Reg Lahey and his band immigrated to the United States in 1999, after having already found huge fame in Ireland and abroad. They settled in an opulent Boston neighborhood. Later that year, his guitar player and best friend died in a car accent. The band was never the same. But after that the music and lyrics Reg wrote got better than they had ever been and he felt as though his friend was speaking through him.
The popularity of the band grew and the awards began to roll in. But behind the scenes, the band was fighting constantly, most of this due to Reg's distant attitude. He would open up on stage and work crowds to a screaming frenzy, but the minute he was out of the spotlight, a palpable depression settled over him. He and his friend had been side by side since grade school, and Reg simply didn't know what to do without him. In 2003, the band separated for a year to compose themselves, and hopefully, give Reg time to learn to cope.
In October of that year he went to visit his hairdresser (as it was time to begin a new stripe), and found the old receptionist gone. A round young woman with dark blue eyes, very straight black hair and very pale skin smiled at him over her computer screen.
"Well lookie here," she said. "It's bumblebee with a cowboy hat!"
"Lisa!" Ramon the hairdresser called from the other room. "That's Reg Lahey! Please don't call him names."
Lisa cocked her head and looked him up and down. "It's what you look like," she said quietly.
Reg laughed, then covered his mouth quickly, looking around. Ramon threw open the door and stared. It was the first time Reg had laughed for real in nearly four years. With a smile, he grabbed a black marker from her desk and drew a panda on the back of her hands while she and Ramon stood there shocked. "Striped animals can be exciting," he told her replacing the marker's cap with and click and nod of triumph.
"I may be a panda, but at least I don't run around collecting pollen on my legs like some kind of freak!" She called as Ramon led Reg back to the chair.
"You wouldn't know anything about it!" He yelled from around the corner. "It's not like you're an industrious contributor to the eco-system!"
The next day Lisa's desk was decorated with a huge vase of black and white flowers with a little stuffed panda nestled in the bloom of a huge white lily and a bee made of puff balls buzzing around a black rose.
The band immediately noticed a change in Reg, though they did get a little irritated at hearing the same stories about a woman he had only met once. Oh well, at least he was happy annoying, a far sight better than sulky annoying.
Lisa and Reg's courtship was short and very public. Overnight, they were on the cover of magazines and appearing on talk shows. They were married within three months of meeting in a very public wedding attended by at least a thousand spectators.
Unfortunately, when Lisa was attacked and raped in 2006, the tabloids knew about it as fast as the police, and photographers were there just after the ambulance arrived. Pictures of an unconscious, naked, and beaten Lisa Lahey were on the newsstands before Reg could cancel his tour in Europe and fly home. Reg's angry outburst toward the media and the death threats to his wife's attacker were also very public. Oddly enough his public approval rates dropped as a result.
Meanwhile, a charge nurse was paid good money to leak information of Lisa's resulting pregnancy to the press. The public in general waited to see what the Lahey's would do about it. Both were known to have certain religious beliefs that discouraged the termination of a pregnancy. They knew how awful it would be for the two of them, and the child if they gave it up for adoption. But to Lisa, the thought of a child begotten in an act of control and violence growing inside her made her ill and it began to take it's toll.
After two very long weeks, Lisa, with Reg by her side, checked into a private hospital and had the pregnancy terminated. The technician who leaked the information about their time there and the procedure was fired. As the Lahey's left the hospital, they were swarmed by protesters. Reg kept a protective arm around Lisa to shield her from the faces and thrown objects, but he couldn't shield her from their words.
Merchandise relating to Reg's band as well as their CD's were burned in the streets and the rest of the tour was cancelled because of church protest. While the loss of income was a worry to the band, it didn't compare to the worry they all felt for Lisa.
The very sensitive Lisa had taken the protester's words to heart. The band's suffering for her decision didn't help anyone either. After a month she stopped speaking. In two month's time she stopped eating. The final straw came when Reg returned from Ramon's salon and found her unconscious on their bed having swallowed a bottle of pills.
The photos of Reg checking Lisa into an exclusive hospital in Portland were heartbreaking. He then returned to Boston to appear on a talk show in hopes of calling off the media and the religious people who had cost him so much.
The usual mob of protesters greeted him at the studio. But this time, something went wrong. One was heard shouting out "Lisa's getting what she deserves! God will have wrath upon murderers! Especially those who kill babies! I pray she repents and finds Jesus before she burns in hell!"
Reg stopped in his tracks. Never in his life did he imagine someone would delight in the pain and suffering of the woman he loved so much. And he couldn't fathom gloating over that misfortune and shouting it out publicly at a heart-sick husband. And on top of that? To condemn a woman who had been through so much pain to hell? His mind could no longer tolerate the strain, and Reg snapped. By the time security got a handle on things, Reg had been shot in the right shoulder and left leg. In a raging fit he would not remember for several weeks, he had killed eighteen protesters, going so far as to stab some with their own picket signs, and break the necks of others with his bare hands.
The episode had been recorded by security cameras and not even the best lawyer his money could buy could help him escape eighteen charges of second degree murder. As he was found to be not quite sane at the time and had his very lengthy sentence transferred to the Serenity Glen Maximum Security Mental Hospital.
Money still affords Reg certain luxuries in lock up. He is in a special wing for high profile cases along with the Suicide Comedian Drew Montgomery and recently Scott Bowling, the man who murdered a who hippy commune (except for the children) with an axe. Ramon visits to do his hair, and he is permitted to send e-mails to Lisa since he failed in his petition to get transferred to her less secure facility. He is glad to know she is doing much better, but upset that he will not see her as a free man for the next 140 years.
Though he has gained something of a cult status among militant pro-choice advocates (a fact he doesn't particularly care for), his career is also over.
He sleeps with his arms wrapped around a giant stuffed panda every night.
