Running Down A Dream

The Sky Grew Dark

The Hollywood Bowl
Hollywood Hills, California
Monday, October 3, 2022
(10:30 pm)
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"...and to all of you maybe who have never listened to our music who are here tonight, we appreciate it. We are honored to be here and play for you..."

Stevie was saying good night to a cheering sold-out audience in the center of the Hollywood Bowl stage after a fantastic show. She'd sang her new cover of "For What It's Worth" by Stephen Stills, a hit over fifty years earlier by Buffalo Springfield, one of her favorite bands when she and Lindsey had covered their songs with Fritz a million year ago. She had flashed images of the ear in Ukraine on the big screen while singing "Soldier's Angel" with a barcode to scan at the end to donate money...trying not to remember Lindsey spending a few days at her house in 2010 helping her record it. She had teared up just a bit towards the end of "Free Fallin'", thinking how weird it was that only a few hours ago the thought of getting emotional over Tom was her biggest threat on stage. She had closed the show with "Rhiannon", trying to forget writing the lyrics in bed with a flashlight in 1974 while Lindsey and the dog slept beside her.

She and the band, including Vanessa, took their bows, and as quickly as it had begun, her show at the Hollywood Bowl was over. She heard the music start playing and watched the house lights come on as the crowd began filing out of the arena, spilling out onto North Highland Avenue to purchase t-shirts and flower crowns and the overpriced hot dogs and Dasani water bottles and cans of White Claw being sold along the street to intoxicated fans by Mexican immigrants trying to earn a living in California.

Now she could begin to run down her dream.

"Awesome show, kid!" Stevie was stripping off layers of black velvet backstage whey she heard the high-pitched, unmistakable New York accent of Jimmy Iovine coming towards her.

"Thanks," Stevie said as she was pulled into a hug. Jimmy wore a blazer with jeans and sneakers, a Yankee cap to cover his baldness, and dark glasses even though it was almost eleven at night.

"You know, I wasn't expecting you to pull 'Soldier's Angel' out of your hat like that...excellent song! You really got the message across!"

"That was the plan," she said. "Thanks for coming out, Jimmy. I really appreciate it...I even kept a lid on my stories just for you!" They both laughed. Once upon a time, in a house outside New York City with wooden slat walls and a constant array of musicians bringing demos and instruments and piles of cocaine with them as they passed through, Jimmy had fallen in love with Stevie, and she had done her best to fall in love with him. Of course, with Bella Donna to record and Robin dying of leukemia, her growing cocaine addiction and her endless love/hate relationship with Lindsey on her mind, Stevie had not been in any shape to love anyone...although Jimmy, she had to say, had come close.

"Are you okay, Stevie? You were all about a good time out there but you seem...I don't know...far away right now." Jimmy had always been able to read her; that was part of the reason they hadn't stayed together.

"I'm okay," she lied. "I'm just exhausted. I can't twirl around in capes and shake my tambourine like I used to without getting tired."

"I hear that," Jimmy said. "Hey, none of us are thirty anymore! I'm going home to bed myself...got to be in the office at ten."

"Well don't let me keep you," said Stevie, taking his hand. "Go ahead and go home and rest. Thank you again, Jimmy."

"It was my pleasure." He smiled, and then, sensing she needed it, he pulled her into another hug. This time he touched the back of her hair, which fell down her back in mermaid waves. "I love you, kid. I'm really proud of you, you know."