this is my father: notes for later.

catefrances

It wasn’t unusual for matt to disappear for any length of time. it certainly wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last. But to do it in the middle of a tour. He’d never done that before. Everyone understood he needed his space. Everyone that is except the record company. What they were used to were artists that did what they wanted them to do when they wanted them to do it. This wasn’t Matt. It wasn’t any of the band for that matter. Except maybe gabriel. though even with him he’d managed to lead the corporate lawyers on a merry chase that ended in joshua tree national park. But since that incident eight months ago, he’d toed the party line. He had a child to look out for now, so unlike the rest of the band he was actually responsible for someone other than himself. I watched as matt’s friends closed ranks around him, even in his absence. Kendall didn’t know where he was. And sometimes I’d think that it was her he was trying to get away from.
Someone knew where matt was. It was sean who picked him up at the airport. Unfortunately sean was with matt. Or so we figured cause no one could find him either. The company leant on holly cause she was sean’s partner. But she remained loyal and said she hadn’t heard from either sean or matt. which as it turns out was the truth. sean would never have put her in the position of having to lie for him.
This went on for about a week and a half before the company threatened to pull the plug on the band’s next album. They were in the middle of recording it. Trying to fit it around a bi-coastal tour that of course had been the company’s idea. They were counting on zuma for big things and wanted to wring as much out of them as they could before the bubble burst. Working to a deadline was no one’s idea of a conducive environment in which to come up with the masterpiece the company wanted. And they all knew it. over the years it never failed to amuse me just how clueless corporate suits could be. Blake told me that he wished that he had gone with Matt. Even though he didn’t know where he was or even in what condition he was in. me being me told him to just do it. So he did. We jumped into his VW bug and headed north to the canadian border. three days later he got cold feet and we returned to seattle to find out that matt was in hospital.
Official line….. exhaustion.

catefrances

charlie was fifteen months old the first time i left him. i walked out the front door and didn't look back. in all honesty i'm surprised it took me that long. someone would look after him. i didn't know whether it would be james or my mother or maybe even lily. it didn't much matter to me. it's not that i didn't care. actually now that i think about it, i didn't care. all i knew was that right at that moment i couldn't look after my own son. i just took for granted that someone would watch over him.
i sat in the airport bar and drank until my flight was called. i wasn't what i considered drunk. i'd describe myself as pleasantly detached from my surroundings. i was sandwiched between a canadian returning home and an old spanish woman who didn't speak much english. i knew enough spanish to get by, but i certainly wasn't going to share that information. i wanted a nice quiet flight that went quickly. i didn't want to be caught up in the mindless chitchat of my fellow passengers. the canadian and the spanish woman may, for all i have known been nice people, but frankly i didn't care. i didn't drink on the flight, though i did try to eat some food. this turned out to be a mistake. i wasn't a good traveller in the best of circumstances. but having a booze buzz and running away, i think it was the guilt that gave me the headache. somewhere over the pacific ocean i vomited what little was in my stomach. the retching made my sides hurt. plus there was the added bonus of a runny nose and an empty stomach that only made me feel sicker. ah yes this was karma coming back to bite me in the arse. i was sure this wasn't the end of the cosmic balancing. but for now i managed to roll my jacket up into a pillow and sleep.
i had to change planes in los angeles and landed in seattle just before midnight. blake would be there to meet me. i'd rang him from LAX and he said he would be there. he wasn't. i fell asleep and was shaken awake by someone i barely recognised. he'd grown a beard and let his hair grow even more. all he needed was a rifle slung over his shoulder and a coonskin hat and the davey crockett picture would have been complete. we drove to a house i didn't recognise and as blake let me in the front door i thought that maybe this wasn't such a good idea. there was no furniture in the living room except a legless couch, a couple of upturned crates being used as coffee tables. there was a drumkit in one corner and in the another a stereo surrounded by records, cassettes and CDs. the only thing decorating the walls were tour posters of zuma and other local bands. blake lived here with sean and his girl vicky.
it was fine for me to stay here blake said cause zuma were leaving on a tour in two days. much to my relief blake didn't ask me any questions beyond what i was doing in seattle, to which i answered that i needed a break. he didn't ask from what and i guess he figured i just needed a break from my life.
on the morning that he left, blake told me that kendall knew how to reach them if there was an emergency. at the mention of her name i smiled. they'd be gone for three weeks.

catefrances

so while matt worked at getting better, the rest of the band were left to their own devices. they wouldn't touch the album without matt and so it sat there accumulating dust. i tried to keep kendall amused, but it was a thankless task. all she could think about was matt and she spent most of her time wondering how he'd be when he got out. she went through this everytime. i think she was sick of it but couldn't see her life without matt. boy was she in trouble. i tried to get her to work on some music but it always came back to matt and i gave up. i told blake that i couldn't handle kendall anymore. he asked me why i thought i had to. i was her friend. blake dismissed that and said sometimes you just had to step away. i thought that was a cold attitude and walked way from him. what i didn't know at the time was that blake had slept with kendall and was trying to deal with the guilt. when i found out, it wasn't much of a stretch for me to realise that perhaps matt knew as well. it would certainly have explained a lot. and that's when andrew moffat showed up again. there were rumours floating around that he'd got his act together and was due to release a more subdued album than he previously had. truth be told, i thought he was dead. or maybe i just wished it. fact of the matter was, i was interested in what he had to share. so i sought him out. he was living in the same house he had been before. i'm not sure what i was expecting, but the smile i got put me a little on guard. he was surprised to see me but admitted he had half expected it. to me that sounded like the man's ego talking. we spoke about what we'd been doing and he played me the album. i thought it was too quite compared to what i'd been hearing around town recently. but it was what he wanted to do so who was i to rain on his parade. it was enough that he was still alive. when he told me he had worked with kendall, i was a little less surprised than i should have been. against my better judgement i told him he should leave her alone. then we got into a fight about what business was it of mine and i responded by saying obviously none and walked out.
a couple of days later i ran into andrew at the off ramp. blake and i were there seeing some band of no account called pussbutt. i was outside getting some air cause there was none inside and i hear a voice in my ear. i nearly fell over trying to get some distance between us. he admitted to me that he knew matt and would never have made a move on kendall. to which i replied, as if she'd let him. then we got into the why did i have to be a bitch all the time routine. words were spoken. threats were issued. and we ended spending the night together. the following day i snuck back to matt's with my tail between my legs like some guilty child. he told me to leave cause he wasn't going to go through another situation that involved andrew beating me and him having to pick up the pieces. i told blake that i wasn't going to go anywhere. it was a one off thing and it was over. he believed me. and so did i... for the next three days.

karma defect

Micheal Farantti

When I heard that song live, tears in my eyes.

catefrances

it took me two days to ring james and when i did no one answered. i didn't bother again. i rang kendall instead. she said she was going down to portland. i could come if i wanted. i said no. i'd never been down there and right now i wanted to be somewhere familiar. i stayed close to blake's. vicky was a student and with it being mid semester she had no choice but to stay in seattle. she wanted to be a teacher. it was such a change to meet someone in this town who had a goal that wasn't dependent on music. i went to lecture with her just for something to do. it was fun. it made me think of an alternate road i might have taken. though i couldn't see myself adhering to deadlines that required me to hand in assignments. way too much structure for a slacker like me. and let's be honest, how the hell could i possibly deal with thinking whilst hungover. vicky did introduce me to cillian though. he was an irishman and a charming as all get out. we hund out for a week before i moved into his room. he lived above a bookstore not far from campus. he tried to get me to read joyce's 'ulysses'. talk about mindnumbing. four pages in i gave up. the next day cillian brought home roald dahl's 'the magic finger'. smartarse. i read though. then i read 'wuthering heights'. i'd put this book off because i was under the impression that it was a romance. much to my pleasant surprise i found out it wasn't. well i didn't think it was. i found heathcliff to be extremely manipulative and a little vampiric in his behaviour. he just seemed to suck the life out of anyone that was around him. i thought he was a bastard. i saw no romance.

catefrances

when andrew opened his door, i could have smacked the smirk right off his face. he said he was surprise my keeper let me out again. i told him to fuck off. promises promises. it was my turn to smirk. i don't make promises. if i said i didn't know what it was about andrew that kept me coming back, i'd be lying. i knew exactly why. he hurts me. it's that simple. emotionally and physically. and he lets me give it back. until it bores him that is. for three weeks everything was fine between us. well it appeared to be anyway. i was willing to hang on until andrew snapped. or i did. i knew one of us would, it was just a matter of who went first.if it was andrew then i would have the excuse i needed to leave. otherwise i wasn't going anywhere. i knew that blake would take me in. maybe arrogance was my problem. if i didn't have my safety nets then all i'd have would be myself. i didn't much like that idea. anyway andrew would work or try to and i'd keep out of his way. he wanted to do something with this album. i think he thought it was his last chance. when he wasn't working we'd go for walks. he was one of those rare people i met who actually enjoyed walking. sometimes we'd get something to eat. then we'd go home get stoned, listen to king crimson or led zeppelin. get stoned some more and fuck. if this is how i could spend the rest of my life, i would. one day when we were talking about pussbutt, he said they reminded him of green river. yeah well for whatever good that did seeings how green river had broken up. personally i didn't particularly like green river.
then i got a brainwave. let's take andrew's mustang on a roadtrip. he said no. he didn't give me a reason. he didn't really need to but i expected one nonetheless. later the same day he said he was flying down to los angeles. he didn't ask me to go along. i ignored him for the rest of the day. the next morning he told me he didn't want me to be here when he got back. when i asked how long he'd be gone, he just shrugged his shoulders and asked what that had to do with anything. yeah great punch me in the stomach why don't you. whatever. i packed my bag and left five minutes later.

*given*to*fly*

wow this is really good
i havnt finished reading it yet because my eyeballs are going to fall out from staing at this computer but so far its awesome
ill have to come back it later when i can see again

catefrances

it was kendall in her usual up front way about amelia, the girl blake was seeing. thogh she wasn't living with him. otherwise i surely would have found out as soon as i'd walked through the door. kendall thought it only fair i should know. i think i was drunk for the next week. cillian helped me there. he was amused that i would get so cut up over someone i wasn't involved with. he pointed out that i had no claim to blake. no shit sherlock. it wasn't that blake had a girl, it was that he didn't tell me. what did he think i was going to do. intimidate the girl. of course not. i did what i always did when i tried to escape. i drank. what cillian was on about more, was the fact that if i was so concerned with blake, then what the hell was i doing with him. i told him too glibly as it turns out, that it's what i do. fuck with people with self delusional impunity. he told me i was a hypocrite. i didn't think that was true. all i ask is to be told what's going on. holy shit i am a hypocrite. i never tell anyone what i'm doing. i don't hide it but i don't usually come out and say anything, except casually in passing.
then i told cillian about james and charlie. when he questioned how a man could give so much lattitude to the mother of his child when he was still involved with her. i didn't correct him. i doubted right now was the time to share the fact that blake was charlie's father. he would have walked away i know it.
when zuma got back into town, i confronted blake. he said he didn't owe me an explanation. and i guess he was right. but him not telling me still hurt. but in another way it was freeing. i no longer had blake to fall back on other than as a friend. and in my warped world it allowed me to make quite possibly my biggest error in judgement ever. well besides not telling blake about charlie.

catefrances

though he told me i couldn't keep coming and going like i did, blake let me stay at his place. he told me it wasn't all about me. i assured him it was. he said i had no respect for anyone. he wondered how i managed to keep james as a friend. i said he loved me. to which blake replied how could anyone when i spent so much time and energy screwing up my life and anyone else's i came into contact with. great another fight. i hung with blake because he was exactly like james. he gave me more than enough rope to hang myself with and was always there to pick up the pieces. andrew on the other hand,treated me like i treated people. basically like shit. he pushed me hard and didn't particularly give a damn what i really felt or thought, just so long as i went along for the ride. and i always went along for the ride with andrew. i just didn't like who i became. but tht didn't matter anymore cause he had turfed me out. i could live without him. i'd done it before. and until i'd hooked up with andrew, i'd never been in an abusive relationship. i'd never even had anyone slap my face, in anger or in jest. but that's what i got from andrew. i'd walked before when it got too much. but this time the decision wasn't mine. i don't know how sane that made me, but i didn't think i made me crazy. a drunk and a manipulative bitch yes, but crazy? not me.

olderman

and as before, this remains very intriguing. thanks cate!

catefrances

going over to kendall's place one day, i found matt home alone. kendall was out of town. so matt opens the front door in pyjama bottoms and red hair. i'd say he looked like he just woke up, but i think he was still asleep. he said nothing, leaving me at the door and disappearing back into the house. i closed the door behind me. the chugging guitar and unholy howl i could hear could not be mistaken for any other band but the melvins. glooey porch treatments. the perfect stoner album. i flopped down next to matt. he handed me the joint he was smoking and i took it. kendall didn't let him smoke. she wouldn't allow any drugs in the house. i wondered how long she was going to be gone.
and that's what we did for the rest of that day and night. smoked dope and listened to the melvins. there was a three quarter moon that night and we spent a fair amount of time figuring out whether we could see something move up there. matt tried to teach me to play drums. i have to say, i use that term teach very loosely, cause matt was in no fit state to teach anyone anything. especially someone as equally stoned as he was. for my part, all i did was bash away and try not to fall off the stool. i wasn't always successful.
after that night, i started listening to the melvins a lot. and i saw more of matt. when kendall got home, a couple of weeks later, i couldn't drag my arse off the sofa. she and matt had a blazing row and kendall left. less than half an hour later, blake and sean turned up to drag me off. i fell asleep on the drive and when i woke up i was still in blake's shitty little v dub bug. alone.
i got up and walked the eight blocks back to matt's. i'd finally found someone who wanted to be wasted more than i did. not even andrew cared less than matt. i wasn't going to let anyone get in my way. not blake. not kendall. not anyone.

catefrances

i tried not to wander so much. i didn't want to lose blake as a friend. and i knew with my history that it was something i'd have to consciously work at. with matt laid up, blake spent most of his nights reading and writing. he'd got a job at a gas station so he'd have time to do just that. he'd stumble in just after daybreak. sometimes i was awake. sometimes not. sometimes i'd wake to find blake asleep in bed beside me. i liked that he'd wrap his arm around me. it gave me comfort. i'd like to think that it gave him comfort as well.
a couple of weeks after i'd left andrew, kendall showed up and asked me to join her band. when i told her i'd have to think about it, she huffed off. blake questioned my reticence and i told him i had to go home. i needed to go home. when blake asked me if there was anything he could say that would make me stay, i said no. this was as close as he got to admitting he loved me.
we didn't know it right then, but when i left, i'd be taking with me a piece of him that would stay with me always.

catefrances

what i was doing with matt, was what i had done with andrew. the only difference was, that i truly believed that i could, if i wanted, stop anytime. with andrew, i didn't want to stop. it never entered my head until the very end when i did walk away. i could walk away from matt. what i didn't factor in was that his destructive streak was far greater than mine.
kendall moved out and blake was no longer talking to me. he saw that what i was doing with matt as the reason zuma were treading water. i didn't understand that when i heard it, cause i knew matt was still writing and recording. when i asked him about it, he said it wasn't for the band. but that was hardly my fault. and i didn't really care. i didn't even care about cillian. i had no idea what he was thinking. on those rare occasions i did run into him, he told me it wasn't really his business what i did. that kinda hurt more than i admitted at the time. i was more concerned about losing my drug buddy than anything else. i didn't want to have to throw myself on the mercy of my so called friends when this all blew up in my face. but that's exactly what happened.
matt had been cagey for a few days when he called me into his room. i sat on his bed as he took my hand. i tried to pull it away but he was stronger than he looked. he could barely look me in the eye. as he ran his fingers up my arm it dawned on me what was happening. i was toned but i wasn't that stoned. i pulled away and stood up.
i told him i didn't do needles. he said neither does he. great now we're lying to each other. i walked out. how could i have not seen what was going on. was i that stoned that often? yeah, i was. matt kept at me for a few days but i still refused. this went on for about a week, then he gave up. this was something not even i could or would keep to myself. i summoned the courage to tell kendall. she wasn't happy to see me and i literally had to put my foot in the door to stop her slamming it in my face. interestingly enough, she wasn't the least bit surprised. she took it calmly and told me it was time for me to leave. and she wasn't just talking about her apartment.

olderman

and she wasn't just talking about her apartment.

bout a new life ahead, eh?

thanks cate.

catefrances

'it'd be better if you didn't'
these were the words that blake said to me when he rang to tell me that holly was dead, and i asked when the funeral was. so this was the result of my actions. a banishment, of sorts, from one half of my life. it shouldn't have surprised me. but it did. and it hurt. i thought i'd left seattle on good terms with blake. and everyone else for that matter.
i'd been back in sydney for just on four months when the call came. i rested my hand on my growing belly and thought back to what i'd done to deserve such a rebuke. i had done what i wanted. was that my crime? or that i had done so without malice but with almost total disregard for those around me? yes. that had to be it. i had broken some unspoken code that i was unaware of. well screw him then. blake couldn't really stop me showing up in seattle. though being nearly six months pregnant, the airlines would.
the week that i left, holly had left sean and flown to england with a musician. trav, as he was called was a bass player, just like holly. his band 'motherless' were a punk band probably a decade too late to make any sort of impact. i remember holly would talk about them and trumpet their music whenever you spoke to her. from what i heard, i'm surprised they got out of sheffield. turns out trav had a temper. a vicious one. one that he couldn't always control. he was fine until the band got dumped by the record company and broke up. he beat holly. but as is often the case, she kept it to herself. this did not sound like the holly i knew. she was quiet, but we just figured that was because kendall was so loud, and there was only room in a family for one prima donna. but she wasn't weak. it took her a couple of months to tell anyone and when she did, it was kendall. and even then is was probably only cause kendall was touring england at the time and sensed something was wrong. as you would expect, kendall went off her nut and demanded her sister leave with her. holly did. but a week later she was back with trav. this time no matter what kendall said, holly stayed. when kendall left england it was with a heavy heart and in conflict. matt was in hospital again and he needed her to be with him.
a neighbour found holly bleeding and barely breathing on the floor just inside the front door of the flat she and trav were living in. he'd hit her in the head when he tried to open the door. so she was either trying to get away from trav or after he beat her trying to get help. probably the latter seeing's how no one heard any screaming. there was yelling apparently. but that was hardly out of the ordinary for trav and holly. she died before the ambulance could get to her.
trav was nowhere to be found.

catefrances

i was alone when charlie was born. i was back living at my mother's house. james was off doing who knows what. living his life i guess. charlie's father didn't know he existed.my fault i know. and my choice. when the baby slept which was more often than i was expecting, i wrote. i couldn't put my life on hold for a child. i would go insane i know it. besides i didn't have to. i was to find out that charlie was more flexible than i was. he was his father's son.
i did keep in contact with kendall. she was having her own troubles with baby. but hers was twenty-four years old. i couldn't believe the patience she showed with matt.
when charlie was around six months old, james showed an interest. he had been with this waitress since before i came home but it didn't work out. i didn't want to get involved with anyone let alone james. i'd found a comfortable niche and i didn't want anybody upsetting my delicately constructed balance. james seemed cool with my coolness. plus he was good with the baby. i just had to work at keeping him at bay long enough for me to sort myself out. easier said than done.

catefrances

when my mother rang to tell me the news, james and i were in the middle of one of our not too infrequent arguments. about what i couldn't tell you, but you can bet i was being impossible and that it was inconsequential. there were times when i would just snap for no apparent reason. when that happened, james tried to stay out of the way. this time he had no room to move.
james picked up the phone when it rang, and i yelled at him for doing so. he put his hand up, suspended in mid air trying ward off my tirade. he walked out of the room stretching the phone cord around the door jamb. i went after him. as i opened my mouth to speak, or more to the point harangue him, james told me to shut up. he pushed past me and hung up the phone. and looked at me. and because we were in the middle of something else he said, 'your father's dead'. he waited to take his cues from me. three words. three words i'd been waiting my whole adult life to hear. well actually probably since i was a teenager i guess. when only his death would have sufficiently explained his absences. i'd rehearsed how i'd react. so determined was i for such an event not to have an impact on me. i would be like camus' meursault and feel nothing. how was one supposed to act when a parent died. what was the expected societal norm. my father had been out of my life for so long, my indifference must be the correct response. mustn't it.
james took a step towards me. to comfort me i guess. i backed away and left the room. i didn't know what to do. the ache started in my stomach and caught me off guard. i heard the front door close. james had gone to pick up charlie from pre school. the silence weighed in on me. what was i going to do now. my father's self imposed absence informed everything i did. he was the reason i wrote what i wrote. shit he was the reason i started writing in the first place. the music i listened to growing up. the music that started the fire. it all came from him. he was the reason i drank. or so i told myself. everything i should have taken responsibility for, i blamed on my father. now there was only myself to blame. i had to take responsibilty for my own actions. so what did i do. i did what was expected of me. i went on a three day bender that ended when i woke up in a hotel room near the beach. i woke up next to stranger. i didn't know his name. or didn't remember. or more to the point i didn't want to remember.who knows. i didn't. i guess it wasn't important for what i was needing.
my father was cremated and his ashes thrown into puget sound, not far from the alki point lighthouse. i didn't have to say goodbye cause i'd already done that years ago. i still listen to the music he exposed us to and i sometimes listen to his music. in a way, in a big way, it was the unconventionality of my upbringing that made me who i am today. so i can thank him for that at least. he was my father but he wasn't a dad. and now all he is, is a face in a grainy black and white photo and a memory.

catefrances

james was my safe harbour. if i didn't have him to come home to, i can't even begin to imagine how things would or could have ended up. if he wasn't there for me,if he wasn't willing to put up with all the crap i know he did. when i drank, which increased in frequency the further i got into my twenties, james was there to wipe my brow as i wiped the snot from my upper lip with the back of my hand. he was there to intercept anyone who tried to contact me. and he was there to make sure i didn't choke on my own vomit. looking back that was unlikely to happen. i don't know whether or not it was fool's luck, but vomitting wasn't something that occurred all that often. my body would ache and my head would do flips an olympic gymnast would be proud of. and that feeling that some furry little critter had crawled into your mouth and died. i got that a lot. but if anything bothered me, it was the headaches. they could cripple me sometimes and i got them often. on more than one occasion i'd be standing doing nothing in particular, not even drinking and this wave would sweep over me. i'd lose my balance and stumble. it would only last a moment. of all the headaches i got, those ones caused me concern. only a little mind you and not enough to actually see a doctor about them. but still they did freak me out. i never thought something would happen to me when i drank. i never thought i'd be attacked or beaten up. i never thought i'd meet some violent end. i thought i was invincible. i wasn't of course, but the mind is a powerful thing. i thought i was in total control. if i didn't come home for whatever reason then it was becasue i had decided. i drank because i wanted to. i liked the the lack of control because it was my decision to lose that control. how dumb does that sound? i used think that if i died, it would be because something exploded inside my head. it would be quick and hurt only for a second. and then it would be over. everything i did was about me. it didn't matter that james was there. it didn't matter that i had a son i should be taking care of. all that mattered was that whatever needed to be done, got done. whether i was involved or not. i truly was my father's daughter.
james would be the one to deal with charlie. he'd occupy him and keep him out of my way. i'd appear whenever i felt like it. i didn't drink during the day. probably cause i was recovering from the night before. besides i didn't drink every night. i was in control, remember.
when charlie started school, i picked him up in the afternoons. we'd walk back home through the park near st. stephen's so charlie could run, and i wouldn't have to keep such a close eye on him. this was the same park that i'd sometimes sleep in. my back hard up against the sandstone wall that separated the park from the graveyard. i like graveyards. they give me a sense of serenity and security.
sometimes when i was feeling particularly bouyant, i'd take my son down to the railway tracks to watch the trains go by. his little fingers would curl through the mesh fence and he'd ask me so many questions i'd have to ask him to stop. when we got home, james was always waiting for us on the front step.

catefrances

like everybody else in the world, i heard about matt's apparent suicide attempt on the radio. i had spoken to kendall just a few days before and she had said she was flying to new york to be with him. zuma were touring and sean had called her to say that matt didn't seem to be handling it at all well. from what i heard, matt had been withdrawn(this was not new), he'd turn up for the shows, but wouldn't put much effort into anything else. he blew off publicity so blake and gabriel would have to do it. the new bass player(they'd gone through four since holly died) will, was having a problem with dealing with matt himself and wasn't used to such an insular lead singer. more than once matt had snapped at him for no reason, resulting in will walking off. usually matt wouldn't apologise for anything he said and it was up to blake or gabriel to make peace between them. turns out that matt was using again and either no one noticed or no one was willing to get out of favour with him. how this helped the band or matt, i do not know.
so kendall went to new york and found matt high as the proverbial kite. she was livid. not an ideal condition for her to be in when one was trying to deal with her. she demanded the rest of the tour be called off. carlton, zuma's manager told her in no uncertain terms that leaving the tour was not an option. and kendall in much similiar terms told carlton that if they did not postpone the tour, matt may not be around to finish it anyway. carlton told her that he could handle matt. clearly he could not. and his idea of handling a junkie lead singer was to make sure he got his fix and that he was able to do the shows. three hours before zuma were due to go on, kendall found matt comatose on his hotel room floor. was it a suicide attempt? carlton said no. kendall disagreed. blake agreed with kendall. and that should have been the end of the tour. but kendall managed to revive matt and he went on that night. it was pills he overdosed on, not heroin. standing side of stage, kendall watched as matt pushed past any pain, psychological and physical he was feeling to put on what some commentators wrote was the show of his life.
after the show, kendall took him back to the hotel, where they both fell asleep. sometime during the night, matt disappeared from their bed. kendall found him on the bathroom floor. for the second time in 24 hours she revived him, but it was too much for him. an ambulance was called and the press had a field day. was he trying to kill himself? it's not like he wasn't trying.kendall told me that it was a suicide attempt. to the press no one admitted anything.
kendall got her wish. carlton could do nothing but cancel the rest of the tour. she flew home with matt. kendall knew this was the beginning of the end and she wasn't sure how long she could keep matt safe from himself.

asphalt

i dunno why i'm reading it ... and listening to pink floyd ..summer ..fat old sun .... cranberrries ..dreams ... .... i dunno what am i ..... the father or the son .......... and i really wonder what i will be

thanks for sharing

catefrances

standing at the window watching james play with charlie, i was reminded that the day would come when i would have to tell him about his father. his natural father. not sure how soon that would happen, but i knew it was entirely up to me. charlie was eight and the fact that he called james by his name wasn't lost on him. but so far he hadn't actually come out and asked any compromising questions. we did give him the option of calling james either dad or james and, well charlie chose to continue calling him james.
we wondered what would happen once the baby grew old enough to call her james dad. how that would impact on charlie. i wanted to wait until he was older. james left it up to me.
to me charlie looked like his father. which was fortunate for me in the fact that james and blake were similar in colouring. both had dark eyes and dark hair. though sometimes i had seen blake's hair purple. but recently he seems to have grown out of that hair colouring stage. blake was slighter in build and both he and james had that creative gene going. charlie drew. he liked to draw and he'd spend hours with james when he was working in his studio. the only interest he'd shown in music upo to this point, was to tell me to turn the volume down when i played it too loud. if he did show an interest in music it would naturally be assumed that he got it from me.

catefrances

it's somewhat easy to know what your friends are doing when they're famous and it gets reported. but what's not easy is coming to grips with what it is they're doing. zuma were on some sort of hiatus, because matt had a breakdown. this wasn't news to me. what was news was that kendall had left him. she'd taken their three year old daughter and moved in with her mother. what i didn't get from the newspapers, but from kendall herself was that matt had threatened to take his own life. it hadn't been the first time. the incident in new york a few years before, was at least evidence of that. but kendall had had enough, she couldn't have her child living in a house with a man who was going to kill himself. not to mention he had a full blown habit that all of her pleading couldn't end. she didn't know if she was doing the right thing. she was doing the only thing she thought she could. for her daughter.
blake had gotten married and had become a father just weeks before. he now had a girl to go with his boy. when i told james that piece of news, he told me i had to tell blake about charlie. charlie was eleven years old and should know who his father is. i said i would when it was the right time. james told me i was running out of time.

olderman

catching up with cate

catefrances

i came home one day to find charlie sitting on my bed holding the little blue book of eliot poetry that had been daniels. he asked me why i kept it on my bedside. i told him about daniel. as as the afternoon wore on, i told him about michael, his uncle. and my father, his grandfather. he then asked me who his father was. momentarily stunned i didn't know what to say. then my nearly twelve year old son told me that it was alright. he'd known for ages that james was not his father and that he thought my absences had something to do with it.and that's when i told him that blake benson was his father. charlie's next word was an expletive coupled with a look of disbelief. but then he smiled and asked me to repeat what i had said. so i did. then i realised it was not a smile of joy. after telling me it was all bullshit, charlie left the house. i wanted to go after him, and perhaps i should have. but i figured that he needed some time on his own to think. he came home a few hours later in james' custody. when both charlie and hayley were asleep, james told me i had done the right thing. well of course i had, that's why it hurt so much.
now all i had to do was to tell blake that he had a son who was nearly twelve years old. that should be a piece of cake. HAH!

catefrances

i started to lose charlie after that. he'd skip school and on more than one occasion had been busted for grafitti-ing public property.plus he'd not listen to a word i said. when he spoke to me it was with a disrespect i never thought possible. and it was this that motivated me to talk to blake. i phoned him several times, but either he wasn't getting the messages or he was ignoring me. i'd prefer to think that the messages weren't getting to where they should have been. i knew zuma were in europe, but i didn't see how that made a difference. i needed to speak to my son's father and no one was going to stop me from doing that. certainly not his wife. i decided to fly to seattle. i phoned kendall to make sure blake would be at least in the state when i got there. she told me the band were doing some recording in los angeles. i asked her about matt and she sighed and said that he was breathing and that's all she could ask for right now. it made me sad to think that it'd come down to that. just breathing made you alive? i don't think so.
so i flew to los angeles. gabriel had a house in silverlake and that's where i found blake. he was aging well. matt looked like total shit but right now he wasn't my concern. when i spoke with him, blake told me that sara his wife had passed on the messages. i don't know whether that was a pre-emptive strike to ward off a tirade against her or not. i shrugged his comment off and said it didn't much matter now.
i took a deep breath and just told blake he had a son. he asked me how old he was, though i reckon he could have figured it out for himself. twelve now. charlie had just had a birthday. yes i told blake, charlie knew about him. we talked for a while and then blake asked to meet his son. as soon as it could be arranged. blake couldn't leave just now. not in the middle of recording.and i couldn't have charlie flying so far by himself. we made tentative plans for a meeting in a couple of weeks. blake wanted to talk with sara and weather that storm before he flew into another one. blake did ask me though if charlie was into music. i said he was more into drawing. then he said something i thought was strange and very thoughtful at the same time. he said charlie must have got that from james. as if james' DNA somehow ran through charlies's blood.i flew home to my son feeling a lot better than i had the previous week.

catefrances

had i known the storm i was flying into, i would have stayed in los angeles. charlie had not been the perfect son during my absence. james said he'd found empty beer cans in charlie's room. and when he spoke to the boy he basically told him to shove it cause he wasn't his father. i can only imagine how that hurt james. i thought about grounding charlie, but what good did that do? it's not like he couldn't crawl out fo his window. or simply walk out the door. i sat down with my child and tried to talk with him. he told me he was feeling out of palce. i told him i understood. he doubted it. i asked what i could do. he simply said i could die. that would help. i can't have screwed this up that bad. when i told him blake was coming to see him, it didn't seem to make a difference. he asked if he could fly over to california. i said no. i wanted to be around when he met blake. he said i could go with him. i said no. i wanted to have a little control on the situation. i didn't feel i would have that in another country. for the next week when i thought charlie was at school, he was goofing off around the city. his twelth birthday came and went during that week and we did nothing. charlie didn't show up. i rang blake to find out when he was coming. he said he was held up. i told him that his son needed him. blake laughed and had a go at me for keeping charlie a secret all these years. i told him now wasn't the time. he said tht was typical behaviour for me, dismissing unpleasant truths because 'now was not the time.' he asked to talk with charlie and i had to admit that i didn't know where he was. blake said to call him when i had found his son. then he hung up. i spent the next few hours walking the streets looking for my child. i didn't find him. but when i got home, charlie was there curled up asleep on his bed sleeping like an angel. the little shit. james told me there was call from seattle. i asked if it was from blake. james said no. it was a woman. the only woman i know who would call me from seattle was kendall. i'd call her in the morning.

catefrances

i didn't get the chance to call kendall. i woke up and charlie was missing -again. short of locking him in a cupboard under the stairs i didn't know what i was going to do with him. this can't just be about finding out about his father. there had to be more. i had to find him. i had to find out what had got my child so screwed up. after dropping hayley off at school, james and i divided our little part of the world between us and searched for charlie. we came home at sundown not having found him. hayley was with my mother and so we set out again. i ended up all the way in the city looking on streets that i knew attracted broken children. as much as i wanted to find my son, i did not want to find him on these streets. when i walked alone through my front door, it was into an empty house. james wasn't back yet, hayley was with my mother and all i had was my own company and the thoughts in my head that insisted that charlie would be found. that i would have the chance to right the wrongs i had committed. i had been such a fool to think i could keep his father from him. did i not learn anything from my childhood? i decided to phone blake. there was no answer. i left a message and stood at the front window looking out into the street waiting for my son to come home.

catefrances

sitting at the kitchen table, i heard the front door shut. i called out charlie's name but he ignored me. as i climbed the stairs to his room, i heard him retching in the bathroom. i sat on the stairs until he emerged, a little whitefaced and wiping his nose on his sleeve. i followed him into his room where he instantly curled up on his bed with his back toward me. i sat next to him and rested my hand on his leg. he was crying and it broke my heart. i climbed up behind him and drew my arms around his skinny little body and stroked his head. then he asked me for help. he said he didn't know what he was doing and that he was scared. at last a breakthrough. when james got home, he found us asleep on charlie's bed. i told him what had happened the next morning. james asked me if i needed him to stay home and said no,that i'd be fine. he asked me if i thought charlie would be fine and i admitted that i didn't know. charlie woke midmorning and again apologised. when he said he wanted to apologise to james, i allowed him to walk the short distance to james' studio space by himself. after a couple of hours, i phoned james to see what had happened. james said he couldn't really talk but everything had been sorted.
charlie's behaviour improved markedly over the following weeks. he even became more attentive towards his sister. i wondered whether it would last and for how long. i got my answer one night after coming home from my first real gig in three years.

catefrances

so this was my first real gig in nearly three years. with a full band. i'd played more than a few times on my own and with either a pianist or another guitar player. and never in front of more than a couple of dozen people. usually coffee shops or back bars. and right now, i was sober. i can't tell you what a difference that made. i'd run into jacob walden one night and was more than a little surprised that he remembered me. or perhaps i was hoping no one did from back then. who was i kidding he said. all those days wasting away drinking and smoking and sharing big plans. and with some perverse idea of flattery, jacob told me he had never known a girl who could knock back as much booze as i could. he filled me in on who was dead - pete madden, lowey henderson and xana mccabe. and who was alive - everyone else. who was committed. that'd be tully harris. not only did tully drink but he dropped acid. it did not agree with him.
jacob played guitar as well and seemed keen to get something together. hayley was in kindy so it seemed as good a time as any. the last time i was in anything that could be called a band was in seattle with kendall. the fact that i can even remember those days is an achievement for me. when i asked jacob what he had been listening to lately, he said for the past three weeks he'd been listening to sonic youth's 'goo'. great i was a fan of dirty boots and mote. but i told him if he expected us to be able to work together he'd have to listen to something else as well. so we rifled through each other's music collections. from mine he took big star, the la's and nirvana's 'bleach'. from his, i took black sabbath, television and you am i.
we spent nearly every waking hour working on songs and getting the rest of the band organised. jacob knew a drummer which was good, cause no one i knew wanted to work with me anymore. apparently i was too high maintainence.
that first night, it was raining up a storm. the gutters were running and if you got too close to the road you were going to get soaked when a car drove through a puddle. hayley was scared when the thunder shook the house, but james calmed her down. she didn't want me to go out. i read her yertle the turtle, kissed her forehead and told her i'd check in on her when i got home. she told me not to forget. and i didn't. sneaking into her room just after 2 am, i found her curled in ball down the bottom end of her bed. her arms wrapped around a purple hippo. charlie's bed was empty. i woke james and he said he didn't know where he was. the boy was in bed when james ahd turned in just after midnight. well he's fucking not there now i yelled.
three days later i open the door to my twelve year old son dirty and bleeding and high as kite. he smiled at me and i just wanted to slap it right off his face. he ignored all my questions, said he was tired and disappeared into his room. when james got home, he said that we needed help. we couldn't deal with whatever was going on with charlie on our own. for the first time, james said he thought that charlie was capable of doing some real damage to himself. i agreed. four days later we were sitting in the office of a child psychologist doing some bullshit tests that would apparently tell us what was wrong with our son.

catefrances

there was nothing wrong with charlie. he was a confused young boy who had trouble coming to terms with the fact that he thought he was gay. not that he really thought it, he more knew it i guess. he was scared with what he was feeling and the fact that he had met another boy he was attracted to made him act out. he told us he thought he was a freak at first. but then he couldn't keep denying what he was feeling. this is my twelve year old son. why he didn't come to either james or myself, i couldn't tell you. but i can assure you, when i was twelve i wan't telling my mother everything either. you know no matter what you tell your children, and how many times you tell them they can come to you with anything, there are times, many times as it turns out, when they simply don't feel that they can. i'm not suggesting that all charlie's bad behaviour was caused by him discovering his sexuality, but my god it was relief to know something about him. especially when it was threatening to tear him apart.