Public Secrets Part 38

On tour, Emma had begun to see them as a unit, like a body with four

heads. The picture that made in her mind made her laugh to herself, but

it seemed a true one. Today, they argued, and swore, joked or just sat

silently during playbacks. She didn't know the meaning of the technical

terms being tossed back and forth-didn't need to. She amused herself

when they huddled together, or was amused by them when they took a

moment to tease her. She ate gobs of greasy chips and bloated her belly

with c.o.kes.

During a break she sat on P.M."s lap and bashed away at the drums. She

said her name into one of the mikes and heard her voice echo through the

room. With a spare drumstick in her hand, she dozed in the swivel

chair, her head pillowed on the faithful Charlie. And she awoke to her

father's voice, soaring in a ballad of tragic love.

Spellbound she watched, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and yawning into

Charlie's fur. Her heart was too young to be touched by the lyrics. But

the sound reached her. She would never hear the song again without

remembering the moment when she'd awakened to hear his voice filling her

head. Filling the world.

When he had finished, she forgot that she was supposed to be quiet.

Bouncing on the chair, she clapped her hands together. "Dad!"

In the engineering booth, Pete swore, but Brian held up a hand. "Leave

that on." With a laugh, he turned to Emma. "Leave it on," he repeated

as he held out his arms to her. When she reached them, he tossed her

into the air. "What do you think, Emma? I've just made you a star."

IF BRmN's FAITH in man had been shaken in 1968 with the a.s.sa.s.sination of

Martin Luther King, then Robert Kennedy, it was expanded during the

summer of 1969 with Woodstock. It was a celebration for him of youth

and music, of love and brotherhood. It symbolized the chance to turn

around the year of bloodshed and war, of riots and discontent. He knew,

as he stood on stage and looked out at the sea of bodies, that he would

never do anything so huge or so memorable again.

Even as it thrilled him to be there, to leave his mark, it left him by

turns depressed and terrified that the decade, and its spirit, were

ending.

He rushed through his three days in upstate New York at a fever pitch of

emotional and creative energy, fueled by the atmosphere, heightened by

the drugs that were as handy as popcorn at a Sat.u.r.day matinee, and

pushed by his own fears about where success had taken him. He spent an

entire night alone in the trailer the band used, composing for a

marathon fourteen-hour stint while cocaine stormed through his system.

On one illuminating afternoon he sat in the woods with Stevie, listening

to the music and the cheers of four hundred thousand. With the help of

LSD he saw whole universes created in a maple leaf.

Brian embraced Woodstock, the concept of it, the reality of it. His

only regret was that nothing he had said had persuaded Bev to come with

them. She was, once again, waiting for him. This time she waited in

the house they had bought in the Hollywood hills. Brian's love affair

with America was just beginning, and his second American tour felt like

a homecoming. It was the year of the rock festival, a phenomenon Brian

saw as demonstrating the strength of rock culture.