Turn My Page | Led Zeppelin

That's The Way

  Everyone in the apartment room was packing up the little stuff they had set in it, getting ready to leave for The Spectrum. Richard and Peter had ordered us a limo to go to the airport. Normally we didn't spend two nights in the same town, but we had because of the two shows in a row.

  We all piled into the limo by routine and it took off down the highway. Everyone talked about birds they had hooked up with a while back, and I could tell that Robert wanted to talk to me about the one from two days ago. Two days? Three days? I forgot.

  The limo had a dividing wall separating us from the driver. On the dividing wall was a sliding window. The window was closed, so I knocked on the divider.

  It opened and I crawled through head first. I positioned my back against the glove compartment while my legs hung out the other side of the dividing window.

  "'Ello, chappy, say we get to know each other, alright? Pip pip and what not." I told the confused chauffeur, adopting a stereotypical English vocabulary to entertain him.

  "Sit correctly or I'll smack the 'pip pip' out of you," he grumbled, glancing in my direction only once.

  "We'll have it your way then, good man," I agreed politely.

  "What do you want?" he asked as I sat the right way, pulling my booted feet from the window.

  "To get to know you, Mac. To learn your life, Bob."

  "Thomas."

  "Pardon?" I asked.

  "The name's Thomas," the driver insisted, not hiding his annoyance.

  "Brill name, Tommy. Tommy's fine, right?"

  "I prefer Thomas," the man replied flatly.

  "Businessman, I see. I like it."

  "Are you high?" Thomas implored. I held back laughter. I loved when people asked me this, because the answer was just so obvious.

  "Yes, you?"

  "Go away, I need to focus on my driving," Thomas spat, knuckles turning white on the steering wheel in aggravation.

  "Rude, much?" I teased as I gave him a wicked smile. Then I climbed back through the window without another word. The window rolled up for probably the last time on the drive to the airport, where we could jump our private jet to New York.

                                                                ♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪

  It seemed as if I couldn't stop thinking about that one night with that one lady after that show... I tried to keep it vague in my mind. I didn't want to remember, didn't want anything to remind me of how beautiful, perfect-- I stopped myself right there.

  We boarded our jet and Robert led me over to a private place to "discuss music business". He sat down across from me, took his shirt off, flipped his hair, and lounged back in his chair. Any other person might have thought this was weird, but I had gotten used to it by this time. Neither of us said anything. I waited.

  "So about the band," Robert began, setting his hands over his belly button. Then he leaned forwards and looked back and forth. "Mate, tell me about this Vicky bird. What happened?"

  "What!?" I almost shouted. "W-why are you asking?"

  "I took her home and she was bawling,"  Robert droned. "You did something and she looked liked someone tried to rape her."

  There was a silence and I looked down at my feet. That had put my view of the whole thing into a different perspective. Had I... tried to rape her? Getting her drunk and... oh, Lordy! I had!

  "Jimmy, what did you do?"

  "Robert, she was everything I've ever wanted in a woman-- artsy, fiery, beautiful. I got carried away. I brought her home to... well, you know, and she didn't want to. She was so independent. So, I got her drunk and right as we were about to," I gave a low whistle accompanied by an eye roll, "but you came in and she sobered up. I've felt awful since..."

  "Oh, Jimmy! God dammit!" He sat back again, and his yells had grabbed the attention of Bonzo and John. "Jimmy, you dog," he almost complemented now.

  "Yeah, and now I'm having thoughts about My Lady, who I haven't thought about since three nights back."

  "Why would you even think about her? And you should feel awful."

  "I know. I just feel... bad..."

  "Bad? Or just in love?"

  "No, no, I don't love her," I promised him. "I would never feel that way."

  It seemed that I had convinced him. But I couldn't convince myself.