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**Vincent Lane** · (04-03-2016)

“Loverboy” Vinnie Lane rides while his lawyer, Bevin St. Claire, drives him away from the LAPD station back towards LAX. The frantic megastar is riding an adrenaline high from being vindicated.

“Dude, thank you so much for being there for me… I’ll make it up some time, I swear. Just name your price. You want front row tickets to Warfare, I’ve got you. Anything.”

“Anything?”

She looks at him with a raised eyebrow. Loverboy grins and gives a cursory look toward the manila envelope filled with tawdry photos of the two of them together with Roxy on a fun night back in August.

“What, you thinking about round two? I’m down, if you can wait ‘til Rox comes home. It’s not cheating if you do it as a team, dude.”

“Oh Loverboy… that was fun, but it was a one-time thing. Well, probably. I’m seeing someone now, though. What you can do for me is pay my retainer.”

She laughs when the momentary look of disappointment flies over his face like the shadow of a passing bird. Clearly, the notion of his sexy lawyer propositioning him had gotten his ego up.

“Oh! Right, yeah dude no problem. I’ll make the transfer when I get home, no problem.”

“And if this goes anywhere… if you do go to court… you keep me. I could use a headline or two in my portfolio.”

“Starfuckers…”

He says it wistfully, not as an insult. Leaning his head sideways in the passenger seat, he rests against the car door,= and watches the pair of headlights behind them in the orange dusk.

“It’s Los Angeles, Vinnie. This is how we network.”

“No shit, dude. Look around. Everywhere we pass is wrapped in plastic. Those chicks right there don’t look like they’re even 21, and they’ve got botox and fake tits that could save them from drowning. Every billboard around here is for cosmetic surgery. Every street has a tanning store. It’s ridiculous.”

“Are you having doubts about your celebrity life, Vinnie? You seem to enjoy it when the lights are on you.”

“Yeah dude, but the problem is the lights are never off. I can’t take a shit without someone asking me to sign the toilet paper. And every cut-and-paste bottle blonde that wants to suck me off is exactly the same as the one before and the one after.”

“Don’t let Roxy hear you say bottle blonde.”

He smiles thinking of her. The one true angel in the city named for them. He can hear her laugh and her reassurances, and he uses them to find his way through the tough times like today. He found the headlights again and wondered if his angel was okay.

“She’s different, though. She’s like me. That shit’s just the outside, like a new layer of paint on a house you want to sell. The manicured lawn and the whitewashed fence, you know? Skin deep. People say it, but with Roxy it’s true. It’s why she and I work, why I keep her in my life instead of…”

“Fucking her and never calling her until you need something?”

A pause as sharp as a needle skipping from a record. The weight of Bevin’s words made her tongue crack like a whip across Loverboy’s back, leaving a scar of guilt.

“Look… that was fucked up of me, alright, I admit it. But you… Roxy and me, we like to have a good time with chicks we meet. It’s never supposed to be more than that, you know?”

“I know, relax. I’m just giving you a hard time.”

The discomfort in the car floats out of the window Loverboy lowers while lighting a cigarette. He blows it out into the passing trees with a cloud of smoke.
A few silent moments pass while the rocker concentrates on his smoke and his life, noting the similarities. The red hot ember leaving a wake of ash behind, rapidly heading for its inevitable expiration. Burn out. Fade away.

Bevin’s voice shakes him free from the cobwebs of daydream.

“You know… when we all hooked up last year, I didn’t even know who you were. Just so you know, you know? I didn’t want you to think I went back to your place just because you were a star.”

“Megastar.”

“What?”

“That’s my thing. I’m a megastar. Bigger, brighter, and better than all the others.”

“Oh… I admit it, I’ve never watched. I know you have a big fight coming up, though.”

“Two, actually. One this weekend. They’re gonna make me king. And then next Wednesday, that’s Gilmour.”

“Peter Gilmour?”

Loverboy nearly drops his dwindling cigarette. He flicks a bit of ash out of the window and turns to look directly at Bevin.

“You know Pete?”

“Yeah, of course. He’s always showing up to clubs and bars with Maria, trying to hook up. He’s grabbed my ass a few times.”

“Was he fat then?”

“You know, he seems to go back and forth a lot… I think he’s got an eating disorder.”

“Yeah, that’s my Gilly. Which way are you taking me?”

“It’s a little out of the way, but I didn’t want any of the paps getting a perp walk out of you, you know? There are ways, even in this huge city, to get around without being seen.”

“Yeah, it’s crazy, I only see the one other car behind us, dude. No one else. LA is usually always fully of hundreds of cars moving at a moderate pace. Little metal bubbles glistening in the sun and writhing like a giant snake down through the desert.”

“You almost manage to make this town seem beautiful.”

“It is, in a way. Not in the way that people think, but it is. When you come from somewhere else, you see the Hollywood sign and you think it’s like the gates of Oz. Like there’s not a speck of dirt anywhere, you know? You don’t find out about all the slums and the homeless and the crime until you’re already here. Then it’s too late, man, because you already bet your whole life on a fantasy of being a star.”

“Or a megastar?”

“Yeah. Or a megastar.”

“When I came here, I just wanted to see the Pacific Ocean. I lived in Iowa until after college. There are never enough lawyers in Los Angeles.”

“You got that right. I’m glad you’re one of them.”

“Me too.”

Loverboy finds himself looking into the rear view mirror again, watching the car behind them get closer even though he is certain they’ve started moving faster. He pulls another drag from his cigarette, noting that the cherry is now only a few millimeters away from the filter.

“Almost there.”

“Yeah… almost finished… you know, that same car has been behind us this whole time. It’s kinda weird.”

“Probably another lawyer with a celebrity client. This road is kind of a business secret.”

“I guess. Just crazy that even with only two cars on the whole road, this doucher feels the need to tailgate so… UH!”

The sound of twisting steel and breaking glass fills his ears as Loverboy lurches forward, the car being turns and driven from the road.

Tires screech and Bevin screams, and suddenly, the window is full of asphalt. The car is on its side, still moving at over 50 miles per hour.

In the windshield, he sees a tree.

Then he sees black.

What’s wrong, Pete?

Cat got your tongue?

This is serious business we’ve got going on here, dude, you can’t take this shit lightly. Remember what you said about knowing you had to step up and not fuck it all up? That’s now, dude. That’s right now.

You’ve got to get your head in the game, get ready for the fight of your life… because that’s what the Universal Title is, man, it’s life. It’s my life. I know you want it to belong to you, dude, but it’s mine. Like everything else that defines me, you want it to be about you, too. But not if you’re just gonna try and coast by again, Pete. No way that shit works this time around.

See dude it’s just you and me. No bullshit this time. No lucky breaks, either. Two out of three falls, that’s definitive, man. You can’t argue that it went the wrong way after I beat you twice in the same match, can you?

Instead of even trying though, you’re just doing the same thing you’ve always done. Sit around in your wife’s house, driving your wife’s cars and spending your wife’s money. Usually either on shitty Italian food or laxatives when you’re done with it.

Pete, what do I have to do to get real effort out of you? I’m GIVING you this chance to be the top name in the career you’ve dedicated your life to, dude. I hand-picked your name to go into that qualifying match… ask your asshole’s ex-boyfriend, Frodo Smackins. He’ll tell you it’s true. I picked you and three opponents I knew you could beat, because it was YOU wanted to settle the score with. I handed you this title shot just like I handed you a Trios Title back in 2014. What are you going to do with it, dude? Are you going to step up your game and take this shit serious for once in your pathetic fucking life or are you going to do what you did last time and just shit it all away?

Well, we both know that answer, don’t we?

To me, the real question is who are you going to blame this time when it doesn’t go your way? You don’t have any partners to blame. You can’t say it was all Morbid Angel’s fault this time, can you? You can’t say that you were screwed over by Shane or anyone else for that matter, because it all comes down to you.

See dude, it’s not a coincidence why I picked you when I did. It’s not a random act of kindness. No, I need to silence the critics once and for all about you. And what better time to do it then when you’re at your peak, right? Mister star of the month. Mister Hart Champion. 2016 has been yours, man. This year has been ripe for you, everything falling into place… including being named the number one contender to my Universal Championship. It’s been Gilly’s year, hasn’t it?

That all comes to a fiery, crashing end next week, Pete. You’re coming at me at 100 miles per hour and when you hit me you’re gonna stop dead in your tracks. The light at the end of your tunnel? It’s a train. A bright pink train with a dozen strippers worth of glitter in his bleached blond hair and a belt you’ll never get to touch around his waist… along with a shiny new crown on his head.

In a way, your successes are responsible for dispelling the biggest myth this business has ever seen. The lie perpetrated by you that you can win against me any time you want. The fallacy of ‘Gilmour is Loverboy’s Achilles heel,’ that the suits in the front offices are using to milk every drop of ticket money they can out of MY fans. If you hadn’t had such a good hot streak going, Gilly, that myth might have persevered forever, with you sitting in the back and watching everyone ahead of you getting all the shots at me… but no, you had to go on your little roll and start winning and getting attention, having that lie brought up over and over again until I just got so sick of hearing it that I decided it was time to put it to bed.

So now its lifespan is at its end. The notion that Peter Gilmour can drop Vinnie Lane with the snap of his fingers is gonna get washed out to see like pebbles in the tide. I’m going to end your hot streak and end your biggest selling point all at the same time, and I’m going to do it by shoveling shit right onto your face.

Kinda poetic, isn’t it?

We’re so close, Pete. So close. It’s such a weight off of my shoulders to finally get to be done with you. I can move on to the bigger and better things that are always right in front of me, and you can… fail.

I hope it makes you fat again.

XOXO

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