Creative Writing: The Format's Life
When everyone’s asleep that night, Nate camps on the rug in the bathroom, six pills of his father’s pain medication and two thirds a bottle of vodka in his stomach. The vodka tastes like battery acid and leaves a burn in his throat and the pills make him nauseous and give him the sensation of being stabbed in the abdomen and this is the first time Nate truly feels like he wants to die. Like he needs to die, to escape this, to escape everything.
His mother finds him the next morning curled around the toilet, throwing up bile and blood since there’s nothing in his stomach and he remembers sirens and his father’s terrified voice and tubes and charcoal and eventual silence.
He doesn’t answer the doctors questions of what happened, they know, everybody knows, and when he gets home, all the alcohol is gone and his dad’s pills are hidden away. …show more content…
At twenty-one, Nate has a band, a real one, with a name and a single that gets a lot of radio airplay around Phoenix, which leads to an eventual record deal.
An actual, legitimate record deal, to make a real album. Nate expected that to bring him joy – it didn’t, or at least not a lot of it.
In 2003, Nate spends most of his time in a recording studio as he and Sam set out to release The Format’s first full length record. Nate expects this to bring him joy – it doesn’t, or at least not a lot of it.
This is what he wanted, ever since he hit that first terrible note, but it just doesn’t do anything.
Whenever Nate isn’t in the studio, he’s sprawled out on the couch in his pathetic, joyless apartment with a bottle of cheap red wine, staring daggers at the television, watching but never absorbing what he’s watching. Chances are, he’d already seen that episode of Friends.
Nate feels sorry for himself, but then again that’s not much of a development. He sees these people on the screen, this close knit group of friends and even though they’re fictional, he feels sorry for himself because he has
nobody.
Oh, sure, he has Sam, Sam’s probably his best friend, but even Sam is getting tired of him. Those disappointed looks Sam gives him, he sees it when Nate doesn’t get out of bed and he can see it when he stumbles and forgets the words to his own songs while he’s singing.
And Nate tries, he tries hard, but the battle is uphill and sometimes that hill just isn’t worth climbing and he wishes he can explain it to Sam, but he can’t find the words. Every time he tries to, it sounds like excuses and only makes the situation a hundred times worse.
So he sits on the couch in his pajamas at three in the afternoon, the once full, now empty wine bottle held between his knees and he watches six friends laugh and talk and interact and feels sorry for himself.
Sam finds him in that exact position almost three hours later and though he look like he wants to yell, or at least tell him off, he doesn’t.
He helps Nate off the couch takes him to bed and tucks him in like a child, and it’s humiliating, oh fuck does Nate feel humiliated, because he’s an adult and doesn’t need to the babying. Doesn’t want it. Sam gives it anyway because that’s how Sam sees him; an infant that needs somebody else to take care of him.
Nate lies in bed for twenty minutes and hates himself and he hates Sam and he hates the mattress and the bed sheets and Nate hates the entire fucking universe.
He sneaks out of the apartment when Sam’s in the kitchen and gets in his car and drives. Not to anywhere in particular, maybe straight into a tree, he’s lightheaded and dizzy and he wants to die.
He drives and the road ahead of him is clear and his foot gets heavier on the gas pedal and he thinks; about himself, about Sam, about this record deal and the upcoming album and he’s going to die alone in the desert and that’s pathetic but that’s the story of Nate’s life.
As he thinks, the speedometer of his ancient Chevy creeps to eighty and it shakes, it isn’t meant to go this fast, it’s from the early-seventies.
As he thinks, a car appears in front of him and that takes him by surprise.
His foot feels like lead on the brake and he yanks the wheel to the left and what else happens, his car spins to the sound of squealing rubber and flips twice before landing upside down, crushing metal and breaking glass echoing in his ears.
The belt is constricting him to his seat, he can taste blood in his mouth and his shirt is sticky and damp, he can’ feel his right leg below the knee and thinks it might be better he can’t, but for the first time, Nate is really, honestly grateful to be alive. This isn’t the way he wants to go out, he wants it to be on his terms. Not some little car flip.
Nate’s pulled out of the car what feels like seven hours later by a uniformed fireman and he’s greeted by the sounds of sirens and by bright flashing lights; fire trucks, ambulances police vehicles surrounding his demolished Chevy and it’s too much for his mind to handle and it doesn’t.
Nate thinks he passed out, because he wakes up in a hospital room and Sam’s sitting next to his bed, his eyes red-rimmed like he’s been crying and if nothing else in his life is alright, Nate’s glad he at least has Sam.
Once he hits twenty-six, Nate doesn’t care anymore. Can’t find it in him to care. Apathy replaces the anger and makes it easier to accept that he’s depressed and that it doesn’t matter to anyone.
He’s lost his band and his best friend, he’s left his parent’s nice home in Arizona for a broom closet apartment occupied by four people and, sure, he’s putting together a new band, but he doesn’t care, that doesn’t make him happy. Nothing makes him happy.
The first day the three of them collaborate on this band idea, Nate doesn’t bother with pleasantries and he throws his notebook full of lyrics at the other two and sits sourly in the corner of their disgusting studio with a cigarette and waits for the day to end.
He’s met them before, toured with him, they know his name and he doesn’t care what they do with his words, so long as they make the music behind him.
He’s not listening when Jack tells him that none of the songs are finished. He’s not listening when Andrew asks what they all plan on doing with this band, they left their previous to create it and Andrew wants it to go somewhere.
He’s not listening, he’s not listening, until a drumstick hits him in the face.
Jack tells him to cheer up, the world isn’t over just because The Format broke up and Nate wishes that was the biggest of his problems.
Half his face is tingling and he laughs off the desire to punch Jack Antonoff right between the fucking eyes.
The three of them move into Jack’s sister’s apartment, and of course nobody tells her, why they would do that, she’d change the locks if she knew they were going to crash the place.
When Rachel comes home to find the three of them on her couch, eating her cereal, she promptly flips out because they broke in and because Rachel hates Nate, but that’s alright because Nate hates Rachel on principal and he doesn’t care.
Nate stares at the television while Rachel yells about how much she doesn’t want Nate glooming up her apartment, how he’s a little raincloud and she doesn’t need his negativity her life, blah, blah, something about zen.
She yells over Jack trying to calm her down and next to Nate, Andrew’s wringing his hands together in a nervous gesture and Nate’s glad he doesn’t care.
When he takes his bowl into the kitchen, Rachel turns her anger to him, telling him that if he steps out of line even once, she’d kick him out so fast his head would spin and Nate doesn’t much like the threat. He rinses his bowl and then looks at Rachel and with all the calmness he has inside him, tells Rachel to fuck off. And now she’s furious, all five foot three of her tis trying to throw herself at Nate and her brother is holding her by the waist and that sets the tone for their entire relationship.
Twenty-six-year-old Nate Ruess hate twenty-seven-year-old Rachel Antonoff and it’s stupid and immature, but that’s okay seeing how Nate is those things. Twenty-six-year-old Nate Ruess is also madly in love with twenty-seven-year-old Rachel Antonoff and it’s wrong and self-destructive, but that’s okay seeing how Nate is those things as well.
And he has no idea why he feels that way. Rachel had shown nothing but contempt for everything he was and felt, because he couldn’t get himself out of bed most days, because he seemed lazy and worthless and undisciplined. But Nate didn’t love her but her potential, something she was that he could never be. He loved her as something to admire and strive to be.
His mother finds him the next morning curled around the toilet, throwing up bile and blood since there’s nothing in his stomach and he remembers sirens and his father’s terrified voice and tubes and charcoal and eventual silence.
He doesn’t answer the doctors questions of what happened, they know, everybody knows, and when he gets home, all the alcohol is gone and his dad’s pills are hidden away. …show more content…
At twenty-one, Nate has a band, a real one, with a name and a single that gets a lot of radio airplay around Phoenix, which leads to an eventual record deal.
An actual, legitimate record deal, to make a real album. Nate expected that to bring him joy – it didn’t, or at least not a lot of it.
In 2003, Nate spends most of his time in a recording studio as he and Sam set out to release The Format’s first full length record. Nate expects this to bring him joy – it doesn’t, or at least not a lot of it.
This is what he wanted, ever since he hit that first terrible note, but it just doesn’t do anything.
Whenever Nate isn’t in the studio, he’s sprawled out on the couch in his pathetic, joyless apartment with a bottle of cheap red wine, staring daggers at the television, watching but never absorbing what he’s watching. Chances are, he’d already seen that episode of Friends.
Nate feels sorry for himself, but then again that’s not much of a development. He sees these people on the screen, this close knit group of friends and even though they’re fictional, he feels sorry for himself because he has
nobody.
Oh, sure, he has Sam, Sam’s probably his best friend, but even Sam is getting tired of him. Those disappointed looks Sam gives him, he sees it when Nate doesn’t get out of bed and he can see it when he stumbles and forgets the words to his own songs while he’s singing.
And Nate tries, he tries hard, but the battle is uphill and sometimes that hill just isn’t worth climbing and he wishes he can explain it to Sam, but he can’t find the words. Every time he tries to, it sounds like excuses and only makes the situation a hundred times worse.
So he sits on the couch in his pajamas at three in the afternoon, the once full, now empty wine bottle held between his knees and he watches six friends laugh and talk and interact and feels sorry for himself.
Sam finds him in that exact position almost three hours later and though he look like he wants to yell, or at least tell him off, he doesn’t.
He helps Nate off the couch takes him to bed and tucks him in like a child, and it’s humiliating, oh fuck does Nate feel humiliated, because he’s an adult and doesn’t need to the babying. Doesn’t want it. Sam gives it anyway because that’s how Sam sees him; an infant that needs somebody else to take care of him.
Nate lies in bed for twenty minutes and hates himself and he hates Sam and he hates the mattress and the bed sheets and Nate hates the entire fucking universe.
He sneaks out of the apartment when Sam’s in the kitchen and gets in his car and drives. Not to anywhere in particular, maybe straight into a tree, he’s lightheaded and dizzy and he wants to die.
He drives and the road ahead of him is clear and his foot gets heavier on the gas pedal and he thinks; about himself, about Sam, about this record deal and the upcoming album and he’s going to die alone in the desert and that’s pathetic but that’s the story of Nate’s life.
As he thinks, the speedometer of his ancient Chevy creeps to eighty and it shakes, it isn’t meant to go this fast, it’s from the early-seventies.
As he thinks, a car appears in front of him and that takes him by surprise.
His foot feels like lead on the brake and he yanks the wheel to the left and what else happens, his car spins to the sound of squealing rubber and flips twice before landing upside down, crushing metal and breaking glass echoing in his ears.
The belt is constricting him to his seat, he can taste blood in his mouth and his shirt is sticky and damp, he can’ feel his right leg below the knee and thinks it might be better he can’t, but for the first time, Nate is really, honestly grateful to be alive. This isn’t the way he wants to go out, he wants it to be on his terms. Not some little car flip.
Nate’s pulled out of the car what feels like seven hours later by a uniformed fireman and he’s greeted by the sounds of sirens and by bright flashing lights; fire trucks, ambulances police vehicles surrounding his demolished Chevy and it’s too much for his mind to handle and it doesn’t.
Nate thinks he passed out, because he wakes up in a hospital room and Sam’s sitting next to his bed, his eyes red-rimmed like he’s been crying and if nothing else in his life is alright, Nate’s glad he at least has Sam.
Once he hits twenty-six, Nate doesn’t care anymore. Can’t find it in him to care. Apathy replaces the anger and makes it easier to accept that he’s depressed and that it doesn’t matter to anyone.
He’s lost his band and his best friend, he’s left his parent’s nice home in Arizona for a broom closet apartment occupied by four people and, sure, he’s putting together a new band, but he doesn’t care, that doesn’t make him happy. Nothing makes him happy.
The first day the three of them collaborate on this band idea, Nate doesn’t bother with pleasantries and he throws his notebook full of lyrics at the other two and sits sourly in the corner of their disgusting studio with a cigarette and waits for the day to end.
He’s met them before, toured with him, they know his name and he doesn’t care what they do with his words, so long as they make the music behind him.
He’s not listening when Jack tells him that none of the songs are finished. He’s not listening when Andrew asks what they all plan on doing with this band, they left their previous to create it and Andrew wants it to go somewhere.
He’s not listening, he’s not listening, until a drumstick hits him in the face.
Jack tells him to cheer up, the world isn’t over just because The Format broke up and Nate wishes that was the biggest of his problems.
Half his face is tingling and he laughs off the desire to punch Jack Antonoff right between the fucking eyes.
The three of them move into Jack’s sister’s apartment, and of course nobody tells her, why they would do that, she’d change the locks if she knew they were going to crash the place.
When Rachel comes home to find the three of them on her couch, eating her cereal, she promptly flips out because they broke in and because Rachel hates Nate, but that’s alright because Nate hates Rachel on principal and he doesn’t care.
Nate stares at the television while Rachel yells about how much she doesn’t want Nate glooming up her apartment, how he’s a little raincloud and she doesn’t need his negativity her life, blah, blah, something about zen.
She yells over Jack trying to calm her down and next to Nate, Andrew’s wringing his hands together in a nervous gesture and Nate’s glad he doesn’t care.
When he takes his bowl into the kitchen, Rachel turns her anger to him, telling him that if he steps out of line even once, she’d kick him out so fast his head would spin and Nate doesn’t much like the threat. He rinses his bowl and then looks at Rachel and with all the calmness he has inside him, tells Rachel to fuck off. And now she’s furious, all five foot three of her tis trying to throw herself at Nate and her brother is holding her by the waist and that sets the tone for their entire relationship.
Twenty-six-year-old Nate Ruess hate twenty-seven-year-old Rachel Antonoff and it’s stupid and immature, but that’s okay seeing how Nate is those things. Twenty-six-year-old Nate Ruess is also madly in love with twenty-seven-year-old Rachel Antonoff and it’s wrong and self-destructive, but that’s okay seeing how Nate is those things as well.
And he has no idea why he feels that way. Rachel had shown nothing but contempt for everything he was and felt, because he couldn’t get himself out of bed most days, because he seemed lazy and worthless and undisciplined. But Nate didn’t love her but her potential, something she was that he could never be. He loved her as something to admire and strive to be.