Teddy Wayne - The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

“I don’t know,” she said. “You’ll have to find out at the hospital.”

In the car service to the hospital, Walter said, “I’ve been through shit like this before, brother. Don’t start getting worried before we see what’s what.” Walter usually knew what to say, but this time he actually made it worse, because if he had to warn me not to worry, maybe there was something to be worried about.

Before this week I hadn’t been to a hospital since I was born.

I had on a baseball hat so I wouldn’t be ID’d, but Walter walked right next to me the whole time we went into the hospital, just in case. He found a receptionist and told me to stay in his sight but to stand by a water fountain about fifteen feet away, I think so I wouldn’t hear anything, since he’d never let me stand fifteen feet away in a public space. He must’ve told her who I was so we could get special treatment, because she got all excited before controlling it and shooting a quick glance at me.

While he was still talking to her, Rog came into the receptionist area. He spotted me first, then saw Walter and went over to him. It looked like he was taking over the job of talking to the receptionist. He doesn’t like Walter, I don’t think, and I bet Walter doesn’t like Rog but he’s better at hiding it. After a minute, Walter gave up and came back to me. “Rog is finding out what’s going on,” he said. Rog’s voice got loud a few times, until he motioned for us to come over and told us we could wait in a special room.

A Latina nurse with chubby upper arms led us to a small room on another floor, a conference room with nothing in it but a round table with glossies and a few chairs. Rog left with her to find out more details about Jane. Me and Walter didn’t say anything until he asked, “You want to play a game or something?”

“What game?”

“What games do kids play now?”

“I only play Zenon and other video games. I don’t know any other games, really.”

“Me neither.”

I imagined playing games with my father, but maybe he’d be too old to be into them, so then I thought about playing with Jane’s dead baby, and that he was a boy and my younger brother. I’d teach him how to throw a baseball, and Jane would definitely build us a field then. Maybe he’d have musical talent, too, but if he didn’t it wouldn’t matter, and even if he did, when he got old enough I’d say to him, You don’t have to go into the industry, just stay in school, I’ll do it alone and support our family, little man.

If something happened to Jane, would Walter move in full-time with me? He was fun to hang out with, and I asked Jane a million times if he could move into the house from his bungalow but she wanted to establish some boundaries. But he didn’t know how to do half of what Jane did. Nadine was too young to take care of me. I still didn’t really know my father, and he never even came to the concert in Cincinnati like he said he might, so there was no guarantee he’d do anything if Jane died. And I’d have to find a new manager, and they might steal my money or make career-killing business decisions.

I thought about Jane’s funeral, the same way I used to picture Michael in his coffin. All her industry friends and acquaintances were there, like Ronald and Rog and the TV exec and his wife and everyone who worked for us at the house. They were all listening to whoever was onstage talking about Jane, but none of them actually knew her. Anyone she was friends with, she’d known for two years at the most. We wouldn’t be inviting the people who knew her from Schnucks, and she definitely wouldn’t want Albert there. And there’d be no point in flying Grandma Pat out there, if she even could fly anymore. I’d be the only one who knew her from before.

They’d probably play a song of mine at the funeral, or ask me to sing live. The only one that would make any sense for a funeral was “Heart Torn Apart,” even though that’s about breaking up with a girl.

In her coffin, Jane was wearing a black dress and had a lot of makeup on to make it seem like she was still alive. I finished singing “Heart Torn Apart,” and I looked at the crowd and said, “Fuck you all, you did this to her but you want to pretend like she did it to herself,” and climbed into the coffin with Jane and closed it on top of us and locked it from inside, and in a few hours I’d run out of air and depart the realm next to her.

“Can you find out what’s going on?” I asked Walter. He said he’d find Rog and to only unlock the door for him or Rog. He left, and I distracted myself by singing “Heart Torn Apart” quietly. He didn’t come back when I finished, so I picked up a men’s glossy. The table of contents mentioned my name, and I didn’t normally get any coverage in men’s glossies. It was a half-page fashion spread, with a stock photo of me and some text:

Kickin’ It Elementary School

The most stylish singer these days may just be

JONNY VALENTINE

Yes, yes, we know what you’re thinking: fashion cues from someone whose mother might still lay out his clothes for him? But before you recoil and go back to home-brewing your own beer (see page 87), take a gander at Jonny Valentine’s ensemble. Little dude’s got game . From his bespoke track sweaters and graphic tees to his snazzy (usually red) sneaks and perfectly fitting jeans that are just relaxed enough to bust a move in, the kid outdresses musicians twice his age. And we haven’t even brought up The Jonny, that coif for the ages you should seriously consider requesting next time you’re getting sheared instead of your lame-ass crew-cut. Your girlfriend will surely thank us — and so what if your d-bag bros laugh at you? (Why does it gotta be that way?)

There were a bunch of arrows pointing at my different clothes and naming the designers and their off-the-rack prices, and then one at my head with how much a haircut costs at Christian’s salon for normal customers. I might’ve usually been excited at getting a positive fashion write-up in an adult glossy, even if the guys who wrote for this one really do love clothes and hair products, but they’re afraid people will think they’re gay, so they write like they’re the least gay guys out there. But when you’re waiting in a hospital to hear if your mother’s dead, a fashion spread seems like a pretty stupid thing, especially when you think of how many adults are involved in something like this. When I’ve done staged fashion shoots, not like the fake candids we did in Denver, there’s a photographer, his assistant, the glossy staff that needs to be on set, plus all the people who helped plan it. Then you’ve got all the staff it takes for production at the glossy, whatever number that is. Even if someone’s quoting me, it takes a bunch of adults to make it happen. All that work, just because an eleven-year-old opened his mouth near a mike. If they’d spent as much time studying medicine, they could all be doctors.

At least they didn’t figure out that I started wearing track sweaters in the last year to cover up my gut chub. There was a big discussion with the label about how to do that.

Finally Walter knocked. “You were right,” he said. “She drank too much and wasn’t eating enough. But she’s gonna be okay.”

“Can I see her?”

“She can’t see anyone till tomorrow, no exceptions. I tried.”

There are a few places where being a celebrity or rich doesn’t get you everything you want, whenever you want it. Not many, but a few. I guess hospitals were one of them. “But she’ll be okay? You sure?”

“I’m sure,” he said. “I told you not to worry. This happens all the time. Happened to me once in Nashville. Got the shit pumped out of my stomach.”