Public Secrets Part 39

He wanted, needed, to recapture that towering high of excitement when

success had been new, when the band, the unit of them, had been like one

electric force smashing through the world of music and public

recognition. Over the past year, he had sensed that electricity, that

unity, slipping away like the sixties themselves. He'd felt it forge

again at Woodstock.

When they boarded the plane, leaving the faithful at Woodstock behind,

Brian fell into an exhausted sleep. Beside him, Stevie carelessly

popped a couple of barbiturates and zoned out. Johnno settled back to

play poker with some of the road crew. Only P.M. sat restlessly by the

window.

He wanted to remember everything. It annoyed him that unlike Brian, he

saw beneath the symbolism and statement of the festival to the miserable

conditions. The mud, the garbage, the lack of proper sanitary

facilities. The music, good Christ, the music had been wonderful,

almost unbearably so, but often, too often, he'd felt the audience had

been too blissed out to notice.

Still, even someone as pragmatic and simple as P.M. had felt the sense

of commitment and unity. Of peace-a peaceful trio of days with four

hundred thousand living as family. But there had also been dirt,

prolific and heedless s.e.x, and a careless abundance of drugs.

Drugs frightened him. He couldn't admit it, not even to the men he

considered his brothers. Drugs made him sick or silly or put him to

sleep. He took them only when he saw no graceful way not to. He was in

turn amazed and appalled at the cheerfulness with which Brian and Stevie

experimented with whatever came their way. And he was more than a

little frightened by the ease with which Stevie was quietly, and

consistently, shooting smack into his veins.

Johnno was more particular about what he pumped into his system, but

Johnno's personality was so strong no one would laugh at him for

refusing to indulge in acid or speed or snow.

P.M. knew personality wasn't his strong point. He wasn't even a

musician, not like the others. Oh, he knew he could hold his own with

any drummer out there. He was good, d.a.m.n good. But he couldn't write

music, couldn't read it. His mind didn't run to poetry or political

statements.

He wasn't handsome. Even now, at twenty-three, he was plagued by

occasional outbreaks of pimples.

Despite what he considered his many disadvantages, he was part of one of

the biggest, most successful rock groups in the world. He had friends,

good and true ones, who would stand for him. In two years, he had

earned more money than he had ever expected to make in the whole of his

life.

And he was careful with it. P.M."s father ran a small repair shop in

London. He knew about business and books. Of the four he was the only

one who ever asked Pete questions about expenses and profits. He was

certainly the only one who bothered to read any of the forms or

contracts they signed.

Having money pleased him, not only because he could send checks home-a

kind of tangible proof to his doubting parents that he could succeed. It