Turn About is Fair Play:

This is a story I've been waiting to tell. It is the tale of a year-long dalliance which almost cost my life. It is the lesson from which I have learned most, lost the most and emerged strongest. The humor is that I along with all others involved in "Hayden's World" were all miserable. This is the story of a social cancer. I am setting its memory free as I no longer want it for my own.

If you know "Hayden"...tell him his secret is out. This is my "Manifesto."

Feedback always welcomed. Sorry about the length. This is the oldest of my stories and it is, unfortunately, the truth.

Because you saturated sight,

and I had no more eyes for

sordid excellence as paradise

From: "In Vain" by Emily Dickinson

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Trip to the Dark Side of the Moon

The Beginning of the End of the Beginning
It took a long time and was with a great deal of remorse that I came to understand that the world may very well be a cynic's paradise. You see, I never really wanted to believe it. I've always been the kind of person who sees the good in everyone, has a silver lining for every situation. You know the type. And while my intensions have always been good, it seems that the "world" chews fools like me up and spits us out just when I should be reaping the fruits of our labor. A sad thought, but very true.

Lessons in unrequited love can never, I'm sure, hurt as badly as lessons in violated friendship. Yeah, I learned that one the hard way, again, lately. To tell you the truth, I'm pretty sure I knew the whole idea was terminal from the word go. However, when you take one previously jaded, career academic who has become fed up with pandering to white-color wishes and diplomat's dreams, and dangle la vie bohèmme in front of her face, incredibly, it seems idyllic. Years spent studying international government and relations, diplomatic practices and erudite theories left me wanting something more tangible.

I think that the method to my madness is just that I'm curious and I can appreciate the beauty and mystique in all kinds of lifestyles. I ventured deep under cover when I leapt from the safe predictability of academia and into the potholed pathways of the music industry. The transition was easier than you might expect.

It began on a cool February evening. I was on my way into a local quick mart to get a cup of coffee before heading home from a lecture. As I entered, two young men I'd known for years came out. Tom and Hayden had both been at a party I'd thrown the previous weekend. We said our hellos and got to talking when Tom seemingly queried, "You got plans March 8th?" When I answered "Um, I don't think so," Tom quickly corrected my misunderstanding saying firmly, "No, I said you got plans March 8th."

So okay I now had plans for March 8th. I promised to see Tom and Hayden's band play their first show. I had known that Hayden was a musician since we were both about 12 years old and it had been an eon since I last saw him play. It sounded like fun and I wanted to show my support, so I went, and sure enough I was star struck. They looked great up there. He looked great up there.

I learned that night that both Tom and Hayden had quit their jobs to pursue music full time. Hearing that, it took no time at all for my maternal instinct to kick in and it wasn't long before I was hanging around at their house and bringing full meals to them at least once a week. After all they were starving artists.

Following a few weeks of purely social interaction with the boys and their cohorts, I was party to a conversation between the band members concerning their plans for the near future. Among the four of them they'd decided they had all they needed in the talent department, Hayden had all the right connections, they even had a guy to run a website and a gal to design T-shirts. When all was said and done, the only thing missing was someone who knew how to do "the business end of things."

That's when, like in some bad moment in an old Parker Lewis Can't Lose episode, all heads in the room literally snapped to my direction. Intrigued by the proposition, I threw myself whole-heartedly into learning the tricks of the music trade. Hayden served as my Yoda and I spent every day of that summer at his beck and call booking gigs, running errands, getting his life in order. I was good too. I had a flawless rapport with venue liaisons, producers, contacts you name it I could get what I needed from them for my client. I took my job very seriously. The only problem was my client never took me seriously.

By September of that year I was becoming totally worn out. At least a half dozen times a day someone told me to "shut the fuck up" if I spoke for more than fifteen seconds in succession. Hayden took it upon himself to discuss with me at length one of my personal character flaws should my morale for the week grow too healthy or buoyant. By this time I began to realize that I spent more time scrubbing Hayden and Tom’s toilets and bathroom floors, running Hayden from the store to unemployment, than I did making sure that I had my own house in order. Things were not going well. But I wouldn't totally believe that. After all, I was not a quitter simply because things got difficult. Now it was a matter of pride.

I became locked up inside a pattern of behavior that hinged upon gaining Hayden's approval all over again each day. Every day would start out with my wondering if I'd be in his good graces and he knew it. Every morning the same as I would not think to knock on his bedroom door without a large black iced-coffee in hand and my head lowered. He knew he had me exactly where he wanted me and he knew when he'd ragged on me too much that it took only a latent hug or random one line e-mail of quasi veiled thanks to heal all my hurt. Like a Spaniel he could whack me with the proverbial newspaper ten times a week but for the one time he praised me, all would be forgiven and set my tail wagging again ready to make his future a reality while it cost me my sanity, femininity, friends, family and self-respect.

Too Much is Not Enough
The end of my captivity came, in my opinion, rather suddenly. Whether or not Hayden, Tom, the other boys in the band, or even I fully realized it, my exit strategy was already firmly in place. I knew I could not go on being treated like an idiot, used and under appreciated. By October they'd even gone so far as to refuse my request to start working with more than just their band . I knew it was a stupid thing for someone in my position to only have one client but Hayden knew I'd learn to like being treated too well if I worked outside of his realm. He was already too late.

In mid-September I had been persuaded to casually meet with another group of four young men. They were also very talented. They are a little better "hooked up" in the contacts sense of the business, and let me tell you about amazing performers. I pitched them my services as a mere test of my own marketability and they agreed to see how they could work me into their project. After the show they even introduced me as a manager and took myself and a girl friend I'd brought along out for pizza and beers.

We laughed until it hurt. It was fantastic and sad all at once. I had forgotten, perhaps I'd never known, that working in the music business could be so much fun. From word one, this new group treated me as a professional and as a lady, well at least as a girl, a luxury I'd all but forfeited in joining in with the likes of Hayden and Tom's greaser ruff necks.

As time had passed, Hayden placed an ever-changing and confusing array of rules and restrictions upon me regarding when I could and could not associate with the band and their clique as a friend, go to bars, go to the diner and when I should know to go home. This was Hayden’s idea of not mixing business with pleasure.

He did, however, have a point. As the months had ground on I'd found that imbibing in alcohol around this group was an increasingly bad idea. Because I silently endured so much criticism, the idea of in vino veritas quickly reached a critical mass with me. I would get buzzed and seem happy for a bit but soon become angry and indignant, condescending and enraged. The aggravation and pain I'd stuffed for weeks and months on end wanted out, and in my quasi-inebriated state it found its voice all too easily.

Chicks or Tricks
Within Hayden and Tom's social circle, women generally came in two categories, chicks and broads. You want to be a chick to these men. Chicks are usually old pals, sisters of guys in the group or have some quality about them that makes them cool but irrevocably places them in the platonic realm. Broads however were meant to serve as notches in headboards, used at any hour of the day or night for sexual gratification, verbal abuse or house cleaning. I, myself, teetered somewhere in the middle of these two categories . I did scrub bathrooms but I was also never used for sexual gratification, however, verbal abuse and rough physical treatment were regularly thrown my way latently or otherwise.

After three weeks and seventeen hours of research I finally finished both this band's partnership agreement, to be signed among themselves, and my own personal management contract. I'd told Hayden some three weeks earlier, "Fine, you know what if you want me all to yourselves I need some kind of guarantee or you know I can't stay. It's stupid Hayden, it's not the way it works in this business and you know it. So if you want me, I want a contract." After two hours of going over contract language with three of the band members as a beer bust went on around us, I gave them a "win one for the gipper" sort of "we've really got to get focused" speech which sent them into a closed session of conversation. Can you believe I thought nothing of it when that happened? Sure they had a lot to swallow, and big documents to sign. They needed to talk.

When they came back out...I suddenly didn't have a job. We went round in circles among each other talking for another 20 minutes until I began to feel heat rising in my throat, eyes and up the back of my neck. I demanded, "What are we talking about? You seem to have made a choice but not one of you has the balls to say it. After all I've done for you the least you can fucking do is say it. Say the hard thing we're all dancing around here." That thing was that they no longer wanted me for their manager. No one spoke though for about a minute because after I finished, I began to do the craziest thing imaginable to Hayden, Tom and Jed (the bassist). I actually broke down and began to weep.

In hindsight I know that those tears were not bitter. They were a sign of catharsis and release. I was free and my mind and soul knew it. Through my long auburn hair over my face I could not see him, but I could hear the unfamiliar sound of shock in his voice when Hayden said, "Oh...my...God...don't cry." I'm sure he'd been prepared for me to shout or argue or even beg, but I didn't. I wanted truth and for the first time in about 7 months I allowed myself to actually feel what was happening to me without regard to how it would affect "the boys."

The beauty of the next few minutes would be fleeting. But they were lovely nonetheless. Hayden lifted me sobbing from my chair to a standing position and hugged me kissing the top of my head. Many times in those long months I'd seen him do that to other gal pals (read chicks) and wished he'd lavish the same reserved affectionate gesture on me. He never did until that moment.

I heaved uncontrollable sobs into his chest (he's six foot five so I only come up to his chest) for only another few seconds before Jed, angel that he is, came practically sprinting across the room and threw his arms around Hayden and I. He buried his head in my shoulder and cried with me. Even Tom, the ever stalwart tough guy, looked choked up, as he finally said, "Fine, Hanna, you want someone to say it than, fine, Hanna we don't want you as our manager anymore." Sad as it's going to sound, that's the only time they ever used the term manager to describe me. In public they always held me just shy of the coveted title calling me "promotions coordinator" or something to that effect. Bastards.

The melancholy beauty of that moment between the four of us dissolved totally later on that night when, alone, in the laundry room in the basement of Hayden and Tom's house, Hayden and I sat talking. He touched me and hugged me more in that hour and a half than he had in ten months. Then he claimed, "ya know Han, I'm glad you're just one of our friends now I want you to be like this with us. The business shit just made things difficult." He was, to an extent, right. However, the truth was that it was he who made my job tough, not anyone or anything else.

The conversation, rather monologue, took a dark turn when Hayden came around to face me. As I sat atop the drier, he placed one hand on either side of my legs, leaned in and said, "Ya know, now that you're not workin for us anymore, I’d hate to think that you would go out and say stuff about us, the pranks we pull, the stuff we steal, the under-aged drinking that goes on here or anything. Because, ya know, Han, I'd hate to have to see bad things happen to you." He leans in closer. "Because ya know I could do it," pauses to burp, "and I don't leave a trace."

Shocked, I decide, to give him the chance to make a joke out of this. "Ha ha oh yeah Hayden tell me all about the bad things you'll do to me." But he didn't laugh. He didn't even blink. Bastard. Two days later, I'd discover that, while I sat downstairs talking contracts with the boys, one of the other team members tricked me into giving them my car keys under the auspices of reclaiming the merchandise bins, retrieved my laptop as well and erased all the files on my computer having to do with the band and the contacts I had made. Worst of all, the only person who knew where I kept these files on my computer was, you guessed it, Hayden.

This was a gesture that I now know was born not out of bravado, but rather, fear. Perhaps it was the fear that I just might actually get ahead. Fat lot of good that did. In this day and age who doesn't keep back ups? Well...Hayden, plenty of folks know now huh? What 'cha gonna do?

New Lease on Life
It's been four months to the day since that night. I'm a personal assistant and publicist for a very successful music group and do freelance promotions coordination for several other acts in my area. I'm with the band that, in mid-September said they'd work me into their project. Work me in they did and they are incredible. These young men are the epitome of talent and have a work ethic to support it. These are not dreamers but doers, not musicians, rather music industry professionals.

In four months I haven't felt used, under appreciated or belittled. I joke often with them saying they all make me cry once weekly. Not for the reasons you might think. Remember they are NOT Hayden and Tom. These boys make me cry with the beautiful, unsolicited thank you e-mails they insist on sending me. They have let me grow as a person and as a professional. They have needed me and they have let me need them. It's great work if you can get it. Along with this, I have the privilege of knowing our promotions lady, and have even adopted a roadie or two on whom I've gotten to appropriately lavish my mommy tendencies.

In the coming months there are real promises for recording sessions, record deals, showcases and touring. I'm excited, nervous, scared and happy all in one. We have worked hard for this and I know I'll enjoy it to whatever it amounts. These boys have invested as much in me (connecting me with people who have offered to teach me the ropes of tour management) as I have in them (endless pending issues lists, meetings, twice weekly practices, road trips, calls, dealings with sketchy booking agents and the like). It's a 100%-100% two-way deal.

Last night on the phone with one of the roadies, I came to the same conclusion for about the sixtieth time. I'm a lucky girl. I have some of the nicest young men in the known world at my disposal 24 hours a day. Each of these is eternally happy to hear from me and always ready to listen or contribute. I'm a lucky girl. I know for a fact I have laughed enough in the past four months to make up for how much I cried in the last ten.

Fate is Funny
Until now I've kept silent about my sorrowful experience with the first band. I've actually spent some time truly being afraid. Obviously, I no longer am afraid. Perspective will come about things like this when you least expect it and in ways you would never imagine. Last week, we all found out that our drummer was going to be a father. His wife is already three months pregnant with their first child. Well this is great news. He is married to a nice lady named Rebecca; both have amazing jobs, make plenty of money and have a nice new home. The sad part is that we needed to go shopping for a new drummer. No problemo...a new drummer found us!! Our darling, Southern, Jack Daniels swigging drum prodigy who exported himself all the way to NJ and strangely enough has the exact same birthday as our previously loved percussionist.

It's sad to lose our drummer because, hey, let's face it, we'll miss him, he rocks and we love him muchly. However, there is still joy in the new little one to come! Sure that makes plans for the immediate future a little on the destabilized side but only temporarily. That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

But just as I was getting over the shock and joy of our own blessed event news, I got a phone call from a friend of mine with a story that would all but leave me speechless. (For this person's privacy we'll call them "Pal.") Pal leaves me the following message on a Sunday morning. "Hanna, its Pal. It’s like ten after eleven. You have GOT to call me back as soon as you get this. Okay? Bye." Immediately fearing the worst I call Pal back asking if everyone in our circle of friends is still breathing. Pal assures me no one is dead or comatose but encourages me to sit down so they can recount the tale of the prior evening.

As it would seem, Hayden and Tom have been on very tense terms with each other for the past few days and this tension apparently erupted into a near fist-fight at their house the night before. Pal and another friend decide to go the local diner to escape the tense situation and find food. While at the diner, Pal inquires of the friend if they know what the higher than normal tension level is all about. The friend heaves a deep sigh and swears Pal to secrecy. It's at this point that I'm holding my breath on the phone with Pal dying to know what's gone wrong. Strangely enough, I feel as if I already know what Pal is going to say.

I only remember screaming the word "NO" with a half smile playing across my face when Pal tells me that Hayden has gotten his girlfriend pregnant and she is also three months along. Pal goes into a few other details and says Hayden's girlfriend has also not been around lately. In the next sentence divulges that Tom, too, has gotten his girl pregnant as well. Now I'm floored. "It's over." I keep whispering into the phone. "Oh my gosh it's over. He's ruined it." All I could think about as I laughed with Pal on the phone was that Hayden, himself, had just put the last nail in the coffin of his dreams of being a professional musician.

All this time Hayden had refused to get even a part-time job to support himself. He would claim, "Leaving oneself a legitimate fall-back is the quickest way to finding yourself there." Well, poetic notions are dandy but highly impractical in real-time. Not having a job at all left him eternally indebted to creditors, without car insurance, spending money or cash to help support daily band needs. That's what I had been for. I spent a lot of money on cigarettes that summer . What on Earth will he do if and when the question of child support arises? He's ruined everything. And he's brought it upon himself. Dammit Hayden. Dammit, DAMMIT, DAMMIT!

The "Race" Is Over
In the midst of that infamous conversation that took place in the laundry room during which Hayden threatened me, he also challenged me. He wanted me to stick with the music biz. He threw down the gauntlet saying, "beat me there, Hanna, I dare you to try and get there before I do." With all this new turbulence, it's not going to be hard. It's almost as if I feel like shouting, "IT'S NOT FAIR!!!" Some part of me wanted him there, looming in the darkness, trying to catch me. Now he won't be, he can't be.

And so now, Mr. Hayden, your creation will beat you there. You made a monster when you created me. You gave me all the tools to use skills I already possessed in the political world and make a name for myself in the music business. And even if I never get beyond small time, and even if I never manage a tour in my life, I still would have been able to if I really wanted. Why? Because, quite simply, and forgive the cliché, I used my powers of professionalism for good and not evil. I loved and respected people and ultimately they have done so in turn for me. All the time you wasted belittling everyone around you so that we’d never see how insignificant and flawed you were. To what end? You thought you’d win somehow. You probably still think you have. I suppose I really ought to thank you for teaching me how to do what I do and for teaching me what kind of asinine, swollen-ego bull never ever to put up with from anyone again as long as I am able to draw breath.

These days the word around town is that Hayden’s band is no more. The website is gone, the leftover merchandise remains unsold, the fans have disappeared and the band members and most of their former entourage simply refuse to further associate with Hayden. Worst of all, some really decent music will evermore go unheard. I honestly hope that one day the music he's so talented at creating shines through his decrepit veneer. Poor, foolish, band-less, emotionally bankrupt Hayden. How I so dearly cared; and for what reason? Even I’m not so sure anymore. At this point the best I can offer is to say is better luck next time. You done good kid, but I'm doing better. By the way, you never did beat me after I won our last game of chess. Checkmate old friend.

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