How to Kill a Rock Star by Tiffanie Debartolo

who has the guts to take a knife to their wrist. And there’s also nothing noble about being fear-less. How much do you wanna bet the last man standing in a battle is usual y the biggest fool of al ?” Absorbing his words was like taking a drink of hot tea.
    They burned on the way down, but soothed my insides once they had time to cool off.
    We were quiet for a while. Then Paul said, “I almost did it once.”
    “Did what?”
    “Kil ed myself.”
    The confession alone was shocking enough. It was the stark, unapologetic fierceness of his tone that frightened me.
    “ Why ?”
    “I was depressed,” he said with a smirk.
    “Did you real y want to die?”
    “No one commits suicide because they want to die.”
    “Then why do they do it?”
    “Because they want to stop the pain.” Once again, his lack of guile was unsettling. But his words resonated somewhere inside of me.
    He took a drag off the cigarette, raised his mouth, and sent three smoke rings into the air. Watching them dissipate, he asked me if I was happy.
    But before I had a chance to respond, he said, “Don’t answer that. It’s a stupid question. I don’t believe in the myth of happiness any more than you do.” This is where Paul had it wrong. I did believe in the myth. I had to. Otherwise I don’t think I would have been there. Happiness is elusive, for sure. But like love, and music, I believed in it because I could feel it.
    I told Paul this and he gazed off into space, his expression meditative. Then he said, “For what it’s worth, I think happiness is a fleeting condition, not a permanent goddamn state of mind. I’ve learned that if you chase after moments of bliss here and there, sometimes those moments wil sustain you through the shit.” He paused to pick a piece of tobacco off his tongue. “Personal y, I don’t like inherently happy people. I don’t trust them.
    I think there’s something seriously wrong with anyone who isn’t at least a little let down by the world.”
    Insisting we stop for a late-night snack of the liquid variety, Paul steered me to Rings of Saturn. As soon as we walked in, John the Baptist grabbed a bottle from behind the counter and said, “How’s it hanging, Hudson?” Then he recognized me.
    “Uh-oh, what’s a nice girl like you doing with this clown?” Paul pointed back and forth between me and John. “You two know each other?”
    “Sure,” John said, winking in my direction. “Girl’s got a penchant for green olives, martinis with no booze, and she tips, which is more than I can say for you.”
    “A martini with no booze?” Paul said, his face crooked.
    “What the hel is that?”
    Without asking what we wanted, John went about serving up our respective drinks of choice. Evidently, Paul liked Captain Morgan’s rum and ginger ale.
    “It’s a marvelous night for a moondance,” Paul said to John.
    John had a red bandanna around his forehead and a dishrag in his back pocket. He wiped his hands on the rag, then went to the stereo behind the cash register and put on the Van Morrison CD Paul had requested. Seconds later, a girl with long auburn hair parted in a perfectly straight line down the center of her scalp walked past the bar and drooled, “ Hi, Paul. ”
    Paul mumbled, “Hey, Alicia,” and turned his back to the girl
so abruptly I was sure he’d slept with her. His indifference, coupled with my awkward jealousy, made me want to kick him.
    “It’s late,” I said, getting up off my chair. “I should leave you to your friends .”
    I hated myself for saying friends the way Lucy Enfield did. But I felt stupid for being there, for being with Paul, and for thinking al the stupid things I almost al owed myself to think about him.
    Paul touched my arm and, in an almost desperate voice, said, “Don’t go. Please. I want to show you something.” He took his wal et from his pocket and pul ed a smal white feather out of the bil fold. It was tattered from age, the ends looked like they’d