Happy 60th, Robert! Love you to pieces!
(If someone can tell me where to get this tshirt, PLEASE DO.)
And I wrote a story featuring him. ^_^ Warning: MUSHY ENDING.
Stick with Me
“Robert? Come on! We’re going to be late.”
I swore under my breath, fighting a losing battle with my unruly mass of grizzled curls, tossing them hither and thither, twisting this one around my finger, tugging angrily at that one for not cooperating.
The bathroom mirror housed the image of a man that had come to resemble a weathered trick pony, the one that, in his dancing days, drew swarms of people to whatever menagerie he called home, with children lined up and twining around the building for a look…
The images broke into my mind, one after the other without rest, as waves in the ocean break upon the shore. How waves of people used to break over one another for me, trampling each other underfoot just to better see me, the alleged Golden-Haired God, and to better show their admiration. Some nights, they’d stand still, their bodies not even moved by the breath that ballooned their lungs. Other times, they would scream as idolaters screamed, chant as the heathen did, as if I were communing to their very souls.
Once, nearly forty years ago, they were so driven into madness that they bashed their heads into the edge of the concrete stage, grinning maniacally as the bridges of their noses cracked with a sickening grind that they were too far gone too feel, even when blood blurred their vision.
And I had laughed.
So many girls—tall ones, curvaceous, fair ones, any kind that I dared crook my finger at—came for me, staying out past their bed-times, knowing their mommies would cry and their daddies would pace, just so I could love them. Each and every one of them.
Most of them died before they turned 25, some by jealous boyfriends or drugs or loving too much…
Most died by their own pretty little hands.
In the beginning, I would collapse on a creaky hotel bed in a city that I couldn’t recall the name of through the Jack Daniel’s-induced haze, my flesh quivering with the onslaught of sensation, the swelling tide swallowing me. I would sigh, releasing my pagan-god-of-war excesses in a tired, lazing current. My fingers fiddled with the remaining buttons of my shirt, my blank eyes boring twin holes into the spackled ceiling. Finally, I’d stroke my thumb over my ring finger, feeling the cold, wide band that rested there…
“Robert! Come. On.”
I traced my fingers over the bathroom mirror, resurfacing from my reverie.
Just as the trick pony was destined to be forgotten, so was I. Fewer teenagers came to worship. The girls that hadn’t died were married. My wife left me. My son died.
So much.
Too much.
It crippled me.
Every sin I had ever committed was reflected in the mirror over the brushed-steel sing. Lines criss-crossed every inch of my face. My eyes had sunk in, the sockets becoming more hollow by the day.
“Rob. Ert. I am talking to you.”
I sharply shook my head and turned to inspect the woman who had addressed me.
She cupped her hands behind her articulate back, a crease of dark annoyance marring her otherwise perfect face. She puckered her full, cherubic lips into a pout.
I returned the gesture, pulling together my cracking mouth.
She whined in the back of her throat. “We get it: you’re 60 and still prettier than the rest of us. Now, can you share the wealth?” She gestured to the mirror with one dainty hand. “Some of us need a little help in the looks department.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, yes. Because flab is all the rage right now.” I grabbed hold of my ample gut and gave it a shake.
Alison sighed heavily and placed once hand over my stomach. She stood on her tip-toes and kissed me on the cheek. “You’re fine, Robert. More than fine.”
I laughed silently, shaking my head.
Sternly, she took hold of my chin between her thumb and forefinger. “Look at me.”
And I did. Straight down into her limpid blue eyes. I chewed my lower lip in contemplation. My face, reflected in her eyes, was wiped clean of wrinkles, framed in perfectly wild blonde curls. My mouth, instead of being a thin slash, was crooked, curving now at the ends into a Joker-esque smile. Straight nose, sloping jaw line, perfect teeth…
Alison cleared her throat. “Are you done?”
My arms had wound themselves around her waist, clinging to her as if we were dancing.
I blushed, liking the way the pink tinged my cheeks in her eyes. “S-sorry.”
I pulled away, and she shuffled over to the mirror, gently pushing me away from my spot, and unearthed her eyeliner from a fiber-board drawer beneath the sink, deftly outlining of her eyes.
My face crinkled and cracked into a wide grin.
The pony still had his tricks.
HAPPY 60th, ROBERT PLANT!
