, pointing at Chris. "I forgot, man, about the thing!"
"That again?" Chris says, not the slightest idea what the fuck Joey's talking about but sometimes it takes Joey longer to catch on when he's had a few.
"Don't fuck with me man, I know you don't know what I'm gonna say." Chris just laughs and Joey laughs too and then holds his leg, trying to stop. "Ow, ow, fuck. Okay, actually, this isn't that funny."
"Uh, okay," Chris says, still giggling.
"Dude, it's so fucked up actually. It's, yeah." Chris smothers a snort. "So you know Maguire? The dude, the security guy who came on in, I don't know, last time?" Chris shrugs. He knows most of the crew but not everybody. "Big white guy with, I don't know, red hair? Beard, sometimes?" Chris nods, yeah, yeah, smiling again. "Turns out he's been getting, since we were in like fucking Atlanta this time he's been making chicks blow him if they want a shot at getting backstage."
Chris stops laughing. "Wait, seriously?"
"Seriously."
"That's -- man, that's totally --"
"Fucking fucked up, man, I know." Joey jabs with his beer bottle at the door. "His ass was out like twenty minutes after I heard."
"That's fucked up," Chris says. "Christ, we're not, like, we're not fucking Kid Rock over here, you know. I mean, we hit a strip club or something that's one thing, but --"
"I know, man, it's fucked. And then, like, you know, you just know twenty minutes after he pulls some shit like that it's up on some fucking website and we look like assholes."
"We're not assholes, man."
"I know," Joey says. "I mean, not like that we're not."
"We're not," Chris says, shaking his head. "Wait, how'd you bust him? You walk in on him or something?"
"Nah," Joey says, and his eyes flick down the carpet.
"Well, what, how did you -- oh fuck."
Joey coughs. "Yeah. It was, yeah. She started, like, crying and shit, and then, I mean, you know, it took like twenty minutes for her to calm down enough and tell me what had happened."
"Dude."
"Yeah, tell me about it. I felt, man, I felt so bad for her. And then -- I mean, it's not like I'm gonna --"
"No, man, you can't, not after that."
"Yeah. So, you know, I took her home and shit, but, yeah."
"That's fucked up," Chris says again. Joey reaches over him to grab another bottle and Chris isn't sure when it happened, when in the great Kirkpatrick-Fatone Love Talks they wound up sitting ass to ass on the bed, shoulders up against each other, Joey's foot propped up on Chris' leg instead of the pillow. Chris pushes back a little and the headboard claps against the wall and he laughs again, just a bit, feeling nervous all of a sudden. "Yeah," he says, "I mean, we don't wanna get no rep. At least not that kind of rep."
"Yeah," Joey says. He turns and faces Chris and his lips are flushed and wet with beer. "If we want to fuck each other it shouldn't be cause we don't like women."
"Women rock," Chris says, and Joey murmurs in agreement and puts a hand on Chris' face. Chris tilts his neck back and Joey starts down by the hollow of his throat and kisses his way up to Chris' mouth.
And Joey's leg's all fucked up so they can't move much even after they've managed to work off most of their clothes, because Chris was serious about being the somebody who makes sure Joey doesn't hurt himself anymore. But they're a couple of guys, they got a few hands between them. Chris leans his cheek against Joey's chest after and Joey whispers, "At least we got each other."
END.
Sequel: Offer Up the Deep
Credits: Part of the forthcoming Either/Or challenge by the ddddirtypop collective. Lyrics and title by Elliott Smith, "Pictures of Me." Sandys. MTV's Making of "Pop" and VH1's secret life of groupies special.