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Never Without You	By : SolusNemo Category: Singers/Bands/Musicians > Good Charlotte Views: 1342 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not know the members of Good Charlotte. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter Two

“Must’ve been late afternoon, on our way the sun broke free of the clouds. We count only blue cars, skip the cracks in the street, and ask many questions like children often do. We said, ‘Tell me all your thoughts on God? ‘Cause I would really like to meet her and ask her why we’re who we are. Tell me all your thoughts on God ‘cause I am on my way to see her. So tell me am I very far – am I very far now?’” - Dishwalla’s “Counting Blue Cars”

At one point in time there might have been such a thing as an original question, one not asked one million times in one million different interview situations. But now question originality is only a term to laugh at because who doesn’t want to hear the same questions and the same answers all the time? Every thing’s already been asked, why try to think up something new? Thinking requires too many brain cells and we’ve killed too many with drugs and alcohol to possibly try to make use of the remaining few.

Are you single? That would be a no.

Do you like traveling all over the world? It has it’s moments.

What do you like doing in your spare time? Going to seedy hotels at night and ridding the world of worthless piles of trash…that and playing Trivial Pursuit.

Is it true that you and Tony Lovato were at one point dating? You mean that acne scared faced freak? Oh, of course if you wanted to take that act seriously.

And a list of ten thousand other irrelevant questions that don’t have anything to do with anything. The band would sit wherever it was that they were sitting and go through this torture until it finally ended hours later, a significant loss of IQ the only wound from the ordeal. Apparently is was far too much to ask for a question none of the men had ever heard before.

Maybe the interviews wouldn’t be as horrible if Benji was allowed to be comfortable during them, not forced to flip through the answer Rolodex in his mind and reply to the pointless crap in a feigned chipper tone of voice. Either the thermostat was set too low or too high, a jagged lined plastic chair cut into his ass or someone with an annoyingly shrill voice just wouldn’t shut up. He acted like he was more than happy about the chance to be interviewed for the umpteenth time.

A Hispanic woman was sitting across from the musical group in their living room. The cranberry red sweater she was wearing was too big for her, but somehow her arms weren’t too swallowed up in the wool to prevent her from making notations on a pad of paper while the tape recorder did its job. She had been there for only thirty minutes or so, but already she had worn out her welcome. What did a local entertainment magazine Benji had never heard of before want with them anyway? Didn’t they know that Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton were higher up on the music industry ladder than Good Charlotte were?

“Would any of you be interested in moving to the movie business like, say, Lindsay Lohan only in reverse?” the woman asked.

So Benji could read minds. Kind of anyway.

“I know that you, Joel, had a small part in the movie Fat Albert. Would you like to go back and do something like that again?”

Joel blushed slightly: shame response. He didn’t want to be associated in a movie that flopped as badly as that one. “Not really, no. It was fun and all, but it just wasn’t really my thing.”

Paul was the next one to speak. “I’d like to have a guest starring role on a crime show, that would be about all the acting I’d do. Like CSI: or Law and Order: Criminal Intent. I’d seriously die if I could work with Vincent D’Onofrio for even one day ’cause that man’s a god.”

Billy laughed and shook his head. “I don’t know, honestly. If I went into movies then I’d want to be an action hero or something, but with TV…guest star, just like Paul only something that involves beaches and bathing suits. That would be cool.”

Everyone’s eyes moved to Benji, so he shrugged and leaned back into the white leather couch. “No.” The interviewer – Alicia Hernandez – looked at him strangely. With a momentary pause, Benji went on. “I like making music, I don’t think having to work all those strange hours and having to recite all those lines would be any fun for me. Having to memorize lyrics and guitar tabs are hard enough.”

Alicia nodded and looked back down at her note pad, jotted something down, looked back up. “What would you be doing if you couldn’t do anything even remotely related to the music industry?”

In the same order that they had answered the last question in, the men replied simply without even having to think about it because that question popped up almost every other day.

“I think I’d want to be a professional baseball player. Yeah, that would be cool.”

“A cook with my own restaurant. Ché Paul or something of the like.”

“Artist, without a doubt.”

Benji was the only one who really hesitated longer than a few seconds. “I’d be stuck behind a desk somewhere, that much I know for sure; pushing papers, staying late into the night crunching numbers or in meetings. I’d be completely and utterly miserable, but at the top of my game because other than making music it would be all I would know how to do. Yeah, that or flipping burgers and asking you if you’d like any sauces with your order.” He smiled wryly, crossing his arms over his chest.

Sometimes Benji wondered if he was going insane, that one day he’d have a total psychotic break and that would be the end of that. He’d either kill everyone around him then commit suicide or find himself in a home, an institution, the loony bin, the mad house, the lovely building with the soft padded walls and nice men who’ll slip you in the even nicer white jacket with the buckles. But then he’d always figure that crazy people don’t know they’re crazy and try to go about his day.

Of course, if one day he stopped wondering about his sanity he could become the next Ed Gein. Benji could always paint the human skin lamp shades pretty colors and make a fortune selling them on Ebay.

Aaron did the smart thing, he left the band and moved to another one that was quietly chugging along right under the radar – or was the band even around anymore? Which ever it was, Aaron had gotten out of Good Charlotte before the band blew up, before he had to deal with all the things that came with popularity such as theirs. The lucky son of a bitch didn’t have a care in the world where as Benji felt like he was being pulled in ten different directions.

Perhaps Benji should run away to another band as well? Try to make a new one that sucked so bad it would never get a record deal, thereby never going into the spotlight. Of course, there are a lot of other popular bands that lead good lives underground, never once showing up on MTV or the other music stations unless it’s Headbanger’s Ball or Uranium or Slave to the Metal or something else only catered to the genre the band is in.

Folk music. Benji could start up a folk music band with instruments made out of jugs and old fashioned washers. He could croon into the microphone with a newly found accent straight from the deep south, talk about wanting to call the po-lease because he was stuck behind a see-meant truck. The band would have “hicks” somewhere in the name and—

“Who the fuck am I kidding?” Benji asked aloud, snapping out of his pathetic thoughts and coming into the reality of where he was.

“I’m sorry?” the make-up artist said. He was fiddling with the guitarist’s hair, trying to get it to sit under the bandanna and beanie without flying out every which way and destroying the make-up he had spend so long applying.

Instead of shaking his head and ruining the make-up artist’s work, Benji grunted lowly. “Just thinking about something, talking to myself.”

Keith nodded and took his hand away from the musician’s face. “You don’t seem very happy about doing this.”

Benji shook his head, made the hairstyle a little more natural. “It’s just another photo shoot to go into just another magazine. Nothing special.”

Frowning, the man standing in-between Benji and the mirrored vanity looked over his work. “I remember when you first did a photo shoot for a magazine. You couldn’t sit still, nearly pissed your pants with excitement.” He sighed deeply. “What’s happened to you, Benji?”

“I’ll let you know when I find out.”

“Are things all right between you and Billy? I know you two’ve been fighting a lot. You haven’t gone back to drinking, have you?”

Benji leaned to the right in his chair, trying to peek around Keith to see himself in the mirror. The make-up artist moved aside. “No, I haven’t, don’t worry about that. I think we’re doing good.”

“Think?”

“He wants to get married, start a family, all of that fairy-tale. I’m not ready to do something like that, but he always brings it up. How are we suppose to get married when we’ve only come out as a couple to close friends and family? The world isn’t ready for something like this or at least I’m not like I already said,” Benji explained. “You can stop now, I look fine.”

Keith set his tools aside. “For once stop thinking about other people, Benji.”

“I’m not about to go back to being arrogant.”

The lanky man put his hands on either arm of the chair, swung it so he’d be able to look Benji in the eyes. “You love him, don’t you? Forget about what other people’ll think and just go get married. It isn’t going to kill you, it isn’t some kind of cage.”

“What if it doesn’t work out? What if it ends in disaster?”

“You two aren’t your parents. That won’t happen to you.”

Benji moved the chair away and got up. “I left him once, I might do it again and not come back.”

Maryland. June, 2000.

Marilyn Manson was singing about white comas, though they weren’t mentioned once in the song. He had been possessing the stereo for over an hour, going from mourning to drugs to the Antichrist with the agility of a mountain goat. It was very annoying, but it was Billy’s turn to choose what the men listened to and this was his pick. His music taste was one of the few things that Benji couldn’t stand.

Benji pressed the stop button on the stereo, cutting off Mr. Manson mid-word. “Finally!” he said joyfully.

“What did you do that for?” Billy asked, starting to cross the rec room to turn the music back on. “I don’t shut Rancid off when it’s your turn to pick artists to listen to.”

“Marilyn Manson isn’t an artist, he’s just crap. There’s a difference.”

Billy huffed and stopped in front of his boyfriend, unable to start the CD back up because Benji wasn’t allowing it. “You take that back.”

“I won’t,” Benji replied sternly, “because it’s true.”

“I’m not going to stand here and fight with you like a toddler, but if you want to act like one that’s fine by me.”

Benji leaned back against the shelving unit the stereo was housed in. “This is the new millennium, Billy. Everyone acts like toddlers, why else do you think we were all running around like freaks screaming that the computers were going to fail, sending us back into the stone age?”

“I believe that was only you, not me.”

“You think that.”

Billy shook his head, looking down at his lover. “Something’s been up your ass all day today and I’m really upset that it’s not my dick.”

“Yeah, well….”

Unlike what Billy had expected, Benji didn’t smile at his last complaint. His eyes glazed over in unease. “What’s that suppose to mean?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t mean nothing,” Benji replied and walked over to the sofa, but he didn’t sit down.

“Something has to be wrong, it would be the only reason why you just butchered the English language like that.”

Benji sighed out of aggravation. “The band’s going to be huge, it’s already getting there pretty fast.”

Billy didn’t follow. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“You’re really fucking stupid sometimes, Billy, you know that?” Benji snapped, turning around to face the younger man.

“I’ll pretend like you didn’t mean that,” he replied softly.

A shake of the head and a quick eye roll later, Benji stuffed his hands in his pants pockets. “What do you think people are going to think of us?” He moved his right arm forward and back, indication that he meant he and Billy.

“Why should we care what they think?”

Benji started toward the basement stairs, head lowered to the navy carpet. “Because they’re the ones that’ll go to the shows, buy the records. Without them we can’t stay afloat, remember?” He reached the stairs. “No one’s going to feel good about two fags fucking each other in the band they love.” He started walking up the wood steps. “I’m not doing this anymore: us. I just can’t.”

Los Angeles. Present day.

“It was really stupid and childish, I know,” Benji stated, “but I was scared. Now I’m terrified that if I marry Billy I’m going to pack up and leave one day, never come back this time. I can’t do that to him, hurt him like that.” He forced a laugh. “Why are some people allowed to be in relationships?”
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Never Without You