Marilyn Bieber
Sherry Wood
Copyright 2016 Sherry Wood
1
I took my stash of vinyl downstairs to rearrange them in the spot where the sun really warmed up the floor. I checked my reflection in the ceiling mirror once again. Yesterday, I went out to the bars on the strip and no one recognized me. Nobody. I sat there and waited and realized it was probably my neatly sculpted facial hair. Maybe I really did look like a hipster, as my twenty-one year old model girlfriend pointed out the other night.
Then, finally, chaos erupted at the metal bar called Sandy’s Dead. The type of chaos that erupted when people realized they were in the presence of a rock legend.
I prepared myself, sitting in a position that really didn’t express that I cared all that much. Yes, I was Marilyn Manson. Yes, I was still alive and doing my thing. I was still the antichrist superstar everlasting cocksucker - whatever you wanted to call me. Yes, tonight I would take the time to take a “selfie” that would get picked apart in every way on damn Twitter…
“IT’S HIM!” A girl yelled as she tore away from the bar to run outside. “IT’S JUSTIN BIEBER!!!”
I watched as they all chased her in a mad rush to the door, my I don’t really care how much you love me camera-ready expression fell into bewilderment. Get it together, you’re fucking Marilyn Manson, God of Fuck.
I watched teenage girls knock each other over trying to get to a boy who was no bigger than they were. Okay, I heard he had solid abs that felt like a brick wall, and yes he was cuter than a puppy dog left out in the rain. BUT STILL I’M MARILYN FUCKING MANSON!!
I sat there, gloomily realizing I was out of cigarettes and decided to call the twenty year old model girlfriend. No, not the twenty-one year old, but the one at home, sober, so she could go out and get me cigarettes since my assistant quit.
Hi, please go out and get me a new pack of Dunhills - the blue pack, I impatiently texted.
I waited for her to get right back to me - she had no reason not to. Then the flashing from all the paparazzi cameras was worse than lightning and started to give me a headache, along with the shrieking from all the girls. What the heck was he doing here anyway? This was not his scene. THIS WAS A METAL BAR.
WHY WASN’T SHE GETTING BACK TO ME ABOUT THE SMOKES
I watched as Justin Bieber came into the bar, surrounded by the beefiest security guards I’ve ever seen.
“VIP SECTION!! MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!” One of the guards shouted. And in an instant, this section I’d pretty much had to myself up until this stupid moment was now crammed with these muscular men and this little white pop star and a bunch of young girls standing on the other end of the red velvet rope with half their pretty faces blocked by their phones as they took picture after picture. The smell of them - EEK - I felt like I was in a cloud of gum and makeup.
I didn’t know why I stayed.
Hey YOU ALIVE? I texted the model girlfriend again before looking up and seeing his pretty brown eyes on me. Then Justin Bieber gave me a rather shy wave. Ugh. Was he serious?
I looked away. I was The God of Fuck, I wasn’t waving back at you, you weasly little fucktwad.
I actually reached for a cigarette, remembering I was out.
Don’t make me call you, you bitch, I thought, angrily glaring at my cell when it suddenly beeped and moved a little.
My retarded cousin’s in town, sorry, the twenty year old model texted back.
WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH GETTING ME SMOKES, I replied, my finger reigned down on the buttons so hard my cell phone, embarrassingly, flew off the table.
I glanced up to make sure he didn’t see that. He hadn’t, his nice brown bedroom eyes were lost in his phone as well.
2
“Hello?” My deep voice fell through the cell phone after I finally picked up. I had a new assistant. She wasn’t pretty.
I looked down at all my vinyl, about to rearrange them on my new shelves made out of real raccoon bone and charred metal from a house fire.
“You should really do something about this - he’s saying you were rude to him - you don’t have much left anyway, a hangnail of a music career? You should really do something.”
“I don’t know what you expect me to do, Sally,” I said. I loved my deep husky voice. I should really be making more songs. If I could just stay sober enough.
“It’s Josephine,” she corrected me, unamused.
“Sorry.” My last assistant was Sally. Or my last girlfriend. Um, anyway…
“I wasn’t rude to him, I just didn’t wave back. It’s my girlfriend’s fault - if she had responded to my text in time, my mood wouldn’t have been so nasty.”
“He said something on Twitter - you should have a look.”
“Yeah, okay.” I hung up and stared way too long at the curve of the humerus bone holding a copy of Future Games. These shelves were really coming together and I took pride in the fact that I built them myself. They were lovely, with curves here and there to hug each record in a different manner.
I took my new macbook over to my couch and went on Twitter and looked at Justin Bieber’s page. There he was sporting another vintage t-shirt with my picture on it back when I was feared, when I was controversial. WHEN I WAS CONTROVERSY ITSELF. Bigger than Satan, he tweeted along with the picture.
The nerve of this brat. I knew what he was doing - he was a Christian, so I was sure that had something to do with this whole thing.
Why should I respond to this? Why should I even be bothered by it?
I dared to look at the comments from his legion of fans. Hah. Who? One person tweeted. And a bunch of Please notice me tweets from desperate fans. Nothing really about me personally.
So I tweeted something back, and thus began the reality tv show offer I could not refuse.
My tweet: Yeah I bet you are bigger than Satan, I’ve seen that pic of your penis.
3
Almost immediately after my absurd tweet, my new assistant was calling me back, as well as my publicist and a bunch of other people who NEVER SEEMED TO GET ME CIGARETTES WHEN I NEEDED THEM.
And in about five minutes tops, I’d gone from Aging Rock Star No One Cares About Anymore to Creepy Old Man via Twitter.
“I should have thought it out more,” I told Josephine, my tone robotic as if I were reciting lines from a boring script.
“Yes you should have! This is trending more than the latest terror attack!”
“Cool your heels,” I just said. “You wanna meet somewhere and talk about this? My record shelves are starting to creep me out a bit.”
“Uh, okay.” WHAT WAS WITH THE UH? She was my assistant, she had to do what I said.
Interstate 10 was congested as usual, but I had to take it to get to Taco Heaven. While I waited in bumper-to-bumper traffic, the gorgeous view of the Pacific Ocean next to me to dreamily stare out at, I listened to the latest news on SLAM JAM 97 (we play a variety of today’s most popular jams!) and guess what they were talking about?
“So this just happened about half an hour ago on Twitter - apparently, you know that whole thing where Justin Bieber wore Marilyn Manson’s t-shirt at a recent concert of his - you know who Marilyn Manson is, right?” The DJ paused to check.
“Oh right, the sadist guy from the 90s,” the DJ’s guest replied.
“Right, well Bieber tweeted he was Bigger than Satan, because Marilyn Manson used to always compare himself to Satan - well Marilyn Manson tweeted back something like ‘Yeah, I know, I’ve seen those pictures of your penis, something like that…” Laughter exploded in the DJ studio. The light finally changed and the sea of traffic moved forward - all the little shiny sports cars almost too painfully bright to stare at in this aftern
oon sun. “Well now guess what?” The DJ went on.
Oh god, there was more?
“Bieber just tweeted The Devil Has Risen. What does that mean?” The DJ informed. More laughter erupted. The studio was going wild. The entire world was freaking out over this! “Does the Biebs have, like, a thing for Manson?”
Huh. I turned the radio off. I was shaking.
I pulled into Taco Heaven, a tiny joint nestled away behind tall palm trees, known and adored for its view of the ocean more than its food. But that wasn’t saying the food was bad.
I called Josephine before I even dared get out of the car.
“Hi,” she said.
“Who’s in there?” I griped.
“Uh, some cooks...the bartender…”
“I mean do you see any creepy guys that look like kidnappers - IN OTHER WORDS, PAPARAZZI?”
“I see one man in a blue jacket with a beard.” Josephine remained calm as I exploded, this meant she would probably last as my assistant for at least a few weeks.
“I just heard the latest tweet by the way,” she let me know. “All this because you wouldn’t wave back.”
“YEAH FUCKIN’ PISCES CRY BABY LITTLE SHIT.”
“We can figure this out - but are you going to get out of the car?”
“Yeah.”
I opted for an upstairs table. Not many people were up there, and as long as I was in my hipster disguise, people just assumed I was some over-the-hill weirdo with tattoos. I made sure to get a shady spot too, away from the sun. My pale skin couldn’t take it