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Thom/Beck	By : VinylTap Category: Singers/Bands/Musicians > Radiohead Views: 2950 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not know Beck or any of the members of Radiohead. This story is a work of fiction, and I make no money or profit from it.

Chapter List
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- 36
The stomach flu had not been kind to Thom; he couldn’t keep anything down, fluids included, and had lost fluids and potassium to the point where he’d been warned he’d need to have an IV line put in if it kept up. He had the most massive headache, but he couldn’t swallow aspirins, because he’d barf that up, too. Jonny and Colin were very concerned. They’d deliberated amongst themselves whether to have him brought to the ER, but Thom protested it was only the flu and it would pass, and he didn’t want “any further bollocks.”
There was something about being so vulnerable that rubbed him all wrong; he did despise touring, but being unable to do so because he were limited felt a whole different kind of bad. He felt terrible about having canceled the performance, he couldn’t shake off the weight of such a thing, he envisioned in his mind the logistical intricacies required to unravel the makings of a rock show.
He tried to drink water. He’d teeter off his bed, now back at the hotel, heavily aware he were really such a sorry state of affairs, unshaven and unwashed, even thinner than usual; he made a few tries for the glass upturned on a paper doily in traditional hotel room style, how are we doing? He’d have to tilt his head up, staring at the ceiling with eyes closed after having a sip, in hopes of not throwing up after; but the impulse to heave was overwhelming, he’d feel shite until he’d finally barf.
He was awfully frustrated. Half of him wanted to call Coz and ask him for a ride to the ER, to finally have an IV line with fluids put in, and half was reluctant to do so. He didn’t want to make any more of a drama out of things than he already had, what with having canceled the show… he’d whimpered pathetically to himself in bed for several hours before finally crying for Colin, and he was very difficult then. He still couldn’t decide.
It was one in the morning when Jonny and Colin accompanied Thom in a cab, Thom had done his best to appear coherent and competent as he could and fought very hard for dignity, he negotiated uselessly with the nurse when he insisted on accompanying him in the toilet. There was a lot of hush-hush in the ER of which Thom wasn’t aware because he wasn’t entirely cognizant, Jonny and Colin had indicated very discreetly on his admittance who they were.
Thom got his IV, though, with saline and slow K, when you get potassium you get a heart monitor, too, because potassium can cause arrhythmias of the heart. That’s also why you get your K slow. They gave him an anti-emetic for his nausea and hydromorphone for his headache, cause that’s how bad it was.
He was doing all right until he saw the nurse show up with a bedpan, with Jonny and Colin right there, and his eyes went big and he laughed, no. He was arguing and pleading with the nurse after that, cause the nurse said he couldn’t be up and walking around after getting hydromorphone. There really was nothing romantic about being ill.
Colin and Jonny were feeling it, too. It was around three in the morning by then, they were both very tired and near dozing off in their chairs, Jonny with his forearms on his knees, head tilted forth, Colin lain back exhausted. Thom looked awful. He was turned on one side and trying to throw up in a plastic container a tech had handed him, with two fingers down his throat, and the tech came in to chastise him for doing that, and Thom argued he had to, cause he felt so shite. He didn’t like being told what he could or couldn’t do; that was why he didn’t wanna go in to the ER in the first place.
He felt awfully guilty about Jonny and Coz. He felt guilty about canceling the show, too, he was embarrassed he’d got in a bad enough state he had to be at the hospital, but getting the fluids had done him good. Colin and Jonny were deliberating as to which of them would go back to the hotel to sleep and who would stay with Thom overnight. Overnight? “No, I’m not staying overnight,” Thom said, and Jonny looked up with his lips parted, mid-conversation, like he’d not seen this coming.
There was something in his expression that seemed dangerously like concern, like he’d now registered Thom hadn’t been cognizant enough to understand everything that was going on.
“Thom, you have to, cause of the meds, you have to be monitored—” Colin started.
“What?” Thom sputtered, sitting partway in bed and staring desperately at his IV, struggling to read what it said on the label up top.
He knew he shouldn’t have gone in. If he hadn’t, no one would tell him if he had to stay someplace or not, like his body were anyone’s business.
Jonny stiffened, one hand gently midair as in apologetic request to silence his brother. “I’ll stay with you, Thom,” he said quickly, “Daft of them to make you stay, innit?”
Thom wondered if Colin and Jonny had seen him at a point this wretched before. It took a lot for someone like him to become self-conscious, and he did feel so now. “I have a right to leave when I want, don’t I?”
Colin and Jonny exchanged glances; they weren’t sure. “Maybe— after you finish being monitored, then you can go,” Colin said. Slowly, like he was thinking it over as he spoke.
“I’ll stay with him till then,” Jonny said, and he really did mean it. Thom wondered if Jonny didn’t mind how utterly shite he looked then, now that he was curled over and throwing up, and arguing with nurses; but Jonny really didn’t. He didn’t fancy Thom any less than he always had. Waiting there at the ER was unbelievably dull, though.
There was a curtain drawn most of the way around their area. You could still see slivers of stuff going on elsewhere, some parent with a frightened toddler, the hospital staff trying to calm the father by speaking in gentle and compassionate tones to his little son; a young woman who sounded like an athlete, conveying the history behind the injury that led her there with vast amusement, like she, herself, was fascinated by what had happened. It was consoling to Thom; he wasn’t the only patient there. And look, that gal had such a cool attitude about it.
“Right, stay with me, Jon,” he said, eyes closed, one arm reaching from over the adjustable railing of his bed; Jonny’s hand closed in his, human and warm. Jon turned to Colin and smiled softly. “You can go, mate,” he whispered.
--
Someone had told Beck once he knew a guy who knew a guy who knew Woodie Guthrie, and Beck got all excited, but when finally he’d met the guy who knew Woodie Guthrie, dude told Beck flat out he had no talent and he should quit while he’s ahead.
Someone important had told Leigh, too, very explicitly, I wish you luck in something that isn’t fashion design.
It’s too painful to write even now. For the rest of her days, it remained a burning scar in her confidence. Beck never forgot what he’d been told, either, that’s why he still could tell you about it to this day. Part of a person’s psychiatric health is evaluated on how well-aware they are of their own limitations— but reality is also that you need illusions in order to step forth. Being told you don’t stand a chance and you shouldn’t bother, by someone of higher authority, has immense power to paralyze you.
Maybe that was why Beck took nearly two years to get his next record out. Maybe it was because he just didn’t feel rushed to do it. Maybe it was because he was really very meticulous deep inside. He’d write stuff that just came to him, then he’d leave it off his record. He’d need to be on his own for a while, and distance himself from anyone or anything that might make him feel judged, so he could do what he wanted and feel all right. You can’t see it till it’s ready.
Leigh wouldn’t permit herself anything like pleasure. She’d stay up late nights, bringing work home, fingers clawing at her hair, staring down at sketches she’d made and work she’d produced, too afraid to present anything but too aware her own judgment were lacking on the quality of her own work. That she were intrinsically flawed was clear to her, but that she would do anything to accomplish her dream took precedence to that. There was nothing else she would rather do. She had learned a life of compensation: any means of exhaustion to make up for what she lacked in talent or skill.
Beck, too. He didn’t really sleep sometimes. From the moment he’d started getting into making music he’d been told how little talent he’d had, and he’d made fun of himself about it, but it hit him hard enough that he could tell you about it in vivid, quiet recollection many years after the fact.
We couldn’t all be cowboys, so some of us are clowns— well, unlike Bek, Channing had gone on to finish high school, and formally studied art afterward. At twenty-two, he’d become a father, and for the past year he’d mostly dropped everything for that; Lisa, his wife, was nearly a decade his elder. He’d been fascinated by so many things. Despite the fights and jabs with his brother, he’d follow Beck to the ends of the earth, and took him very seriously when Beck had asked Channing say nothing to anyone about anything personal. He wanted to know if he could go to Lollapalooza in July, too.
“Channing can’t go,” Beck said.
“You hear that?” Joey said from over some tabs he’d been writing, “You can’t go.”
“Sucks for me,” Channing said, “I didn’t wanna go anyway.”
“Yeah, good,” Beck shot back without looking up from his guitar, “Cause, like… I like told them, let everyone in, except my dork brother.”
“You’re a dork.”
“You are.”
--
Like Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, and Napoleon Bonaparte before him, Chris Martin was a man of strength: he wasn’t gonna let something like one canceled show destroy him. He was gonna see Radiohead play one way or another, with or without his best mates. It was too late by then to buy tickets for any other shows in the UK, but he’d been saving up for just such an emergency, and this was an emergency if he’d ever known one.
There were still tickets for some of the US dates.
(On to Chapter 36)
Song: Goodnight Elisabeth by Counting Crows (Recovering the Satellites 1996)
- 34
- 35
- 36
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Thom/Beck