He’d been avoiding that question for the last four years.
Instead, I stuck to more neutral topics. “Where’s Freddy?” I asked as I followed him up the dark hallway.
“Outside, maybe. He was around this morning.”
Yeah, sad that it gave me comfort that at least his cat got to hang with him if no one else did.
I studied him, casually, as I followed him into the main room of the studio. Just like when I’d visited him in here almost a month ago, when I first got home from tour, he seemed pretty normal. As normal as a guy who never left his house could seem, anyway. It wasn’t like he wore a giant sandwich board that saidYo, I’m fucking crazy.
He wasn’t mumbling to himself or rocking back and forth or anything. He took care of himself, in most ways. He must’ve been remembering to eat, because he wasn’t skin and bones. Cary had always been a slim guy, but he was fit.
Besides the little gym he had in here, he had a small kitchen and a washroom; it was pretty much a self-contained suite, so even if he never stepped foot outside it, he could pretty much live in here indefinitely.
I did this kind of health-and-safety survey of his surroundings every time I came into the studio. Looking for the signs of distress, the warnings that things were about to fall apart again.
That his sister was gonna find him passed out on the floor, unshowered, unfed.
Depressed.
Like the last time things went seriously south.
I hoped I could be here to preempt that. Or worst case, find him and fix him up before she ever had to see him like that again.
Fortunately, I didn’t really see any signs of impending disaster.
Cary didn’t look like he was about to fall apart any second. He still looked like my friend. He looked good, really. But it wasn’t just how he looked that mattered.
It was how itfeltwalking into his private lair.
There was an energy in this place. Unsettled energy. It wasn’t just the creative vibe of the music he made here. It was the loneliness.
The aloneness.
I heard the little tinkle of a bell and Freddy appeared, trotting into the room to sniff my leg and rub his furry face against me.
“Hey, buddy.” I reached down to scratch his cheek.
He purred loudly, sticking his tail in the air and slamming his body into my leg, rubbing against me gratuitously. Cary’s cat had a habit of leaving trails of white fur on my jeans, but I’d put up with it. Cary seemed to enjoy his company far more than other human beings’.
“Is this cat ever in a bad mood?” I asked as he tinkled along behind us. He was named—by Courteney—after one of her horror film heroes, Freddy Krueger, and it didn’t suit him at all. This cat couldn’t scare a mouse.
“Nope,” Cary said.
I sat down on a couch and watched him clear some music magazines off the other couch. He sat down as Freddy hopped up and immediately flopped down next to him, looking for a rub down. That cat fucking loved him, always followed him around like a puppy.
I glanced around. What was once some kind of huge, sunken family room or something with a big window out into the gardens in the backyard was now walled in curtains and soundproofing materials. Ornamental rugs were laid out across the carpet. There were a few nice couches and chairs and a couple of sound booths for recording vocals, guitar. There was no drum kit, but Cary had never played drums.
The place felt kind of like the lobby of some posh old hotel. Cary had always had good taste. Good style.
Of course, now he had no one to impress.
He wore a faded black T-shirt and gray jeans, pretty much what I always saw him in these days. His longish hair was tied back in a loose knot. He’d always had that naturally sun-streaked look, though his hair was darker than his sister’s, and wavier.
I could remember how the girls used to go all gooey-eyed over him.
They still would, if they ever saw him.
It was so fucking strange that such a young and seemingly healthy person could function in such a bubble. Especially when there were so many people on the outside who would’ve loved to have him around.
