Painted Black
Page 31
“No time … for that now. We’re going to have to … do it right here. I can feel it coming.”
For the second time in two days, an ambulance was dispatched to Cotchford Farm. Only this time it was for the opposite reason. Life, not death, was in the air tonight. Cricket called while Clovis made Erlene comfortable.
“Boil some water,” Bobby told Clovis.
“They always say that in the movies when there’s a baby coming; boil some water. Why?”
Bobby laughed. “To make tea, of course.”
The ambulance arrived in ten minutes, and the emergency medical workers delivered the baby shortly thereafter. Clovis and Erlene were the parents of a healthy young baby boy.
Erlene held the baby in her arms and smiled.
“What should we name him?”
“How about Brian?”
“How about not Brian?”
“As in Not-Brian-Jones Hicks?”
Erlene shook her head.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it. This baby’s gonna have a great Hicks name like his daddy. Clovis Junior.”
Clovis wanted to hold the baby. He scooped him up out of Erlene’s arms every chance he got. Each time, she insisted he give him back after a few minutes. This continued until feeding time. When it was over and Clovis Junior was dozing contentedly, Erlene said, “Would you bring me the mirror-gazing pictures, hon? I want to see something.”
Clovis quickly retrieved them and handed them to Erlene.
Erlene studied them carefully.
She rubbed her fingertips and touched the photo of Brian again. She closed her eyes.
“Now I understand. He wasn’t flying. He was floating. This is from the bottom of the pool looking up. See? We all thought he was flying, but he wasn’t. He was floating facedown in the pool. It was the dead man’s float.”
Erlene opened her eyes again.
“That’s what the spirits in the looking glass were trying to tell us. They were trying to warn Brian.”
Dust Bin Bob said, “You can’t save a man from himself.”
Erlene held her new baby. She spoke softly. “I think Brian knew his fate all along. I think he knew, deep in his heart, that it was inevitable. His destiny was to be the first great tragedy of the modern rock and roll era. He was destined to be a martyr. It was useless to fight it.”
Clovis said, “He was right about one thing.”
“What was that?”
“Just before he died, he told me that he wanted to spend the rest of his life here at Cotchford Farm. He wanted to die here. And he did.”
Epilogue
Brian Jones was laid to rest in his childhood home of Cheltenham. It was the biggest funeral the town had ever seen. The only Rolling Stones in attendance were Bill and Charlie.
The Stones went ahead with their plans for a huge free concert in Hyde Park a few days after Brian’s death, except now it was a memorial concert for their fallen guitarist. Twenty-year-old guitar phenomenon Mick Taylor from John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers replaced Brian in the Stones. Brian had planned on attending the Hyde Park gig with Anna before he died to show there were no hard feelings between him and the band. He wanted to wish them luck.
The next day, Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull left for Australia to film the movie Ned Kelly. During that trip, Marianne would suffer a nervous breakdown and attempt suicide.
Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg had two children together but never married. They stayed together until 1980.
In a deathbed confession, Frank Thorogood supposedly admitted killing Brian Jones. The mystery continues to this day. I suspect we will never know what really happened at Cotchford Farm.
Ironically, Dust Bin Bob noticed the date of Brian’s demise was exactly three years and a day from the date he had saved the Beatles from an assassination attempt by his brother, Clive, in Manila. This time, he wasn’t there to save the day. Brian’s fate had been sealed.
During the next year, rock and roll would lose Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison.
And, of course, we all know what happened to the Stones. When Brian predicted they would go on for another fifty years without him, he was prophetic. The greatest rock and roll band in the world keeps rolling on. Ronnie Wood eventually replaced Mick Taylor and the band got even bigger. They survived the loss of Brian Jones just like they survived everything else.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Judy Coppage and Michael Rose at the Coppage Company. Special thanks to my longtime manager, Joel Turtle. Thanks to Skyler Turtle for everything he does to keep my career moving forward. Thanks to Pete Heyrman, editor at Bear Press. Of course, once again, thanks to my wonderful wife, Jay, who puts up with me and whose kisses are still as sweet as honey. Thanks to Joel Harris. I also want to thank the Greg Kihn Band, and all the musicians I’ve had the pleasure of playing with over the years.
And thanks to you, my extraordinary fans.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Greg Kihn
978-1-4976-6309-1
Published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10014
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