Next Day-
June 7th 1985
Los Angeles
(**Warning my writing is terrible in this chapter**)
Duffs pov:
Its almost 8 o'clock in the morning, i have been awake since 5am. Awake and ready for the gigs that are already booked and awaiting us, around my home town.
For the past three hours i have been trying to get the guys hungover arses up, I am surprisingly the most keen to get going.
We did plan to leave at around 5am but that's not going to happen. Since we all got wasted last night celebrating such an awesome, ultimate high gig.
It was like electric magic, you had to be there to really get the feeling of the whole atmosphere of our playing. You could not compare it to anything else.
We all play and get along like a house on fire. So we know that this is going to be the ultimate line up for Guns n Roses.
If we can survive this tour... there will be no stopping us.
I did try very hard to control myself last night, knowing that we had to get up early for today. Considering i would usually easily out drink anyone around me.
Although i think from now on Slash would be giving me a good run for my money.
But right now i am high on two emotions.. my anxiety i know and experience all to well, & excitement.
I have been lucky i have not been struck with my extreme heart pounding, numbing anxiety attacks. That have me and leave me feeling like i am sucked into a deep dark pit that i cannot move out of, let alone breathe. For quite a few months now.
But that's why when i can sense one coming or feel highly strung and stressed, my vodka seems to be the best at getting me through it.
I have had these attacks since i was a kid. My very first anxiety attack which i was highly distressed from busting my farther Mac cheat on my mother. With numerous women around town and bottling it up whilst i thought of a way to tell her or if I even should.
One morning I was taking a shower before school, when all of a sudden my knees just dropped. It felt as if the bottom of the shower stall floor was falling in on itself and i was falling through with it.
All I could do was scream and cry having no control on anything that was happening.
Next thing i remember was my mother running into the bathroom, frightened seeing her boy in such a state she pulled me out the bathroom, taking me straight to the emergency room at the local hospital she worked at.
I figured at first it was from taking all the pot, alcohol, mushrooms, valium, you name it, from what i started taking secretly when i was in the 4th grade.
It was all very easy to get a hold of from all the older kids around my neighbourhood. Until the doctor told me that I suffered from then on, what they call an acute panic attack.(this all really happened!)
The only people that have ever really managed to help and calm me through these horrible attacks was my Ma & best bud Megan.
The first attack Megan helped me through was only a few days after meeting her, when she just moved to Seattle.
I thought it would of scared her away thinking i was weird or something, but she later told me that she has suffered with anxiety & attacks since she was a kid also.
She always reassured me by holding me & reassuring me with her soothing words of hope.
She always stuck with me through the attacks no matter how long they went on for, because she knew what it was like first hand.
I did the same for her when she would have an attack, but i suffered from them more frequently than she did.
She is the one of the main reasons i am so impatient on getting back to Seattle.
Axl and I got to talking about clubs we could play at out of L.A.
Seattle was definitely the first choice with no thought about it. Especially with how i already know a lot of the club owners from when i played in 'The Fastbacks' and numerous bands growing up.
I tried really hard to keep in contact with Megan as much as possible.
Which is very hard when you don't have a steady place to live. Most of the times we did talk was not long after i first got here, but for roughly the last year and a half i haven't been able to get a hold of her.
Numerous times i tried whenever i managed to get a hold of a phone or money to use a booth. I could not for the life of me get a hold of her at all.
It was very strange considering when I still lived in Seattle, she would answer most of the time or at least she would always call back. She was always reliable in that case.
The occasional time i do manage to get in contact with Donner i ask how she is?, if he's even seen her.
Not sure if she even wants to talk to me anymore with her not answering or returning my calls.
It doesn't help that i can't call her now even if i wanted to. Somehow with moving my stuff here and there i lost a lot of my old contact numbers along with Megans only contact number.
I only have my parents numbers and Donners off an old flyer.
The last time I did talk to my Ma, she said she had barely seen Megan around for months.
Which I found very strange since she lived right next door, plus she is like another daughter to my Ma.
I haven't got around to calling Donner for a few months, i know he would never leave Seattle but Megan, she might of moved elsewhere and moved on. I'm really hoping she will still be there.
I walk out of Izzys apartment with all the guys stirring & spread out all over the dirty torn carpet and furniture.
I decide to give them more time to wake up knowing i could try all I like, nothing will get them up.
I light a cigarette putting it between my lips, i decide to head out and check on Stevens car. To ensure all our stuff is packed alright and hasn't been broken into over night, which is all you expect to happen in the jungle.
After looking around the apartments open car park, i look around taking a long drag off my tenth cigarette for the morning.
Exhaling the smoke slowly, i notice a few other cars around, but Stevens Pontiac shitbox nowhere to be found.
" I swear it was parked right here!" I mumble to myself. Doing a double take around.
"Ohh Fuck!!" I curse realizing it's definitely gone for good.
"Ohh shit shit!" I mumble aloud dropping my cigarette out my mouth onto the concrete.
I pad across the car park, back to the apartments door.
Just as i go to open the door back into the apartment, a loud car horn honks over and over. Now most likely waking the whole apartment complex.
Making me jump out of my skin, spinning around in a flash, slamming my back and head on the door.
"Ow.. What the fuck!!" I let out whilst rubbing my the back of my head.
I notice it is Stevens car.. but it wasn't Steven driving.
At least we've still got our chance to get to Seattle.
I try to concentrate through the cars front window to see who is driving. It is then I recognize a head of red hair, who was now parking the wagon which now magically has a U-haul trailer attached to it.
I didn't even notice Axl was gone, expecting him to be the last to get up considering he was quite a night owl, with a hangover on top of that.
" Do we really need that?!" I question looking at Axl as he gets out the car. Thinking he's crazy, i thought we could just pack the back of the wagon to the brim and make do.
"Do you really expect the five of us to all cram into this shitbox for a nearly 17 hour trip!... plus all you idiots instruments" Axl states thinking its a marvellous idea and that was a stupid question to ask.
"How the fuck could you afford... this man" i manage to get out while pointing at the U-haul.
"Well... don't be expecting any money from last nights gig", he replies thinking we can do without cash till we earn money at gigs once we get there.
"That means we have na-da! for the trip, you do know that right?" I state.
"Stevens got his mothers gas card.. we should be fine, stop bitching!!" Axl responds heading into the apartment swinging the car keys around his finger.
I choose not to argue the point. Not wanting to start an argument. Now I'm even more anxious, but at least if we do get stuck or something happens, it won't be on me.
An hour later we finally managed to get all our drunken arses packed and cramed into the wagon, leaving our L.A. jungle. Look out Seattle!.
(Picture above is Stevens Pontiac wagon, more to come shortly.)