Little Angelfuck ☆ Kirk Hammett

xx. stage lights

November, 18th, 1983

Mint Rock Hotel, Somewhere in L.A

4:23 a.m

It was the 4th time in 10 minutes I basically begged James not to go over to Kirk and beat the shit out of him. He laid me down on him on the bed, kissing my hair and holding me tightly, as I cried into him and he comforted me. As I breathed shakily from crying, he began humming a song, slowly singing it to me as he slowly rocked me back and fourth. 

"Your lover who has just walked through the door, 

Has taken all his blankets from the floor.

The carpet too is folding' over you,

And it's all over now baby blue."

All the life was sucked out of me. Betrayal, hate, anger, sadness, negativity took over, pushing away the positive emotions. I could see the pain in James eyes and hear it in his voice as he whispered comfort to me and sung sweet melodies. 

"I tried," I whispered, my voice croaking and sore from crying  and drinking all night. "Alcohol is the only constant in my life, it seems."

James frowned, wanting nothing more than to see a smile take over my face. "You gotta sleep, Astra, we have a show tomorrow."

"Fuck," If I had any more water left in my body I'm sure I would've started crying again. "I have to see him. Right now. I still love him"

"All he ever did was use you. Why can't you see that? Shhhh, I know, don't worry about it now..." He hushed me, trying to be as comforting as he could. "You deserve so, so much better."

-

I dreaded the second I'd have to leave the comfort of the cheap hotel room and go down to eat breakfast, knowing he'd be there. So I didn't eat, and just sat in my room and drank a coffee. James returned a while after he left for breakfast, giving me a muffin and telling me I had to eat no matter what, eating with me so I could better get the food down. But now I was scared. James promised me he said nothing to Kirk, but that wasn't what I was afraid of. I knew that any second now David would be hollering down the halls, getting us onto that one bus where we'd have no choice but to face each other. And it happened.

"Morning ladies! Get your lazy asses down to that bus in ten minutes or we're leaving without you!" I heard him shout from outside in the hall. James looked at me concerned, and offered to take my bags for me but I stopped him. He opened the door first, making sure he wasn't there before nodding back to me and leading me down the stairs to the bus. I knew we couldn't avoid each other forever, but I wasn't ready for the moment I stepped onto the bus and he was in front of me.

I just froze, not knowing what to do, looking at the floor. I knew I must've looked terrible, my eyes puffy, hair a mess, and last night's clothes still on, rips all over my tights. "Excuse me, you're in the way..." James said lowly from behind me, and Kirk whispered a sorry, moving into one of the seats to let us pass. I pushed forward, heading straight to join Charlie, Cliff and Don at the back of the bus.

"Shit Astra, you look terrible," Don said, wrapping an arm around me as I sat down with them.

"Thanks," I muttered, resting my face in my palms. James whispered what happened, and they all sighed and whispered condolences to me as if they already knew it would happen. "How the fuck do they know, James?"

"Oh, believe me, everyone knows. You two aren't that sneaky, you know." Cliff told me, and my face turned crimson as I beat myself up over that fact.

"Well fuck me," I sighed, leaning back into the couch.

"Let me fucking teach him a lesson, c'mon!" Don yelled, and I pulled him back down on the couch before he started running at Kirk. Two days and that was it. Two days of this tour before it would be just a memory or a tale. We were hitting the billboard top 50 with two songs from our album, we would do just fine. 

The bus ride was mostly a blur as I slipped in and out of consciousness, trying to catch up on the night of sleep that I mostly missed. One of the times where I fell back asleep, I was abruptly awoken by Cliff, and he helped me out of the bunk. "C'mon, we're here at the gig."

My eyes went wide. "Fuck!" I combed through my hair with my fingers and looked around for my trusty bottle of whiskey. 

"Hold on, we have half an hour, we're not playing right now." He chuckled at my panic, lighting a cigarette.

"Fucking hell sorry, It's just-" I didn't even finish my sentence, as he already knew and I didn't want to think of it anymore. He helped me to the dressing room backstage for Teenage Wasteland, and I covered my red, tired eyes with makeup and my pasty face as well, brushing through my hair with an actual brush. I decided to ignore the fact that this was the exact same outfit I was wearing last night, and fiddled with my guitar, anxiously awaiting being called on stage.

As I went on stage, buzzed and only getting more fucked up, downing beers between songs of our set. I screamed my heart out on our song, and I laughed and was smiling again. Playing on stage took off all the anxiety and all the pain of whatever you had going on in your life. Nothing in my life was more therapeutic to me than being on stage, making musical love to every single person in that crowd, such a sensual, connecting thing.

It was like I was reborn for the set, anew being with no worries and no heartache or trauma and just truly free. We did 2 encores with how much the crowd screamed and begged and flung their bodies around begging us to mend that connection of musical love. And after waving and thanking and praising the crowd, we walked off stage. As I walked down the steps to the bar, I couldn't even stop my smile or emotional flow of happiness and pride as I walked past Kirk as they went on, his sad puppy dog eyes watching me in awe, amazed on how it seemed that I had recovered just like that, that I truly didn't spend all last night crying and begging and screaming for him, numbing the pain with every drug to my disposal.

But it was that moment that I realized that I would and will get through this, and all I had to do was climb the stairway to reach my happiness again. I had my band, growing extensively and we were already offered tours of Japan and Europe for 1984. We were getting our dream.

But like the numbing of drugs and alcohol, the bliss of performing all goes away eventually.