I felt kind of out of it, but it wasn't a new feeling. I always sort of felt like that onstage, the adrenaline and all of that. And this was a bigger crowd than I was used to, this Taking Back Sunday crowd. And the coke I did, and the fight with Ellie, and all the thoughts of my career and what this might do for it and everything else. My head was fucking spinning.
Onstage, I could feel the energy of the audience, it was like it flowed to me. And I had this energy that flowed to them. It was symbiotic and cosmic and all that new age bullshit. And drugs heightened this. Then I felt the blood from my nose, felt it and it wouldn't stop. Saw the looks on the people close enough to the stage, and I put my hands up to cover the blood.
"Come on," some stage hand guy said, pulling me from the stage, and the blood was gushing and I was scared, a little bit. Overdose, maybe. Heart attack. My chest hurt. I could die. I could. I'd been doing more and more of it because I needed more and more of it and maybe I needed a lot of confidence to get in front of this crowd. It was a sea of people, an ocean, not like the little clubs I usually played. There was nothing intimate about this.
"It's okay, I'll handle this," Ellie, suddenly materialized back stage, that look of concern on her face. The stage guy shrugged and walked away.
"Here," she said, handing me some paper towels and I wiped up some of the blood.
"Is it stopping?" she said, pulling my hands away. From the look on her face I guessed it wasn't.
"I'm bringing you to the hospital," she said, pulling on my arm and I shrugged away.
"No, I'm okay…"
"Jesus, Craig! You're bleeding and God knows what else because of fucking cocaine! You are not okay. I'm bringing you to the hospital or we can call an ambulance. You choose,"
I sighed. She was right. I wasn't okay.
Being driven to the hospital sucked. Ellie obviously thought I was a loser and she was right. Drugs. What had I been thinking? But I still needed it. The hospital loomed in the car windows, the same one where my dad used to work. Would anyone remember me?
Hospitals had this smell of alcohol and Lysol and I hated it. Maybe cause my dad worked here and it reminded me of everything bad associated with him. Maybe because of the bad asthma attacks I used to have when I was a kid and being hauled into the emergency room not being able to breathe wasn't all that much fun, either.
"Just wait here," Ellie said, and I sat in one of the chairs in the waiting room. The bleeding was stopping. It hadn't stopped completely but it was stopping, and my chest still hurt but not any worse. Maybe I wouldn't die after all.
I watched her go up to the lady behind the desk and explain it all, possible drug overdose, cocaine, bleeding, bipolar, and no she didn't know if I was taking any psychotropics or anything else, just the cocaine.
I guess drug overdose gets you in pretty quick because they called my name right away, and Ellie gave me this look like she loved me and she was mad at me and she felt sorry for me all at once. I looked away. I had to.
They brought me to this little room with a bed with paper sheets on it, and a pillow with a paper pillow case. But they wanted me to change into a real johnnie, those hospital gowns that looked the same at every hospital in North America.