WE’RE NO RADIOHEAD

OR

FALLING DOWN TO THE BOTTOM OF THE BOTTOMLESS LAKE
(part 3 of 6)

It’s midnight in Topanga and the house reeks of liquor, smoke and vomit. Wammo stumbles out of the quiet bedroom where he was holding court, and down the blood-red shag carpet-lined hallway, using the walls like a pool player does rails on a bank shot.

He launches himself into the sunken living room with frightening thrust, narrowly missing by inches a glass-top coffee table piled high with party refuse. Wammo miraculously keeps his balance by careening hard off a pair of girls and a very pretty boy, who just has to be an actor, and halts on the other side of the room in a lineman’s crouch so that wits can be collected before serious and inappropriate berserking occurs. The trio of pretty people shoots him dirty looks and Hollywood attitude (which is a tad misplaced anyway, this being the Westside) when they realize he isn’t going to apologize. He pays no attention; he has bigger things on his mind.

Like the fact that he is struggling to control his heart rate, which races faster than Lars Ulrich on Kill - Em All. He is wigging.

This is because he’s just finished off the better part of an eight-ball with his girlfriend, Kelly, and her best friend, Chloe. Kelly and Chloe had insisted on finishing the shit, so he’d been forced to comply for fear of looking like a pussy. He now wonders whether he might better have let his ego take the bruising rather than his major organs. But who knew Shane was going to show up here? He’d been trying to get ahold of him - anyone associated with the band, really - but hadn’t had any luck for a week.

Wammo looks up from his lineman’s crouch as Taylor, the band’s guitar and "good-vibe tech" walks up.

"Nice moves," Taylor says. "You okay?"

"Where is he?"

"Follow me."

Taylor leads the way through the crowded living room to the stairway. They climb to the second floor and head down the hall to the master bedroom. Taylor pauses at the door, his hand on the knob.

"You know we’re gonna be interruptin’ something." Taylor says.

"I don’t care," says Wammo. "Open it."

Taylor turns the knob and flings the door open.

As Taylor predicted, it’s porn without cameras. Shane lies flat on his back in the middle of a king-sized bed. One spry young woman straddles his face, another – who appears to have had some equestrian training in the not-so-distant past – rides his middle, while yet another bats cleanup (whatever that means). The entire gesticulating mass appears to defy the laws of not only gravity and physics, but those of many states as well. Wammo and Taylor stand in the doorframe for a moment, awed and repelled at the same time.

After a moment, the DH notices their spectation and lets out a non-sex-type yelp, which alerts the rest of the team to their presence.

"Ah hey Shane; everyone else," says Wammo, holding up his palm in greeting as if they were all meeting on the street for morning coffee.

The Limber One has by now climbed astride Shane’s face and Shane cranes his neck to see who has interrupted his Caligulan debauchery.

"Oh, hey Wams," he says. " Taylor."

"Um, hey," says Wammo, "I need to talk to you, so could you finish up and meet me outside?"

"Yeah sure," Shane grunts, lifting the Limber One back onto her perch. "Be there in a sec."

An hour and a half later, Wammo is sitting on the hallway shag carpet smoking a joint when one of the exhausted bunnies sticks her exhausted head out the door and chirps, "He says you can come in now." Wammo gets to his feet, feeling like a summoned servant, and follows her though the door. The air inside the room is humid and musky. One of the girls opens the double doors and breath of fresh breeze begins to clear the pollution. Shane lies on the bed, his hands clasped behind his head, completely naked. The girls are various stages of dress and/or cleanup.

"Wams," says Shane by way of greeting. "Long time no see."

"You’re a real fucking asshole, you know that?" Wammo says.

The Limber One looks up at Wammo, then at Shane. "Does everyone start a conversation with you like that?"

Shane is startled for a second, but only a second. "No. Just the ones who know me well," he says, looking daggers into the not only limber but also apparently intelligent young woman. She merely shrugs and goes back to fastening her bra.

"What’s the deal Shane?" Wammo says. "Are we a band or what?"

"Ladies, could you give us a moment alone, please?" Shane says.

The girls continue about their business and don’t acknowledge him.

"GET THE FUCK OUT, NOW, BITCHES!" Shane yells. The girls stare at him a moment in confusion, then pick up their articles of clothing and leave. The Limber One takes the longest. At the door she pauses, turns and looks back at Shane and says, "Thanks for living up to all my preconceived notions," and walks out the door.

Shane sits straight up in bed. "HEY!" he bellows.

Five seconds later the Limber One opens the door again. "Yes?"

Shane says nothing for another five seconds, staring at her. She turns to leave again. He says quickly, "Can I have your number?" She is fully dressed by now and somehow looks like a Harvard graduate student, framed like a diploma standing backlit in the doorway. So it is with an air of elegant indifference that she quietly closes the bedroom door, which clicks home like a period at the end of a sentence.

"How ‘bout your name?" Shane calls, but they both know she’s not coming back.

"Goddammit, Shane, do you even care?" Wammo says.

"I like her," Shane says.

"DO. YOU. CARE?"

"Jesus, Wayne, calm down," Shane says, using Wammo’s birth name, "I don’t fucking know. Why don’t you ask everyone else, then get back to me. Why do I always have to think for you fuckers all the time?"

"Well, Shane, I would ask everyone else, except for no one, including yourself, will call me back."

"Then maybe you should go with your gut on this one, Wammo."

It’s as if he’s struck his drummer in the gut. "How can you be so cold?"

"Because I accept reality for what it is. Don’t you go getting all queer on me now too."

"When did you get so mean? You never used to be like this. Renner is your friend, maybe your best friend, how can you be so …"

Shane bounces off the bed, quick and light as a tiger, and grabs Wammo by the throat.

"He lied to us, bro, for how many years? Lied to our faces. Are you suggesting we just forgive that?" Shane’s face twitches with rage. "How?!!"

"Back off, Shane," Wammo wheezes. "I’m not your enemy."

Shane snaps out of his war-like trance. He lets Wammo go and sits on the edge of the bed, running his hands through his hair.

"Maybe he didn’t tell us because he was afraid we’d react like you are now," Wammo says, rubbing his throat.

Shane grabs a pair of leather pants from the floor and begins putting them on. "Maybe," he mutters, almost inaudibly.

"Then how can you be so pissed off at him? You two are breaking up the band over this and it’s stupid. It’s a waste."

"It’s not only that and you know it. Somewhere along the line, I think we lost it. We ceased communicating musically. We haven’t written a good song in two years, admit it."

"That’s not true."

"Bullshit. But it’s not only that, it’s the contracts and shows and commitments and grind and drugs and recording and money and budgets and touring and whatever — we couldn’t handle it. Face facts, Wammo."

"So it’s over?"

Shane sighs. "They want me to do a solo record, bro. Record company dickwad called me last week. Trying to cut Whitey out of the deal, I guess, but fuckin’ Whitey won’t call me back so I don’t know what to do. I know they want to fuck me."

Wammo sinks to the floor. The mention of "solo record" has blown away his last hope.

"Where’s John?" Shane asks. "I tried to go over there today and no one answered his door."

"He was there. He just sits on his couch all day and all night, shooting up. Has the accountants pay for it all."

"Jesus Christ, Wams. Is it a good idea we should just let him kill himself?"

"What do you care, dude?"

"He’s going to die, Wayne."

"What do you care, Shane?"

"Shit. Fuck, shit, motherfucker. What a goddamned miserable pile of shit."

"You’re not even going to ask about Renner, are you?"

"No."

"You’re heartless."

"Then fucking tell me already."

"He’s gone, dude, disappeared."

"What do you mean, gone? Where is he?"

"I just told you, no one knows."

"You sure he’s not hiding out in his house in the miserable Hills feeling sorry for himself."

"He’s not there. Housekeeper says she hasn’t seen him in a week."

"I know where he is."

"Where?"

Wammo climbs to his feet, not caring about the answer and suddenly in a hurry to get as far away from Topanga as possible, and hopefully shake this heavy feeling that has settled on top of his chest. "I’ll see ya, Shane." He heads for the door.

"Wams," Shane says, stopping the drummer. "Don’t feel bad. It was a good ride. We really had something there for awhile. But, we just weren’t good enough, you know? It’s like" Shane pauses. "we’re no Radiohead."

Wammo has been standing at the door with his back to Shane. He now turns and looks back at his former bandmate. And Wammo’s not sure if he’s experiencing tunnel vision, or some kind of drug-induced clarity — or, hell, maybe it’s just the view over his right shoulder — but Shane, who had once had seemed, to Wammo, so magnanimous and strong, looked small, old and pathetic, sitting there on the precipice of 30, wearing nothing but tight leather pants and a smoothie of groupie-bodily-juices. But Shane’s not even looking at him anyway; he just stares at the carpet. Wammo turns, walks through the door and closes it behind him. He takes three steps down the redness of the hallway, and that’s when the heart attack hits.