Teddy Wayne - The Love Song of Jonny Valentine

“It’s been a lot of work and a lot of concerts, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to get to play in front of so many fans,” I said.

“Uh, I meant more what’s been happening after the concerts,” he said. More hostile laughter. I knew Jane was watching on a monitor, getting ready to bitch someone out for letting him ask about this and going off-script from the mock-interview.

“People like to talk about me,” I said. “I don’t listen to them. I just try to stay positive.”

“I stay positive, too,” Tyler said.

“Oh, yeah?” the host said, smiling, like he was passing him the ball for an easy assist.

“Yeah, I’m positive I’m miserable,” Tyler said. Even with a joke I’d heard in fourth grade and knew was coming, the audience lapped it up.

The host got serious. “But why is that? Why are people so utterly fascinated with you?”

This was different from, “What’s your best feature?” I didn’t have an answer besides that the creative department of my label had made people get fascinated with me. If there was another kid who was cute enough and sang good enough, they’d be fascinated with him. You can’t say that stuff, though, since people get pissed when they realize they don’t choose most things in life they think they’re choosing, that it’s all picked for them by someone who controls the purse strings.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m only a kid.”

“But an utterly fascinating kid,” Tyler said, and the audience whooped. He was trying to help out and change the subject, but the host wouldn’t let it go.

“That’s just it,” he said. “You’re a kid, yet everyone wants to know what’s happening in your life. And you’re, what, all of four feet tall?”

The sheep laughed again. But they’re the ones who waited in line three hours to see me when they had nothing better to do with their stupid vacations from the Midwest. Except they probably really came to see Tyler.

“People like to think about celebrities,” I said. “Sometimes they’re a little happier from watching us sing or act or play sports, because we take them away from everything.”

This was the standard line I’d seen other celebrities give, and pretty close to an answer I’d given a few times before. I was going to stop, but the host said, “Hey, he learned to talk!” and the crowd laughed again, and something flipped inside me and I started saying stuff I hadn’t said before, or maybe even thought before.

“But when things go bad for us, it really makes them happier about their own lives,” I said. “And when they make fun of my mother, it makes them feel better about how they raise their own normal kids. So even when they think they love you for not being like a normal person, underneath it they actually hate you, because that’s the part that hates themselves for not being special, and for knowing they couldn’t handle the pressure of being famous anyway.”

This shut the crowd up, and even the host. I was afraid to say anything else. It was tense until Tyler said, “I paid him to say that.” Everyone cheered, and he took his wallet out and handed me a twenty-dollar bill and stuffed it into my track sweater pocket, which made them cheer even louder. I don’t even own a wallet. Tyler wasn’t only a better performer, he was a triple-threat entertainer: singing, dancing, and personality, which meant he could act. And I got the sense he didn’t even care about it all that much, but he could turn it on at any moment and think fast and always win over the audience, and he knew it. Me, I needed dialogue coaching and an allied interviewer and a receptive crowd, and even if I won them over the last twenty times in a row, I wasn’t sure I could do it on the twenty-first.

The host thanked us both and plugged my concert again, and the show was over. The band kicked in, and he pretended to be talking to us, but he was mouthing words, and when the producer said we were clear, he walked offstage without saying good-bye. It was only a job to him, too, and it ended the second his show was over. It must be nice not to have to kiss anyone’s ass.

Someone led me and Tyler backstage, and Jane was waiting right there. She congratulated both of us and waited till he walked down the hall and around the corner to his private greenroom.

“That was a really bad answer,” she said. “But it’s not your fault. They explicitly promised me there’d be nothing like that. I’m going to yell at someone.” The shadow of a body was on the wall by the corner Tyler had walked around. I got all hot, even though the studio was like fifty-five degrees, thinking about him listening to Jane criticize me post-performance. His manager wouldn’t do that.

She told me to eat in the greenroom and she’d be over soon. The guests who were on earlier had already left the greenroom, so it was only me in there with the whole buffet to myself. I wondered if Jane had even fully heard what I’d said on the show. She probably agreed with me, too, but didn’t want to admit it, since she used to be one of those regular people who worshiped celebrities, and even though she is one now herself, she still does, at least the ones who are more famous than her.

In a couple minutes Tyler came in. “Hey,” he said. “The spread in my greenroom was shitty. Mind if I crash yours?” I said that was cool. He scooped up nearly everything on the buffet line.

Once he sat down, I said, “Thanks.” He nodded as he stuffed his face. We didn’t need to say any more. Musicians are like athletes. They all know who the MVP is.

“Starving,” he said between bites. “You not allowed to eat before a show, either?”

“Sort of.”

“I get sixteen hundred calories a day. You’re lucky. My metabolism is slow as hell. But I’m on break now, except for this. So, fuck it.”

I picked at some salad. I didn’t want Jane coming in and catching me scarfing down crap and thinking this was why I was less successful than Tyler, even though he was the one eating like an elephant. She did come in a minute later and said how great he was, and told me she was still talking to the producer and she’d be back in a few.

Tyler tossed a piece of sushi into his mouth like it was popcorn. “Your mom’s always been your manager?”

“Yeah.”

“Who produces you?”

“We’ve had a couple. Jane always thinks they didn’t do a good enough job and finds someone new.”

“You should work with my guy. I can set it up.” I thanked him, and he added, “Then maybe I’ll produce you.”

“You produce?”

“Not yet,” he said. “But the plan is to start in a couple years.”

“You’re still going to sing, right?”

He shrugged his shoulders as he poured barbecue sauce over his filet mignon. For such a small guy, he could seriously pack it away.

“A little, to keep up a profile,” he said. “But performing is for amateurs. The people with real power are always behind the scenes. Talent gets chewed up and used. Better to be the one chewing.” He yanked off a huge chunk of the filet mignon with his teeth and gnashed it loudly as a joke.

It made sense. You didn’t want to be the cow. Because even if you were filet mignon, the best meat, you got chewed up. You didn’t really want to be the human who ate the cow, either, since he was just like another farm animal. You wanted to be the human who sold the cow to that guy. And compared to Tyler, I wasn’t even filet mignon. I was the roast beef sandwich you ate when you were trapped in your airplane seat. Plus I wasn’t the kind of person who could ever chew anyone else up. Tyler wouldn’t have thought that when he was eleven, either. He blew up when he was thirteen, so he didn’t have exactly the same career trajectory, but it was close. Maybe Jane would let me call him when we got back to L.A. I’d tell her it was to ask him questions about his career, and I really would ask him about it. But he also knew what it was like to be someone like us. Zack was a different type of musician, and he didn’t seem interested in talking to me anymore. Lisa Pinto was an actress first, and she definitely wasn’t interested in talking to me. Tyler was like me, the same kind of meat. Just a better cut.