877. Beastie Boys

Back at the palatial hotel, Flip and Colin were on me to take a better look at the gash on my head. There was blood crusted in my hair, partly sticking the headband to it, and I was overall gross, so the obvious solution was for me to get in the shower and try to gently unstick the blood.

“The room I’m in has a European style tub with a shower nozzle on a hose,” Colin said. “That’s probably the best place for it.”

“Yeah.”

The two of them flanked me all the way there, like they were worried I might fall over. I actually didn’t feel bad at all right then, well other than being wound up by Linn and wanting to get the blood out of my hair. Playing a show, even one where an accident happened, still made me feel better afterward than I did before.

The tub in Colin’s room was in fact a big, deep tub with a sprayer attachment. (I honestly couldn’t remember if my room had a tub or not.) I stripped down while he started the water going.

“Is this too hot for you?”

I tested it with my fingers. “Nah, feels fine.” It was on the hot side of hot, but that was okay. Water in a tub always cools off fast anyway.

I got in, and then Colin stripped down too and got in behind me. Flip settled for taking off his shirt and sitting on the lid of the toilet, which let him reach me easily.

“Close your eyes,” Colin said, and took the sprayer in hand.

I did, and the next thing I felt was the gentle spray head rinsing my back with water. Then he worked up into my hair.

Flip loosened the crusty bits with his fingers while Colin kept the water passing gently over the spot where I’d hit. Eventually they got the bloody headband off and I heard it land in the bottom of the tub with a splash. I opened my eyes to see the couple of inches of water that had accumulated in the bottom of the tub was pink.

“It’s starting to sting a little,” I said.

“Free-free, set them free,” Flip sang. “If you need somebody, call my name.”

That cracked me up for a moment.

“Hand me that comb?” Colin asked. Flip passed him a wide-toothed comb from the counter by the sink.

Colin combed my hair carefully as he ran the water, separating it one lock at a time until he got to where the gash was. “The good news is that it doesn’t look that bad. I’ve gotten cut worse than this in a mosh pit.”

“That’s not saying much,” Flip said with a snort.

Colin chuckled. “Doesn’t need stitches, anyway. I think if I part your hair just right we can slap a bandage on there for tonight. By tomorrow it’ll probably be fine as long as you don’t scratch it open. You know, if the scab itches.”

“Cool,” I said.

Flip stood up. “I’ll go get you some clean clothes.”

“Good. That means you remember where my room is. Because I don’t.”

As he went out the door, Colin was getting out and wrapping a towel around his waist. Brad slipped in before the door shut. They exchanged heys and I heard a quick hello smooch.

“Hey,” I added myself, still in the bathtub at that point.

Colin set a towel on the toilet lid within my reach and shut the door then so I could have some privacy.

I got out and examined the cut. He was right, it wasn’t much of anything, and if I pressed a tissue against it for a while it was almost like it wasn’t bleeding at all. But then it would start to seep. Flip had left the first-aid stuff and I found a Band-Aid suitably large that if I held my hair back out of the way, the gauzy part would cover the injury and the sticky parts would stick onto my forehead and temple.

I finished drying off and Flip slipped in with some clothes.

I was just about dressed again when another knock came on the door of the room and for some reason I was hoping it would be Ziggy looking for me (I know, right?). I was about to open the bathroom door when I heard who it was, though. It was Marvelle. “Brad in here?” he demanded.

Colin was still in a towel and didn’t take kindly to Marvelle’s tone. “And if he is?”

“Are you shitting me? You already plowed through’m?”

“You got a problem with that?”

“You bet I have a problem when a bitch-ass Nazi punk goes after my–”

“Nazi? Who the fuck you calling Nazi, you jealous–”

I couldn’t make out what else was being said because at that point Flip busted out there and Brad had joined in and something of a melee took place in the cramped entryway to the room. I stood in the doorway of the bathroom like if I didn’t step off the tile I was safe, but the four of them knocked a light fixture off the wall. When they stopped moving, Flip had Marvelle in a kind of headlock and Brad had Colin flattened against the wall.

“Enough, dickheads,” Brad said. “Stop it right now.”

—

(I could pick any Beastie Boys song but wanted to keep it to what was available in Sept 1991, and that meant something from Paul’s Boutique, an album the record company considered a “flop.” By 1999 it had sold over 2 million copies. -d)