This is the greatest moment of Jason Driver’s life.
Walking off stage at a sold out MSG, the last show of a record breaking world tour, he can feel the waves of applause on his back.
He couldn’t get much higher.
Hoots and hollers echo down into the tunnel where he is met with high fives and sweaty hugs.
He absently signs a few t-shirts, poses for his one contractual fan selfie, and breaks from the crowd.
A roadie drops a towel around his neck and a bottle of Jack magically appears in his hand, right on schedule.
The crew splits off to start the breakdown, the band go their separate ways, he waves off his entourage and the chatter fades as he approaches his dressing room.
Jason collapses onto a couch, and takes a giant swig of Jack.
“For most people, that would have been the greatest moment of their life.”
The unfamiliar voice from behind causes Jason to choke on his whiskey.
The voice continues, “I bet you even tried to convince yourself it was, but where does someone like you go from here?”
Jason jumps up, coughing hard, the liquor burns his throat, “Where’s Reggie?”
“If that’s your security guy, Reggie left. I asked him how much he was making tonight and I quintupled it.”
Jason turns to meet the voice, a man seated casually in the corner, forties, tan, slick hair, loose suit, big smile, “Theo Wallace,” he says without getting up.
Jason wipes his mouth and moves to the other side of the room, “You’re that billionaire.”
“Something like that. Congratulations, Jason, you did it. Peaked at 26. Sold out MSG. Biggest album, biggest tour. Classic songs that defined a generation. And don’t forget all those endless awards that became obsolete the second they read your name. You did it all.”
“You mean the band did it.”
“Sure, Driven did it, but I think we both know there’s no Driven without Jason Driver.”
Jason doesn’t respond.
Theo Wallace continues, “So what’s left? All you have to look forward to is this same promotional schedule. Same cycle. Each time with less results. Less success. Less fame. Less money. Less respect. It’s coming. Sooner than you think. You’re becoming less cool by the second, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Your charm, your cheek bones, your newness has worn off, and now the public is going to start looking elsewhere for another hit. Your only decision at this point is: do you plan the 20-year reunion tour now, or just wait and sell your catalog to some venture capitalists? Your life’s work can end up as an asset on a corporate balance sheet. Every garage band’s dream, right? Everyone knows what’s next, and you’ve got the classic empty friendships to prove it. An army of managers and agents jockeying to make a living picking apart your pretty carcass.”
“Is this going somewhere?”
Theo Wallace finally gets up, “I know this all sounds like a downer after your big night, but I promise you, I want all this to continue for you. I want to protect you from all that. I want to bottle this moment and make it last.”
Jason takes a slow drink.
“Since you’re still listening to me, I’m going to assume you’ve already thought about this. I’m going to guess you already know there’s a generation of cocky assholes waiting to take your spot, and the worst part is: they won’t even have to take it from you. The people who currently adore you will happily give them your spot, as well as all their disposable income. They will turn their backs on you, forget you, and maybe even be embarrassed by the fact they ever even liked you.”
Theo Wallace moves in closer.
“I’m offering you an escape from this pattern of self destruction. Your membership in the 27 Club is not inevitable. I’m offering you an extraordinary opportunity, a permanent residence at a venue built specifically for you.”
“Like Vegas?”
“Something like that. There, you will create new music and perform exclusively for your number one fan.”
“And who is that?”
Theo Wallace flashes a billion dollar smile:
“Me.”
Calling Theo Wallace a billionaire makes him sound less rich. Like he’s similar to other common billionaires.
No, he’s a centi-billionaire.
He’s worth over two hundred billion, that’s eleven zeros. He created Omnivision solar cell technology. Marrying the light amplifying tech of night vision with a solar cell to create a constant, limitless power source. Theo Wallace is an inventor, a visionary, a philanthropist, and as Jason has recently discovered: a batshit crazy kidnapper.
Jason is disgusted with himself. It took him a drunken week to realize he was a prisoner. It’s been another week since that sobering discovery, and nothing has improved, in fact, he now felt even more helpless.
Jason has decided he is currently trapped in a rock star zoo. He is literally living in a repurposed floor-to-ceiling aquarium. Fiberglass rock formations and bright colonies of coral still decorate the walls. The rest of his side of the glass is filled with every instrument, mic, and guitar pedal an artist could ask for, the other side has a recording studio sound board and several rows of bleachers to admire the wildlife. There is a hidden door at the top of stairs embedded in the faux rock wall that leads to his suite: an expansive bedroom and bathroom that would put any five-star penthouse to shame. Aside from being held against his will, the accommodations were not all that different from his life on the road over the last few years.
French doors lead to an isolated balcony. His view was an endless ocean, steep cliff walls, and jagged rocks below.
There were no neighbors.
He regretted not paying more attention during his world tour stops, but his best guess was Greece.
Food was ordered from a tablet. The menu was all of his favorite things. Theo had done his research.
The door between the fish tank studio and his room bolted shut when food was delivered. Same with the bathroom door and the bedroom when his room was cleaned and laundry delivered.
Jason had to assume there was a large staff running this complex, but he never saw anyone other than Theo.
“Why are you doing this?” says Jason, leaning against his balcony, staring out at the moonlit ocean.
“Because I love Driven. And I am driven,” Theo Wallace laughs at his own dumb joke as they have reached the stumbling drunk point of their first night on Theo’s private island. They clink their half-empty bottles of booze and drink.
“I don’t want it to end. I need more classic Driven, not that over-produced radio shit from the last album,” says Theo.
“Yeah, the label sent over a producer to ‘clean it up’ as they like to say. We didn’t love the finished product, but it broke every sales record, can’t argue with that.”
Theo finishes his bottle and grunts as he launches it into the ocean, “I can.”
He walks to the cabinet and cracks the cap of another bottle, “I don’t want the goddamn Kidz Bop version of Driven. I want fucking Driven. I want more Riot On Time, Tighter, Double Negative, the real shit, it’s been eight years and I still get goosebumps. You want to do more ballads? Fine, I love Rusted Roses and Next Year Is What You Said Last Year, but there better be five more Alotta Lions or Well Hungover to back it up. I want, no, the world wants music that gets it hard. Gets it wet. Gets it in the mood to party and fuck and kick-ass at the same time.”
“So why me? Why do I get the special treatment?”
“You were it. You were the golden boy. All the fame and looks and talent aside, there was always something that made you stand out from the scene: you smiled. You used to smile when you were singing. You could hear it. You were having fun. Or at least you used to before all that biggest band in the world crap went to your head and you started to act like all the other self-important posers. I want to bring the fun back. I want to be part of it. Do you think you can do it? Have you still got it?”
“Dude, don’t you worry,” Jason heaves his bottle into the darkness, smiling ear to ear, “I’ve still got it.”
He hadn’t touched the liquor cabinet since that first week. The bottles of Jack perfectly lined up like bullets in a clip, ready to kill anything in your way: time, feelings, memories, desire to escape.
The floor-to-ceiling plexiglass in his fishbowl was way too thick to be broken by guitars or liquor bottles. He tried to jam the locks with bed sheets and surprise his housekeepers, but every lock was too smart and penitentiary grade. Fire seemed useless, there was an extensive sprinkler system on display.
He had not seen any planes fly over, and only a few silhouettes of cargo ships on the horizon, but nothing close enough to signal. He could always take his chances and jump off the balcony, but he wasn’t sure he could survive the fall, and his fear of swimming in the open ocean quickly shut that option down.
As he surveyed the room Jason imagined Theo Wallace singing: “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
“What if I run?” says Jason.
Theo pulls a gun from inside his jacket and fires at Jason.
Jason drops to the floor.
Theo fires five more times.
Jason is curled into a ball, covering his head. Shaking, he squints through his fingers.
There are six white divets in the aquarium’s thick plexiglass.
“What are you going to do? Call the police?”
Separated by the glass, Theo kneels down across from Jason.
“I own this island and everything on it, including you. Don’t even try to tell me there are search parties looking for you, that’s bullshit and you know it. Your people don’t care. Your ex-wife certainly doesn’t care. You’ve disappeared on too many of your “sabbatical” benders for anyone on the planet to fucking waste any more time on you.”
Theo grabs a remote and makes Jason flinch.
Theo turns on a mounted flat-screen in the corner of the studio to a 24-hour news channel and dramatically places his hand behind his ear to listen.
“Nope, nothing about a missing rock star, just news that actually affects people’s lives. The weather report is much more important than you. So now you’re going to do nothing but make me the fucking album you agreed to. Then you get to go home, just like the others. We’ll drug you, drop you on a private plane, program the flight plan to make it look like it flew from fucking Thailand or something, and bam, you reappear after a few months, wasted as usual, with a ridiculous excuse of a story that no one will ever believe. You might as well say you were abducted by aliens. This is all surprisingly easy to do.”
“So now you’re a billionaire, inventor, philanthropist, kidnapper, and a human trafficker?” says Jason as he gets to his feet.
“Damn, you’re right. I never thought of it that way. They’re going to have to update that list of things they say about me when I get introduced at charity events. That’s some funny fucking shit, Jason. I’m gonna miss you. Now get back to work.”
What if I run?
What I take you with me?
What if we drive, far away from every city?
Far from the traffic, far from the sirens
Foot on the gas til the sky’s full of diamonds
Hold on tight through the endless green lights
We got
Nothing to fear
Get me the hell out of here
We got
Nothing to fear
Get me the hell out of here
We got
Each other
Racing the sun
Armed only with you as my shotgun
There’s no limits
We’ll make our own wealth
Just please don’t keep your hands to yourself
Something, something, getaway car
Something, something, go really far
Pick up the call
You know you want to leave
I’m waiting outside
Car’s built for speed
Engine is running
You’re the only thing I need
Close your eyes to see
You might not recognize me
I’m faster than I used to be…
“What the hell was that?”
Theo runs down the bleacher stairs in a panic.
“What?” says Jason, looking up from his guitar.
“That!” Pointing at the guitar, “Do that again. That riff, that, holy shit, that was it, that was everything, that’s what I knew you could do! That was like Bon Jovi watching Van Halen fuck The Killers.”
“I don’t know what to do with that feedback, but it’s not finished, it’s just a jam.”
“I’ll tell you when it’s finished, Picasso. That was it!” Theo lets out a whoop and thrusts his hips, “I can feel my pulse in my crotch.”
Eying the now empty liquor cabinet Theo yells, “See! That’s what I’m talking about. Happy to see you’re hitting the bottle again. I don’t want any of that vegan yoga shit around here. I want you buzzed doing coke off a bloody ribeye.”
“That was, descriptive, can I use it in a song?” says Jason
“It would be an honor,” says Theo.
Jason scribbles on a yellow legal pad resting on the piano’s music stand.
“And can I get a refill when you get the chance?” says Jason, pointing at the empty liquor cabinet.
“You better goddamn believe it, keep that shit up!” Theo walks back out, devil horns in the air, singing: “Nothing to fear!”
Counter to claims that rock stars work better on drugs, Jason found that the liquor also killed creativity. It may initially lower inhibitions, get the juices flowing, help break some rules, but the next day, most ideas created in the fog, stayed in the fog.
Jason continues writing on the yellow legal pad propped up on the piano’s music stand. He rips off the page, grabs his last bottle of Jack and walks up to the balcony. Looking over the ocean he opens the liquor bottle, and proceeds to dump its contents over the edge. He rolls the yellow page tightly, slips it into the empty bottle, tightens the cap, and whips it out to sea.
“Did you really think this was going to work? This desperate Hail Mary bullshit?”
Theo tosses a bottle with a yellow note inside against the glass wall, it thuds and rolls away.
Jason is laying on the floor behind the piano.
Theo casually bounces three more bottles off the glass, “What a waste of liquor. And I’m going to take your big moment away from you, let me guess: you decided to call The Police? I get it, it’s clever, but you couldn’t throw it far enough to escape the tide. Sorry you weren’t able to send out your S.O.S., you dumb motherfucker.”
Theo uses the butt of the bottle to knock on the divider, “You hear me in there? I can see you, you can’t hide, that’s the whole point.”
Jason does not respond.
Theo walks to the far end of the glass to get a better angle of Jason and sees him lying face down with a bottle of liquor in his hand, “Oh no.”
Theo runs away, back up the bleacher stairs, “Nonononononono!” and out the door.
His voice fades, then resumes as he can be heard from inside Jason’s quarters and rushing down the stairs into the aquarium studio, “Nonononononono!”
Theo flips Jason over.
Jason is wide awake, swings his bottle and clunks Theo at his temple. Jason scrambles into the corner with his bottle in a batting stance.
“Fuck!” says Theo, holding the side of his head.
Jason is backed into a corner, ready to fight, “Why trap me in here? Why not just pay me a ton of money to make music?”
“I tried private commissions. They weren’t inspired, not desperate, not real,” says Theo cradling his head, “I’ve given you everything you need to make music. I’ve bought you peace and quiet. I’ve bought you seclusion. I’ve bought you time and space. I’ve bought you all the things they say money can’t buy.”
“You can’t force creativity.”
“Yeah, but necessity is a motherfucking inventor.”
“That’s not how that goes,” Jason takes a full roundhouse bottle swing at Theo.
Theo takes a step back, pulls his gun from his jacket and fires six times.
Jason drops to his knees.
He scours his body for injuries, eventually exhaling, “What happened?”
“I just saved your life,” says Theo.
“What?”
“How do you feel?”
“Alive.”
“Goddamn right you are, that’s the correct answer. You’re cured, now get the fuck out of my house.”
“What?”
“You have to go now, my time is way more valuable than yours,” says Theo walking back up the stairs.
“How am I cured? Was this some crazy rehab? Did my agent set this up?” says Jason.
“I already told you: your friends, your ‘people’, they don’t care about you. I was tired of all the good ones dying young. All my favorites. It was depressing, and out of my control. I’m too rich to be depressed or have anything out of my control. So in your case I decided to step in. Now you’re sober and fighting for your life. You’re welcome. If you ever take another drink, or make another shitty album, I’ll kill you and everyone you care about.”
Jason laughs.
Theo does not.
Jason stops laughing, “Who are you really?”
“I’m Theo Wallace, super-mega-billionaire. I’m your biggest fan, now get the fuck out of my house.”
For Taylor Hawkins
