She nods. “Yeah, you’re a curious person. A glimpse was a tease that made you want more.”
I stop and think. “I’m the guy who goes to a museum and spends the entire day there, reading every placard. I fucking love to linger.” I look at her and she’s smiling softly, like it only confirms what she already knows about me. I shake my head. “Jess used to get so pissed when Mom would take us to a museum when we were kids because he wanted to cruise through and I didn’t.” I laugh a little thinking about it. “So, yeah, no visit to the Louvre, no tour of the Anne Frank house, no whale watching in Vancouver. A lot of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities were missed because I had to cruise through.” I look at her again. “I’m sorry, I sound like an entitled asshole.”
“Not at all. Did any of it feel real? The band? Your music? I hope so.” She’s so sincere, and it’s strange to have someone ask me questions and listen to what’s on my mind. The people who surrounded me for years were very good at talking at me, not to me, and dismal when it came to listening.
I set my phone down on the bedside table and rearrange myself so I’m lying on my back with my head in her lap. “You ask a lot of questions.”
She runs her hand through my hair and twirls some strands around a finger. “So do you. Does it bother you?”
I shake my head. “No. People ask questions when they care. When they stop, you know they’ve checked out on you.”
She wobbles her head, and her eyes roam the room. She’s thinking. “I think that’s mostly true. So, did any of it feel real?”
Interlacing my fingers and resting them on my bare stomach, I think. “At first it did. It was purely a passion project. I was creating for the love of it. I wanted to learn, and grow, and get better as a songwriter and musician. But when the success hit, it was so unexpected. I mean, in my mind, that wasn’t the endgame at all. No one believes me when I say that, but it’s true. I just kept thinking, why me? Imposter syndrome is fucking real.”
“Why? Because you think someone else deserves it more? Or is it the money you don’t feel worthy of? Or is it just that fame must be really fucking hard to navigate? It must be surreal.” There’s no judgment from her, and I’m so thankful for it.
My eyes go to hers. “All of it.”
“When I was having a crisis of confidence, a wise friend once told me, ‘Sometimes you don’t have to believe it to be it. It’s just who you are.’ You were successful, and you will continue to be successful because it’s just who you are. Your talent is undeniable, Ev.”
“There are thousands of musicians out there who are more talented than I am, and they’ll never get a record deal.” I shrug. “So, why me, when I wasn’t even looking for one?”
“Because you worked your ass off.” She ticks off the next on her fingers. “You wrote, performed, and produced music that was honest and vulnerable in its angst, in its passion, in its rage. You held up the mirror, and we saw ourselves reflected back in your words. It ripped our fucking hearts out. And if that wasn’t all enough, you took it a step further and presented it with this dark, masked persona that was shrouded in mystery?—”
I interrupt her. “That’s because I was hesitant to show my face originally. I wanted the focus to be on the music.”
She shakes her head. “The reason doesn’t matter. There’s some luck involved in everything; that’s life. Call the mask luck if you want to. The fact is, you worked hard and organically built a massive following online. By the time the label approached, you were already gift-wrapped and ready to go to mass market as the complete package. They didn’t do that.” She taps my chest. “Youdid that.”
I reach up and take her hand in mine, fiddling with her fingers as I talk. “They used to tell me all the time, ‘We madeyou.’ They called me ungrateful if I questioned anything or voiced concern over the way things were handled. They made me feel like an outsider on the periphery of my own career, an inconvenience to be dealt with. You’ve seen the emails and heard the voicemails. They don’t see me as a person; they see me as a puppet.”
“They gaslit you. That’s bullshit.” She sounds angry. “You made you. And you made them a shitload of money. That’s why they don’t want to let you go. And as far as ungrateful goes, I’ve read stories about Treachery’s Riot making donations to food banks in every city you played on tour. I even read about a young family who said the band paid for their rent and groceries for six months to get them back on their feet when they lost everything in a house fire. I’m sure there are similar stories that no one will ever know about. It’s all true, isn’t it?”
I shrug. “When you have extra resources, you share them. That’s how I was brought up. It’s the right thing to do. My management didn’t agree. There was always pushback when I tried to partner with different causes.”
“Were you food-insecure growing up?” she asks.
“Yeah. Mom did the best she could, though. I don’t blame her. The system’s broken. The game’s rigged to cycle endlessly. Poverty’s systemic.”
“Agreed.” She cocks her head to one side. “Don’t answer this if it’s too intrusive, but what’s the first thing you did when you got paid after you signed?”
I hesitate because no one knows this story. “I bought a cabin.”
“I didn’t think you owned a house?”
“For my mom. She always dreamed of owning a home and said it was gonna be a little cabin on a lake. She worked so damn hard for us, and she deserved to be taken care of for once.”
She smiles softly. “God, they were right. You really are an ungrateful monster.” After a pause, she asks, “What do you do for fun?”
“I originally bought my first van because I was traveling to work as a session musician, and van life made sense economically. I was eighteen, living in a five-thousand-dollar van I converted myself, eating gas station hot dogs, and sleeping in Walmart parking lots, but I felt like a fucking king. I was doing work I loved, and for the first time, I was truly independent. And then I started exploring state and national parks in between jobs, and I fell in love. The peace I felt standing next to a lake staring at the Tetons or hiking a red dirt path through Arches National Park was like nothing I’d ever experienced. It was healing and transformative. When I wasn’t on tour, I spent every minute camping. I’ve always been a solitary person, so discovering camping was like opening a portal to another world when this one was overwhelming.”
“I’d never camped until I went out on the road with you guys. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. I can see how that would’ve been life-changing for you. Do you still have that van?”
“No. After I bought Mom her cabin, I sold the old van and bought the Sprinter I have now. I felt guilty spending that kind of money, but I justified it because it was my home, my transportation, and my sanity all rolled up into one.”
“What about your tattoos? Obsession or hobby?”
“Souvenirs from my travels. And therapy. A little bit of both.”
