Chapter Twenty-Three
Damian
We tour through Thanksgiving, which is not a big deal for me. It’s hard on my mom, though. I’m sure it’s equally difficult for Cove’s family, but that’s part of having adult children.
We make it to Chicago, and our performance goes off without any trouble. We’re back at the same venue for the next two nights, so we’re in a hotel again. It gives them the chance to service the buses, and it gives us a little extra space.
Although, by the time we make it back from a late dinner, the twins have a full-blown party going on in the hotel suite. Whoever booked us into this hotel put us in something like the presidential suite. It has six rooms, but that’s not a problem since the twins or me and Ravvi are used to doubling up.
The main annoyance is…people.
A lot of fucking people.
The guys from Liminal and Turning Pages are here. I suppose it would have been too much to ask for one of them to offer up their suite, but I know there’s that whole thing about paying our dues.
I’m annoyed as I make my way out to the patio to smoke. I was going to invite Ravvi and the twins, but they’re busy talking to the guys from Liminal.
I’m not sure who brought the party drugs. It’s not an uncommon occurrence for shit to get passed around backstage, but having it in our private space feels like an entirely different story. It’s almost insulting.
I’m already unsure if the other bands are only nice to us because our family owns the label. If they were dicks, it’s not like my dad would cancel their contracts. Though, they might see it as a leg up if they can befriend us. They might also be testing the water to see what they can get away with. Like they’re checking how far they can go before one of us makes the call to send it up the line.
Maybe that’s me being cynical.
They’ve been good to us so far, but I really don’t like having hardcore drugs around where I’m preparing to sleep.
Weed and coke are rampant in the industry. Coke is the pick-me-up that a lot of artists prefer before heading out on stage, while weed mellows them out again so they can sleep. I can ignore those—at least they both come from a plant.
Crystal meth is fucking toxic, not to mention the benzos some musicians develop a fondness for.
Opiates are a whole different level of hell that I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. The grandfather I’m named after had a love affair with H. Coincidentally, so did Cove’s uncle Bryan, who I’m also named after.
Damian Bryan Sinclair.It’s like my family wanted to remind me of the consequences of addiction every time I have to fill out a government form.
Whatever.
It was effective.
I drew my line in the sand, and I know the shit I’m deathly serious about staying away from. Maybe it makes me a hypocrite, but I don’t care…
My family was honest about the things we’d run into on tour. They said they’d make it as safe as they could for us, but that things would come up where we would have to make our own judgment calls.
They weren’t wrong.
With how badly addiction runs in my mom’s family, I never wanted to risk it. Sure, I smoke weed, but people who say it’s a gateway drug can blow me.
The only place smoking weed ever took me was to McDonald’s. I never thoughthey, what I should really do would be to go find a dealer and try the hard shit.
That’s my personal experience, though.
Damn.
I hope this place has room service. I’m going to have the crunchies hardcore if I kill this entire cigar solo.
Leaning against the brick wall, I bring the lighter to my lips and light the blunt.
My mind drifts as I take a long drag. Before I hit my teenage years, I used to wonder why my dads would cook entire meals or order half of a take-out menu at like eleven at night.
Lachlan, one of my dads, would flat-out tell us he had the munchies, at least before he knew we were old enough to catch on to the meaning.
