She could feel every bone, vein, and muscle. And they felt like they were crackling with electric fire. Her chest was tight, the ribs casing off her lungs as she breathed raggedly.
“…ohm…” she mumbled, twisting her head sideways before settling for flopping it backwards.
Montana moaned and clasped her hands to her head. “I can’t believe this happened” she admonished
Bob rolled his eyes. He wasn’t really the carrying sick girls type. Generally he didn’t hang about with the type of girls who got so wasted that they choked on their own vomit.
He was of course willing to make exceptions. At nearly five thirty that morning in the small hotel room Jerry Garcia was living out of the sun had come up. Half the occupants of the room were passed out in a hash induced haze while the other half passed around a bottle of Jack Daniels.
Bob Dylan found he had a very odd fondness for this Gabrielle girl. He couldn’t explain it even though he knew he wasn’t in love with her. He wanted to write a song about her though. And that’s what he did that morning. In the notebook he always carried around. He wrote it while watching her do a very odd thing.
Pop perecote as if it were candy and allow Trixie to shoot her up with Meth. All the while chain smoking anything she could get her hands on. It seemed nothing was out of the question so long as she could place it to her lips, inhale, and then blow out a plume of smoke rhythmically.
Her eyes were sallow, sunken back into her head like a skeletal being. A month of living on meth and canned soup would do that. She was addicted as hell, just like the rest of them but didn’t seem to take notice. As if it were normal to mix Campbell’s tomato soup with a pinch of that white powder.
She had huge black sunglasses on, shielding the miserable look on her pretty face. She took a huge swig from the Whisky bottle and then hesitated, not wincing but sniffling and taking another.
Who knew it only took a month for you to sink so low.
That wasn’t bothering Bob though. He was concentrating on the way she suddenly gagged and turned her head to the side in anticipation of getting sick.
“Fucking hell, get in the bathroom”” Jerry muttered, stretching his legs out.
Gabby’s sunglasses clattered to the floor as she pressed a hand to her eyes. Bob frowned and wanted to help her to the bathroom but thought against it. She continued gagging and settled for pumping her fingers down her throat to make it come quicker.
Then Trixie was shrieking and Gabrielle was on her side not moving and Jerry was swearing and Bob was staring. Then someone called an ambulance and Trixie was too freaked out to do anything but scream and Jerry got the hell out of there.
Bobby stepped out of the elevator, hoping the ambulance would be there. He didn’t get panicked very often. He got panicked when people he cared about stopped breathing but that was more or less it.
Gabby rolled her head around as if awake but he realized it was because she’d gone completely lax in his arms and was just moving with him. He sighed heavily and made a mental note to a) make sure they were back to New York by March and b) let people know the song he wrote was genius but not about her.
The ambulance pulled up.
* * * * ** * *
George rolled out of bed at feeling the early Liverpudlian sun lick at his face. He snorted in distain, and crawled on his hands and knees across the hard wood floor to his dresser.
Louise poked her head in. “George, luv” she laughed “What’re you doin’?”
“Euh” he answered
“Oh all right, would you like coffee or tea with yer breakfast… you had a late night, darling”
“Coffee please mum” he sighed pulling himself into a cross legged position and reaching up behind to get his watch of the dresser Oh, he thought, feeling pleased with himself I got a shag last night, yes I did.
Louise giggled at her son. Such a funny looking child and began to back out of the room when something caught her eye.
“George” she said, looking puzzled. She stepped back into the room and put her hands on her hips. “George, where’s that picture of Gabby gone?”
“What picture?” he asked inconspicuously stand up and pulling on his jeans.
Louise clicked over to him and looked at the dresser. There was the first official Beatle photo session by that German girl who Stuart had taken a fancy too, Astrid. A few notebooks strewn about with doodles and half attempts at song writing and a few records.
There *had* been a picture in a make shift picture frame with a screwy back. It was of George and Gabby hamming it up on Christmas for Louise’s camera. Gabby sucking her cheeks in, fluttering her hands about George’s face with the new pair of gloves and sweater on over her nightdress while George slung an arm around her shoulders and attempted to climb on top of her while laughing madly.
It was cute for thirteen years olds. And even cuter when seconds later Gabrielle held up George in her arms before toppling onto the couch.
“George where is it?” Louise asked
George muttered something under his breath and headed for the door with a light blue tee shirt clutched in his hand.
He trotted down the stairs aware of his mother cleaning up his room and muttering to herself. Peter came out of his room and spotted his shirtless brother. “Christ, George, put it away” he yawned, scratching his side.
“Fuck off” George muttered and threw the door open, yanking his shirt on as he went.
“Moody Bastard” Peter muttered.
