Chapter Three: One Song Glory

Disclaimer: Rent is still not mine.

Okay. FINALLY made it back up to the top. I didn't pay strict attention to the clock, so I have no idea whether Roger managed to beat my guess, but I think that it was pretty close, one way or another.

After all the singing and stair climbing/descending and whatnot, Collins should REALLY be up here by now. I'm not sure why he's not and so I was getting a bit worried.

Then I made the mistake of asking Roger what he thought about it, and now I'm even MORE worried. "I was gonna go try to find Collins. You wanna come?" Yeah, that'll be day.

He gives me a look that shows he's clearly thinking something along those very lines. Still, maybe if I bug him enough, he'll eventually just give up and leave the house just so I'll shut up about his hermitage. Is that a word? Ah, well, I'll put it in my movie. THEN it'll be a word. I just have to find a frindle and write it down so I don't forget.

"I thought maybe we could all grab some dinner." Because I am totally not going into that grocery store again after I was attacked by an angry homeless person who was in there so as to not freeze to death. Good God, homeless people can be VERY ungrateful sometimes. I saved him from getting thrown out and left to die by callous store employees and what is my reward? A lecture about morals and five boxes of cereal thrown at my head! So, basically, until I find a new grocery store we are going to have to rely on the Life Café.

"Zoom in on my empty wallet," Roger tells me, like either of us had any plans to pay. Like, at all. But I suppose that's the best excuse Roger can come up with when he hasn't had any food in the last thirty-six hours. Damn you, moody homeless person and your affinity for throwing large boxes! And then, when he moved on to the cans…Not pretty.

"Take your AZT," I remind him for the fifty-billionth time. And I do have to remind him, because even though he's known he's HIV-positive since before he stopped leaving the house, AZT starts with an A, like April, and thus he is incapable of remembering that, either.

As I leave, I hear Roger begin to sing, "I'm writing one great song before I…"


Yeah. Maybe when I'll get back, I'll explain to Roger that you kind of need to finish your sentences in order to finish a song. He's just never seemed to get that.

It'll have to wait until I come back, though, because I'm completely in shock right now that I managed to get out of there on my first try. Usually when Roger's being all emo, he barricades the door and complains that everyone hates him. Which they don't. They're just annoyed. Mostly because he just barricaded them in. But whatever. Man, Roger must be REALLY Emo right now. It's a good thing I've gotten out, because if I try to get back in I get the feeling that I'd be stuck there until Roger's songs done.

And I honestly don't think our apartment has enough oxygen for that.

Well, my apartment is beginning to freeze my guitar strings and, though I'm not positive because this is my first night playing the guitar since The Bathtub Incident, I'm pretty sure that that is hardly conducive writing a song. So I head up to the roof, which, though outside, is still technically part of the building and somehow infinitely warmer than the inside.

In fact, I'm willing to bet that Benny turned the air conditioning on in our apartment for no other reason than to prove he has money to burn (as if smoking twenties wasn't bad enough, I mean, honestly) and because he is a sadistic little creep who always makes it a point to date all of my girlfriends before I even meet them. I mean, I don't know how he does it, but seeing as how it has happened seventeen times in a row, it cannot be a coincidence. I guess I'll just have to chalk it up to pure evil instinct.

Now that I'm on the roof I realize that, though my guitar is no longer growing icicles, it still needs to thaw, so I should probably not use it for a few minutes. But as long as I am up here I might as well do something and I simply do not believe in a Capella, I will simply have to make use of my amazing not-even-touching-the-instrument-guitar-playing-abilities. Abilities which are a TOTAL chick magnet. Or will be, when I decide to speak to the female species again.

"One song: Glory." I'm not entirely sure if Glory will be the name of the song or if I just want glory out of it and I will probably have to figure this out at some point in time, but right now I'm just killing time and practicing being emo, so I can worry about it later.

"One song before I go." I wonder, is 'go' obvious enough that I mean 'die' or do I need to specify? I mean, I could mean, go on tour, go on vacation, or even go and sell out. Although, if Benny is any indication, that last one could very well kill me.

"Glory, one song to leave behind." That makes it sound more like I'm talking about dying, but now it sounds like I'm talking to someone NAMED Glory. Which could be short for Gloria or something. But that would mean that I was talking to a girl, which I'm not right now because they are scare and sometimes downright suicidal. Not mentioning any names, coughthe-fourth-month-because-I-will-not-deign-to-say-your-namecough. Or Glory could be a guy. Like, as in a boy named Sue. Or maybe Glory is even the name of my guitar. Which, it's not. But it SO could be.

"Find one song, one last refrain." Now it sounds like I'm talking about a scavenger hunt or something. Or like, my song ran away and so now I should be making Mark put up posters for it. He's good with posters, having singlehandedly made half the planet aware of Maureen's show. The other half are dreadfully boring people who do not approve of Maureen's new lesbian lifestyle and so are pointedly ignoring it.

"Glory from the pretty-boy front man," which is totally me, by the way. In case you thought there was anyone I know who is prettier than me. Which there isn't. "Who wasted Opportunity." And even though I have had about three groupies call themselves that (apparently it's to make it more obvious they want to sleep with me), I am not actually talking about getting any of them drunk. I'm talking about the whole 'doing drugs and getting AIDS' kind of thing. It's hard to be a legend when you're living on borrowed time, are having issues with rent, and are spending what time is left being all emo. But hey, that's life, right?

"One song, he had the world at his feet. Glory, in the eyes of a young girl. A young girl." Whose name was NOT glory, oddly enough. It was…something or other. Not Muffy, that's Benny's wife. Not Maureen, either, that's Mark's ex. Not Mimi either, and I can't even think why that name just randomly popped into my head.

"Find glory, beyond the cheap colored lights. One song before the sun sets." Which is TOTALLY poetic. The sun setting represents me dying. I knew that those poetry classes weren't a waste of time! AND they were a great way to meet women, too.

"Glory on another empty life." Now, I'm not entirely sure what exactly constitutes a 'full' life, but an empty life sounds so much more tragic and like people will buy my song when I finally get around to writing it.

"Time flies. Time dies." But then, that's really what Time gets for downing three bottles of tequila and convincing herself that she's superman. I mean, HELLO, you'd think she'd have noticed the wrong gender think, but she was a lightweight, so…Oh, and Time is another groupie of mine, by the way. I'm really wondering about these girls parents. They all have such hippie names. I bet half of them are children of flower children and former groupies. And famous musicians, of course.

"Glory. One blaze of glory. One blaze of glory." That is totally the way to go. I mean, I, for one, will never forget that guy whose fiancé was totally cheating on him with his brother, best friend, AND boss. Naturally, he didn't take the rampant speculation over who the father was when she got pregnant, so he lit himself on fire and jumped off a bridge. I mean, yes, tragic, of course. But the explosion was AWESOME! What? I'm a guy.

"Find glory in a song that rings true. Truth like a blazing fire." Mark totally got that on film. "An eternal flame. Find one song, a song about love." Hopefully the good kind of love and not the kind of love where your groupie-turned-girlfriend turns out to be a junkie and then turns you into a junkie and gives you HIV and doesn't see fit to let you know until she writes you a not saying 'we've got AIDS' and slits her wrists in YOUR bathtub. Where you go to bathe. Where YOU'LL be the one to find the body. Which was really bitchy of her, come to think of it. I mean, it's one thing to go and kill yourself. But really, April? Really? Did you have to do it right there? Couldn't you have gone and found a bridge to light yourself on fire atop of? Or pills, even? ANYTHING? Honestly, no wonder I'm so emo. In fact, if Mark hadn't been strictly supervising me whenever I was around fire, I might have actually taken my own suggestion at some point.

But anyway, now I can't because I've got a song to write. "Glory. From the soul of a young man. A young man." As far as I can tell, if you get HIV in your twenties, anything you live to is young.

"Find one song before the virus takes hold. Glory. Like a sunset. One song to redeem this empty life." Although redeem it for what, I have yet to find out. What are lives going for these days? Must ask Benny the next time I can see him without getting homicidal. Or better yet! I can get Mark to ask Benny. Mark is usually far too busy worrying about damaging his camera to seriously consider seriously damaging anyone else.

"Time flies. And then no need to endure anymore. Time dies." Seriously, when one of your groupies jumps out of the window of the hotel that you're staying at, the media's feeding frenzy can be absolutely BRUTAL. That's one good thing about leaving that all behind me, I guess.

Now, my guitar should be sufficiently unfrozen so time to get off the roof. I carefully head down the stairs to my apartment (I only have to use the railing to steady myself twice) when, all of a sudden, I spot that potential fangirl from earlier. And she's smiling at me. And wielding a candle!

Experience has taught me that this does not bode well.