Excerpts From The Grand Tour

Today I am going to feature a few snippets from my book, The Grand Tour, the story about a fictional rock band called The Extrations that existed from the mid 1970's until 1982, broke up and then reunited in 1987. Patrick Bolo is the bass player of the group who starts the novel finding his girlfriend dead from an excess of drugs.

Though he didn’t know it yet, the girl lying in bed next to Patrick Bolo was dead. In fact, he didn’t know much in his semi-comatose state. The night before was filled with heavy drinking. He hadn’t had as much cocaine as he usually did. The effects of that on one’s system were powerful. Patrick Bolo had a long sleep. It was three in the afternoon and he and the girl next to him, Jenna McAllister, had settled in ten hours ago. The sunlight blaring into the messy, trashed hotel room had not even awakened him.
He stirred with an intense urge to piss. Ugh, he thought, my head is killing me. I should just piss myself and spare the effort to get up. He turned over to see Jenna’s short dyed pink hair stop her pillow. Her face was turned the other way. The blankets had all fallen off the bed and he could see her naked body. His memory started coming back to him. He could see the screaming crowd at the concert last night and the fun he had with Jenna when they got to the room. He couldn’t enjoy the fun at the time, being too clouded in the head at the time. Thinking back though, he started remembering the fun. What fun that was. Ow, he held his head grunting. Getting out of the bed was difficult. He noticed the sunlight as he rose and it hit his already screaming head like an explosion. He staggered out of bed and crashed into the fretless bass that he kept in his hotel room. Ahh, shit, he said to himself as the bass fell. Damned thing cost three thousand dollars, oh well. His clumsiness had caused him to crash into the bass countless times before. The thing still played amazingly. He staggered his way over to the bathroom.
Coming out of the bathroom he felt as if something was amiss. He was not quiet moving around the room yet why was Jenna not even reacting to his noise. He looked at her face, turned as it was to the opposite side of him. He stood over her and turned her face toward him. Her eyes were closed but her mouth was open in a strange way. Open as if she was gasping. He noticed how still she was. He touched her arm. Cold to the touch. He felt her wrist for a pulse, there was none. His foggy head cleared real fast at this point. His heart started racing. Fuck, fuck, what do I do? He paced back and forth. Now he felt his asthma kicking in. He couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t think. He grabbed his bag and pulled out his inhaler. Puffing on it frantically, he hoped that maybe she was playing a joke on him. Maybe he had too much to drink last night and was still in la la land. He checked her again. No change.
The question was now what? Should he talk to the other band members or call for emergency help right now. He was too fucked up to handle all this. “Ahhhhh”, he yelled out in his room. He threw some jeans on, his boots and a t-shirt. He grabbed his hotel keys and ran out of the room to find the other band members and see if they could help him figure out what he couldn’t figure out himself. This was not a good way to start off a day.
He raced down the hall to the suite where the rest of the band used as their communal lounge. He knocked hard. Walter Engle, the burly tour security chief, answered the door. Walter said, “Hey, finally awake-“. Patrick’s face stopped him from saying more and he moved aside allowing Patrick entrance to the large room with the view of Jacksonville, Florida. Only Brian Hertwell and Eric Mitchell were in the room with Walter. Brian looked up from his game of solitaire, Eric fooled around on his brand new shiny blue Gibson guitar. Brian stated with a look of some bemusement, “it seems something has your attention. Is it that you need more coke?”
“Shut up, man, this is serious!”
“Okay, I’m sorry, Pat, you don’t look too good anyway. I wouldn’t look too good anyway if I had as much to drink as you had last night.”
“Look, I think the girl I came up with last night is dead. Dead or extremely fucked up, I don’t know what the hell to do. I can barely walk.”
Eric said, “You definitely look like you’re fucked up.”
Brian rose from his chair, “Let’s check up on this girl and see what’s up here.”
They rose from their seats and walked with Patrick to his suite.
From the room they heard a scream. Just as they reached the door, a fifty-ish maid ran from the room, her face filled with terror. Brian catches her, “What’s wrong?” He knew the answer already; he just wanted to hear her say it. The maid looked at all three of them frantically, “She’s dead! The girl in that room is dead! Oh my God, what happened?” She ran down the hall before anyone could try to stop her and calm her down.
Brian checked on the girl. There was no pulse. She was going cold. He turned her face over. The eyes were closed. She most likely died in her sleep. Around her mouth were traces of vomit. That’s the cause of death he guessed. Vomit in the sleep. Although he had nothing directly to do with the situation, Brian felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. At the moment, he wanted to forget about his own involvement with her.
“Fuck, she’s definitely done for”, he said in a flat tone. Patrick simply collapsed into the corner with his head in his hands. He then lifted his head only to put a cigarette in his hand and light it. Then he buried his head in his hands again, the cigarette sticking out from between two fingers.
The maid was quietly watching the whole scene in a silent horror, the shock finally hit her and she screamed again loudly and ran out of the room. Brian said, “Well, Patrick, I hope you can get yourself in condition to talk to the police.”