Power Games

What choice did he have? What choice did he have about anything?

The phone rang. It was Sketch.

‘Ride’s outside, buddy.’ His manager’s voice was drizzled thinly over a nub of hysteria. ‘You’re behind time. Again.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Everything OK?’

Shit. Kevin checked the time. Double shit. He had a show at the TD Garden in an hour. These days his power naps were turning into induced fucking comas.

‘Be right down,’ he snapped, hanging up.

A freezing cold shower slapped him to his senses. Afterwards, in the foggy mirror, Kevin grimaced at his reflection.

Come on. Why did he look so goddamn young?

Miserably he plucked at a single chest hair straining from his diaphragm. It was like a blade of grass in the middle of a barren desert. What the fuck? Where was his chest rug? Couldn’t he sprout just a few more?

He was nineteen, for crissakes, and yet he had the torso of a ten year old.

The grimace deepened. That wasn’t even the worst part.

Glancing down, Kevin loosened the towel around his waist. He assessed the feathery covering of pubic hair scarcely concealing his miniature prick, and howled.

It was a worm dangling between two berries. Shrivelled berries. The whole thing was shrivelled. Why wouldn’t it fucking well grow?

Was he balding? But how could he be balding if he’d never had hair there in the first place? Kevin howled some more, and the phone resumed its grisly summons.

Despite turning up ninety minutes late to the arena and enduring a cacophony of boos, the gig went down OK. Kevin knew how to charm his Little Chasers. Normally he refused to venture into the crowd—he didn’t want their sticky fingers pawing all over his designer outfits—but to appease the irate parents, and on Sketch’s counsel, tonight he made an exception. At one point, during a rendition of ‘Fast Girl’, he thought he was about to get torn limb from limb, his white suit strained into a crucifix by a pie-faced chick pulling him one way and a blubbing pre-teen the other.

The noise was thunderous—’Kevin! Kevin! Kevin!’—and the venue alight with the glitter of camera phones. When he crooned his mega hit ‘Adore You’, the sparkle swayed back and forth, arms in the air, kids at the front crying into their Kevin Chase T-shirts and gripping, white-knuckled, crudely assembled banners that bore confessions of their undying affection: KEVIN CHASE PLEASE BE MINE; SARA & KEVIN 4 EVER; I LOVE YOU KEVIN; I’M YOUR NO. 1 LITTLE CHASER …

After a hundred-minute set and two encores, he was beat.

Backstage, Sketch congratulated him with the unwelcome announcement that they were expected at a children’s charity gala downtown—there was a galaxy of names attending and it was a wise gig at which to be seen. Kevin wanted badly to creep into bed and had to suppress the familiar flare of upset at this fresh injustice.

He wished he had someone he could call, a buddy, a friend, anyone who’d listen and tell him it was OK, just to keep at it, all this was bullshit anyway and it didn’t really matter. He wished someone out there thought that he mattered—not his records or his hairstyle or the new mansion he was bought to live in like a fucking Ken Doll—just him, the real Kevin, the regular kid. But Kevin saw now that he would never be a regular kid, and he’d never have regular friends. What even was a regular friend? He’d watched movies about them, read about them as if they were exotic, elusive creatures prowling a distant landscape, but he’d never had one of his own. Kevin had the starring role in the movie of his life, and everyone was an actor.

In the beginning, it had been fun. Signing the contract in Sketch’s old office on Santa Monica, then in the weeks that followed, a storm of crazy parties, premieres and photo shoots—but nobody had told him then what was being sacrificed. No one had said, OK, Kevin, it’s this or it’s this: which life do you want?

He didn’t want this one.

‘They’re loving you on Twitter,’ reassured Sketch as Kevin changed out of his clothes. Sketch omitted to mention the burst of hostility that had accompanied the star’s fifth late arrival this season, trending worldwide as #KevinsLosingIt. Not ideal.

Outside, bodyguard Rusty was waiting with a yapping, wet-nosed Trey, cradling him because Kevin didn’t like Trey to have to sit on the ground. The dachshund was clad in a blazer, baseball cap and sneakers to match his owner’s—they’d had a whole wardrobe tailored bespoke. Snatching the pooch, Kevin was swallowed up by the car’s interior. He felt like a vampire, if not confined to the night then confined to the inside, skulking around behind closed blinds, hiding beyond a tinted window or crawling about in the endless dark. He held Trey’s fur to his mouth and quietly kissed his neck. You’re the only one who understands.

Kevin demanded to drive the Audi R8 and Sketch hadn’t the strength to refuse—after all, the kid had his licence, even if he did kangaroo-hop the vehicle into gear, the exhaust exploding behind them.

‘You take your vitamins today?’ asked Sketch as they whizzed through the city. He caught Rusty’s eye in the rearview mirror.

‘For fuck’s sake, course I did,’ Kevin lashed. ‘Don’t you trust me?’

They approached a red light and the brakes shrieked.

‘Sure I do, kiddo.’

‘I want a lion,’ said Kevin, out of nowhere.

‘What?’

‘Like that one we saw at the zoo. Get me one.’

Sketch chuckled. ‘It ain’t that easy, pal …’

‘I’m Kevin Chase, course it’s that fucking easy.’

‘Why a lion?’

‘Why not? They’re cool, aren’t they?’

‘They’re dangerous.’

‘Yeah, but they’re cool.’

‘You won’t be able to go anywhere near it.’

Kevin swigged from a can of energy drink. ‘Sure I will, if it’s tame.’

Sketch bit his tongue. What on earth was his client talking about?

‘Rusty,’ Kevin nodded into the back, ‘what do you think?’

‘Whatever you want, boss.’

The Audi took a corner at speed. ‘It’s king of the jungle, y’know?’ said Kevin. ‘Manly. Like, the ultimate manly animal. And hairy. Really hairy.’

‘You want a hairy animal I’ll get you a guinea pig.’

‘Now you’re taking the fucking piss.’

‘I’m trying to be practical.’

‘Well, don’t. There’s no point doing what I do unless I get what I want, got it? You’re supposed to be my manager—so manage stuff, dickwad.’

Sketch gritted his teeth. There was no point arguing. It was Joan’s fault. Anything Kevin wanted, Kevin got. Anything Kevin demanded was produced. Any word Kevin spoke was law. By the time Sketch had discovered him, at the tender age of twelve, Kevin had already been nurturing an impressive Napoleon Complex.

You haven’t helped. You’ve made him into the monster he is.

It was a relief when Kevin brought the car to a screeching halt outside the Guild Theatre. The entrance was a quarry of press. Stars drifted down the carpet, stopping to chat to camera, smiling and posing as they went. Hollywood king Noah Lawson, a coup for the event, was signing merch amid an adoring mass of women.

A band of Little Chasers had been tipped off about Kevin’s arrival and, as the teen heartthrob emerged, their squeals reached blistering crescendo.