Yes, I haven't given up on this story. I'm in the process on working on what will be the last chapter. I hope to have it up before Thanksgiving (because that would fit), but I'm not promising. My goal is to have this story finished before the end of 2008. Thank all of you for reading. I appreciate your thoughts.
Oh, and for anyone who hasn't been sure exactly how Mike and James relate to each other, this chapters should answer that. I hope that makes up for the lack of Derek and Casey.
It Was All About Love For
By: December
Chapter 7: Left in shambles
Last time: "I'm getting to that….I just have to tell you about the years Mike spent with Harry first."
"Years?" Dr. Lawrence asked.
"Years," James confirmed. "About six total."
"Wow. That's a long time. Did James contact anyone from his family during those six years?"
"Well, he sent emails to his mother and to his Nana Abby every three months."
"Why emails? And why to his mother and grandmother and not his father?" Dr. Lawrence asked.
James shrugged. "Honestly, I don't know. I guess Mike felt that he should let his mother know what was happening because she did take him in that first time he was wasted. And Nana Abby? Well, he sent her one a week after he emailed his mother…because he thought his father might have shared what had happened and she would worry. Nana Abby made him promise to email her every three months to let her know he was still alive. So he emailed them every three months for years."
"Where were Mike and Harry getting money from?" Dr. Lawrence asked.
Again James shrugged. "Again, I don't know. Harry always seemed to have money and never asked Mike to contribute. The only thing Harry seemed to want from Mike as a friend to go to drug parties with, someone he trusted. That could be very important at these parties. Someone had to watch your back, even if that person was as high as you were. Less bad stuff happened to you if you were perceived to be at the party with a 'bro' or, preferably, a 'posse'. Made you seem important, somehow. The two guys just watched each others' backs."
"Did they stay in London?"
"Initially," James confirmed. "But they moved on to Toronto after about a year. Because it was bigger, there was more opportunity for wild parties and illicit substances. By that point, the two boys were beyond pot, so backyard 'gardens' in the suburbs weren't going to cut it."
"Didn't the wild partying thing get old for Mike?" Dr. Lawrence asked after a pause.
"You would think, but no. That's not what finally got Mike to stop living the hard life at twenty-four."
"What got him to stop?"
"Another life changing party, given by someone who would be rather embarrassed now if talk of that party surfaced." James shrugged. "L's changed her image along with her music, but even back then, her scene wasn't really her scene. Her last wild party was Mike's last, too."
Lwdloveforlwdlovefor
They had shown up to the party buzzed. At least, that's how Mike justified his uncool staring upon entering the suite. This was supposedly the party of the season, the MusicFest party that everyone was trying to get into. He had no idea how Harry managed to get them into such a big league party.
And you knew it was a big league party because the drugs were out in the open and no one was in the least bit apologetic. Cocaine in one corner, heroin in the other. Food and drink everywhere, half of which was probably laced with stuff. "Holy shit, bro. Who'd you fuck to get us in here?"
Harry shrugged, "Not important, but try to man up Venturi. No faster way to being thrown out than to look out of place and awed by the surroundings."
"Who's throwing this drug store get together, anyway?" Mike asked his partner in crime.
"Don't know. Besides, who cares? That powder is choice!" Harry's eyes lit up as he pulled Mike toward the cocaine corner. It wasn't surprising that Harry could tell the cocaine was quality from across the room. The "pure stuff" was Harry's drug of choice. Mike didn't really have an illegal drug of choice; he was usually set with way too much alcohol…and maybe a little pot.
Both Harry and Mike avoided heroin. They had been in the drug culture long enough to know that heroin never ended well.
An hour and two drinks later, Mike was still in that corner, watching Harry and strangers take turns snorting lines. They had offered to cut Mike in, but he wasn't feeling the powder that night. The idea of getting wasted was appealing, but he would rather knock back a lot of gin and rum to escape that night. He wondered it that was because of tonight's anniversary.
Anniversary probably wasn't the right word for it, but that's what he called it in his head. Sometimes, at least. This was the anniversary of the day his life went to hell. Most people might disagree, saying that the day his life went to hell was when he took Harry up on his offer in high school, just over a decade ago. But Mike believed that his life went to hell on October fifteenth.
October fifteenth was Emily's birthday.
Even now, Mike went back and forth over what to call this day. Not that he had talked about the day out loud in almost five years. During his first year away from home he did refer to the day as "the terror's" birthday. Harry, however, laughed at him because not two hours later Mike slipped and referred to the same day as his little sister's birthday.
"See! You do like her!" his friend got out around his laughter.
Harry would have laughed even harder, assuming that was possible, if he had known that Mike had bought Emily a gift that year. And every year since. He never sent the gifts and card to Emily, but he kept buying them. And this day was always a little hard for him.
Harry didn't remember what this evening was, Mike was sure. Harry would probably be surprised that Mike still remembered. He was surprised five years ago when Mike slipped and mentioned it.
"As much mind altering crap as we have put into our systems, how the fuck do you still remember that?"
"It was practically a national holiday in that house," Mike had defended himself. "It was a bigger deal than Boxing Day or Christmas! If he had had his way, Derek Venturi would have called for a province-wide celebration."
Emily was turning fourteen that year. For Mike's fourteenth birthday…well, Harry had gotten them into that party thrown by Western university students where Mike had his first pot brownie. Later that month, his mother put a candle in a cupcake at some coffee shop outing. And Nana Abby had sent him something, like she always did, although he couldn't remember what now. There were chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast the morning of Mike's birthday, which were Mike's favorite. But Emily was in a dance recital that night, so that was probably what prompted Casey to make the pancakes.
Mike couldn't help but wonder what the great Venturi had planned for his daughter's big day.
He needed another drink.
Harry picked up on Mike's mood between snorts, somehow. Gesturing to the bar and then to the couch, he said, "Go grab some top shelf shit and hit on the pretty girl on the couch. I'll scream when we need to blow this place."
Mike didn't argue. After grabbing his escape from the bar, he ambled over the plush white couch in the center of the room. It was already occupied by someone, whose straight black hair hung in his or her face.
"May I join you?" Mike heard himself asking. He snorted in his head. At least the manners his Nana Abby had insisted upon where still with him.
The person turned and stared at Mike, through the veil of hair hiding its face, for what felt like eons. Then, "Well, you aren't completely fucked up. So, yeah," a familiar voice conceded.
Mike nodded and then sat down. Talking hair returned to staring at the blank flat screen TV in front of them, seeming to be uncomfortable.
"I take it this isn't your scene?" Mike asked.
"Not anymore, no. I'm not even sure it ever was," was the reply.
"So…what are you doing here, then?" the young man felt compelled to ask.
"Hosting," was the reply of his companion as she lifted the hair out of her face and Mike found himself looking into a set of famous gray eyes and a face he'd seen on Much Music and MTV2 often.
"L La'Grange? Lead singer of Lauchscream?"
"Guilty," the singer laughed at whatever expression Mike wore on his face.
"Wow. Your crooning screams are like legend."
"Well," L shrugged, "The DIY Queen Ms. Gryner herself said I had a set of pipes. I guess she would know."
"So," Mike continued after a pause, "the drug store gatherings aren't your scene?"
"'Drug store gatherings?'" L laughed. "I'll have to use that! But no…not really. I'm not so much a Guns 'N Roses partier."
"But, if you're hosting, wouldn't this be more of a Go-Gos party?" Mike asked.
"Well, well. Nice point," L smiled.
"Of course," Mike smirked in return.
"But, aren't the Go-Gos before our time? I mean, even before our parents' time? How do you know about them?"
"My grandmother is a Biology professor," Mike shared. "Some of her academic friends would talk about 'oldies' over her weekly card game. I sat through a few growing up."
"The talked about the Go-Gos over bridge?"
"This was my grandmother, not my great-grandmother," Mike corrected. "They didn't play bridge. They played Poker."
"Texas Hold 'Em?"
"Is there any other kind?"
After a minute lull in conversation, where Mike looked at the bottle in his hand and L looked at the blank TV, she turned back to Mike and asked, "So, what are you doing here?"
"Umm…" Mike sat up quickly and tried to think. Harry would be pissed if Mike got them thrown out. "I'm hanger on from the label," he lied.
"No, you're not." L stated with conviction.
"How do you know?" Mike countered.
"You mean, ignoring the surprise and awe on your face when you figured out who I was?" L lifted an eyebrow. "Honestly, it's because, if you were with the label, you'd be at the coke table in the back or out on the balcony on your cell trying to make a deal. It is MusicFest after all. Label lackeys don't just drink."
"And I wouldn't be at the heroin table?" Mike had to ask.
L snorted. "Like that ever ends well. I said you weren't with the label; I didn't say you were an idiot."
"Well, why do you think I'm here?" Mike asked. Whatever she thought, L hadn't called security on him, so he figured he was okay. For the moment anyway.
"Honestly?"
"Honestly."
"I think you're a trust fund brat trying to drown his fucked up life in wild parties and alcohol."
"Trust fund brat, huh?" Mike laughed. "I'll take that."
"And not the fucked up life part?"
"I'm not drunk enough to admit to that." Mike looked down at the bottle in his hand. "I should get to work on that."
L turned the bottle in Mike's hands to read the label. "Wow. The imported stuff. You have great taste in liver destroyer."
"I try."
"Tough night?" L asked, nodding at the bottle.
"Not drunk enough to answer that, either."
"Well, shit," L semi-pouted as she returned to staring at the dark flat screen.
After staring at the blank screen with her for a few moments, Mike found himself asking out loud, "Why are we staring at a TV that's not on?"
"I didn't want to watch it by myself in the midst of a party I was hosting. Because that would end up in the unauthorized biography."
"Out of everything happening at this party, that's the thing you are worried about being in the bio?"
"I am a musician, after all."
"Well…true," Mike nodded, realizing that the culture of excess in mainstream music hadn't really ever ended. "But, what if I watch it with you?"
"Oh, then it's only paparazzi speculation. I can live with that." With that, L turned on the TV. It landed on a repeat of that evening's Entertainment Tonight. What the lead anchor was discussing was just ironic.
"We're here at the Toronto Film Festival and everyone is gushing over Venturi's newest documentary on the twenty-first century blended family. To be more specific, everyone is gushing over Venturi and his family."
Mike must have made a noise of disgust, because L turned to look at him briefly before returning her attention to the screen.
"With his wife Casey and daughter Emily, seen here five years ago at a fundraiser to support an organization that helps teen drug addicts get clean, Derek Venturi is seen has having a charmed life. Actor and singer Jesse McCartney had this to say,
"'Working with Venturi is a blast. And you can tell that he adores his wife and daughter.'"
"Isn't Emily the cutest thing?" the reporter asked Jesse.
"Absolutely adorable. Derek, I hope you have that gun loaded to fight off all the boys that will fall at her feet."
"The thing that all of Hollywood…all of North America is amazed by?" the anchor broke back in to share, "Venturi's been happily married for nineteen years."
"They've been blissfully happy for like ever," some random actor commented. "Way to raise the bar, Venturi."
"They all act like this is his first marriage," Mike thought. He didn't realize he had spoken that thought aloud until he got a reply from L.
"But, this is the business. Given now often people marry in that world, all second wives are really first wives. Starter wives never count."
"And the practice kid you fucked up for ten years before you got it right? He or she doesn't count either?"
"Not 'til their drug scandal sidelines you career," L confirmed.
"Well, shit," Mike muttered.
L looked at him briefly before quietly changing to the Food Network. "No one watches ET these days," she whispered. "They never get the story right anymore."
The two watched one of the late Paula Dean's sons make some kind of heart attack on a plate before L said, "You know, I never got your name."
"James Michael," Mike found himself responding, although he didn't know why. What made him pick up the first name he never used and drop his last name? He didn't have to give her more than one name, anyway.
"I though I heard someone shouting to a Mike earlier?"
"That was my friend, Harry. He thought making a nickname for my last name would be cool or something."
At that moment, a glassy eyed, clearly out of it Harry almost collapsed over the arm of the couch were Mike was seated. "They pullin' out the cheap shit. Time to fuckin' go."
"Alright," Mike said as he began to stand.
"Shit, Mike! You didn't even touch the good stuff," Harry slurred a little, pointing to the bottle in Mike's hands. "Now you have to leave it."
"No, take it," L interrupted. "For your conversation earlier."
"Thanks," Mike smiled at the singer.
"Well, get the number and let's go," Harry insisted as he weaved back and forth for no apparent reason.
Mike thought about trying to explain that he wasn't getting a phone number, but decided against it. Nodding to L, he began to lead his clearly fucked up friend to the door of the penthouse hotel suite.
As Harry muttered about a blue orange dancing with guns and shit, Mike turned and propped up his leaning friend. "So, clearly, I'm the designated walker tonight. But this is more than coke confusion. What the hell all did you take?!"
"Shit, man. It was fuckin' righteous."
"Harry-"
"Okay, f-f-fine," Harry mumbled. "After the pure stuff and a few patches, there were some pills, good stuff. Like your top shelf there. Then this guy brought out his own stash of the new shit. Then another guy gifted us with some loose pink dream makers-"
Mike quickly cut off his friend. "Loose pink pills? Harry, what the fuck? You know we both always look before either ingests. Why the hell didn't you call me over?" Mike found that he was almost shouting. Luckily, for his state of mind and Harry's general state, the two were staying in the same hotel as the party and the elevator had just arrived.
"Mike, shit. Like, fuck-"
"Harry, it's our rule. The only goddamn one we have."
"Don't be such a fuckin' keener, Mike."
"Harry –"
"Fuck it, man. I didn't whine like a girl to get you to look over the fun shit because you were in deep convo with black hair. And t'night's hard on you."
"Wait, what?"
"It's 'tober fiffeenth. Day always fucks you up. Why'dga think I found a party?"
Mike stared at his friend in shock. "You know that –"
"Fuck it, man. I mean, we crew and all. But can we fuckin do this chick flick crap in the fuckin' shit of a mornin'?"
"Sure," Mike said, once again in awe of the kind of friend he had.
When they turned in that night, Mike sleeping in the bedroom, Harry collapsing on the couch in the sitting area, they managed to mumble at each other.
Mike mumbled about Harry letting him check out drugs before Harry ingests them. Harry, between shits and fucks, mumbled that Mike was a "fuckin' annoying loyal keener of a pain in the ass friend. Like a bro."
The next day Mike woke up with a small hangover. Harry didn't wake up at all. As the medical personnel took away his sheet covered friend, Mike made two decisions.
The first was to get clean and to get all substances out of his life.
The second was that no one would ever call him Mike Venturi again. Because Mike Venturi was so wrapped up in being a Venturi on Emily Venturi's birthday, his friend took a lethal cocktail of crap and died. As far as he was concerned, Michael Venturi was a murderer and died with his friend on October sixteenth.
So, after trying to answer questions for hours, not long after the authorities finally left, the young man who now called himself James emailed his Nana Abby about his decision to go by a different name.
Then he called his two year sober mother to ask for the name and location of where she did her rehab.
Lwdloveforlwdlovefor
As James grew quiet, he looked up at Dr. Lawrence. Her eyes were watery. James felt that queasy feeling in his stomach again. "Are you crying?"
"No," Dr. Lawrence denied in a watery voice. "My daughter will tell you I'm not a crier. But-"
"But?"
"You've been carrying that for…"
"Years."
"Years?"
"Yeah," James shrugged. "It's been two years, three months, two days and…" Mike paused to check his watch.
"I get the idea," Dr. Lawrence interrupted. "But if losing Harry didn't change your life-"
"Losing Harry absolutely fucking changed Mike's…I mean, my life!" James argued. "But Harry, drugs aside, was always good for me. He'd inspire a positive change."
"Okay, I phrased that badly," Dr. Lawrence seemed to correct herself. "What I mean to ask was, that if you were strong enough to keep breathing after that, what the hell could Derek Venturi have done to you that would cause you to tank a semester?!"
"I never reacted well to Venturi-"
"You have had problems relating to your father since he left your mother, that I understand," Dr. Lawrence nodded, "but-"
"Dealing with Venturi," James stressed, being clear that he wasn't referring to that man as his father, "was not something I was skilled at. And rehab and college classes don't help with that. Being back in his house brought up crap that I couldn't deal with. Didn't deal with. And I didn't have anyone like Harry around to have my back. It's like I had to prove I was the fuck up he called me."
"Your father actually called you a fuck up?"
"He might as well have," James insisted.
Dr. Lawrence shot him a look. Was there doubt in her expression? James really couldn't tell.
"James, tell me what happened at Thanksgiving."
to be continued –