I've Loved These Days: A Billy Joel Fanfic

Chapter 13 - You May Be Right

••••
Friday night I crashed your party
Saturday I said I'm sorry
Sunday came and trashed me out again
I was only having fun
Wasn't hurting anyone
And we all enjoyed the weekend
For a change
•
You may be right
I may be crazy
But it just may be a lunatic
You're looking for
Turn out the light
Don't try to save me
You may be wrong for all I know
But you may be right
••••

Monday, April 29, 1974
Dear Diary,

Remember back when I thought having Bill gone for a month would be hard? What a sweet, naive little thing I was...

It's been a rough 6 months. After the first month of the tour Bill came back home, and we were able to spend Christmas and New Year's together, but by mid-January he was back on the road and I didn't see him again until March. When he finally got back home again he was beyond exhausted and I was beyond frustrated. Part of me felt guilty for being upset because things were FINALLY happening for Bill, but I came to L.A. in order to BE with him, and instead I was here by myself for months at a time.

It took almost a week of dancing around the subject before we finally sat down and agreed this situation wasn't working. The solution we've come to isn't perfect, but I feel so much better about things. Janice and Jim are going to take over our lease at the house for awhile, and that way I can quit working and go with Bill on the road.

The upcoming concert dates include a few stops in New York, and I'm so excited to see Sandy. We've kept up with letters and phone calls, but we haven't seen each other since she came to visit last year.

xoxo,
Kat

****

"You'll get used to it after awhile."

I looked incredulously across the hotel room at Marilyn, unable or perhaps unwilling to believe her. She shrugged at me and went back to reading her magazine.

We were two weeks into this leg of the tour and I was beginning to wonder if I had bitten off more than I could chew. Hour upon hour on the tour bus wasn't so bad. The fans were a bit rowdy sometimes, but that didn't bother me too much. Even the lumpy hotel beds weren't worth complaining about. But the thing I hadn't been prepared for was the drunken antics of the boys.

"Do the ashtray now!"

Al tossed a glass ashtray to Rhys, and I watched with a grimace as he chucked it out the open hotel window. We were in Boston and had all just come back from a late lunch at a bar nearby. There were a few hours to kill before Billy's show at the Orpheum Theatre that evening, and he and his bandmates were currently three sheets to the wind. They were entertaining themselves by throwing random items out of the window and into the water of the Boston Channel in front of us.

I walked over and sat down next to Marilyn. She had traveled with Rhys for the first part of the tour I had missed, and apparently this behavior was old hat for her.

"They were like this before?"

"Yep," she nodded. "Well, not all the time, but they definitely got a lot more rowdy when their nerves finally died down."

Billy's Piano Man album had been out for six months already, but it was only recently garnering some interest within the radio circuit. The title track had been picked up, and last month it suddenly rocketed up to #25 on the Billboard Hot 100. Their previous months on tour had really given the guys a chance to solidify their playing, and the performances I was witnessing now were a lot more cohesive than before. The flip side to this was that they were now spending their time with a lot less nerves and a lot more alcohol.