Chapter 4

His mind jolts back into awareness with the small surge of adrenaline that was produced as he unintentionally bumps into a tiny woman that cold fall morning. With the awareness, he gains the feeling of complete exhaustion and the onset of a migraine. He quickens his pace and, fifteen minutes later, he ends up at his front door. He scrambles around in his black messenger back for the keys and he jams them into the lock. Once he gets inside, he throws off his bag and case and strips off his clothes. He doesn’t flip any lights on and trots into his bathroom.

As he waits for the shower water to warm up, he looks at himself in the mirror in the dim light. Huge purple bags are under his eyes and his hair looks like it hasn’t been washed for days. He steps into the nearly scalding water and sighs. He lets the water beat onto his face and wash away the grime that has accumulated on him the past night. Getting home at seven in the morning was starting to wear down his mental acuity and general sanity. He can’t keep up this lifestyle and still use his time to practice what he loved. The clubs at night paid him well enough, but he needed to learn to leave after the show and just go home with a larger profit than he did this morning.

“Bill, you’re a stupid, stupid man,” he chastises, knowing that it’s no one’s fault other than his own that he spent half of his money last night on booze and other chemicals that are currently wearing off and allowing him to feel the damage they incurred. He half believes that he can currently feel his liver aching, but he thinks that is probably just the pain from his head making the rest of his body hurt more than it already did.

He turns off the water after thoroughly soaping and shampooing himself, and he steps out feeling cleaner and more refreshed than he had in the two days he had spent away from his flat. His still dim room was looking very appealing to him from the dark bathroom, and he ties his towel around his waist and walks across the tiny flat to his disheveled, but completely welcoming, bed. He dons his pajama trousers and almost collapses into the bed. He pulls the bedclothes up to his shoulders and welcomes the relief of being horizontal. His body aches and his head’s throbbing is slowly decreasing.

He turns on his side and looks at his little flat - a studio where the bedroom is the living room is the kitchen, with the tiny bathroom looking like an afterthought recessed into a white wall. It wasn’t huge, but Bill appreciated its piece and quiet. His life seemed so loud to him lately, and London was always busy and noisy. Clubs were inherently loud, and even his music didn’t drown out the din of drunken women and men loudly guffawing or tittering, all in search of the same things.

He didn’t really want to live like this. He liked his apartment and his life outside of his music, but he really wanted to make something out of himself. That’s why he moved to the city. He had lived in the country and had been raised on jazz and blues. That’s why he picked up the saxophone - the fact that he had an extreme amount of talent for the instrument was only coincidence and happy chance. He thought it’d be easier than this to make a name for himself in a big city - he thought he’d stand out in the crowd. Well, he did, but the crowd he stood out in wasn’t often sought out by record labels or people interested in jazz and blues. Everyone wanted that pop rock that was vomited out over the airwaves in the form of young, over-makeuped women and baby faced men who either played guitar, or had a wobbly voice that made women think he wanted to cry.

No, Bill wanted to play jazz that people could dance to or cry to. He thought that jazz was one of the most emotive genres of music, and he knew that he could make the saxophone say what he wanted to say. He just needed exposure and the right audience. He just needed someone to have some faith in him and like his music. The clubs paid him enough for him to get by, but the late hours and lack of respect he received playing in them made him lose hope little by little.

He had gotten his first gig three years ago today, and he had thought that his life was going to change and everything was going to be a whirlwind for him as he started his musical career. Little did he know that the beginner’s luck he had received would be the only thing sustaining him for the next three years, and that his life would be stagnant and he would still be playing that same club, with only a few more venues sprinkled in. He was regular act, and people liked his music, but only as a backdrop to their busy lives, with their plans and cares and people in them.

Bill sometimes felt rather hopeless when he thought about how far he’d come in the past few years, but then he’d think about the fact that he was doing something he loved, and even if he only was paid a pittance, he was able to survive and live on something he truly enjoyed. He didn’t care that he didn’t have a lot of money, or could only afford a tiny studio apartment most of the time; he had good friends, a lot of time to practice his instrument, a semi-regular job doing what he loved, and food on the table. However, his recent habits had been hindering a lot of these things.

He’d been feeling more and more depressed by his lack of success lately and had allowed his friends to coerce him into experimenting with chemicals, most of them of the illegal ilk. While he enjoyed the break he got from his worries while high, he didn’t like the fact that he was now struggling to get by each week and month, and the toll it was taking on his body. He knew he had to get out soon, if not now, if he ever wanted to be taken seriously as a musician.

He also knew that he had to go out and get more gigs and create more connections. He knew what he wanted and he knew how to achieve what he wanted. He just didn’t have the willpower to go out, and he disappointed himself with that fact. He knew he was good enough to at least have a gig every night somewhere, even just as the regular act that provided nice background music. Money was money and exposure was exposure, and he sure as hell knew he needed more of both.

Bill decided that he needed to create his own turning point in his life and career, and knew that it wouldn’t be easy like he had expected it to be when he first arrived in London. He needed to knuckle down and really put his mind to his goal.

So, with his mind set on a plan, he lets his mind relax. He sees the images of the pretty girl at the club that he had seen there on more than a few nights, and he slowly drifts off to sleep with her face in his mind.