OUT OF THE RED ↝ dave grohl

seventy-eight.

AUGUST 22nd, 1992, LOS ANGELES, CA

     "I'M CONFUSED," DAVE said, massaging his fingertips into his chin. "Why exactly are we here again?"

"Because Kurt is our friend, that's why," Reagan replied, though even she could not deny the level  uncertainty in her voice. Her arms felt rubbery from having held Gracie for so long — the five-month old had proven to hate car rides and the journey from Dave and Reagan's Los Angeles hotel to Kurt and Courtney's Alta Loma home had been punctured with endless minutes of screaming.

It was a surprise that with as much as Gracie hated cars, she'd made it through the flight from Seattle to L.A. without so much as a peep. She'd slept nestled against Dave's chest while Reagan had anxiously drummed her fingers on the extended tray in front of her, wondering what in the world was awaiting them in California.

Courtney's call had been sudden, to say the least. At first, Reagan had not understood precisely why her and Dave were so badly needed by the Cobains. Courtney had rambled on about Kurt's heroin use over the phone, but with a regretful sadness, Reagan had still wondered to herself why that matter involved her and her husband.

She would never get used to it. It was too difficult, trying to shrug her shoulders and feign expectance when she heard about Kurt's ongoing drug abuse. Nothing about it was the same as when he'd huffed out of aerosol cans in Olympia or took tabs of acid like candy. That had been harmless compared to what it was now, and even then Reagan hadn't seen cause for concern. A lot of the Olympia-based musicians were clean-cut when it came to drugs, but she'd only ever viewed Kurt taking them as another metaphorical 'fuck you' to society. She'd laughed about it once.

Now, it seemed like the plot of a story that had taken a horrible, dark turn. She felt helpless, standing by while Kurt knowingly ruined his life, but Dave had told her that there was nothing that they could do. Kurt would have to help himself.

So why were they there? Why had Courtney called?

Reagan supposed that there was another specific reason for Courtney's plea for help, though she couldn't have possibly predicted it back on the sixteenth — Kurt and Courtney's daughter, Frances, had just been born.

Reagan had never picked up a single tabloid in her life, but from what she had gathered during the four days since Frances's birth, it had not been a happy time. The press was hounding the Cobains, lapping up the notion that they weren't fit parents, all because of a spread Courtney had been a part of in the next month's Vanity Fair. The details of it all were murky, mostly because Reagan and Dave had sheltered themselves away from the bubble of fame and all things Nirvana since he'd been home, but Reagan knew it was bad. It must have been for Courtney to demand that she and Dave fly to Los Angeles.

The house had an air of a funeral home. It was a train-wreck for starters, with Kurt and Courtney's belongings piled high in every corner, but that didn't blanket the unmistakeable feeling of depression that hung around. Cigarette butts and dirty ash trays were littered everywhere along with scraps of half-eaten food. The carpet looked as if it hadn't been cleaned in days, maybe weeks, and not a sound rang throughout the house. No music, no television playing. It gave Reagan the creeps. The only solitary sound that pierced the silence every now and then was the phone ringing.

"Where the fuck did she go?" Dave muttered.

"She said she was going to find Kurt," Reagan said, adjusting Gracie again in her arms.

How it took so long to seek out Kurt in the dimensions of one house, Reagan did not know. Courtney had answered the door in a robe with tear-stained cheeks, addressing Reagan and Dave with a sob, and then hurried off to find her husband.