Goodnight, Saigon
By Missy

SERIES: Goodnight, Saigon
PART: One of One
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING(s): Duh!
DISTRIBUTION: To LW, Kai, Myself and FG so far; any other archives are welcome to ask, but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine. Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google"

Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their address and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my work!
CATEGORY: L/L
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SETTING IN TIMELINE: Milwaukee Cannon
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: When the Squiggtones become abruptly fameous, Lenny's less thrilled with being famous than he imagined.
NOTES: For my beta, Catherine, who suggested this idea to me.

****

He clicked his suitcase closed and looked around this room. The billionth hotel room he'd seen, on the billionth night he'd been on tour. This one was different, however; it looked as though it had been caked in dried blood.

Lord, he was sick of it.

He and Squiggy had put out their record on a lark; recorded it for cheap in a little home recorder. For awhile, they had believed that it would take them somewhere; until every producer in Milwaukee laughed in their faces.

Somehow, that demo had gotten overseas...and become a gigantic hit in China. Shooting them to number one. Making them stars.

Squiggy had always wanted it, and he gloried in it.

Lenny found himself wanting it less and less.

The best part of it all was being onstage; seeing a thousand faces who couldn't speak "hello" in English singing whole songs he had written in clearly enunciated Brooklyneese. Girls were trying to pull off Squiggy's hairworm and selling pieces of his jeans for a hundred yen.

Well, he had always imagined miles of dames at their knees, golden cars, a snazzy tiger-striped robe. Well, his consultants said 'no' to the robe, and the car (it was requisite for them to keep a humble image), and though any woman in Japan would flip up her kimono for him, he only dreamed about one girl at night.

Fate hated him. He knew that for sure. For Laverne had gotten so close to him over the months before the album came out; they had begun dating, and she had even told him that she cared about him before he left the country.

He kicked at the corner of an ornate drapery grumpily. A thousand screaming girls really didn't make up for what he really needed.

His grabbed his guitar, plucking at his d chord. It made a low, mellow sound, so lonesome that it inspired tears.

He sighed; the best suite in Japan, overlooking an artificial body of water. A big sky filled with stars that were his for the viewing.

His phone rang suddenly, and he leapt across the room.

"H'lo?"

"Len?"

"Vernie! Whattya doin', callin' me up? It's gonna cost ya a..."

"I ---Versed ---charges..."

"Vernie?! I can barely hear ya..."

"Len? ----Lous---conn..."

"Vernie, if ya can still hear me, I love ya...I'll see ya at the airport after we play Bangkok." He stifled a giggle at the name.

"Len! I love you!" The words came across the line as clear as a bell, as though by miracle. Then an operator interrupted them, saying something in Japanese that neither could understand. It was the first time she had spoken those words, and he didn't even get to look in her eyes...

"Love you too!" The operator then said something indignant and disconnected the line.

Lenny allowed the phone to hit its cradle. Lying back on the plushly-embroidered bed, his eyes turned to the frolicking dragons. He was so far out of his element that he felt like another person; Elvis, John, or Jerry Lee. Someone grander and bolder than he could ever be.

But men as lonely as he had been.

Moonlight caressed his face as his old Lone Wolf Jacket hit the floor. He buried under a quilt with dirty hair and socks. He swore to himself that when this was over he would fall down on his knees (again) and ask Laverne to marry him. Take HIM away from all of this nonsense and make things the way they used to be, only she'd never have to worry for anything.

To calm himself, he did what his mother had instructed him to do so many years ago.

Goodnight hair...goodnight eyes...goodnight nose...goodnight cheeks...goodnight teeth...goodnight tongue...

Goodnight, Saigon... He added at last, too tired to continue.

Somewhere else, it was ten in the morning. With all the world's stars dancing before his eyes, Lenny Kosnowski longed to see the sun more than anything.


Fin

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