The evil in this world is boundless. I’ve worked for it, catered to it, got rich off it, covered for it, and replicated it. I’ve rubbed elbows with some of the same men who used to rent me out as a child – art dealers, politicians, CEO’s – but they see me as one of them now, and I am. It happens to the best of us, you become what you hate, and I became one of those Big Whig, hoity toity, upper-class elitists that made my skin crawl as a teenager. Mr. Ashley Brava, the next big thing in the art world. Mr. Brava, who’s just as fake as his name. Mr. Brava, an imposture, but the only way to succeed is to sell-out, so let the accusations fly. I’d rather be a sell-out than a prostitute, and yes, there is a difference. Critics and fans will paint you whatever color they want, so what the hell does it matter? I’d rather make lots of money and retire comfortably than be penniless, living out of a cardboard box with only my street cred to fall back on. Everyone sells-out eventually.

Michael slept as I snuck off to finish up a project. I pulled out the paper-mache mask from under my cabinets and looked it over before adding the final touches. Its form was absolutely perfect, created from a molding of my client’s face and designed to his liking with a long-exaggerated nose. I texturized the mask with small cracks and used a bronze glaze to give it that old world touch, but I still needed to add a few intricate details along the edges, and of course, leave my signature scratch on the inside. It was the third mask I’d created in one month, the first designed to resemble an owl, and the second a goat. The three clients requesting the masks were lawyers for a prestigious law firm here in Houston, but they were younger men, maybe about thirty-five, so I suspected this would be one of their first parties. No one sent me the invitation, but I thought about attending anyway, showing up in one of my designer masks and hob-knobbing with all the latest and greatest, the highly-esteemed perverts of society, but I lost the nerve.

Of course, I didn’t know for sure that the masks would be used at one of those parties, but you get a pretty good sense for people when you’re street-bound. You learn to see through outside appearances. A man wearing an expensive suit and tie is almost always more corrupt than the blue-collared grease monkey slamming a beer on his lunch break, but child molesters come in all shapes and sizes. I can spot them a mile away. It’s something in the eyes, call it a mischievous twinkle or an abnormal shine, their eyes give them away every time. I gladly accepted their money for the masks, but a new crop of desperate boys would be the ones to experience them. A new generation would be haunted by my masks for many years to come. I sold out years before I scammed my way into the art world as a prostitute, but now that I no longer need the money, I suppose that just makes me a whore.

Michael stepped out of the office, and I shoved the mask into the bottom cabinet. He wrapped his arms around his chest and slowly walked across the tarp, his new black pea coat looking better on him than it ever did on me. I couldn’t look away. The long black coat wrapped tightly around his body, his short hair exposing the strong curvature of his face, I captured the moment in my mind and memorized the intensity in his eyes. I wanted to freeze time and paint the scene. The dark slender figure surrounded by the colorful chaos of my art studio, forlorn and beautifully tragic, the jaded musician, complex yet simplified by the backdrop of a whirlwind of color. His black boots overshadowed the brilliance of the splashes of paint when he walked across the tarp. Art in motion. Nothing I could create compared.

“You keeping those or something?”

“Huh?” I blinked my eyes and looked down at his dreadlocks laid out on the table. “Oh, yeah, no, just thought I’d get them off the floor.”

Michael ran his finger across them and softly grinned, “They’re in order from shortest to longest.”

I shrugged and shuffled them around.

We walked the short distance back to my loft huddled together under my umbrella. Michael went into my room to call Lisa while I put on a pot of coffee and waited for the yelling to ensue, but it never came. He pulled up a chair at the kitchen table and rested his head on his hand while fat cat hissed from around the corner. Michael called out to him in a high-pitched voice, but Fatty swished his tail and darted up the stairs. I asked how it went with Lisa, and he informed me that she was on her way to pick him up. You can imagine my excitement.

“Wow, twice in one day,” I commented under my breath. Michael traced the natural wood grain of the table and thanked me as I placed a cup of coffee under his nose. He said Lisa had been uncharacteristically calm and sounded more worried on the phone than angry, but I knew what she was doing. I didn’t tell him she paid me a visit this morning, though I figured he’d find out soon enough. Lisa switched gears and went into her sweet mode. She played the concerned little wifey complete with puckered lips and baby talk, I’m sure. Made me want to puke just thinking about it.

“This thing stays between you and me, right?” Michael asked.

I held on to my first sip before swallowing it down. “We can’t let this one go,” I said.

He stood from the table with his coffee mug in hand, “Whatever you say. I’ll bring this back later, okay?”

I nodded and followed him to the front door. He kept his head down and said he’d see me later. I pulled him into my arms and held on for as long as possible, but he broke from my embrace and disappeared down the hallway. It felt wrong letting him leave. What if he had an episode on the elevator? What if Lisa wasn’t downstairs yet? What if he ran into the devil somewhere along the way? I stood in the doorframe and stared down the empty hallway until the third ding from the elevator fell silent.

I wasn’t in love with him. Captivated by his deep and knowing eyes, and comforted by his magnetic smile, I held Michael above all others, but people like me didn’t fall in love. I would have given up my life for him, taken the fall, absorbed the blame and bathed in whatever persecution this world had to offer, but I didn’t believe in Cupid, and I certainly never lusted after another man. My love and dependency on Michael stemmed from our traumatizing childhoods and blossomed into the bond we shared as adults, but love songs need not apply. It ain’t me, babe. I’m nobody’s fool. Love is a battlefield… Count me out.

Fat cat waddled down the stairs and joined me on the balcony as I smoked a cigarette and contemplated what to do with myself. Gabriel wouldn’t be back for another three hours, but I wanted to meet him at the school and walk him home. He had a group of friends he usually walked with in the afternoon, but I missed seeing him this morning and suspected he wouldn’t come straight home if I didn’t meet him. I had more than a bad feeling. Between the phone calls, the video tape, and the unknown woman who gave it to him, I feared that someone from the past might have his eye on Gabriel, and perhaps Michael as well. I jumped when the cordless phone rang. Shit, Billy!

“Where the hell have you been?”

I smiled and fell back into the chair as Billy berated me for failing to return his calls. I knew Billy almost as long I’d known Michael, met him while standing on a street corner. He asked for directions. I asked for a ride. His parents were the ones who enrolled both me and Michael into high school and tried their best to help us get clean. They were good people, but we’d lived on the streets for about two years by the time the Faradays came to the rescue, and heroin kept us faithful to our trade. I trusted only three people in my life, and Billy was one of them. The kind-natured class clown who always threw the best parties, he was a senior when we were freshman and loved playing the role of older brother, something he continues to enjoy. His urgent voice on the other end of the line told me what I already suspected to be true.

“Something’s wrong with Michael,” he said.

I listened while he explained.

The tour had not gone well. My rock star friends were well-seasoned when it came to playing large venues, and Michael’s stage presence captivated audiences worldwide. Limbo Diver was a major headlining act, but Billy thought they needed a rest, or more specifically, Michael did.

“I don’t know, man, I think he’s having a mental breakdown or something.” His voice trailed off into a laugh as I remained silent on the other end. He cleared his throat and recovered, “We were two hours late for the last show just trying to get him on stage. I found him curled up in a corner scared to death. Seriously, Ash, it’s like he didn’t recognize me.” Billy fell silent as I massaged my forehead and struggled with how to reply. It was a mental breakdown, he was right about that, but a break from touring wouldn’t help Michael come back around. My stomach turned as I visualized my friend curled up in a corner surrounded by groupies, roadies and unsympathetic managers yelling at him to get his ass on stage. Aside from Billy, the rest of his bandmates cared more about selling albums than the health status of their prized front man. It’s a cutthroat industry, but I’ll be damned if I let those assholes contribute to Michael’s downfall. I’d take them all out if I had to, but Billy was a true friend. I trusted him with my life.

“You still there?”

“Yeah,” I said, “sorry, I’m here.” I let out a heavy sigh and proceeded to tell Billy about Michael’s most recent episode. We talked for a good hour discussing how to go about getting our friend some help. Michael would never willingly seek the kind of help he needed, that much we knew. With his strong aversion to doctors, we knew a shrink was out of the question, and as Billy pointed out, “All they’d do is prescribe him drugs, and he’s already got that part covered.” We both concluded that finishing the second half of the tour would be an incredibly bad idea, but tickets were already sold, contracts were signed, and record execs didn’t give a damn about things like mental health. Billy suggested holding Michael prisoner. I failed to come up with a better plan.

“Seriously man, I’ll get Lisa to go along with it, and we’ll just keep him at my house. What else we gonna do?”

I couldn’t answer that question. I had no answer, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought we might be onto something. Hold him captive. No drugs. No devils. No shadow people – it just might work. I told Billy I’d get back to him about it and clicked over to answer an incoming call.

“Hey Dad, I’m at the skate park with a couple of friends. I’ll be home later. Love-you-bye.” He hung up before I could protest. My stomach grew even more uneasy. Gabriel was out on his own, a young teenage boy with pretty green eyes and a face like an angel, out on his own and on display for whoever might be scouring the streets. They’d call him fresh meat and sink their claws in, their faces hidden behind ballroom masks, hidden behind masks created by the only father Gabriel knew. I set the phone down, poured myself a glass of wine and rerouted my train of thought. Gabriel would be fine. No one was after him, no child predators, no demons from the past, and no hooded men in search of a golden son. Paranoia strikes deep, into your life it will creep, so the song goes.

The wind tore through my potted plants leaving behind pink and red petals to litter my balcony porch. I plopped down on my patio chair, lit a cigarette and sipped my wine – a familiar ritual in the daily routine of my life. I looked out over the city I loved to hate and concluded that I had every reason to be paranoid. I knew what was out there, but more than that, I knew that my denial about the paranormal didn’t mean it didn’t exist. David Bowie once said that rock-n-roll has always been the devil’s music, and while many pastors and priests would agree with him, I always figured Mr. Bowie was just trying to sell albums. I loved David Bowie and I loved rock-n-roll, but after Michael made it big with Limbo Diver, he too began making similar statements. How ludicrous it all sounded. Scores of celebrities and musicians found success through a contract with the devil, not on their own exceptional talent. Yes, apparently, according to my best friend, they sold their souls for rock-n-roll and so did he. It’s all one big satanic conspiracy. Give me a small break. Paranormal or not, evil exists in this world on a grand scale, but the devil gets way too much credit.

I poured myself another glass of wine and lit another cigarette. The jack-o-lantern that Gabriel and I carved out last week smiled at me from the corner of the porch, its molded mouth curled under resembling a toothless old man. I smiled back at him and raised my glass in a toast. The Devil’s Night was less than a week away, and unless Billy and I successfully held Michael captive, we would spend Halloween in New Orleans at a Limbo Diver show. Billy rarely talked about things like religion, and for the most part, he fell into the same category as me, which is to say, a logical and pragmatic non-believer. But even Billy bought into the whole satanic conspiracy, not to the extent that Michael did, but he believed that cultic beats and rhythms heavily influenced the world of rock music. He admitted that his tribal drumbeat fueling Limbo Diver’s hypnotic sound was derived from voodoo drum rhythms. Okay, I could buy that. Everything in life is derived from something else, but that didn’t make rock-n-roll the pied piper of the underworld. My apologies to David Bowie, but the concept was just plain silly.

Fruit flies invaded my wine glass as I poured another drink. They came from out of nowhere, hiding in the cracks and crevices of my high-rise townhome until the smell of fermented grapes beckoned them forth. For whatever reason, perhaps to fatten themselves up before the winter season, the pesky flies were always worse in the fall. I picked them out of my drink and tossed the empty bottle into the trash. Inspired by my mental ramblings, I popped on my favorite Bowie record (Hunky Dory) and paced around my room waiting for the spirits of the underworld to possess me and dictate my next move. Michael was the one who turned me on to David Bowie, and Hunky Dory was the first album I ever purchased by the eclectic artist. It always reminded me of my childhood, not something I wanted to relive of course, but the nostalgia gripped me, nonetheless. I gulped down my wine and belted out the lyrics to his chart-topping single, Changes. I sang in front of my open window for the whole city to hear, a rock star in my own right, in my own head. The bedroom curtains billowed out from a strong gust of wind, and I invited the spirits in. Holding up my arms like a mad wizard in the throes of casting a powerful spell, I laughed and shouted for the devil to show his self. Fat cat bolted out of the room and the wind maintained its strength, but the devil was a no show. After raiding my medicine cabinet for a muscle relaxer, I headed upstairs.

Gabriel’s room was pretty clean compared to most teenage standards. A few articles of clothing littered the floor, and old cups of coffee lined the window sill, but for the most part, his bedroom contradicted the stereotypical teen slob. I stood in front of the bookshelf and began pulling out books one by one and tossing them onto the bed. After clearing the top shelf, with nothing hidden behind them, I started in on the second one. I didn’t know what I was searching for, only that I found something the first time I snooped and was convinced that I’d find something else if I looked hard enough. When the second shelf produced no results, I cleared the next shelf down and then the bottom shelf, but not even his homemade bong made an appearance. Books covered his bed as I stared at the empty shelves and contemplated where else a fourteen-year-old boy might hide contraband. After peeking under the bed, I turned and stared at the closet. Kurt Cobain stared back at me with shameful eyes as I wrapped my hand around the brass knob and pulled open the door. If anyone asked, I’d simply tell them the devil made me do it.

I flipped on the light and stood in front of his dark-colored wardrobe. Waves of guilt washed over me as I knelt down and rummaged through the top drawer of his dresser positioned against the wall. Socks and underwear fell to the floor, but I dug deeper until my fingers touched the bottom and felt around from left to right. Nothing. I started in on the second drawer, the third, fourth and fifth – still nothing. I searched the pockets of an old green army coat that Billy had given him for his fourteenth birthday. I dug through the pockets of his jeans, checked the insides of his beanie hats, and shook out every pair of boots and shoes that he owned. Abandoning the closet, I looked under his bed again, under his mattress, behind the curtains, the wastebasket, the pen holder on his desk – I searched everywhere I knew to search. Something had to be there, some sort of indication that all was not well, some sort of clue that verified he was hiding something from me. I destroyed his room leaving behind books, clothes, records and magazines in my wake, but I found nothing. As the muscle relaxer kicked in and enhanced the effects of the wine, I left his room and stumbled back downstairs.

David Bowie wailed from the other room as I stepped outside for another cigarette. Two men stood together on the street corner and made a quick exchange, briefly shaking hands and then walking off in opposite directions. I leaned over the balcony railing and gently lifted myself off the ground, my feet hovering only about an inch or two above the patio. I thought about jumping. Would the two men turn around? Would I be on the nine o’clock news? Local artist Ashley Brava plummets to his death, but first, find out how you can make a difference this holiday season. I laughed and lifted my feet up higher. What would happen to Gabriel if I jumped? Most likely, child protective services would take him into custody for the next four years until his eighteenth birthday. I’m sure he’d miss me at first, mourn for me and curse me, but he’d eventually be okay. Ten years down the road he’d have to glance at a picture to remember my face. Gabriel would be okay, and as my feet dangled above the ground and the wind cut through my hair, I realized I probably needed him more than he needed me. And not to sound like the stereotypical suicidal nut, but he really would be better off without me. Michael, on the other hand, might die right along with me. Who would take care of Michael if I jumped? Who would take care of me if I didn’t?

I lowered myself down from the balcony letting my feet touch solid ground before retreating inside. I didn’t want to say it aloud or even admit it to myself, but I thought it. I knew it was there, like finding out a loved-one has been diagnosed with a terminal disease. I couldn’t fully process the information and remained in a state of denial until the severity of the news hit me. I knew things would never be the same. It always hits. Whether I’m driving down the road, working on a project, or trying to fall asleep at night, it hits with such severity and finality. My best friend was clinically crazy, and I didn’t know how to help him or if he could be helped. Michael handled the past differently than me. He became another person, an alter ego, a separate personality equipped with dealing with sexual exploitation and abuse. I should have done the same.

Trauma doesn’t go away just because you ignore its existence. The same goes for addiction. Although it’s been two years since I last injected heroin into my veins, my addiction is an ongoing battle, but sobriety is the best way to drive yourself insane. It’s also the best way to relapse. I replaced one with the other, trading the needle for the bottle and throwing in some pills for added cushion. I kept insanity at bay, but Michael finally lost his battle. Sober or not, Michael lost the battle with his childhood trauma. I would have to be the strong one this time. Despite all my short-comings, I would have to rescue him from himself in a surprise attack just as he had done all those years ago. Abandon the closet and crash through the door with weapon in hand, that’s how it had to play out. Take him off guard and force him into submission, that’s how to slay the dragon and save the damsel in distress. Only, the damsel was a 5’10’ rock star with a hard head and a strong will. I wasn’t sure I could take him, but I knew Billy could, and that’s the only way the plan would work.

My favorite David Bowie album neared its end as I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror and then quickly looked away. My dark matted hair needed a brushing and my wrinkled button-down shirt needed a washing, but I needed out. Gabriel wouldn’t be home for at least a couple of hours, and I needed something to occupy my mind. Throwing open the medicine cabinet, I swallowed another pill and put four more in my pants pocket before heading out for my studio on foot. Fat cat begged me not to leave, but his tuna dinner stopped him from batting my ankles with sharp extended claws. I placed the small tin can on the kitchen floor and bid him farewell as he purred and scarfed it down.

The warmth of the building got the better of me. My body burned from the inside out and sweat appeared on my forehead as I stood waiting for the elevator. The bright fluorescent bulbs lighting the hallway burned my retinas and flickered with the rapid succession of a moth’s wings. I heard them buzzing and felt the fluctuating temperature as the unsteady bulbs flashed like strobe lights. The effect was enough to induce seizures. Lightheaded and heavy on my feet, I shed my heavy wool blazer and leaned against the wall until the elevator answered my call. I slumped against the glass and held my stomach as the elevator plunged sixteen stories to the bottom floor. Slipping on my jacket, I straightened my posture and stood front-and-center with my hands clasped behind my back until the doors slid open. I assumed the position of a professional businessman and took on an air of superiority – I was anything but.

Most artists, especially the ones who have obtained some sort of recognition in the art world, could write a ten-page paper explaining the significance of a single stroke of their paintbrush. They’re proud and oh so creative, so filled with depth and understanding, but the reality is that most of them are imposters who are all out of ideas. They paint a pretty picture, give it a spiffy title, and spout out some bullshit explanation of what inspired them to do it, and the critics take the bait. It’s brilliant darling, an absolute masterpiece! Tell me, what were you thinking when you painted this? The truth? I was thinking about how much I’d be able to sell it for. We all have an agenda. Whether politically charged, socially aware or painfully personal, every artist, musician and writer has an agenda. Mine was and always has been money. I have no desire to change the world, and a ceramic sculpture is no match for a standing army. War changes the world, not art.

I was anything but a professional, and the critics would soon catch on. When my good looks grew tiresome and my unique style revamped by some new artist, I would be replaced and forgotten. It’s the name of the game, and I’m okay with that. Michael, on the other hand, wanted to change the face of the music industry. He meant to leave his mark and had every intention of changing the world. Michael was a true artist. He was also my muse. I thought about the dreadlocks and wondered how angry he would be if I used them in a piece. Putting myself in his shoes, I concluded I wouldn’t do it without his okay. The severed locks symbolized his sickness, they were the red balloons in a black and white portrait, unmistakable and exposed; they served as a focal point for madness. My masterpiece was completed in my mind, and the critics would eat it up, but I needed permission first. As I rounded the corner and walked faster against the wind, I figured it couldn’t hurt to get started on the project. No harm done if he’s not okay with it, but I refused to let them go to waste. How many times in my life will I be able to use dreadlocks in my art?