Hammer of the Gods | Led Zeppelin | Hiatus

2: You Shook Me

Smoke wafted everywhere and Jimmy breathed shallowly, a rocks glass of Scotch in his hand. The hall was teeming with begging groupies and wanna-be musicians all partying in unison for the sake of the presence of Led Zeppelin. The murky overhead lights flickered every now and then, but Jimmy remained characteristically calm, pacing aimlessly in and out of rooms until he found an environment that interested him.

"Dude," a teenage boy from the hall called before Jimmy, "you gotta check it. Ryan over there has Heroin, man!" He gave a dull chuckled and disappeared. Jimmy made a mental note to find the man with Heroin later.

He pondered what he would say in his interview with Cat. How was it that she could take days out of her job to interview a band that was no longer in her city? He circled his glass, listening intently for the sound of clicking ice over the din. Maybe Cat didn't work for the radio station and she was just using the band like all the other scum that hung around. A Ramora to the shark that was Zeppelin; that was him.

Ducking into a dank room with hope for a nice change of scenery, he was surprised to find a mattress on the floor occupied by a swath of girls looking up at the men that stood along the walls. Shawls, beads, and blankets hung over all of them as they lost themselves in their own world. The girl stuck in the center was a surprise to Jimmy. He eyed Cat incredulously, analyzing her pointed face. She was unhappily wedged in with the filthy counter-cultures, unhappily draped in scarves that weren't hers. She didn't recognize Jimmy, but instead tried to make room for herself to sit on the mattress. The room was deep into an involved conversation about the government and how Nixon, who was up for re-election, was running the joint. The girls on the mattress could hardly contribute to the conversation, waving their arms in wide, deliberate motions, sometimes causing Cat to crouch under their movements.

She groaned loud enough for Jimmy to hear and he settled beside the door, wondering how long it would take her to notice he was there. Should he take her hand and help her out of the room? No, he didn't want to give her a false hope of something she would never accomplish. He leaned against the wall and listened to what the stoners were saying intently, making sense even through their loopy circumstances. His eyes never left Cat, studying her burning red hair as it singed her pale skin. She must have felt his gaze, for her eyes snapped to his quickly and an ember of familiarity flickered in her grassy green eyes.

Hey, she mouthed. Jimmy nodded with a smirk. She contorted her face and added, Help me. He pushed himself off the wall with a grunt and stepped toward her, holding out a hand. Cat pushed herself off of the mattress and took his hand gratefully, pulling herself to her platformed feet. 

"Thanks," she breathed, looking back at the floundering girls. "It's so weird here. Are you busy? Want to do that interview?"

On a whim, Jimmy turned and made his way out of the room and back down the hall toward the elevator that would take him to the level the rest of Led Zeppelin was staying on. He didn't look back and he didn't stop when Cat called after him. Something about the girl made him want to hate her, but a part of him was interested in her. If he could prolong the interview for as long as possible, he could learn more about the introspective journalist.

Before he could dig much deeper into his nagging thoughts, Jimmy felt a hand on the nook of his right arm and he turned briskly to see that Cat had followed him. Her eyes were cold and the corners of her lips curved into a frown. She crossed her arms and looked up at the handsome man expectantly. She bit her lip and Jimmy's eyes lowered to the pink, pinched skin she gnawed at.

"Well?" she snapped imploringly. "Am I ever going to get to interview you?"

"Interview Percy or Bonzo," Jimmy supplied, swinging his glass toward the elevator at the end of the hall guarded by two built men. "Why must you interview me right away? I never said all that transcends between us could be published, anyway. I'm not much of a subject."

"Baltimore wants to hear about you-- you the guitarist, you the leader. It won't take more than twenty minutes."

He was silent. The idea of postponing the interview was fresh in his mind, though he felt bad for denying her something so simple she wanted. She had even gone to flattering him for a few words. He weighed between keeping Cat around longer and making her happy and decided it would be best for the both of them to be selfish; who wouldn't want to be on the road with Led Zeppelin, anyway? He recalled the look of pleading on her face he had seen all too much in the few hours he had known her. He had helped her enough already, waiting was the least she could do. 

She interlaced her fingers and threw her hands behind her neck, looking down the hall. When her eyes came back to his, he was taken aback by the flaming hatred present within the brown and green speckles. She unlocked her fingers and her hands fell to her sides loosely. It appeared she knew his answer before he even did.

"Tomorrow." He brought the cup of Scotch to his lips and sipped it carefully, hoping Cat wouldn't be so bold as to tip it up as he was blinded. When he brought the cup down to belt level, she had already begun marching down the hall to the lift, her hands in tight fists.

He watched the guards refuse her access and sighed. He took one quick sip and approached them, taking large strides toward the congregation before the elevator. Cat happened to spy him from over her shoulder and she shook herself with frustration, shifting her weight to a foot in front of her. Her arms that had previously wagged at her side animatedly assumed the stereotypically annoyed cross that hugged her chest so tight, her shirt was taught over her bra-less form. Jimmy bit the inside of his lip, but attempted focusing on the guard's faces with a peripheral of the fox-faced character beside him.

"She's with me," Jimmy announced so casually he may have been reading off a grocery list. He blinked against the murky lights, dimmed even more by the pot smoke that wafted so permanently from rooms down the hall. "We're both going up. Ricardo's down here begging some Henry of some kid presumably named Ryan, otherwise I believe that's the last of us."

The guards nodded and moved out of the way for the couple to enter the elevator. Cat staked her corner far from the dial Jimmy now dominated. The doors shut and he threw her a long side-long glance before withdrawing a key buried in the pocket of his white sports coat, jamming it into the floor level assigned to the band and turning it. He took a deep breath from a lack of decent air and leaned against the sliding door of the elevator. Interest dotted Cat's face but she said nothing.

"You can say it."

Cat hesitated. Reluctantly she looked up at Jimmy and presented him her whole face, a cocked eyebrow giving way to what she would say. "It."

"Did you find that one in a cereal box?" Jimmy snapped, rewinding the American saying in his head once more to make sure he had said it correctly.

"You do realize leaning on the door-- you'll fall when it opens." Cat looked away again, giving Jimmy the privacy to push off the door without the embarrassment of an I-Told-You-So.

"I'm only postponing the interview because I'd like to get to know my interviewer," Jimmy promised just as the elevator stopped and the door slid open to reveal a party ten times the size of the colossal get-together downstairs. Cat crossed her arms and lowered her head, pushing into the crowd before Jimmy could stop her.

He was so pensive he nearly remained on the elevator when it prepared to return to its previous level. He took the key and dropped it into his sport coat, entering the party with a neutral expression, his rocks glass now vacant of anything by melting ice. A man he didn't know took his glass and replaced it with a glass of Orange Vodka straight.

How had he offended Cat? Why was she so intent upon leaving so early into the interview-- wasn't she excited to be around Led Zeppelin? He reprimanded himself for thinking so selfishly. Taking a selfless approach to a refreshed thought, he fretted that he was going to lose the interview. Maybe it wasn't the interview he was fearful to lose, he concluded swiftly. Against his better judgment, he knew he would miss Cat. Not as a person with romantic ties, or a friend he had known for ages, but as a personality he lacked and enjoyed the company of.

If Cat left, where else would he find a character-- yes, that's just what she was. A character. Where would he find a person with her spunk? Where would he find a Character that didn't frustrate him at times like Bonzo did? He didn't want to lose a personality he yearned so heavily for. He assured himself this is what he would miss. He assured himself because he knew this was the real reason. He just had to re-enforce it in his mind. He felt assured. But why, then, did he feel hollow?