The World Spinning Round (Beatles/Paul McCartney)

6. Early Bird Gets The Worm (Pt 1)

May/June 1968
Paul

Seeing Liss had really fucked me up.

I'd staggered out of the hotel, feeling like I'd had the wind knocked out of me. I may have signed for someone in the lobby, but I can't be sure. A few days later, a local paper published a photograph of me at a 24-hour record shop, admiring the cover of a Simon & Garfunkel LP. So I suppose I must have stopped by there as well.

I don't remember any of it.

What I do remember is walking back uptown in the middle of the night, feeling completely underwater. Seeing Liss made me realize how much I was lacking in my life. Oh, sure, I had it all; I was on top of the fucking world. But I missed her. I missed the conversations, I missed watching telly together, I missed the sex. Most of all, I missed having someone who was always on my team.

Because Alice had been really, really good about making me feel like it was us against the world.

When I returned to Nat's apartment, John was half beside himself. Apparently, Derek had gotten it in his head that I had been mugged, and everyone had gotten too high-strung for their own good. John and I stayed up the rest of the night talking, and it was the first time I felt like we'd properly connected since India. Then we boarded a plane the next day and flew home.

And then I decided that something needed to change.

For months, I'd gone about my life as well as I could, finding distraction where I could.

No more.

I was determined to live more intentionally and stop mucking everything up. My first order of business was breaking things off with Clementine. I felt semi-offended that she wasn't more upset about it, but the fact that I didn't have to deal with any tears outweighed anything else. And then I binned the numbers of all the other girls I'd been seeing, promising myself that I was going to stop trying to fuck my way out of misery.

Then, I put my head down and focused on work.

**

George was waiting for me in front of his brightly-painted detached garage, clean-shaven and clad in a creamsicle-orange Indian tunic. Four girls crowded around him, each chattering loudly as they shoved photographs and pens in his general direction. He had the very beginnings of a smile on his face--like he was trying to remember how to be jolly, but that emotion had gotten lost during the journey between Rishikesh and home.

He shielded his eyes against the sun to see whose car was pulling up and then pointed toward me. The girls' expressions brightened--blimey! It's another Beatle!--and they'd reached the car door before I'd even managed to climb out.

"Afternoon, girls!" I called, flashing them a grin as I made a show of locking up. "Fancy watching over my car for a few hours?"

I looked over at George, who looked both annoyed and relieved that the girls had flocked elsewhere. I hadn't seen him much since India and was struck once again by how zen he looked. I briefly wondered if he'd actually managed to learn the secrets of the universe... but then quickly remembered how John had said that Maharishi was nothing but a fucking fraud and a lying cheat.

"Alright?" he called over as I signed for two of the girls, shaking my head briskly when one of them asked for a photograph.

He unlocked the heavy metal contraption on the gate door, which ostensibly hid his garden from public view. But fans were constantly sneaking onto his property anyway, and the wooden door itself was filled with declarations of love in at least a dozen languages. Without saying anything more to the girls, we slipped through the gate.