#stehley

“Come now, gentlemen Your love is all I crave You'll still be in the circus When I'm laughing, laughing in my grave” -“Memo from Turner,” Mick Jagger

Forty meet and greets, that’s the evening’s agenda, with room for maybe five or six impulse buyers at the tail end.  Christian, Wentworth’s president, sends him a hard copy the morning of, with notes, though he usually only glances over it. He only really keeps an eye out for the special requests, so he can remember they’re coming up– maybe someone with cancer, or a whole family wanting a picture with him, or a video message to a kid barely out of basic training and stationed overseas– but the bulk, the very bulk of the meet and greets are simple, easy to handle. A couple signatures, a couple pictures, and a smile, and they’re mostly on their way. It takes so little to make them happy, so little. The kids never really changed– they just went from piggybanks to 401ks. 

Forty meet and greets. He likes doing these much better than the ones for KISS. He likes not sharing attention with Gene.  Most especially, even now, he likes the girls, not for anything carnal, but just that small, secret pleasure of still being wanted at the tender age of seventy-two.

He scans through the list, though he never remembers the names, just some of the faces. The names give their age  away anyway, Generation X’s finest crop of Lisas and Erics and– hm, a Paul, too. A Paul Daniel. 

It’s just coincidence. He sets his agenda down on his hotel bedside table and tries to think no more about it. He’s got four hours to kill before he needs to get down there, anyway. Maybe he’ll order something on his phone. He taps the screen, checking his messages first. One from Erin he’ll answer later. One from Gene from about a week ago he still has no intention of answering.  The phone vibrates in his hand as he’s just about to set it aside– a call, not a text. Christian.

“Hello?”

“I hate to bother you, Paul, but it’s about the event,” Christian says. He sounds a little scattered. Paul resists the urge to snap back at him– of course it’s about the event– letting him go on. Sometimes it’s hard to summon up the energy to respond much. Sometimes, even four months out from his last show, it still hurts to talk. “One of the people on the guest list.”

“If you’re thinking there’ll be some trouble, then you can handle it.”

“It’s not the usual trouble.” After ten or more years of this, Christian ought to know the usual trouble well enough by now. The stalker types, the seriously unhinged ones that believe that buying a painting entitles them to his true friendship, or more. The expectant ones, the oversharing, desperate ones, the nuts that have to be escorted out.  Usually the high price of admission keeps them away, and usually, Paul doesn’t get told they even tried to make an appearance. He has people for that. He should have people for that. “All I can say is that I’m sorry.  We had one of our new consultants– she just started two weeks ago, and she– well, you know how it is, she’s only twenty-four, she had no idea–”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you had a buyer you may not want.”

“Please don’t tell me Eddie Trunk got his fat ass over to D.C.”

Christian actually manages a snort, but the next words make the breath catch in Paul’s throat. 

“No. It’s Ace Frehley.”

– 

Paul tells Christian he’ll call him back when he ought to tell him to issue Ace a refund.

He hasn’t seen Ace in six years now. Oh, he’s seen Ace– in a parade of humiliating Tiktoks and Youtube shorts, slurring interviews, horrific concerts– but he hasn’t seen Ace. He’s heard from Ace– the occasional, completely unanswered text– but the last time he listened to him on the phone was months back. Ace’s Hail Mary, his final, desperate attempt to get let onstage for MSG. Ace had fumbled it. Ace fumbled everything. 

Now all that doesn’t matter. KISS is over. The makeup sold. Paul won’t ever tour again. The big payout Ace had hoped for evaporated. All that Ace could possibly want, could possibly hope for, are the last scraps of Paul’s generosity. Paul’s mouth twitches as he thinks about it, and then he reaches for his phone again. 

“Have you contacted him? When did this happen?”

“Not since the purchase. That was two days ago.”

“And no one checked until now?  You had Ace Frehley buy a painting and nobody noticed for two days?”

“It was on his girlfriend’s credit card.”

“That’s fucking pathetic.” Cancel it. Refund it. That’s what he should be saying. “He does that shit to people. Uses them for whatever favors he can. Uses them all up.”

“What do you want us to do?”

Paul exhales.

If it was refunded, Ace would go to the press. Ace would tell every damn news website in the world that Paul Stanley wouldn’t sell him a painting. He’d get all sorts of publicity. The avatars had gotten bad press, not that Paul gave much of a shit anymore, but if Ace capped it all off, had someone else spin it just right… fuck. It could go so well for him. Ace could play it off like a spat-upon peace offering, and he, Paul, would come off like a bitter asshole, denying him not just the band, but five minutes of his time. He couldn’t win. He wouldn’t be able to win. 

“Call him up. Tell him he’s not coming to the gallery.” 

“All right.”

“But tell him he can meet me in an hour in Entyse.” Paul doesn’t even question if they’ll get him on the line. Or if Ace’ll show. “There won’t be any trouble.”

“Okay. Paul, again, all I can do is apologize–”

“What for? I was headed there anyway.”

He hangs up. His phone’s buzzing within ten minutes, texts, this time, and then a call, but he doesn’t so much as glance at the screen. He knows who they’re from. 

– 

Paul walks into Entyse without a reservation and gets seated immediately. It’s not much of a power play; there’s not been any satisfaction on his part in things like that for, oh, forty-five years now. Especially not when Entyse is just the Ritz Carlton’s restaurant, and he only had to head downstairs from his suite. 

They offer him the menus, but all he takes is a Coke and a water. He’d half-expected Ace to get there before him, half-wanted to see him wandering in, all stupid bravado, looking around for the front of house, aware that he’d cheated himself out of every rockstar perk Paul’s going to have the rest of his life. But five minutes, then ten minutes pass. Paul’s just about to get up– he can feel a couple eyes on him at this point, wondering, probably, why he’s alone, with a solid half of them not knowing who he is, probably more– and then he sees Ace out of the corner of his eye, getting led to his table like a pensioner to his nursing home bed. 

That’s not fair. It’s not, unfortunately, even true. Ace is walking about as well as he ever did, which isn’t well at all, struggling against his own instinct to pigeon-toe. He looks fine. He’s lost some weight over the last couple years. He’s in jeans, a black leather jacket, and a cheap Hello Kitty button-down. And sunglasses, which he yanks off as soon as he sits down, pushing them aside on the table. 

“Hey, Paul,” he says.

“Hey.”

It’s not the start he wants. The waiter’s given Ace the drink menu– Ace flips it over immediately and hands it back– and goes into the lunch options, but Ace interrupts him.

“How about tea?”

“The afternoon tea, sir?”

Ace points over to the table across from theirs, where six or seven teenage girls in puffy pastel atrocities are giggling over some tiered tea trays.

“Yeah, what they’ve got.”

The waiter seems completely unruffled. Paul narrows his eyes, looking at Ace– specifically, he’s looking for Ace’s phone– but if he’s got it on him, it must be in his pocket. The waiter pulls out the afternoon tea menus. 

“We have two options for tea.  The afternoon tea, and the royal tea. Your selections of sandwiches and sweets are completely customizable. The royal tea does include a glass of rose wine and–”

“Paulie, he’s trying to upsell you,” Ace says with a snort. 

“I don’t remember saying I would pay.”

“You invited me. And I did buy your painting. That’s how it works, right?” Ace turns to the waiter after a quick glance at the menu. “Gimme the afternoon tea. Uh. Darjeeling. Don’t gimme any of the cream puffs or mousse, all right? Just, uh, substitute in more of the scones.”

“And you, sir?”

Paul had been about to get a salad just to spite him, just to show how little time he wants  to spend entertaining him here. Afternoon tea– God, it’s comical. Ridiculous. His youngest had that at her birthday party about three years ago. What the hell is Ace doing? What’s he trying to accomplish?

He doesn’t know. 

“I’ll take the upsell. And jasmine tea. No substitutes on any of the stuff on the tray.”

The waiter nods, heading off at that brisk pace. Ace pushes his hair back behind his ear, and smiles. 

“You got a good crowd coming?”

“Yeah. It’s a good crowd.”

“’S good. I used to sell my art, too.” Ace is so matter-of-fact that Paul can almost feel his own blood pressure start to rise. He can’t ever outright call out arch meanings with Ace, the way he can with Gene, for all he’s sure they’re there. Ace doesn’t have those tells that Gene does. “It was all on the computer. I used to really like to tinker with it. Now all you gotta do is click and put a filter on it.”

“Not very tactile.”

“Nah. I got settings on my– on my webcam now, for when I do interviews. Barely even gotta put on any makeup with how well that filters out all the imperfections.” Ace peers at him. “I could show you sometime. I guess now that KISS is done you–”

“Cut the crap, Ace, and tell me what you want.”

“Nothing.”

“Cut the crap.”

“What’d you get the upsell for, Paul? Since when do you gotta have a drink to deal with me?”

Paul doesn’t answer, just grabs his Coke and takes a long swig. He used to be able to do Gene this way. Silent treatment him for hours and hours. This last tour– the last tour– it had gotten unbearable for both of them. Each show another nail in the coffin, a relief as much as it was an agony. Another shaving down of whatever was left of their friendship. 

He hadn’t even seen Gene since the last show. It hadn’t even occurred to him until just now. 

Ace takes a couple sips of his water. He’s not looking at Paul. His gaze is towards those teenage girls. 

“My fiancee’s got a girl about that age,” he says quietly. “She’s got a friend that dresses kinda like that, real frilly. She brought her over to the house once. Call themselves Lolitas or something. I don’t get it.”

“It’s Japanese.” Two words more than he’d meant to give him. 

“Oh.” Ace nods, glancing briefly at his own shirt. “I’d like to get back over there someday. I dunno that I will.”

Probably not. Ace can’t afford to tour outside of the States. Paul tries to swallow his next comment, but he doesn’t manage.

“I’m not touring again, Ace.”

“I know. I’m not asking you to.”

“I’m not helping you tour.”

“I’m not asking for that, either.”

“Then what are you–”

The waiter reemerges, first with their teas and then, immediately afterward, with the trays, laden with tiny sandwiches and sweets. Ace’s grin only widens, and he immediately snatches the smoked salmon sandwich from his tea tray and sticks the entire thing in his mouth. One bite. 

“Fuck, that was good. Are you still on the vegetarian bit? Can I have yours?”

“No. No, I’m not.” Paul takes his own salmon sandwich from his tray just to spite him, eating it more slowly. But three bites and it’s just as gone as Ace’s. Pretty good. It occurs to him, briefly, that Ace probably thinks Olive Garden is fine dining at this point in his life. It would be sad if he hadn’t done it to himself.

Ace moves onto the quiche. This one, he cuts up into raggedy thirds, stabbing each with his fork. 

“Caramelized onions on top. Y’know, my manager, he’s something of a chef, but–”

“Tell me what you want, Ace.” 

Ace pulls out his phone. Paul stiffens before he realizes Ace is just checking his texts.

“You never answered me. I didn’t think you would.” He lifts his eyes from the phone, setting it down on the table, face up. Ace’s got the font set as large as he can get it. Same as him. “What I want is company, Paulie. I want your company so damn bad I’ll pay you for it.”

“Like hell. You want an in.” The salmon feels like it’s about to come back up in his throat. “You want me to endorse you.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“You want a photo with me. Maybe a soundbyte for Youtube.” Paul forces himself to exhale. “Your album barely sold. KISS is gone and you’re still out there in the clubs. So you want a little more buzz. Maybe I’d help you get ten more butts in the seats at those fucking dive bars you play–”

“I’m not at fucking dive bars.”

“When was the last time you sold out an arena? I’ll wait. No. I know.”

Ace’s mouth is pinched, face just a little flushed. He eats the pieces of his quiche in rapid succession, then starts savagely on the remaining sandwiches, just grabbing them off the tray and stuffing them in his mouth. Then he starts on the tea, taking a quick swallow without the cream and sugars Paul remembers him always adding in. 

“Same as the last time you didn’t sound like shit.” He grabs the tongs, dropping in three sugars, then the cream, stirring them, eyes full on Paul’s face, daring him to get up, daring him to leave. “Gene told me what happened to you, back when we toured Australia together. I know all about that.”

“You don’t know shit.”

“You ruined yourself and then you blamed him with it. And he believes it, too. That’s the funny thing.” A swallow. “He was about in tears when he told me. Gene’s a snake, but he’s better than either of us. All he hasn’t sold off yet is his conscience.” 

The tea trays never looked so comical. Silver tiers, pastel sweets, bright-colored sandwiches. He’s focusing on them because there’s nothing else to focus on. Only that Ace wants him to go. Ace wants him to go so that he can feel like he’s won. But Ace hasn’t won anything. His whole life he’s given up everything he ever had like a goddamn fool, then begged the whole world for their scraps. He can’t get front row. He can’t get the Ritz Carlton. He’s lucky he got fifteen minutes of Paul’s time. 

“Gene’s a liar.”

“Not about that.” Another swallow of tea. Paul expects another sharp accusation, but Ace just swaps tactics like credit cards from a billfold. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Just like it doesn’t matter what I play like when I go out there. You… you and Gene took me to see James Brown, for my birthday that time. I remember seeing that old man out there, seeing them put all the capes on him, I thought, they should put him to bed, don’t put him out there, he’s a-a fucking dinosaur, now– but they did. ’Cause he didn’t know what else to do with himself. All he could do was sing all the old songs. Put on the capes. Be a joke.”

“You’re the only joke here.”

“We both are.” Ace keeps eating. Almost all the sandwiches are gone from his tray. He’s onto the scones. “I don’t want an in, Paul. I just want someone I can talk to.”

“Talk to Gene.”

“I can’t.”

“Talk to Peter.”

“He won’t.”

“Why me?”

Ace finishes off the scone. There’s a little butter smeared across his lip.

“You know why.”

It’s the music business. The music business. I don’t owe you friendship. I don’t owe you anything. Doc’s adage, the one he’s scrawled on one of his paintings, there in the gallery, burns somewhere in his heart: quality time remaining. Like he’s a bomb about to go off. Like someone’s subtracting his last breaths down. Quality time remaining and in just a couple hours, he’ll be spending that time doing those forty meet and greets for fans that want a moment and a picture and a couple autographs. Fans that only know him from the magazines and interviews and two hours at a time in a couple hundred concerts, but think of him like a brother, like a lover, like a demigod. Ace doesn’t know him, he wants to insist, but that’s a lie. Ace knew him when he was no one. 

Ace knew him when the Hotel Diplomat was the best they could manage. When they hauled their gear in a milk truck. When the KISS t-shirts were iron-ons they cut out themselves. When Bill was signing them onto Casablanca. When every show was a rush of adrenaline, instead of a slog. When it didn’t hurt, when he could bounce back from anything, just anything–

(when)

(when)

Long skinny legs spread across a cheap yellow duvet. A girl’s head between them. The room assignments had swapped; Peter was rooming with his wife, and Ace, Ace was lying there, getting head from that girl as Paul stepped out from the shower. 

(you want in on this, paul? and his finger crooked, beckoning lazily)

(and he did. and he did. that was the first sidle into something new, something filthy. he had taken the girl from behind while she sucked off ace, but it was only after she left that it really mattered. it was only after that that they’d fooled around together, feigning drunk after only three beers apiece.)

(you want in on this, paul?)

Those same legs in faded jeans, close to fifteen years later. No girl this time but the hotel might as well have been the same. Ace’s fortunes had declined even worse than KISS.’ And yet he’d had enough reason to spend the night with him, after the Limelight show, without a girl there for that edge of rockstar excess.

Another ten years. Another scattered handful of moments. Ace high on pills.  Paul edging on the verge of divorce. The disgust had started to fester long before then, disgust and awareness. Ace was throwing it all away again, casual and careless. Ace wasn’t what he wanted, in or out of bed, and he never had been. He was still just some crude kid from the Bronx that played guitar better than him, that crashed cars, that drank himself to stupors, only then he was nearly fifty instead of twenty-five.

He couldn’t change. Just kept making the same mistakes. Just kept playing the same old chords, the same chords anyone could play. He’d proved that afterwards, hadn’t he? He’d proved that. The fans had taken Tommy for twenty years. Ace had never been special at all. 

Paul tries to think that. Tries to assure himself of that. But looking Ace in the face stops him cold. There’s defeat there, sure. But there’s a spark in those dark, hooded eyes, too. There’s a spark that no stupid tea outing and no amount of barbs from him could ever manage to completely extinguish.

It’s a spark he remembers, and for the barest sliver of time, it’s just enough to almost make him look young.

“Maybe I’m better off trying them. Gene’s not so sore at me anymore.” Ace lifts a macaron from his tray. “He’s still the one paying his old band.”

“I know.”

“Peter’ll let it all go if I visit him.”

“He would.”

“It’s just you I wanted, that’s all.” Ace gets up, having to lean against the table in order to stand. He reaches for his Gucci purse, hooking it to his shoulder. “It’s always been you.”

“Ace–”

“Don’t let them get too weird with you at the event. Pretend you can’t hear ’em.” Ace’s words are only a little dry as he crunches the macaron, then reaches for the remaining scones, wrapping them in a napkin. Paul’s stomach starts to twist. All the fight seems out of him, all the acidity, all the hope. In tearing Paul up, he tore himself up, too. Mutually-assured destruction. “Your girl that sold me the painting, she said–”

“Which one did you buy?”

He says it suddenly, barely realizing it’s out of his mouth until Ace answers.

“What?”

“Which one?”

“The, uh, one of the abstracts.”

“Which one?”

“The blue and purple. Anyway, she said–”

“Sit down.”

“Paul–”

“Finish off the food. I will, too.”

“I’m not–”

(i want) 

“You’re coming with me.”

“Paul, c’mon, I know you don’t wanna, not after–”

“I do.”