The last time Ezequiel Beuchamp had a hit of crystal meth was on Room 106 of a seedy motel somewhere in the Corola suburbs. He didn’t remember how he got the money to buy the meth or who did be buy it from—it just so happened that he had aluminum foil, a meth pipe, and some matches he stole from a Wal-Mart as a cheap heat source. He had a small lamp in the dimly lit bedroom, close to the TV screen showing some also-ran Mexican telenovela. He slowly placed the faint crystal in the pipe. He ignited the match and turned the pipe above it with his right hand, watching as the solid crystal distorted itself into rods of gray smoke. His eyes were fixated on the smoke and not on his burning fingers nor on the corroding pipe. He held the pipe in between his thumb and two other fingers and put the pipe near his gritted teeth. Despite using it for a few years now (and he swore to his friends he only “partied” like that at least once or twice), his teeth weren’t broken, nor his gums consumed by the drug—barring a few cavities behind his molars. But when he inhaled the fresh contents of the pipe, oh did it felt like meeting a good friend!
Oh, did Ezequiel miss the confidence, the power, the euphoria of a friend like Tina would give! Tina and him needed to roll on the river a bit more and not just on a party or after a crappy hookup on the villa with a stranger from the ambiente It would turn him into a sex demon and fill him with a desire to cavort in orgies for at least four days. It would rid him of his troubles and empower him to blunt his inhibitions and ponder bizarre philosophies that amount to nothing but make him even more high and stupid. He would feel cold when it’s hot (and it’s always hot in Achaea) and hot when it’s cold (which is why he once bought 300 corcinos’ worth of ice bags to put in his bed while high, risking shock and hypothermia). How good is meth making it feel! He was closer to God, the Virgin, the saints, the angels above, the Devil and his demons below! What was the point of sleeping when he could be awake and let the world know of this amazing portal to the netherworlds!?
The last thing he remembers is pulling his foreskin with his thumb while jumping up and down the bed.
When he regained consciousness, he was in a hospital bed somewhere in central Corola with his family and his ex-boyfriend, Milton Casiano, beside him. Looking down a few inches, he had a large feeding tube in his mouth after he got his stomach pumped for the third time and, in his drowsy state, he couldn’t help but notice Milton’s glassy eyes. His father, Calixto Beuchamp was there, taking a break from tending to his artisanal sugar cane plantation back in Orongumilá. His mother, middle school teacher Carmen Cruz, was slowly resting beside him. It meant so much that his family was there—after all, he was an only child and he never thought he would still be worthy of their love. But Milton…oh, Milton, what didn’t he do to him to break his poor, little heart?
Years after this final rock bottom (for there were many peaks and valleys in his addiction), Beauchamp used his self-imposed tragedies to write Speed, his second feature-length album and first one under the AS1 brand. His song, Escóndete de Mí (“Hide Yourself from Me”) had some airplay on the radio until it was handpicked by Tamar de Andrade and the Achaean delegation to succeed The Intermissión’s victorious Quédate in home soil. It was an honor and a pressure to play for his compatriots in an international stage, but it was the first time since his final meth relapse that he would play in a musical competition.
Shortly after the Achaean postcard concluded with much fanfare from the home crowd as expected, the cameras turned back to the stage. One could hear the incessant rhythms of the crowd cheering on for the host nation. They would shout ¡Dale que tu puedes! (“You can do it!”) and Fueguero, carajo!, the somewhat untranslatably vulgar adage for Achaeans worldwide. Flags were being waved, and expectations were placed on Beauchamp’s shoulders to deliver an even more stunning performance like the one The Intermissión did one edition ago in Britonisea. He did meet the band in private moments before the entry, though, and had a chance to get a one-on-one pep talk from the group members. “Don’t forget your audience.” “It’s important to pace yourself, but also to sound convincing.” “Put God forward,” said Marianne in Spanish. This last phrase made Ezequiel cringe. “Put God forward…” “Put God forward…” Wasn’t this eerily similar to the second thing they would say when going to Narcotics Anonymous? We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. He said that, he believed, a few times when he visited a 12-step meeting early in his recovery. Spiritual, but not religious, he would say, even though he grew up Catholic. He even joined a quick prayer session, that was very nice of them. But he tried to focus on the competition. Or so he dismissed.
Beauchamp wore a thick blue-black lumberjack shirt with some washed denim jeans be bought at an outlet store in Corola and some white sneakers with short white socks. He was sitting at a reupholstered counter stool, surrounded by the keyboard player to his left, the cellist, the three backup singers and harmonizers (incidentally, all three are La Cañada locals), a bass player, a drummer and…a plant someone brought from their house. The fragmented background behind them shows an open recording studio, much like the promotional music video for the song. He took deep breaths, each one deeper than the last, trying to steady his nerves and grab the microphone in his right hand (he’s a lefty). Beside him, a combination acoustic-electric guitar that always makes his appearances in concerts and music videos. He doesn’t play it much nowadays, but he liked to keep it close to him as good luck charm of sorts. He would need it even more.
Camera Z showed the full setup of the stage at a distance, swinging side to side to appreciate the fulness of it. To the viewer at home, the performers looked like ants on a near-circle, congregating in song. From the distance, one could see Beauchamp sitting on the stool, nervously tapping his feet to the rhythm of the song, just like he did at rehearsals to steady his nerves and not think of the past. Or Milton. Always Milton. He could never stop thinking about that poor fool Milton. He must’ve been somewhere in the crowd waving his flag, shouting his pride despite his many broken hearts. Or somewhere alone or with his family in Corola, cheering on to him, that poor fool. He was the reason Ezequiel was alive. He was the nature of the song. And that was the inescapable thought that plagued him oh so much. As he sang the first stanza, he tried to keep the angle of his voice looking intently at the camera (namely Camera 5, swerving from left to right and fixated on the singer’s countenance), trying to engage with his eyes and express his regret to the audience—[i]Milton—as if he were truly listening to the beat of his heart.
¿Dónde está el corazón
Que tantas veces yo lo he rasgado?
Yo perdí la razón:
¿Por qué has de volver a mi pasado?
No lo mereces, no
Mira, pues, los rasguños en mi mano
Ezequiel met Milton at a local bar in Corola’s Barrio Tercero. He was drinking a Budweiser after work, and this young, tanned man drinking a small glass of scotch. They stroked up a conversation after Milton noticed Ezequiel had a guitar near his booth and revealed their interests in music. They loved classical prog rock. They enjoyed reading about Continental philosophy and had an interesting discussion on Tolstoy and the Dark Knight of the Soul, as fellow Catholics would explain. Ezequiel would regale Milton with stories of life in the sugar cane fields of Orongumilá, where his father worked as a modern-day capataz in the plantations, while Milton revealed to Ezequiel a little about his relatively obscure life in San José de Capernaúm, a small city in Northern Corola. They immediately hit it off—and in bed, but not for the reasons you’d think. In the throes of passion, Ezequiel hid some sores in his body. He didn’t do it then, but he totally did. How did Milton, smart man that he was, never recognized early on that Ezequiel had those sores was beyond him.
Beauchamp reminded himself of the first meeting as he sang those verses, still sitting on the counter stool. Camera 1 circled above them, the LED floor below them slowly expanding itself into a wooden floor that somewhat contrasted with Beauchamp’s guitar. Beauchamp himself was singing with his eyes closed, a common trademark of his intense concentration. He needed to live the words for a moment, breathe the despair in his tone as he wrote it while on rehab, with a couple of IVs coursing through his body at once. Crooning to the music, the still wind blowing behind him. He wanted him close, but now he has to push him afar—like he always did with the people he loved.
Confundí el amor
Con cristales que queman hasta el alma
No pierdas tú la fe
Y quiersa poner en mí tus palmas
Lo hiciste una vez
Era yo un pobre endemoniado
He wasn’t an addict. Or so he said to himself. He only smoked the crystals once in a while, whenever he was feeling horny and loose and wanted to loosen up for sex. One hit of the pipe was enough to last for a few minutes, but those minutes would last into hours as he smoked more and more. He smoked while having sex without protection, without any care in the world even if his endowments were flopping up and down, without caring for the purity of the drug. He hid the broken molars from Milton’s face. He hid the smell of smoke and euphoria whenever he kissed Milton, whenever he took a swig of whiskey to calm down his nerves before any conquests behind Milton’s back. And for some reason, Beauchamp’s charm was more than enough cover for his many failures, his many setbacks—and nevertheless, Milton kept loving him as if he never learned how to love himself. Even when he caught Milton ass-up and face-down, smoking meth under a lightbulb, three sleazy men taking turns behind him. Milton kept loving him for some reason.
Beauchamp stood up from his chair and held his microphone tightly, snug in his chest. He still left a bit of breathing room to expand his gruff voice. Camera 4 glided from left to right, passionately yet quietly singing with his eyes closed, eyes opened, eyes closed and back open with an impassioned sense of regret. Regret, that was the word. He showed regret to the times lost, the moments wasted, the friendships broken, the bridges burnt. As much as he wanted people around him, he couldn’t feel that he needed to push them away—if only for their own good. They don’t know what they’re dealing with. They don’t know what he’s been through himself. The guitar barely knows, and he hasn’t played it in a while—and it sits alongside him, prominently facing the camera.
Y escóndete de mí
No te puedo hablar
Sé que quieres amarme, yo sé
Que el amor para ti
Lo podrás encontrar
Pero en mis brazos por favor
Camera 3 peered above Beauchamp and the Achaean performers, the LED screen below them showing the cracked and faded wooden floor, laden with unpolish surfaces that the singers “stepped” on, a few wine (or blood?) stains, water stains and white, dusty crystals around the floor that looked quite like peppermint gum or even laundry detergent. It felt as if nobody bothered to clean the floor, or at least mop it up. Kind of like the floor at that hotel Beauchamp lived through his last overdose. ¡To expose his most vulnerable pain—Milton!—to his own demons! Just like the footsteps surrounding him—what were those footsteps in black, surrounding him?
La pureza en tu ser
No quiero que en mí se contamine
Perdí todo el poder
La suciedad en mí no te domine
No lo hagas otra vez
Distánciate de mí, estoy podrido
The first time Ezequiel left rehab, he returned to his Corola apartment and found it empty and devoid of life. There were no signs of Milton’s exquisite cooking, or Milton’s cat Putty that always purred beside him and made Ezequiel smile even though he was allergic to and ended sneezing up a storm, or Milton’s color-by-numbers easels he kept scattered around the living room table. There was no home—it was just an empty shell. Not even a note. Not even a pencil. Nothing. The wind was only blowing on some dirty sheets and a sole broken meth pipe on the bed. He knew what Milton was saying to him. He definitely knew.
He thought back of that tense, self-imposed moment as Camera 7 circled around his perimeter, respecting that sacred two-meter distance. Circling around him, the backup singers beautifully harmonize their melodies. The musicians were focused playing (or at least miming their movements while reading their music sheets on their iPads. The guitar was still, laying on the side of the couch, waiting to be played. The LED behind him kept the static imagery of a recording studio, while the floor below him would keep showing footprints and boot prints and mold and unbuffed surfaces. All he wanted to do is portray the collusion of sadness and self-pity in his actions.
Y escóndete de mí
No te puedo hablar
Sé que quieres amarme, yo sé
Que el amor para ti
Lo podrás encontrar
Pero en mis brazos por favor
They always say that drug addicts have an unenviable mixture of shamelessness and self-pity. They are shameless enough to expose their bodies and torture their brains with dopamine receptors, yet they imbue themselves with relentless bouts of self-pity whenever fixes don’t go their way. Through his music, Beauchamp clearly understood the dynamics between shamelessness and self-pity whenever he had to fight for his life every time he entered one of those expensive residential treatment programs in Malibu. Whenever he used his queerness as a cover for his momentary bouts of hypersexuality. Whenever Milton, equally disgusted yet entranced by Ezequiel’s mysterious aura, kept going back to him whenever he at least paid lip serve to the area of recovery. This time, the last time, he finally realized the desperation.
That is the moment he grabbed his guitar and started playing it, once the violin was placing one of its very sweet notes. Just like the first days after getting out of rehab, when no one would approach a tormented man who just burned all his bridges into a musical career and didn’t even have the money to go back to school as he promised his parents for the umpteenth time before wasting his loans on copious meth binges. The guitar became his comfort, his emotional sustenance, his attitude. The guitar humbled him; the many-time college dropout was finally confronted on his own nothingness on stage, in front of screaming fans in a voracious Achaean home crowd cheering on for his success. There was only so much he could handle in one time.
Ya viene el ocaso
Me tengo que marchar
Quisiera hablar unr ato
No te confundas más
Camera 1 above him expanded from his head to the stage, while Camera Z took a view of the stage and Beauchamp looking so minuscule around it, feeling engulfed by the love and appreciation—and, perhaps, his redemption. Can this be it? Can this be the validation of the self-imposed horrors he’s been through? Oh, if Milton were there to comfort him! If Milton were there and he wouldn’t shoo him away anymore! But he needed to. His bulging black eyes looked pleadingly at the camera to the people around the Multiverse and the people at home. But mostly, he wanted to sing to Milton who must’ve been far away to keep his distance and stop saving him—now he has to prove he has to save himself.
Y escóndete de mí
No te puedo hablar
Sé que quieres amarme, yo sé
Que el amor para ti
Lo podrás encontrar
Pero en mis brazos por favor
The music stopped and Beauchamp immediately cupped his hands in his face, a pandemic no-no he allowed himself to have because he just poured his heart and soul into a three-minute performance that would be judged into the eyes of the world. He wanted to cry at that moment, but he couldn’t distinguish if the drop streaming down his left cheek was a teardrop or a runaway bead of sweat caked with makeup. In his eyes, he gazed over the adoring crowd, shouting Fueguero, carajo! behind their cotton-poly masks and cheering on in many languages, but mostly in Spanish. The cameras filmed Beauchamp bowing and greeting his public. “Gracias! Muchas gracias, Acaya!,” he greeted the crowd. “Fueguero, carajo! Thank you!,” he bellowed before leaving the stage.
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