Mark had to watch the dreams unravel as high school ended. Who had known, really, that Roger's drummer had gotten himself a full ride to some college in California? The band started auditions for a new drummer just as their bassist took a job with his father's company.
When the band broke up, the someones who knew someone who could make them someones disappeared overnight. The gigs went to the rivals. The fans flocked to the new big thing. The girls found a new target. The talent couldn't keep Roger sane when the grades failed to get him the scholarships he needed to pay for college.
By graduation, Roger was just another boy on the brink of manhood, staring down at the diploma and wondering what his life would bring him. The casual parents in the background could only watch the disappointment tear their son away from the world. They offered to pay for at least the first couple years at his third choice school, but Roger wasn't interested anymore. The real opportunities died with the band. The dream was over.
Roger tried to console himself with the idea that he had never wanted it anyway. All that attention, all the friends and the parties and the easy living, it had just been a bi-product of writing songs. But with it all gone, the future seemed so uncertain. Roger didn't like things to be uncertain.
Uncertainty filled him with fear. The world was too endless, the freedom too much and so little of it mattered. He didn't matter, and that was what caused him so much grief. He'd left no impression on the world and his chance to do so was gone. Roger had gone from a careless king to a bitter peasant in under a week.
Roger knew only one place left for comfort, but he avoided Mark in fear of the rejection and change of heart the rest of the world had already offered him. Mark was going to be leaving for college in the fall anyway. The only way to not be left behind was to be the one doing the abandoning. Instead of friendship Roger sought out the city.
Instead of sticking to the usual haunts, Roger ventured further. Experiences left and right. He tried not to be tempted, but the pull of the underworld was too much.
Pleasure was much easier to come by in a city. Not only were drugs just out there, readily available and much cheaper, but everyone did it. There weren't parents to hide the little bags from and no best friends who frowned in disappointment when his eyes were cloudy. Roger couldn't settle on just one at first. He tried everything.
He didn't think much of marijuana. It made him hungry and tired, the only things he couldn't really afford to be. There was cocaine of course, but cocaine was expensive if he wanted it to be pure and good. Crack made him dizzy and sick, but it also cleared his head and made him forget how lonely living in a cheap motel the past couple weeks had left him. Just once and only once had Roger bothered with acid. His trip left him wallowing in pain and anger for days, imagining his skin crawling with bugs that talked and the walls stretched and bent until they looked like Mark, chastising him for being careless. Other drugs left him disoriented for long periods of time, sweating and crying and screaming whether they were in his system or not, so Roger retreated to heroin, the old favourite.
When the dust settled on his high one night, he stumbled back toward his room, trembling and afraid. A girl took to him on the way back, her hands on his hips from behind, giggling in his ears and leaving lipstick marks on his neck. He let her follow him into the motel and into his bed, her cheap perfume smelling like dead flowers crushed beneath him and the long fake nails ripping into the skin on his back. She cut him a line of her cocaine afterwards, her dirty hair falling in damp strings around her face, her small breasts glowing under the yellowed glare of the single lamp in the motel room. When Roger woke up she was gone as if she had never been there at all, except for his missing wallet.
Despite everything, Mark wasn't surprised when Roger finally called him. They hadn't spoken in nearly a month, since Roger's band had broken up and he'd taken his savings and ran to the city. On the phone, Roger's voice came tired and soft, full of doubt and fear. Mark didn't really want to think about what he'd been doing since he'd left. He thought that honestly, it was probably better if he didn't know.
Any anger or hurt Mark might have felt toward his friend faded when his hesitant knock on the rotted wood of room #6 was answered. Roger fell against Mark, his arms clamped tight around his waist and his dirty hair against Mark's cheek. Mark guided him back into the filthy room, closing the door and sitting Roger down on the bed. Roger refused to let go, his solid grip almost unbearable and the stale smell of his matted, greasy hair taking Mark by surprise.
"Hey man, you need a shower."
Roger nodded against Mark's shoulder, tightening his grip. Mark could hardly breath as it was and winced. He nudged Roger and finally convinced him to release his hold. Roger pulled away, sitting on the edge of the bed with his elbows balanced on his knees and his head in his hands. Mark was starting to feel good about his decision of leaving his camera in the car. This wasn't a moment he particularly wanted to preserve.
Mark tried to ignore the red in Roger's bleary eyes, and the way his hands were shaking, wrapped around strands of the dirty hair. He smelled terrible, his clothes as filthy as the room and his hair. Mark recognized more smells he'd come to associate with the part of Roger he didn't like that much. He smelled like pot and vodka and sex and sweat and smoke. Mark tried to ignore the condom wrapper on the floor next to the bed. He didn't really want to think about when that had been put there or how it had gotten there. He tried to ignore the little bag of powder next to the lamp.
Instead of thinking, Mark pulled Roger up by his arm and pushed him into the yellow bathroom. He turned on the shower and gestured toward it, leaning against the sink and crossing his arms until Roger slowly began to comply, kicking off his shoes and removing his shirt. Mark searched the room for clean clothes and finally found a small backpack full of Roger's possessions. He left the clothes on the sink along with a small towel he'd found.
Roger stumbled out of the shower a few minutes later, his wet hair dripping in his eyes as he stared down at the clean clothes. He didn't dare let the hopeful smile cross his lips that he was desperately wanting to give in to.
