IQ(33)

Cal was unintelligible now, murmuring into the pop filter like it was an ear and he was telling it a secret.

“What’s he on?” Bobby said.

“Weed, prescription pills,” Anthony said.

“Look at him. There’s no more chance he’ll make a decent record than Bug turning down a Family Meal at Popeye’s.”

Cal came out of the booth and zombie-walked through the control room.

“Cal, are you all right?” Bobby said.


Cal staggered into the men’s room and locked the door behind him. He was sweating and breathing hard. A humming he thought was the fluorescent lighting was inside his head, a swelling pressure behind his eyes. And then, for the first time since he was five years old, he wept like a five-year-old. “I’m messed up, I’m messed up,” he said, “I’m losing my muthaf*ckin’ mind.” When he finally stopped crying he felt as empty as the box of Krispy Kremes he ate in the car, nothing left but the crumbs. He was blowing his nose in a paper towel when he heard the Voice.

“I don’t know who I am anymore,” the Voice said, “and I have no idea what’s wrong with me.”

At first, Cal thought the words were coming from him but he looked in the mirror and his mouth wasn’t moving.

“I’m isolated,” the Voice said. “I have no one to confide in, no one who understands. My friends and family are useless.”

Cal hated being with the crew. Anthony always impatient, Charles and his attitude, Bug doing his tough love thing. Come on, son, show me your man bones and get the f*ck up out that bathrobe.

“I’ve lost interest in everything but sleeping,” the Voice said. “The activities I used to enjoy seem ridiculous now.”

These days, Cal would no more go to a club than he would a rodeo. The deafening music, the blinding strobes, the drunk rowdy crowd waving their arms and woo-hooing like it was enjoyable being squeezed into a dance floor like Pringles and paying sixteen dollars for a cocktail. And a rap star couldn’t relax in public. You had to be cool every damn minute in case somebody took a video of you picking your nose that would be on YouTube until the end of time; standing there talking shit with a bitter-ass cigar in your mouth and holding a bottle of Gran Patrón by the neck like it wasn’t no thang or laughing with the fellas like only an insider would get the joke, turning smooth for the ladies, every line said a thousand times before.

“I’ve forgotten how to enjoy myself,” the Voice said, “how to have fun.”

The last time Cal could remember having real fun was when he was a kid and his dad drove him around the Forum floor on his forklift or when Angie and her friends came over and they did stupid dances in the living room. The Running Man, the Soulja Boy, the Chicken Wing.

“My eating is out of control,” the Voice said. “I’m drinking too much or doing a lot of drugs.”

Cal had gained twenty-five pounds. The only thing he felt comfortable in was a bathrobe and he was eating pills like a food group. If Snoop knew how much weed he was smoking he’d organize an intervention.

The Voice went on: “My job is so pointless and soul-depleting I don’t even want to think about it.”

Cal was supposed to be writing songs for the new album but he didn’t know what to write about. More bitches, blow jobs, and bling? More Rémy, Dom, and Courvoisier? More whips and straps and world domination? All the rhymes had been used up. Cal had thought about taking Kanye’s route, do some songs about his mom, Jesus, materialism, and whatever else. He gave it a try, laying down a couple of tracks in his home studio. The first track was twenty-three seconds long and titled “The Fuck Am I Doing on This Earth?” The second was thirty-five minutes long, didn’t have a title but the first line was: They changed the recipe at In-N-Out, the meat don’t feel right in my mouth. When Cal heard the tracks played back he ordered Charles and Bug to take all the recording equipment out of the house and throw it in the ocean.

“Frankly,” the Voice said, “I wouldn’t bother getting up in the morning but I have no choice. I have bills to pay, people that depend on me, and obligations to fulfill.”

There was alimony for that evil bitch Noelle, tuition for his nieces and nephews, mortgages on the houses and the condo he bought for his parents. He was supposed to be a presenter at the Soul Train awards show and he’d promised interviews to XXL and WBL. He was supposed to audition for a buddy movie with Ashton Kutcher. He owed back taxes and he’d canceled appointments with his business manager ten times. Then there was Bobby Grimes. Cal felt like a Winnebago on a one-lane road, Bobby a Porsche Turbo, weaving around behind him blasting the horn.

The Voice continued: “I don’t know how long I can keep this up or if I can keep it up at all. I’m at the edge, the end of my rope, I have to keep going but I can’t keep going. I’m burned out.”

“Burned out?” Cal said. That sounded about right. Wristing the tears off his face, he turned around to see this Mr. Voice but no one was there. He thought he’d lost his mind for real but a janitor’s cart was parked against the far wall, a portable radio on the top shelf.

The radio host said, “For those of you who have just joined us, we’re talking with professional life coach Dr. Russell Freeman. He’s the author of the new book Stuck in a Lifetime, or How to Cure Burnout and Stop Spinning Your Wheels.”